partypoker.eu Launches €1m in Weekly MTTs for Spanish, French Players

It’s a good time to be a poker player in Spain or France this week as yet another poker giant was able to finally offer a more international version of its software.

The long-awaited partypoker.eu launched on Monday with shared liquidity between Spain and France. That means much larger prize pools for players in both countries.

Prior to this week partypoker players in both countries were only able to against their fellow countryman. partypoker has effectively broken down those walls with the new .eu edition of its client.

The company has come out firing with €1 million in guaranteed prize pools in ongoing weekly MTTs.

New software for Spain, double MTTs for France

The new partypoker.eu software is a dramatic upgrade for players in Spain and France.

Poker players in Spain are in for the biggest upgrade. The country’s outdated partypoker.es software offered a scant amount of MTTs. It was also several generations behind the current partypoker software platform. That’s a distant memory as the new partypoker.eu is more in line with the global partypoker software.

French poker players will also benefit, however, with double the previous amount of MTTs.

“Today’s pokerstars.eu launch represents a milestone for both French and Spanish players, who can now enjoy greater variety, reduced rake and bigger and better games on the new .eu platform,” said partypoker managing director Tom Waters.

“We look forward to bringing our Spanish and French players together for the first time on our new and improved site.”

New MTT schedule includes €600K+ in progressive KOs

The newly unified Spain and French partypoker offers a substantially upgraded MTT schedule with over €1 million in guaranteed prize pools every week and buy-ins ranging from €.55 all the way up to €250.

The new weekly schedule also includes more than €600K-GTD in partypoker’s signature “Progressive Knockout” events.

The new PKO events should be of particular interest to players considering partypoker recently scrapped the rake on the bounty element of the events. That means there’s plenty of rake-free cash to be won in each event after the initial buy-in.

Six-max tournaments will also play a big part in the new schedule with named events like “Shield”, “Predator”, “Monster”, and “Bazooka” running around the clock.

Iconic French poker player Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who recently joined partypoker as an ambassador and representative for the EU market, was thrilled about the new partypoker site.

“I am extremely enthusiastic about joining partypoker to actively support their efforts to bring back the ‘Poker First’ mentality, live and online.”

“Our goal is to provide players and fans with an experience they deserve worldwide. partypoker will be aiming to bring their ambition, expertise and successful model to the .eu market with some big announcements coming soon.”

Portugal, Italy on the Horizon?

France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal all signed an agreement that would allow shared poker liquidity between them last year but the rollout has been relatively slow.

Currently PokerStars is the only company that offers shared liquidity between France, Spain, and Portugal. As partypoker has said in the past, that it will also attempt to incorporate all three countries into partypoker.eu.

partypoker currently doesn’t have license in the Portuguese market but that’s something the company is looking to rectify in the near future.

Italy might be a little tougher. partypoker is licensed in the country and operates an Italian-facing site but so far the country has been very reluctant to open its player pool to the rest of Europe.

Regardless, partypoker has some significant software upgrades to roll out for the French and Spanish markets over the coming months.

June 1, 2018

One, Two, Trio! PokerStars Celebrates Share Market With MTT Series

The playing field for Portuguese players on PokerStars got significantly bigger this month.

PokerStars announced that Portugal would finally be joining a player pool that already includes players from Spain and France.

It’s a win for players from every country as they’ll all enjoy a wider selection of games to play. PokerStars is the first operator that has been able to unite the three countries for online poker.

PokerStars is set to host a series of tournaments with millions of Euros in guaranteed prize pools to celebrate the new union.

More games, better rewards

A bigger player pool means more games, bigger prizes, and better rewards for PokerStars players in Portugal, Spain, and France.

The infusion of thousands of Portuguese players should help solidify PokerStars Europe’s position in third on PokerScout’s worldwide traffic report behind only Asian network IDN Poker and the global PokerStars site.

“We have worked hard to become the first operator to bring the benefits of shared liquidity to Portugal. Our players will see a huge increase in the variety and scale of our tournaments and promotions and will enjoy more excitement, more competition and more fun!” said Guy Templer, COO of The Stars Group.

“This dramatically strengthens our offering and demonstrates our commitment to the Portuguese market.

“We look forward to working with the Portuguese regulator to further improve the poker product offering for Portuguese players, and additionally hope that Italy will soon progress so that their players can also enjoy the significantly better experience that shared liquidity brings.”

€5 million Trio Series for PokerStars.eu players

PokerStars is kicking off the newly-unified Portuguese/Spanish/French-facing site with a new Trio Series that will offer €5 million in guarantees spread across 78 events including a €250 Main Event with a €500,000-GTD prize pool.

