The Mediterranean Poker Party has added an extra turbo starting flight to its $2,200 Global Poker Championship as the opening event chases a $2 million guarantee.
The tournament had recorded 705 entries and 106 qualifiers after its scheduled flights, leaving the field well short of the 1,000 entries required to generate $2 million from the $2,000 prize-pool portion of each buy-in. Organisers responded by adding Day 1e at 10 a.m. local time on September 19 and pushing the start of Day 2 back to 4 p.m.
Extra Flight Gives the $2M Guarantee One More Shot
The late schedule change is significant for both the organisers and players. With $200 of each $2,200 entry listed as the tournament fee, the first 705 entries account for $1.41 million in prize-pool contributions. That left a $590,000 gap before the additional turbo flight began.
Put another way, the Global Poker Championship needed 295 more entries from the added flight to reach the guarantee through buy-ins alone. Anything below 1,000 total entries would leave an overlay, with the operator required to make up the difference to the advertised $2 million prize pool.
For poker players, that is not bad news. An overlay means the field is playing for more money than it collectively put into the prize pool, effectively adding value to every surviving stack. The only people unlikely to be cheering are those responsible for the tournament budget.
Global Poker Championship Before Day 1e
- Buy-in: $2,200 ($2,000 + $200)
- Guarantee: $2,000,000
- Entries before added flight: 705
- Players qualified: 106
- Prize-pool contributions: $1,410,000
- Entries needed to hit guarantee: 1,000
- Additional entries required: 295
Petrushevskii Still Sets the Pace
Sergei Petrushevskii holds the overall chip lead with 2.42 million after a strong opening flight. He built his stack throughout the day and surged beyond two million when pocket aces delivered a double knockout late in proceedings.
A player listed as John Doeys came closest to catching him in Day 1c, bagging 2.275 million after topping a 302-entry flight. Ersin Sancak finished that flight with 1.945 million, while a string of experienced tournament players also booked places in Day 2.
Those survivors include Selahaddin Bedir, Fahredin Mustafov and Espen Sandvik. Earlier qualifiers include Felipe Costa, Moussa Ahmad, Dmitry Gromov and Cyprus number one Yiannis Liperis, giving the tournament plenty of firepower even before the extra flight adds its final batch of qualifiers.
Defending Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event champion Daniel Thaller is also through. Thaller won last year’s showpiece after a three-way deal for $786,670, while Timothy Chung and Andreas Mavromoustakis each collected more than $600,000.
A $10M Festival With Bigger Guarantees Ahead
The Global Poker Championship is only the first major test of a festival carrying more than $10 million in guarantees. Poker Type’s Mediterranean Poker Party preview details a schedule that becomes even more ambitious as the series progresses.
A $2,200 Luxon Pay Mystery Bounty carries a $500,000 guarantee, while the $3,500 Merit Poker Cup puts another $1 million on the table. The headline attraction is the $5,300 Main Event, which comes with a hefty $5 million guarantee and will provide the clearest measure of the festival’s pulling power.
The timing is not especially forgiving. The international live calendar is crowded, with major events running across several regions. Poker Type has recently covered Nick Schulman’s Triton Main Event victory in South Korea and the ongoing WPT Australia festival, giving travelling grinders several competing destinations.
What Happens Next?
The added Day 1e uses a turbo structure with 15-minute levels, a sharp contrast to the longer levels waiting for qualifiers later in the tournament. Day 2 has been moved to 4 p.m. local time and will use 50-minute levels, with the field expected to play toward a final table before Sunday’s conclusion.
The key number is now the final entry count. If the turbo attracts 295 entries, the tournament reaches its guarantee naturally. If it falls short, players will have an overlay to chase, and every missing entry will effectively add another $2,000 of operator-funded value to the prize pool.
Either outcome gives the opening weekend a little extra spice. The Mediterranean Poker Party wanted a big start to its Cyprus festival, and the late turbo means the race to $2 million will now go right down to the wire.
