Archive for the ‘PokerStars News’ Category
TourneyMan on September 14th, 2009
The Poker Stars 2009 World Championship of Online Poker is still raging and after a power-packed weekend, there are several online poker players a heck of a lot richer. For example, one Eugene “MyRabbiFoo” Katchalov is $140,000 richer after taking down Event #24, the $530 Heads-Up event. He beat out JakusKhan, who took the $120,000 second prize. The thing is, Katchalov already has over $3 million in poker winnings, including a World Poker Tour title.
In 2007 Katchalov, hailing originally from Kiev, Ukraine and more recently from Brooklyn, New York, won the Bellagio Cup III and its $118,785 top prize. But he won most of his nearly $3 million in December of 2007 with an almost $2.5 million win at the World Poker Tour Season 6: WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic.
The WCOOP HU event had a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, and was the first at this year’s PokerStars WCOOP to have an overlay (1,564 players came up short $218,000.
TourneyMan on September 2nd, 2009
This past Sunday, August 30, in stark contrast to the unfortunate overlays of late, so many people registered for the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up that the $750,000 guaranteed prize pool increased to $820,000 – making the first prize $128,000 which went to CucbKu after chopping the pot with the runner-up Jarfish, who got a respectable $101,000 for his showing.
Meanwhile, 8,933 players turned out for the PokerStars Sunday Million bring the prize pool to $1.7 million. In that event 1,350 players cashed, and the final 5 players chopped the pot, CesarSPA who had the chip lead, and so took the nearly $209,000 lion’s share even though he only came in second, and angiebug4 coming back from the short stack to win the event and take hom nearly $127,000.
Meanwhile, don’t forget, the 2009 PokerStars WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) starts tomorrow, with $40 million guaranteed is cash prizes.
TourneyMan on August 19th, 2009
Poker Stars is launching its very own television show. Reminiscent of Full Tilt Poker’s “Face the Ace”, it’s called “The PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge” and it’s a heads-up poker series where players cycle through increasingly tougher sit-downs against increasingly skilled celebrity Team PokerStars Pros, until they reach their final ultimate opponent in Kid Poker Daniel Negreanu, currently on the short list for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame this year. Beat Dan and you win a cool $1 million.
To qualify to compete on the show, login to your PokerStars lobby and enter the daily Million Dollar Challenge freerolls. If you finish in the top 10, you become eligible to submit a video in which you explain why you should be on the show. Those selected will get to bring a couple of their poker loving friends along with them to witness the excitement.
The show will be broadcast on FOX television.
PokerStar on August 5th, 2009
PokerStars has announced that it is finally stepping up their game when it comes to new players first deposit bonus match. Stars will now offer new players a 100% deposit match up to $600. One of the more unique facets of this bonus is the fact that players can make up to three qualifying deposits in 90 days (up to a total of $600) – this is the perfect way to take full advantage of the 100% bonus.
Once you make a deposit the bonus match is released in $10 increments. These $10 increments are released when the player earns 170 frequent player points (FPP). Players have up to 6 months to release the total of their deposit bonus.
PokerStars offers this bonus just as they are getting ready to release a PokerStars software update that will allow players to play in Euro’s, play mixed Hold’em/Omaha cash ring games as well as allowing tournament players to take a simultaneous 5 minute break from all the tournaments they are in.
CLICK HERE to sign up for your PokerStars account and then enter PokerStars bonus code STARS600 to claim your deposit match.
PokerStars is also serving up over $1 Million in 2009 WCOOP tickets.
TourneyMan on August 4th, 2009
Rumor has it a new PokerStars software upgrade is on the way, and not a moment too soon as rival site Full Tilt Poker has already released new software last week, which includes the PokerStars-inspired “tournament chops” option in which players at the end of a tournament can choose to make a deal rather than play out the cards.
The new PokerStars cashier will no doubt feature support for Euros, and the new PokerStars lobby will see Mixed Hold’em/Omaha cash ring games (now that the event has made it onto the 2009 schedule for the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker).
A feature tournament players are particularly hoping to see in the new PokerStars software is synchronized breaks, a feature already pleasing the masses at FullTilt. This will allow all PokerStars tournament players to take a simulatneous 5 minute breather once-an-hour.
Also expected is for the Private Tables option to be extended to players at lower stakes.
TourneyMan on July 15th, 2009
Recently we told you that the schedule for the upcoming 2009 PokerStars WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker). What we didn’t tell you was that, around the same time as PokerStars released the 2009 WCOOP schedule, fellow leading poker site FullTilt Poker released its scheduled for the next Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS XIII) and its lower-stakes sister-series, the Mini-FTOPS. Why bring that up here?
