May 2008 Archives

The 2008 World Series is now up and running in Las Vegas. With one more month of satellites to the Main Event, PokerStars is actually giving its players even more incentive to play for a World Series seat. PokerStars announced today that it will award double VIP Player Points for...more

Change happens in a lot of different ways. In 2003, the poker world experienced a revolution like it hadn't seen in decades. Team PokerStars Pro's Chris Moneymaker went into the World Series Main Event on a $39 PokerStars satellite. He emerged with $2.5 million and a World Series championship bracelet....more

This week's Battle of the Planets begins with another congratulations to 'Gr8DSip' for taking down the Battle of the Planets $50,000 Triple Shootout this Sunday. 'Gr8DSip' earned his ticket for the event by placing in 5th on the Low Orbit Division of the Venus Division with 503 points. That single...more

It's been five years since Chris Moneymaker turned a $39 satellite entry into $2.5 million and the 2003 World Series of Poker championship. Yesterday's Cinderella story is today's legend. Since the big day in May 2003, Moneymaker has sat on Team PokerStars Pro. Now, to celebrate the five year anniversary...more

The PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour is preparing to springboard off the successful opening of the PokerStars Macau live poker room by launching Season 2 of the APPT in the People's Republic of China. The APPT announced today that the first stop of its second season will come September 1,...more

What a day. What. A. Day. Sunday May 25 was one of those days players had to be at PokerStars. In one 24-hour period, PokerStars put up more than $4 million in guaranteed tournament prizes. Everywhere we turned, there was news. PokerStars announced it was creating a new monthly $250,000...more

It’s the type of turbo tournament you don’t see every day. The buy-in is Frequent Player Points. The prize pool is a whopping $1 million. First place comes in at a cool $100,000. When PokerStars tried out the Turbo Takedown earlier in the year, there were a lot of folks...more

The Battle of the Planets Triple Shootout is not something for nothing, although it might feel like it to the people who win thousands of dollars for doing what they'd normally be doing anyway. Everyone knows, there are tons of people out there who do little else but play SNGs...more

It's quite a proposition for any player with 60,000 Frequent Player Points to spend them all on a single table HORSE tournament. It's something else entirely to do it at the table with one of the best poker players in the world. As PokerStars player vectile sat down for the...more

There used to be a time when the PokerStars Tournament Leader Board was more about pride than anything else. These days, doing well on the TLB can pretty much make a person's year (and if you don't believe me, just ask PokerStars Passport winner Dustin Mele). From freerolls to live...more

Everybody knows Sundays are huge at PokerStars. Today, Sunday is more valuable than usual. After reviewing the list of guaranteed tournaments today, we have discovered that--in just one 24 hour period--PokerStars players can compete in more than $4 million worth of guaranteed tournaments. If you're looking for something to do,...more

Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein is known worldwide as one of the best all-around players in poker. Pick a game from hold'em to stud, Greenstein can play it and play it better than just about anybody you know. Greenstein is more than just a player. He can teach as well....more

The PokerStars Sunday tournament schedule just changed, and it's going to make a lot of people really happy. The Sunday Million buy-in is going to stay the same every week, and PokerStars has added a brand new monthly $530 buy-in $250,000 guaranteed event. For just about as long as most...more

At about 6pm today in Costa Rica, the heavens opened and it rained. And when it rains during the rainy season in a country covered in rain forest, it really, really, really, really rains. Somewhere deep inside the Caliari Country Club, in the capital, San Jose, it had been raining...more

We're in level 24 of the LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. Blinds are 15,000-30,000 (3,000). The tournament is heads up. Updates will appear in this post. Click Refresh on your browser for latest news. Valdemar Kwaysser, Hungary, PokerStars qualifier, wins LAPT San Jose, earning $274,103 6.20pm: Max Steinberg,...more

As they prepare for heads-up play, meaning loads of hand-shaking, strategy discussions, and photography, it seems like a good time to post the following. I'd intended to post it at the dinner break, but we might not make it that far. So, here it is.Throughout the first couple of days...more

We're in level 23 of the LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. Blinds are 12,000-24,000 (3,000). Four players were left at the start of the level. Updates will appear in this post. Click Refresh on your browser for latest news. 5.20pm: Heads up chip count: Valdemar Kwaysser, Hungary, PokerStars...more

