WPN Hosts Successful Million Dollar Sunday!

  Winning Poker Network fell short on another $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament, but overall the loss was minimal and the desire to hold a successful tournament doesn’t seem to have been lost on management as the next installment has already been announced and signups have begun for the August event.

Winning Poker Network Falls Short in Numbers Only

Winning Poker Network, which consists of America’s Cardroom, Black Chip Poker, PokerHost, True Poker and Ya Poker, has had a very interesting history with the $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament, which has been rebranded as “Million Dollar Sunday,”  with needing to cancel the first attempt back in December, missing the guarantee on the second and now falling short once again.  The good news for the network is that this run attracted more players than the last iteration, and this is likely what prompted them to renew the efforts yet again.  The next Million Dollar Sunday has been scheduled for August 2nd at 3pm server time, and it will likely accompany another series around the same time.

Million Dollar Sunday Recap

The missing of the guarantee by just over $90,000 (less than $20,000 though when you include fees into the equation) meant that there was a lot of extra value for players and “daryldee198888” took advantage of this the most by capturing the win and $200,000 edging out “StangetzzzCHS.”  Second place received $111,000 for their efforts, while everyone else at the final table received at least $13,200 for outlasting the field of 1,815.  “ForTheNguyen” who won the last Million Dollar Sunday finished out of the money in 514th place, and “EduardoG,” who was second during the last event, finished just outside the top 300.

Winning Poker network did a much better job this time of putting tournaments around the Main Event that provided enticing and lucrative prize pools, but still could cover their guarantees.  The $125,000 Warm-Up event, $95,000 Sunday Major and $50,000 2nd chance events all met their guarantees and in many cases surpassed them by more than 10%.   The rest of the Sunday schedule also did very well, on the heels of a successful couple of day for the High Five Series. The fact that the $95,000 Sunday Major did meet the guarantee means that it will be $100,000 next week as it is a progressive prize pool tournament that has the guarantee increased by %5,000 each week it hits the mark, a change they implemented at the beginning of the year during the schedule redesign.

Merge Network SNAFU

It wasn’t a great day for all of US-facing online poker though as Carbon Poker cancelled their large Sunday tournament, and Main Event for the “Big Money Sunday” promotion, the $250,000 guaranteed just minutes before the tournament was slated to begin.  The official reason for the cancellation was “technical problems,” but many have casted doubt on this official response saying that they were more scared of eating a huge loss, as evidenced by no other tournaments being cancelled during the day.  It will likely always remain unclear on why it was cancelled, but the damage has already been done, either way.  Players were reimbursed their money and any players who won satellites on Sunday to the event have been given a ticket to the next “Big Money Sunday” which reportedly will take place around the next OPS in May.

Summary

Winning Poker Network might not be the first site you think of when thinking of large US tournament sites, but those thoughts might be slowing changing as the US-facing market continues to mature.  With a successful High Five Series coupled with another success in the Million Dollar Sunday, Winning Poker network has stepped up its tournament game, and with less reported lag and disconnect issues happening it seems they have stepped up their security game as well.  Did you play this weekend?  Will you play the next tournament?  Tell us on Twitter and Facebook.