The Trio Series will run from June 3-13 and buy-ins start at just €1. There will also be a number of freerolls to Trio events for new depositors in Portugal, Spain, and France.

The Trio Series comes hot on the heels of France and Spain’s very own version of the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), which smashed its guarantee of €10 million to hit over €11.7 million awarded to players.

PokerStars Europe also hosted the French Espania Hold’em Series (FRESH), which attracted over 30,000 unique entries and paid out over €6.1 million.

The inclusion of Portuguese players on PokerStars Europe should help boost those numbers even further and create some eye-popping prize pools.

Will Italy be next to join PokerStars Europe?

With Portugal finally onboard with PokerStars Europe, there remains one big outsider: Italy.

The Italian poker market is one of the biggest in Europe but it’s taken a bit of a hit thanks to restrictive legislation in the country. The country passed a digital tax in 2017, which obliges companies to play a three percent levy on some internet transactions.

The Italian PokerStars site ranked slightly below PokerStars.pt according to PokerScout’s traffic reports.

Italy signed a pact with France, Italy, and Portugal last summer with the intention of allowing cross-border play.

Unfortunately, there has been speculation that Italy is second-guessing the commitment over fears of money laundering.

Right now it’s the Italian poker players who are suffering as they have to deal with much smaller player pools and prizes than the rest of Europe.

May 29, 2018September 20, 2022

Ex-Amaya CEO Baazov’s Trial Potentially Sidelined By Paperwork Snafu

financial paperwork with man in background

A legal fumble is threatening to derail the entire case against former Amaya CEO David Baazov and two other men for insider trading relating to Amaya’s purchase of PokerStars back in 2014.

Baazov’s lawyers are alleging that Quebec’s securities regulator — the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) — accidentally shared private information with the defense. Specifically, the AMF is accused of sharing more than 300,000 privileged documents.

The problem is that six weeks into the trial, AMF wants the documents back. Baazov’s defense is calling it an “abusive procedure” and looking to get charges in the case stayed. It’s the third time lawyers have attempted to get the charges tossed.

Baazov faces five charges in total including influencing or attempting to influence the market price of Amaya’s securities.

Defense claims “violation of rights”

Earlier this month lawyers for AMF asked the judge to remove the aforementioned documents from disclosures.

Baazov’s representation quickly responded by filing a motion for a stay of charges for all defendants citing “repeated errors.”

The lawyers claimed that denying access to evidence in the middle of an ongoing trial represented a “violation of their rights”.

The trial is currently in week seven and scheduled to get at least 11 more weeks before the parties complete their proof.

Lawyers from Baazov also represent Benjamin Ahdoot and Yoel Altman. The legal team has already attempted to get the charges dropped two times before.

The first time lawyers moved to have the charges tossed due to an unreasonable delay in getting them to court. The second time lawyers argued the prosecution was late in disclosing evidence.

The judge, Salvatore Mascia, rejected both motions.

Stars Group stock hits record high

When Amaya purchased PokerStars for $4.9 billion in 2014 it instantly became the biggest online poker business in the world. Forbes hailed Baazov as the new “King of Online Gambling”.

The honeymoon didn’t last long. Baazov took an indefinite leave of absence in the spring of 2016 after the AMF filed five charges against him. Specifically, Baazov was accused of sharing private information with investors prior to Amaya’s purchase of PokerStars. The investors then used the information to buy up company stock months before the stock price peaked.

Since then, Rafi Ashkenazi has taken the reins of the company as CEO. He both moved the organization to Toronto and rebranded Amaya as The Stars Group.

Baazov’s ongoing case hasn’t seemed to have much of an effect on the Stars Group. The company just posted another solid annual earnings report thanks in large parts to its efforts to diversify with rapidly expanding casino and sports betting operations.

The Stars Group stock price hit a record-high of $47.30 CAD earlier this month. The company’s stock has been on the rise ever since it announced a potentially game-changing deal to purchase Sky Betting & Gaming for $4.7 billion in April. Stars stock has remained fairly steady over the last seven days hovering around the $46 mark.

It’s easy to forget that Baazov also attempted to take PokerStars private in 2016 but was ultimately unsuccessful. As of 2017, Baazov still owned a four-percent stake in the company, however.

High-profile Baazov case continues

The case against David Baazov continues to make headlines in Canada. Some are calling it the biggest alleged case of insider trading in the country’s history.

