PokerStars Announces $10 Million Guarantee For 10th Anniversary Of Sunday Million

PokerStars announced it will be hosting a special Sunday Million on March 20, 2016, with a $10 million guarantee in honor of the popular tournament’s 10th anniversary.

The tournament, like all Sunday Millions, will feature a $215 buy-in. Unlike any Sunday Million before it, players can reenter up to three times.

Another new wrinkle will be Team PokerStars Pro, and popular poker Twitch streamer, Jamie Staples, will host a live Twitch stream as he tries to navigate his way through the massive field.

“The Sunday Million Anniversary tournament is one of the biggest events on the poker calendar,” Staples said. “And when you throw in a $10 million guaranteed prize pool and more than a thousand free seats as well, it’s a tournament that every poker player should aspire to play.”

Free seats and satellites available

As Staples noted, PokerStars will be giving away over 1,000 (actually 1,200) free seats to the tournament, as the site will host a Hyper-Turbo freeroll every Saturday for the six weeks leading up to the milestone Sunday Million Anniversary tournament. Two hundred seats will be awarded each week.

To qualify for one of the freerolls, you’ll need to make a real money deposit of $20 or more, using the code “MILLIONFREE1″ in Week 1, ” MILLIONFREE2″ in Week 2, ” MILLIONFREE3″ in Week 3 and so on.  So long as you deposit each week, and use the appropriate code, you can play in all six freerolls. In total, the site is giving away $250,000 worth of entry fees.

On the satellite front, you can qualify through PokerStars’ standard Sunday million satellites, with buy-ins starting at just $1.

For the Anniversary tournament, the site has also added a few other satellite options:

• Four VIP Bash satellites. These satellites will be held on Saturdays from February 27-March 19. The buy-in is 1,000 StarsCoins, and 50 seats are guaranteed for the first three, with 100 seats guaranteed for the fourth VIP Bash tournament.
• Deadline Satellite #1, on Sunday March 20. An $11 buy-in with 1,000 seats guaranteed.
• Deadline Satellite #2, on Sunday March 20. A $33 buy-in with 333 seats guaranteed.

How big will the tournament be?

The gaudy numbers PokerStars is hoping to reach for the 10th Anniversary Sunday Million tournament are a far cry from the totals the first Sunday Million held in 2006, but well within the site’s capabilities in 2016.

The first Sunday Million took place on March 6, 2006, and pulled in 5,893 players for a total prize pool of $1,178,600. As a means of comparison, the winner of the 10th Anniversary tournament is guaranteed $2,000,000.

With the tournament using the standard $215 ($200 entry fee plus a $15 tournament fee) for the 10th Anniversary tournament, PokerStars will need 50,000 total entries to reach its $10 million guarantee. Hitting 50,000 entrants seems quite likely considering they’re allowing each player to reenter three times; given the history of the site’s anniversary tournaments, that might not even be necessary.

PokerStars has a pretty solid track record when it comes to anniversary tournaments, as not a single Sunday Million anniversary tournament has failed to meet its guarantee, with most cruising past their guarantee with ease.

It wasn’t a Sunday Million Anniversary, but in December of 2011, PokerStars also hosted a special Sunday Million tournament celebrating the anniversary of the company’s launch. This proved to be the largest Sunday Million in the company’s history:

Considering the vast number of qualifiers and satellites, as well as the $10 million guarantee and the ability to reenter, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the 10th Anniversary Sunday Million tournament eclipse the 10th Anniversary of PokerStars launch tournament as the largest Sunday Million in history.