Players benefit from $200,000 overlay at Americas Cardroom

(PRESS RELEASE) -- It’s not every day that an online poker site reaches deep into its pocket and pulls out $200,000 to cover a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. But it is almost every Sunday. For the second straight Million Dollar Sunday event, Americas Cardroom players got to contend with a smaller-than-expected field. The tournament featured an overlay of $197,500, only slightly less than the $225,500 overlay seen in the first tournament of Americas Cardroom’s $5 Million Guaranteed promotion.

“First off, congratulations to our four final table participants who negotiated a deal with fairly equal chips in play,” said Americas Cardroom spokesperson Michael Harris. “And a special congrats to Runzgood, who finally dominated the tournament and won the $20,000 icing on the cake. As promised, we delivered on our $1 million guarantee, even in the face of a $200,000 overlay. And we’ll deliver on our promise next week too.”

The Million Dollar Sunday is Americas Cardroom's signature tournament that runs throughout the year. Every week in October, Americas Cardroom is hosting a Million Dollar Sunday event with $1 million in guaranteed prize money and at least $200,000 earmarked for first place. If the overlay repeats itself week after week, there’s a potential for a total of $1 million, taking into account the September 13 overlay experienced just a few weeks ago.

Harris notes that the overlay is the result of DDoS attacks. On September 13, Americas Cardroom experienced an onslaught of attacks, forcing the tournament to pause frequently for a few minutes. This time around, while DDoS attacks did hit the site, downtime was limited to about 30 seconds thanks to a DDoS Mitigation platform called Zenedge put in place by Americas Cardroom’s security team.

“Overall, players didn’t really notice any downtime, but the attacks experienced in September forced some players to rethink playing in the tournament,” noted Harris. “With a smaller field and fewer re-entries, it was a nice opportunity for players to conquer a $1 million guaranteed tournament. And there are three more opportunities this month, so we recommend players secure a seat through a satellite ASAP.”

Last night’s tournament played down to four players shortly after 4 a.m. ET. At that time, the chip counts were fairly evenly split, with most raises and all-ins being shunned by echoes of folds across the table. Pre-deal, the final chip counts were Curzdog with 4,898,288, Runzgood with 4,040,130, RepaidByScorn with 3,915,753, and payMefool with 3,195,829.

A final table deal was agreed to that saw Curzdog walk away with $113,339, Runzgood $105,902, RepaidByScorn $105,244, and payMefool $99,116. After the deal was agreed to by all parties, Runzgood won the tournament and pocketed the $20,000 set aside for the winner.

The next Million Dollar Sunday gets underway at 5 p.m. ET on October 11. This start time is two hours later than previous Million Dollar Sundays.

More information on the $1 million guaranteed tournament can be found at Americas Cardroom.