You might remember a post last year about Dario Minieri using his PokerStars Frequent Player Points to buy a new car. If you missed or it slipped your mind, here's the skinny.
At the time, I wrote in "Dario Minieri Gets a New Ride":
Less than a year after PokerStars introduced its one-of-a-kind VIP Club, a well-known Supernova player has used his Frequent Player Points to go from zero to 60 in 5.1 seconds.
Dario Minieri, the young and tough Supernova from Rome, just cashed in his FPPs for a brand new Porsche Cayman S. He's the first PokerStars player to buy a car (and a really, really nice one) with nothing more than FPPs.
Well, Dario now has possession of that new ride. Since he was kind enough to pose for a few pictures, we thought you might like a look at what PokerStars' FPP store can do for you if you're really dedicated.
Dario, I'm not sure where you live in Italy, but I'm going to be there in the near future. Can a blogger get a ride?
The European Poker Tour event in Dortmund, Germany will kick off on March 8th. The event has been sold out for a few weeks now. What's more, with the end of satellites on PokerStars, it looked like players had missed their chance to qualify online. Leave it to PokerStars to find a couple of extra chairs.
Casino Hohensyburg in Dortmund, GermanyPokerStars has just announced it will run one more qualifier for the first-ever EPT event in Germany. This Friday, March 2 at 1:30pm ET, the world's biggest poker room is running one final qualifying $475 tournament for the German leg of the EPT.
The tournament team has already started running feeder satellites into the big qualifier. You can find the Dortmund Last Chance tournament and its satellites (which start at just $5.50) under under "Events" and "EPT" in the PokerStars game lobby.
We should also point out, the PokerStars Blog will be in Germany for the EPT event in Dortmund, so if you make it to the event, be sure to find our bloggers and give them a chance to tell the world your story.
Sweden's ZIGENAAREN turned $535 into more than $250,000 in this week's Sunday Million. More than 2,800 people showed up for the last Sunday Million of the month. Over the course of eleven hours, ZIGENAAREN rose to the top of the field and didn't look back. The outright win netted ZIGENAAREN more than a quarter-million bucks. Final table results are below.
PokerStars Sunday Million Results
1. ZIGENAAREN (Sweden) $257,551.95
2. Prevaricator (United States) $130,946.75
3. Ravanelli (Sweden) $86,690.95
4. Kongsgaard (Denmark) $71,425.50
5. GrinderMJ (United States) $57,420.50
6. chrisrokx (Germany) $43,415.50
7. Reno_Jones (United Kingdom) $30,530.90
8. PokiAnn (Sweden) $19,326.90
9. Randers (United States) $11,204.00
I was browsing 2+2 the other day when I happened upon a quote from Lee Jones.
"What's a WSOP without PokerStars satellites?"
It was a rhetorical question, but one that promised something very fun would happen in the next few days.
Well, apparently, today is that day. In just about one hour, the first satellites to the 2007 World Series of Poker will go off. Before the sun rises tomorrow, PokerStars will have its first qualifiers for the 2007 WSOP. Now, it's just a matter of figuring out how many qualifiers PokerStars will send this year.
You can read all about what PokerStars will be offering on the PokerStars WSOP satellites page. If you want to survey all the different options PokerStars is offering this year, you can click "Events" and "WSOP" in the PokerStars game lobby. It looks like the cheapest cash event is a $2 rebuy. There are also 40 FPP rebuy events.
Lee Jones may have been speaking rhetorically when he asked,"What's a WSOP without PokerStars satellites?" Regardless, I have answer.
It wouldn't be what it is today.
Good luck to everyone in the coming months. I'll see you all in Vegas.
I remember the first time I saw Noah Boeken. I was new to the European poker circuit. It was a memorable trip for a lot of reasons. I'd lost my luggage on the way to Denmark and ended up having to go shopping with kroners just so I could meet the dress code to get into the casino. More memorable, though, was meeting Noah Boeken.
At the time, I only knew some of the faces I'd seen on American television. Sure, I recognized Marcel Luske, Ram Vaswani, and Julian Gardner. But, in the temporary poker area at Casino Copenhagen, Boeken looked just like any other young European player on the block. I remember writing his name down and having someone check the spelling on it.
Although I met a lot of people on that first trip to Denmark, Boeken ended up standing out in my head. The reason was pretty simple. He ended up winning the Scandinavian Open.
Noah strains under the weight of his winnings in 2005
Noah gives his championship interview, as runner-up Vaswani waitsIt's now been more than two years since that day and I've seen Noah in more places than I can count. Now, it looks like I'll get to see him even more. It's just been announced that Noah Boeken is the newest member of
Team PokerStars.
If you're not familiar with Noah, you can check out his bio on the Team PokerStars page:
Noah Boeken.
Congratulations to both Noah and Team PokerStars for the beginning of what is sure to be a fun relationship.
Germany's CharlieBraun got more than just a final table experience in the PokerStars Sunday Million. He not only got a special visit from fellow German, Team PokerStars' Katja Thater, but he also won the whole event, the top player out of more than 6,600. Final table results are below.
