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PokerStars Breaks Poker Traffic History

PokerStars, the world’s largest and busiest poker site has again broken records to earn itself a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The successful online poker room has gone from strength to strength, and has now recorded the largest number of online players at any single time at 307,016 players.

Started in 2001 by a small Costa Rican company, the world’s largest poker room has attracted massive traffic on its custom built software with strong advertisement and an eclectic range of tournaments and promotions.
On Sunday September 6, 2009, PokerStars.com managed to record 307,016 players spread across over 40,000 tables – demolishing the previous record by over 100,000 players!

Poker aficionados will remember however only months ago when PokerStars smashed another Guinness World Record – the largest online poker tournament in history. The Largest Online Poker Tournament – which was held on Sunday July 19, 2009 - was officially checked by the Guinness Book of World Records. The PokerStars tournaments attracted an unbelievable 65,000 players from over 155 countries across the world.

Notably the sterling performance of the world’s largest poker room not only shows strong growth in its own performances, but also represents stability and solid growth in the poker industry as a whole – particular in a economic climate filled with uncertainty. However, with over 100,000 new poker players registering online each month on various poker rooms, and the status as the world’s richest sports; poker seems set for more records to come.

New PokerStars TV Show to Air in UK

PokerStars has launched a brand new TV show which will air exclusively on Sky Sports from November 2nd.
The show, entitled “Bounty Stars of Poker” will be filmed by Emblaze Productions Ltd, and involves amateur poker players from the world’s leading online poker room being brought into a live TV environment.

Players will then have to beat off other several members of the public to progress to the next stage of the show, where they’ll have the chance to face either a Team PokerStars Pro or sporting celebrity for a £5000 cash prize.

The current outline of the show seems quite similar with NBC’s recently launched “Face the Ace” poker show, where contestants would also have to play against seasoned poker professionals like Phil Ivey and Mike Matusow, with a top cash prize of $1 million.
Current PokerStars Pros who are set to feature on the new PokerStars show include 2008 World Champion Peter Eastgate; 2006 EPT winner Victoria Coren as well as Europe’s highly feared Marcel Luske. Celebrity Sportsman signed up to the show include ex-England test cricketer Phil Tufnell, England rugby star Mike Tindall as well as Welsh Football legend Gary Speed.

Victoria Coren said of the show: "This is an excellent opportunity for previously unknown poker players to make a name for themselves and play against some of the best in the business. The PokerStars Bounty Stars of Poker will expose these guys to the unique pressures of playing in a live environment with thousands watching on. And while I hope they enjoy the experience I've got no intention of taking it easy on them."
To catch the first episode of this show, tune into Sky Sports 2 at 22:00 on Monday 2nd November.

PokerStars Brings the Curtains Down on 2009 with Prague Event

As the year 2009 slowly reaches its end, Prague is all set to host the PokerStars European Poker Tour event for 2009. This is the last event in the poker tour calendar of PokerStars. The extravaganza is set to kick off Tuesday, December 01, 2009, at noon local time. The event is spread across five days, ending on December 6, 2009, ending with one of the players winning the championship.

The event will be held at the Golden Prague poker room at the Hilton Prague Hotel. The hotel will host a number of preliminary events as well, apart from the €5,000 main event, a no-limit Hold’em game. Some of the preliminary events include multiple no-limit games with €300 to €2,000 buy-ins and a €1,000 pot limit Omaha game. There is also a ladies’ special, a €300 no-limit Hold’em game.

The main event is touted to be a mammoth affair, with players starting off with 30,000 worth of chips. The blinds start at €50 to €100. On the first day, each level lasts for a duration of one hour, while on the remaining days each level is 75 minutes long. Arrangements for the event have been detailed and elaborate, and include two flights on the first day to meet the demand of transporting the maximum number of 600 players that the tournament accepts.

