Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Last week Pokerstars.com announced their satellites for the 2009 WSOP. There are 3 main ways to get to the WSOP with Pokerstars, which are: Cash Tournaments, FPP Satellites and WSOP Step Satellites. Below is information on how each of these different types of satellites work.

Why should you try to qualify for the WSOP at Pokerstars?

The best thing about qualifying with Pokerstars is some of their added incentives (which can’t be found on any other poker site). Every player that qualifies at Pokerstars will also receive:
Instant Supernova VIP status – All players will receive 100,000 FPPs in their account to use as they please, plus access to all the special features of being a supernova (special items in the Pokerstars store, private tournaments with added money and much more).
Entry to PokerStars $1 Million Freeroll Summer Spectacular – Not only will you get to go to the WSOP, you will also have a chance to win a share of $1 Million through a series of freeroll activities.
$10,000 Main Event buy-in – The main reason why you want to go to the WSOP anyway.
$1,000 for travel and expenses 8 nights hotel accommodation at the Palms – (Plus extra nights after July 10 if still in the tournament). If you have ever gone to Vegas, you will know that the Palms is probably one of the coolest hotels to stay at.
PokerStars Player Bag – Full of Pokerstars swag and other goodies.
Shuttle Bus to and from the Rio – The Palms is only a short walk to the Rio, but hey, its FREE. VIP Invitation (+1) to July 9 PokerStars Player Party
$1,000,000 in compensation if you win the Main Event (see terms for full details).

Cash Satellites

Qualify for as little as $2 to the WSOP Main Event through a series of Tournaments. This is probably the best way to get there as in some of the higher buy-in cash tournaments you will be against a smaller field with several seats up for grabs.

2009 WSOP FPP Satellites at Pokerstars

Qualify from as as little as 40 FPP credits. Definitely the CHEAPEST way, but you will be playing up against huge fields of players and prizes will most likely only be awarded to first place players in these tournaments which could mean dedicating hours to win nothing several times.

Pokerstars 2009 WSOP Step Satellites

Steps Sit & Go satellites start with a buy-in of just $7.50 or 500 FPP credits. This is one of the cheapest ways to qualify, but these Steps contain a higher than normal rake, but if sit n go’s are your specialty this is probably the best path for you to get to the 2009 WSOP!

Don’t have a Pokerstars Account? Sign-up using Pokerstars marketing code BRB500 and you will receive $50 FREE when making your first deposit of at least $50. That extra $50 might just be the extra boost your bankroll needs to get you to the 2009 World Series Of Poker!

Sky Poker is one of the easiest places to qualify for the 2009 WSOP.  The player quality is very bad, the fields are much smaller and the prizes are just as good as any other poker site!  Sky Poker is currently offering several ways to get to the 2009 WSOP.  You can qualify for the main event through one of their £10,000 packages, or satellite into one of the $1500 WSOP events through their £4,000 package option.

2009 WSOP Main Event Package at Sky Poker

Every poker player’s dream is to win the WSOP Main Event.  At Sky Poker, you can qualify for as little as £1.45.  Here is the WSOP Satellite Map:

$1500 WSOP Event Satellites

Not everyone wants to play the main event, which is why it is a nice edition to be able to qualify into one of the lower buy-in WSOP events at the 2009 WSOP.  Sky Poker has several online qualifiers for the $1500 events where you can qualify for as little as £2.30.  Here is the qualification map:

If you don’t already have a Sky Poker account, you definitely SHOULD.  This is one of the fishiest poker sites and easiest places to get to the WSOP.  Also, if you sign-up with Bankroll Boost, you will get 500 Sky Points Free + Up to £500.00 FREE.  Sign-up Now!

The bad beat jackpot on the Merge Gaming network has reached a whopping $532,000!  They have seen a huge increase in signups over the past few days of players trying to take a stab at this massive bad beat jackpot.  The jackpot is incresing at roughly $10,000 per day.

Here are the requirements for the bad beat jackpot:

Bad Beat Jackpot requirements

• The losing hand must be at least a Four of a Kind 7s, with a 2 kicker
• The winning hand must be at least a Four of a Kind 8s, with a 2 kicker
• Both the winning and losing hands must include both hole cards to make Four of a Kind
• AT least four players must be dealt in at the start of the hand
• The hand must have generated jackpot rake (ie. $0.50)
• Only two players can be active at the end of the hand, and it must go to showdown.

Along with this great promo, they are still running their $100 rebuy with a huge overlay of approximately $15,000.

