More than 1,400 players have booked their places in the PokerStars Sunday Million 20th Anniversary Finals, with the final scramble to join them now underway.
Qualification closes on Sunday, September 6, when the $5 million guaranteed Finals begin. Among those already waiting are WCOOP champions, EPT winners, PokerStars Ambassadors and players who reached the tournament through satellites costing less than a dollar.
It creates an appropriately Sunday Million-like field for the tournament’s 20th anniversary.
Established professionals will be sitting alongside recreational players and low-stakes qualifiers, all chasing the same anniversary title.
Sunday Million Field Grows Beyond 1,400 Players
The field has continued to grow rapidly as the Finals approach.
Poker Type reported last week that more than 1,000 players had qualified, with 1,123 confirmed at that stage.
That number has now passed 1,400.
More than 450 of the finalists qualified through Daily Heats for less than the regular $109 tournament buy-in, and there is still time for the field to grow further.
The Sunday Million 20th Anniversary has been running as a 10-week phased tournament. Players qualify through Phase 1 Daily Heats before carrying their surviving stacks into the Finals.
Those Daily Heats continue through Sunday.
Satellites are also available from $0.55, while special anniversary Spin & Go tournaments start from $0.75. PokerStars’ $800,000 Ticket Machine promotion has another $100,000 worth of tickets scheduled to be awarded on Saturday.
Then the qualification window closes.
WCOOP and EPT Champions Join Sunday Million Field
There is serious tournament pedigree among the players already through.
Portugal’s André “PTFisherman23” Marques and Bulgaria’s Ognjan “cocojamb0” Dimov are multiple WCOOP champions, while Germany’s Nils “pudelpower” Pudel has won titles in both WCOOP and SCOOP.
Gilles “TaxationisTheft” Simon brings major live and online credentials after winning a WCOOP title and the EPT Cyprus Main Event.
Another former EPT Main Event champion is Sweden’s Robin Ylitalo, who won EPT London in 2013. Dimitar “KuuL” Danchev has titles from WCOOP, the PCA and EPT on his résumé.
The list continues.
Two-time 2026 SCOOP winner Mats “flerrehuve” Ullerang, 2017 WCOOP Main Event champion Steven “SvZff” van Zadelhoff and two-time 2025 SCOOP champion Leonard “Grozzorg” Maue have all secured seats.
British player Joshua “3betwizkid” Boulton, a WSOP bracelet winner in 2025, will also be involved.
The anniversary tournament may celebrate the history of the Sunday Million, but the quality of the field makes it look increasingly like another major online championship.
The First Phased Sunday Million Winner Is Back
One particularly appropriate name among the qualifiers is Dalton “daltonhb” Hobold.
The Brazilian became the first champion of the phased version of the Sunday Million and will now return for its 20th Anniversary Finals.
The phased format has been central to this anniversary edition.
Rather than requiring every player to enter one enormous tournament at the same time, PokerStars has spent 10 weeks running qualifying phases. Players surviving those heats carry their chips forward into the Finals.
That approach has also created routes into the $5 million tournament for players with much smaller bankrolls.
For some, the journey has started at the very bottom of the satellite structure.
Carlos Velloso Turns Tiny Satellite Into Sunday Million Seat
Carlos “kbongrj” Velloso is one of them.
The 53-year-old Brazilian qualified through a $0.55 satellite, putting him into the same tournament as some of online poker’s most successful championship players.
Velloso began playing poker at home with friends before joining a poker team in 2019. He now plays online full-time and already has experience turning small satellite entries into opportunities at much higher stakes.
One of his best results came in the $5,200 Titans tournament.
Velloso qualified for that event through a $5 satellite before eventually finishing seventh for almost $15,000. He has also played the Sunday Million several times before.
He described the tournament as one capable of changing players’ lives because of the size of its prizes.
His route into the anniversary edition illustrates one of the reasons the Sunday Million has retained its appeal for two decades. A player qualifying for cents can ultimately find themselves competing against EPT and WCOOP champions for millions of dollars.
Spraggy, Marle Spragg and Sebastian Huber Join the Finals
PokerStars’ own team will also be represented.
Sebastian “peace&loove” Huber has now secured his place alongside fellow PokerStars Ambassadors Ben “Spraggy” Spragg and Marle “MarlzTV” Spragg.
The trio are already closely involved in PokerStars’ September tournament plans. Spraggy, Marle and Huber are also leading communities in the PokerStars WCOOP Games, where players can qualify for ambassador-led teams through tournaments costing $0.01.
Now there is another competition surrounding their Sunday Million appearances.
PokerStars is running an SMA20 Ambassador Last Longer, allowing players to back Spraggy, Marle or Huber to survive deepest in the Finals.
Three $0.01 All-In Shootouts are being used to make the selections, with a $1,000 WCOOP Main Event Medium ticket available.
It adds another crossover between the Sunday Million anniversary and PokerStars’ next major online series.
Sunday Million Finals Lead Straight Into WCOOP
Sunday, September 6 is becoming one of the biggest dates of PokerStars’ year.
The Sunday Million 20th Anniversary Finals begin that day, but so does the 25th edition of the World Championship of Online Poker.
PokerStars has already revealed the full WCOOP 2026 schedule, with the series running through September 30 and crowning 350 champions across 121 numbered events.
That creates an unusually neat crossover between two of PokerStars’ longest-running online poker brands.
The Sunday Million celebrates 20 years just as WCOOP reaches its 25th edition.
For some players, the Sunday Million Finals could therefore be the beginning of several weeks of major online tournament poker rather than the end of an anniversary campaign.
What Happens in the Sunday Million Finals?
The remaining qualifiers converge on September 6 for the next stage of the tournament.
A $5 million guaranteed prize pool awaits them, along with a bespoke trophy for the eventual Sunday Million 20th Anniversary champion.
The survivors will then return for Day 2 on Monday, September 7.
PokerStars plans to broadcast the action with cards-up coverage on Twitch, giving viewers the opportunity to follow the remaining field as it moves closer to crowning the anniversary champion.
Before that happens, there is still one important unknown.
How big will the final field become?
One Final Weekend to Reach the $5M Sunday Million
For the 1,400-plus players already qualified, the waiting is almost over.
For everyone else, the final weekend represents the last opportunity to join them.
Daily Heats remain available through Sunday, alongside satellites and anniversary Spin & Go tournaments. Another $100,000 in tickets is also due to be distributed through the Ticket Machine on Saturday.
Then the 10-week qualifying campaign ends.
Twenty years of Sunday Million history will come down to one anniversary field, with established champions, PokerStars Ambassadors and players who started their journey at the lowest levels of the satellite system all chasing the same title.
The field has already grown from 1,123 to more than 1,400 in little more than a week.
There is still time for a few more names to join them.
