Online poker rooms were less populated on Sunday resulting to big overlays in leading online poker rooms. Most players from different sites come mostly fromEuropeand the rooms were of poor attendance because of Sunday football. Many weekend tournaments failed to reach their guaranteed prize pools.
Party Poker experienced a 9% overlay on their guaranteed $200K prize while 888 Poker’s $100K Sunday Challenge experienced a 6% overlay. iPoker and their $200K guaranteed prize suffered 13% overlay. But this had already been a bit expected as players from Portugal, Holland, Denmark and Germany decided to miss the poker games to root for their national teams on Sunday football.
PokerStars had previously lowered their price of buy-ins for their Sunday feature tournaments because of the possibility that there would be a reduced number of players in the pool. Only their $5 Sunday Storm failed to hit their guaranteed prize.
Everest poker suffered the biggest overlay among all other online poker rooms. A considerable number of players on Everest are Europe-based thus, the lack of people signing up. Their $10 buy-in $1,500 guaranteed “Super Seven” fell short by $500. The weekly $30 buy-in $300K guarantee only attracted 294 players. Although there were 195 re-buys and 121 add-ons, the total amount collected in buy-ins was only $18K – a 66% painful overlay.
Online poker tournaments are not expected to gain more players or value on Monday or Tuesday. It is the day when either Spain or Italy gets into the quarter finals and both countries have segregated poker player pools. Some poker rooms have already cited a lower player pool on Tuesday. Tuesday football will feature England up against Ukraine.
So far, there are no changes to feature tournaments on Tuesday for PokerStars and Party, although both failed to reach their guaranteed prize last Friday when England played versus Sweden. 888 Poker had already cut down their guaranteed $30K to $25K for Tuesday. iPoker has delayed their $40K guaranteed R/A to half an hour and has allowed late registrations on their first hour.
Another dip in online poker room traffic is expected on Friday evening when Germany will be playing against Greece for a second quart-final. Given that England wins over Ukraine, they would be playing against Spain on Saturday evening. When France also wins over Sweden, then they will be competing against Italy on Sunday. This will mean another severe dip in the number of players in online poker rooms, similar to that of last Sunday. Many sites have already opened registration for feature tournaments on Sunday.