GGPoker series wraps up as a massive success
The last of the 330 tournaments offered on the GG Spring Festival calendar wrapped up Tuesday, capping off one of the most successful tournament series in online poker history.
GGPoker went big and aggressive with the GG Spring Festival, running it directly against the PokerStars SCOOP 2021. Both online series kicked off April 4, with the final nine tournaments in the PokerStars SCOOP playing out today.
The GG Spring Festival offered 110 events, each with a low, medium, and high buy-in tier. The 330 events offered a combined $150 million guaranteed, including a bevy of tournaments aimed at high-stakes players.
After the last of the GG Spring Festival events concluded Tuesday, a look at the final numbers for the series reveals some staggering numbers. Combined prize pools ended up at $192,643,947, decisively passing the promised $150 million in tournament cash awards.
The series produced five seven-figure first-place prizes, with several other events crowning champions with high six-figure payouts.
GG Spring Festival 2021 biggest winners at a glance
| GG Spring Festival Event | Tournament Champion | First-Place Prize |
| Event #H-6: $25,500 Sunday Five Million | Guillaume Nolet | $1,084,892 |
| GGSF Super MILLION$ Main Event-H: $10,300, $10 Million Guaranteed | Joakim Andersson | $1,537,605 |
| Event #H-41: $25,500 Sunday Five Million | Niklas Astedt | $1,095,741 |
| Event #H-75: $25,500 Sunday Five Million | Mikita Badziakouski | $1,105,679 |
| Event #H-109: $25,500 Sunday Five Million | Seth Davies | $956,440 |
| GGSF Main Event-H: $1,500, $10 Million Guaranteed | ‘KingKongJoel’ | $1,113,634 |
‘KingKongJoel’ wins $1,500 Main Event to close out the GG Spring Festival
Most of the biggest winners from the GG Spring Festival emerged from high-stakes buy-in events. GGPoker continues to draw the high rollers for its $10k and higher buy-in events, which produced five of the biggest payouts across the series.
The festival ended with a $10 million guaranteed, $1,500 buy-in Main Event, opening up seven-figure potential to players at a much more affordable buy-in. The officially titled GGSF Main Event-H drew 6,803 entries, coming up just short of meeting the lofty guarantee.
The $305,725 surplus represented one of the only overlays in the nearly month-long series. Austria-based online player ‘KingKongJoel” took down the tournament for a $1,133,634, reflecting the terms of a heads-up deal between the final two players.
Runner-up finisher Zhuang Ruan from Japan (2nd - $952,195) nearly came away with another seven-figure payout from the $1,500 Main Event per the terms of the deal.
GGPoker appears to have won the head-to-head battle against PokerStars in the fight for spring online poker series supremacy. As Poker.org’s Jon Pill pointed out at the midway point of both the GG Spring Festival and the PokerStars SCOOP, GGPoker appeared to take a big chunk out of the usual SCOOP attendance throughout the month.
Going into today’s final slate of SCOOP action, the PokerStars festival stands at over $134 million in guarantees. The 2020 SCOOP awarded around $185 million in total prize money, and it looks like the 2021 edition of PokerStars flagship series lost ground to the GG Spring Festival this time around.
Featured image source: Twitter
