Tag: online poker

Win Freeroll Entries With Luvin Poker PokerPoints Program

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Luvin Poker runs a PokerPoints program that allows players to earn free entry into a variety of cash multi-table tournaments. Luvin Poker players earn PokerPoints at a rate of one PokerPoint for $0.10 or 1.5 PokerPoints for every €0.15 they spend in rake at LuvinPoker’s real money cash game tables.

Players can then use the PokerPoints they accumulate to enter PokerPoints Freeroll Tournaments that have no cash buy-in and award real money as prizes. A quick search of PokerPoints Freerolls running at the time of this writing showed three taking place today, a $50 PokerPoints Freeroll for a 150 PokerPoints buy-in and two $10 PokerPoints Freerolls, each with a 50 PokerPoints buy-in.

While the prize pools are not necessarily huge in these events, they are free to enter with points earned simply by playing as you normally would in LuvinPoker cash games anyway. The real benefit to participating in these PokerPoints Freerolls is that they are a safe (read: no-risk) way to practice tournament style online poker, which is different to play than cash games. Currently all Luvin Poker PokerPoints Freeroll Tournaments are in No Limit Texas Hold’em.

Freeroll tournament entries aren’t the only thing PokerPoints can earn you at Luvin Poker either. The site also has its own webshop, featuring LuvinPoker apparel, including men’s, women’s and unisex tank tops, t-shirts, windbreakers, vests and military caps. You can order any of these items for as little as 1,000 PokerPoints.

Licensed in Malta by the Lotteries & Gaming Authority there, Luvin Poker is open to U.S. players.

Cake Poker: It’s Not Just For Poker Anymore

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Contrary to its name, the action at Cake Poker isn’t all about poker. Granted, it’s mostly about poker. But it’s also about War: another classic card game that CakePoker players can enjoy for real money rewards.

Cake War was introduced as part of the Cake 2.0 software update. War is all about strategy and bluffing, removing the element of chance from cards entirely. Cake offers two formats of the game to choose from: Tactic WAR, or the classic version of the game with 10 cards per player, and Blitz WAR, a faster paced variant of the game with 6 cards per player. Also Blitz WAR doesn’t use a central deck. If you don’t know how to play, War is easy to learn and all the rules are posted at the site.

The gist of the game goes like this: Players start with a set of “bid cards” (either 6 or 10 depending on the version of the game). If a center deck is used, it is formed from the same cards Players then secretly bid on each card revealed from center deck with the high card winning. Players are scored by the face value on the deck cards they win. In Blitz War, in which a central deck is not used, players simply bid on each other’s cards, again with high card winning.

It’s a simple game to learn but a difficult game to master, which is why it’s become such a popular staple at Cake Poker.

Cake WAR is played with a tournament buy-in structure, which is how the prize pool for the winners is formed.

August 2011 is PokerStars VIP Club Mega Month

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This August, 2011, all you have to do is earn 75 VIP Points at Poker Stars and you will be given Silver Star player status for the rest of this month and all of next, through to the end of September. Ordinarily you have to earn 750 VPPS to achieve that status.

What does SilverStar status bring you? You get 1.5 FPPS for each VPP instead of just 1 for 1, as BronzeStar players do. You also get a better monthly rewards rate: 16-18 percent starting the first month at $22 and previous months 19-21 percent starting at $26 instead of 9-10 percent for up to $12 the first month and 15-17 percent for up to $21 the second month.

And what if you’re already a SilverStars VIP player? Then you can gain GoldStars status for earning only 300 VPPS instead of the normal 3,000. GoldStar VIP players the same–earn 750 VPPs for PlatinumStar status instead of the usual 7,500 VPPS. Now, once September ends, to retain the boosted status you will have to earn the normal requisite number of VPPS or be downgraded to your previous status. But for two months at least, you can get a feel for the view “up there” and perhaps an added incentive to try and climb your way back to those heights.

Each status level brings you a better FPP for VPP rate and higher monthly rewards potential.

During VIP Club Mega Month, Poker Stars is also holding a VIP Store Sale.

Introducing the Luvin Poker Super League

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Luvin Poker offers its players $2,000 in guaranteed monthly prizes for the top players in its Super League. The Luvin Poker Super League is a points race in which players at Luvin Poker’s selected guaranteed tournaments will earn points based on their performance in the events.

The top 30 players in each of these selected guaranteed tournaments will receive points, ranging from 5 points for each of 26th through 30th place to 200 points for first. Luvin Poker will track these players’ point scores over the course of the month, giving $500 to the player who has earned the most points at the end of the month, $300 to the runner-up and $200 to third place. Players in the top 20 will be paid out a prize of at least $20.

