Not to be left behind by the recently concluded PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker, partypoker has announced its own major online tournament series. Dubbed Powerfest, the series will offer 98 events and a guaranteed prize pool of $5 million. The action begins on Sunday, February 21 and will culminate in the $1,050 Main Event on Sunday, March 20.

Powerfest will take the place of the site’s popular annual Pokerfest, and will include Six Max, Turbo, Six Max Turbo and Bounty No Limit Hold’em events. The series offers a wide variety of tournaments suitable for players with bankrolls of any size, with buy-ins ranging from $5.50 to $5,200.

“Our online poker festival, now named Powerfest, is an iconic partypoker event” said partypoker Group Head Tom Waters. “This is poker for the people no matter the size of your bankroll.”

After the success of its 2015 Pokerfest series, the online poker giant has doubled its guaranteed prize money this year. Last year’s 80 events easily met their $2.5 million total guarantee and awarded $3.4 million in prizes to winners.

Power Series format

Partypoker is taking a novel approach to this year’s events by syncing up Powerfest’s tournament structures with the Power Series format the iGaming giant introduced last November. The structure was created with partypoker brand ambassador and four-time World Champion Boxer Carl Froch in mind, and replaces the site’s Daily, Saturday and Sunday Majors.

According to the new format, Powerfest will be broken down into four weeks, which will be categorized as either Featherweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight or Highroller. Each Sunday, a Main Event will close the week’s action and offer guarantees up to $500K.

Partypoker has been heavily promoting its new boxing inspired tournament schedule as of late. The site delighted players earlier this month by awarding winners double the stated guarantees in a promo it calls Fight Night. The free cash giveaway continued in Fight Night Round 2, when the guarantees of the $5.50 buy-in Jab, the $22 Contender and the $109 Uppercut were all doubled.

Tournament of Champions

This year, partypoker has decided to do away with leaderboards in favor of running a Tournament of Champions-style contest. Win any of the series’ 98 events and you’ll receive an entry into the promo tourney, which guarantees tournament ticket prizes of $5.50 up to $530.

The overall winner will enjoy a $5,000 Las Vegas prize package which includes the following:

• Entry into the WPT500 at Aria
• Five nights hotel accommodations for two
• $1,000 cash
• Dinner with poker legend Mike Sexton and a signed copy of his new book
• A pair of boxing gloves courtesy of Carl Froch
• Tournament of Champions winners belt

“I love that partypoker are introducing the Tournament of Champions element into the new Powerfest,” said Sexton. “This allows all the winners of each buy-in level to compete for their chance to win a memory of a lifetime. I look forward to hosting the winners in Vegas this summer.”

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