VEGAS SPECTACULARS DO LITTLE TO DENT REGULAR SUNDAY ONLINE POKER TOURNEYS

8 June 2007

The World Series of Poker may have started in Las Vegas, but online poker players still showed up in force over the weekend

The popularity of the big regular Sunday online poker tournaments was undiminished by the high profile poker activity at the World Series of Poker in Vegas this weekend, with good turnouts reported by the main online poker sites.

Top site Poker Stars.com's Sunday Million pulled in another solid response, with 7 060 entrants building a prize-pool worth $1 412 000, which powered up a first-place prize of almost $200 000.

With the final table survivors down to seven players, negotiations for a chop failed and play continued briskly until two more players had been eliminated, when a further conflab took place. After some discussion the following deal was brokered: guaranteed paydays to be: Playaman $115 525, Bonuskort, $100 824; pokerjoel1, $83 416; mrp123, $80 604; varuni, $58 416. PokerStars rules required that $30 000 remained on the line for the eventual winner.

It was a good deal for Playaman, because he did not end up winning, being eliminated by mrp123 in fourth place. The final heads up was between Pokerjoel1 and mrp123, with the former over 33 million ahead in chips, guaranteeing victory in the final hand after a brief passage of 5 hands of play. Pokerjoel picked up a winner's check of $113 416 thanks to the previous five-way deal between the players, whilst his last opponent left with $80 604.

Full Tilt's $400 000-guaranteed tournament attracted a solid turnout of 2 719 entrants who generated a total prize pool of $543 800.

The winner's check of $99 515.30 was taken by CMcAboy after a short but tense heads up against svenneskumpa, who took home the second place payout of $60 905.60.

Over at UltimateBet's $200 000 guarantee, 934 hopefuls signed up but it was not enough to meet the guarantee and UB had to cough up $13 200 for the overlay. The play was prolonged, with the first elimination only coming on hand 38 but eventually it was down to a heads up between players Ostrichman and Mirage666 which the former won, taking the main $45 000 prize. Mirage collected a paycheck of $26 500.

Bodog also had to pay in a $11 800 overlay on its regular weekend $100 000 guarantee tourney when only 882 pokerheads signed in - still the largest turnout at the site since mid April. Daka77 faced BenNao in the heads up and took the $25 000 main prize, leaving second placed BenNao with a bankroll boost of $14 000.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa