Whether you play poker on a Mac, Windows, or Linux computer, there’s one word that is the same across every online poker site: Overlay. The concept is really simple. An overlay means that the guaranteed prize pool in a tournament exceeds the actual prize pool, which is the number of players multiplied by the buy-in. If a tournament has a $100,000 guarantee, but only a $70,000 prize pool, the overlay is the difference between the two numbers, or $30,000. This weekend, the center of the poker universe was not PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, or even PartyPoker. Instead, the epicenter of Planet Poker was at the Rio in Las Vegas, the site of the 2008 World Series of Poker. With smaller fields, the major online tournaments boasted overlay after overlay.
Three tournaments offered enormous overlays this past weekend. The allure of playing in a tournament with an overlay is that you’re competing against a smaller number of people for the same prize pool. You can’t ask for more of an edge than that. The Bodog $100,000 Guarantee only brought in 711 entrants. It’s a $100+9 tournament, which means that the total prize pool was only $71,000. You can do the math and see that a $29,000 overlay was in the offing for everyone who played. In the end, NATCH walked away with $23,600. Also making the final table were gfunkera (second), SpauldingSmails, (third), CobaltBlue (fourth), and ChicagoBulls (fifth). The top five players pocketed over $5,000. The Bodog $100K tournament regularly gets a $20,000 to $30,000 overlay.
The second tournament which offered a huge overlay was the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee. It’s hard to believe that a site as large as Full Tilt wouldn’t be able to attract enough players at $200+16 each to cover the guarantee, but that’s exactly what happened this weekend. There were 3,455 entrants, which meant that the prize pool was $691,000. The overlay: nearly $60,000, or nearly 10% of the prize pool. Grabbing the $132,788 first place prize was IzabelG . In second was Nairb09, who pocketed $80,250. The top six spots paid at least $20,000. You can play in the $750K Guaranteed every Sunday on Full Tilt Poker. The tournament does not normally fall short of its guarantee.
Finally, the UltimateBet $200,000 Guarantee was anything but filled to capacity. There were 861 entrants, each of whom paid $200+15 to enter. It doesn’t take a graphing calculator to figure out that the actual prize pool was $172,000, meaning the overlay was $28,000, or about 14% of the prize pool. This tournament, like the Bodog $100K, consistently sees an overlay, so if you’re looking for a great value, look no further than these two sites. Emerging victorious in the UltimateBet $200K Guarantee this weekend was GOGATORS86, who took home $45,000. Pocketing $27,000 for second place was nobadbeatsplz. Each of the top eight finishers became at least $5,000 richer. That’s a pretty good reward for a $215 buy-in.
So what is an overlay? If you answered, “a major reason why you should play a tournament,” you’re right. With the 2008 World Series of Poker attracting all of the attention away from the major online poker sites, expect this trend to continue right through the end of the Main Event on July 14th.