PokerStars Celebrates One Year Of Pennsylvania Poker With First State-Exclusive Tournament Series

Poker players in the Keystone State won’t be getting much rest this season. Following last month’s PACOOP, PokerStars is launching straight into a new series.

The 1st Anniversary Series is a mid-sized affair, with 35 events and an even $1 million in total guarantees. That’s smaller than any of the Championship series so far, or the most recent Bounty Builder series. On the other hand, it’s larger than any of the site’s other series in its first year, namely Summer Series, Winter Series or the first Bounty Builder.

As the name suggests, the series is scheduled to coincide more or less with the date of the site’s launch last year. PokerStars Pennsylvania went live on November 4, 2019. As well as the poker product, there is also a PokerStars Casino Michigan, and the associated Fox Bet sportsbook.

The 1st Anniversary Series will kick off this Sunday, November 8 and run for nine days. Starting last weekend instead, to include the actual anniversary, would have meant competing for attention with the federal election.

The Main Event will take place on November 15. It will feature a $100 buy-in, a $200,000 guarantee, and two days of play. A $25 buy-in Mini Main Event will run concurrently. Other series highlights include:

• A $100 special edition of the Sunday Special on opening day ($100k gtd.)
• A $500 High Roller on Nov. 9 ($50k gtd.)
• A $50 8-handed Phased event, with Phase 2 on closing day, Nov. 16 ($50k gtd.)

What’s most interesting about the series is that it’s the first time Pennsylvania-based PokerStars users have had a series just for them. The Championships, Bounty Builders and seasonal series all ran just before, after or concurrently with equivalent series next door in New Jersey.

A tried and true formula

Aside from it being Pennsylvania-only, however, there’s very little that’s usual about 1st Anniversary Series. The schedule is very similar to that of PACOOP, only with fewer events and spanning a shorter period of time.

PACOOP’s guarantees worked out to an average of $31,180 across the series, and final prize pools averaged $40,622. 1st Anniversary Series aims ever-so-slightly lower, with an average guarantee of $28,570.

The biggest difference, perhaps, is the ratio of Progressive Knockouts (PKOs). Despite having 15 fewer events on the schedule overall, the Anniversary series includes one more PKO than PACOOP did — 9, instead of 8. The share of NLHE and short-handed events is also up slightly.

Buy-ins average a bit lower for 1st Anniversary Series as well, and start at $10 rather than $20. At the high end, 20 out of 35 events (57%) have buy-ins $100 and up, compared to 35 out of 50 (70%) for PACOOP.

Overall, 1st Anniversary Series is PokerStars giving its Pennsylvania players more of what they’ve shown they want. Nor is there much incentive for the company to change much for now, as it’s still waiting for any sort of competition to arrive in the Pennsylvania online poker market.

Full PokerStars 1st Anniversary Series schedule

If you’re planning on participating in the series and want to plan out your week in advance, here’s what’s on offer.