Full Tilt Poker Classic Starts February 15th!
Full Tilt Poker is attempting a different kind of tournament series to see if they can regain some of their lost market share. The Full Tilt Poker Classic isn’t like an FTOPS which is the normal tournament series that they are known for, but that doesn’t mean that the new series is any less fantastic.
Full Tilt Poker Classic Announced
Full Tilt Poker, which is owned by Amaya, has seen its player base shrink in the past year and in an attempt to get more players onto the site they are offering a new kind of tournament series that will appeal to lower and higher stakes players. The Full Tilt Poker Classic is also more than just a normal tournament series with a lot of added value and extra incentives given to players for participating in the tournaments. The series runs from February 15th to February 22nd and consists of 16 events with wildly differing buy-in levels.
The Tournament Schedule
The tournament schedule is fairly unique as it runs nearly the full gambit of buy-ins and takes a leaf from the World Series of Poker schedule. Each day the buy-ins for the tournaments will increase for both the early and late event. The early and the late event will consist of 1 no-limit hold’em tournament and 1 non-no limit hold’em tournament each day. The non-no limit hold’em tournaments span just about every major game variety that you can play on Full Tilt Poker.
The buy-ins for these events start at just $0.50 on the first day and then are $1, $2.50, $5, $10, $25, $50 and topping out at $100 for each of the subsequent days. The final day of the series consists of the Main Event which is a $100 buy-in, $200,000 guaranteed No Limit Hold’em tournament and a $100 buy-in, $20,000 guaranteed pot limit Omaha 6-max tournament. The first day of the series consists of a $0.50 no limit hold’em tournament with a $1,000 guarantee and a $500 guaranteed 6-max limit hold’em tournament with the same buy-in.
Incentives for Players
If the strong prize pols weren’t enough to get you to play, Full Tilt Poker is sweetening the deal a little bit more for players. Each tournament you play in will also award a freeroll ticket that will allow you to win entry into the next day’s tournament. The freerolls take place about the same time as the event you are playing in and each freeroll will award anywhere from 5 to 20 seats for players, even for the Main Event. The freerolls will correspond with the style of event you just played, so non-no limit hold’em or no limit hold’em and will award a ticket for the next day’s event of the same style.
On top of that if you win your seat to the event you are playing in through a satellite of any kind then you will atomically be entered into a “last longer” competition that will award a seat into the Main Event. That means you can earn your seat into the Main Event for being the last player alive who won their seat through a satellite event in the $0.50 event on the first day, or any other event. Players can earn a ticket into the freeroll for the first day’s event by earning 1 or more Full Tilt Poker points during the week leading up the Full Tilt Poker Classic.
Conclusion
The sagging numbers at Full Tilt Poker might make lesser companies shy away from trying something new with good player incentives, but Amaya has been doing this long enough to not take that approach. The Full Tilt Poker Classic is a series that will appeal to pretty much every player and will provide lots of opportunities for players to get into larger events than they would normally play. Are you going to play any of the events in the Full Tilt Poker classic? Tell us on Twitter and Facebook!