Following a long build-up over the past few weeks, the 19th Anniversary Sunday Million is officially in the books. The landmark PokerStars tournament ended in a four-way chop, with the last four players splitting over $1.5 million in prize money.
The operator went all out for the celebrations, putting a big $6,000,000 guarantee on the Anniversary Sunday Million. When it was all said and done, the tournament failed to meet this guarantee, but not by a lot.
There were a total of 28,444 entries in the $215 event, $200 of which went towards the prize pool, bringing the total to almost $5.7 million. However, with the rake added to the mix, PokerStars managed to cover the guarantee and even make over $100,000+ on top.
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All Roads Leading to The Anniversary Sunday Million
Preparations for the landmark event started several weeks earlier. Back in February, PokerStars announced the Sunday Million Season promotion, which gave away hundreds of thousands worth of tickets for the Milly.
Tickets were given away using a raffle system and players could win their entries by participating in other Sunday Million Season tournaments along the way.
Combining these with various social media promotions, PokerStars gave many players a chance to compete in what stands to be one of the biggest online tournaments of the year.
Although the event didn’t attract enough entries to meet the very generous guarantee, organizers can be pretty happy about it. After all, gathering close to 30,000 entries in a single online event with a low three-figure buy-in remains a goal that only a select few poker sites can hope to achieve.
An Event Worth the Hype
Thanks to the big guarantee and all the promotional activities surrounding it, the 19th Anniversary Sunday Million attracted many big names from the poker world, including a host of PokerStars ambassadors.
Standing out from that crowd was none other than Neymar Jr., the soccer star who managed to carry the operator’s banner for the longest time. The Brazilian eventually busted in 615th place, which is certainly a worthwhile achievement in such a big field.
The big money, as is usually the case in poker tournaments, was reserved for the final table. All players who made it into the final nine were guaranteed at least $40k — an impressive return on the $215 buy-in.
When the event got down to four players, they decided to do an ICM chop, splitting the money as follows:
- KkkEndriK (Vietnam) — $436,013
- gutAoAllin (Brazil) — $391,436
- AT_prodotico (Brazil) — $395,760
- Desbone13 (UK) — $331,509
Once the deal was completed, they continued to play down to the winner, and the title actually went to 'gutAoAllin’, who defeated ‘KkkEndriK’ in the final heads-up skirmish.
It has to be said that Brazil online poker players put up an impressive performance once more, capturing the first and the third place in this massive tournament. We are quite used to seeing Brazilians dominating the virtual tournament circuit and it seems that trend is set to continue for the foreseeable future.
The Sunday Million Season is wrapping up, but there is very little time for players to rest. PokerStars has already announced the SCOOP Warm-Up series running April 20 — 28, leading into the 2025 Spring Championship of Online Poker, so it will be back to the grind in no time!
