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The Festival Online Series 2023 Shows a Smashing Spring Success

The Festival Online Series 2023 Shows a Smashing Spring Success
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Cameron Dhaliwal Pokerlistings Author
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: August 19, 2024 · 2 minutes to read

Spring can be a hugely competitive time in the online poker landscape: you have series like the Spring Championship of Online Poker and others running huge-field and mammoth buy-in events. So, it takes an extra-special online series to battle with them and provide a great value online poker series for players.

The Festival Online did just that, smashing its $1 million guarantee and giving recreational and low-stakes players a chance to compete and battle. In a series that ran for almost a month, we saw over a tournament ado that drew 16,000 poker players in a series that ran for nearly a month.

It also gave a ton of value back to the online grinder, as some events like the Main Event didn’t hit the lofty $200,000 guarantee. Despite that, well over half of the events surpassed the guarantees – this includes the widely popular Texas PKO 8-Max, which had over 1,200 runners and added $39,450 to the $150,000 guarantee.

Mystery Bounties Crush in The Festival Online

The most-entered tournaments during The Festival saw mostly Mystery Bounties, ranging from the Micro Mystery Bounty Closing Event, which had 1,636, to the Mystery Bounty Mini Opening Event, which brought in 1,373 on the first day of the Festival Online.

Four of the six most popular tournaments during the Festival Online series were Mystery Bounty events, which showed favourability with many low-stakes recreational players who wanted to get their hands on that golden virtual envelope.

Texas PKO Blowing Expectations With $40,000 Prizepool Boost

The Texas PKO ultimately became one of the most popular Festival Online events, as the structure drove action, gave plenty of re-entry opportunities, and gave players immediate prize returns. The Texas PKO brought 888poker ambassadors in the mix, including Vivian “vivi.888.” Saliba and Ian “Simpioni” Simpson and the overall prizepool smashed the $150,000 by reaching $189,450 when the dust had settled.

PKOs, or Progressive Knockout tournaments, have proved to be one of the most popular online tournament formats, and their success of them during the Festival Online cements this.

“777CCC343” Leads German Domination.

The Festival Online drew a massive amount of runners from Brazil and Germany, with the Brazilians securing a huge six Festival Online victories. German online grinder “777CCC343” captured two titles throughout after they won the $5,000 Mystery PLO Bounty Opening Event and then captured the $3,000 Micro PLO 8-Max just seven days later.

We also saw Malta bag titles courtesy of WPT DeepStacks Champion “Farrugia_1”. At the same time, Lithuania’s “samsungas” almost brought home two Festival Online titles in one day, as he won the $12,000 Texas PKO and came 2nd in the $10,000 Texas LowRoller.

Latvia’s Hero is “latvianhero1” After Festival Online Main Event Win

Latvia is the current home of the Festival Online Main Event after “latvianhero1” got past 863 players to win the most significant event on the schedule.

From April 6 – 10, those players fired Day 1s to try and be in the final 96 who would battle for the title and top cash prize. Some notable names who made Day 2 included 888poker ambassador Vivian “vivi.888.” Saliba and online MTT end boss Jerry “Perrymejsen” Odeen, both of whom busted in 50th and 13th, respectively.

The final hand in the Festival Online.

In the end, it would be Lithuania’s “Artur1965”, Romania’s “Getoverhere” and Lativa’s “latvianhero1” fighting for the biggest prizes of the series. “Artur1965 would exit in third for $13,460 before the heads-up battle ended after just ten minutes.

When “Getoverhere” got 10 10 and “latvianhero1” was dealt J J , there was going to be blood. After it went open, 3-bet, 4-bet, and a quick call, the tournament would end, and the title would go to Latvia.

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