With rewards progressively being cut on PokerStars and tournaments like the Sunday Million losing their glamour, poker tournament players are starting to look for alternatives.
Do you want to win more online poker tournaments? Are you willing to try new strategies for grinding? You need tips on selecting the right poker site to play on?
Look no further as Somuchpoker presents its top picks for online tournament players in 2019.
Partypoker.com
The obvious main alternative to PokerStars remains partypoker. Their efforts to beat every single aspect of PokerStars’ offerings is not going unnoticed and many players are switching the majority of their play to partypoker.
Software
5 out of 5
Players online (7-day average)
1.150
Majors
- Sunday Grind: weekly – $109 buy-in ($40,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday High Roller Grind: weekly – $530 buy-in ($40,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday Bounty Hunter: weekly – $215 buy-in ($30,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday High Roller Bounty Hunter: weekly – $530 buy-in ($50.000 guaranteed)
- Sunday Deepstack: weekly – $215 buy-in ($60,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday High Roller Deepstack: weekly – $1,050 ($75,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday Terminator: weekly – $215 buy-in ($50,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday High Roller Terminator: weekly – $1.050 buy-in ($100,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday Gladiator: weekly – $320 buy-in ($150.000 guaranteed)
- Sunday High Roller Gladiator: weekly – $2,100 buy-in ($100,000 guaranteed)
Frequent Tournaments
- Low Buy-ins: Featherweight – several per week, $5.50-$11 buy-ins
- Mid Buy-ins: Middleweight – several per week, $22-$55 buy-ins
- High Buy-ins: Heavyweight – several per week, $109-$215 buy-ins
- The Main Event – Sundays, $109 buy-in, $150,000 guaranteed
- The Title Fight – Sundays, $215 buy-in, $250,000 guaranteed
- High Rollers – several per week, $530-$2,600 buy-ins
Non-NLHE tournaments and specific formats
partypoker is not as well stocked on other variants as PokerStars is for sure. So for Mixed Game players there are not a lot of alternatives to PokerStars all in all.
Rake
Between 0% and 20% of the buy-in.
Leaderboards and other promos
There is a Sit & Go Mission reward programme with extra bonuses and cash for those who can complete the specific goals. Additionally players receive 20-40% rakeback, once they are eligible to participate in partypoker‘s Cashback.
For the more frequent player there is a Diamond Club VIP service with 50% rakeback and a Diamond Club Elite option offering 60% rakeback and Carribean Poker Party Package ($10.300).
Series
- MILLIONS Online: 11 days
- KO Series: 15 days
- Monster Series: 8 days
- POWERFEST: 15 days
- Omaha Series: 16 days
- Christmas Series: 13 days
Other Notes
partypoker is the place to be, if you are a pure grinder. Cashback programmes, tournament frequency and player pool allow non-stop action. But even for the event driven or just casual player the client has a lot to offer. Especially the various series attract a lot of players on this site.
888poker.com
888poker is one of the best known brands in sports betting, casino, bingo and poker. Host of various live events, 888poker also offers online tournaments for a variety of players, formats and stakes.
Software
5 out of 5
Players online (7-day average)
850
Majors
- The Mega Deep – weekly, $215 buy-in
- The Whale – weekly, $600 buy-in ($150,000 guaranteed)
Frequent Tournaments
- Low Buy-ins: Goldfish – several per day, $1 buy-in ($1,000 guaranteed)
- Mid Buy-ins: Swordfish – daily, $30 buy-in
- High Buy-ins:
Monsoon – daily, $55 buy-in ($10,000 guaranteed)
Twister – daily, $55 buy-in ($3,000 guaranteed)
Non-NLHE tournaments and specific formats
888poker offers a broad mixture of tournament formats, like 8-handed play, Double-or-Nothing tournaments or SNAP-Poker, but for the non-hold’em player there is not a lot of MTTs to choose from.
Rake
Up to 10% of the tournament buy-in.
Leaderboard and or specific promos for players
Poker players earn points towards their 888poker club level (up to Level 1,500). With each level-up tokens and scratch tickets are rewarded, that may reveal tournament tickets, cash bonuses or rewards at other 888 brands.
Event based leader-boards may offer some bonus prizes.
Series
- XL Blizzard Series: 11 days, 34 tournaments, $1,700,000 guaranteed
- XL Inferno Series: 11 days, 34 tournaments, $1,400,000 guaranteed
Other Notes
888poker is one of the best promoted sites and also offers a lot of opportunities to qualify for live events, especially the World Series of Poker. It therefore attracts a lot of casual player.