Because unlike last time, when the two FTOPS events ran concurrently, this time they run on separate days. Thankfully the FTOPS’s schedule doesnt interfere with the one for the WCOOP, but the one for the Mini-FTOPS sure does.
In fact, the schedule of the Mini-FTOPS XIII (September 9-20) overlap entirely with the 2009 PokerStars WCOOP (September 3-20)! Even the September 20 Main Events overlap, with the Mini-FTOPS $500,000 Main Event beginning at 5 pm ET and the WCOOP $10,000,000 Main Event beginning at 6:30.
To find out which other events overlap at the same times too, check the individual schedules.
TourneyMan on July 6th, 2009
PokerStars has released the schedule for the latest installment of its annual World Championship of Online Poker. The 2009 WCOOP will commence on September 3. The number of poker tournament events comprising the series has jumped from last year’s 33 to 45 this year, with events not only in Holdem but in Omaha, Stud, Razz, HORSE, 2-7 Triple Draw, and Badugi.
The 2009 WCOOP Main Event, of course, will be in No Limit Holdem, a $5,200 two-day event with a whopping $10 million guaranteed prize pool. Satellite qualifers for free entry into this event are running now at PokerStars.
More than a dozen of the events in the 2009 WCOOP boast prize pools of over $1 million, including:
- Event #1: September 3, $215 six-max No Limit Holdem for $1.25 million guaranteed
- Event #10: September 6, $10,300 No Limit Holdem High Roller for $2 million guaranteed
- Event #11: September 6, $530 No Limit Holdem two-day for $3 million guaranteed
- Event #28: September 13, $1,050 No Limit Holdem two-day for $3 million guaranteed
TourneyMan on June 26th, 2009
If getting inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame could be called winning the tournament of tournaments, then this news qualifies as PokerStars Tournament News big time, because the site has named its choice of nominee for the 2009 induction: Tom McEvoy.
This is the same Tom McEvoy who just beat out the toughest playing field perhaps in poker history, the Poker Champions Invitational held at the 2009 WSOP in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the World Series of Poker in which the only players allowed entry were prior winners of the WSOP Main Event. Tom McEvoy won the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1994. And he won the Champions of Poker Invitational, against such greats as Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth as well as the several main event winners who won their ticket into the event free through satelliting at PokerStars: Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, and the 2008 Main Event winner Peter Eastgate (who at 22 y.o. unseated Phil Hellmuth from his longstanding record of being the youngest WSOP Main Event winner in history).
TourneyMan on June 16th, 2009
Poker Stars has just released the schedule for the sixth season of the PokerStars European Poker Tour. In terms of total prize pool distributed, this is promised to be the richest European Poker Tour yet. EPT Season 6 will debut on August 17 in Moscow, Russia.
Of course PokerStars will be running satellites throughout the season, awarding many of its players the chance of a lifetime, to stay in an exotic international locale and compete in a live poker tournament with a multi-million dollar prize pool. Stay tuned here and to PokerStars for more details on these golden opportunities.
EPT Season 5 set some pretty high benchmarks for EPT Season 6 to follow, with many record setting prize pools and player fields. At the EPT Season 5 Monte Carlo Grand Final, for example, the prize pool reached an unprecedented $9.3 million. That event, by the way (and in case you didn’t see it) was won by Pieter De Korve. His prize: $2.3 million.
TourneyMan on June 4th, 2009
On Thursday, May 28, Poker Stars announced the start of a new major land-based poker series it would be sponsoring, the Italian Poker Tour. In collaboration with Luca Pagano, a member of Team PokerStars and major player commonly seen at the final tables of many European Poker Tour events, Poker Stars
What this means for amateur poker players like ourselves is that Poker Stars will now start offering low-cost satellite tournaments (€5 or 100 Frequent Player Points, or FPPs) awarding free entry into larger satellites in which the ultimate top prize is free entry into the various IPT events.
The inaugural event in this new series, known as the IPT for short, kicked off June 1 in San Remo. Not to be confused with the popular fledgling EPT San Remo event that PokerStars only just introduced into the European Poker Tour last year, Season 4, IPT San Remo is still underway. The winner of this first Italian Poker Tour event, won’t be discovered for another few days yet – as it’s a 6-day event – but one thing is for sure. Whoever it is, their name will surely go down in PokerStars history.
