The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is less than a month away, and PokerStars has introduced a wonderful promotion known as the VIP Club Mega Month. It will make it possible for those with small bankrolls to get into a few WCOOP events.
VIP Club Mega Month is a dream come true for low stakes players because it reduces the VIP Player Points (VPP) required to achieve SilverStar and up to just 10% of its usual amount. PokerStars has made it possible for even microstakes players to reap the full benefits of the program.
This month you will need to earn 75 VPPs for SilverStar, 300 VPPs for GoldStar, and 750 VPPs for PlatinumStar (rather than the usual 750, 3,000, and 7,500 VPPs respectively). Another way to quantify it is by determining the amount of rake you will have to pay to achieve each status. You need to spend a mere $14 in tournament fees to achieve SilverStar, and you have to pay $140 total to get PlatinumStar.
Players will collect way more frequent player points (FPP) than usual thanks to this promo. A BronzeStar player usually only accrues 1 FPP per VPP earned. Becoming a PlatinumStar is a major upgrade because it allows players to receive 2.5 times more FPPs.
All these extra FPPs will provide players the ability to play qualifiers for upcoming WCOOP tourneys or even just purchase entries from the FPP store.
If you don’t like tournaments, you should take a look at the VIP Store Sale. A huge number of items have been marked down by PokerStars, and the discounts are anywhere from 7% to an incredible 52%. There are a bunch of books, clothing, and even a PokerStars back pack. Everything can be bought with just BronzeStar status with the exception of the Deluxe 500 Poker Chip Set. You need to be GoldStar for that, but it’s not too difficult to achieve that this month, so no worries!
Even if you are new to the game of poker, you have a great chance to win some huge prizes in the next couple of months.
Epic Poker League Kicks off Next Week
Even after all the trouble the US poker sites have gone through, poker still has a strong following in the United States. This is demonstrated in the excitement people have over the Epic Poker League, which was recently created by Annie Duke and Jeffery Pollack (former WSOP commissioner).
Epic Poker League was made to give well known pro poker players the chance to compete with others of their calibre. They’ve created a Global Poker Index, measuring up the top tournament players in the world. This method allowed them to find the top 200 players. So how will Epic Poker League show the games between these players? It just so happens that they recently locked up a platform, too.
The League was able to strike up a deal with two TV networks: CBS and Velocity (a new network created by Discovery). These deals mean that 20 hours of Epic Poker League’s Season 1 will be broadcast, with 7 hours on CBS and 13 hours on Velocity.
Handling the on-air duties for the episodes will be Pat O’Brien and Ali Nejad. O’Brien spent 16 years handling various events for CBS Sports including the Super Bowl, World Series, and the NBA Finals.
If you watch a lot of poker TV, you probably are familiar with Nejad. He is the narrating voice for Poker After Dark, and he hosts Poker Road Radio, too.
Epic Poker League agreed to pay for their CBS broadcasts via ‘time buy’. Since they are paying the network to air the show, the episodes kind of act like infomercials.
411 Productions, the League’s production company of choice, has plenty of experience with poker. They produced the WSOP between 2003 and 2010 and will now head the production of Epic Poker League.
Five events are scheduled for Season 1 and the first will take place as early as next week. It will feature a $20,000 buy-in with $400,000 added to the prize pool. The three events afterward will also feature an added money amount.
February will host the last event of the season, which is a $1 million freeroll for the top 27 players in the league. It should all be very exciting to watch!
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