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PokerStars.com has signed a long term contract with Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov which means that they are now officially a part of Team PokerStars. These are the two players who battled heads-up for the 2008 WSOP title.

Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov where amongst the final nine players that had to come back to play the televised final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. When it was time for the final table these two players were guaranteed to walk away with at least $990.670. These two players had stacks around $20 Million and were not going to be happy walking away with only $990K.

After a couple of hours of play there only two remaining players were Eastgate from Denmark and Demidov from Russia. After a long heads up battle it was Peter Eastgate who ended up winning the title and the first prize of over $9 Million. Demidov was awarded with $5.8 Million for his second place finish.

After this event took place we have seen a lot more of these players at the different poker tours and Peter Eastgate is also playing in the TV Show High Stakes Poker.

During all of the events these two players have been seen wearing the PokerStars.com logo but until now they have not had a real sponsorship contract.

Last week it was announced that PokerStars had negotiated a deal with the two players and that they were now a part of the prestigious Team PokerStars.

We are happy to let you know that the popular poker portal PokerBonusSource.com is now available in Russian.

So far only a couple of pages have been translated but according to our guy at PBS they are planning to create a full scale site in the Russian language.

As from now all Russian poker players out there will be able to read a full scale PokerStars review and get all the information about the Russian PokerStars marketing code in their native language.

This will hopefully be a nice contribution to the ever growing Russian poker community.

A total of 327 players signed up for the 2009 edition of the PokerStars LAPT Punta del Este. After 2 days of play there were only nine players remaining and amongst these players was Karl Hevroy, a 20 year old poker player from Norway.

Hevroy was the only European player left in the tournament when it came down to the final table and he found himself surrounded by players from South- and North America. Hevroy had over $1 Million in chips when the final table started and he had a healthy lead and was the favorite to take down the first price.

Later in the tournament it would also become apparent that he was meant to win this tournament and he got some much needed help from the poker gods in certain hands. More than once he found himself going all in with the worst hand but every time he managed to either out flop his opponents our draw out on them on the turn and river. When it came down to heads-up play he found himself holding a 6 to 1 chiplead over Alejandro De Arruabarrena who was the only remaining player to beat.

After only one hand of heads-up play the players found themselves all-in and when Karl Hevoy flipped over his cards showing a Full House for the nuts his opponent was drawing dead on the river.

Karl Hevroy from Norway ended up winning the tournament and took down the first prize of $283.500.

PokerStars have just announced that they will be opening a land based poker room at the Grand Lisboa Casino in Macau. The poker room is going to be the biggest one in Asia with 22 tables that will be open 24/7.

Macau is an island in the Southern parts of China. The economy of the island is based mostly on gambling and casino businesses and their aim is to become the Las Vegas of Asia.

Grand Lisboa is a recently built sky scraper with hotels, restaurants and casinos. On the second floor of this building is where PokerStars are now going to open their brand new poker room where the main game will be Texas Holdem.

According to a PokerStars representative there are going to be play money tables for those players who are new to the game and wants to learn before trying to play at the real money tables. The cash game table limits are starting from $10/$20 (Hong Kong Dollars) and later on they are going to add high stakes table with deep stack play for the more experienced players.

PokerStars have also promised that they will start arranging a lot of poker tournaments in their new poker room, they will offer anything from freerolls to high buy in tournaments. In this poker room they will also host a series of qualifiers to the Asia Pacific Poker Tour.

The fact that PokerStars are opening a poker room in Macau will have to mean that they are trying to reach the Asian market and get the Asian people to discover the game of poker. It is safe to assume that they are opening this land based poker room in order to attract Asian poker players to the online poker room which is PokerStars.com.

Between the 17th and 20th of March the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) which is hosted by the online poker room PokerStars.com will be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay. The Main Event is expected to attract over 300 players. The buy in for the main event is $3500 + $200. Amongst the players that have already signed up for this tournament is Humberto Brenes, Greg Raymer and Victor Ramdin, all of these players are members of the prestigious Team PokerStars.

Victor Ramdin is also one of the 9 players that are going to fight for the title in LAPT Nuevo Vallarta which was played in Mexico during the month of December back in 2008. The game was interrupted by local police and had to be postponed to a later date.

The players that were remaining in the tournament got their prize money paid out according to their chip stack and they also got an invitation to an online tournament where the winner would be decided.

It is this online tournament that is now down to the final 9 players and instead of having the final table played online PokerStars sent all of the remaining players to Punta del Este to play live.

Between the 23rd and 28th of March PokerStars is arranging something known as the All Star Week. During this week all of the “All Star Challengers” who consists of VIP players, Event winners and tournament qualifiers will challenge Team PokerStars professionals in a series of heads-up matches.