Super League points and the end-of-month $2,000 pot is on top of whatever prize monies these top performing players earn from the tournaments’ guaranteed prize pools.

In addition to a Super League leader board and prizes for regularly schedule MTTs, this August 2011 Luvin Poker also holds three other monthly leader board contests for Sit and Go tournament players–SNG Bronze, SNG Silver and SNG Gold. Eligible tournaments for this contest are all 6-seater regular and 6-seater speed Sit and Gos (SNGs). Whether a tournament is considered for points on the Bronze, Silver or Gold leader board depends on the tournament buy-in, with SNG Bronze tournaments having buy-ins of $0.55 or less; SNG Silver tournaments having buy-ins of $1.10 to $5.50; and SNG Gold tournaments having buyins of over $5.50. End of month prizes a guaranteed sum–$100, $250 or $600, respectively–plus a percentage of the month’s SNG buy-ins paid. First place gets 40% of the pot, second gets 25 and third gets 15%. The top 5 places pay out.

Poker Stars Women Get Extra WCOOP Treatment

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The Poker Stars World Championship of Online Poker is coming up, and in keeping with the continuing effort of PokerStars to appeal to its growing numbers of women at the online poker tables (and to attract even more), they’re holding a special WCOOP 2011 promotion for ladies only.

Here’s how it works. All women who reach a final table at either a Women’s Sunday event or a Women’s Poker League event will automatically win a free seat in a WCOOP Step Satellite.

Women’s Poker League events take place twice daily with a $0.10 buy-in and twice daily with a $1.10 buy-in. The final table players at each of these will earn themselves a $7.50 WCOOP Step 1 Satellite tournament ticket regardless of how they fare at the final table from that point onward. The Women’s Sunday event takes place every Sunday and offers its final tablers a $27 WCOOP Step 2 satellite tournament ticket.

In addition, once the 2011 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker comes and goes, the woman who finishes highest on the WCOOP Player of the Series Leaderboard will be named Woman of the Series and win a $3,500 2012 PCA Women’s prize package that, just like it sounds, includes free entry into the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Women’s event.

The 2011 WCOOP takes place from September 4 – 26 and spanning the 22 days includes 62 poker tournament events with a combined guaranteed prize pool of over $30 million.

All unused Step Ticket prizes from this promotion will expire on September 25.

Lock Poker Drops Poker Cheat

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After Portuguese poker pro José “Girah” Macedo admitted to what amounted to $30,000 poker cheating scam, Lock Poker did the only thing it could do in good consciense–drop Macedo from its esteemed list of sponsored poker pros.

18-year-old Jose Macedo came into the public eye back in March of 2011 when he posted on an online poker forum that he had won $2 million with only a $30 deposit at a poker site (not Lock Poker). He posted the results of how he accomplished that achievement along with a detailed blow-by-blow of how it came to pass. This was followed shortly thereafter by a sponsorship arrangement with Lock Poker.

Macedo then used his newly won status to scam players who trusted him out of $30,000. It went like this: Macedo courted players on a Skype discussion group, telling them he’d sit on the rails while they played in order to give them advice. Well it seems Macedo was advising his players to pit themselves repeatedly against a player by the username Sauron1989 who turned out to be luckier (or simply better) than Macedo had judged him to be. At this point it should come as no surprise that Sauron1989 was Macedo himself, making his moves based on his knowledge of the hole cards in his opponents’ hands.

Lock Poker’s administration made a statement that they were “horrified” by Macedo’s actions and that “within 10 minutes” of learning of his behavior had dropped his LockPRO sponsorship. Macedo is also banned from playing at Lock Poker ever again, under any username.

Lock Poker is one of the last remaining poker sites still serving U.S. players. As such it also currently boasts one of the largest American player pools in all of online poker.

Party Poker Oktoberfest VIP Prize Packages Up For Grabs

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This August 2011, Party Poker is giving away sixteen trips to Germany for this year’s Oktoberfest celebration. Open only to Party Poker’s Palladium VIP members, this promotion is broken down into two separate points races, each awarding 7 of the 16 Oktoberfest prize packages, with a freeroll tournament at the end of the promo period to award the remaining 2 prize packages. In addition, more than 100 iPods, iPads and iPod Touches are up for grabs as well.

Opt-in to one or both races, running August 12-21 and August 22-31. Compete in both races and you’ll get more chances to win, in more ways than one. Players who excel in both races can win either an iPad 2 (16GB), if in the top 25 of each, and/or an iPod Touch (64GB) if in the top 75 of each.

