Bovada Black Diamond Poker Open Begins
Online poker players who are fans of Bodog and Bovada (the company’s US-facing site) have another solid series to enjoy when one reaches the point of Olympics Overload: The latest edition of the Black Diamond Poker Open got underway today, with an immense schedule: 200 official events and over $3 million in guaranteed price money.
This series is running for over two full months, from today (February 9th) all the way through April 13th. That’s about three events per day for the duration.
The series has kicked off with several days of satellite action, before the actual BDPO events get underway on February 18th. As in the previous series the whole BDPO will be split into a couple of major subsections. The “Contender Series” runs February 8th through March 12th, while the later “Championship Series” starts on March 22nd and runs through April 13th. Each half of the series contains 100 events.
Per the official series web page at Bovada (with a mirrored page with different logos available at Bodog for non-US players), the twin sub-series offers these highlights:
Contender Series –$500,000 Guaranteed
- Contender Series Kick Off Event $10K Guaranteed – Feb 18
- 100 Events running from February 18 to March 12
- Micro to Low-Stakes Tournaments, starting for as little as $3.30
- $50,000 Guaranteed Main Event – March 9
Championship Series –$2.5 Million Guaranteed
- Championship Series Kick Off Event $20K Guaranteed—March 22
- 100 Events running from March 22 to April 13
- Mid to High-Stakes Tournaments, starting for as little as $22
- $300,000 Guaranteed Main Event—April 13
The series’ massive size means that the overview page can’t even hold the complete schedule of events. Instead, to keep tabs of what’s coming up, it’s best to visit and bookmark this page, and refer to it as needed to see what’s coming up.
The Contender Series, as its name implies, is suited for smaller and medium bankrolls. The bottom buy-in is $3.00+.30, and except for the $50+5 main event (March 9), the rest of the series’ events range from $5 to $30.
The Championship Series mirrors the Contender Series, but with larger buy-ins designed for deeper-rolled players. It starts at $20+2 and ranges all the way up to the $425+25 main event on April 13th. It’s also fair to not that both the $3.00+.30 and $20+2 bottom entries in the respective series are rebuy tourneys. To get into the freezeout stuf, one has to kick up to the next level of buy-ins, be it $5.50 in the Contender series or $33 in the Championship one.
This is still a solid series, and Bovada offers a generous game mix, though as expected no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha predominate. Other variations on tap include PLO hi/lo, seven-card stud, stud hi/lo, no-limit hi/lo, fixed limit Omaha and others. The series also includes many format choices, from regular and turbo tourneys to freezeouts and rebuys, with short-handed, heads-up and shootout tourneys also on tap.
Check in on the Bovada (or Bodog) Black Diamond Poker Open for the ongoing events throughout the rest of the winter and early spring. Most players have enough in their accounts to sample at least a few of the smaller events, and a healthy bankroll is often own one good tourney bink away.
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