Ending weekend, PokerStars started running satellites into the greatest championship of the year
— the WSOP main event. PokerStars, the place that constantly dispatches the most
contestants to Las Vegas every year, is the last of the major poker places to start offering
qualifiers into the primary event.
PokerStars points out that it has dispatched more contestants to the World Series than all other
poker places joined, and it looks determined to measure up to that act in 2009. WSOP satellites
are operating 24 hours a day at a assortment of levels, whether in the form of sit-and-gos,
multi-table championships (MTTs), or rebuts.
Contestants can obtain their seats at the Rio through a diversity of ways on PokerStars — by way
of cash qualifiers, the site’s Steps system, or even through Frequent Player Points (FPP)satellites.
The site is presenting an unbelievable number of unusual roads into the main event via their cash
satellites, particularly for the small-stakes player, including a $2 rebut championship, a $3rebut championship, a $4.40 triple-shootout championship, and a $11 double-shootout that feeds
into main-event qualifiers. The rebut run few times a day, and those shootouts are sit-and-gos,
beginning once a certain number of people register (216 for the $4.40 tournament, 100 for the $11
tournament).
If you’re looking forward to spending a bit more, or if you want to leave out the first round of
cash satellites, you can win a seat into the main contest by finishing at the top of PokerStars’
weekly $650 multi-table championship, daily $33 rebut, or daily $215 double shootout.
There are some more ways to win a seat via cash satellites. PokerStars is also running $27 and
$80 MTTs; $8.80, $11, and $27 rebuys; a $24 double shootout into a satellite; and a direct
qualifier into the main event via a $55 quadruple shootout.
If you’d rather take it one step at a time, PokerStars is once again sending its players to the
main event through its Step system. Step 1 is an affordable $7.50 or 500 FPP. If a player can
move up the ladder and win six steps, a WSOP bid is his. Steps 1-6 are priced at $7.50, $27, $82,
$215, $700, and $2,100, respectively. A Step 4 ticket (worth $215) can also be used to play the
Sunday Million or any other major tournament on PokerStars. Steps tourneys are running around the
clock.
Of course, if you’d rather not spend a penny while trying to make your millions, you can just use
your FPP to try to win a seat into the Big Dance. Each week, PokerStars will send at least three
players to the main event in its weekly FPP qualifier (4,000 FPP to enter). If you don’t have
4,000 FPP to spare, you can enter one of their daily satellites, priced at either 40 FPP or 400
FPP, to win a spot in the weekly qualifier.
Whether it’s through cash, steps, or FPP satellites, the prize package for the winners is valued
at $12,000. That includes a seat into the $10,000 main event, $1,000 in spending money, and a
minimum of eight nights of hotel accommodation at the Palms.
The WSOP main event will have four day ones (July 3-6) and will run until July 15, where it will
break until the November final table.
While other poker sites have started to run a few satellites into the less expensive events at
the World Series this year, there is no indication PokerStars will follow them.. All of the
qualifiers currently available on the site are for the main event.
