Million Dollar Sundays to Undergo Big Changes

MDS $500K GTDThe Winning Poker Network has announced that its Million Dollar Sunday events are to undergo big changes to avoid the massive overlays seen in recent weeks.

Last Sunday, the third of the Winning Poker Network´s five fall Million Dollar Sundays produced yet another massive overlay. Moving the start time back two hours to 5:00pm only generated an extra 121 players from the previous week´s event, meaning that there was an overlay of $137,000 before fees were taken into account. The loss to the network was $69,040 after fees were taken into account.

Acknowledging that this situation cannot continue, the Winning Poker Network has announced that its remaining two Million Dollar Sundays will be split into four events, each carrying a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool, with the additional two events being played on Sundays 1st November and 8th November. The buy-in will also be split in two, down from $540.00 to $270.00.

The Implications of the Changes

The primary implication of the changes is that the buy-in should be more affordable to players who buy-in directly, creating a bigger field and enabling the network to hit its guarantee. Although sites such as Americas Cardroom and Black Chip Poker will no longer be able to market the event as having a million dollar prize pool, the guaranteed first prize of $100,000 is still as much as the second biggest Sunday feature tournament for USA players pays out in total.

However, whether or not the “half-price” buy-ins for the satellites to the $500,000 guaranteed tournaments also attract bigger fields is open to debate. In recent weeks, the 50 seat and 100 seat Mega-Satellites have also had massive overlays – costing the network around $40,000 each week in addition to the overlay on the target event. Players seeking out significant value in the $500,000 guaranteed events still have the mega-satellite option available.

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Two Chances to Qualify for this Weekend´s Mega-Satellites for Free

In recent weeks, Americas Cardroom has been hosting sub-satellites for visitors to USAFriendlyPokerSites.com which give players the opportunity to get on the qualifying path to the Million Dollar Sundays for free. This week the site will be hosting not one, but two, USA Friendly sub-satellite freeroll tournaments.

Both “USA Friendly 10 Seats MDS” freeroll tournaments take place simultaneously on Saturday 17th October at 12:00 noon (ET), with one feeding into a fifteen seat sub-satellite on Saturday afternoon at 4:45pm (ET) and the other feeding into a fifteen seat Sunday lunchtime sub-satellite at 12:05pm (ET).

Players who finish in the top fifteen places in the sub-satellites will win seats to either Saturday´s 100 seat Mega-Satellite (7:30pm ET) or Sunday´s 150 seat Mega-Satellite (1:30pm) as the image below demonstrates:

USAfriendly Steps Chart

Where to Find the USA Friendly 10 Seats MDS Freeroll Tournaments

The two USA Friendly 10 Seats MDS freeroll tournaments can be found under the “Satellite” tab in the “Tourney” lobby. We found that if you click on the “buy-in” tab so that the satellites are in buy-in order (lowest to highest), our freerolls appear right near the top of the list. The password to enter both freeroll tournaments is the same as in previous weeks – “USAFMillion”.

If you need a little inspiration before entering our freerolls, read here how player “upsenati” got on the qualifying path for the Million Dollar Sundays through a USAFriendlyPokerSites.com freeroll, only to finish in 900th place in the target event. Think you can do better than “upsenati”? If so, play in the USA Friendly 10 Seats MDS freeroll tournaments on Saturday!

Jacqueline Packett
Jacqueline Packett