Weekend Tournament Roundup: Full Tilt and PokerStars Dish out WSOP Seats

In the final push to send players to the 2008 World Series of Poker, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars held massive WSOP seat giveaway tournaments in lieu of their marquee Sunday events. As a result, 375 new faces are headed to the Amazon Room at the Rio for the 2008 WSOP Main Event on July 3rd. Besides the PokerStars Sunday Million and the Full Tilt $750K Guarantee, the other Sunday major tournaments went on as planned. Let’s review the action from the major tournaments this weekend, which included Father’s Day for U.S. residents.

On PokerStars, the WSOP Main Event satellite tournament shelled out 226 World Series of Poker packages, each valued at $12,500. The $370 buy-in tournament attracted 8,076 entrants. Remember that Chris Moneymaker started the poker boom by winning a satellite into the 2003 WSOP Main Event and parlaying that into a $2.5 million payday. On Full Tilt Poker, 150 poker hopefuls are headed to Las Vegas after winning $12,000 packages. There were 3,385 entrants total in the $535 buy-in tournament. Those 150 players will hope to follow in the footsteps of Full Tilt Poker pros Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, and Erick Lindgren, who just won his first WSOP bracelet.

On Bodog, the $100K Guaranteed sported an overlay, as usual. The typical overlay, or different between a tournament’s guarantee and actual prize pool, in the Bodog $100K is between $20,000 and $30,000. On Sunday, the tournament boasted a whopping $38,000 overlay, due in large part to the seat giveaways going on at Full Tilt and PokerStars. Despite the 621 player field, wolf8476 still took home a nice payday of $23,600 for his $109 buy-in. HB_HITMAN finished second for $13,600. Rounding out the top five finishers were FLA_HAWKEYE, pkb6786, and ismkjays420. The top 90 finishers took home cash.

The Party Poker $300K Guaranteed once again had an overlay this week. There were 1,417 entrants, each of whom coughed up $200+$15 to enter, which meant that the tournament had a $17,000 overlay. The top 150 finishers were in the money, led by ganjasx, who took it down. Rounding out the top five finishers in the PartyPoker $300K were thegumboss, BRUNZI99, no_IQ, and sharam_nuts.

While Full Tilt Poker didn’t offer its $750K Guarantee, the online poker site held its weekly $250K Guaranteed Sunday Brawl. It’s a $240+$16 knockout tournament, where $200 of your buy-in goes to the prize pool and $40 is placed on your head as a bounty. With 1,498 entrants this past week, it means that $60,000 in bounties was up for grabs. When the smoke cleared in this weekend’s Sunday Brawl, PokerPete0815 finished in first and took home $64,414. Coming in second and cashing for $40,746 was draizen. lamZEN became IamThirdPlace, cashing for a healthy $30,260. The top six finishers pocketed at least five figures. The $299,600 prize pool was divided among the top 162 finishers.

Full Tilt Poker also offered its weekly $150K Guaranteed Sunday Mulligan tournament. The tournament once again crushed its guarantee, attracting 1,182 entrants at $200+$16 each. BlackJackLeak had one of the largest cashes of the weekend, taking home $53,190 for the win. FinnishNightmre finished in second for $33,687 and RI_classic took home third place for $24,940. The top six finishers pocketed over $10,000 and the top 108 finalists made the money. The Sunday Mulligan starts shortly after the kick-off of the $750K Guarantee and is meant to give players who bust out of the site’s largest tournament another high-stakes event to play in.

The largest tournament offered this past weekend was the PokerStars $500K Guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up. There were a healthy 3,180 entrants this weekend and, in the end, ThePokerBody blazed through this gigantic field en route to a $93,810 payday. ROONEY_DIVES dove to a second place finish, which was worth $66,780. In what could be the strangest screen name I’ve ever seen on any online poker site, 5902838181 finished in third place for $47,064. MAX13, ely_cash41, dont77, alax77, and UwouldntKnow each took home more than $10,000.

In the PokerStars Second Chance, a weekly $200K Guaranteed tournament, REALBIGNUTS finished first and took home $46,240. He defeated Glacier11568 heads up, who walked away with a $33,904 consolation prize. Finishing third out of the 1,304 entrants was ael1979, who cashed for $26,080. Morteler, icallseat3, and Johnster each cashed for five-figures. The tournament’s prize pool was $260,800 and the top 198 spots paid out. Like the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Mulligan, the Second Chance starts just a short time after the Sunday Million.

Finally, on UltimateBet, the $200K Guaranteed once again sported an overlay. The overlay has seemed to increase each week, but that just means more value for the players involved. This past week, the field numbered 824 entrants at $200+$15 each, meaning the overlay amounted to $35,000. One person who didn’t complain about the smaller field was BKqzbxt, who cashed for $45,000 and first place. Taking home $27,000 was familyman1962 for second place and rkruok finished in third for $18,500. The top 90 slots paid out.