For today’s article, I’m going to discuss a further incentive to play on PokerStars, one of the best US poker sites. Like many other sites out there, PokerStars has a VIP program, but they have spent a lot of time making their program unique and extremely rewarding. As a way to thank their loyal players, PokerStars offers VIP Player Points (VPPs) and Frequent Player Points (FPPs) to the people that play real money games at their tables. The more you play, the more points you’ll earn, and you will receive more cash and merchandise the more points you have.
When you’ve finally used the PokerStars marketing code and started playing some cards, you’ll start to accumulate FPPs and VPPs. VPPs are only good for a couple things: keeping track of bonuses as you clear them, and keeping track of your VIP level. FPPs are the redeemable VIP currency, and you use them on VIP tournaments or in the VIP store. In total there are four possible monthly VIP statuses and two special yearly VIP statuses.
When you download PokerStars, you automatically become a BronzeStar. Even though BronzeStar status doesn’t require any VPPs, it doesn’t mean its members are excluded from being rewarded. The benefits still include FPPs for participating at the real money tables, and they’ll have access to regular prizes in the VIP store. At the first VIP level, people are also eligible for Stellar Rewards, cash bonuses given to players once they reach set VPP counts. Up to $1,000 can be earned via Stellar Rewards over the course of a year.
Once you become a SilverStar at 750 VPPs, you retain the BronzeStar perks and you get extra SilverStar benefits. First off, you get an FPP multiplier of 1.5 so that you can collect FPPs 50% faster. This is essentially more PokerStars rakeback. You also have access to special SilverStar merchandise in the VIP store. Last but not least, you can participate in VIP tournaments held weekly and monthly. Every week you can play in a $30k VIP tournament, and you are eligible to satellite into the special monthly $100k freeroll.
The benefits start to get pretty good once you hit 3,000 VPPs and GoldStar. Your FPP multiplier is now 100%, and now you can purchase the special GoldStar merchandise. This VIP status has even more opportunities to play special VIP tournaments. You can play the $100k tournament for free instead of having to play satellites, and you even have the chance to play the $1 million VIP tournaments. These tournaments are held four times per year and you must win a ticket to play them.
You have to really want to spend a lot of time on money poker sites to become a PlatinumStar, but it is worth it. To begin with, your FPP multiplier is increased to 2.5. PlatinumStar merchandise is now available in the VIP store, and this status gives an extra chance to satellite into the quarterly $1 million tournaments. You’ll have a better chance to win a seat in these satellites because they give more seats than the GoldStar satellites.
There’s not much else to know about the monthly VIP statuses, but there is still plenty to know about the yearly VIP statuses. This entry will be too long if I talk about that today, however, so that will be our topic for next time. Between now and then, get the PokerStars download and start earning your way to PlatinumStar!
01/26/2011
Become a Poker VIP - Part 1
01/12/2011
PokerStars Traffic
When trying to decide on the best US poker sites, the site’s traffic should be a top priority. Clearly if there are a lot of players in a poker room, then that suggests it has a certain level of quality, but decent traffic is also important for an additional reason. The more players online, the higher the number of really poor players, and we all love fish. Like I've discussed in past articles, PokerStars is a top notch pick because they have the traffic situation well under control. It offers the largest player pool around, at times reaching over 250,000 players logged on.
Sunday is easily the best day of the week to use a PokerStars download. PokerStars holds tournaments with staggeringly large prize pools on Sunday, such as the Sunday Million, which draw crowds of poker players to the site. The tables are always thriving with tournament players, sometimes well over 150,000 at a time. The traffic that these events bring to the site also entices ring game players to the tables, so even if you're collecting PokerStars rakeback from the cash games, Sundays are going to be one of your highest traffic days.
If you're only playing the big Sunday tournaments, then your schedule has already been decided for you. If you want to play cash games to clear one of your bonuses, on the other hand, you should plan your schedule around the traffic. PokerStars enjoys a boost in traffic each day at 2pm ET, which is sustained right through until 10pm ET. This is the case on pretty much any day of the week. As with the other US poker sites, however, the traffic can dip off slightly earlier on weekdays and slightly later on weekends.
The vast majority of players on PokerStars play mainly tournaments, with tournament traffic never too low and often reaching over 150,000 users signed in. Ring games are also never short of players, with an average of nearly 30,000 players usually found on the site and that number rising higher than 40,000 at peak times. Like all the best Mac poker sites, No Limit Texas Holdem is most players' game of choice, but the site also has a solid amount of Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha traffic. The site even has enough traffic for other rarer games like Stud and HORSE.
