Bovada's Golden Spade Poker Open 2 main event sets post Black Friday online poker tournament record. Winning Poker Network's $1,000,000 guaranteed will soon break it however!











Bovada Hosts Largest Online Poker Tournament for US Players in 3.5 Years

Stop me if you have heard this said before about the American poker landscape: “The options for American poker players are getting smaller all the time.” That maxim has been uttered many times since Black Friday changed the way the poker landscape looked to not only Americans, but the rest of the world. Bodog Poker, with its subsidiaries of Bovada Poker and Bodog888, are trying to change that as they just hosted the largest tournament available to American poker players since that fateful day. The prize pool generated was over $500k with nearly $90k going to the winner of the tournament.

The tournament, which was the Main Event of the GSPO2 (Golden Spade Poker Open 2), attracted 1,202 players who each ponied up $450. The $510,850 up for grabs shattered the guarantee on the tournament by over $100k. A recap is pretty hard to give as the Bodog Network does not have a replay of the final table available (like Pokerstars and some other sites do) and they also have player numbers instead of screen names. Regardless, with 3 players taking home over $48k almost no analysis is needed to understand how impressive and positive this is for the American market.

While Bodog Network does cater to Chinese, Vietnamese and Canadian players as well. It has been suggested by many that American players make up the majority of the player base. Bovada is the US friendly skin on the Bodog Network and has allowed the network to climb the rankings as players have been looking for a new home. They have grown so much in the past one and one half years that they are now ranked as the eight largest network in all the world, as tracked by GameIntel.com's cash game player statistics.



Many consider the tournament offerings for small and mid-stakes players to be the best available to the Americans. This stems from not only the tournaments offered which are numerous and particularly large compared to other site, but also because the skill of the players involved tends to be lower than most other sites as the tournaments have a lot of players who also spend time gambling at the sportsbook or casino. The cash games are also notoriously soft and add value to all players looking for good spots to take advantage of. Take advantage of the numerous fish here by using a Bodog & Bovada HUD, Holdem Indicator, which you can read about on the Professional Rakeback poker software review page.



Winning Poker Network $1,000,000 Guaranteed Tournament

As fantastic as this record is though, it won’t be standing for long. Winning Poker Network, headlined by skins America’s Card Room and Black Chip Poker, is hosting a $1 million guaranteed tournament on December 14, 2014. That tournament is going to have a $540 entry fee with 10k in starting chips and 5 hours of late registration and 15 minute levels that will be extended with extra blind levels to allow maximum play to those who enter.

First prize is going to be at least $200,000 and all final table participants will receive 1 free bank wire to help get money of the site in a timely fashion. So anyone concerned about not being able to get your poker winnings for a few years can rest assured that if you win that tournament, you will receive your money in a timely and orderly fashion. If this sounds like an enticing tournament to you, but perhaps a bit too much money there is an aggressive satellite schedule that is detailed in Professional Rakeback's first post about this tournament, found here.

When the whole of both of those tournaments is taken together it’s easy to see why some players are excited about the future for poker in America, even if legalization takes a bit longer to happen than some think. If you want to get involved in any of the great poker tournament action you have read about today you can find reviews and signup bonuses here at professionalrakeback.com. American Poker Players Guide is a comprehensive guide that will allow you to see if you and your state of residence are eligible to play on Bovada, Americas Cardroom, Black Chip Poker, True Poker, or any of the other eligible US friendly poker sites.

