PokerStars weekly round-up – March 1
1 Mar 2013
PokerStars online majors
New records were set this week in the PokerStars Super Tuesday as ‘Pokerfred99’ of Germany topped a record field for the event of 614 entrants to win the largest ever first prize of $116,046. Amazingly it was the second week in a row that the field size set a new record.
There was a massive field, too, for the Sunday Million with 7,805 entrants and a prize pool of $1,561,000 to play for. Two Team PokerStars Pros came close to the title, with Joe ‘jcada99’ Cada finishing 13th for $6,244 and Andre ‘aakkari’ Akkari final-tabling in sixth for $46,830, but it was ‘Tonaldino11’ from the Netherlands who was the victor, winning $234,150.
Meanwhile, ‘MetalHelmet’ won the Sunday Warm-Up, topping the field of 3,680 players to net $99,000 after a four-way deal was done at the final table. Read the report on the PokerStars Blog.
Sunday Million 7th Anniversary
It’s just a couple of days now until PokerStars celebrates its Sunday Million 7th Anniversary with a $7,000,000 guaranteed special tourney on March 3 at 14.30 ET. To find out how to turn $1 into $1,000,000, go to http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/sunday-anniversary/ for satellite information and more about the event.
So far more than 4,000 players are already registered, with more than 2,200 players having satellited in. Last year’s winner, ‘slyfox151,’ won nearly $500,000, while the biggest Sunday Million winner – ‘First-Eagle’ – took down the PokerStars 10th Anniversary celebration Sunday Million in December 2011 for $1,146,574.65.
To get a flavor of what it means to win the Sunday Million, not once but twice, check out the PokerStars Blog story of Jesper ‘KipsterDK’ Hougaard, who became the first two-time champion. There’ll be more incredible stories of Sunday Million success hitting the blog in the coming week.
Don’t miss it!
95 Billion Hands
The Road to 100 Billion continues this week with the 95-billionth hand set to hit on Monday. More than $1 million is expected to be shared out among 300 regular milestone hands and the final Mega Milestone hand. To find out how the cash prizes are calculated go to http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/100-billion/milestone-examples/ and keep up to date with the latest hand count in the PokerStars client.
MicroMillions goes fourth
PokerStars’ most popular tournament series, MicroMillions, is back for a fourth festival from March 14-24, with 100 events and a total guaranteed prize pool of $5 million. The buy-ins range from an 11-cent rebuy (event 1) tourney to a $22 Main Event (event 98), which has a $1 million guarantee.
One of the most exciting elements of this MicroMillions festival will be the debut of Zoom Poker tournaments on PokerStars. There are two tournaments scheduled, on March 14 and 17, which have buy-ins of $5.50 and $3.30 and guarantees of $75k and $50k, respectively.
To see the full schedule and find out information about how to qualify for MicroMillions events, check out http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/micro-millions/.
WBCOOP
The World Blogger Championship of Online Poker gets under way March 1, with 31 events scheduled from March 1-11 and thousands of dollars in SCOOP tickets and cash up for grabs. Check out the WBCOOP site for more details.
London Poker Festival
The London Poker Festival, which incorporates the EPT and UKIPT London festivals, begins next week on March 5 and comes to a conclusion on March 16, with 37 events scheduled over 12 days in two different venues. The £5,250 Main Event will take place at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino from March 10-16, along with the £10,300 High Roller (March 14-15) and £10,300 8-Game Championship (March 13-14), while many of the side events will be held at the new ‘PokerStars LIVE’ poker room at the Hippodrome Casino. For a complete schedule breakdown of events and venues, go to http://www.europeanpokertour.com/tournaments/london/.
The UKIPT Grand Final is first up, though, with the £770 Main Event taking place from March 5-10 in the Vic. For more information about the UKIPT schedule in London, go to http://www.ukipt.com/tournaments/london/.
APPT Season 7
A seventh season of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour is scheduled to begin in just two weeks, with the first event taking place at the Walker Hill Paradise Casino in Seoul, South Korea from March 14-17. The Main Event will be a KRW 3,000,000 (USD $2,750) buy-in tournament, which is expected to attract some of the biggest international poker players from the region, including Team PokerStars Pros Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang and Celina Lin, along with JJ Liu and David Steicke.
Last year American-Korean player Andrew Kim beat 268 players (a country record field) to take home the top prize of KRW 145,000,000 (USD $133,000) and the prize pool was KRW 717,489,000 (USD $660,000). Both prizes are expected to be beaten this year.
For full details of the festival schedule, go to http://www.appt.com/tournaments/seoul/.
LAPT Chile
The LAPT Chile National Poker Championship takes place March 13-17 and is aiming to become the biggest and richest poker festival ever held on Chilean soil. In addition, there is expectation that it may surpass the previous largest LAPT Main Event field of 681, which was set in Colombia in Season 4. This year it’s anticipated that the combined prize pool for all the festival events will break the USD $1 million mark, surpassing any previous prize pools for LAPT or any other live poker event held in the country.
Online satellites to the event are proving popular both online at PokerStars and live at Enjoy’s casinos across the country and there is still time to qualify either live or online. One notable change for LAPT Season 6 Main Events is that there are unlimited re-entries available for the first four levels of play. For details on live satellites, please visit http://www.lapt.com/live-satellites/ and for details on the event, go to http://www.lapt.com/tournaments/chile/. Media accreditation to the event is now open at http://www.lapt.com/media/.
Eureka Poker Tour
The €1,000 + €100 Eureka Czech Republic Main Event will run from March 20-24 with a €500,000 guarantee. It’s the first stop of Eureka Poker Tour Season 3 and will be held in King’s Casino, Rozvadov. The final event of Eureka Season 2 took place in Prague last December, where Menikos Panagiotou came first out of a field of 650 players for the €137,100 first prize.
For more information about Season 3 and media applications to the first event in the Czech Republic, go to www.eurekapokertour.com.
ANZPT Perth
Bosnian player Dejan Divkovic won the ANZPT Perth title last weekend, picking up the first prize of AUD $114,000 after defeating Iori Yogo from Japan heads-up. For a report from the event, check out the PokerStars Blog.
The next ANZPT event is at the Star Casino, Sydney from March 21-24. Go to http://www.anzpt.com/tournaments/sydney/ for more information.
BSOP Foz do Iguaça
The Brazilian Series of Poker will be shuffling up for action in Foz do Iguaça – one of Brazil’s most popular tourist destinations – from March 7-11. The Main Event features a buy-in of R$2,200 (USD $1,115) and features two day 1s. More than 200 players have already registered including players from Brazil and Latin America, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia and Switzerland.
For more information on the festival, which has a total of five events, including an R$4,500 High Roller tournament, go to http://site.bsop.com.br/bsop/Pagina.do?idSecao=122.