PokerStars weekly round-up – March 7
7 Mar 2013
Sunday Million 7th Anniversary
Recreational poker player Andrius "benislovas" Bielskis, from Lithuania, won the Sunday Million 7th Anniversary edition last weekend, earning a first prize of $848,589.33 after a three-way deal was done. Runner-up "sexygee" – a pro player from the U.K. – won $836,321.83, while third-placed "Kasra84," from Germany, received $813,370.28.
The event was the third-biggest Sunday Million ever held, attracting a field of 49,287 players and a total prize pool of $9,857,400. For a full report of the tourney, go to the PokerStars Blog.
Read more about Andrius "benislovas" Bielskis in the PokerStars Blog story.
95 billion hands
PokerStars dealt its 95-billionth hand on Monday as part of the site’s Road to 100 Billion promotion. The Mega Milestone hand was dealt at a $0.08/$0.16 NL Hold’em full ring table and the winner of the hand was "RichB1," from the U.K., who won $23,920. Eight other players also received five-figure sums ranging from $10,240 to $14,800. The total amount PokerStars awarded to players over 301 Milestone hands was $892,718.
For more information on how the hand went down, check out the PokerStars Blog.
MicroMillions 4
A fourth MicroMillions festival was announced earlier this week, with 100 events set to take place from March 14-24. The total guaranteed prize pool is $5 million, with $1 million guaranteed in the $22 Main Event. The series will also see the introduction of the eagerly anticipated Zoom Poker tournaments, which come almost year after Zoom Poker ring games debuted on PokerStars.
For more information about the series, including the full schedule, satellite details, leaderboard prizes and historical statistics, go to http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/micro-millions/.
London Poker Festival
The London Poker Festival, which incorporates the European Poker Tour and U.K. & Ireland Poker Tour London festivals, is now under way. The UKIPT Grand Final Main Event, with a £770 buy-in, began on Tuesday, March 5 and continues all this week, with a champion set to be crowned on Sunday, March 10.
As that tournament finishes another one begins, with the £5,250 EPT Main Event taking place March 10-16. Running alongside that headline event are two other "signature" events, in the form of the £10,300 High Roller (March 14-15) and £10,300 8-Game Championship (March 13-14).
As there was at EPT Deauville recently, the EPT London Main Event will be webcast live on PokerStars.tv right from the start on Day 1 through to the tournament’s conclusion. The EPT Live London webcast can be viewed at http://www.pokerstars.tv/poker-channel-91-live-action-2.html.
APPT Season 7
A seventh season of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour will begin next week 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 next week from 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.
BSOP Foz do Iguaça
The Brazilian Series of Poker gets under way in Foz do Iguaça – one of Brazil’s most popular tourist destinations – from today (March 7) until March 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.
FPS Evian
The French Poker Series heads back to the mountains for a SnowFest event in Evian from March 19-24. The Main Event has a €1,100 buy-in and takes place March 21-24. There is also a €3,000 High Roller tournament as part of the 11-event festival. For more information about the full schedule and the venue, go to http://www.francepokerseries.fr/en/tournaments/evian/. Satellites to the event are currently running on PokerStars.com and PokerStars.fr.
Leo Margets joins Team PokerStars Pro
Spanish female player Leo Margets is the latest player to join the ranks of Team PokerStars Pro. The Barcelona-born poker phenom, who shot to fame in 2007 after finishing in the top 30 at the World Series of Poker Main Event for more than $350,000, will now be wearing the famous red spade at tournaments around the world, including the upcoming EPT London next week.
If she has a deep run or two, it will hardly be a surprise as Margets won the 2012 EPT Grand Final Ladies event for nearly €15,000. For more info about Margets, check out the PokerStars Blog story and her official bio. Margets will play at PokerStars under the screen name "L. Margets."
Vertical Rush
Five Team PokerStars Pros completed the Vertical Rush challenge (running up 920 steps inside Tower 42) for charity on Tuesday, March 5. New Team Pro Leo Margets finished 32nd out of 994 runners in an impressive time of 8m 25s, with Liv Boeree not far behind in 42nd and a time of 8m 37s. Other pros who took part were George Danzer, Henrique Pinho and Joao Nunes.