Overlays at Many Poker Sites on Second Weekend of March

Some weekends online poker bites-off more than it can chew. Yes there is a poker boom and yes players are venturing onto the real life and online felt in numbers seemingly greater than the great annual Wildebeest migration, but some weekends even this isn’t enough to meet the ambitious guarantees being posted by operators across the industry.

Several online poker sites posted overlays in multiple events over the weekend of March 9-10, 2024. The most overlay prone site was WPT Global and while it may not be a surprise that this site followed its usual modus operandi, missed guarantees at PokerStars were more eyebrow raising. 

The Unibet Anniversary Series had its final weekend also, with two missed guarantees from its three tiered buy-in main events.

The WSOP Super Circuit Series on GG Poker continued to be the largest online series across all sites at the weekend. With just a few ring events per week, the demand to play in this series is high and may be drawing players away from other sites. 

While this Sunday’s ring events were high buy-in affairs, some other key regular Sunday tournaments have been converted into WSOP Super Circuit side events, with the added carrot of free ticket drops in all of them. 

The most significant regular tournament to be converted to a side event is the $54 Bounty Hunter, which carried a $1m guarantee this weekend, double its usual. The series is going well, guarantees are being easily met and in most cases surpassed by 10-15%, but its success may be affecting the performance of mtts on other sites, most notably PokerStars.

The WSOP Super Circuit continues on GG Poker until April 1st, with a further three ring events taking place this week. 

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.

With the KO Series now over, the regular weekly schedule is the main focus once again and WPT Global have a promotion running throughout March to help boost participation. 

This promotion sees 100% of mtt fees being returned to players via three big freerolls, with players required to play specific numbers of tournaments to gain entry. These freerolls have a combined minimum guarantees of $600,000. 

Early signs are promising for WPT, with week-on-week participation in key events jumping significantly. 

Overlays were still posted in the main Sunday evening tournaments, however, they were far smaller overlays than there have been in recent weekends. 

There was one tournament however which massively overlaid. This was the Crazy Sunday PKO, a $110 buy-in tournament with a $100,000 guarantee. The reason this one struggles so much is because it is an early starter, aimed at players in Asia, as it tees off at 8.30 am (Irish time). This week it posted a $21,600 overlay and is one for early rising value hunters to keep their eye on next weekend.

The Unibet 10th Anniversary Series is drawing to a close. The main events that started on Sunday 9th are all 2-day tournaments and will be completed on Monday 11th, with a few series side events to keep them company as the curtain closes on the two-week long festival. 

The series began with overlays in the kick off events, but participation picked up in the week that followed and the events on the middle weekend all faired reasonably well, with only a scattering of peppercorn overlays. 

However the last few days of the festival were a struggle, with many of the weekend’s tournaments on Unibet Poker missing their targets. Four of the key Sunday events posted overlays, but none of them were huge.

While the 10th Anniversary Series may now be concluding, the anniversary celebrations continue on Unibet as the €100,000 Phase tournament with a €10 buy-in does not reach phase 2 (the final day) until next Sunday, 17th March. 

Prior to this weekend, the tournament was running 10% behind the pace it needs to be to hit its guarantee. Unless there’s a significant increase in participation this week, an overlay of between €5,000-€10,000 looks likely.

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 performance of PokerStars’ extensive Sunday schedule was somewhat baffling on March 10th. All the early starting Sunday specials missed their guarantees with a sharp week-on-week drop in participation. 

The Majors however, all easily surpassed their guarantees, increasing their week-on week participation. Later on in the evening, almost all of the late starting Sunday specials smashed their guarantees, posting big increases on the previous weekend. 

So what caused this? Possibly It was due to the $54 buy-in $1m guaranteed WSOP Super Circuit bounty hunters side event on GG Poker, which clashed with the overlaying tournaments on PokerStars.

PokerStars are usually experts at setting their guarantees and actively manage them on a week-by-week basis, which means that widespread overlays such as those that occurred over the weekend are few and far between. Its likely that the issue will have been resolved by next weekend, so value hunters should temper their expectation for a repeat.