The PokerStars New Year Series (NYS) has been running on the site’s global .COM platform since December 22, and is building to a climax with three Main Events kicking off this Sunday.
Per the traditions of some of PokerStars’s biggest tournament series – such as the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) – events in the NYS come with a choice of three buy-ins, and the Main Events are no different. Buy-ins of $109, $1,050 and $5,200 are available, with at least $1,000,000 guaranteed in each of the three tournaments.
But outlasting a big field isn’t the only way to score big with the NYS this weekend, thanks to the presence of an enormous $100K mystery bounty prize in the $109 Main Event.
It’s not every day you get the chance to win around 1,000x your buy-in for eliminating a single player, but this Sunday is one of those days.
Each Main Event starts at 5:30pm GMT, with the $109 version running as a mystery bounty, the $1,050 as a progressive KO, and the $5,200 with a slow structure. Re-entry is available in each of the two-day events.
Lex Veldhuis among the series winners so far
Dutch streamer extraordinaire, long-serving PokerStars ambassador and member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board Lex Veldhuis has been playing the NYS from New Zealand, and managed to pick up his first mixed game title in the $215 5-Card Draw event on January 5.
“I’ve discarded 5-card draw for so long because it felt like the silly game we all played way back in the day,” Lex shared with his followers after the win, “But there are so many NLHoldem concepts you can apply and it’s just awesome. Helps winning one!”
Lex Veldhuis won his first WCOOP title just last September.
5-Card Draw has been out of fashion for a while, and so Veldhuis’ win – for a comparably modest score of $3,426 – came in a field of just 41 entries. But bigger fields, and considerably bigger prizes, are expected in two phased tournaments which are scheduled to play out on January 13.
Phase 1 flights are running daily at the $5.50 and $55 price points, which will feed into the January 13 phase 2 finales, awarding guaranteed prize pools of at least $250K and $1M respectively.
For full details of the remaining events, players in eligible regions should check the ‘New Year Series’ tab in the PokerStars lobby or search ‘PokerStars New Year Series’.
Additional image courtesy of Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd