Partypoker and PokerStars are locked for the first place of the world’s largest-payout cardrooms. And the pots keep growing.
PokerStars Concludes Inaugural SECOOP Series
When the coldsnap over poker in Europe started to melt, PokerStars was one of the first companies to offer an alternative to the on-site tournaments that didn’t generate as much buzz. And while the main bastions of the game, such as Spain, France, and Portugal have been shutting down card rooms, the online industry has been thriving.
Shortly after Portugal joined the shared-liquidity scheme with the other two countries, PokerStars managed to wrap up the first cross-border online tournament, the Southern European Championship of Online Poker (SECOOP). And it’s called “a series,” meaning that PokerStars will be returning next year, too.
The inaugural festival was a blast. Held between October 28 and November 12, there were multiple events that invited players to participate readily. And people could pick from quite the accommodating tournaments, indeed, with 149 events taking place in the two-week window. From the €10 to the €50 buy-ins, the competitions had definitely something for everyone.
Attendance rate was quite significant, too, with reported 38,000 players joining in to swell the overall prize pool to well over €12 million. In PokerStars’ own reports, the card room said that was a 23% more than was originally expected.
There were quite a few highlights of the tournament, and while the heroes of the first competition are likely to go unsung, one player by the online nickname of “Befuddled” from France managed to walk away from the SECOOP Main Event almost €173,000 richer.
And while the success of the SECOOP Series, which are first in hopefully many to come, is undeniable, there is quite a bit more to get out of playing online poker. Meanwhile, PartyPoker, a direct competitor of PokerStars, is bringing around two gigantic tournaments.
PartyPoker and the KO Series/MILLIONS Online
If you think that SECOOP is the only online event that holds sway over players from all across the globe you are rather mistaken. Partypoker has kicked off both the KO Series and MILLIONS, offering $10 million in prizing money for the KO and double that amount for the MILLIONS.
COMPETITION! Guess the entries for the Biggest Online MTT ever #MILLIONSOnline $20m GTD. Anyone with the right answer wins $1,000 PP LIVE Dollars. Deadline for entries is the start of Day1a (which has over 650 qualifiers in it so far!) tomorrow https://t.co/5KrVsJJn5s pic.twitter.com/4VX6XBCpc4
— partypokerLIVE (@partypokerlive) November 24, 2018
If the PokerStars-backed event has been quite tempting indeed, the upcoming action endorsed by PartyPoker promises to be quite the event. Naturally, PokerStars have always been treading carefully whereas PartyPoker have been rather headier in their choice of tournaments and venue.
The recently-concluded Caribbean Poker Party came amid reports that the company won’t be able to cover the prize pools from the money collected as buy-ins. But PartyPoker are not a company who bulks at the first sight of trouble.
Carrying on with multiple million-pool events, the online card room has been boosting up its security, money protection policies and still dishing out generous amount to the gamers looking for life-changing amounts online.
PokerStars are not behind and the arrival of multiple innovative events, such as FRESH, SCOOP TRIO Series, Galactic Series, and SECOOP are just a few excellent examples.
