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Stake Poker has added the next big stop in its online poker schedule, with Stake Showdown slated for Sunday, Sept. 27. The event carries a $1,000 buy-in and a $125,000 guaranteed prize pool, and it is being pitched as a high-roller tournament on Stake’s international platform.

According to Pokerfuse, satellites are already running and will continue daily until the tournament begins later in September. That qualifier path starts as low as $0.50 and moves through $10 and $100 step events before landing a $1,000 seat in the Main Event.

Players with deeper bankrolls can skip the ladder and buy in directly for $1,000, with re-entry available during the early levels. The site said the promotion is part of Stake’s push to grow interest in its online poker product.

PokerStrategy.com described Stake Showdown as a flagship online event and said the prize pool is guaranteed at $125,000, though it can grow beyond that if the field is large enough. It put the Main Event start time at 17:00 UTC on Sept. 27 and said qualification began on Sept. 1.

The qualification route is a three-step system. A player who gets through Step 1 advances to the $10 Step 2, then to the $100 Step 3, which awards the $1,000 ticket. The $0.50 route can turn into a seat worth 2,000 times the entry fee, but players do not have to start at the bottom, since they can enter wherever it fits their bankroll and schedule.

As covered in August, Stake Poker had already used a smaller one-off format with its $8 August Madness PKO and $80,000 guarantee. The new Showdown follows a broader buildout that began with Stake’s international platform in 2017, then expanded into browser-based online poker in 2024, with in-house software and features such as Run it Twice, Rabbit Hunt and Four Color Deck.

The event is only for players on the international Stake platform, not Stake.us, which remains the separate U.S. sweepstakes poker site.