Whether you prefer tournaments or ring games, log on to PokerStars every Sunday or whichever days you have time between 2pm ET and 10pm ET. In these time slots you should easily see that you are at one of the top Texas Holdem sites on the Internet.
12/29/2010
Win Your Way to the Bahamas
Last entry I mentioned that PokerStars is one of the best US poker sites because they are providing women with all sorts of fantastic opportunities to have fun with Texas Holdem. The latest and greatest promotion is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The PCA happens every year in January. There is a Ladies Event, so you can give poker a try and play some qualifiers to the tournament.
The PCA takes place at the Atlantis Resort and Casino. The Internet is full of people that use a PokerStars marketing code in hopes of achieving a satellite package that will send them to sunshine and luxury. In 2011 there are 45 events running between January 7th and 16th. The Main Event is $10,300. The winner for 2010 won $2.2 million and became a millionaire!
Most women on US friendly poker sites cannot afford to pay $10,300 for one tournament, so PokerStars has a $1,100 Ladies Event. This event is two days long and starts on January 14, 2011.
Every Sunday at 5:30 ET there is a $215 satellite with one prize package guaranteed. There is one prize package available for every $3,480 in the prize pool. If you can’t put aside $215 for online poker rooms, you can win your way in by playing some smaller satellites. On a daily basis you can play a $2.20 rebuy, several $11 rebuys, and a $33 freezeout.
If you make a PokerStars download and then win a PCA package, you receive more than the $1.1k seat. You will have four nights accommodation at Atlantis, $700 for your flights, and admission into the the Women’s Poker Bootcamp that Vanessa Rousso is hosting. This Bootcamp entry is worth $300, and the lessons take place on January 14th. This poker training is way better than any strategy video you could watch! Last year was the first year for the Ladies Event, and Vanessa actually won it.
It is great that PokerStars is offering women ways to play in a large scale MTT series. If you are new to poker, it might be good to read some strategy articles for a couple tips and tricks. Then get some experience on the best online poker sites. Good luck and have fun at the tables!
12/08/2010
PokerStars League for Women
PokerStars is one of the best US poker sites online because it tries to target every market possible. The folks in charge recently decided that not nearly enough women frequent their room, and now they are working to correct that. There is a section on the PokerStars website dedicated to women, and it encourages women to learn to play poker. One exciting promotion is the PokerStars Women’s Poker League.
As incentive for ladies across the globe to use a PokerStars marketing code, PokerStars has a USD and a EUR division for this league. You do not have to be European to play in the EUR division, nor do you have to be American to play in the USD division. If you compare the two divisions, you’ll see that the USD tournaments are played in USD and the tournaments are played several hours after their EUR counterparts. It will not cost an arm and a leg to enter this league, which makes sense since many of these players will be new to the game of poker. It costs only 5.50 to enter a tournament during the week and 55.00 to enter the special Sunday tournament.
Your quest is to earn as many points as possible. Placing in the money will earn 5 points, and a placement in the top 9 will earn you 10 to 20 points. And don’t fret if you haven’t logged a lot of hours in online poker rooms because you earn 1 point just for playing. Since you win points just for participating, you’ll want to make a point of playing as many league tournaments as you can.
Each month has a new set of prizes. Players win a sum of money for placing in the top 50, with higher placements winning more. The USD winner receives 300 USD and the EUR winner receives 200 EUR. Even if you like a Roulette bonus more than poker, this money is sure to come in handy.
The ultimate prizes are given for placing well on the yearly leaderboard, though. Once again the top 50 win cash prizes, but none of the prizes come even close to the top prize. The lady finishing in 1st place will receive cash and a Ladies Luxury Event package! This tournament package provides entry to an exclusive live event, as well as necessary accommodations and even spending money. I am sure that plenty more women would be utilizing free poker training if they knew this prize were up for grabs!
If you are a woman and you have not learned to play poker yet, now is your chance. PokerStars has made it clear that they want you playing on their site! Descargar PokerStars te llevará al mundo del póquer, el mejor póquer a cualquier hora.
11/18/2010
Big Rewards at Full Tilt
In the first article I wrote, I suggested that Full Tilt is one of the best US poker sites available on the Internet partly because they came up with Rush Poker. Receiving hands at Rush Poker Holdem or Omaha tables is a good way of taking advantage of the VIP program at Full Tilt. Playing games for real money at the tables allows you to get points, and there are special tables during specific times in which you’re able to earn points two or three times faster. For those that think they are some of the best online poker players, the Iron Man Challenge is available as well.