We're in level 22 of the LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. Blinds are 10,000-20,000 (2,000). Five players were left at the start of the level. Updates will appear in this post. Click Refresh on your browser for latest news. 4.05pm: Two two chip leaders tangle, with Max Steinberg...more

We're in level 21 of the LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. Blinds are 8,000-16,000 (2,000). Eight players were left at the start of the level. Updates will appear in this post. Click Refresh on your browser for latest news. 2.40pm: Pawel Sanojca, PokerStars qualifier from Poland, is eliminated...more

We're in level 20 of the LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. Blinds are 6,000-12,000 (1,000). Eight players were left at the start of the level. Updates will appear in this post. Click Refresh on your browser for latest news. 1.35pm: Sizeable pot just before the break. Pawel bets...more

The cards are in the air in San Jose for the final table of the LAPT Costa Rica. The day began with 12 minutes left of level 19, with blinds at 6,000-12,000 (1,000). Updates will appear here. Press Refresh on your browser for latest news. 12.45pm: Double up for Pawel...more

The tournament staff is unbagging chips as the function room of the Cariari Country Club, San Jose, Costa Rica, prepares to host the final table of the first LAPT event to reach these shores. When the cards are in the air in a few minutes, these are the players that...more

It doesn't surprise any more, but it will always amaze. No matter how many major tournaments are played in which countries and cities around the world, PokerStars online qualifiers will always seek them out and crush them, destroy any field no matter the size. Here in San Jose, Costa Rica,...more

11.15pm: FINAL TABLE SET With the elimination of Michael Hull, we have our final table of nine. Appearing tomorrow will be: Seat 1 -- Alec Torelli, USA, PokerStars qualifier, 404,000 Seat 2 -- Pawel Sanojca, Poland, PokerStars qualifier, 134,000 Seat 3 -- Steven Thompson, Costa Rica, 195,000 Seat 4 --...more

We're into level 18 of the LAPT San Jose event. We'll be adding regular updates to this post. Click Refresh on your browser for the latest news. 9.50pm: Dave Robinson, PokerStars qualifier from the United States, is eliminated in 14th place, earning $10,617 It's all in pre-flop in a 440,000...more

Level 17 updates: 9.05pm: On the other table, Alec Torelli, the PokerStars qualifier from the United States, is beginning to boss things. Alec Torelli He's taken small pots from Natasha Ellis, Kwaysser Akos and Max Steinberg in the last orbit and is looking strong. 9.00pm: The inevitable slowdown has occurred...more

It's dinner time on day two in San Jose. Thank goodness for that. To be honest, it's been so frantic here that it's a wonder our typing fingers aren't buckled into permanent claws as we try to keep up with the eliminations. They played it slow as the bubble approached,...more

As is so often the case, the bubble bursting has precipitated a speedy run of eliminations. We went from 32 players down to 25 before we could even draw breath. The list of those taking the walk with dollar bills hanging out their back pockets can be found HERE. As...more

Pop! And there we have it, the bubble is burst and we are down to 32. This week's unluckiest man in San Jose is Xavier Dutrieu, a PokerStars qualifier from France, whose king-queen and relatively short stack was no match for Steve Silvermann's jack-six. The K-Q made top pair, the...more

Just ahead of bubble time, we took the latest chip counts of the 34 or so remaining. They can be found by clicking HERE. Things have already progressed slightly since then, with the departure in 34th place of Rayan Nathan, the Australian pro. That means we're now going hand-for-hand and...more

Earlier in the day, word reached us that Joe Ebanks was not happy. Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, he wasn't exactly unhappy, he was just a little disappointed that he we hadn't been using his PokerStars screen-name when we'd been featuring him in our coverage of the tournament...more

The tournament players have just enjoyed their first break of the day, and some will have reflected more happily on the first couple of levels than others. Among those sure to be pleased with their day so far are Kwaysser Akos, the PokerStars qualifier from Hungary, who has moved beyond...more

As if the atmosphere here in the Cariari Country Club wasn't tense enough, we now have a tropical storm brewing outside, with thunder-claps and teeming rain. Poker players might be casual about playing for close to a million bucks, but some of them are scared of thunder, if the collective...more

Hello, and a warm welcome back to the Caliari Country Club in San Jose, Costa Rica, for day two of the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) event. If yesterday was a bloodbath, where they came, played and were slaughtered in their hundreds, today is the day when the vanquishers themselves...more