Aced.com is one of the leading sites on the network where you can play for a chance to take down this jackpot and also home to poker pro Jamie Gold.  When you sign up to Aced through BankrollBoost.com you will also receive 30% rakeback + a 100% up to $1000 bonus.

For reasons unknown, Full Tilt Poker’s site has crashed at roughly 1:15am EST this morning.  The crash happened roughly 30 minutes ago, and the site is still unaccessible.  Poker Forums are lighting up everywhere with posts wondering what is going on.  Full Tilt’s useless system status page still shows: “All systems are currently operational. Thanks for playing!”, but this is clearly not the case.

Many players posting on the various forums were mid-tournament when the event happened and are left wondering what will happen with the money.  According to Full Tilt’s policy all remaining players will split evenly the prize pool

See Here:
“31.2. If the tournament had not yet reached the money – All players still in the tournament at the time of the cancellation will be refunded their tournament buy-in and tournament fee. Players will have their buy-ins refunded in the same currency they used to enter the tournament (real money, tokens, etc.), unless they earned their entry through a satellite, in which case, they will be refunded the standard buy-in for the tournament. In addition, the buy-ins of players already eliminated from the tournament will be divided up and distributed to the remaining players, based on their chip counts. Guarantees and money added to the prize pool will not be included in the player payouts.”

This is great news for all those players with just a couple chips left about to bust out before the bubble, but what about the dominating chip leaders?  Well, they will be getting the exact same amount as the guy on the short stack.  Hopefully Full Tilt does not do this, but I am sure this is why that policy was put in there in the first place.  That would really suck though if you had been playing a tournament for several hours that was right on the bubble and were in first place.

Anyway, as this develops we will post more on the Full Tilt Crash.  For now, here are funny things that have been posted on various forums about this:
- “Was just about to call my ISP and start bitching because this was the second time in two days, but this makes sense, too.”
- “Beat, my jacks were good there.”
- “asdkl;jf;ojqwerklqwerlkj just fired a 3/4 pot bluff with 8 high into a 400BB pot and dude had timed down all the way to like 10 seconds…they nearly always fold after timing down this low and how he gets his $$$ back FUUUUUUUDGE”
- “fml…in hu mtt on bubble (id lose anyways) but…fml as they wont even reship the bi cuz ftp does not care…fml…again”
- “Who wants a refund, i’m chip leader with 7 to go before the money…yeah its a 3$ Knockout, but still! Thats atleast $6 gone!”
- “I head durrrr withdrew his bankroll and everything collapsed.”
- “guy L. tried to depoist on his goldcard”
- “Apparently I am “just a few seconds away from playing the most exciting games anywhere online”! The anticipation is killing me. It says to be patient while they establish my connection. Ok. Can’t wait. This is going to be so fun…”

Update #1 – 2:30am – Still Down
Update #2 – 3:15am – Still Down
Final Update – 4:05am – Service Restored

Want to own a part of poker history?  Well, for $5.7 Million you can own Chip Reese’s old house in Las Vegas.  This was originally posted on Wicked Chops Poker, but we thought it was such a great story we would show it here also.

The house has been listed for almost a year, but is really amazing.  According to WCP, Reese helped fund the payment of the house with ridiculous sports bets on baseball.  The house has 5 Bedrooms and 7 Bathrooms and is located in one of the nicest areas in Las Vegas.

More pictures of the house can be seen here.

Last Friday my friend told me that Aced was running a $100 rebuy tournament with a $30,000 overlay (and its only a $50k guaranteed!!!).  Being the huge fish that I am, I decided to give it a go yesterday and sure enough there was still a massive overlay.  Only 220 players were playing, and of those only 30 actually rebought!  There were no add-ons or anything so it only cost me $100 to play.

My eyes were on the $13,500 first place prize, but after suffering a sick beat late in the game my stack size dropped quite significantly.  I made it through the bubble and continued grinding away.  The competition was overall awful, but the blinds were getting high and I needed to make a move soon.  Finally, I looked down at AK in early position with the shortest stack on the big blind.  With less than 10 BBs I shoved it in and it was folded all the way around except for the big blind.  At first I thought, well, it is probably a coin flip, but he turned over KK and I knew I was dominated.

I ended up busting 1 away from the final table in 11th place, which was soooo sick as every position after that increased significantly in their payouts.  Still, I can’t complain at making $400 in profit for a few hours work.

The overlay is getting smaller and smaller every week, so if you don’t have an account at Aced I suggest you getting one today!  You even get 30% rakeback and a sick bonus up to $1k which is relatively easy to clear.  Check our Aced Poker Review for all the details.  See you there next week!