The site offers players Full Tilt Points as they play games at real money tables as thanks for making a Full Tilt Poker download. In ring games, participants receive one Point per $1 of rake paid in a given hand. For example, if you were to receive cards in a pot that ended up raking $2.25, you would earn 2.25 Points. The maximum Points that can be earned per hand is three. Perhaps you moved your bankroll from Tiger Gaming and were hoping to play tournaments. Tourneys give seven Full Tilt Points per $1 in fees that you’re charged. For example, if you were to play in a $200+$16 tournament, you would get 112 Full Tilt Points. You can check your point total by viewing the cashier screen from the lobby.
Perhaps you already played a lot of Rush Poker and now you’re asking, “What do I do with all these Points?” Now you can blow your entire wad at the Full Tilt Poker Store on anything you choose! The store sells a variety of items including Full Tilt apparel such as hats and shirts, electronics such as laptops and televisions, and drinkware such as martini glasses and freezer mugs. You can choose from all sorts of poker items such as chip sets, you can increase your poker knowledge by buying permissions to a Cardrunners poker video, or you can choose from a category of random items like watches or dog leashes. If you just don’t like any of the items in the store, you also have the choice to use the Points to play special tournaments and earn your way into some of the big weekly tournaments.
If you’d like to earn Points faster, play on your Full Tilt download during Happy Hour. If you play on Happy Hour tables, you will earn two or even three times more Points than usual. Happy Hour changes on a daily basis, so you need to watch the lobby daily to discover when Happy Hour is.
If you’re a daily grinder on poker sites, you might try out the Iron Man Challenge. When you receive a certain number of Points for a certain number of days in a month, you receive medals. For example, getting 50 Points for 20 days or 100 Points for 15 days in a month would earn you bronze medal status on this download free poker site. The best prize is Iron Man medals which are awarded if you earn 200 Points for 25 days in a given month. The program has four different statuses, and reaching a status for consecutive months earns you bonus medals. You can spend these medals like Points but this time on exclusive merchandise in the Iron Man Challenge Store. There is also a special freeroll for each status where you can win your way to a $50k or $100k heads-up match with a pro! And for the players that play the highest volume of hands, Iron Man Plus is there for earning 500 Points per day.
These days, almost every site has a VIP program in order to tempt you to commit to one site. With freerolls, bonuses, and a great merchandise store, Full Tilt makes you want to forget you ever heard about that Roulette bonus. I’ll admit that keeping the Iron Man status is far from an easy thing to do, but the goodies make the extra work worth it.
11/04/2010
Full Tilt Poker Welcome Bonus
So far my articles have gone over the best US poker sites, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. In this next entry, I intend to describe the Full Tilt Poker bonus in which the site matches your first deposit 100% up to $600. This bonus is a fantastic method for all players to increase the bankroll when they download Full Tilt Poker.
Once you do a Full Tilt download and put in your bonus code, you can begin clearing your newly acquired bonus. It won't be a walk in the park, however. The required hours to earn it will swing wildly based upon your choice of games. The bonus can be had at a rate of $0.06 per Full Tilt Point (FTP), and you receive these by participating in Full Tilt's real money games. For example, let's say you deposited $600 and became eligible for a $600 bonus. It will take a total of $600/$0.06 = 10,000 FTPs to clear the complete bonus. If you mainly play cash games on your Full Tilt Poker download, you'll have to remember that for every dollar that is raked in the pot, every player dealt in for that hand will earn 1 point. That translates into a rake of $10,000 before you can earn your whole bonus while participating in cash games. Believe it or not, this is easier than you think.
If you require free poker training to prevent yourself from losing a bunch of money, you should probably take it slow at first. However, it makes sense that the bigger the game, the faster the bonus can be had. If you spend time at $25 No Limit, it will require approximately 156,187 hands of Full Ring or 108,652 hands of 6-max to collect the whole bonus. If you'd rather sit in a $50 No Limit game on this download free poker site, it will take you a grand total of something like 75,727 hands of Full Ring or 55,533 hands of 6-max play to get your prize. Don't forget that these are extreme totals calculated and that in reality, no player will play only one type of game like that. These figures can at least give you a general idea, however.
