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PokerStars hosted its weekly online poker extravaganza last Sunday, consisting of the Poker Stars Sunday Warm-Up, leading into the Sunday Million, and ending with the Sunday Second Chance tournament; a total guarantee of $1.7 million most weekends.
PokerStars current 2X promotion hit the Sunday Warm-Up this week, doubling the guaranteed prize pool from $500,000 to $1,000,000, and as is the nature of the world’s largest online poker room, PokerStars saw an excess of entries to each tournament, that raised the overall prize pools to a total of more than 3 million.
The PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up kicked off at 12:45 ET, drawing a very high number of players as the online poker room announced the 2X Promo would double the prize pool to $1 million. 4,050 players showed up to battle it as the top 630 spots would claim a piece of the prize pool, further extended to $1,123,400 by an overflow of entries.
It took well over 10 hours to complete the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up, when finally “richlizard” was able to overtake “ShowM4n” at the final table for the first place prize of $144,918.
PokerStars “2X $1mil GP” Sunday Warm-Up Final Table Results
1st - richlizard ($144,919)

2nd - ShowM4n ($101,106)

3rd - LION8HART ($67,404)

4th - Bumbulbee_G ($56,170)

5th - nederen_dk ($44,936)

6th - Bozz814 ($33,702)

7th - LukeLasko ($22,468)

8th - hoyd78 ($14,043)

9th - mnkyman ($9,100)
Next came PokerStars most famous weekly online poker tournament, the Sunday Million, with a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000,000. More than twice as many players turned out for this one – 8,370 to be exact – trumping the GP to $1,674,000; enough to pay the top 1,260 finishers. It was going to be a long night at PokerStars, taking nearly 11 hours to reveal a victor. In the end, “avkid86” ousted “strahhh25” in heads-up to pocket $202,721 for the 1st place spot.
PokerStars Sunday Million final Table Results
1st - avkid86 ($202,721)

2nd - strahh25 ($136,431)

3rd - pokerbrat13 ($92,907)

4th - Gambooooool ($75,330)

5th - tonijeromi ($58,590)

6th - dapoopta ($41,850)

7th - Jimboski30 ($29,295)

8th - gio_piso ($19,251)

9th - DonC33 ($11,718)
Rounding out the evening at PokerStars.net was the Sunday Second Chance tournament, worth a GP of $200k. A field of 1,640 once again boosted the prize pool to $328,000, paying the top 252 players. After nearly 8 hours of competition, heads-up action between “junior4718” and “AlBrvs4Life” ceased. When the smoke cleared, it was “junior4718” taking the 1st place prize of $55,760.
PokerStars Sunday Second Chance Final Table Results
1st - junior4718 ($55,760)

2nd - AlBrvs4Life ($41,984)

3rd - MrteddyKGB ($31,324)

4th - DenverSports ($22,960)

5th - carmenomar ($16,400)

6th - toddinhu ($13,120)

7th - jvtilt ($9,840)

8th - joejackson06 ($6,560)

9th - paze1 ($4,592)

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Six Of WSOP ME’s “November Nine” PokerStars Players

An extraordinary story has brewed around the world’s largest online poker room, PokerStars, as it’s been confirmed that six of the 2008 World Series of Poker’s final tablists – the November Nine – are PokerStars players.

In order of WSOP Main Event final table chip leads, these six exceptionally skilled poker players and members of PokerStars.com are:

Dennis Phillips, with 26,295,000

A commercial truck dealer in Missouri, 53 year-old Dennis Phillips is elated to be in his current position in the 2008 WSOP. Holding the highest stack for the last several days of WSOP competition, the only person truly surprised that Phillips is entering the November final table with the lead is Dennis himself. A truly humble man, he did not even bother to tell his friends he had won a satellite seat in the WSOP Main Event until several weeks after the fact, and even then it took a few beers to loosen his modest lips.

Dennis Phillips has only been playing poker for about 4 years, taking up cards as a hobby. Phillips rejected numerous offers to wear online poker paraphernalia, but finally accepted an offer from PokerStars to wear a logo patch on his ST Louis Cardinals cap and tucking company shirt.

Ivan Demidov, with 24,400,000

Currently holding the second highest chip stack in the WSOP Main Event final table, Ivan is a 27 year old from Moscow. The WSOP Main Event is Demidov’s first live poker tournament, and what a kick-off career move it will be, guaranteeing at least $900,000 already. Should Ivan go on to win the 2008 WSOP Main Event bracelet, he will become the first ever Russian poker player to do so.

Peter Eastgate, with 18,375,000

22 year old Peter Eastgate from Europe has been playing poker for quite some time, having an extensive online poker career that includes membership at PokerStars. With a relatively low stack of 10 million chips (compared to the competition), Eastgate nearly doubled to 18 million, earning a spot in the November Nine when his Pocket Aces held true.