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Guinness World Attempt to be Held by PokerStars on December 27

Sunday, December 27, 2009, at 14.45 ET, PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, will try and rewrite the Guinness Book of World Records.

Last December PokerStars saw Joe (jcada99) Cada win the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and generated an enormous amount of 35,000 players. That tournament had an $11 buy-in with an amount of $500,000 in guaranteed prize money. Poker Stars is hoping to break the present record of 65,000 players in a single online poker tournament which was set by them in July.

The buy-in for this year’s tournament is only $1 with $300,000 in guaranteed prize money. With registration already open on PokerStars, more than 71,000 players had already signed up by Saturday morning.

Late registrations will not be allowed and no cap for the tournament will be given. There will be a starting stack of 2,000 chips given to each player and blind levels will run a quick five minutes each. There will also not be any all-in protection and a maxiumum of 10 players serving per table.

At present it would appear as though first place should rake in a whopping $50,000 but this could change according to the number of buy-ins. Second place should probably earn $30,000 and third place $20,000. Although also subject to change, fourth place should bank $10,000.

PokerStars set the record with over 307,000 players competing on online poker tables at the same time on September 6th during its annual World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and is aim to beat their previous World Record of 65,000 players which was set in July 2009. PokerStars have a good chance of doing so with their low buy-in which should enable all players to participate. Satellites will also be held

Players participating in this record breaking tourney will be awarded a World Record Certificate.

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Church Gains $100,000 from PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge

The Rev. Andrew Trapp, a priest in South Carolina, knowing that his church was almost near their goal of $5.5 million needed to build a new facility decided to gain clearance to gamble in a poker tournament.

After receiving permission from his pastor as well as from the Charleston Bishop, Rev. Trapp entered the PokerSars.net Million Dollar Challenge.

The assistant pastor at St. Michael Catholic Church reported at the time that even if Rev. Trapp did not win any prize money he was hoping that his entry would help people to see that priests were also capable of having fun and behaving like normal people.

Many poker players entered the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge in an attempt to take a shot at the top prize but Reverend Andrew Trapp was the only priest that entered. Although Rev. Trapp missed the $1 million top prize in the poker tournament he managed to win $100,000 for his church, untaxed, in a semifinal round.

A retired New York Police Detective, detective Mike Kosowski, won the top prize in the tournament.

A Sunday Mass at the church was filmed by PokerStars.net’s camera crew for the final episode and Rev Trapp was taped talking about the need for a new building for the church which he stated was too old and small. Rev Trapp added that God gave him a gift of playing cards and that he could put this hobby to good use to help build their church. Congregants gathered at the church on the Sunday afternoon to watch the final televised round.

In order to earn a spot on the poker finals it was necessary for Rev. Trapp to place among the top 10 in a free Internet tournament that involved 10,000 contestants and thereafter submit a two-minute audition video.

Online Poker Ban in Belgium Defies European Union regulations

The European Commission is not pleased with the current changes proposed by the Belgium Government to its online gambling laws.

The Belgian newspaper, De Standaard, has reported that operations of online poker rooms and casinos will be nationalized in terms of the new regulations that are being enforced this year that will result in the exclusion of outside operators and would see Belgian poker players blocked from foreign poker sites. The Belgium Government will be asking Internet Services Providers to block sites such as Full Tilt, Party Poker and PokerStars. This will result in the government having ultimate control of the online poker industry in the country and generate a huge amount of revenue for the economy.

The proposed Belgian online gambling regulation plans to restrict online casinos and Internet gambling operations to domestic providers only despite the European Commission’s complaints that its rules do not conform to EU requirements.

The government has cited so called terrorist operations as one of the reasons for nationalizing its online casino industry even though there is no proof of this type of problem.

The Belgium Government is in direct violation of the attempts of the European Commission to get member states to adhere to free trade agreements.

Belgian poker players are very angry about the fact that players who will be found engaging in play on online sites that are based outside of the country will be subject to prosecution. Although it is presumed that these players will strongly object to the regulation the fact that the government has already defied the EC makes it unlikely that their pleas will have any effect on the government.

Over $1.5 Million Donated for Haiti Relief by Online Poker Community

Former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Chairman of the Poke Players Alliance (PPA), the leading poker grassroots advocacy group with more than a million members, applauded Poker Stars, Cake Poker and Full Tilt Poker for providing an easy way for poker players all over the world to make contributions towards relief efforts in Haiti after the devastating earthquake.

Special pages were set up on the various sites to enable players to make donations easily to the Haiti relief efforts and players on all three sites are able to transfer funds quickly and easily direct from their online accounts on those sites to a Haiti Fund. Poker Stars, Cake Poker as well as Full Tilt Poker have promised to match each donation made, dollar for dollar.

To date there has been over $760,000 donated by more than 50,000 players resulting in donations by the online poker community exceeding an amount $1.5 million in view of the dollar for dollar match.

D’Amato, added that he is proud to be part of the community after seeing the generosity that the online poker players are showing towards the devastation in Haiti.

Cake Poker and Full Tilt are offering online tournaments and will be donating all registration fees to the Red Cross, UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders.

Another leading online poker room, Titan Poker, is hosting a $10 buy-in event on January 31st and will be donating all proceeds to Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. They will match the total amount of buy-ins made at this event. A little bit different is the donation offer of Pacific Poker. They host four different freeroll tournaments and donate $1 for each player that registers for one of these tournament.

Online players can also donate directly to the Red Cross without physically playing in the tournament by buying in directly to “no play” tournaments which can already be found in the Titan Poker lobby under the “Aid for Haiti” tab.

PokerStars sets its sights on the World

The two week PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has come to an end. The festival which had as many as 50 events has wrapped up and set sail. However, there is much more in store for the world as far as PokerStars is concerned. PokerStars seems to be making their way around the globe and they are bringing a lot of excited poker players with them. The tour didn’t let up as the players found themselves heading back to Europe for the EPT Deauville starting on Tuesday. Next, there will be another poker tour in North America. The latest PokerStars sponsored tour, the North American Poker Tour is sure to offer plenty of excitement. One stop will be in Vegas, this will happen in February, and then it will then find itself in Connecticut. Those are just two of the many stops this tour will see. The South will then be blessed with the excitement as poker makes its way down to Punta Del Este in Uruguay. This is where the $3,500 main event which was won last year by Karl Hevroy will take place. Next stop on the list is Manchester; this is where the UKIPT £500 buy-in will be, as well as many excited poker players. PokerStars will be keeping players busy and giving them the opportunity to see a lot of the world. Their busy schedule is sure to cause some drowsiness amongst the poker players, but the excitement will undoubtedly wake them back up!

PokerStars Celebrates 40 Billionth Hand

PokerStars has announced a new promotion which will prove very exciting for its players. This new promotion will be in celebration of the upcoming 40 billionth poker hand dealt on the PokerStars site. This promotion is being called the “February 40” and it is set to take place starting February 11th. The February 40 promotion will award great prizes to poker players in every one millionth hand. It also has guaranteed prize pools for other tournaments, such as the Sunday Million and more. The prizes which will be awarded during this promotion will all be based around the number 40. A $40 cash prize will be given for every VPP that is earned by the player in the preceding forty hands at that table during these million hands. Some very exciting news is that all of the players in the hand will win. However, the winner of the hand will win double the amount of prize money. The objective is to reward all of the players no matter what games or stakes they play. The reasoning behind this is that all of the players have contributed to getting PokerStars to that 40 billionth hand. It is expected that PokerStars will give away about 400 cash prizes during this promotion. The winner of the special Sunday Million will walk away with a prize of one million dollars. There will also be other promotions for the play money players, as well as the PokerStars VIPs. This promotion is a one of a kind and expected to make for an exciting time for the players.