The software client has some special features like the „Live Cam“, where players can see each other instead of their avatars.
BetOnline.com
BetOnline is not the poker platform with the most traffic on it, but one of the few accepting players from the US. Most of the traffic comes from conventional players on low- and mid stakes tables.
Software
4 out of 5
Players online (7-day average)
400
Majors
- Main Event – sundays, buy-in $109 ($60,000 guaranteed)
- Sunday Second Chance – sundays, buy-in $109 ($40,000 guaranteed)
Frequent Tournaments
- Low Buy-ins: Bare Knuckle Bounty – $5,50 buy-in ($750 guaranteed)
- Mid Buy-ins: Twisted Turbo – $33 buy-in ($3,000 guaranteed)
- High Buy-ins: Daily Dozen – $109 buy-in, rebuy + addon ($10,000 guaranteed)
Non-NLHE tournaments and specific formats
Operation Omaha tournaments are scheduled five times a day with buy-in ranges from $2,20 to $22.00 and a guaranteed prize pool of up to $1,500.
Betonline also offers two non-standard variants of poker, Americana and 32 Card Draw, which is a unique feature of this particular poker room. There’s also a Tournament Request option, with which specific formats or even starting times can be requested.
Rake
Up to 10% of the buy-in
Leaderboard and or specific promos for players
$10,000 are awarded to players contributing hands to the weekly Leaderboard Challenge, in which players can score points for holding a full house or better. There are also three SnG and three MTT buy-in dependent leaderboards (gold, silver, bronze) giving back a total of $50,000 a month.
Series
MICRO Tournament Series with 100 events over two weeks.
Other Notes
The software includes a free poker odds calculator and has a wide range of configurable hotkeys.
Natural8
Natural8Natural8 is probably not the spot for the purist grinder, but fur an action loving recreational player. With lot of features at the table, like All-In Insurance or rabbit hunting, and crazy features and promotions.
Software
4 out of 5
Players online (7-day average)
1.300
Majors
- Macau Billionaire Poker: Main Event/High Roller – daily ¥300/¥1,000 (up to ¥100,000 gtd)
- Main Event: High Roller – sundays, $500 + $1,000 buy-in ($25,000 + $40,000 gtd)
- Blade: Sunday Blade – weekly, $5,000 buy-in ($200,000 guaranteed)
Frequent Tournaments
- Low Buy-ins: Daily Red/Blue guarantees – every hour, $5+ buy-in ($200-$1,500 guaranteed)
- Mid Buy-ins:
Bounty Hunter – every hour, up to $63 buy-in (up to $4,000 guaranteed)
Main Event – daily, $88
Daily Green guarantees – up to $60 buy-in, ($2,500 guaranteed) - High Buy-ins:
Daily Green guarantees – every hour, $150
Blade – 9 Daily Events (14 on Sundays), $200-$5.000 ($200-$10,000 on Sundays)
Non-NLHE tournaments and specific formats
- The Blade tournaments include a daily PLO with a buy-in of $500 and Sunday Blade PLO tournaments with buy-ins of $500, $1,000 and $5,000. 12 different Omaholic tournaments are running daily with buy-ins ranging from $1 to $22 and guarantees from $50 to $400.
- Also NLH Bounty Hunter tournaments are running hourly with buy-ins from $2.10 to $63.
- Every half hour there are T$ Builder tournaments with buy-ins from $1 to $8 with no fee.
- A special fun format are the Chinese Zodiac freerolls, in which you can win tournament tickets, but also special avatars.
Leaderboard and or specific promos for players
The monthly MTT leaderboard offers an additional T$100,000 for the top 100 players, with T$1,000 for top prize. Players are awarded 1 Point for the Fish Buffet rewards program for every $0.01 spend in fees. The Fish Buffet loyalty program consists of 25 Levels with different prizes – from Plankton to Black Shark, which can earn you up to $1,000. The reward prizes are determined by spins, even though there’s a guaranteed cashback of 10% on your point balance.
For frequent players the Natural8 VIP Club offers a $3,000 Rake Race and weekly freerolls among other comps.
Series
Good Game Series, over 120 events over two weeks.
Other Notes
Every day there’s $100,000 in guarantees to be won in MTTs. The Sunday gets special treatment by doubling all guarantees and buy-ins.
You also have the option to buy a piece of a certain player, by using the Tournament Staking feature.
