Largest poker tournament in history hosted by PokerStars
By Daniel Michaels, Mar 29th 2007Eleven hours. That's all it took the largest poker tournament in history to be completed. The event offering $1.5 million guaranteed was held as a celebration for the one-year anniversary of the weekly Sunday Million.
The largest number of competitors was achieved when more than 10,500 players signed up for the tournament. Since the tournament was not part of a special series like the World Championships of Online Poker -WCOOP or the Full Tilt Online Poker Series – FTOPS, the $2 million+ prize pool was another record.
Lee Jones, the manager of the famous poker room PokerStars.com, said that the number of players signed up for the tournament even surprised him.
Very Fast Results
The tournament was over in a few hours because there isn't a dealer in the online game and the stacking and counting time was eliminated. This type of tournament is very different than the land based ones (WSOP or WPT) which can last for a few weeks.
More hands can be played online which means the poker won't lose its intensity and concomitantly its quality.
Jones also stated that people have an extra reason to choose the online tournaments over the land-based ones because of the reduced time. An online tournament can be over in a day while a land-based one, having the same number of competitors might take weeks. It is more advantageous for the players because they don't have to spend too much of their time playing.
New Records
In March 2006 PokerStars set some new "personal" records:
100,000 people were logged in at the same time, which is a major achievement considering that in 2003 when they were launched the record was of 10,000. Jones said he was pleased by this number, and by the fact that the site now has 10,000 players signed up just for a single tournament.
The 5-million player benchmark was also reached by PokerStars in March; George Draper a 35 years old chef from Las Vegas was the record breaking player. Setting this record, PokerStars released a weekly $1M guaranteed tournament, being the only online casino to do so.
Paradise Poker, Party Poker, PokerRoom, and Ultimate Bet, which are the biggest online casino poker sites, offer these tournaments only monthly. At the Sunday Million held in May, June and July of 2006 the average of players competing was around 5,200.
This number made the prize pool grow to $1million but that was just the beginning. On August 21, 5,921 players competed, bringing PokerStars closer to the 6,000 players record.
The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) was another opportunity for PokerStars to break a record, having 27,399 people signed up and generating an $18.5 million prize pool.
The main event had a $6.2 million prize pool, and the big winner was J.C Tran, who won $670,194, the largest single-person payout in online poker history.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement act forced Party Poker to drop out of the U.S. market in 2006 and that is when the business started to flourish for PokerStars. In October they managed to break the 6,000 player barrier.
Then in the next five weeks starting two weeks after the UIGEA passed they continued to improve their record. In 7 January 2007 they managed to break the 7,000 player barrier.
The next week 7,632 players participated, but on the next weeks because of the NFL playoffs and the NETeller arrests the number decreased. But PokerStars has proved that it can last, having just 2 overlays (Father's Day and Christmas Eve both in 2006) in the history of their Sunday Million.
Joe said that their intention was to please people, to give them something that will convince them to play at PokerStars, and not to break records. The people were the ones that broke the records, meaning that PokerStars has done its job.
What the future holds
Joe does not want to increase the Sunday tournament guarantee; he wants the player participation to increase it. He considers this is the right thing to do, because holding the guarantee steady for a period of time would be disadvantageous for the players, and they are the most important factor in all of this.
The largest number of competitors was achieved when more than 10,500 players signed up for the tournament. Since the tournament was not part of a special series like the World Championships of Online Poker -WCOOP or the Full Tilt Online Poker Series – FTOPS, the $2 million+ prize pool was another record.
Lee Jones, the manager of the famous poker room PokerStars.com, said that the number of players signed up for the tournament even surprised him.
Very Fast Results
The tournament was over in a few hours because there isn't a dealer in the online game and the stacking and counting time was eliminated. This type of tournament is very different than the land based ones (WSOP or WPT) which can last for a few weeks.
More hands can be played online which means the poker won't lose its intensity and concomitantly its quality.
Jones also stated that people have an extra reason to choose the online tournaments over the land-based ones because of the reduced time. An online tournament can be over in a day while a land-based one, having the same number of competitors might take weeks. It is more advantageous for the players because they don't have to spend too much of their time playing.
New Records
In March 2006 PokerStars set some new "personal" records:
100,000 people were logged in at the same time, which is a major achievement considering that in 2003 when they were launched the record was of 10,000. Jones said he was pleased by this number, and by the fact that the site now has 10,000 players signed up just for a single tournament.
The 5-million player benchmark was also reached by PokerStars in March; George Draper a 35 years old chef from Las Vegas was the record breaking player. Setting this record, PokerStars released a weekly $1M guaranteed tournament, being the only online casino to do so.
Paradise Poker, Party Poker, PokerRoom, and Ultimate Bet, which are the biggest online casino poker sites, offer these tournaments only monthly. At the Sunday Million held in May, June and July of 2006 the average of players competing was around 5,200.
This number made the prize pool grow to $1million but that was just the beginning. On August 21, 5,921 players competed, bringing PokerStars closer to the 6,000 players record.
The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) was another opportunity for PokerStars to break a record, having 27,399 people signed up and generating an $18.5 million prize pool.
The main event had a $6.2 million prize pool, and the big winner was J.C Tran, who won $670,194, the largest single-person payout in online poker history.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement act forced Party Poker to drop out of the U.S. market in 2006 and that is when the business started to flourish for PokerStars. In October they managed to break the 6,000 player barrier.
Then in the next five weeks starting two weeks after the UIGEA passed they continued to improve their record. In 7 January 2007 they managed to break the 7,000 player barrier.
The next week 7,632 players participated, but on the next weeks because of the NFL playoffs and the NETeller arrests the number decreased. But PokerStars has proved that it can last, having just 2 overlays (Father's Day and Christmas Eve both in 2006) in the history of their Sunday Million.
Joe said that their intention was to please people, to give them something that will convince them to play at PokerStars, and not to break records. The people were the ones that broke the records, meaning that PokerStars has done its job.
What the future holds
Joe does not want to increase the Sunday tournament guarantee; he wants the player participation to increase it. He considers this is the right thing to do, because holding the guarantee steady for a period of time would be disadvantageous for the players, and they are the most important factor in all of this.
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Largest poker tournament in history hosted by PokerStars