PokerStars introduces new Promotion

When it comes to PokerStars, there seems to be no end to the amount of exciting promotions they put out there for their players. It seems that they have done it again. PokerStars takes a lot of pride in being one of the most highly respected online poker rooms and they do all they can to keep that reputation. PokerStars adds new promotions to their site on a regular basis, with each promotion bringing a promise of fun and great prizes to some lucky players. They have even gained quite a reputation for themselves in the land based poker world as well. They have reached a large amount of players on the Internet, Television, and in the casinos. They have become a familiar name with millions of people. They have announced yet another one of their great promotions which is sure to excite a lot of players. This promotion will offer their players a chance to enter into daily freerolls to participate in the exciting PokerStars Poker TV Show. The ten top poker players from each freeroll will win themselves seats into the weekly final where fourteen of the top performers will be invited to apply to be on the show. Each one of the applications will be checked over by the casting department and the poker players who meet the requirements will be contacted. This is a very exciting promotion which many poker players would love to be a part of. Further information about this promotion can be located on the PokerStars site.

PokerStars offers Tournaments Galore

Online poker tournaments offer poker players all of the thrills and excitement of playing in a poker tournament and the convenience of doing it right in their home. There is great news for online poker players everywhere. PokerStars makes sure players can get in on all of the tournaments their hearts desire. PokerStars has tournaments kicking off on their online poker site on a constant basis, this creates a great poker play environment which allows players to log in and get going. PokerStars also offers some of the largest prize pools online to its players. They are one site that poker players should consider taking a look at on a Sunday. This site makes it a point to turn what would otherwise be a mundane Sunday into one filled with action and the chance at great prizes. Not only is PokerStars a very well known name in online poker, but it has also become a very popular and recognizable name in the poker scene as a whole. Recently PokerStars had seen a great turnout at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where more than 1,500 players showed up to play some great poker. The site also hosted the amFAR event which was geared toward raising money for AIDS research and Awareness. PokerStars shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to getting their name out there and there are a lot of players that are very glad for that. This is one online site that has proven to have no problem breaking into the land based poker scene.

PokerStars adds Dusty Schmidt to Team PokerStars

There is more news for the PokerStars team and the players on the very popular online poker room. Dusty Schmidt, an ex-lead coach with both StoxPoker and CardRunners has now become a PokerStars pro team member. Schmidt, otherwise referred to as “Leatherass”, has expressed excitement about joining the already impressive PokerStars team and has said that the chance to represent PokerStars, the largest online poker room’s makes all his hard work feel like it has been worthwhile. He also said that he couldn’t be more honored. Schmidt is just five short years into his poker career, but he has gone a long way in the poker scene in just those five years. He has played over eight million poker hands, this calculates out to more than ten thousand hours of poker play. He has also won himself more than $3,000,000 in real money games which he played online. He has also said that joining the PokerStars Team means that he will be going for SuperNova Elite status in 2010. He has also said that his joining the team does mean that he will only be playing at their site. He also plans on keeping a detailed blog on the site and he will also be playing in tournaments which are held on the site. Schmidt used to be a top ranked golfer before he began playing poker professionally. He has since made the switch to poker and gave up the sport after he had a heart attack. He was only 23 years old when he suffered the heart attack.

Three new Players added to the PokerStars Team

PokerStars has just added three more poker players to their team. The three players are George Lind (Jorj95), Dustin Schmidt (Leatherass9), and Denys Shcherbakov (diatty). Each of these players appear to be good choices as they have all proved themselves to be very good at what it is that they do, play poker. George was a student who was studying computer science before he got into playing poker. His start in poker began when he began playing poker at a local land based casino. Dustin Schmidt had been a professional golfer before he suffered a heart attack and began playing poker. He got interested in poker after watching a friend play online. Schmidt began analyzing the game and quickly became very good at it. Denys Shcherbakov used to play video games before he got into poker. He created an account on PokerStars in 2005 and became extremely good at the game, making quite a name for himself. He began on PokerStars by playing in the $5 sit and go tournaments. The addition of these three poker players means that the PokerStars team is now up to having 26 team members in all. Each one of the members come with very good poker credentials and has great reputations when it comes to playing poker. The PokerStars team is considered to be the elite. This is obviously due to their knack of being able to add some of the most impressive names to their team.