Ylon Schwarz, with 12,525,000

Ylon Schwarz is a professional poker player who’s earned 11 cashes in WSOP vents alone since 2005. At 38 years of age, the New York poker pro kept a low-key profile throughout the WSOP Main Event, claiming numerous small pots to keep himself alive for the Final Nine. When Ylon found himself under the lights of television cameras, he “went a little nuts”. Thankful for the dinner break, Schwarz regrouped himself and came back strong to end with the 5th highest chip stack going into the final table.

Darus Suharto, with 12,520,000

Darus Suharto, or “Dennis_TO” as he’s known at Poker Stars, is a 39 year old accountant from Canada. Darus is no stranger to the World Series of Poker, having won a seat in the 2006 WSOP Main Event through PokerStars, where he played well enough to finish in the money bubble. Suharto was instantly hooked, and is more than pleased to be awaiting the final table in November.

David Rheem, with 10,230,000

David “Chino” Rheem is a professional poker player out of California who earned himself 15 live tournament cashes worth $634,657; 5 in WSOP events, but none thus far in the WSOP Main Event. While he may seem out-stacked at the moment, one advantage Rheem takes into the final table is that he has actually taken down a live poker tournament in the history of his career, not something many of his fellow November Nine can claim.

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PokerStars 2x Promo Paying Off For Members

As the world’s largest online poker room, offering the most generous guaranteed tournament schedule in the online poker industry, PokerStars certainly didn’t need to boast a 2x promotion to keep the players and profits rolling in; but in true #1 fashion, PokerStars’ new campaign has been awesomely successful – not just in doubling their tournament entries, but the rewards as well.

PokerStars 2x promotion is doubling just about everything the online poker room has to offer for the entire month of July. Right before an event starts, players just might get a message that the prize pool is being doubled, or the points earned for playing will be doubled. Even cash games are often revealing doubled pots to the winners.

Last Sunday was perhaps the biggest announcement of all when PokerStars declared the 2x promotion would affect the Sunday Million. Instead of a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, PokerStars would be putting up a massive $2,000,000 guaranteed. Members of PokerStars immediately responded by providing their own 2x numbers as more than 14,000 players entered for a shot at the enormous money bubble.

Doubtless, PokerStars will be drawing in a lot of new online poker fans this month, as the 2x promotion is rolling over to new player bonuses as well. Signing up a new account at PokerStars any time during the month of July grants the player entry to 2x New Player Freerolls, worth $2,222 and occurring – you guessed it – 2 times a day. Simply cashing in any of these Freerolls grants the player entry to one of two $22,222 Freeroll Finals, to be held July 31.

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PokerStars has once more confirmed its worthy title as the top poker tournament site, announcing that it will hold the PokerStars Pro Poker Camp later this year. Hosted by Greg Raymer, online poker players can win packages to the poker boot camp where they will learn all styles of live tournament play.
The Pro Poker Camp will teach poker players how to participate in live tournaments, establishing enough confidence at the tables to make it into the money bubble and beyond. Deep stack tournament play, with slow blind levels just like those found in both EPT and WSOP events, will be covered in-depth.
Members of the online poker room can win $4,000 prize packages to the PokerStars Pro Poker Camp through daily satellite competitions. These satellites will be held twice each day, at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. ET, with respective buy-ins of $46.50 and $425. The finals will take place July 20, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. ET.
PokerStars Pro Poker Camp will be launched at the European Poker Tour in Barcelona, Spain, where 60 competitors will take place in a tournament awarding two EPT prize packages worth $16,700 and a seat in the EPT Barcelona Main Event.
Players who do not make their way into the PokerStars.com Pro Poker Camp can still win a seat in any EPT event by playing ongoing satellites and qualifiers at the online poker room, with buy-ins starting at a small number of FPP (frequent player points) or a few dollars.

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Online Poker Player Takes PokerStars To Court For $1.2 Million

Back in September of 2007, a PokerStars account with the username “the V0id” entered and won the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $1.228 million. The owner of that account, Natalie Teltscher, is now suing the online poker room, PokerStars, for never paying up the winnings.

According to the defendant, Rational Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (owner of PokerStars), Ms. Teltscher is not entitled to the money, as she did not personally take part in the tournament. As it turns out, Ms. Teltscher gave permission to a third party to play the entire tournament on her behalf.

The V0id made it to the final table to play heads-up against one remaining player before the two finalists agreed to split the prize, rather than playing out the remainder of the tournament. As such, the V0id would normally have been awarded $1.228 million.

The management of PokerStars.net did not pay the money to Ms. Teltscher, claiming that by not participating in the tournament at all – not a single minute of the 22 hours played – both she and the third party player are disqualified and have no rights to the $1.228 million.

The case was adjourned by David Doyle, ruling that the contractual issue must first be resolved before addressing any other issues. Doyle stated, “This, on the face of it, is or should be a fairly simple case. Either the plaintiff is contractually entitled to the monies or she is not. Either the defendant was entitled to disqualify the plaintiff or it was not.”