PokerStars announced the December Festival, a series of 22 straight days of special promotions happening for both tournament and ring game players. The world’s largest poker site has stated that more than $27 million will be won by players during the event, which starts on December 1 and concludes on December 22, 2013.
December Festival Details
During the promotion, the site will host various activities for players to participate in, including Double Vision Sundays, Million Dollar Sundays, Golden Sit & Gos, a special $700,000 Milestone Hand giveaway, and a Mission Week. The festival will conclude on the weekend of December 20-22 with the $10 million WCOOP Challenge Series, which is a spin-off of the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). Also up for grabs will be tickets to the 2014 World Championship Main Event.
Double Vision Sunday
Starting on Sunday, December 1, the biggest weekly guaranteed tournaments will be run twice for double the fun. This includes tournaments such as the Sunday Million, Sunday Warm-Up, Sunday Kickoff and Sunday Storm. For tournament players this means twice the action on the same day and up to $3.8 million in guaranteed prize pools.
$500k Golden Sit & Gos
A half million dollars in cash will be randomly awarded across Sit & Go tables at all levels, from December 2-8 at PokerStars. Curious on how to win one of these random prizes? All players have to do is play a Sit & Go and they are eligible. If a player happens to be sitting at a Sit & Go randomly selected, they will receive a Bronze, Silver, or Gold prize package. Bronze winners get their buy-in back, Silver players get 3x their buy-in with the prize pool tripled, and Gold players will get 5x their buy-in and the prize pool will be multiplied by five. Prizes will be awarded, on average, every two minutes during this special week during the December Festival.
$700k Milestone Hands
PokerStars will be awarding at least $700,000 for a special edition of their Milestone Hand Celebration. This promotion will start at midnight Eastern time on December 16 with cash prizes dished out every one million hands. There will be 299 regular milestone hands that will award $500,000 total. The final “Milestone Hand 300” will award players involved in the hand, plus those also playing the same stakes/game, a share of $100,000. To win a milestone hand award, all players need to do is accrue FPPs prior to the milestone hand being played, and be at the table (or the same game/stakes) when the milestone hand is dealt. Based on a multiplier, all players are awarded a cash prize.
$10 Million WCOOP Challenge Series
The WCOOP Challenge Series runs from December 20-22 with eight events scheduled, including one of the biggest tournament guarantees ever seen in the history of online poker. The Main Event will have a massive $3 million prize pool, with six of the eight events guaranteeing seven-figures. The “smallest” tournament will be the WCOOP Challenge 1: $109 NLHE event held on Friday, December 20, which will have a $500,000 guarantee. The Main Event will be played Sunday, December 22 and will be a $2,100 NLHE tournament. Players should note that the WCOOP Challenge 1 event will replace The Big $109 normally scheduled on Friday nights.
Mission Week
Another promotion that is a part of the PokerStars December Festival is something called Mission Week, which takes place on December 9 and concludes on December 15. During this week, players will need to opt-in with a special “Star Code” (found on the PokerStars website right now) for each of the five missions and complete the target. Each target is a VPP goal, ranging from just 10 VPPs all the way up to 500 VPPs. Each mission’s prize is a freeroll ticket to special All-in Shootout tournaments.
