PokerStars has created an alternative event series to the World Championship of Online Poker for those who cannot afford an expensive buy-in fee. The event is called MicroMillions and this will be the ninth event of the series, starting next week.
MicroMillions was first launched in March 2012 and up until now has awarded more than $7.8 million in prize winnings.
The event comprises of many mini-tournaments, which can be accessed with buy-ins of various prices. Buy-ins will cost in the price range between $0.11 and $11. MicroMillions 9 will start on November 6 and despite the low buy-in fees, the prizes are expected to be impressive as the number of participants will be much higher than in high buy-in tournaments.
There will be more than a hundred mini-events before the Main Event kicks off on November 16. The initial prize pool will comprise of more than $5 million.
Different Tournament Formats
MicroMillions 9 will hold many tournaments in number and in style as well. Apart from the standard format, there will be knockouts, zoom, hyper, turbo and other format styles. A new type of tournament will debute on the Micro Millions 9 stage. It is called Bubble Dash. Participants will play a fast-paced tourney, in which the bubble period is played much faster than the later stage of the tournament, when the high-ranked players face each other for the big prizes. The advantage of such a tourney is that players do not have to wait long until the winners are sorted out.
Player of the Series Ranking
Another feature of the event that makes it unique is the player ranking system. It is called Player of the Series race and the person who wins gets tickets for the next six months that allow participation in the Sunday Million events, which take place each week. There will be different prizes for all the players who manage to get to one of the first hundred spots.
The way the Player of the Series works goes as follows – players need to join any of the mini-tourneys. Their achievements in these mini-tourneys give them certain points, which are used to rank them on the leader-board.
The Main Event
The most anticipated part of the event is the main tournament which has a starting $1 million prize pool. Buy-ins for the Main Event cost $22 and the number of players expected to join it are more than 6,000. During the first MicroMillions event that took place last year, for example, the first place winner took home more than $100,000 and during the MicroMillions 6 event in November last year, the player “TheManM” took $126,000 for the first place. This year, the organizers of the event expect even higher participation rates and therefore, bigger awards.
MicroMillions 9 will host a number of preliminary online events, where players who reach higher ranks will be able to play for buy-ins and admissions for the Main Event.
