The Festival Online Recap: Two Weeks of Fun at the Online Poker tables of 888poker!
The Festival Online is a concept which came, of course, is linked to the live equivalent The Festival Series, and also for this series we were very excited to see who would come out on top of the events. Poker is not all about money, the fun factor of it all, and enjoying your time at the tables are very important aspects of the game. At The Festival Online, Powered by 888poker and PokerListings, 53 events were on the schedule in the past two weeks. And with more than a staggering $888.888 in guaranteed prize pools across the events, there would be for any type of poker player something to take. Let’s go through some of the greatest moments of these Series, and see who became the Main Event Champion!
Opening Events: The festival began with a bang, featuring a range of buy-ins starting from as low as $22 to as high as $525. A highlight was the $109 event, with a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000, where 'ZeiKo' from Lithuania emerged as the victorious Champion, claiming an impressive prize of nearly $15,000. The High Roller edition of the Opening event, with a buy-in of $525, showcased 'altavistt' taking down the event, who displayed remarkable poker skills and took home a well-deserved reward of $8,400.
Progressive Knock-Out Multi-Day Event: Intense Battles and Big Wins One of the most sought-after tournament formats during The Festival Online was the PKO Multiple-Day Event, featuring a $150,000 guarantee and a $160 buy-in, not bad at all! We love knock-out tournaments just like any other poker fanatic, and with a buy-in of just $160, with many satellites all over, it is accessible for any type of player. Ultimately, 'ShashOs21' from Cyprus emerged as the Champion, claiming a jaw-dropping prize of over $32,000!
Exciting Smaller Events: A Platform for to truly Excel: When you look at the schedule of all the events, you can see that many events had a buy-in of $22, with most of them being Mystery Bounty events. We believe that this type of buy-in is so good, and it resulted in massive wins all over the place! But also for mid- and higher stakes, it was greatly received by all the 888poker players, that we can look back on some of the greatest events in The Festival Online history!
Ambassador Ian 'Simpioni' Simpson Shines in Event #11: Ian Simpson, Ambassador of 888poker, from the UK. During our Festival Series live event in Nottingham, he also joined the action at the poker tables, but obviously, his territory is mainly the online felt. With him winning event #11, we couldn’t wish for a better winner! And he did it in style, by qualifying for the event through one of the many satellites. Bagging $4,695 for the win is just a very decent score to add to his resume!
Canadian 'Legitnit' Triumphs in Event #26 and Makes Deep Run in Main Event: In another captivating tale, 'LegitNit' from Canada conquered event #26, a $22 buy-in Mystery Bounty event, taking home $2,449.83. Additionally, 'LegitNit' also secured a spot on Day 3 of The Festival Online Main Event, where he eventually would finish in 3rd place after being coolered twice! To bag a $22K score, doesn’t sound too bad, right? At the final table, he turned himself into a hero as there was an incredible situation going on which would eventually turn to his side.
‘’With 7 players remaining, the shortest stack went allmost allin with an open to 2 big blinds from early position, and he got isolated by the small blind who played 16 big blinds. ‘LegitNit’ was in the big blind and went into the tank, before making an incredible call with [Ax][9x]! The commentators went crazy when they saw the call, being broadcasted on the official 888poker Twitch channel. Especially as there was another short stack at the table, so in terms of ICM, it was a very brave action of the Canadian.
Luckily for ‘legitnit’, he was up against [Kx][Jx] and [Kx][Qx], and with an Ace on the flop. With this pot going to the Canadian, he was ready to fight for the title, being a good stack at the final stage of the tournament. ‘’
Brazilian Samba Topping Country Leaderboard: Brazil captured a stunning 13 event victories throughout the series, winning the country leaderboard by a mile! The Brazilian player 'vireadulta7' had a dream run, clinching victory in two consecutive events: the Mystery Bounty Finale High Roller and the Afterparty HR Mini, for a total of $17,670. Such back-to-back wins are rare in the poker world, making this achievement all the more exceptional. In the Main Event, it was ‘Luiz1958’ taking the Silver Medal for $30,131.51!
Main Event: The Grand Finale:
The event we all have been waiting for, was the Main Event with a guaranteed prize pool of $ 200,000. With many starting flights, a buy-in of just $250, and different formats of the starting flights, players from all over the world could choose their favourite moment of trying to qualify themselves for the 2nd day of the event. Surely, every player goes for gold in such a tournament, and to have the final table on the last day being streamed on Twitch would give even an extra dimension to a fine result of reaching that final table.
A total of 856 entries would be made throughout the starting flights, of which 160 of them, were re-buys. The guaranteed prize pool of $ 200,000 would not be reached, meaning an overlay of roughly $11K would be a nice cherry on the cake.
‘GoodStoryDMG’ took care of the first victim of the final table, busting the already short-stacked ‘AUTISPOSTI’ in 8th place when he had spiked the river to secure the elimination. It would mean the beginning of an excellent run for ‘GoodStoryDMG’ because throughout the whole final table, he never got into trouble, not entering big pots, and quite easily sailed towards the final heads-up.
Earlier in this recap you could read that the Canadian ‘LegitNit’ would go into the history books by making a great move, busting out two players at the same time. And this action could even be the summary of this final table as everything went just so fast until the heads-up!
‘LegitNit’ who also took down event #26 in this series, got coolered out when he called a heavy all-in of ‘Luiz1958’ with only a pair of Sixes. At first, he jumped up as he saw he had a much better hand than his opponent having Deuces. But with a Deuce dropping down on the turn, it would mean the end for our Canadian star of the evening.
Brazilian ‘Luiz1958’ was up against ‘GoodStoryDMG’ for the Gold Medal and the fame that comes with it. After failing to agree to a deal, they resumed the play and both of them were pretty deep stacked in the beginning having respectively 57bb and 88bb.
After giving the chip advantage on and about to both of them, it was eventually ‘GoodStoryDMG’ who finished the job in style by winning the prestigious The Festival Online Main Event! Congratulations to you, and to all final table contestants for your great result!
| MAIN EVENT RESULTS | ||
| Place | Name | Prize |
| #1 | GoodStoreDMG | $ 41,305.83 |
| #2 | Luiz1958 | $ 30,131.51 |
| #3 | LegitNit | $ 22,013.67 |
| #4 | Perrymejsen | $ 16,068.54 |
| #5 | _UpToNoG00D_ | $ 11,818.62 |
| #6 | Mukonga | $ 8,762.49 |
| #7 | MyNumber7 | $ 6,494.27 |
| #8 | AUTISPOSTI | $ 4,846.82 |
