Déjà vu for MikeyCasino in the Party Poker $50k Guaranteed
With online poker in New Jersey just a few weeks old, an unknown player has already left his mark at NJ.PartyPoker.com by winning the site’s Sunday $50k Guaranteed Tournament two weeks in a row.
Party Poker has hosted this tournament twice and a New Jersey online poker player using the name “MikeyCasino” has prevailed both times, but as you’ll see below, “MikeyCasino’s” run at a third victory will likely be much harder as the Party Poker Sunday $50k Guarantee in New Jersey continues to grow in popularity and attract larger fields.
The Inaugural $50k Guarantee
The decision to host a $50k guaranteed tournament right out of the chute was a massive gamble by Party Poker, but one that already seems to be paying off.
Few people expected the tournament to come anywhere near the $50k guarantee, and they would be proven right after the inaugural running on December 1st, considering just 173 players registered for the event — the tournament, with its $185+$15 buy-in, needs 271 players to meet its guarantee.
So, Party Poker found itself on the hook for nearly $18,000 ($17,995 to be exact) in overlays.
With each player registered in the inaugural $50k guaranteed having a boatload of added value the tournament began, and when the dust settled it would be “MikeyCasino” who would emerge as the final player standing — or sitting as is the case of poker.
Because of the small field, and the way Party Poker divvies up the prize-pool (20% of the field cashes), only 18 players made the money, with a min-cash worth a hefty $500, and “MikeyCasino’s” first-place reward coming in at $8,050.
Round 2 for the $50k Guarantee
I fully expected another huge overlay this past week, but I was proven wrong when the tournament nearly reached its $50k threshold. A total of 264 players registered for the tournament this time around, which was extremely good news for Party Poker on two fronts.
First, the site only had to bolster the prize-pool by $1,160, and more importantly, the site is obviously bringing in more players considering nearly 100 additional players took part in the tournament week-over-week — most likely from a combination of new players and more satellite winners.
With the larger field the second running of the Party Poker NJ $50k Guarantee saw 27 players make the money, and with the prize-money spread out to nine additional players, the payouts were a little flatter. So “MikeyCasino” needed to do more work and got less money for his second win, $7,100; but I’m sure he’s not complaining!
What will the future hold for the $50k Guarantee?
I fully believe that Party Poker expected this tournament to have a fairly substantial for multiple weeks, so with the tournament nearly reaching its guarantee in just its second week of existence, the company has to be doing cartwheels around the office, and you can bet they are trying to come up with a way to capitalize on their early success in New Jersey.
Considering the response to the $50k guaranteed tournament, with players flocking to the site to participate, I wouldn’t be surprised if Party Poker ups the ante in the coming weeks, bumping the tournament to a $75k guarantee if it can consistently meets its $50k guarantee in the coming weeks — which appears very likely.
Another possibility would be the addition of a second weekly guaranteed tournament sometime during the week.
But we’ll have to wait and see; so watch this space.
