PokerStars Runs Sunday Warm-Up with $260k Overlay

A technical issue at PokerStars caused the $215 Sunday Warm-Up tournament on 6 April to run with only 1,204 players. Consequently, the prize pool accumulated from the buy-ins was nowhere near the guaranteed $500,000.

As a result of an unusual technical issue, the PokerStars $200+$15 Sunday Warm-Up of 6 April ran with a gargantuan overlay of about $260,000. By default, in the first three hours of the tournament, late registration is open and a lot of players indeed tend to skip the first couple of blind levels. This time, however, late registration was disabled and the field was closed when they shuffled up and dealt. A relatively small player pool of 1,204 participants could therefore play for the $500,000 in prize money.

Players contributed a total of $240,800 to the prize pool, making the $500,000 Guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up run with an overlay of $260,000.

“PokerStars apologizes for the lack of a late registration period in the Sunday Warm-Up. This was a technical issue, and was not deliberate. PokerStars will honor the guarantee of the event,” room representative Steve Day said as soon as the issue became apparent, adding that “there is also a 'small’ financial motivation to ensure this error isn’t repeated in our other tournaments later today.”

Once registration is closed, the PokerStars software does not allow manual changes, making the room administration begrudgingly accept the loss. Players entering the event before kick-off received an unexpected bonus this way. Eventually, German player ‘KeyserMM’ finished 1st for $85,000.