PokerStars Releases Schedule for Bounty Builder & BSOP Millions
PokerStars keeps a pretty packed schedule, both live and online, and they recently announced two more upcoming series – an online Bounty Builder series and the popular BSOP Millions in Brazil. Read on to learn more about both festivals.
Bounty Builder Series
It’s been three years since PokerStars ran a series dedicated to bounty tournaments, but when they did so in 2014 and 2015, they offered a week-long series with $5 million in guarantees. The more robust Bounty Builder series that will run from Oct. 7-21 will offer 140 knockout events with a total of $20 million in guarantees up for grabs.
Players will find a range of events beginning at just $1.10 up through the $2,100 High Roller, according to Poker Industry PRO ($). Nine tournaments each day will range in guarantees from $10,000 up to $2 million for the Main Event, a $530 buy-in that will take place on Oct. 21.
The bounty series will consist primarily of no-limit hold’em events with nine Omaha tournaments mixed in. Table size will vary from heads-up all the way up to nine-max. As the name suggests, tournaments will feature different bounty formats, including the classic structure where half the buy-in is a bounty on the player’s head, to progressive knockouts where bounties grow as more players are eliminated. There’s even one event where the entire buy-in (excluding the rake) will go towards the bounty pool.
Players can get extra value by playing in daily exclusive bounty freerolls that feature $5,000 added. On Oct. 23, a $25,000 added freeroll will take place in which players start with 1,000 chips and add 100 chips for each player they eliminate. On top of all that, the winner of the special freeroll and the winner of the series leaderboard will also collect a $30,000 Platinum Pass that will send them to the PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold'em Championship in The Bahamas next year.
More Bounty Action
PokerStars isn’t the only online poker operator adding more bounty events to their schedule. 888poker has recently added Progressive Knockouts to their daily tournament offerings and will also be running a “God of the Arena” knockout series from Oct. 11-14 with a $1 million guaranteed Main Event. Also, the third edition of the partypoker KO Series is coming up in November with $10 million in guarantees.
BSOP Millions
The largest poker festival in Latin America, the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP), will take place from Nov. 27 to Dec. 6 at the World Trade Center (WTC) Sheraton in Sao Paulo. The series will offer events for players of any bankroll with 43 events over ten days.
A total of R$12 million or more than $3 million is guaranteed across the series, the highlight being the R$7 million (~$1.79 million) guaranteed Main Event for a buy-in of R$3,500 ($895). Known for its long structure, the flagship event will run across ten days and guarantees the winner at least a payout of R$1.2 million, or approximately $307,000.
"BSOP is a circuit that covers all regions of Brazil and the Millions is the peak of the season, closing the year with a beautiful event."
The first day of the Main Event features hour-long levels, with the exception of the Day 1B turbo flight where blinds increase every 30 minutes. From Day 2 and beyond, levels last 75 minutes until the final table on Dec. 6, offering players in Brazil one of the best structures around.
Other highlights of the festival will be the R$15,000 ($3,837) buy-in Super High Roller which carries a guaranteed prize pool of R$500,000 ($127,915). In addition, players will have their sights on four $30,000 Platinum Passes to the PSPC that will be awarded across the BSOP Millions.
With stops throughout the year, the BSOP provides the most popular poker series across Brazil, dishing out around R$52 million in prizes last year alone. According to CEO of the BSOP, Igor Trafane, the series has earned the high respect that it commands in the country.
"BSOP is a circuit that covers all regions of Brazil and the Millions is the peak of the season, closing the year with a beautiful event," said Trafane. "The BSOP started 13 years ago as a tournament among a few poker fans. Now it's among the biggest poker events on the planet, with more than 15,000 entries expected for the Millions festival.”
Players hoping to get into some BSOP events at discounted prizes can check out the online satellites running at PokerStars. You can head to the BSOP website for the complete BSOP schedule.
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