by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 21, 2023 | Updated on Mar 21, 2023
888poker is currently running The Festival Online, a three-week tournament series that got underway on March 19 and will run till April 13.
The festival is now in its second year and 888poker is hoping to see another successful edition after the inaugural series in 2022 smashed all guarantees.
This year, the operator increased the number of events to 30, with $1 million in combined guarantees on offer.
Festival Online – Highlights
The Festival Online 2023 offers a diverse schedule of events, with different formats to choose from and buy-ins ranging from $11 to $525.
The main highlight of the festival is the $215 buy-in Main Event which comes with $200,000 in guaranteed prize money. Players can enter the poker tournament via multiple Day 1 flights running from April 6-10. Day 1 survivors battle it out on Day 2 on April 10 until a final table is reached. The remaining players meet again one last time during a live-streamed finale on April 11.
The schedule also includes the increasingly popular Mystery Bounty format. The first Mystery Bounty event on the schedule, a $109 buy-in, $100K GTD tournament, already played out on the opening day. If you missed that, there are still a couple of Mystery Bounties that you can take a shot at – the $55 buy-in, $20K GTD Mystery Bounty 8-max on March 21, and the $22 buy-in, $25K GTD Mini Mystery Bounty Closing on April 9.
Another key event on the line-up is the Texas PKO which costs $160 to enter and features $150,000 in guarantees. The tournament is the second-largest guaranteed tournament on the schedule and takes place from March 23-28. There’s also a $22 buy-in, $10K GTD Texas Low Roller on March 30, and a $109 buy-in, $100K GTD Sunday Big Shot on April 2.
Looking Forward to Another Successful Series
888poker launched The Festival Online in July 2022. The inaugural series featured 21 events with more than $700K in guaranteed prizes. In the end, all events managed to meet or exceed their guarantees, as the entire festival pulled in nearly 7,000 in total entries.
With $820,000 in total prizes awarded, the series surpassed its guarantee by nearly 15%, and it won’t be surprising if the 2023 edition of the series would be as successful. This year’s series may even surpass the performance of the inaugural event given the addition of new formats like Mystery Bounty.