Today, in a first of its kind event, PokerStars cut the ribbon on the brand new and first live poker room in Macau. Players from all over China walked into the Grand Waldo Casino today to see the opening of PokerStars Macau. Surrounded by hordes of local press, APPT President...more

And there we have it. Day one at the PokerStars.net LAPT San Jose event is over. The players have bagged their chips, written down their names and are now doubtless hitting the bar for a nightcap before a long, deep sleep. The short story is that it was a fine...more

In Rio a couple of weeks ago, the quota of fist-pumping, high-fiving and "Yeah baby!"s around the tables reached an all-time high. Although we're currently running slightly lower than the 104 such incidences per hour mark that characterised day two in Brazil, the Costa Rican players and supporters are certainly...more

There have been mixed fortunes for Team PokerStars Pro this evening. We just lost Victor Ramdin, who got his short stack in pre-flop with A-Q and was dominating Steven Silverman's A-J. But by the time the river was dealt, Silverman had improved to the nut flush and Victor Ramdin was...more

Late yesterday, as the players and supporters got to know one another at the welcome party, several of us got to know Larry Hinden, a PokerStars qualifier from the United States. Just to fix an image in your mind, this is Larry, making a few acquaintances of his own: Twenty-odd...more

The function suite here at the Cariari Country Club has temporarily grown quiet. The 216 remaining players have taken their chatter downstairs, where a queue for the players' buffet is now doubtless awash with comments like: "I raise under-the-gun with ace-king," etc, etc, etc. As they disappeared, we took a...more

There are a few familiar faces here in San Jose to anyone who has followed the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT). Firstly, Josh Prager, who came fifth in the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo on season three is chancing his arm in Costa Rica. He picked up the equivalent...more

Money, money, money. There's plenty to talk and write about at these events, and you'll find a good deal of it here over the rest of today and through Saturday. But what it all boils down to for most of the people here is cold hard cash, and the tournament...more

One of the more interesting tables at today's event has developed over by the window furthest from media row. There, Sam Simon, Gualter Salles, Piragibe Lindolfo Ataide and Jennifer Mann are doing battle. Not many of these names will immediately ring bells with too many observers, but there is a...more

Anyone who has been to a major poker tournament -- either as a player or as a spectator -- knows that it takes some time for the event to really take shape. The early levels are all about getting a feel for your opponents, winning a few small pots, staying...more

There are 40 tables packed into the function suite of the Cariari Country Club for today's tournament, and ten players around each means we're already at the 400 players mark. The tournament staff inform me that there's a list of eager alternates waiting to earn their shot, so we will...more

It rained last night in San Jose, a gentle reminder that we're in the rainy season in a country that is half covered by rain forest. We probably should have known. But drawing back the curtains this morning revealed bright sun, baking heat and a familiar calm that always precedes...more

By now, there are certain things we can complacently expect from a PokerStars welcome party. As silver platters of delicate canapes made their way around the Cariari Country Club tonight, I put a solid check mark next to the words "excellent cuisine." The lines of eager patrons in the corner...more

A couple of years back, somebody in Las Vegas whispered to me, "Why do you think PokerStars hasn't opened a live poker room yet? Just imagine..." I spent the next couple of years imaginging just that. Of course, there are a lot of logistics to deal with and such. Still,...more

An online dictionary service describes the word "tour" as follows: –noun 1. a traveling around from place to place. 2. a long journey including the visiting of a number of places in sequence, esp. with an organized group led by a guide. By the strictest definition of the word, therefore,...more

The intersteller dust has settled on Week 6 of Battle of the Planets. Here are the stories from around the divisions. The Mercury Division saw two of the week's four 1800+ High Orbit scores for the week. 'Milasha1' took the top spot with 1845, with 'Meth0dMan86' trailing in second...more

From an outsider's perspective, it might appears as though poker players do nothing but take, take, take. Recently, PokerStars players have shown they can give just as well. Over the past several weeks, PokerStars and its players gave their hard-earned money to Life Ball 2008 to the tune of more...more

Another week and another new name on top of the Sunday Million world. This week, another fresh face took down the biggest weekly poker event. Canada's kared69 won more than $200,000 in this week's Sunday Million, an event that drew more than 7,000 players to the virtual felt. In other...more

PokerStars players have a long history of supporting people in need. In the past several years, PokerStars and its players have donated to victims of the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. They have also given to the Lifeball AIDS research effort and the fight to stop the genocide in Darfur....more

