The 19th anniversary of PokerStars’ flagship weekly tournament, the Sunday Million, commenced yesterday with at least $6M up for grabs.
As is customary, the anniversary edition brings with it an increased guaranteed prize pool and a higher buy-in — $215 compared to the now-standard $109 — but it also comes with an expanded format. The high volume of players looking to win life-changing money from the comfort of their homes, or wherever they choose to play, means this version of the Sunday Million takes place across three days.
Day 1 ran from 1:05pm ET on Sunday and came to an end after 18 x 20-minute levels. Day 2 begins at the same time today and will play through to the end of level 50, though all but one of those levels will be just 15 minutes long; the opening level of the day will run to 30 minutes, with late registration available to the end of the level.
The final day’s play takes place on Tuesday, April 8 from 1:05pm ET.
The event in numbers
With late registration still open until half an hour into Day 2, these numbers are correct at the time of writing but will have changed — possibly significantly — by the time registration closes.
24,125 entries (including 7,145 re-entries — players may re-enter up to five times) have so far contributed $4,825,000 to the prize pool, which is guaranteed to be at least $6M. The tournament, then, currently has an overlay of over a million dollars, though with so long still left to register everything could change, and almost certainly will.
Another 5,875 entries are required to hit the magic number of 30,000 and cover that overlay.
Any entries between now and the end of late registration will start with a stack of 20,000, good for just over 11 big blinds in the first level of Day 2 (900/1800 with an ante of 225). Those who max late-reg at the very end of level 19 with have 10 big blinds, with blind levels of 1K/2K (and an ante of 150) in level 20.
That large Day 1 field has thinned out significantly, with 4,504 players still in the hunt at the time of writing. Of those, 3,375 will make the money, a min-cash being worth $485.40.
The top prize at the moment is $612,681, though this amount is provisional as more entries over the next seven hours will affect everything, from the number of payouts to the min-cash to the top prize.
Lococo leads the patched PokerStars pack
The current leader in the Sunday Million Anniversary, heading into Day 2, is ‘Pokerinfadel’ of the UK, with 626K chips, close to 350bbs. They’re one of only two players with stacks over the 600K mark.
A quick search shows their average tournament is closer to the $7 buy-in level than the Sunday Million. With so many entries dished out recently by PokerStars in promotions, Spin & Go qualifiers and satellites, signs seem to indicate they may have got here via the cheap streets.
Of the thousands of other players still chasing the title, the big money and the trophy, one who is more likely to have paid for their seat in full (assuming ambassadors do that kind of thing) is the highest ranking PokerStars ambassador still in the field: Alejandro ‘Papo MC’ Lococo.
Lococo won some new fans — along with $12M — when he triumphed in the Triton Million event at WSOP Paradise in December. That $500K buy-in event had a total of 96 entries, many thousands fewer than Lococo faces now, but featured many of the best names in the game. Lococo currently sits in 88th position with a stack of 325K.
All figures above are correct at time of writing.
Late registration for the Sunday Million Anniversary at PokerStars - available to players in the site's global markets - ends at 1:35pm ET on Monday, April 7.
