Big Conclusion for the Super XL Series

On January 26, during the fourth edition of the Super XL Series, which had a $2 million overall guarantee, a decision was made. The guaranteed prize pool in this successful yearly series would be increased by several hundreds of thousands of dollars across several series during each year.

What happened this week, exactly 8 months later, no one could have ever predicted!

More Money, More Guarantees

The fifth edition of the XL Series took place back in May, and it easily met the $3,000,000 GTD. Therefore, for the sixth edition, we decided to push the boat out a little further by offering another million on top in total prize money.

And, so it happened that the latest series, which ended just a few hours ago, guaranteed an enormous prize pool of 4,000,000 dollars. The tournament's flagship - the Super XL Main Event – the biggest tournament that covered its gtd in 888poker history – $1.5 million!

Now, a few hours later, the Main Event is over. A deal was made between the 3 finalists, including 888poker ambassador Dominik Nitsche; we can proudly say that we managed to establish the Super XL Series as one of the leading online tournament series in the world.

Super XL Super-High Numbers

Now, we'll take a closer look at the figures:

• All the 40 tournaments, without exception, covered their guarantees by an average of 152%!
• The Mini-Knockout tournament, which took place on Friday with a $10,000 guarantee managed to rack up $23,757 and set the record for this series with 233% covered.
• The Main Event, boasting a guarantee of $1.5 million managed to attract 1,291 players and set up a new 888poker record with a 1.74 million prize pool.
• The Micro Main Event, which offered an affordable $5 buy-in managed to attract the highest number of players – 4,574 – and a prize pool of $20,816.

In all, over this entire week, we guaranteed $4,000,000. Well, the final numbers were a little higher...$5,160,540 MILLION!

Dominik's Deep Run in the Main Event

In addition to the records that were smashed and great numbers put up during the Super XL, there were several more fascinating stories on the sidelines. The headline was, of course, our 888poker ambassador, Dominik Nitsche's great achievement. He managed to finish third in the Main Event, picking up a cool $206,000 - his biggest online poker score to date.

“I'm super exhausted, so I will just quickly answer the questions and then get some rest.” That was Dominik’s first comment when we called to congratulate him. Well, we can understand – after all he hadn't only played for 13 hours straight, but he also broadcast the marathon event on Twitch.

During the last Super XL Dominik took down the Mini Main Event for $36,541.50 while broadcasting his first session on Twitch. Yesterday, he decided to go live again, and it seems that the streaming might bring him extra powers - helping him to play better. In fact, Dominik’s accomplishment was the third largest score in history during a live Twitch broadcast.

“It helped me stay wide awake, so that was good - given that it is now 9:30 am and I finished the tournament less than 2 hours ago. The viewers kept me going and it was really nice to feel the support. Once again a special shout out to my friend Johnny who watched pretty much the whole thing. Even before I went on Twitch,” Dominik later added.

In a final table twist, several hands after the 3 finalists decided to do a deal and continue to play for $50K, Dominik got pocket fives on the small blind and decided to go all-in. GetluckyAK, who won the whole tournament, went into the tank before he decided to move all-in with Ac8c, on the BB.

The flop brought an 8, which made Dominik start screaming out loud on Twitch - “Five, Five!” But, after a blank on the turn, the river delivered another 8, giving GetluckyAK the trip 888s.

More Super XL Success

“The whole series was great - the structures and the fields. I played a few events, but I never got anything going. Such is life in tournament poker. However, I always had another tournament to look forward to. Last XL Series I did it in the last event (winning the $160 buy-in Mini Main Event), and this year I did it again. I’m very happy to have done it in the 2 biggest events both times and look forward to the next series,” said Team888's Dominik.

The Main Event winner was none other than the Canadian GetluckyAK, who pocketed $261,214 for his efforts. But, this certainly wasn’t his first big win on 888poker. Less than one year ago, he won the $200,000 Whale for $74K.

When we look back almost 4 years to the very first Super XL Main Event, costing $600 to buy in with $500K guaranteed, who would have thought that 6 editions later we would be looking at a $1,500 buy-in with $1.5 million GTD!

And, who knows? That number could just keep on going up and up in future events. We sure hope it does!