Tag: pokerstars

Poker Stars Comes Under Legal Fire Too

Last Updated on

Full Tilt Poker isn’t the only online poker site facing trouble post-Black Friday 2011. PokerStars is also coming under fire, and from more sides than one.

Unlike Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars has at least paid back its U.S. players the funds sitting in their seized accounts after the D.O.J. closed down U.S. operations. But that hasn’t gotten them completely out of the woods with all of its member base (or former member base, as the case may be.)

Now the plaintiff is the software maker Cardroom International who has filed a claim against both Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars for, as best this writer can interpret the claim, failing to agree with written agreements regarding purchase of software for use on play money sites linked with TV networks like ESPN, Fox and NBC by interfering with the network’s ability to promote that software. How? By buying up the airtime itself to promote its own software. What’s more, the complaint alleges, Poker Stars used money that was obtained illegally from U.S. players to pay for this airtime.

Complex, no doubt. But the end result is time and money in legal wranglings and the public relations nightmare that follows such a spectacle.

Meanwhile, in other sinister Poker Stars news, two Team PokerStars members, Leonardo Fernandez and Veronica Dabul, have been named in a lawsuit filed by Wynn Las Vegas for allegedly cheating at craps to the tune of some $700K. Talk about a public relations nightmare. Veronica Dabul has since been removed from the Team PokerStars roster, although Leonardo Fernandez is still a member.

Poker Stars Starts Canada Cup I Qualifiers

Last Updated on


Poker players in the United States may have been locked out of Poker Stars but not all of North America has suffered such a fate. Players in Canada are now being invited to try and win a free seat in Poker Stars’ first ever Canada Cup, featuring a main event with a guaranteed prize pool of $250,000.

The PokerStars Canada Cup I will take place at next year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) in the Bahamas, on January 9, 2012. Qualifiers for this event started on PokerStars on September 26, 2011.

Qualifier winners will meet up on Sunday, October 23 at 5:30 pm ET for the PokerStars.net Canada Cup Final. This event will play out until the player pool dwindles to a final table of 9 players. These 9 players will then finish out the competition live in person at the 2012 PCA. Poker Stars will cover all travel and luxury accommodation expenses for the 9 final table players with extra expense cash to boot.

The final table will be recorded for televised broadcast during which the $250,000 prize pool will be distributed and the PokerStars.net Canada Cup trophy will be awarded to the winner. In addition to the lions share of that quarter-million dollar prize pool, the winner of the Canada Cup I will receive free entry into an additional tournament, a PCA High Rollers event with a $25,000 direct buy-in.

This promotion is only open to players from Canada. Visit Poker Stars to see what other regional-based tournament and promotions they currently have running.

European Poker Tour London Day 2 in the Books

Last Updated on

Benny Spindler may not be the most well known name in poker, but he’s making some big time moves that will draw quite a bit of attention at the European Poker Tour’s London Event.  After Day 1, Spindler was the second largest chip stack with 160,800 chips.  After Day 2, Spindler ended with 469,800 chips, and is sitting at the top of the leaderboard heading into Day 3.

Spindler first made some noise on the live poker tournament scene back in 2009, when he pulled in a third place finish at the European Poker Tour PokerStars’ Caribbean Adventure, and took home an impressive payday of $1.1 million.  His strong play in 2009 continued on since then, as he has had some excellent finishes such as his $44k payday last year at this EPT London Event.  He has also made three final tables this year, cashing for $48k at the EPT Berlin, finishing second at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event for a nice $469k payout, and taking down the $10k Single Reload event at the EPT Talinn for $71k.  All in all, Spindler has been able to top the $2 million mark in terms of his live tournament earnings in his career.

Day 2 saw some big name eliminations, as well as some big names who will move on; and there is a total of 160 players who will kick off Day 3.  The top 104 players will make it into the cash for the event, and the players who are able to make it into the final six of the event will bring home a six-figure payday.

Some of the names who have made it through to Day 3 include Doyle Brunson, John Gale, Humberto Brenes, Jake Cody, Brian Hastings, Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi, Andrew Feldman, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Toddy Terry, Freedy Deeb, and James Akenhead.

