Online poker tournaments are few and far between when it comes to the United States. With only Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey offer online poker gaming, players have to be located or visiting one of those states at the right time to have access to a top poker tournament. Of course, each online poker site in each state will offer tournaments on a regular basis but it is the series that are the most fruitful for players and the most exciting.
In New Jersey, online poker is in its prime with such operators as the WSOP, PokerStars, 888 and the Borgata in the mix. It is easy to find a poker tournament to enjoy and series run often so players have unique gaming options to explore. Just recently, the Borgata announced they are bringing back the Garden State Super Series, known as the GSSS. This series runs between Borgata and PartyPoker with this series offering over $1.1 million in prize money, guaranteed. This will be the biggest online poker tournament the state has ever seen.
Details of the upcoming event are few and far between but information was provided by Poker Industry Pro earlier this week which stated the series will run from the 9th of October to the 23rd and offer the large amount of guaranteed prize money.
With the recent announcement of the GSSS details, now its 4th edition, the series will out do the competition, which includes the PokerStars New Jersey Spring Championship of Online Poker. The NJSCOOP took place in May of this year and offer the same guarantees, at $1.1 million. Partypoker can defeat this amount by simply seeing players take part.
During the NJSCOOP, the cash guarantees were spread out over 54 tournament events. It is interesting to note that the PokerStars is setting up to run the NJCOOP around the same time as the GSSS series. The NJCOOP is set for the 29th of October to the 6th. It will be interesting to see if PokerStars ups the ante and pushes the guaranteed over the $1.2 million mark. The GSSS could put PokerStars in trouble if players spend all their money taking part in the Borgata and Partypoker events, not having anything left to compete in the NJCOOP.
Top operators seem to go back and forth in the state, wanting to try and outdo their competitors. The Borgata has seen the top of the revenue earnings and has been bumped down by other operators over the years that the state has offered online poker gaming.
The most recent earnings in the state of New Jersey have online poker gaming seeing significant growth over the past few months. Last year, the GSSS decided to decrease the guaranteed prize pool to $800,000 from $1 million. However, with players logging on and taking part in high numbers this year, it is not surprising to see the guarantee upped for the upcoming series.
Now, players simply have to wait and see what the schedule will include. There is no doubt that party and Borgata will offer a nice mix of tournament options with varying buy-ins and game formats. The GSSS is relatively affordable which allows for everyone to take part in various events. One could also expect that once the schedule has been created and announced, both party and Borgata will offer satellites and qualifiers for a few events.
We will watch and see, waiting for the announcement of the Garden State Super Series schedule and keep players informed, so game play can resume and hopefully the two brands will surpass their $1.1 million guaranteed prize pool mark!