Tourney Guarantees Reduced on Rest-of-World Sites

DownPoker players located outside of the U.S. have been playing for less guaranteed prize pool money of late on sites such as Full Tilt and Partypoker.

With the summer months upon us and action at the tables decreasing as a result, it appears that a number of poker rooms are re-evaluating their tournament guarantees. Players often look for overlays in tourneys as added value or more bang for their buck, but those overlays were perhaps becoming a bit too large at certain poker sites.

Partypoker’s weekly $200,000 guaranteed event is now on offer featuring a prize pool of $150,000. PokerScout pointed out that overlays in that tournament reached a collective $200,000 in the past year.

The Sunday Brawl at Full Tilt also saw a smaller guaranteed prize pool recently, dropping from its normal guarantee of $100,000 to $75,000. Although overlays were not too common for that weekly event, it appears that Full Tilt chose to be proactive rather than see the guarantee not reached in coming months.

Guarantees at U.S. Facing Sites not Affected

Players within the U.S. have not been hit with similar reductions in guaranteed prize money offered in tournaments at this time. That certainly comes as good news to American players who have less options to choose from than rest-of-world players when selecting poker sites at which to play.

A look at Full Flush Poker finds a daily tournament lineup that appears to be increasing rather than decreasing. There is a $5,000 HighRoller Special on the schedule Monday-Thursday at 9:00 p.m. ET at a buy-in of $50. An hour before that event starts, the $4,000 GTD Spring Nightly gets underway, while the $3,000 GTD Nightly Cooler kicks off a half-hour after the HighRoller.

And don’t forget YaPoker, AmericasCardroom and BlackChipPoker on the Winning Poker Network where a tournament featuring a prize pool of $1 million guaranteed was already played this year. That event was a huge success and did provide an overlay to players.

In fact, the tournament was so successful that a $1,000,000 GTD event is on the schedule at WPN again later this summer. U.S. players can mark their calendars for August 2 at 3:00 p.m. EST for the next running of the $1 million guaranteed.

That event promises $200,000 to the winner. That’s life-changing prize money and a heck of a goal to shoot for among U.S. online poker players who are not allowed to play at the likes of Partypoker and Full Tilt where prize pool guarantees have been reduced lately.

Jacqueline Packett
Jacqueline Packett