A few of the names who were unable to make it through Day 2 were players like Joe Cada, Ivan Demidov, Joe Hachem, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, and Vanessa Rousso.

Day 3 has been ongoing throughout today (Monday) and will have the final players who make the cash by the end of the day today.  The final table is already scheduled to kick off on Thursday the 6th and will be a televised event.

Daniel Negreanu Dominates at the PokerStars’ WCOOP

Last Updated on

Daniel Negreanu is one of the best live poker players out there today, but after his recent Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker, he’s shown that he has more than the ability to be one of the best online poker players as well.  Negreanu has won four World Series of Poker gold bracelets, two World Poker Tour titles, and has a total of 26 final table appearances at the WSOP.  He now has quite an impressive 2011 PokerStars’ WCOOP to put on his resume as well.

Negreanu had one of the best WCOOP’s out of any player, and also in recent history as well.  Negreanu decided to participate in 52 out of the 62 total events, and pulled in an impressive 15 cashes; which makes for a very strong 28.8% cash rate.  Overall, those fifteen cashes were good for a $119,193 payday at the end of the WCOOP.  Negreanu said that his biggest reason for the strong play was his level of preparation.  He also ran a stats program on his computer, and took notes on his opponents’ play during the events.

Another story that is interesting about Negreanu’s strong play, is the fact that he actually played the events from four different countries.  He started out in Barcelona, and moved to Montenegro, Budapest, and London, which tells a major story about how well-focused he was throughout.

Negreanu’s 15 cashes made up the second most out of any player who played the event, and his 28.8% cash rate is nearly double what the other 91 PokerStars Team Pro’s were able to finish at.  Another impressive stat about Negreanu’s 2011 WCOOP was the fact that his two highest finishes came from the two highest buy-in events that he bought into.  Negreanu bought into multiple different events, ranging from No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, Triple Stud, and an 8 game event as well.  His two highest finishes came in Event #41, which was a $10,300 No Limit Hold’em Event, that he finished in 4th place and took home $48,000; and the other was Event #61, which was a $10,300 buy-in 8 game event, that he finished in 5th place in and took home $52,500.

Negreanu will look to build on this strong WCOOP performance as events like the World Poker Tour continue to host events all around the world.

Poker Stars Hosts EPT 8 Skrill Satellites

Last Updated on

The online payment processing company Moneybookers is changing its name, and presumably some of its services and technologies, to Skrill. Now the official payment processor of the European Poker Tour, Skrill is sponsoring special tournamnets with 10,000 Euro prize pools at all of the EPT Season 8 events. The creator and host of EPT 8, Poker Stars, is hosting freeroll tournaments to find the players to seed into those tournaments.

Each EPT Skrill Grand Final tournament is a single-table event with 10 seats, all of which will be filled by PokerStars qualifier winners. These freeroll qualifiers take place regularly, for each and every stop on the season 8 EPT itinerary, the next Skrill freeroll qualifier taking place October 2 at 14:05 ET or 20:05 CET for the Skrill Grand Final at this year’s EPT London.

To get a seat in these freeroll qualifiers just try out the new Skrill to make a deposit into your Poker Stars account. Using Skrill, the company says, is the same as using Moneybookers. Only the look has changed. To be credited for the deposit to receive a seat in an upcoming Skrill freeroll, be sure to use the bonus code: SKRILLEPT when making the deposit.

In addition to the seat at the exclusive €10,000 Grand Final at an upcoming European Poker Tour stop, players in Poker Stars Skrill Freerolls will also be competing for a €500 added prize pool. Buy-ins for each of these freerolls is only €1. The runner-up of each freeroll will also win 300,000 Skrill VIP Club Loyalty points, while the third place finisher will get 100,000.

2011 PokerStars WCOOP Main Event Kicks Off

Last Updated on

The PokerStars’ WCOOP is not only one of the largest online poker tournaments on PokerStars, but also in the online poker world in general.  The WCOOP Main Event recently saw an increased buy-in of $5,200 back in 2008, and has had over 2,000 players enter it consecutively since then.  While they were not expecting nearly as many players for this years event after Black Friday, the event still drew an impressive 1,627 entrants.  This number can be compared to the highest of all time, which came last year when 2,443 players entered.