The PokerStars Battle of the Planets is obviously getting tougher. In the Low Orbit fights, it's getting harder to post high scores. The High Orbit battle is already seeing repeat winners. It was a somewhat quiet week for the Low Orbit section of Battle of the Planets. Several of the...more

In the heat of battle, it's sometimes hard to track down the victors. This week, PokerStars' Battle of the Planets guru HostBob caught up with the April Battle of the Planets winner ryanghall. PokerStars (PS):So you're the first ever winner of the monthly Battle of the Planets tournament. How does...more

No doubt you've stepped into an elevator and seen those floors you can only access with a special card. If you're at all like me, you've wondered just what happens on those inaccessible levels. The PokerStars VIP Club operates much like a penthouse. Few people get to the very top,...more

It was a weekend of familiar names at final tables in the major Sunday tournaments. From HelmetSky in Israel to FU_15 the United States, online poker players around the world had some big name players for whom to root. Perhaps the most well-known name was shaundeeb. Deeb, fresh off his...more

Playing poker takes more than a leather backside. Just about every square inch of your body and psyche needs to be tough as cow hide. Heck, sometimes we'd all take a suit of armor. Iron Henry is not a PokerStars name anyone would have recognized a week ago. There was...more

No matter who you are, if you're a poker player, you're always looking for that big score. Everybody has different ways of finding it. Some players grind out their cash over a period of many years. Some players get it all in one big tournament. PokerStars is now offering...more

We’ve now had four weeks of Battle of the Planets competition, so it seems like a good time to re-cap on some of the big performers from the weekly leader boards. So here’s a summary of the action so far: The Big Winners As you might expect, the biggest individual...more

A couple of weeks ago, two young Dutchmen left their homes in Amsterdam for a holiday in South America. When they return to Europe in a few days from now, one of them will be $228,000 richer, and will be known as the first ever champion of the PokerStars.net Latin...more

Julien Nuijten, from Amsterdam, Holland, wins LAPT Rio, earning $222,940 Vitaly Kovyazin, PokerStars qualifier from New York, is elimiminated in second place, earning $117,750 8.05pm -- This one is all over. Julien Nuijten, the 19-year-old from Amsterdam, takes it down. He finally gets a hand to stand up. Julien bets...more

Hello and welcome back to Rio for the final day of the first ever event on the PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT). We started on Friday with 314 players contesting a $785,000 prize pool and now, two days and 305 eliminations later, we're down to our final nine. The...more

Another month of MTT Tournament Leader Board action is complete. This is how it shaped up: Weekly TLB April saw two new players join the exclusive 4000 club, the elite group composed of players who have posted a Weekly TLB score of more than 4000 points. Canadian ‘RevenX’ landed in...more

It was a good day for Norway in the major Sunday events at PokerStars this week. Norwegians won both the Sunday Second Chance event and the $5,200 Freeze-out (not to mention the $215 Stud Hi/Lo event). Biggest congratuations, though, go to Iron Henry who won more than $163,000 in the...more

If I had just one word to describe the pervasive emotion at the end of today, the second day of the LAPT Rio event, it would be this: "Phew." Everyone left in the tournament room breathed a huge sigh of relief at around 2.30 this morning after a tough, tough...more

2.15am -- And that's it. After a good long while at hand for hand, we've lost Alex Marques in a classic, nasty aces versus kings battle. Julien had the aces -- like he needed them -- and Alex's kings never caught up. Julien is going to the final table with...more

We're in the money in Rio. Eduardo Henriques speaks for a lot of people: From now on, you can catch up on the winners HERE Selected chip counts can be found HERE And full video coverage can be found over at PokerStars.tv The players are now on a 90 minute...more

As it always has to, the bubble is burst, but this one popped in slightly peculiar fashion. First things first, the unlucky man is Piragibe Lindolfo Ataide, who has played for two days, came close to the chip lead at some time yesterday, but is now starting his journey home...more

It's getting very close to bubble time here in Rio, and the big stacks know that this is happy hunting time. Table two is especially fearsome in that regard, where Julien Nuijten sits next to Andrew Li, who sits next to Jose Severino, who sits two away from Fahad Sinaei,...more

During any poker tournament featuring any number of players, there comes a time when gears have to shift, contenders have to emerge and the field takes some kind of shape. In a three-day event, like we have here in Rio, that stage is roughly the whole of day two and,...more

