This article first appeared in the Jul/Aug 2011 issue of World Gaming magazine.
PokerStars ‘Sunday Million’ poker tournament has a rich history and after years of consistent growth it has established itself as the premier weekly online event.
Despite competition from other large buy-in events the Sunday Million remains on top. The buy-in for this tournament has always been US$215, and to play it in China (or Hong Kong or Macau) you’ll actually be starting at 02:30 on Monday morning because the tournament starts at 14:30 Sunday afternoon eastern US time (which is 20:30 Sunday evening Central European time or 04:30 Monday morning eastern Australia time).
PokerStars have offered a Sunday tournament for a number of years but the ‘Sunday Million’ as it is known today (due to its seven figure guarantee) recently celebrated its fifth birthday. In March this year PokerStars guaranteed a massive US$5 million prize pool to celebrate the milestone, though the prize pool ended up well over this amount. Just under 60,000 players sat down to battle it out for the title which meant the total prize pool came to a massive US$11,825,600.
With these immense numbers over 7,000 players made it to the money. The last PokerStars team pro left standing, professional racing car driver Gualter Salles from Brazil, exited in 84th place. The final nine players struck a deal translating to each player pocketing over US$250,000. Player “wrzr124” had the largest pay day and saw his bank balance increase by US$844,209.87.
The official winner was Luke “Bdbeatslayer” Vrabel who walked away with a huge wad of cash (US$671,093.81 to be exact). On top of the handsome payday, PokerStars also made sure he’ll roll the streets with style with a bonus gift to the winner of a Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 to park in his garage.
Many poker players can remember the days when this was the only big tournament offered online every week. In the beginning the numbers were only in the hundreds and the prize pool significantly less than today. How times have changed.
Most serious tournament poker players have played this tournament and can tell you horror stories of how their dreams were shattered – sometimes within minutes, sometimes after many hours. Even though poker is a game of skill you still have to have some luck on your side and to run deep in the tournament you’ll need to dodge bad luck along the way. To conquer thousands of other players you need to push your chips in and pray your hands hold up. You need aggression and patience in equal measure, and you need to know the right times to apply each. To make it all the way through a Sunday Million usually takes well over ten hours!
The Sunday Million tournament provides rewards that are astronomical and a couple of hundred dollars can change your life forever. There are plenty of free-rolls and micro satellites offered by PokerStars each week that can see anyone win a seat into this tournament, no matter how tiny their bankroll is.