When you check out the WCOOP event you’ll see multiple big name players on the entrant list, and you’ll also find that this event is so popular that some of the big named poker pros in the United States actually moved out of the country to compete in the PokerStars WCOOP.  The event featured an incredible prize pool of $8,135,000, and it will payout a total of 189 players.  Both first and second place for this even will earn over $1 million, with first place taking home $1.4 million, and second place getting just over $1 million.

You’ll find that online poker tournaments run a bit differently than live tournaments do, and that they will typically get into the cash within one day; just as the 2011 WCOOP Main Event did.  When the day ended, there were 176 players remaining out of the starting field.

When the day came to an end there were some big named players still in the hunt, with players like Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Johnny Lodden, Mathias de Muelder, Luke Schwartz, Niki Jedlicka, Jared Bleznick, David Bach, Steve Gross, Tom Marchese, Mmickey Petersen, Mike Leah, and many more.  As far as the top ten goes heading into the final day, we have “NUTZBOT” holding down the top spot with 649, 769 chips, and is followed by “dan82mur” with 600,527 chips.  There is one other player with over 500k in chips, as “zivziv” has 587,440 and is in third place.  The remainder of the top ten comes in between 400,000 and 500,000 chips.

The 2011 PokerStars WCOOP Main Event should be a very interesting finish, and will pay out its final table some very nice pay days.

Poker Pros to Battle for Expected £4 Million Prize Pool at PokerStars.com EPT London Poker Festival

Last Updated on

The PokerStars.com European Poker Tour (EPT), Europe’s richest and most popular poker tour is coming to London this month. In its’ eight year history, almost 40,000 players have hit the felt, and the EPT has paid out over £200 million in prize money. In August this year, the EPT Barcelona event broke all previous records and became the largest live poker event ever held in Spain with 811 players taking their seats to play for share of the £3.5 million prize pool. The EPT London is set to continue this record-breaking trend with the prize pool expected to exceed £4 million.

Celebrities such as ex-tennis star and professional poker player Boris Becker, model, presenter and previous EPT title winner Liv Boeree, and well known broadcaster, journalist and 2006 EPT London winner Vicky Coren will sit down alongside the biggest names in poker, all eager to pick up the title and first prize, which is set to hit the £1 million mark for the first time ever.

The 7-day long poker festival presented by PokerStars.com, will offer players some of the best quality tournament poker action in the world. There are 31 events on offer, including the European 8-Game Championship, the No Limit Hold’em Women’s Event, the two-day long £20,000 buy-in High Roller tournament and of course, the coveted EPT London Main Event.

This year also marks the first ever EPT London Quest, an exciting competition run through Twitter where one lucky player will win a seat in an EPT London side-event tournament. Poker fans will need to follow the account @PokerStars and hashtag #EPTQuest from 8.30am on Sunday 2nd October for clues for a password and details of a secret central London location. Once they crack the code and turn up to the location, they will need to correctly say the password then play and win a 5-minute heads-up tournament. Win the tournament, and they will receive one of nine golden chips to enter a live game against the other eight winners. The champion of this table will take their seat at the “No Limit Turbo – Win the Button!” tournament at 8.00pm the same day.

Last year the record-breaking PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Main Event was the biggest poker tournament ever held in the UK, attracting 848 players. It made David Vamplew the highest-earning Scottish poker player ever with an amazing £900,000 first prize.

The PokerStars.com EPT runs from September 30 – October 6, 2011 at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel in central London.

PokerStars to Create Their Own Rush Poker?

Last Updated on

One of the most popular additions to the online poker site Full Tilt Poker, was their creation of Rush Poker.  Rush Poker was essentially a fast paced Texas Hold’em or Omaha game, where as soon as you folded your hand; you would be dealt a new hand at a new table.  The idea behind this was that players could pick the spots that they wanted to play, and also be able to play many more hands per hour than they could at a normal table.  This game took off in the poker world, but since Full Tilt had its license suspended recently, players have had nowhere to play this at.