PokerStars to have TV Show

There are going to be some very excited poker enthusiasts out there once they hear the new announcement on what it is that PokerStars has planned. The ever popular PokerStars poker site is going to have its own poker TV show which is going to be aired on the FOX network. There’s also some good news for players who enjoy spending their time playing at the PokerStars poker site. Players will be able to get in on the chance to make it to the show by playing in qualifiers at PokerStars. Players who live in the U.S. and Canada will be able to play in the first round of qualifiers for free from now until the 25th of June. The very lucky winners will find themselves qualifying to play in the Big Game where the final 200 poker players will be allowed to send in a video into PokerStars for a chance to make it onto the show. The players who are selected to take part in the show will find themselves being flown out and playing in the PokerStars game on TV where they will be able to keep their winnings which exceed $100,000. This show is expected to make a hit and it should be quite popular right away with poker becoming more popular each day and all of the fans of PokerStars. An air date for the show has not yet been announced. However, there will be a lot of people paying attention so they won’t miss out on tuning in.

pokerStars adds four Players to its Team

PokerStars has just announced that they will be adding four new poker players to their Pro Canada Team. These four new players added to the team will be Anh Van Nguyen, Greg DeBora, Marcello Del Grosso, and Patrick Pezzin. Nguyen moved to Canada at the age of ten and he considers Canada to be his home even though he was born in Vietnam. He has been enjoying poker for fourteen years. However, he reached the professional level just six years ago. DeBora comes from Toronto and he is 27 years old. DeBora has won more than $350,000 in the past eight years. Del Grosso is from Ontario and he has been playing poker on a professional level since 2006. Prior to 2006 he worked in construction. Pezzin is from Toronto and he is currently 40 years old. Pezzin has had an impressive poker career and has won more than $700,000 in live poker tournaments. One coincidence is that these four players all played in the Mohegan Sun event. This is leaving some people to wonder if the event was also used as a way to choose players for the team. These players should all make great assets to the PokerStars Pro Canada Team. Each one of them comes with impressive poker ability and they should fit right in. PokerStars is the most popular of all of the online poker sites and has been making great choices so far when it comes to adding impressive players to its poker team.

PokerStars.net Sponsors Empire State Hold'em Championship

PokerStars.net has announced that it is going to be sponsoring an exciting event which will be taking place at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino which is located in Verona, NY on August 14th through August 18th. This event is the Empire State Hold'em Championship and it is expected to draw in a large crowd. The fact that it is being sponsored by the extremely popular online poker site as well known as PokerStars is one more thing which should help this event to gather even more attention. The casino where this event is going to be held opened in 1993 and is the perfect place for this event to be held. The Turning Stone has a large poker room with 32 tables and there are also 60 more tournament tables. There is going to be an exciting player party which is going to be held on the night before the event. The party will begin at 8:00 pm on August 13th and it will take place at the Lava Night Club. Players will be able to win their seats to the poker event at the PokerStars site. The prize package they can win has a value of $4,000. The prize will cover the buy in to the main event, travel expenses, and accommodations for six nights. Anyone who wishes to participate in the Empire State Hold'em Championship will want to go to the PokerStars.net website and click on the appropriate links. This is one opportunity poker players will want to take advantage of.

