Online Poker Weekend Highlights for 16th-17th March, 2024

Another busy weekend lies ahead for online poker players, with major series taking place at some sites, rake free promotions at one site and tournaments that are vulnerable to overlay on others. In our regular Friday primer, we mark your card for the key events of the weekend and tell you where the biggest overlays are likely to occur.

Running all month, the WSOP Super Circuit is now approaching the half-way point of the series and seven of the gold ring events have been completed. All have so far comfortably exceeded their seven-figure guaranteed prize pools, with second of the series’ phase tournaments reaching $6m! 

This weekend there is just one ring event taking place, which is event #9 on Sunday, the $365 Super Giant No Limit Hold’em with a $1,000,000 guarantee. 

There are also three other events that are phase events, which each have several starting days scheduled over the coming weekend. One of these is the $10m guaranteed main event of the series, with a $525 buy-in.

Much of the regular mtt schedule on GG Poker has been seconded to become the side events for the series. What this means is they have bigger guarantees than usual and benefit from random ticket drops with Road to Vegas satellite tickets for WSOP main event qualification. The Road to Vegas satellites have also started but this is a soft launch as the main focus for the rest of March is the Super Circuit Series. Despite it not being fully up and running (no feeder satellites below $5 have yet been added), the first satellite last Sunday generated 23 packages worth $12,000 each. Once the Road to Vegas is in full swing, the number of seats awarded in Sunday satellites should be much higher, as GG Poker has already announced its intention to deliver 1,000 main event qualifiers this, year, up from the 774 who qualified in 2023.

If you want to participate, but are are yet to register, use the GG Poker bonus code wired to get started with a 100% deposit match worth up to $600.

In last week’s interview with Alex Scott he boldly claimed that WPT Global is not only ‘a top 5 poker site’ but already number three globally. This was not just corporate rhetoric, it is indeed true and this has now been proved, as Pokersitescout has updated its feeds to now show the WPT Global liquidity. 

While the liquidity on WPT Global may be better than many imagined, it is still not enough to get their mtts over the line, as missed guarantees and frequent overlay value has become the hallmark of the site at this stage of its growth plan. After the conclusion of the KO Series at the beginning of the month, WPT Global launched a promotion for March whereby 100% of mtt rake is returned to players via three freerolls with $600,000 guaranteed between them. 

Although participation has increased due to this promotion, many tournaments are still posting significant overlays, with the best value being found in the $110 Crazy Sunday PKO, with a $100,000 assured prize pool. Last week this tournament missed by over $20,000! There are also the escalator tournaments that are designed to overlay, running three times every day and six times on Sundays. WPT Package satellites are also very overlay prone, with three x $12,0400 passport packages guaranteed. 

These are the most likely overlay candidates at WPT Global this weekend:

But its not all about missed guarantees and eating value at WPT Global. They also have a community on Discord and for those who are active on that discussion forum platform, there is an Ambassador tournament every Sunday throughout March and April. It starts at 2.30pm (ET) and costs just $10 to enter, with $2,500 guaranteed. Its not a big money tournament and you won’t become rich by playing it, but you will get the chance to play with some famous players, including Brad Owen, Ethan 'Rampage' Yau, Jon 'apestyles' van Fleet and the one and only Phil Ivey. One of WPT Global’s streamers or global ambassadors competes every week, with a $500 bounty on their head. Last week it was Andrew Neeme who had the target on his back, this week it has not yet been revealed who will be in the hot seat, as that is usually announced on the day of the tournament.

If you are registering for the first time, use WPT Global promo code WIRED to get the poker room's biggest available bonus.

Coinpoker has four high roller tournaments on Sundays, including two big buy-in Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) and two high priced No Limit Hold’em tournaments, named the Falcon, Nemesis, Eclipse and Tycoon. The Eclipse and the Falcon both have ₮1,000 buy-ins, while the Nemesis and Tycoon cost ₮5,000 to enter. 

The site also has more reasonably priced Sunday specials as well as the nosebleed action.

The Coin Poker promo code MAXBET is available for new customers to use to get a  cash match offer of up to USDT 1100.

Although the 10th Anniversary series has now ended, the Anniversary €100,000 guaranteed phase tournament is still in progress, with day 1s continuing until Sunday, when phase 2 takes place and the tournament plays out to a finish. There is potentially a five-figure overlay waiting to happen, as the event has been running about 10% behind the run-rate it needs to avoid an overlay. The site has of course stepped up its last minute marketing of the event and the final phase 1s are likely to be busier than usual, however it is still a prime candidate for posting a significant overlay, of up to €10,000.

New players registering for Unibet Poker benefit from a no-deposit required bonus valued at €20, which includes €10 in tournament tickets and €10 in cash game tickets. Players who make a real money deposit receive €200 in bonus, which is released gradually when playing requirements are met. New accounts have 60 days from sign up to clear the bonus. To read more about this offer, check out our review of Unibet Poker.

The Bounty Hunter Series that runs all month continues this weekend on Grosvenor Poker and other iPoker network sites. iTournaments are scheduled with three different tiers for each event: high, medium and low. The biggest events take place at the weekend and this weekend’s highlight is Sunday’s €50 Eliminator XL, with a €70,000 guarantee, which is an increase of $15,000 on the guarantee of the same tournament last weekend. 

Some adjustments have been made to guarantees for this weekend’s Sunday Majors on PokerStars. As reported on PokerWired earlier this week, several of the early starting Sunday special mtts missed their guarantees last weekend, while several of the late starting ones over performed and smashed their guarantees. As the tournament team at PokerStars plays an active role in managing tournament guarantees, it comes as no surprise that there have been some adjustments ahead of this week’s offering.

Three of the five tournaments that missed their guarantees last Sunday have had reductions applied to his week’s versions, while two of them have remained the same. There have also been some guarantee increases for some of the later starting tournaments which performed well last week. 

The reductions in the guarantees of the Mini Sunday Starter, Sunday Kickoff and Mini Sunday Kickoff are likely to have minimised the risk of there being further overlays in these tournaments this weekend. However the Sunday Marathon and Sunday StackOsaurus could still be vulnerable to overlay, as they have the same guarantees as last week and both missed by a considerable amount.

The increases in guarantees for the later tournaments should all be reachable, but if there is any weekly decline in participation, overlays could come into play. However, the overlays that were seen last week on PokerStars were an exception rather than a rule and it is highly likely that usual business will be resumed on PokerStars this Sunday and that all tournaments will meet their guarantees.