For some light relief after a few text-heavy posts, check out the video blog team's introduction to day two at the LAPT in Rio: Selected chip counts can be found HERE A reminder of what they're playing for can be found HERE And full video coverage can be found over...more

Poker is relatively new to Brazil but the excitement among the marvellously vocal railbirds suggests that it'll be here for a few years yet. Anyone who has only ever seen the game on television, however, might not appreciate some of the finer subtleties of these major events. The preliminary stages...more

First through the door today as the trickle of players slowly became a torrent was Sumit Kumar, a PokerStars qualifier from Richmond, Virginia, whose name was already on my list of players to watch. Kumar begins today with 41,050 in chips, ranked 26th overall and the seventh highest PokerStars qualifier...more

"You think there's any chance they can change that 'n' to a capital?" Such was the primary concern of Ronnie "Ronasty" Bardah, the PokerStars qualfier from Brockton, Mass, who enters the second day of the tournament with close to 70,000 in chips. But let's not worry about a potential $785,000...more

In about 90 minutes, the currently-empty tournament room at the Intercontinental Hotel, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will fill with 103 poker players with one thing on their mind: $785,000, the first prize in the inaugural LAPT event. Yesterday was a chaotic introduction to Latin America of high-stakes poker tournaments. More...more

The sun has vanished behind the Sugarloaf, the samba clubs in downtown Rio are full. It's the end of the first day of this LAPT event, the first day of a whole new tour. All the organisers, players and supporters deserve all the accolades coming their way. And while so...more

Today has been no day to be a member of Team PokerStars Pro. Obviously, they have been typically well looked after away from the felt and have found a long procession of supporters in the halls wanting to shake their hands and pose for photos. But it's been brutal at...more

You never want to be standing on the rail of a poker tournament listening to a frowning friend utter these words: "Bang, bang, you're dead." But such was my lot moments ago, when I chased Dave Hardy away from the tables after his fairy tale ride from oil rig to...more

After much calculating, the numbers have finally arrived. The 314 players at LAPT Rio will be playing for a total prize pool of $785,000, distributed among them as follows: 1 -- $222,940 2 -- $117,750 3 -- $86,350 4 -- $62,800 5 -- $47,100 6 -- $31,400 7 -- $23,550...more

People play poker in all kinds of places, and they play for numerous reasons. Dave Hardy, a PokerStars qualifier from Essex, England, plays during down time in his job. And there can sometimes be a lot of that, with not many options for other entertainment. Dave works on an oil...more

If you're checking the primitive and early chip count page -- click HERE if not -- you may have noticed some spectacular fluctuations by the name Gavin Griffin. No one has been mistyping, however. The Team PokerStars Pro from Illinois found the early going pretty rough in Rio. He'd slumped...more

It's notoriously difficult to make sweeping generalisations about the early stages of these poker tournaments. You can double up early, win another monster pot, and still be home in time for tea without making any money. In short, you can't win a tournament on day one, but you can sure...more

Like most players making their way to Rio, Tony Nikaj had a certain set of expectations of what he'd find. He expected a slight increase in temperature this side of the equator, especially compared with his home in Puttnam Valley, New York. He was right about that. He also expected...more

This might be the first event on a brand new tour, but the stars of the world game already know where to come. There are nine Team PokerStars Pros in the field of more than 300 (official numbers to come) as well as plenty of others equipped to make a...more

Well, the sun came out in Rio today for the first time since we arrived on Wednesday. Perfect time, then, to join the hordes of players and supporters heading through the darkened corridors of the Intercontinental Hotel to the conference facilities, where we're getting ready for the start of this...more

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, or so the saying goes. But you can't send a PokerStars blogger to a party in Rio equipped only with a notebook and ask for anything other than a samba about a Baroque cupola. They like their music out here in Brazil,...more

In journalism, as in life, you learn the importance of looking deeper than first impressions: don't judge a book by its cover, report only when the whole story is known, looked at from every angle. Yet while following the various poker tours around the major venues of the world, the...more

When you've already made a splash in Vegas, have toured Europe several times, have taken a leisurely sojourn around Asia and the Pacific, and dipped toes in the waters of the Caribbean, where do you go next? For the players, staff and spectators of PokerStars sponsored poker tournaments, the answer...more