Pokerstars has announced the biggest single change to the Sunday Million since the buy-in dropped from $215 to $109. Starting on June 12, 2022, the Sunday Million will be a Progressive Knock Out tourney.
The Sunday Million just passed its sixteenth anniversary. In the tournament's lifetime, Pokerstars have rarely done more than tweak the event. The blind structure and payouts have been adjusted from time to time, usually in line with site-wide changes. The one-time price change excepted, the Sunday Million has been a rock in the ever-shifting seas of online poker for just gone sixteen years.
Now, in the face of the PKO's enormous popularity, even the rocks are shifting.
As well as the change to a PKO format, there are a few additional changes that will make a few small differences to the way the tourney plays.
Pokerstars tweeted about the changes, writing: "The iconic @PokerStars Sunday Million is changing! Enjoy a brand new format, more generous structure, and extra ways to qualify."
Key changes to the Sunday Million
The most superficial of the additional changes concerns starting stack size. These have jumped from 10,000 to 50,000. However, the number of big blinds players start with will remain at 200, so in practice, this shouldn't make much difference to the actual play of the event.
A little more significantly, the 1,400 and 3,500 big blinds have been cut from the schedule which will speed things up a little in the middle game. The powers that be have also added some more time to the banks of anyone who makes the final table.
The biggest and best of the additional changes is the switch from 9-handed tables as per previous Sunday Millions to a new standard of 8-handed tables throughout the event.
There are also changes to the satellites and additional draws to win tickets detailed in the full press release.
For the most part, poker players laud the gradual shrinking of the standard "full-ring" table. There is really no reason not to chase that trend in online poker, where space requirements are minimal and dealer overheads entirely absent.
Given the popularity of PKO tourneys and the attraction to a more casual player base, it is hard to imagine such a change is likely to hurt the event. Though serious players will want to brush up on the ICM effects of bounties and take some time updating their push-fold charts accordingly.
Featured image source: PokerStars