Another New Player for PokerStars

PokerStars has been adding impressive poker pros to its team recently and they have just added another excellent poker player. Vanessa Selbst has always had a love of games and she has been making her love for poker do very well for herself the past few years. In fact, she has earned herself more than $1,500,000 by playing in the live tournaments to date. While becoming a very well respected poker pro, Selbst also attends Yale Law School. She has done quite well at balancing the two. Selbst achieved her largest win earlier this year when she won the PokerStars APT and walked away with a huge win which was worth $750,000! PokerStars is the most popular online poker site and has made a great name for itself in the poker industry. The poker site also seems to have a knack for getting some of the best poker pros to join its team. The addition of Selbst is just another smart move the poker site has made recently. She has shown that she is a dedicated poker player that has a real talent for the game. Selbst can play the game of poker well and she obviously knows how to balance two lives. If anyone can come on board at PokerStars and shine, it should be Vanessa Selbst. It will be interesting to watch and see just how well she does and all the ways in which she adds to the team. This is definitely one poker player to keep your eye on.

PokerStars Angers French Players

The very popular online poker site, PokerStars, has made a move which has caused many of their French players to become angry and leave the site. These players are now looking for new online poker sites to spend their time on and enjoy online poker at. The move PokerStars made which caused these bad feelings was to increase the rake. They thought by increasing the rake they would be able to offset the costs involved with the expensive license France now requires. They also tried to cover the high French taxes. However, many of the players have now decided to boycott the poker site and this may turn out to have been a bigger mistake than the site could have imagined. Other French players have decided to take a much more creative approach to showing how they feel about the rake increase. These players have decided to have a “sit out”. The interesting thing about this online poker “sit out” is how it is being implemented. At first look it would appear as if a table if full. However, when looking at the table a person would notice that all of the players at the table have actually chosen to sit out of the hands. If this continues then PokerStars may find themselves really thinking over whether or not they made the right decision. The PokerStars online poker site will want to do what it can to keep as many of its players happy as possible.

PokerStars has a Lamborghini to give away

There is exciting news for players at PokerStars, one of the most visited online poker sites on the Internet. They have announced a spectacular promotion which should make their players even more excited about visiting as they gear up to participate in this promotion. Players will now have the chance to play to win a Lamborghini Gallardo. Poker players around the world will be able to enjoy great poker as they try for the chance to win a very nice new car. There will be daily freerolls which will give players the chance to qualify for weekly finals, each one having $100,000 added to the impressive prizepool. There will be 2,000 poker players progressing to the grand final each week. This is where they will battle for the chance at an amazing $250,000 prizepool. Players will be excited to learn that the top 5,000 at the Grand Final will share a portion of the prizepool and the lucky winner will get the Lamborghini which is valued at around $200,000! The satellites for this great freeroll tournament begin July 25th and they will go through September 25th. There will then be finals held weekly during August and September. The Grand Final is where players will ultimately want to make it to and it will take place on October 3rd. This is some poker action anyone who can will want to make sure they try to get in on. PokerStars is known for providing a lot of excitement and opportunities to its players; this promotion is just one example of this.

Pokerstars sees Controversy

Pokerstars was in the midst of celebrating a record $11.8 million prize pool when things got heated and the celebration was interrupted by controversy. This controversy was based around the sixth place finisher that plays under the alias “zeurr”. This player officially came in at sixth place and the fourth largest payout in the Pokerstars event. The problem lies in the fact that a newspaper had reported that this player is only 17 years of age. The problem lies in the fact that anyone that plays in the cash games at Pokerstars must be at least 18 years of age. Apparently the 17 year old was posting on the Internet and letting it be known that he was participating in the tournament. When reporters made contact with the players’ father, the father stated that he had been playing under the account. It is not yet clear who the registered player that has the account with the user name of “zeurr” is. If the account is registered under the 17 year old, then this means that he had lied about his age during registration and he would be disqualified. No matter whose name the account is actually under, Pokerstars has the right to deny the payment of the prize due to fraud. Pokerstars is one of the more popular online poker sites and it has become the poker site of choice for many online poker players. The fact that a 17 year old was playing in the tournament would violate the sites terms.