The Stairway to Millions II is back with a bang, with Francis Anderson and John Yelaney taking the first wins. The PokerGO tournament debuted earlier this year and was a success. Now, the tournament returns at the Venetian in Las Vegas, crowning Francis and John with two first victories, allowing them to participate later in the festivals.
Stairway to Millions
Stairway to Millions is a mirror reflection of the STEPS tournament by PokerStars. It is not an entirely new idea but has been widely received by players.
The tournament format allows players to play smaller events to earn points that they can use to earn buy-in for more expensive events in the schedule. PokerStars modified the tourney to allow players to buy in with pennies and climb their way through the ladder to play and win more expensive tournaments.
The first Stairway to Millions at the Venetian in January was a trial. PokerGO needed programming for its streaming outlet, leading to the experiment of the tournament.
The eight-event schedule saw 190 players participating in the first $1k match, with Daniel Sepiol taking the win. The top 20 players also earned seats for the subsequent event, a $2k match. This continued until the $100k Main Event kicked off with Nick Petrangelo taking the win.
Nick competed in a 19-player field to win a $1 million prize. David Peters and Sean Perry followed, taking second and third place.
Stairway to Millions II
Following the success of the first schedule, PokerGO and the Venetian are hosting the second Stairway to Millions. The event started on Thursday and is scheduled to run through Monday, September 19, 2022.
The first Stairway to Million had eight events. However, the second schedule has 12 tournaments. The buy-ins were also adjusted, allowing budget players to participate. The first buy-in was at $400.
This should have encouraged more players to buy-in considering the buy-in was cut by over half. Unfortunately, only 93 entries were recorded, begging the question of whether it was feasible to cut the buy-in by over a half.
Francis won the first event, earning $6702. Every player that cashed in the event earned a $900 ticket to play Event #3 or #4. Francis, alongside Wu Zhou and Galstyan Karapet, also won $1600 in tickets to play Event #5 or #6.
The second event stirred a battle between Anderson and Yelaney. Francis almost took a second win, but John beat him to it. Francis took second place, earning another buy-in of $1600. Therefore, you can expect Anderson in Event #5 and #6 scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, September 13. Here is the rest of the schedule:
- Event No.7: $2,740 NL Hold’em ($100,000 GTD) 14th
- Event No8: $5,350 NL Hold’em ($100,000 GTD) 15th
- Event No.9: $10,400 NL Hold’em ($200,000 GTD) 16th
- Event No.10: $16,800 NL Hold’em ($300,000 GTD) 17th
- Event No.11: $26,000 NL Hold’em ($500,000 GTD) 18th
- Event No.12: $52,000 NL Hold’em ($600,000 GTD) 19th
Ideally, there is one event every day from Thursday last week to Monday next week. While the GTD is pretty attractive, PokerGO and the Venetian are still worried about the low turnout. PokerGO will air all the Final Table events on all its platforms from 4 pm PDT.
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