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PokerStars has turned the Sunday Million’s 20th anniversary into a $5 million guaranteed summer series, with daily $109 Phase 1 heats running through September 6. Players who survive a heat carry their chip stacks into Phase 2, which PokerStars calls the Finals.

The anniversary edition is being run as a phased progressive knockout, or PKO, event. In that format, each player starts with a $25 bounty, and anyone who knocks out an opponent gets half of that bounty immediately, with the other half added to their own bounty.

Each Phase 1 costs $109, starts players with 10,000 chips, uses 10-minute levels and opens at 40/80/10a. Late registration lasts 100 minutes, or about the end of Level 9, up to three re-entries are allowed while it is open, and play in each Phase 1 ends when only 3% of the field remains.

Depending on participation and the payout structure, the money bubble could even hit during the opening Phase 1 flights. That means it is possible to cash without advancing to the Finals.

PokerStars is also stacking on cheaper qualification paths. Satellites start at $0.55, while Special Edition Spin & Go’s begin at $0.75 and $4. In the $0.75 version, the $109 Phase 1 ticket is the winner-take-all prize 2,000 times out of 1 million, and in the $4 version the ticket lands 1.25% of the time.

The company is also using promotions to seed the field. One Ticket Machine giveaway puts $100,000 in $109 Phase 1 tickets up for grabs each week, and Jet Set Season is adding another $300,000 worth of Phase 1 tickets.

The buy-in is back down to the standard $109 after recent anniversary editions used a $215 price tag. Pokerfuse said that drop means PokerStars needs roughly 50,000 entries to cover the $5 million guarantee without an overlay, compared with last year’s 28,444-entry event that came up $311,200 short of its $6 million promise.