In this column we deliver you the latest and most interesting online poker industry news from across the world and all platforms.
Partypoker scraps MILLION
The partypoker MILLION event has finally run its course. The weekly highlight event has been on its knees the past couple of weeks with three significant overlays, totalling nearly $250,000.
The event ran since November 2019 and was a direct attempt to compete with PokerStars’ Sunday major, the Sunday Million. The partypoker MILLION had a different structure, however, offering over a dozen Day 1s throughout the week, all culminating in the final day on the Monday after.
The good news for partypoker fans is that the event really just changed the name, buy-in and the guarantee. Partypoker continues to offer this event, calling it “partypoker Main”, with a $109 buy-in instead of $215.
The phased structure itself stays the same, starting flights remain allowing one re-entry, mini and micro versions will still be there and real names are displayed at the tables.
No more P2P transfers on partypoker
And while we’re at partypoker… a short notice announcement has been made by partypoker parent company GVC that, starting from 14th July, player-to-player transfers will not be possible anymore.
No reason was given for the change in policy but it surely will affect a lot of players and new ways of moving money between poker buddies will need to be found.
PokerStars gets on the Freezeout train
PokerStars’ Stadium Series runs from 5th July to 2nd August and includes 102 tournaments of different buy-in levels. While the heats that run throughout each week allow up to three re-entries, the Weekly Finals are Freezeout format. This means that only one buy-in is allowed and once you’re out, you’re out.
A trio of Grand Finals will also take place on August 2, all of them played as freezeout. The $5.50 Low Grand Final boasts a $1 million guarantee, the $530 Medium Grand Final has $2 million guaranteed, while the $5,200 High Grand Final features of a $5 million guaranteed prize pool.
Freezeout tournaments have been a hot topic in the poker community for several months now as many feel that the use of re-entries has been pushed to its limits. Other sites like partypoker and ACR have already worked towards introducing more freezeout events and urged the rest of the operators to follow suit – all for the good of the game.
Seeing PokerStars now also adding freezeout highlight events is a good sign that we’re all in this together after all.
More brands move from GGPoker to iPoker
The latest two brands to transfer from GGPoker to iPoker are BestPoker and Optibet in Latvia and Estonia. And even though these brands might not mean a lot to many of our readers, Bestpoker.com for example actually has been around for quite a while. Before it moved to GGPoker it had been operating on Ongame until the network closed in 2016.
Both sites went offline on 1st July and on 2nd July they were back online on iPoker, sharing liquidity with the network’s dot-com player pool.
The move of these two poker sites has now completed the migration of Swedish online gambling company Enlabs’ poker operations from GGPoker over to Playtech’s iPoker network.
Happy 10-year French regulation anniversary to Winamax
Winamax has been a strong force in France from the get-go and over the past 10 years especially the poker side of the business has conquered a lot more of Europe. It was one of the first regulated online poker sites in France and has since convinced with slick design, humour and great poker offerings.
Now the innovative poker operator is celebrating the 10th year of regulated operations. On their website Winamax is looking back at special moments like the introduction of their Sunday major event, the Sunday Surprise in 2010, they list the first live Winamax Series in 2011 and the invention of Expresso in 2013 – the jackpot Sit & Go format that has been copied by almost every other poker site. You can read more highlights on their dedicated highlights website (in French).
