PSPC Online Awards $4.5M to MI/NJ/PA Players; Buzgon & Gruneberg Claim Titles

While the 2023 PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) is currently underway in the Bahamas, the online edition recently wrapped up for players in Pennsylvania, as well as the merged market of Michigan and New Jersey.

The online series marked the first major festival for the merged market, which launched back on January 1 and instantly became the largest online poker market in the United States.

“We set the bar pretty high, we put $2.5 million guarantees for the merge liquidity and even $1.5 on Pennsylvania, those were our biggest guarantees, like ever,” said PokerStars Managing Director for North America Severin Rasset. “We’re quite ambitious. It's always a bit scary when you do that. You just hope that the players are gonna like what you're proposing, and you have no reference point, you know because you just managed liquidity and you don't know exactly what's going to be the outcome.”

By PokerNews' calculations, the PSPC Online in Pennsylvania catered to a combined 33,724 entrants over 72 events while awarding $1,499,000 in prize money, meaning they missed the overall guarantee for the series by just $1,000!

As for the merged MI/NJ series, which was comprised of 85 events, they drew 46,215 entries and awarded $2,976,930 in prize money, well above the $2.5 million in guarantees. All told, both series had 79,939 entries and awarded $4,475,930 in prize money.

Rasset continued: “We're super happy with the outcome. Most of the tournaments cleared the guarantees easily … We set ambitious guarantees and overall, for us it was a massive success. It's also the kind of thing to bring the excitement back as it’s important for players to really enjoy what we have.”

Click here to see all the winners from the 2023 PSPC Online!