Big Changes Afoot for Winning Poker Network´s Beast

The Winning Poker Network´s progressive rake race – “The Beast” – is going to be run daily to see if players prefer this format over the weekly structure.

Since 2012, The Beast has been one of the most popular promotions on Americas Cardroom and Black Chip Poker. Starting life as a monthly progressive rake race, The Beast has undergone multiple changes throughout its lifetime – moving from a monthly to a two-weekly to a weekly cash game promotion, and offering qualification routes into widely varying and valuable live and online poker tournaments.

Now The Beast is about to undergo yet another change – at least temporarily. From Saturday November 4th, the Winning Poker Network is going to trial running The Beast as a daily progressive rake race. The current cash prize tiers will be reduced to $500, $200, $50, and $25 – giving players the opportunity to boost their bankrolls on a daily basis, and giving top performers an opportunity to win more than the current ceiling of $2,500 per week.

The changes are being advertised as lasting for the whole of November. As the last day of November falls on a Friday, and the current weekly rake races run from Saturday to Friday, it gives the Network an opportunity to continue with the new formula if it proves popular with players, or revert to the current weekly structure from Saturday 1st December if player feedback to the changes is negative.

New Beast Tournaments Offer Great Qualification Opportunity

While The Beast is being run as a daily rake race, players who win tournament entry tickets will be able to use them in a daily “Live Cage Sub-Satellite” that will take place each day at 7:00pm (ET). The sub-satellite (which can be bought into directly for $27.50) will guarantee a minimum of five seats into a new Sunday “Beast & Sit n Crush Live Cage Satellite” with a direct buy-in of $630.00. The Sunday satellite guarantees a minimum of three packages to a Live Cage event in Costa Rica, each worth $8,340.

Players with a shrewd brain for math will immediately notice that, if your goal is to play in a Live Cage event, this new qualification route is better than ever before. Historically, many players who have qualified for a “Beast & Sit n Crush Live Cage Satellite” have failed to take their seats – either because the time of the satellite is inconvenient (not everybody lives on the East Coast) or because they have no desire to win a package to the target event (not everybody has a passport).

Therefore, assuming around 100 players win tickets to the daily sub-satellite, and half of them don´t take their seats, that means there are live entries worth $1,250 playing for $3,000 of tournament entry tickets into the Sunday final. But it gets even better. In the likely event that only 21 players qualify out of the sub-satellites into the Sunday final (three players each day for a week), that´s $12,600 worth of entries playing for $25,020 worth of prizes. That´s an opportunity not to be missed.

Will The Beast Remain a Daily Promotion?

Whether The Beast remains a daily promotion is going to depend on player feedback and how long the Network is willing to support its Live Cage with substantial overlays in the sub-satellites and satellite final. Naturally player feedback will be the most important factor in determining The Beast´s ultimate fate, but we can see the new daily formula proving popular – especially among weekend players who may otherwise be denied a top weekly prize due to their midweek commitments.

Another thing we don´t know yet is what will happen to the Sit & Crush leaderboard competition. It is unlikely the current $55.00 buy-in Sunday satellite to the Live Cage will continue to run without the player numbers from The Beast. There simply won´t be sufficient players to justify an $8,340 prize pool.  Our assumption is that the current Sit & Crush leaderboard competition will be phased out and replaced with a new promotion – so there are likely more changes ahead at the Winning Poker Network.

Watch this space!