The Oktoberfest prize packages, meanwhile, include luxury hotel accommodations, breakfasts, special dinners, exclusive poker tournament entries, and VIP tent access and VIP treatment throughout the festivities. Players finishing 8th-25th on either of the leaderboards win $250 in cash, while players finishing 26th-75th win $100 in cash. Then, the remaining players in the top 400 starting from 76 on down, will win an entry into a VIP Oktoberfest and Super Gadget Freeroll taking place September 4.

Just opt-in to the races and start playing at Party Poker’s real money tables as much as you can, earning as many PartyPoints as you can, and climbining higher and higher on that leader board toward a weekend in Munich you’ll never forget.

Carbon Poker Holds Ongoing SnG Leaderboard

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The SnG Leaderboard is a staple of the promotional offerings at Carbon Poker, with at least $12,000 in cash prizes going out to the top performers each and every month. The CarbonPoker SnG Leaderboard, or Sit and Go Leaderboard, is a contest in which players in all sit and go tournaments at Carbon Poker are ranked on a monthly leaderboard based on two primary criteria: the stakes at which they’re playing (as reflected by the buy-in) and how well each player does in each event.

The top 25 names on the leaderboard at the end of each month share a $10,000 guaranteed prize pool, while another $2,000 prize pool goes to the top 5 players with the longest winning streaks in sit and go tournament poker. So valuable does Carbon Poker consider winning multiple sit and gos in a row that it even factors in a winning streak multiplier into players’ regular leaderboard points calculations.

Carbon Poker makes it easy to see how many points you can earn in different scenarios with the points formulas, examples, and even a points calculator on the site to explore.

The payout structure for SnG Leaderboard Prizes is $2,000 for first, $1,250 for second and $1,000 for third all the way down to $100 for 25th place. The payout structure SnG Streaker Bonus Prizes is $750 for first, $500 for second, $350 for third, $250 for fourth and $150 for fifth.

And SnG Leaderboard prizes are on top of whatever cash prizes players earn based on their performance in each individual sit and go.

In August Luvin Poker Holds Rake Races All Month Long

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All month long this August, 2011, Luvin Poker is holding Rake Races, with two rake races taking place each half of the month. The first two week period, August 1 – 14, there will be a $2,500 Poker Point Race and a $1,000 Raked Hand Race. The same pair of races will be repeated August 15 – 31.

In the PokerPoint Races, play on Luvin Poker’s cash tables and amass as many rake points as possible. The player with the most number of points at the end of the period wins the top prize of $600. Players in the top 20 will be paid out at least $30, with second place getting $400, third getting $300, fourth getting $200 and each of places 5 through 10 getting $100.

In the Raked Hands Races you earn leader board rankings simply for participating in raked hands on Luvin Poker’s cash tables. The player at the end of each race period who played in the most cash game raked hands wins $250. The runner-up gets $150 and the third place finisher gets $100. All players in the top 15 get paid out at least $20.

Luvin Poker is one of the newest poker sites on the scene. And it happens to be one of the only poker sites still welcoming US players, which for some is enough of a reason right there to check it out. For those who need more incentive than that, there are the four rake races with a total guaranteed prize pool of $7,000 taking place this month of August, 2011.

Poker Stars Doubles Battle of the Planet Prize Pools All Week…And Then Some

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This week at Poker Stars is Battle of the Planets Week, taking place from Sunday, August 7 through Saturday, August 13, 2011. During this time, a leader board contest that usually promises players $3,000,000 per year in cash winnings ups the ante to $10,000,000 for just this one week only.

In the Battle of the Planet, Poker Stars players compete in multiplayer sit and go tournaments with varying buy-ins and equally varying prize pools. Each sit and go stakes range is named for a certain planet in our solar system. Each planet has a leaderboard Poker Stars tracks to find the most successful players in each group. Prizes are awarded weekly in two categories for each planetary group, each with its own leader board: one for casual players called the Low-Orbit leader board and one for frequent players called the High-Oribt leader boards.

During this Battle of the Planets week, all of the weekly prize pools have been doubled, ranging from $1,500 for each orbit in the lowest stakes, or Mercury Sit and Gos, to $10,000 for each orbit in the highest stakes range, or Jupiter Sit and Gos.

All players finishing in the top 10 in any of the 16 weekly leaderboards wins a seat in a monthly triple shootout worth $50,000.

You must play in at least 20 BOTP Sit and Gos in any given group in order to be eligible for a share of that group’s prize pool. Low orbit players can compete in up to 5 blocks of 20 tournaments, or 100 BOTP Sit and Gos before being bumped to high orbit, in which players must compete in at least 100 BOTP Sit and Gos to qualify.