Regardless of what happens with the new motion, the AMF has taken some heat over its handling of the high-profile case. Baazov’s lawyers have already filed to get the charges dropped due to delays in the proceedings.

In addition, a rabbi named Momi Pinto sued the AMF for infringing on his family’s rights in a raid that took place in their home. The raid was in relation to the Amaya case.

The judge in the Baazov case, Salvatore Mascia, will consider the new request to stay the charges this Thursday.

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018

An Exclusive WSOP.com Tournament And Offer For PokerScout Readers

You may have noticed a few more players on the WSOP.com software this week thanks to shared liquidity between Nevada and New Jersey and the site is celebrating by offering some value-added tournaments for PokerScout readers.

The PokerScout WSOP NLHE Special will take place on May 27 at 3:30 p.m. PST with a $365 ticket to the June 3 Online WSOP bracelet event added to the prize pool. The PokerScout special costs just $2 to play and the password is SCOUT.

WSOP.com is also welcoming players back to the site with a special reload offer with a 100 percent deposit match up to $1,000 with the code MAY1000.

Brave new world for WSOP.com

The new WSOP.com launched this week with players from both New Jersey and Nevada finally integrated into the same player pool. Delaware, which actually began sharing traffic with Nevada last year, will also be tagging along for the ride.

Shared liquidity between New Jersey and Nevada is something the US online poker market has been chasing for years but WSOP.com is the first site to actually make it a reality.

“It’s a monumental day for online poker in the United States,” said WSOP.com’s Head of Online Poker Bill Rini.

“This is truly a game-changer for players and we hope is the model blueprint for additional states to join the fray.”

Nevada and Delaware-based poker players will likely be the ones to benefit the most.New Jersey has always had a significantly larger market thanks to its population and consistently ranks in the PokerScout top 50 in terms of overall traffic.

Interestingly, the new shared player pool also means that New Jersey-based players will be able to take part in the four online WSOP bracelet events this summer. It’s the first time in history that someone will be able to win a WSOP gold bracelet at the summer series without actually being located in Nevada.

WSOP.com also took the time to launch an enhanced rewards program that lets players earn up to 32 percent in rake back if they put in enough volume.

$1m-GTD Coast to Coast Classic scheduled for May

WSOP.com is taking advantage of that newfound liquidity with a new online series called the Coast to Coast Classic that will offer $1,000,000 in guaranteed prize money.

The series will take place May 11-20, 2018, which is just in time to get players ready for the physical 2018 WSOP in Las Vegas.

The series will offer a total of 32 different tournaments. It will also mark the first time that players from New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware will be able to compete against each other on WSOP.com in a major online series.

Buy-ins for the series will range from $11 all the way up to $1,000. The last day of the series, May 20, will feature a massive $200,001-GTD Main Event.

As an extra incentive, anyone who plays at least three events in the Coast to Coast Classic will receive a ticket to the 20 seat-guaranteed satellite for the online $365 buy-in WSOP.com event that will take place this summer in conjunction with the brick-and-mortar WSOP.

Numerous Online WSOP Seats Up for Grabs

PokerScout readers who can’t play in the WSOP.com special on May 27 will still have some options to win a WSOP ticket.

On May 26 there will be a USPoker.com WSOP Exclusive taking place at 3:30 p.m. PST. The tournament will have the exact same structure as the PokerScout Special with a $2 buy-in and an added $365 seat to the June 3 WSOP.com online event.

Online Poker Report will also be getting a special tournament with an added ticket to the $1,000 buy-in WSOP event on WSOP.com. Details on that one will be released shortly.

Meanwhile, both the PokerScout and USPoker.com special tournaments should already be viewable in the WSOP.com lobby.

May 22, 2018

Montenegro Triton Poker Series Was Real-Life Rail Heaven

The Triton High Roller Series wrapped up last week with renowned players Jason Koon, Phil Ivey, Richard Yong, and Mikita Badziakouski all making huge scores in Montenegro.

Ivey kicked things off by outlasting 61 entries in the first short-deck event, that’s 36 cards with deuces through fives removed, to earn $604,992.

Meanwhile, Malaysian businessman Richard Yong had to beat high-roller legend Steve O’Dwyer heads-up to take down 6-Max event for $388,024.

Belarusian Badziakouski continued his recent hot streak by winning the Triton Main Event for $2.39 million.

The biggest win, however, went to long-time high-stakes pro Jason Koon, who took down the $131K buy-in short deck event for a staggering $3.5 million.

