Qualify Online for WPN's Costa Rica Cage Live Event April 3 - 6
The Winning Poker Network will be holding a Cage Live tournament at the Grand Casino Escazú adjacent to the Sheraton Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica April 3 - 6. The Live Cage features a buyin of $5,000 + $250, but through a set of online satellites, you can pick up your entry for far less. Players will be able to win their $8,700 prize packages online at participating WPN sites, including ACR Poker, BlackChip Poker, True Poker, and Ya Poker.
About The Cage
The Cage Live is a kind of hybrid between a cash game and a tournament. In The Cage, participants start with a certain number of chips, and they compete with rising blind levels and the ability to be knocked entirely out of the game if they lose all their chips. In these respects, The Cage is similar to other multi-table freezeout contests.
However, the prize distribution is very different. Instead of playing down to a single winner, the tournament ends after a certain amount of time has elapsed. When the action ends, all remaining players have their stacks exchanged for real money payouts with each chip being worth a stated amount of dollars.
Cage Live Qualifiers
There are two satellites available for you to try to embark on your Cage Live journey. The first is on Sunday, March 3 at 6:05 PM ET. The second is on Sunday, March 10 at 6:05 p.m. ET. Each of them costs $95 to enter, and both qualifiers will distribute 10 packages apiece guaranteed.
There are other ways to gain entry besides paying the $95 sticker price. Perhaps the easiest is by placing highly in The Beast or Sit & Crush leaderboards, which will reward you not only with a cash prize but also a $95 seat in the Live Cage satellite. There will also be freerolls and $11 Super Satellites running.
Prize Packages
Each of the 20 qualifiers will receive a prize package valued at $8,700 consisting of:
- $5,250-buyin Cage Live entry
- $800 for airfare and $1,000 in spending money
- $400 for cash games presented to the player in Costa Rica
- Five nights' accommodations (April 2 – 7) for two at the Sheraton Hotel in San Jose
- Complimentary breakfast
- Transportation to and from the airport
- Player dinner on April 2
Each Cage Live package must be used for an appropriate event in Costa Rica. Should a player win a package and then not wish to attend, that individual will forfeit his or her prize. All wins from the Cage Live will be placed in the winner's WPN account. People who win multiple Cage packages will only receive the spending money for one at a time. The remaining spending money will be distributed on that person's subsequent visits to Costa Rica.
Cage Live Schedule and Structure
Though the Cage Live doesn't start until April 3, the festivities commence a day earlier with a player dinner on Tuesday, April 2 where participants will get the chance to meet and greet WPN staff and ACR pros. Assuming they survive this ordeal and wake up at a reasonable hour the following morning on Wednesday, April 3, they will be able to participate in Day 1 of the Cage Live. However, the following two calendar days will also see Day 1 flights, so entrants will be able to choose to join the tourney on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
Day 1 Details
Each Day 1 starts at 11 a.m. and consists of three blind levels of three hours each. There's a 15-minute break between blind levels and also after one-and-a-half hours of play within each level. This leads to a finishing time of 9:15 p.m.
Each player starts with a stack of 5,000 chips. The first blind level is $15/$30 followed by $25/$50. The third and final round will see participants post $40 and $80 blinds. In addition to the blinds, there's an ante, which is paid every hand for the entire table by person in the big blind.
It's actually possible to play multiple Day 1s, and a player's individual finishing stacks for each of them will be combined into one Day 2 stack. To facilitate this possibility, there will be $400 + $40 live satellites on Wednesday, April 3 and Thursday, April 4 at 8:00 p.m. allowing the victors to secure their buyins for the next day's starting flight.
Day 2 Details
All the survivors from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be combined into a single field for Day 2 of play on Saturday, April 6. Again, there will be three three-hour blind levels with a 15-minute break in the middle of and between each level. The blinds start at $50/$100, continue through $75/$150, and end the day at $100/$200.
As we've previously mentioned, the payout structure in the Cage Live is vastly different from a traditional tournament. Everyone who is eliminated has lost everything and will receive no compensation.
But all players who still have chips remaining at 9:15 p.m. on Day 2, when the tourney ends, will receive a payout equal to the number of chips in their stacks.
San Jose Sheraton Information
Located in the Escazú suburb, the Sheraton is about 6 miles away from San Jose itself, but there are plenty of shops and restaurants within walking distance. The Sheraton is home to several bars and a restaurant named Curu that serves up international dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There's a 24/7 fitness center and an outdoor heated pool that's open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The Sheraton San Jose and Adjacent Grand Casino EscazúThe Grand Casino Escazú is right next door. With 25 poker tables, it's the largest cardroom in Costa Rica. The rest of the casino contains hundreds of slot machines and close to two dozen casino table games, like Pai Gow and Blackjack.
When it's not occupied with hosting special events, like the Cage Live, the poker room spreads low-limit Texas Hold'em and PLO cash games. As part of your Costa Rica Cage Live package, you'll receive $400 to play at these tables.
The Live Cage History
The Live Cage was preceded by the online Cage, a special combination tournament/cash game that first debuted on the Winning Poker Network on Oct. 8, 2014. The inaugural Cage was a big success with 66 participants of whom 39 finished in the money. The $1,000 + $50 buyin Cage soon became a fixture on the WPN weekly schedule every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. ET and even spawned a lower-stakes clone called the PlayPen that cost just $10 + $0.50 to join. However, all online versions of The Cage have since been discontinued.
The first Live Cage took place in March 2018 at the Taormina Hotel Casino in San Jose, Costa Rica. It saw 21 competitors attend with the big winner being Stanley Lee who managed to grow his 5,000 stack to 19,875 by the end of the tournament and thus secure a prize in USD equal to this number.
Four more Cage Live tournaments took place in 2018: in May, July, September, and December. We here at ProfessionalRakeback were in fact fortunate enough to attend the December 2018 Live Cage, and you can read our write-up of the event. Six Cages look place live in Costa Rica in 2019, but the year 2020 saw just a single Cage Live occur in January before the promotion was suspended to due COVID-19.
We saw no more Cage Lives take place in 2021 or 2022 either, but in 2023, the resumption of the Live Cage was announced for August at a new venue: the Sheraton Hotel and adjacent Grand Casino Escazú. 30 players wound up making the money with Elliot Peterman at the forefront finishing the event with $54,985.
Win Your Live Cage Package Today
Log into your Winning Poker Network site of choice today to attempt to score your Live Cage poker getaway. If you've yet to create an account, then we advise you to do so without delay. We highly recommend ACR Poker because it grants new players a 100% up to $2,000 first deposit bonus (20% rakeback clearance rate), and you can get a $10 no deposit bonus with our exclusive ACR bonus code PRB10FREE. Find out all about these offers in our comprehensive ACR Poker review. Then when you're ready to create an account, click on the button below:
The other network sites have identical welcome bonuses, but they don't provide the no deposit free cash. You can learn about them with our dedicated pages: BlackChip Poker review, True Poker review, Ya Poker review (non-US).