PokerStars holds largest ever play money tournament and PokerStars Pros finish on top

ONCHAN, Isle of Man -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein has won the first-ever Billionaire Club Championship – an annual tournament with a buy-in of one billion play money chips and a top prize of 13.9 billion. His fellow Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker finished in second place for a memorable PokerStars 1-2. The Team PokerStars Pros scooped the top two prizes from the biggest ever play money prize pool created at PokerStars.

The Billionaire Club is an exclusive club for play money players who have amassed at least 1 billion chips.

This inaugural Billionaire Club Championship was the biggest ever play money tournament buy-in at PokerStars by a factor of ten, with the highest ever previous buy-in being “only” 100 million chips. As a result, this was easily the biggest-ever play money prize pool ever created at PokerStars.

The two Team PokerStars Pros faced each other heads up after eliminating 29 other elite play money regulars. Heads-up play was fiercely contested and lasted over 15 minutes (89 hands) before Greenstein triumphed against the 2003 WSOP champion. Of the 29 other players, 22 were from the USA, and seven from the rest of the world.

Players are able to compete globally in PokerStars’ play money events without wagering anything of real money value. Despite the chips not being redeemable for a real money value, the championship played out like any major real money deep-stacked event, with only four eliminations in the first 90 minutes of play.

In addition to playing the event, Barry Greenstein streamed his play – including his win – on his Twitch channel at http://www.twitch.tv/barrygreenstein

“I’m proud to have won the first-ever championship. I really enjoyed playing in the event, especially because I was able to share it with my Twitch audience while I played,” said Greenstein. “Facing Chris Moneymaker heads up was a lot of fun. I thought Chris got the best of me in the play, but I held better cards overall and won a race on the final hand to secure the title.”

Chris Moneymaker’s second prize of 9.3 billion chips was sufficient to see him return to the top of the Billionaire Club World Rankings, a weekly list published of PokerStars top play money balances.



KEY FACTS

Billionaire Club Championship

Entry: One Billion Play Chips

Entries: 31

Prize pool: 31,000,000,000

Places paid: 4

1. barryg1 – Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein - 13,950,000,000

2. Money800 – Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker - 9,300,000,000

3. Mack.e.Knife – USA - 4,650,000,000

4. cashcard52 – USA - 3,100,000,000