Powerfest is one of the biggest online tournament series on the internet. This event is held exclusively on the poker site, Partypoker. The poker site Partypoker was launched in 2001 during the birth of online poker 17 years ago.
In the most recent Powerfest event in 2018, a huge $60 million guarantee across all tournaments was promised! What this means is that no matter how many entrants there are for this tournament series Partypoker promises to payout at least $60 million in cash prizes. Hypothetically if 100 people entered this tournament series, $60 million would be up for grabs between these 100 players! These big guarantees are promised to attract more and more players and are strategically calculated so that the poker site or organisation hosting the event will not lose out on any amount of money.
There have been 8 Powerfest tournaments that have happened on Partypoker so far. With their most recent one, Powerfest 8 being the biggest one. The next Powerfest event has been announced to begin at the 24th of March 2019. The guarantee for this one is only 30 million, which is a bit of a surprise as the last one was twice as big. It could be they don't want to promise such a huge amount in case not enough people register for their tournaments. Party poker may fear overlays this next Powerfest, titled Powerfest IX. An overlay means when an organisation promises to pay out a certain amount and not enough people register, then the organisation must pay out of their own pocket to meet the guarantee. This is actually great for the players as they're playing a fewer amount of people, for the same amount of money. This means everyone now has a greater chance of earning more money! However losing money is not a good business strategy for an organisation or company!
How to Enter Powerfest?
This event is exclusively held on Partypoker and you may only enter by downloading their software on your computer, phone or tablet and register an account. Once you register an account you must then deposit some money into your Partypoker wallet, which is very easy to do and they have just about every payment method under the sun to accommodate people from across the globe. You can also win money from special free-rolls that they run daily. A free-roll is a free tournament where they will give away small cash prizes to the top winners.
After you finally have some money on your online wallet you may now enter a tournament of your choosing. During the latest Powerfest event there was 670 tournaments to enter and choose from! The vast majority of these events are Texas Hold'Em events but there are countless different buy-ins and styles of Hold'Em including fast paced tournaments and 6-max events.
Powerfest has tournaments for players of all sorts of bankrolls and budgets. The tournament entry fees range from around 5 dollars all the way up to the super high roller events at 25,500 dollars.
There are also various satellite events that run on Partypoker sites. A satellite is similar to a mini tournament. If you win a satellite tournament or come in a high enough place, you will win a ticket to a much larger tournament. This is usually done by players who would like to enter the bigger and more thrilling tournaments, but don't want to pay the enormous entrance fee. A satellite is an ideal solution to include players of all budgets to be able to enter these bigger tournaments.
How much you can win?
The answer to this will depend on a lot of different factors. You could win millions or walk away empty handed! You will need to first decide what kind of tournaments you would like to play. You will also need to decide how much you are willing to lose and be okay with it. How many tournaments would you like to play?
Tournaments are very difficult to win. The amount of people entering a tournament will also factor into the likelihood of winning a tournament, as well as how much money is up for grabs. If you enter into a tournament that has thousands and thousands of entries, this is going to be very difficult to battle it out and beat everyone else. However you do not need to win a tournament to win money. Depending on the tournament structure and how many entrants, the tournament will be adjusted to pay out the top portion of players. Usually this payout will be something more than the initial buy-in of the tournament. This will usually range from the top 10-20% of entrants of a tournament will receive a cash payout. Tournament structures and payouts can vary greatly tournament to tournament even across the same series.
If you enter a tournament that has a high dollar buy-in the amount of players willing to enter this tournament will be much lower than say a low buy-in tournament. This is because there are fewer people that have the money or desire to be okay with losing a large amount of money in an online poker tournament. The fewer amount of players in a tournament will mean you have a higher chance of winning the tournament. Be aware that the high buy-in tournaments will usually have some of the best online poker tournament players in the world who are very experienced in all types of tournaments and structures.
What type of formats of poker will be hosted at the Powerfest event?
The formats hosted in Powerfest tournament series will be predominantly No Limit Hold'Em. No limit Hold'Em in this point of time and for the foreseeable future is the most popular format of poker. Because of its popularity both live and online tournament series will be predominantly No Limit Hold'Em. The second most popular poker format is Pot limit Omaha and there will be a number of Pot Limit Omaha events too. Some other formats like Pot Limit Omaha 8 and a few various other formats will have a few tournaments at some point throughout the series. 6-max style and various progress knockout and bounty tournaments will also be available through this tournament series.
Players that have won big in past Powerfest events
What's great about online poker tournaments is that most players are somewhat anonymous. Although some players' online aliases are better known, like the face of Partypoker Sam Trickett, who has been around the poker world for a very long time. In a poker tournament, anything can happen. What happens quite frequently is some completely unknown players that have never been seen before enters a tournament and takes down 1st place and no one knows anything about them!
In the POWERFEST #142-SHR: $1M Gtd Championship Event that took place on September 23rd 2018,
the buy-in was $5,200 and this was one of the main championship events. The person who took down the main event was a well known player by the name of Sami Kelopuro and won $317,190 dollars. The other players at the table were not as well known and won between 30k-228k.
Popularity of Powerfest
Powerfest is one of the biggest online tournament series on the planet. The only other tournament series that is bigger in terms of entrants and guaranteed prize pools is Pokerstar's World Championship of Online Poker. What's interesting about the latest Powerfest and WCOOP in 2018 is that they both ran alongside each other. It is unclear the reasoning behind running the events at the same time. Some theories are that they believe if people are playing in some events in the WCOOP and know about the Powerfest they are likely to play in both. Some players are also superstitious and if they were to lose a few events in Pokerstar's WCOOP they might decide to try out Partypoker Powerfest event. A more well sounding theory is that Partypoker has grown in terms of traffic and players considerably this year and is trying to compete with the current number 1 poker site, Pokerstars. Partypoker offers much more in terms of rakeback and bonuses than Pokerstars currently offers. Pokerstars has continued to cut rakeback and bonuses ever since they were taken over by Amaya gaming. Partypoker has a real shot to become the number poker site, but when you are competing against a company that has been number 1 for so long, it may take a lot of time and effort to do so.
Concluding thoughts about Powerfest
Powerfest is a great poker tournament series that poker players from around the world look forward to each time it runs. It is a great way to get your tournament addiction fully satisfied! If you've never played in a tournament series this is a great one to get started with. With the amount of different buy-ins and different tournament structures available Powerfest offers something for everyone. Want to take down one of the big ones? Plenty of satellite tournaments running on Partypoker all the time making it easy for you to have a chance at entering a big on and maybe even running deep and taking it down!
