The timing of partypoker’s POWERFEST couldn’t be more propitious.
The United States House of Representatives has given the green light to release $8.3 billion of emergency funding in preparation for the spread of COVID-19. Other nations with healthy bank accounts or ever-increasing debt loads coupled with a ‘couldn’t give a damn attitude’ will surely follow suit.
And that’s why the buzz around partypoker’s $20m GTD POWERFEST has the whiskers of all poker’s top cats reverberating at a full itchiness rate.
The 488-event spectacular runs between March 15-29. Buy-ins range between $0.55 – $25,500, and 6-Max, Mix-Max, 6-4, Freezeout and progressive Knockout (PKO) fill the menu.
If you want a front-row ticket and have a bankroll containing more soot than money, then you’re in luck; partypoker has one of the best online satellite qualification systems in the business.
Main Events
There are four Main Events, all of which are No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE), and on March 29, kicking-off @ 20:30 (CET).
Here are the details.
$2,100 buy-in, $500k GTD.
$320 buy-in, $500k GTD.
$55 buy-in, $250k GTD.
$5.50 buy-in, $20k GTD.
High Roller Action
There is only one event with a buy-in higher than $10,000, and that’s the $25,500 buy-in, $2m GTD NLHE Super High Roller taking place 26 March at 20:30 (CET).
Previous $25k Winners
In April 2019, intrepid explorer ‘PhileasFogg’ navigated his way through 105-entrants to bank the $643,125 first prize, with Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom finishing fourth.
Rewind 12 months, beyond that date, and Steve ‘eet_smakelijk’ O’Dwyer won $896,610 after topping a final table that housed the likes of Orpen ‘orpenkk’ Kisacikoglu, Michael ‘mczhang’ Zhang, Jon ‘sordykrd’ Van Fleet, and Jason Koon.
Koon is so f**king cool; his name is his nickname.
And rewind 12-months further, and Ben ‘Coweyed’ Tollerene topped a 127-entrant field in the $3m GTD version. Blom featured once again, finishing second. Tollerene banked $846,722.
With the Coronavirus already delivering a knockout blow to the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Jeju, the high stakes poker seam needed a worthy competitor to step into the ring, and POWERFEST is one of those beasts that steps over the top ropes.
More News From The Virtual Rail
Phil Galfond returned from his self-imposed hiatus to continue his heads-up challenge with “VeniVidi1993”, and promptly booked his most significant win of the punch-up thus far.
The pair of online hedgehogs pricked each other in their never regions over 574-hands, before calling time with Galfond €183,481.38 in the net winnings column, not bad for a man who said he won while playing his B+ game.
There’s still no time for smiling.
Galfond is in the basement with €716,758.79 in losses over 10,501 hands.
There are 35 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Sweden. Still, judging by the ever-present racking of results from these three Swedish stars, one doubts they will be in danger of joining the count.
Johannes “Greenstone25” Korsar defeated his compatriot Simon “C.Darwin2” Mattsson, heads-up, in the $2,100 Sunday High Roller on PokerStars. The pair of online poker prophets hammered out a deal that saw Korsar bank $37,595, with $31,768 going to Mattsson. Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche finished third, and Anatoly “NL_Profit” Filatov finished in fifth.
Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt also flew the Swedish flag high after booking the win in the $1,050 Sunday Warm-Up on Stars. The PocketFives World #1 overcame a field of 161-entrants to win the first prize of $29,317 after cutting a deal with Alex ‘steakaddict’ Papazian (who banked $28,255).
Here are the current PocketFives World Rankings.
PocketFive World Rankings
1. Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt
2. Johannes “Greenstone25” Korsar
3. DeathbyQuads
4. Sam “€urop€an” Vousden
5. Simon “C.Darwin2” Mattsson