Poker Stars Record Tournament

Yesterday, March 11th, 2007, Poker Stars set the record for the biggest online tournament prize pool and field in a non WCOOP event.  Their usual Sunday Million tournament was bumped up to a $1.5 million guarantee, and the players responded well.  In order to cover the guarantee at least 7500 players had to enter.  However, since Poker Stars promoted the tournament so well, and held so many satellites , they easily hit 10,000 players and actually ended up with 10,508 people in the tournament.  This was by far the most players to ever enter a high buy in tournament.

Although the final prize pool of $2,101,600 was massive, it wasn't the biggest online prize pool ever.  The record is actually held by the 2006 WCOOP Main Event, held on Poker Stars, which had a prize pool of $6.275 million.  However, the buy in for that tournament was $2500, much more than the $200 entry amount for the Sunday Million. 

With 10,508 people playing, 1,314 players reached the money.  That is amazing considering that most online tournaments don't even have 1,314 players in them.  Also, the first place prize of $271,106.40 is way more than almost all prize pools of online tournaments.

Since there were so many players in the tournament, the chip stacks became massive.  When the final table finally assembled, 'gambforlife' arrived as the chip leader with over $21 million in chips.  As play continued, the field was thinned to only five players.  These five players came to an agreement to chop the prize pool, and all received at least $100,000 each.

The final results were:

1. ($131,972) Zeddor
2. ($160,950) nickym998
3. ($119,209) gambforlife
4. ($103,142) Othimua
5. ($102,177) francky2011

These five players all made their chop, then played the rest out with $30,000 left to the eventual winner, Zeddor.  Congratulations!