For every match that is won by an All Star Challenger the player will be awarded with $1000 and the same amount of money will go towards a common prize pool for the team to share. But if a Team PokerStars player should be victorious in one of these matches the $1000 will go to a charitable organization of Victor Ramdin’s choice. Victor Ramdin gets to pick the charitable cause as he is acting as the Captain for Team PokerStars.com.

In order to be able to participate in the All Star Challengers team you will have to achieved one of the following things during 2008:

• Have won the PokerStars Sunday Million
• Reached a final table in WCOOP
• Finished at the top of the PokerStars Tournament Ranking.
• Have reached SuperNova Elite

If you haven’t done any of these things during 2008 there is one last option for those of you looking to qualify for the All Star Team. You will be able to play your way into the team by winning a wild card in one of the satellites that are running for the All Star Week. The buy in for these satellites is $11 and you will find it in the tournament lobby at PokerStars under the satellite tab.

PokerStars will also add a supporter tournament to the mix where you can register as a supporter for either team. For every victory that your supporting team takes down there will be $1000 added to a tournament prize pool for a tournament that will only be open for the supporting members of that team.

The online poker room PokerStars.com was founded in 2001 and since then they have constantly been growing and today they are by far the biggest poker room on the internet. PartyPoker.com used to be the largest online poker room once upon a time but when the UIGEA hit the US they were no longer able to accept US players while poker rooms like PokerStars and FullTilt Poker continued to accept players coming from the US.

Last week PokerStars signed up their 20 Millionth player. This player is from Slovakia and he is playing under the alias “piposko“. As a reward for the 20 Millionth player they gave him a $215 tournament ticket so that he could play in the Sunday Million for free.

20 Million players is really a lot for an online poker room and just to compare with another online phenomenon World of Warcraft (WoW) has 11 Million users. On the other hand a site like Facebook.com has 160 Million registered user so it seems like there are still a couple of people left to refer to the site before they reach the size of Facebook.

We would like to inform all of our readers about the latest changes that has been made in the PokerStars VIP Program. These changes that are mentioned in this post are active as from the 1st of March 2009 which means that by the time you are reading this the new system has already been implemented. Usually when changes are made to VIP programs and loyalty schemes it always changes for the worse, but in this case the changes are actually made in favor of the players at PokerStars. This just goes to prove that PokerStars is the best poker room on the internet today.

What will be different with the new VIP Program at Pokerstars?

The amount of VIP Player Points (VPPs) have been lowered when it comes to reacheing SilverStar, GoldStar and PlatinumStar levels.

 The VPP requirements to reach SilverStar status has been lowered from 1500 VPPs to 1200 VPPs.

After the changes that were made on the 1st of March you now only have to earn 3000 VPPs per month in order to reach GoldStar status compared to 4000 VPPs like it was earlier.

Reaching PlatinumStars has never been easier. As from the 1st of March you only need to generate 7500 VPPs in order to reach PlatinumStar status at PokerStars. This is a lot less compared to the 10.000 VPPs you had to earn before.

The changes to these levels have been made in order for more players to be able to reach higher status levels and make the VIP program more accessable to the general poker public.

Bigger Prize Pools in VIP Events at PokerStars

The weekly VIP Tournament at PokerStars that earlier had a prize pool of $50.000 will now have a total prize pool of $75.000 instead. The structure of the tournament has been updated and it now features 12 minute blind levels.

The $20.000 weekly VIP event with a 100 FPP buy in has now been changed to a $30.000 tournament instead.

After this amazing increase to these tournament the total prize pool for the PokerStars VIP tournaments are up to over $6.5 Million.

Extended status period for SuperNova and SuperNova Elite

After the new changes made to the PokerStars VIP Program all SuperNova and SuperNova Elite players will be able to keep their VIP status until the end of September the following year. With the old VIP program these members were only able to retain their status until the end of June thje following year. This means that all these members will get to keep their status for a longer time.

MileStone Bonuses become MileStone Cash Credits

All the MileStone bonuses at PokerStars are now awarded as Cash Credits as of the 1st of March 2009. If you are a SuperNove member for example and earn 200.000 VPPs you will be able to trade 50.000 FPPs for $2000 in cash without have to earn an additional 10.000 VPPs in order to clear the bonus like with the old system. These MileStone Cash Credits are going to be released in the VIP Shop at PokerStars in the coming weeks.

Changes to the Concierge Service

For those players at PokerStars using the Concierge Service we can report that you will now only be able to make use of this service once a month with a maximum of three receipts. The minimum value of the receipts must be $500. For all the new guidelines on this service please refer to the PokerStars website.

As you can see there has been a lot of great changes made to the PokerStars VIP loyalty program and there has never been a better time to become a member if you dont already have an account. When you create your account at PokerStars make sure to use the PokerStars marketing code PAWSUB465 as this code will entitle you to a $50 bonus for free and entries to resctricted freerolls at PokerStars.com.