Are you an MTT poker player on US poker sites? Every $1 raked yields you 7 FTP. If you play $10+$1 buy-ins, you will have to play 1,428 events before you clear your entire bonus. Up that to the $20+$2 level, and the total will come down. You would only need to participate in 714 tournaments.
If you know what you’re getting into, clearing the bonus cash isn’t overly difficult. Plus if you’re new to money poker sites, the bonus is a great method of padding your bankroll. Be sure to table select diligently, see tons of hands, and be clear-minded. Also be sure to keep track of the fact that you get 120 days from the time you make your deposit to earn the entire bonus.
10/20/2010
PokerStars Download
PokerStars has made itself one of the best US poker sites online today. The home of many professional players such as Daniel Negreanu, Humberto Brenes, and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, PokerStars is still available for Americans and without a doubt has the best player traffic available for online poker players. You’ll discover that there are several other reasons PokerStars is the favourite of many. With a PokerStars marketing code the deposit bonus is large and easy to clear, the software is well-running with a multitude of choices for personalization, and the support is hands down the best of any online poker site.
Let’s discuss the PokerStars bonus code first and foremost as bonuses are what many players are most interested in. When you first make a deposit, PokerStars will match your deposit 100% up to $600! If you can’t deposit $600 all in one shot, PokerStars has come up with a solution. You have 90 days to deposit $600 total (over 3 deposits) and PokerStars will match it all. They don't stop at this one bonus, either. The site frequently has deposit bonuses for special occasions during the year, and you’ll be able to take more than a couple months to clear them. To clear the bonuses, you will need to participate in the PokerStars rakeback program and earn VPPs. You’ll need to do this by playing real money poker games of any type and any stake.
Good poker software is frequently an important factor that decides whether a person sticks to a specific site. It’s safe to say that PokerStars has some of the best online poker software online today. The action is always smoothly run and glitches are few to none. The lobby is very easy to navigate and there are many choices to personalize it to make it easier to find what you need. The tables themselves also have many selections, from changing the color of your cards to changing the sounds to disabling player chat. You can change the size of your tables, select preferred seating, and choose from a variety of advanced multi-tabling functions. It seems like the choices are endless! And if you have an Apple computer, it should please you to discover that PokerStars is one of the best Mac poker sites around.
Last but not least there is customer support, a factor that many sites overlook or deem as less important. PokerStars has illustrated time and time again that they provide the best support of the top Texas Holdem sites, hands down. When you send them an email, they will always send a personalized reply in a timely fashion. Whether you need a record of your last three tournaments or even fifty, you are guaranteed to get it and you need not wait days for it either. To ensure a safe site, they always look at money transfers, deposits and withdrawals for illegal actions. PokerStars clearly shows that maintaining a good customer support is vital for keeping its players happy.
I could keep writing about more great qualities about the site, but it’s probably time for you to realize it yourself. Use a bonus code to get a great bonus and then enjoy selecting from the impressive amount of tables available to you. It’s a given that as soon as you start playing, you’ll see that you’re playing at one of the top money poker sites on the internet today.
10/05/2010
Play at Full Tilt Poker
A Full Tilt download is very respected for a multitude of reasons. To start off, their best bonus is available to you when you make your first real money deposit. This bonus will earn you a 100% match bonus up to $600, enabling you to get a head start on your bankroll right at the beginning. The code also provides access to exclusive monthly tourneys called the FTR500 where $500 is added to the prize pool.
The main reason Full Tilt is among the best casinos for US players is because the game selection is fantastic and their software is top notch. Whether you're a fan of MTT poker, cash games, or even heads-up sit-n-gos, you should always find the game you seek and usually at the stake you prefer to play. Your Full Tilt Poker download will feature smoothly operating software as well as many ways to make it suit your needs. You can alter your lobby and table views, change the color of your cards, and even re-size your tables to your liking. Playing at Full Tilt is just overall a great playing experience.
One last reason you should consider playing at Full Tilt is to try Rush Poker. Rush Poker, the fastest way to play poker on the internet, is not played on any of the other money poker sites, and it is the most effective way to play a bunch of hands in a short period of time. The reason is you don't have to wait for the other players at the table once you lay down your cards. Just press the quick fold button and you'll have a new hand at a new table right away!
Don't take my word that Full Tilt is a great poker site - see for yourself! Just remember to submit a referral code before you deposit for the first time. When you finally get some hands in, you'll soon see that you're playing at one of the best online poker sites.
