Massive Overlay Expected in iPOPS 1

Tonight sees the first of the $1 million guaranteed iPoker Online Poker Series and there is the potential to see a massive overlay in the very first event.

iPOPS #1 is a $100.00 + $9.00 buy-in 6-Max NL Hold´em tournament with each player starting with 5,000 chips and blinds increasing every 12 minutes.

To date, 970 players have registered or qualified for this $200,000 guaranteed event – creating an overlay of $103,000. No doubt there will be a few more entries before the tournament starts at 6.00pm GMT but, as it stands at the minute, the 252 players who cash in the event will be receiving a positive expected value of more than 100%!

Future Events also Undersubscribed

Looking ahead to the remaining three iPOPS feature tournaments on Wednesday. Friday and Sunday, the picture looks equally as gloomy for the top executives in iPOPS Towers. Wednesday´s iPOPS #2 is a $50.00 + $5.00 re-buy and add-on Turbo (5 minute levels) in which players start with 5,000 chips. The guarantee for this tournament is $150,000 and to date there have been 607 buy-ins and qualifiers – amounting to a little over $30,000. Although there are some pretty loose players on the iPoker network, don´t expect too many of them to be re-buying at $50.00 a shot!

Nobody Likes Pot Limit Omaha

Potentially the biggest turn-off of the iPOPS series is the $100.00 + $9.00 buy-in 6-Max Pot Limit Omaha (1 re-buy allowed) tournament scheduled to take place on Friday. This tournament is guaranteed to pay $150,000 in prize money and as of the Monday before the event, only 242 players have registered or qualified through the satellite program even though 252 places are paid! Again, the situation is expected to improve by the time the tournament starts (no late registration in any of the iPOPS feature events), but the field for this event is going to have to triple in size and each of the players use their re-buy option for the tournament to break even.

Even the Qualifiers are Undersubscribed for the Main Event

There is some excellent value also to be had in the qualifiers for the $500,000 guaranteed iPOPS #4 Main Event if players´ bankrolls do not stretch to the $125.00 + $10.00 buy-in. Stage 2 qualifiers, which offer seats to Stage 1 qualifiers (the final step before winning a seat in the target tournament) are seeing five players enter (@ $2.20) for qualifiers which offer 3 seats to the next stage, and watch out for Saturday´s Mega-Satellite which offers 100 seats to the Main Event – even if only 101 players register.

The State of iPOPs Events

As of Monday morning, this is how the four iPOPS events are shaping up. Even though it is acknowledged that the later events will attract more entries prior to the close of registration, it is worth pointing out that only 47 people have bought in or qualified for the Main Event in the past week!