A new tournament format is in the pipeline at GGPoker this month, targeting MTT players who like to keep one eye on the soccer.
Dubbed ‘Pick & Go’, these tourneys will reward both poker skill and sporting nous, with all players tasked with predicting the winner of a specific sporting event - such as a match in the 2024 European Championship in Germany - at the point of registration.
Each Pick & Go tournament will run at the same time as the match itself. When one team loses, all the players who backed that team will be automatically eliminated from the tournament - no matter the size of their chip stack.
Unless the match ends in a draw - in which case all players will continue - only players who pick the winning team when they register will be able to play on and win the poker tournament.
Variable buy-ins to balance the odds
To address the issue of mismatches - canny players might always bet the favorite to increase their winning chances in the poker tourney - buy-ins will be priced accordingly, with those backing the underdogs paying less to enter the tournament. A standard entry of $10 will be discounted to various degrees, depending on the live match odds for each team.
These added wrinkles provide a genuinely novel aspect to online poker tournaments, and players with enough sporting knowledge to pick a winner will be rewarded with extra value as the field gets dramatically reduced at the stroke of full-time.
What’s more, backing a long shot to win will not only make the tourney cheaper to play, but will likely see the field reduced even more should your pick win the match. And with a smaller field, naturally, comes a better chance of success.
Pick & Go tournaments are expected to run alongside many matches during Euro ‘24, with the one scheduled for the first match on June 14 when hosts Germany face Scotland at 9pm CEST.
Click here for more details on GGPoker Pick & Go tourneys.,
Pitch image courtesy of Timothy Tan/Unsplash
