The $60 million guaranteed partypoker POWERFEST kicked off on Sept. 2 and is off to a fast start with plenty of big money already awarded. The entire tournament series features 635 events for every bankroll – ranging from  $1.10 to $25,500 and running through Sept. 23.

Through the first five days, 154 events had already been played with more than $16 million awarded.

Big action early

The first day already featured some major action playing out with the $1 Million Guaranteed Championship (Event #003) attracting 181 players in the $5,200 buy-in event. It was WWWpartyCOM collecting $221,300 for first place.

Five partypoker team members had nice finishes including Anatoly “NL_Profit” Filatov, who finished runner-up for $159,000. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier also fared well, finishing in fourth for a cool $83,000. Other team members cashing included: Joao “joaosimaobh” Simao, 22nd for $13,300; Patrick “Patrick_Leonard” Leonard, 18th for $13,300; and Roberto “WelshWizard” Romanello, 16th for $17,200.

Event #004 featured a nice $500,000 guarantee with a $530 buy-in. The tournament attracted 924 entries with 120 making the money. That included Simao again with a deep run (32nd for $2,350).

In the end, it was“bagoch” and “GlobalHappiness” heads-up for the title. They reached a deal for the remaining $149,800 with bagoch pocketing $71,800 and GlobalHappiness taking $78,000 and the title.

Yet another big buy-in tournament, Event #005 $1 Million Guaranteed Championship PKO, attracted 876 players. The $1,050 buy-in event paid 120 players with “SirStanleyRoyce” coming out on top with a combined $178,519 after eliminating 18 players.

Teams members Filatov, Romanello, Kristen “Krissyb24” Bicknell, and Dzmitry “Dzmitry_Urbanov” Urbanovich all cashed in the event.

Another chance at a big score came in Event #011 on Day 2, the $300,000 Guaranteed 6-Max PKO, which featured a $1,050 buy-in, attracted 359 entries, and built a nice prize pool of $366,180.

Romanello was at it again, finishing sixth for a combined $12,857. It was “RosenheimCops” coming out on top and collecting $35,900 and $32,391 in bounties.

Event #013 offered a $100,000 guarantee for a $530 buy-in and brought in 194 entries. Romanello and Simao continued big runs for the team. Romanello took 16th for $1,300, and Simao notched an impressive third place for $11,250. In the end, “Paul_Folders” defeated “IEatBears” heads-up for the championship and $24,906.

Lucky Leon

Day 3 was highlighted by the $5,200 buy-in $1 Million Guaranteed Championship, which fetched 204 entries and topped the guarantee by $20,000. Leon Tsoukernik, owner of King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, and host of the World Series of Poker Circuit Kings and World Series of Poker Europe, took the title and $207,978.

The fourth day featured Event #024: $300,000 Guaranteed 6-Max. The tournament’s $1,050 buy-in attracted 360 entries and a $360,000 total prize pool. “Ilijix133” finished in the top spot, pocketing $64,452, with “skippyskip5” taking runner-up for $60,827.

The $550 Event #023: $200,000 Guaranteed PKO added almost an extra $40,000 to the prize pool with 438 entries. “Mateee” emerged as champion and won $22,054 and $22,328 in bounties.

On Day 5, Hungary’s Andras “probirs” Nemeth topped a field of 195 players in the $5,200 Event #029: $1 Million Guaranteed Championship. Nemeth was heads-up with “rdcrsnn” for the title when they struck a deal. rdcrsnn took home $173,965 and Nemeth snagged $177,934. He now has more than $8.5 million in lifetime online winnings.

Looking ahead

Plenty of action awaits partypoker players no matter the bankroll size as the weekend rolls in, including Friday’s Event #037: $300,000 Guaranteed 6-Max PKO ($1,050 buy-in). On the same day, two $530 events offer $200,000 and $100,000 guarantees.

Saturday and Sunday should bring in plenty of weekend players for even bigger turnouts. That includes another $1,050 buy-in $200,000 PKO event on Saturday, and a $530 buy-in $100,000 Guaranteed Fast 6-Max tournament.

Plenty of big prize pools await Sunday players. That includes two $1,050 events with $1 million and $500,000 guarantees. The day is highlighted by the $5,200 buy-in Event #049, the $5,200 Championship PKO.

And while these may be a bit out of your bankroll, there are even $33 events that offer $100,000 guarantees. Grab the keyboard and get registered.

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.

partypoker appears to be taking a shot at the heavyweight title with its upcoming POWERFEST online series.

The online poker giant released a schedule for the series this week with a staggering $40 million in guaranteed prize money spread across 366 different events. It’s the biggest POKERFEST that partypoker has ever run.

The series will run for two weeks from May 6-20, 2018, but online satellites have already started on partypoker. Qualifiers start at just $1.10.

Serious poker players will have their hands full with 17 championship events and a total of 58 high roller or super roller tournaments.

It’s safe to say there is plenty of money to be won with a total of 13 events offering guaranteed prize pools of $1 million or more.

The series will culminate with seven championship events on Sunday with nearly $4 million in combined prize pools.

Something for everyone with Micro, Low, Mid, High buy-ins

As usual, POWERFEST will offer a variety of different buy-in levels thanks to its Micro, Low, Mid, and High formats.

Buy-ins at the Micro level start at just $1.10 but shoot all the way up to $216 for the High buy-in events. That’s not even including the High Rollers and Super Rollers that top out at a sky-high $25,500.

The series will also feature a wide variety of games with No-Limit Hold’em, PLO, and PLO8. There will also be a collection of the ever-popular Progressive Knockout events.

Organizers for this edition of POWERFEST focused on giving players a diverse selection of tournaments to play.

partypoker ambassador Patrick Leonard was heavily involved with creating the schedule. He’s happy with where the series ended up:

“There is a lot of consistent logic throughout giving the most varied, exciting and fun POWERFEST schedule since partypoker’s resurrection a few years ago.”

“There are more 6-Max events, more PLO, more high rollers but also buy-ins for all bankrolls and most importantly lots of chances of glory. I don’t think I’ll take a day off over the two weeks.”

Of course, the majority of the series will still take place in familiar Hold’em with No-Limit events taking place pretty much around the clock.

Massive $25K Super High Roller returns

partypoker shook up the online world last year when it introduced a massive $25,000 super high roller for the May 2017 edition of POWERFEST.

The $2 million guaranteed tournament was a first for partypoker. All registration fees went towards charity. partypoker also chipped in an extra $50,000, thanks to the field exceeding 100 entries.

In the end, partypoker smashed the guarantee with 129 entries, creating a prize pool of $3.2 million.

Online player juanpardo99 got through a very tough final table to walk away with $660,067 for first place. That figure was taking a two-way chop into account as well. partypoker’s own Sam Trickett and Joao Simao featured prominently at that final table, finishing eighth and fifth respectively.

The very next edition of POWERFEST, which took place in September 2017, saw Ben Tollerene defeat fellow online legend Viktor “Isildur1” Blom heads-up to win the second POWERFEST $25K for $846,722.

After a brief hiatus from the smaller POWERFEST in early 2018, the $25,000 buy-in SHR will make a triumphant return in the upcoming series. The blockbuster tournament will take place on May 17.

If previous editions are any indication then this tournament will be a must-watch for poker fans and a must-play for elite players with deep wallets.