PokerStars Sunday Million Results
Based on finishing order and five-way deal that left $30,000 for first place
1. CharlieBraun (Germany) $136,005.75
2. Randar58 (Canada) $88,513.00
3. amosa (United States) $82,745.69
4. ISmashUrHead (Russian Federation) $68,510.15
5. swedenyes (Sweden) $84,434.99
6. AABenjaminAA (Czech Republic) $30,530.20
7. drylake (United States $21,902.10
8. TheWeapon007 (Canada) $13,274.00
9. jdi23 (United States) $8,229.88
A four-way deal didn't kill the action at the final table of the Sunday Million. After working their way through nearly 6,800 people, two players went head-to-head in a epic two-way battle. Player oregon battled back from the short-stack to take on the tough W Snipes. Oregon almost pulled it off, but in the end, W Snipes walked away with more than $160,000. Final table results are below.
PokerStars Sunday Million Results
Based on finishing order and four-way deal that left $30,000 for first place
1. W Snipes (United States) $164,356.00
2. oregon (United States) $65,871.00
3. killygonza (Portugal) $84,756.00
4. Jonnyboy38 (United States) $94,890.00
5. Vera15 (Sweden) $40,716.00
6. my03hd (United States) $29,858.40
7. Runnerspleas (United States) $21,036.60
8. LuckyLady519 (United States) $12,214.80
9. xTheCreamx (United Kingdom) $8,007.48
by Greg Shahade
Hello, my name is Greg Shahade and I play on PokerStars under the screen name "curtains." I am also an International Chess Master and have organized something called the US Chess League. More information on this league can be found at www.uschessleague.com. In order to encourage some of the top players in the United States to play, we needed to get sponsorship money, and the entire chess scene in the USA thanks PokerStars for sponsoring the event for the second year running.
The US Chess League involves players from all over the nation, as there are currently ten teams in Baltimore, Boston, Carolina, Dallas, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Tennessee. The format of the league is based loosely on professional sports leagues, with a ten week regular season followed by a three week playoff to determine the USCL Champion. In the 2007 Championship Match the San Francisco Mechanics led by the young International Master Josh Friedel took on the New York Knights, led by Grandmaster Pascal Charbonneau. The final match went to "overtime" as it was tied 2-2 in regulation and only at 1:30 AM was the winner finally decided, as the San Francisco Mechanics were victorious.
More and more chess players are starting to play poker. Some are playing as a hobby, yet some chess players are shifting over to poker altogether. A few well known examples of this phenomena are Dan Harrington and Howard Lederer, however there are a lot of lesser known "former chess players" whom are now making a great living from playing poker, and mostly from playing on PokerStars.com
Take a look at what some of the poker/chess players who play on PokerStars are saying:
Gotmilk -- Ricky Grijalva, (4th Place finisher in 2004 WPT Championship and rated chess expert):
"The US Chess League is the most exciting chess event in the country. To top it all off, my hometown team won this year, the San Francisco Mechanics. It’s great to see poker and chess finally come together."
TDA111281 -- Todd Andrews (player/manager of Tennessee Tempo):
"Many thanks to the team at PokerStars for helping out the Tennessee Tempo in the upcoming 2007 season! This will give our team the chance to improve and to cover the travel expenses that are unique to our team. We are working to improve the status of chess in Nashville and Tennessee and this should be a big help. I’m happy that the poker site which I feel is the best one around is also the one that supports chess. Cant wait for the season to begin."
Jenium -- Jennifer Shahade (manager of NY Knights, 2003+2005 US Women's Chess Champion and author of ChessBitch)
"PokerStars is a great place for chess players. I was playing in one table and won a hand off a guy who told me: 'you're lucky it's poker, not chess.' It turned out to be America's top chess player, Hikaru Nakamura! This is an extreme case of the very common experience of running into chess players on Stars. No doubt that the PokerStars sponsorship of USCL has increased this trend- first board for my team, the New York Knights, Pascal Charbonneau signed up for Stars midseason. The website I edit, uschess.org has mentioned the US Chess League dozens of time and we will probably increase coverage of what is IMO, the most exciting chess event in America."
In America, it was Super Bowl Sunday, but worldwide, the PokerStars Sunday Million was one of the biggest events around. More than 5,700 players signed up to compete for more than $1.1 million in prize money. When it was over, MortalNutzz walked away with the biggest money. Final table results are below.
PokerStars Sunday Million Results
Results based on finishing order and three-way deal that left $30,000 for first place
1. MortalNutzz (United States) $165,258
2. eskimo (United States) $84,758
3. Roberts34 (United States) $84,758
4. BRAZILLLLLLA (United States) $50,239.20
5. TheBigViking (Norway) $38,821.20
6. cup_o_java (United States) $27,974.10
7. johnjoel1 (Netherlands) $19,981.50
8. raydavis77 (United States) $11,988.90
9. MYT611 (Netherlands) $7,535.88
