The new PokerStars Open live tour is off to a great start, with the season-starting €1,100 Campione Main Event attracting a massive player field to blow its original €1,000,000 guarantee completely out of the water.
By the time the play had finished for the final two Day 1 flights, Casino di Campione had become the host of the largest-ever PokerStars Live event at this buy-in level, with a total number of entries reaching 2,139.
Late registration remained open though, as players can still get involved by the end of the first level of play today (Mar 14). At the time of writing, the total number of entries displayed in the PokerStars Live app shows 2,180, and we are likely to see that number grow over the next few hours.
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Amazing Start for a New Series
Right now, the total prize pool for the Campione Main Event stands at €2.1 million, which means the tournament managed to more than double on its original promise. Prizes will be revealed after registration officially ends, but the record-breaking turnout will see the top finishers walk away with massive boosts to their bankrolls.
This is an impressive start to PokerStars Open, a brand new festival introduced this year, featuring five stops across Europe and offering a rich schedule of low-to-mid buy-in events. All Main Events have a €1M guarantee and a buy-in of €1,100, except for the Manchester festival, where the buy-in and the guarantee are £1,100 and £1,000,000, respectively.
The new PokerStars tour replaced a number of smaller regional tours, such as Eureka, UKIPT, and Estrellas, bringing them all under one roof. Under the new brand, the tour seeks to bring more excitement and bigger guarantees across the board, and if the Campione festival is any indicator, the idea got the players’ seal of approval.
Big Day Ahead
Of the original field of some 2,200 players, more than 800 of them will be coming back today to continue their journey in the PokerStars Open Campione Main Event. As mentioned, the registration remains open to kick things off, so those who failed to find the bag can still get in and try to spin the starting stack up.
Leading the field is Tommaso Marangi of Italy, who will be coming back to a stack of 360,000 or 300 big blinds, which is a great position to be in going into Day 2 of almost any live event. According to Hendon Mob, Marangi has yet to add a significant tournament score to his resume, and this could be a great opportunity, but it’s a long road ahead.
There are a few notables in the field as well, including an EPT winner, Antonio Buonanno, who returns to a very respectable stack of 166,000, and Poland’s Dominik Panka, who has his work cut out for him, starting with just 19,000.
Day two of PSO Campione is bound to bring a lot of excitement as we get the final numbers and players start inching closer to the money bubble. As for those who are sent to the rail, they’ll be able to find some consolation in the €550 PokerStars Open Second Chance and the €220 Turbo Knockout starting this evening.
