The $25,000 PokerStars NL Hold’em Players Championship was always going to be a huge event. PokerStars committed to adding $1 million to the first place payout and also awarded $8 million worth of Platinum Passes to the event. These sizable contributions to the prize pool ultimately attracted an unprecedented field for a $25,000 buy-in event, with the final number of entries for the PSPC growing to 1,039 by the time registration was officially closed.
The gigantic turnout has made this the single largest $25,000 buy-in tournament in poker history, blowing away the previous record of 639 entries set by the 2007 World Poker Tour Championships, which was won by Carlos Mortensen.
Only three $25,000 buy-in events had ever even exceeded the 500-entry mark, all of which were the WPT Championship events held from 2006-2008. The largest $25,000 event outside of that tournament was the 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS World event held at the Caribbean Poker Party last November. The $10 million guaranteed event drew 394 entries. The largest $25,000 held at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure before the PSPC drew 269 entries in 2015.
As a result of the record-breaking turnout for this event, the prize pool soared to $26,455,500. The top 181 finishers are set to make the money, with $5.1 million slated to be awarded to the eventual champion. The top six finishers will all earn seven-figure paydays.
Here is a look at the complete payouts for the inaugural PSPC:
| Place | Payout |
| 1st | $5,100,000 |
| 2nd | $2,974,000 |
| 3rd | $2,168,000 |
| 4th | $1,657,000 |
| 5th | $1,304,000 |
| 6th | $1,012,000 |
| 7th | $746,000 |
| 8th | $509,000 |
| 9th | $405,000 |
| 10th – 11th | $328,500 |
| 12th – 13th | $261,750 |
| 14th – 15th | $229,700 |
| 16th – 17th | $202,400 |
| 18th – 20th | $175,300 |
| 21st – 23rd | $150,600 |
| 24th – 27th | $126,000 |
| 28th – 31st | $105,000 |
| 32nd – 39th | $86,400 |
| 40th – 55th | $69,100 |
| 56th – 71st | $56,800 |
| 72nd – 95th | $45,700 |
| 96th – 119th | $39,500 |
| 120th – 151st | $35,000 |
| 152nd – 181st | $25,450 |
The PSPC drew nearly all of the biggest stars in the game, and also managed to attract several notables from outside of the poker world, including former NBA star Paul Pierce, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, comedian Norm MacDonald and PGA superstar Sergio Garcia. All four were eliminated on day 1.
The tournament is scheduled to run over the course of five days, with the final table set to play out on Thursday, Jan. 10. The PSPC is being live streamed on PokerStars TV, with live broadcasts with hole cards starting at 12:30 PM Eastern through to the final day, which will begin at 1:30 PM. It will also run on Twitch, both streams featuring commentary in English, Russian, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and German.
Photo credit: Poker Stars / Neil Stoddart.
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