Phil Ivey scores first cash in two years

Ivey, who held the title as the unofficial best poker player in the world for years, has been somewhat absent from the game over the last couple of years.

Prior to this week, he hadn’t recorded a cash since January of 2016 when he placed sixth in a Triton event in Manila for $656,500.

Ivey made up for lost time this week by taking down the $31,847 buy-in Short Deck for $604,992.

The event attracted 61 entries to create a prize pool of $1.8 million. The final nine included noted pros Alan Sass, Koon, and Daniel “jungleman12” Cates.

Cates and Ivey have had some legendary battles playing high-stakes online poker over the years so it was perhaps fitting that they were the final two players left standing.

In the end, Ivey got the better of Cates this time around but the jungleman still took down $407,515 for his efforts in the contest.

Ivey wasn’t finished in Montenegro, however, as we’ll get to later.

Yong Outlasts O’Dwyer, Haxton to Win 6-Max Event for $388K

The $31K 6-Max tournament was the smallest event at this year’s Triton Series in Montenegro but it ended up offering one of the most compelling final tables.

Every name in the final six was a well-known one with Richard Yong, O’Dwyer, Isaac Haxton, Winfred Yu, Richard Leng, and Wai Chan all competing for the $388k first-place prize.

Yong proved that he could swim with the big fish by beating O’Dwyer heads-up to claim the overall prize.

The Malaysian is still considered a part-time poker player but he has nearly $8 million in lifetime live-tournament earnings so his status as a recreational player is up for debate. He also helped found the Triton high roller series.

Meanwhile, O’Dwyer earned $251,719 for finishing second in the tournament and the American is up to a staggering $23 million in lifetime live tournament earnings.

Badziakouski wins $2.49 million in Main Event

Mikita Badziakouski is starting to get into Fedor Holz territory.

The young Belarusian only started playing high roller events in 2015 and has already earned nearly $10 million in his short time playing the circuit.

Badziakouski, who is known as fish2013 online, outlasted all 63 entries in the $132K buy-in Main Event to take down a hefty $2.49 million.

The final nine included a murderers’ row of high-stakes pros with Dietrich Fast, Manig Loeser, O’Dwyer, Ivan Leow, Steffen Sontheimer, Wai Chan, Peter Jetten, and Rui Cao in the mix.

Badziakouski beat online crusher Rui Cao heads-up to close out the tournament. Cao still locked up $1.6 million for finishing second in the event.

Koon stacks $3.5 Million in short deck monster

Koon has received his share of brutal high-stakes beats over the years but the cards went his way in the mammoth $132k buy-in short deck event to end this year’s Triton series in Montenegro.

The event attracted a 103 entries to create a massive $12.3 million prize pool, which easily eclipsed the Triton Main Event.

Koon outlasted every single entrant in the contest to rake in a stunning $3.5 million. It’s the biggest cash in Koon’s career and will take him to over $15 million in lifetime live tournament earnings.

Tom Dwan, who’s had a bit of resurgence at the Triton Series in Montenegro, had the unfortunate distinction of getting eliminated by Koon on the money bubble.

The final table didn’t disappoint, however, with a solid collection of names including Jetten, Rui Cao, Yu, Ivey, and Xuan Tan.

Phil Ivey ended up finishing third to bring his overall haul at the Triton series in Montenegro to just over $2 million.

It’s a tidy sum considering Ivey’s last publicly recorded tournament cash was back in 2016. That’s not even taking into account the sizable side games that were taking place in Montenegro.

That left China’s Xuan Tan to face Jason Koon heads-up. Koon had a sizable 2-1 chip lead going into heads-up play.

Tan put in a valiant effort that saw him draw even with Koon but it was at that point the American pro roared back to life and started dominating.

Koon turned a full house with king-queen Tan’s straight with jack-ten to close out the tournament and the series.

Triton’s next series will take place in Jeju, South Korea, in July.

May 21, 2018

GGPoker Heats Up in June with Giant $200K Hold’em Festival

Asia’s biggest poker network is loading up another huge promotion with over $200,000 in prizes set to be doled out in June.

The GGPoker $200K Hold’em Festival will run all of June with leaderboard prizes for four different levels of stakes.

Once again players will benefit from point multipliers on Saturday and Sunday, which gives the weekend warriors a fighting chance.

GGPoker will also have a high-stakes featured table tier where blinds range from $25/$50 all the way up to $100/$200, which should create some extra fireworks on the site.

Players who take part in said feature table games will receive 50 percent more points during the month of June.

