PokerStars' festival of progressive knock-out tournaments, the Bounty Builder Series, is underway. Despite the fact that it is running during the 2021 World Series Of Poker, the series is doing pretty well.
It seems that while COVID makes travel tough for overseas players, PokerStars international sites are getting their hay as dry as they can.
So far the strategy seems to be working out pretty well for PokerStars. The Bounty Builder series has only been underway for a few days and already the cumulative prize-pool meter has hit $7,832,188 and is still ticking up.
That $7.8 million comes from 143,541 entries (including rebuys) into a total of 39 events so far. That makes for an average turnout of 3,681 per event.
The series itself is more or less what you'd expect. The usual PKO setup is in place.
Half a player's buy-in goes to the prize pool, half goes on their head as a bounty. When Player A wins Player B's bounty, the bounty is also halved. One half goes into Player A's pocket, the other half is added to the bounty on Player A's head.
Progressive knock out, PokerStars style
Like most PokerStars series there is a steady mix of quantity and quality. The whole series sports an advertised 208 events. Events come in sizes ranging from $5.50 to $1,100, so most online bankroll sizes are covered.
Three of these events are labelled the "Main Event." These are:
- the Bounty Builder Series Event #164: $55 No Limit Hold'em [8-Max, Progressive KO, Main Event - Low];
- the Bounty Builder Series Event #165: $530 No Limit Hold'em [8-Max, Progressive KO, Main Event - High];
- and for pot limit Omaha fans, the Bounty Builder Series Event #166: $109 NLHE [6-Max, Progressive KO, Pot Limit Omaha Main Event].
So far the largest event was BBS-04-M : $109 NLHE [8-Max, Sunday Million SE] which garnered a $1,199,200 prize pool. Of that nearly $1.2 million, $90,133 went to first place. This was split between $66,079 in prize money for podium position and $24,054 in bounties collected along the way.
To give the events more of a big city feel, the main events start with 25,000 in chips for the Main Event - Low and 50,000 each for the Main Event - High and PLO Main Event. The relative speeds of the events are, as usual controlled by variable starting blind size and blind level lengths.
PokerStars UK ran ticket giveaways ahead of the series, with tweets saying things like "Ten $11 tickets up for grabs."
The world's borders open in November, and the poker community will starts FX-ing their euros to dollars ahead of the WSOP Main Event. Till then, WSOP envy in places like the UK can only work in favor of the international sites.
Featured image source: Twitter
