New Jersey Online Poker Tournament Changes
New Jersey tournaments got a face life this past weekend with increased prize pools and an uptick in tournament registrations. Let’s take a look at the changes that took place along with new promotions being offered.
Party Poker $50k Weekly Guarantee Sunday Major
The weekly $50k guarantee on Party had a face lift with the follow notable changes:
- The tournament now starts at 5PM vs. the old 8PM start time
- 3 hrs of late registration
- New blind structure
- $10k guaranteed to the winner of the tournament
This tournament has seen an average of 198 entrants over its first 10 Sundays. The number spiked up to 378 total players this past Sunday. First place paid out $13,286. Party Poker announced that on March 2nd, they will double the guarantee to $100k for the same $200 buy in. It will be interesting to see the turn out for this tournament.
WSOP Satellites, Double APP’s and Nightly Guarantee Changes
On Wednesdays, you can win a seat to the $10,000 WSOP main event seat by playing in the $27.50 rebuy/add on tournament which guarantees 1 seat. It starts at 7PM. You can also win a seat to any WSOP $1,500 buy in event by playing in an $11 rebuy/addon tournaments that starts at 9PM.
Every Saturday they are hosting a $215 WSOP Main Event Satellite for a chance to win a seat valued at $10k to the World Series of Poker Main Event. WSOP.com spreads $11 rebuy/addon qualifiers to this satellite on Wednesdays. The nightly $5k and $10k guarantee tournaments do not run on Wednesday nights when the WSOP satellites are running.
The $5k and $10k nightly guarantees now have unlimited rebuys for 2 hours and an $8k chip add on. Prior to this change, the rebuy period was 1 hour and the chip add-on was $4,500. This saw a boost in the prize pools and almost doubled first place payouts. The guarantee for each tournament has been met every night since the change. The $10k guarantee also saw an increase of players. These used to average about 180-190 players nightly. They now average about 215-220 players. The $5k guarantee averaged about 200 players nightly. They have seen as many as 306 runners at one point.
During February, WSOP is offering double Action Player Points (APP) in their “Game of the Day” promotion. Each day, they have a specific cash game or single table tournament that qualifies for double APP’s.
Ultimate Poker No-verlay Promotion
The No-verlay promotion is running from February 9th through March 9th. Anytime one of Ultimate Poker’s nightly guarantee or weekly guarantee tournaments meet or go over its guarantee prize pool, every player in the tournament gets their initial buy-in back. However, rebuys and add-ons do not count. The refunds are awarded to players in U-dollars and not in cash.
This past Sunday, the $20k guarantee on Ultimate still saw an overlay of $7,988. But the amount of runners did jump to 132 compared to 83 from the previous Sunday. The nightly $5k has been steady at around 40-45 players each night, which is a decrease from the almost 60 runners a night they saw when running their UFC 169 package promotion. The promotion should improve their average of $50% overlays they are currently seeing. Some tournaments may meet the guarantee making it a freeroll for those who participate.