Online poker operator partypoker announced it plans on returning to Russia’s biggest resort city Sochi as a host of the $5 Million Guaranteed partypoker MILLIONS Russia tournament. The event is to take place between September 1 and September 11, 2017 in the multi-season Sochi Casino and Resort, located in Gorky Gorod. The winner is guaranteed to collect a first-place prize of $1 million.
Players, interested in participating in the partypoker MILLIONS Russia event, are presented with a variety of ways to book a seat at the tournament tables. Those, who intend to partake in the Phase 1 events, can pay their $550 buy-in either online or in person. Players looking to skip the preliminary events will be given the opportunity to directly pay their way into Day 1 in exchange for $5,000.
In addition, players can opt for earning their buy-in fee by participating in one of the online satellites, partypoker announced it is to host specifically for the occasion, starting April 2, 2017. The buy-in fees will be set on the basis of the Russian Central Bank’s currency exchange rates on the first day of the tournament.
The operator also took the opportunity to announce that following a successful beta test phase, it intends to permanently switch to eight-hand tables for its online Multi Table Tournaments (MTT). This move is expected to boost the recreational value of the partypoker platform as well as to allow online poker fans to play more hands.
John Duthie, President of partypoker LIVE commented the decision to return to Sochi for another tournament was prompted by the immense success of the previous event the online poker operator hosted in the Russian multi-season resort. The $1,100 buy-in event took place in the Sochi Casino and Resort at the end of March 2017 and attracted a massive field of 1,170 players, who contributed to a huge prize pool of $1,134,900. Ukrainian player Dmitry Chop claimed the first-place prize of $225,000, followed by opponent Lev Mnatskanyan, who settled for the runner-up prize of $150,000.
Sochi Tournament Director Artur Voskanyan explained the feedback the previous event generated among players was so positive that the tournament management decided to build upon this immense success by returning to the Russian resort in September. In Voskanyan’s words, the $5 million guaranteed prize pool and the $1 million first-place prize for the winner serve to demonstrate the tournament management’s commitment to participating players as well as its dedication to making poker great again.
The announcement of partypoker’s return to the Russian resort city came only a week after the online poker operator revealed its plans of hiring Russian player Anatoly Filatov, who is to promote the upcoming event in the months to follow.
- Author
Harry Evans
