The world’s two biggest poker sites were at war this weekend. Both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker attempted to break the current world record for the largest ever online tournament. Pokerstars currently held the tiltle by breaking the previous record last year in an event that featured an $11 buy-in and attracted 35,000 online runners.
Last week Full Tilt Poker announced its intention to break that record with a special massive tournament to wrap up its “FIVE” promotions – a celebration of the site’s fifth birthday. Full Tilt’s event was set for Sunday, July 19th and featured a $5 buy-in and generous overlays.
Just days later, PokerStars decided to make an attempt to keep its own record intact! Stars scheduled its own tourney to take place about an hour before the scheduled attempt at Bovada. The PokerStars tourney, called ‘Guinness World Record’ had a lower buy-in of just $1. Initially, the PokerStars tournament did not have a cap on the number of players allowed to enter, but eventually a cap was set at 65,000! Massive!
When Full Tilt neglected or declined to remove the 50,000-player cap from its world record tournament, this battle was pretty much over already. Both events sold out in quick time and the previous world record was broken by a long margin. PokerStars, the holder of the old record, will retain the record with a new mark of 65,000 online runners — almost double the previous record!!