Players at sites on the Winning Poker Network can look forward to a year of Live Cage events and a $5 million guaranteed tournament scheduled for next July.
Players at sites on the Winning Poker Network can look forward to a year of Live Cage events and a $5 million guaranteed tournament scheduled for next July.
Players at sites on the Winning Poker Network can look forward to a year of Live Cage events and a $5 million guaranteed tournament scheduled for next July.
One of the reasons for the Winning Poker Network growing in popularity in recent years has been the way in which the Network attracts recreational players by offering the chance to experience big money events for small stakes. Judging by what the Network has planned for 2019, there appears to be no change in this philosophy heading into the New Year.
Not only is the Network giving players the opportunity to win packages for bimonthly Live Cage events in qualifiers with buy-ins of just $55.00, but also the chance to play in a $5 million guaranteed tournament next summer with a satellite route starting at freeroll level. All this is on top of the regular bonuses, promotions, and tournament series hosted throughout the year.
As the name suggests, the Live Cage is a live version of the Network´s periodic online Cage cash-game-cum-tournament. The event is held every two months at the Taormina Casino in San Jose, Costa Rica, and has a direct buy-in of $5,250. Typically, the Live Cage attracts between thirty and forty players – meaning that there is between $150,000 and $200,000 in cash on the tables.
Each week, the Network hosts a “Beast & SNC Live Cage” satellite guaranteeing three packages for the Live Cage each worth $8,340. The package not only includes the buy-in for the Live Cage event, but also accommodation, spending cash, and a contribution towards the cost of flying to Costa Rica. Hundreds of free satellite tickets are given away to winners of the Beast and Sit & Crush rake races, or the satellite can be bought into directly for $55.00.
The significance of there being hundreds of free satellite tickets given away is that not every recipient of a satellite ticket is able to play in the satellite – hosted each Sunday on Americas Cardroom and Black Chip Poker at 6:00pm (ET) – or has the desire to qualify for the target event (around 64% of U.S. citizens don´t have passports). Consequently, there is often plenty of players sitting out of the “Beast & SNC Live Cage” satellites, and plenty of dead money on the tables.
Most big online poker sites have multi-million dollar tournaments now, and the Winning Poker Network is stating its intention to be considered a “big” Network by hosting its own multi-million dollar tournament on 21st July 2019 – the Sunday following the end of the 2019 World Series of Poker. Furthermore, the Network´s “Venom” tournament will be more accessible to most players – having a buy-in of $2,650 (which compares favourably with most other “big” tournaments).
Although the event is nearly seven months away, the Network is running a Steps program starting at freeroll level. The freeroll tournaments take place every couple of hours, and feed into “On Demand” tournaments (tournaments that start when a fixed number of players have registered) with progressive buy-ins of $6.61, $16.51, $55.01, $215.01, and $630.01 – the final step guaranteeing three seats in the $5 million guaranteed Venom tournament.
What´s so special about this Steps program is that the freeroll level awards so many tickets into the next level (currently 113), you don´t have to wait long for Step 2 and Step 3 games to start. Furthermore, there are dozens of players sitting on Step 4 and Step 5 tickets waiting for the tournaments to populate so they can get involved in the action. Effectively, although it may be costing the Network a couple of thousand dollars in freeroll entries every day, the Venom is certain to be a success.
Although there is no requirement for players to have made a deposit before taking part in the freeroll qualifiers for next July´s Venom, there is a good reason for new players to fund their accounts at [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/americas-cardroom”]Americas Cardroom[/geolink] and [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/black-chip-poker”]Black Chip Poker[/geolink] – especially if they use cryptocurrencies to fund their online poker action.
For a limited time only, the two sites are offering new players who deposit using cryptocurrency a 200% bonus up to $1,000. This is double the usual first deposit bonus of 100% up to $1,000 (which is still available to players who deposit using a credit card) and, as the Network´s cashier accepts more than sixty different cryptocurrencies, is easy to take advantage of.
In conclusion, the Winning Poker Network has big plans for 2019. Have you?