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Badugi on the Rise at PokerStars

Badugi, one of the lesser known poker games, was recently added to the roster at PokerStars. In the past few months, Badugi has received a lot of attention at the online poker room and continues to climb the popularity ladder in 2009.

There are very few online poker rooms offering the game of Badugi, which certainly left the managers of Poker Stars.net to wonder just how well it would attract online poker players. Any doubts may now be set aside as Badugi has drawn thousands of players just in the month of January.

Badugi is virtually unlike any other poker game. It could be compared to Low-Hand poker games, but the hand development rules are completely different. A player gets only 4 cards to work with, followed by three draw phases.

A Badugi hand may consist of no pairs and no same-suit cards, with the winner being the payer with the lowest hand. If, after three draws, a player has a pair or same-suit, the highest of the two is left out, leaving a 3 card (or less) hand. A 4 card hand always beats a 3 card hand, regardless of the numerical values. Aces are always low and straights do not count. A hand of A-2-3-4 off-suit is best possible hand, known as Badugi.

PokerStars offers Badugi in both cash games and tournaments, Multi-Table and Sit’n’Go alike. Badugi Ring Game stakes range from $.25/$.50 up to $10/$20, Fixed Limit only. Multi-Table Badugi Tournaments are offered with buy-ins of $2+$.20 up to $20+$2 in both Fixed Limit and Pot Limit. Over on the Sit’n’Go side, PokerStars has Badugi tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $1+$.20 to $200+$15 in Fixed Limit, plus Turbo Badugi.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Crowns Victor, Poorya Nazari

The much anticipated PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has finally come and gone, leaving in its wake a number of highly skilled, significantly richer participants. The most notable among them is Poorya Nazari, a 22 year old Canadian poker player whose impeccable talent awarded him $3 million for routing the competition at the PCA Main Event.

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“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” came the immediate reaction of Nazari after just having eliminated his final, heads-up opponent, Tony Gregg. “It feels unbelievable, surreal. I can’t believe it’s happening!”

Along with his $3 million 1st place prize for winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Nazari is also being awarded a sponsored seat in the European Poker Tour Grand Final. This will be Poorya’s first trip to Europe, a multi-faceted profiteering opportunity in Monte Carlo later this year.

Poorya Nazari’s road to millionaire status is an amazing one, costing a mere $33 out of pocket. From his home in Richmond Hills, Canada, Nazari won a $33 rebuy turbo tournament at the PokerStars online poker room. After winning a series of these intense tournaments on the single buy-in, Nazari (as well as 746 other online poker players), found himself packing his bags for the Bahamas to take part in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.

Poorya Nazari is no stranger to poker play, though most of his skills are displayed in the online environment. Nazari graduated from McMaster University just last year, where he studied biochemistry, but has been sustaining a healthy income from online poker play at PokerStars for several years now.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Gets Underway

Like a long-awaited dream vacation, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) got underway Monday as nearly every member of Team PokerStars Pro, as well as hundreds of online poker qualifiers and direct buy-in participants took to the tables at the Bahamas’ Atlantis Resort and Casino.

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A lot of familiar faces - or at least familiar usernames to online poker fans, frequent forum posters and bloggers – showed up for the first day of PCA action. Among them are Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan, Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb, John “apestyles” Van Fleet, John “PearlJammer” Turner, Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke and Adam “ajunglen” Junglen.

Even PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein took to the tables, though his interest seemed more drawn by the newspaper on his lap than the cards at the table. Sorel Mizzi was seated comfortably, more so than most, as he took advantage of one of the on-hand massage therapists.

A few current Team PokerStars Pros who fall into the category of “past WSOP Champions” can also be found corralled in the PCA Ballroom: Joe Hachem (2005), Greg Raymer (2004), Chris Moneymaker (2003) and Tom McEvoy (1983).

It goes without saying that this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has grown much larger than that of recent years, enough so to already have drawn the label of the “biggest live poker tournament outside the United States”.

With the elated shouting of Daniel Negreanu - “Shuffle up and deal!” - the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has begun.