Featured, High, Middle and Low stakes return

GGPoker will once again be utilizing the Featured, High, Middle, and Low stakes for June’s Hold’em festival.

The festival comes hot off the heels of the $200K PLO Festival that’s currently running for the rest of May.

Points for the Hold’em festival will be tabulated at the end of June with prizes being handed out for top players in the four different leaderboards. For instance, the points generated at the high tables will not count towards the low leaderboard and vice versa.

Players earn 1 point for every $.01 of rake generated at Hold’em cash game tables.

Here’s how the prizes will be allotted:

Low: Top 50 players receive their share of $20,000
Middle: Top 50 players receive their share of $60,000
High: Top 30 players receive their share of $90,000
Featured: Top five players receive share of $30,000

GGPoker will also be running frequent point multipliers for certain days of the month. The multipliers range from 1.5X all the way up to 3X for the last Saturday of June.

Be sure to check the GGPoker June Hold’em Festival calendar to get an idea of the best times to play.

GGPoker introduces action-packed Three-Blind Hold’em

The $200k Hold’em Festival is just one of the many reasons to play on GGPoker in the month of June.

GGPoker is also launching a brand-new Hold’em variant called Three-Blind Hold’em to ratchet up the action.

As you might expect, Three-Blind Hold’em adds yet another blind after the big blind, which cranks each hand’s mandatory bet from 1.5 big blinds to 3.5 big blinds.

Action junkies will love the format as players are incentivized to play more hands so they don’t get blinded down.

Three-Blind Hold’em tables also feature antes so it will be difficult for anyone to hide for very long. Players can expect to see a lot more flops and more consistent multi-way action.

New players looking to try Three-Blind Hold’em will be happy to note that games played in the variant count towards the June $200k Hold’em Festival leaderboard.

Three-Blind Hold’em goes live on GGPoker on May 28th so players will get a few days to try it out before the June Hold’em Festival begins.

Even More Gamble in All-in or Fold Sit & Go’s

It may not count towards the June Hold’em Festival but GGPoker also launched All-in or Fold Sit & Go’s for players who enjoy a little more gamble in their poker.

As with most all-in variants players are simply given two choices on each hand: Fold or go all-in. No calling allowed.

Regardless of how you play, it’s going to be a big summer on the burgeoning GGPoker network.

May 14, 2018September 20, 2022

China’s Online Poker Black Friday Having Live Casino Effects

China will ban all forms of online social media poker games as of June 1 according to numerous reports.

The ban could have a catastrophic effect on the burgeoning poker industry in the region, which relies on social media poker to build awareness for the game.

At this point in time, there are no real-money poker sites allowed in China so play money poker is essentially the only game in town.

To make matters worse the government is also cracking down on any mention of poker on social media. IAdditionally, the game will no longer be recognized as a competitive sport.

The ban could stifle Chinese poker in its infancy and pundits are already likening it to a Chinese Black Friday.

Huge hit for all of Asia

The potentially devastating effects of a play money ban in China could have ramifications for numerous neighboring Asian countries.

Local tournaments in nearby countries regularly receive a sizable influx of players who qualified for events through play money promotions in China.

There’s also a good chance the special administrative region of Macau will take a significant hit from the ban.

First off, it appears the special PokerStars-branded poker room at the City of Dreams in Cotai will be closing.

According to reports, it was the City of Dreams parent company Melco Resorts & Entertainment that terminated the deal. The City of Dreams PokerStars LIVE poker room operated for five years.

Meanwhile, the big online players in China, including the massive Tencent Gaming, have already started to remove some of their poker apps from the Android, Apple App store, and WeChat store.

Hong Kong-based Boyaa Interactive, which runs the Boyaa Poker Tour, has already seen its share price drop 12 percent, according to a report from Inside Asia Gaming.

More than virtual currency at stake

The ban on free-to-play poker may seem unnecessarily harsh but there are a few factors that likely contributed to the Chinese government’s decision to move for an outright ban.

In the past play money poker has been used as a way to play real-money games in China and especially Hong Kong using apps called agents.

It’s a concept that’s largely unfamiliar to most western poker markets but the agents basically allowed players to wager real money on free-to-play sites.

While the free-to-play sites were completely devoid of real money and consisted entirely of virtual currency the agents would allow players to put real currency behind virtual bets.

The practice was particularly popular in Hong Kong where several high-stakes online private games allegedly ran.

It’s unclear at this point how much agents played into the government’s decision to ban free-to-play poker.

Last gasp for poker in China?