It seems that PokerStars could be stepping up though, and potentially creating their own form of Rush Poker.  A PokerStars rep posted on the Two Plus Two forums yesterday, stating that “PokerStars is developing a fast moving ring games product.  We expect it to be available for public beta testing in a few months.”  There has been no additional info about this topic yet, but one could assume that this new fast paced game on PokerStars could be similar to the game that was one of the many reasons why their rival, Full Tilt, was so popular.

While this game was very popular, some players felt that Rush Poker took traffic away from the standard tables as well.  Rush Poker was incredibly popular with the recreational players, which was a downfall for poker pros and players who look to make a living from playing online poker at the standard ring games.  Rush Poker also gave players the chance to earn more loyalty points, due to the fact that they were playing more hands and generating more rake overall.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out for PokerStars, but this definitely seems to be considered a “smart” move for the online poker juggernaut.  PokerStars currently has the most traffic out of any online poker site, and also offers some of the largest guaranteed tournaments and most ring games as well.  The addition of this popular type of poker may be one of the only things that PokerStars is missing from their arsenal currently.

PokerStars Turns On WCOOP Radio

Last Updated on

The 2011 Poker Stars World Championship of Online Poker is on now, running through the end of September and consisting of 62 events including a $5 million guaranteed main event. And as of September 7th, you can hear all the action and behind-the-scenes activity through Poker Stars radio’s WCOOP Show. With hosts Jon Stapledon, of FOX TV’s PokerStars Big Game fame, and PokerStars UKIPT host Nick Wealthall, the WCOOP Show on PokerStars radio promises to include special guest appearances and interviews and updates on the WCOOP events taking place. The WCOOP radio show will also feature an assortment of call-in opportunities with $50,000 in prizes to be given away.

Among these call-in opportunities are the Daily Tourney, a $1 Hyper Turbo online tournament. After each of these events are over, PokerStars radio will get in touch with the winner by phone. If the winner answers with that day’s Phrase That Pays, they win a $215 tournament ticket into their choice of a Steps 4 satellite, a WCOOP event of equivalent value or a Sunday Majors event of equivalent value.

Another promotion for radio listeners of the WCOOP Show is the Giveaway Freebuy. This promo also involves a special password spoken in each program to find players to seed into a freeroll tournament with a $0.10 rebuy from which the top 3 winners get 1,000 FPPs each and the top winner gets a bonus opportunity in a future show to claim a second prize of a Step 2 ticket or risk it for a shot at a Step 3 ticket. These are just a couple of examples of the opportunities to win money at this year’s WCOOP just by listening to the radio.

Poker Stars Holds World Cup of Poker VIII Qualifiers

Last Updated on


Next year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) will feature an additional main event in the form of the 8th installation of the World Cup Poker. All the action will occur in the Bahamas’ Atlantis Resort from January 5th to 15th of 2012. And Poker Stars is giving its players numerous opportunities to find themselves there in the center of the action for nothing, or close to it.

Unlike the PCA main event, the World Cup of Poker is a league, or teams poker, event. Last year, the Italian team, led by Luca Pagano, a PokerStars pro, claimed the cup, beating out runners-up, the UK team, led by Liv Boeree. This time around, seven countries will be competing for the World Cup of Poker, and PokerStars players can win seats to be a part of their country’s team (after putting up a part of the registration fee).

First players submit to a round of qualifier tournaments. The top performers from each region will compete in knockout tournaments to complete a four-person team representing each region. In keeping with the traditions of the real World Cup, that is of football (or soccer to Americans), ach four-person team will include a PokerStars pro as Captain, a defender, midfielder, striker and goalkeeper.

On Poker Stars’ WCP Qualifiers web page, you can find when the Saturday-Sunday qualifier for your region or nation is taking place. First-time depositors can vie for the midfielder position, earning an $11 stage one entry by using the code WCP8 when making that deposit.

As for the rest of the positions, the goalkeeper qualifier is a freeroll. The qualifier for the defender position is $1.10 and, of course, midfielder is $11. To try for the striker position you must have been a top finisher on last year’s Tournament Leader Board, in which case you will receive a special invitation to the qualifier.

65 countries will start out the Poker Stars World Cup of Poker VIII competition, but only 7 countries will make it to stage 3 at the 2012 PCA.