PokerStars Review
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PokerStars is the largest online poker room today. They consistently have over 100,000 players connected at once, and have broken numerous records for the most traffic and player base. They currently have over 10 million registered users. This is not due to luck, as they arguably have the best software, promotions, tournaments, and support out of any online poker room. They also are one of the founding poker rooms that still accept US players to play for real money, after the UIGEA was passed in late 2006.
PokerStars offers basically any variation of poker you would like to play, anything from no-limit, pot-limit, or limit Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha 8, limit Stud, Stud 8, or Razz, and also 5 Card Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, HORSE, and HOSE. There are no other rooms that have more of a variety than PokerStars. For all of the games listed above, they have a large amount of cash games, tournaments, and sit and gos running at all times. This site just isn't for the high rollers either, as their cash games start as low as $.01 - $.02 and go as high as $200 - $400. There are also multiple tables running for every single limit, so whether you're a new player or seasoned pro you will be able to find a game.
Even though the cash games at PokerStars are very popular, they are probably most well known for their tournaments. According to a recent PokerStars commercial, there is a new tournament starting almost every second! There are literally a countless number of tournaments offered at PokerStars, because they keep adding new ones every week. The most popular day at PokerStars is Sunday, where they offer a wide variety of guarantees, from the Sunday Warmup ($215 buy-in, $500k gtd), Daily Fifty Grand ($55 buy-in, $50k gtd), Sunday Hundred Grand ($11 buy-in, $100k gtd), and their most popualr tournament, The Sunday Million ($215 buy-in, $1 million gtd). If these seem too large for your bankroll, they also have various $1 - $30 tournaments being ran every hour. Also don't forget about the satellites. You can win your way to the big ones for as little as $2!
PokerStars also knows how to treat their players with some of the best promotions you will ever see. They have an amazing loyalty program, called the PokerStars VIP Club, which gives you special bonuses and incentives based on how often you play. If you're able to work your way up to SuperNova Elite, their highest level, you would end up earning over $150,000 in bonuses, plus other rewards! In order to increase your level, you have to play real money games and collect Frequent Player Points (FPPs). You can also use the FPPs you earn at the tables to purchases items from their FPP Store. The FPP Store has various PokerStars clothing, poker books, electronics such as iPods, televisions, monitors, and more.
PokerStars was also one of the first online poker rooms to have a tournament leaderboard. They started running this promotion in 2004 and has since become one of the best rewards for tournament players.
The PokerStars Tournament Leaderboard (TLB) is broken down into three categories, weekly, monthly and yearly. For every MTT you play, you have the chance to earn points for each of these leaderboards. The top 15% of finishers in each event will receive points, based on the number of entrants, buy-in, and place of finish. Points are given out based on their specific formula, which is explained below:
Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]
Where:
n is the number of entrants
k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on)
b is the buy-in amount in dollars (excluding administrative fee). For freerolls the buy-in is $0, and for FPP tournaments 1 FPP is counted as $0.05.
That all looks pretty confusing at first glance, but it is pretty fair when you break it down. Let's take for example a tournament that has a $200 buy-in, with 1,000 players and you finish in 5th place. This would earn you 890.89 points. Now if we were to take a $20 buy-in, with 1,000 players again, and the same 5th place finish you would earn 566.84 points. So as you can see, you won't have an unfair advantage if you play smaller buy-in tournaments because the buy-in doesn't effect your points as much as you would think. If you like, you can test this for yourself by checking out the PokerStars TLB Points Calculator.
The weekly TLB begins at 12:00 am on Sunday and runs until 11:59:59 PM on Saturday. Your best 10 results from the week will be counted, and if you happen to win, you have the chance to play a heads up match against a member of Team PokerStars! PokerStars will toss $1,000 in the middle to play for, each week! However, if the PokerStars Pro wins, then the $1,000 is carried over until someone can defeat one of their professionals!
The monthly TLB runs for the calendar month and includes your best 20 tournaments during that time frame. The top 1,000 players for the month will be sharing more than $50,000 in prizes! That is $600,000 every year! 1st place earns $5,000, and all the way down to 200th place will net you some cash! Also, the top 1,000 will receive a ticket for the $20,000 TLB freeroll.
The yearly TLB is the true long term, if you play better than anyone else for the entire year you will win your share of more than $240,000 in prizes! Your best 100 tournaments are counted, so make them good! 3rd place earns a two-stamp passport, which is 2 packages to live circuit events, anything from the WPT to the WSOP and beyond! 2nd place wins a three-stamp passport, and 1st takes home a five-stamp passport! That's five $10,000 tournaments you can enter, for free. These also all include free hotel and travel expenses. Also, everyone that finishes in the top 100 will earn a ticket to the yearly $100,000 TLB freeroll!
Almost all tournaments count for TLB points, except Sit & Go tournaments with less than 40 players, satellite tournaments, heads-up tournaments, shootout tournaments, restricted-entry tournaments, private tournaments, play money tournaments and VIP Freerolls.
PokerStars is one of, and maybe the best, online poker rooms today. If you are looking for a good room to bring your tournament action to, join PokerStars today!
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