PokerStars.com is without a doubt the biggest online poker room today. They have a huge player base and it is not unusual to see over 100 000 player online. Some of the tournaments offered at PokerStars gets up to 25 000 participants and the only reason they dont get more is that there is a cap at 25K players. This is truly the poker room to be for the tournament player.

PokerStars Software

The software at PokerStars is one of the contributing factors to their success. It is really simple to navigate but it still has all the functions that you could ask for. The best thing about the PokerStars software is the fact that it is so stable and reliable, I have never ever had any problems with this software while playing and I have never heard anyone complain about it being unstable either.

PokerStars Bonus

The biggest downside to PokerStars is the fact that their first deposit bonus is not really that good. The clearing requirements for the bonus is great but a $50 bonus on your first deposit is a bit small in my opinion. But on the other hand they are one of the few rooms that can attract players without offering either rakeback or huge bonuses. They have instead decided to give all of their focus on offering the largest guaranteed tournaments online. In order to get this $50 bonus when you make your first deposit you will need to enter the PokerStars marketing code PAWSUB465 when you create your account. This code will not only give you the $50 bonus but it will also get you invited to restricted freerolls. When you make your first deposit you will also need to enter the PokerStars bonus code First2008 in order to get the free $50 credited to your account.

Tournaments and Freerolls at PokerStars

PokerStars are offering the biggest guaranteed poker tournaments online, there is no doubt about that. Their biggest tournament is a $1 Million guaranteed tournament called The Sunday Million. This tournament is played once a week and you will have to beat around 7000 players in order to take down the win.

The freerolls at PokerStars are not really that great because you have to qualify in a pre tournament in order to get to play in a weekly $100 freeroll. This system is really not that great but if you created your account using the marketing code PAWSUB465 then you will be able to sign up for the restricted freerolls with prize pools of up to $10 000, and the good thing with these freerolls is that you will not have to play against thousands of other players.

PokerStars VIP Shop

Since PokerStars are not offering rakeback they have another loyalty rewards system in place instead. Every time that you play in tournaments or cash games you will earn player points. These player points can then be used to purchase poker related items from the VIP shop and in some cases you can even trade it for cash. The more poker you play at PokerStars the faster you will earn you VIP player points.

PokerStars.com Support

PokerStars only offers support by email but I will have to say that their responce times are really great. If you need to reach them you will usually have a reply by email within 30 minutes no mater what time of the day it is.

PokerStars Deposit Options

PokerStars are accepting all the major deposit options and they also have some special payment options in place for US player such as eChecks. But most US players should be able to make a deposit using their credit card at this poker room.

If you are a new player to PokerStars.com you will be able to take part of a free $50 bonus when you create your account and use the PokerStars marketing code PAWSUB465. This marketing code will not only give you the free money at PokerStars.com but it will also get you invited to freerolls that are restricted to players who have used this code. These exclusive freerolls are listed in the PokerStars.com client under Special freerolls and will only be able to enter these freerolls if you have used our marketing code.

How to clear the free bonus at PokerStars.com

Once you have made your first deposit at PokerStars of at least $50 you will instantly be credited with another $50 for free. This $50 bonus is credited to your pending bonus balance and will stay there untill you have cleared the full bonus. In order to clear this bonus you will need to generate 10 player points in order to release $1 of your bonus. This means that you will need to genereate 500 player points in order to clear the full $50 bonus. Once you have reached the 500 player points the bonus is instantly transfered to your real money account and you can wither withdraw it or add it to your bankroll.

How to earn player points at PokerStars

Every time that you playat the real money tables at PokerStars you will be earning player points which will be counted towards clearing your bonus. Once the rake has reached $0.40 on one of your cash game tables you will be awarded with one player point, so in a way you could say that what it takes to clear the full bonus is 500 raked hands.

If you are a SNG or tournament player you will earn points at a faster rate though. For every dollar that you pay in tournament fees at PokerStars.com you will be awarded with 5 player points. So once you have paid $100 in tournament fees you will get a bonus of $50 credited to your account. This means that the $50 bonus can be compared to a 50% rakeback deal for tournament players.

Other uses for the VIP Player Points at PokerStars

Once you have cleared your bonus you will still get to keep all of the VIP player points that you have earned. These points can then be used to buy poker related items from the PokerStars VIP Shop. In this VIP Shop you will find anything from a Doyle Brunsons Super System to a brand new Aston Martin. Needless to say there is something for everyone in this VIP Shop.

Where to enter the PokerStars Marketing Code

Once you have downloaded the PokerStars software you are ready to create your account. You do this by clicking “Log In” and then you click “Create New Account”. You will then be taken to a screen where you can pick your screen name and anter your address and name, after this step you are taken to the screen where you are supposed to enter the PokerStars.com marketing code PAWSUB465 in order to get the bonus and entries to a lot of exclusive freerolls.

Just to make sure that you dont miss out on thius great offer we have made a screenshot of the window where you are to enter the marketing code for PokerStars.