With massive fields and limited space in most live casinos, the multiple-flight event - with players split into separate Day 1 groups that reconvene when the field has been narrowed to a more reasonable size for a collective Day 2 - has become a staple of the booming live poker tournament world over the past few years.
The massive demand for bigger and better online poker tournaments is about to make it a staple of the virtual poker world as well.
The Ongame Network Ltd - a subdivision of the Austrian bwin Group and a leading provider of online casino platforms - has seen the future and jumped into the fray first with the release of "Heat Tournaments" - a new feature on over twenty partner sites that allows for multiple starting heats, just as in the major offline poker tournaments.
Each heat in a tournament event is scheduled to start separately from the other heats and will last for a specified period of time. Players still standing at the end of each heat will bring their chip stacks with them and merge with survivors of the other heats and play it out in final set at a later time or date.
"The benefits of having the option to use heats when setting up tournaments are two-fold," says Tomer Katz, spokesperson for the Ongame Network.
"One, we can now do a better job of tailoring our partners tournaments in accordance with the habits, geographical origin and overall scheduling demands of their customers. Secondly, players can participate in tournaments with even bigger fields than before without the drawback of having to dedicate more than a few hours at a time in order to be able to finish them."
The first opportunity players have to check out the new format will be in the 17th edition of the acclaimed "Grand Tournament" that runs across the Ongame Network from Sept. 28-30. Players there will have a choice of starting the $200,000 prize pool tournament on either Friday the 28th or Saturday the 29th.