The ban wasn’t completely out of nowhere, as the government has shown a reluctance to permit the game in the past. Chinese National Police raided a PokerStars-backed APPT event in Nanjing in 2015.

There’s no telling where poker in China goes from here but it goes without saying that it’s a huge step back for the game.

The complete legal framework for the upcoming ban hasn’t been released so some of the social game developers are hopeful there will still be space to operate.

Beijing’s Ourgame, one of the biggest players in Asian poker and owner of the World Poker Tour, released a statement saying it will conduct an in-depth examination of the new law.

It’s unknown what will happen to the numerous live events that PokerStars runs in Macau. Interest in the game remains high. The most recent Macau Millions main event attracted nearly 2,500 players.

It’s also unclear what will happen to the Alisports-backed International Poker Tour. The IPT offers various poker tournaments around the country combined with other mind sports like chess and bridge.

Photo by Nataliya Nazarova / Shutterstock.com

May 10, 2018

888poker Rocks Boat With $100K-GTD Daily Big Fish Events

Huge one-time online series are a dime a dozen on poker sites these days but 888poker is shaking things up with a daily tournament series.

Big Fish Tournaments will run every single day on 888poker with $100,000 in guaranteed prize money.

The No-Limit Hold’em tournaments will be affordable to most players with buy-ins at the $5.50, $16.50, and $33 levels.

Despite the relatively low buy-in players will have a chance to win a sizable chunk of cash with guaranteed prize pools ranging from $5,000 all the way up to $35,000.

“The new schedule on 888poker offers great value to our casual players,” said 888poker ambassador Dominik Nitsche.

“It’s exciting to see that people will be able to compete for big prizes for such low buy-ins.”

Spin your way into Big Fish tournaments

The buy-ins for Big Fish are already fairly affordable but 888poker is also giving away some free entries into the tournaments.

As of this month, the daily free spin that every player gets through 888’s Lucky Chip promotion will award tickets to Big Fish tournaments. That means players can potentially gain free entry into the big $33 buy-in event that offers a $35,000 guaranteed prize pool.

888poker is also running a number of freerolls for Big Fish entry so players should keep their eye on the lobby. There are also satellites for Big Fish that start at just 50¢.

“888 has always been home for the lower stakes player, and today it just gets better and better,” added 888poker ambassador Parker “Tonka” Talbot.

“These guarantees are definitely very competitive and should provide some awesome prize pools for the low stakes buy-in range on a daily basis!”

24/7 action on 888poker

Thanks to Big Fish, players on 888poker are not going to have to wait very long for their next big-GTD tournament.

Action starts every day with the $5.50 buy-in $15,000-guaranteed tournament at 14:00 GMT and then runs all the way until 20:30 GMT when action closes with the $16.50 buy-in $10,000-GTD event.

Here’s a look at the complete daily Big Fish schedule:

Time/GMT	Event name	Buy-in
14:00	$5.50 Big Fish – $5,000 GTD	$5.50
15:30	$33 Big Fish – $15,000 GTD	$33.00
17:30	$5.50 Big Fish – $15,000 GTD	$5.50
18:00	$16.50 Big Fish – $20,000 GTD	$16.50
18:30	$33 Big Fish – $35,000 GTD	$33.00
20:30	$16.50 Big Fish – $10,000 GTD	$16.50

Low buy-ins, big guarantees

One of the ideas behind Big Fish tournaments was giving players a chance to play some big payoff tournaments with a relatively low buy-in.

The value shouldn’t be ignored by more serious grinders either as players like 888’s own Chris Moorman plan on getting on on the action.

“The new Big Fish series is a great way for tournament players to win big via a low buy-in,” he said.

“These tournaments are made for mid-stakes players who are serious about the game but don’t want to necessarily invest a large sum of money. These are well-structured tournaments with low risk but high reward payouts. Looking forward to playing it!”

XL Inferno set to light 888poker on fire

To say there’s plenty of action on 888poker during the month of May would be a bit of an understatement.

In addition to the aforementioned Big Fish tournaments, 888poker kicks off another edition of its famed XL Inferno series this week with $3 million in guaranteed prize money spread across 34 different events.

The series will run for 10 days from May 10-20th, 2018. It coincides with competitors’ POWERFEST and SCOOP to create one of the biggest months of online poker ever.

This time around 888poker is heavily incentivizing players to take part in Inferno XL by handing out free tickets to players who cash eight times, make multiple final tables, or win a couple tournaments.

888poker is also offering a stunning $1 million payoff if any player is able to win a total of five tournaments in the series.