PokerStars Marketing Codes

PokerStars is without question the biggest online poker site currently in existence. Over the last few years they have leapt ahead of the competition; providing the most customers with the most tournaments, cash games, and added value. They are also the home for a collection of former WSOP Main Event champions. Greg “Fossilman” Raymer (2004), Joe Hachem (2005), Tom McEvoy (1983), and Peter Eastgate (2008) are all important pillars in Team PokerStars Pro. Even the WSOP champion who helped spark the poker boom, Chris Moneymaker (2003), makes his online base at PokerStars.

Multi-table tournaments have long been one of PokerStars’ main strengths, in particular when it comes to qualifying for the World Series of Poker. Since 2004 they have sent over 3,760 players to the WSOP Main Event, many of them walking away considerably richer. In 2004, PokerStars qualifiers corralled $11 million out of a total $24 million. In 2006 the Main Event field set a record which is yet to be matched – 8,773 players put up the $10,000 entry. PokerStars was paying for 1600 of them. Despite only sending 616 players in 2006, three of them made the final table, taking home a collective $8.8 million. The high volume and high standard of tournament play on PokerStars has lead to the cultivation of some great WSOP success stories.

Founded in 2001, PokerStars has always been a relatively big player in the online poker scene. Yet it wasn’t until 2006 that they found themselves at the top of the tree. Late that year the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed by the U.S. government. This effectively outlawed online poker in America and caused many companies to withdraw from the country. A few intrepid souls such as PokerStars and Full Tilt elected to keep their doors open to U.S. players and have reaped the rewards. However, in 2011 PokerStars finally pulled out of the US market entirely.

Almost any poker game you could wish to play can be found on PokerStars.com: Hold ‘em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, H.O.S.E, H.O.R.S.E, Badugi, and 8-Game Mix all find a home here. No Limit Hold ‘em blinds start as low as $0.02/$0.04 and move up through the stakes until they plateau at $200 – $400. During peak hours there are tables running at practically every level and you’re very unlikely to have to wait for a Hold ‘em game. Although the other games on offer cannot compete with the popularity of Hold ‘em, it’s rare to find any of them completely empty. The recently introduced Heads-Up tables are also proving extremely popular.

As we have already touched on, PokerStars knows how to run a good poker tournament. There are over 600,000 tournaments every week at PokerStars, with scheduled events and Sit & Go’s running 24 hours a day. Even non-Hold ‘em games have well-attended tournaments, something you’re unlikely to find on most other poker clients. Poker tournaments come in all shapes and sizes, but the most popular on PokerStars are the Turbo and Heads-Up style events. It is also common to see players packed into the Sunday Million double shootout satellites. Sit & Go tournaments of all buy-ins are starting all the time, with the $22 buy-in 180 player events especially popular. For more information on the different styles of tournaments and how best to beat them, check out the FTR PokerStars Sit and Go Types and Strategy.

PokerStars really comes into their own with their multi-table tournament selection. Events cover a vast range of buy-ins, from a solitary dollar right up to tens of thousands. There are a host of freerolls, satellites, and guarantees to satisfy every type of tournament player.  The lowest guaranteed events have a ridiculously small $0.10 buy-in with a $50 guarantee. Other regular guaranteed tournaments include the $3 rebuy ($30k gtd.), $5 rebuy ($35k gtd.), $10 rebuy ($55k gtd.), and $55 freezeout ($50k gtd.). It’s not uncommon to find all of these tournaments running multiple times in one day. Cumulatively there’s hundreds of thousands worth of guaranteed cash up for grabs every day.

In addition to the regular scheduled events there are also plenty of special tournaments, most notably the Sunday Million. This has become a staple in every poker player’s calendar and is without a doubt the most important poker event of the week. The buy-in is $215, although a large proportion of the players will have won their way in via satellites. In its infancy, the Sunday Million boasted a solid $200,000 guaranteed prize pool. Nowadays that figure has ballooned to $1.5 million, an unparalleled sum for a weekly event. To help feed the hordes of weekend value hunters PokerStars also run a series of warm-up and warm-down events. The Sunday Warm-up has a $215 buy-in and a $750k guarantee, while the Sunday Second Chance sports a $200k guarantee with a $215 buy-in. The big money guarantees aren’t all limited to the weekend. Tournaments such as the Wednesday Hundred Fifty ($300 buy-in, $150 gtd.) run regularly throughout the week.

The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is the jewel in PokerStars’ crown. This yearly series is a collection of the most prestigious online poker tournaments with the biggest guarantees in the world. The 2009 series features 45 different events across all poker disciplines, with a combined guaranteed pot of $40 million. It all started a little more humbly in 2002, with 9 events and $1 million total guaranteed. Since then things have grown exponentially and a WCOOP bracelet is now the most prestigious record of online prestige.

PokerStars is registered in the Isle of Man, a part of the British Isles. They are licensed and regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, a Mohawk organization that licenses a large number of online gambling companies out of their base in Quebec, Canada. PokerStars’ Random Number Generator has been assessed and approved by BMM International and Cigital Inc.

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