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In a surprise move, renowned online poker operator Partypoker has announced a new online tournaments series, Christmas Freeze, that will run alongside PokerStars’ Winter Series over the next few weeks. The schedule for the tournament series is yet to be officially announced but the operator’s lobby has already listed the Christmas Free tournament – apparently, it will kick off on December 23. The tournament guarantees a total of $10 million across more than 201 tournaments over a two-week period. Unfortunately, all the tournaments in this series will have a freezeout structure, that is, rebuys or re-entries will not be allowed.

While the $10 in guaranteed prize money is more than enough to get players excited for some holiday tournament fun, it is still significantly lower than the guaranteed prize pool of over $21 million that Partypoker attained during its record-breaking Millions Online. As such, the announcement of the Christmas Freeze series seems to have been, in most part, prompted by the announcement of the PokerStars Winter Series.

PokerStars and Partypoker are the industry’s leading poker operators with each trying to dominate the market with a bunch of very exciting offerings. PokerStars, for instance, last week announced that it will be away at least $85 million during this holiday season. In addition to its regular tournaments, the operators’ Winter Series will be running as from December 23 to January 7 and will feature a 60 events and a whopping $40 million guaranteed prize pool. Considering the timing of this announcement, it seems to have been a reaction to the immense success of Partypoker’s Millions Online.

Raising Standards for the Consumers

The main beneficiary of the raging war between the two poker operators is the consumer – such stiff competition has resulted in the generation of more value across the board. Customers will now be able to take part in both Christmas events which cumulatively offer almost $100 million in guaranteed prize money to play for between December 23 and January 7. Furthermore, the intensifying competition between the two companies is beginning to raise the stakes for every other poker operator in the industry.

More Action Coming Players’ Way

Christmas holiday activities aside, Partypoker also announced three major tournament series that are scheduled for the first quarter of 2019. First will be the site’s popular KO series which is scheduled to run between January 20 and February 3. It will be followed by the low buy-in Monster Series that will return as from February 24 and March 3. Concluding the trio of poker tournaments for the first quarter of 2019 will be Partypoker’s flagship PowerFest Series that will run from March 24 to April 7.