On Monday, the Winning Poker Network launched a new tournament format called “Streak”. The tournaments are being supported by massive guaranteed prize pools which are overlaying by more than 50%. In last night´s four Streak tournaments, the total amount of overlay exceeded $80,000.
Don´t Miss the Huge Overlays in WPN´s Streak Tournaments
On Monday, the Winning Poker Network launched a new tournament format called “Streak”. The tournaments are being supported by massive guaranteed prize pools which are overlaying by more than 50%. In last night´s four Streak tournaments, the total amount of overlay exceeded $80,000.
The Winning Poker Network´s “Streak” tournaments are played as regular 8-Max NL Hold´em freezeout events. Players start with 10,000 chips, levels last twelve minutes each, and there are no re-buys or re-entries allowed during the two hours of late registration. What is different about the Streak tournaments is their payout structure.
Rather than pay the usual ~15% of the field, only the final eight players receive what they normally would in a freezeout tournament. The next ~33% of the field receive a tournament entry ticket to play in the corresponding Streak tournament the following day. If players are unable to play in the following day´s tournament, they can unregister from the event and save their Streak ticket until another day.
Due to the unfamiliar nature of the payout structure, players have not rushed to embrace the Streak tournaments. On Monday and Tuesday, only two of the eight scheduled Streak tournaments met their minimum entry and were able to start. Last night, four of the eight tournaments got underway, but failed to attract anything like the number of entries required to cover their guarantees.
The Streak Tournament Schedule
The Streak tournament schedule has been designed to appeal to players in Asia and Australia as well as players in Europe and the US. Consequently there are two “early morning” tournaments scheduled for 9:15am (all times ET) and two more at 10:15am. The four tournaments have buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $265.00, and have yet to attract enough entries for the tournaments to start.
The “evening” tournaments are scheduled to start at 5:15pm and 6:15pm. These also have buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $265.00 and guaranteed prize pools ranging from $5,000 to $100,000. These events are the ones players wishing to take advantage of the huge overlays should be looking at as the payout tables from last night´s Streak tournament demonstrate:
| Start (ET) | 5:15pm | 5:15pm | 6:15pm | 6:15pm |
| Buy-In | $5.50 | $265.00 | $22.00 | $88.00 |
| Guarantee | $5,000 | $100,000 | $20,000 | $40,000 |
| Number of Entries | 320 | 211 | 443 | 252 |
| Overlay | $3,400 | $47,250 | $11,140 | $19,840 |
| 1st Place | $1,376.50 | $25,700.00 | $5,120.00 | $9,600.00 |
| 2nd Place | $981.00 | $19,000.00 | $3,704.00 | $7,200.00 |
| 3rd Place | $680.00 | $13,000.00 | $2,580.00 | $5,000.00 |
| 4th Place | $515.00 | $9,500.00 | $1,920.00 | $3,600.00 |
| 5th Place | $380.00 | $7,000.00 | $1,480.00 | $2,880.00 |
| 6th Place | $275.00 | $5,000.00 | $1,076.00 | $2,200.00 |
| 7th Place | $187.50 | $3,500.00 | $730.00 | $1,600.00 |
| 8th Place | $137.50 | $2,500.00 | $530.00 | $1,200.00 |
| Streak Tickets | 9th to 93rd | 9th to 63rd | 9th to 138th | 9th to 84th |
All four Streak tournaments should meet their minimum entry again tonight due to the number of players carrying forward tournament entry tickets from last night´s events. However, there is the chance that players with $265.00 Streak tickets may choose to unregister from the tournament before it begins and opt to use their entries for Sunday´s Million Dollar Sunday event.
Million Dollar Sunday Event also Likely to Overlay
On Sunday, sites on the Winning Poker Network will be hosting the third of eight scheduled “Million Dollar Sunday” events – $265.00 buy-in tournaments with a prize pool guarantee of $1,000,001. The two previous events have been well attended, but both have failed to attract sufficient entries to reach their ambitious guarantees (by $36,500 and $138,250 respectively).
To support this week´s Million Dollar Sunday, the Winning Poker Network is running dozens of satellites and sub-satellites starting at Freebuy level. There is also a Steps promotion underway (starting at $0.25) and players can “Spin to GET IN!” from as little as $0.01. However, the most popular qualification events will be the Mega-Satellites scheduled for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday:
- On Friday at 7:30pm, the Network will be hosting a $33.00 buy-in Mega-Satellites with a minimum of fifty seats in the target event.
- On Saturday at 7:30pm, the Network is guaranteeing a minimum of one hundred seats in the Million Dollar Sunday in another $33.00 buy-in Mega-Satellite.
- On Sunday at 10:30am, early risers can try to win one of one hundred and fifty seats in the $1 million dollar guarantee event in a $44.00 buy-in Mega-Satellite.
Last minute satellites will be running right up until the end of late registration (five hours after the 4:00pm start time), at which point the starting stack of 10,000 chips will be worth the equivalent of ten big blinds. Based on last week´s Million Dollar Sunday tournament, the average chip stack at the close of late registration is close to 24,000 chips, while the chip leaders will likely have just over 100,000 chips in front of them. There will be around 1,200 players remaining, with the top 460 players due to cash.
If You Like Overlays, Play at the Winning Poker Network
The Winning Poker Network does not usually host tournaments with substantial overlays. Indeed, the Network´s weekly “Sunday Special” – the most valuable online poker tournament accessible by players in the US – often crushes its $150,000 guarantee by a mile. However, at present, it seems there are a handful of opportunities for players to extract some extra value from their online action.
If you do not already have an account with a site on the Winning Poker Network, read our [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/americas-cardroom”]review of Americas Cardroom[/geolink] or [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/black-chip-poker”]Black Chip Poker[/geolink] (the two leading sites on the Winning Poker Network) and register for an account today to qualify for a 100% first deposit bonus up to $1,000, plus the opportunity to play in tonight´s Streak tournaments with the likelihood of more 50% overlays.