Welcome to Day 1 of The Big Blowout $109 NLHE
In one hour from now at 1.03 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), the first of four The Big Blowout kicks off and it comes with a huge opportunity to the low and mid-stakes grinders. The $109 buy-in has a huge $5 million guarantee and players all over the world have the chance to win their seats for as little as $5.50 or various other promotions.
The entire PokerStars Blowout Series takes place from December 27, 2020, until January 17, 2021, and will certainly end the year with a bang. Throughout the entire festival, $60 million in prize pools are guaranteed of which one-third is paid out during The Big Blowouts on Sundays. Thanks to promotions, tickets worth $2 million will be given away to players to take a shot at glory.
Either way, it will be a huge field for the most affordable buy-in of the four flagship events, and some 50,000 entries are required to meet the $5 million guarantee. One hour prior to the start, more than 7,500 players were already registered and all participants can re-enter up to three times in total.
The re-entry and late registration period remain open for the first four hours of play and Day 1 will go on break after 8 hours and 50 minutes. For the first 32 levels, a duration of 15 minutes each is foreseen while the levels from thereon then last 16 minutes each. Day 2 will play down to the final 27 players and the final day takes place on Tuesday, December 29. The final table will be formed when nine contenders remain and at least $50,000 must be set aside for any deal.
Among the expected participants are the PokerStars ambassadors and online poker streamers Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, Fintan "easywithaces" Hand, and Ben "Spraggy" Spragg, along with thousands of hopefuls who aim for a deep run.
The PokerNews live reporting team will provide as many key hands as possible for all four The Big Blowout, stay tuned to find out who gets a slice of the seven-figure prize pools.
for "alemocelin96" to hold with the higher pocket pair to send "Jan-E1981" out of the tournament as one of the first today.
, "olivercox040" bet 960 and "PSmasterkiss" called. "snugg135" raised to 6,400 for the action to fold back to "olivercox040" who shoved for 23,424. "PSmasterkiss" jammed for 24,500 and "snugg135" called with the bigger stack.
and the 
completed the board to bust both their opponents.
and "dezutter" shoved for "HHHB883" to make the call for the 26,154 they had behind. 
, "Rhys_19" bet 13,805 for "BBYWIN" to raise to 27,610. "kougeo" folded but "Rhys_19" jammed for 142,400 which "BBYWIN" called.
completed the board.
, they both checked through to the 
to see their tournament run come to an end before the bubble as "Pharey" held the 
for "AchillesBG" and "80zivs" both to bust and min-cash as "Inixxx" flopped the pair of fives and improved to two pair for the chip lead.
