PokerStars has announced a new season-long poker extravaganza of sorts for players in the United States, dubbed the Summer Festival. Running June 1 to July 31, Summer Festival involves all sorts of poker activities, highlighted by Summer Stacks.
Summer Stacks is a tournament series, PokerStars’ specialty, spanning June 9-26. Both Pennsylvania and the combined New Jersey-Michigan network have 100 events each, all of which cost $100 or under to enter. A total of $1.5 million in prize pools is guaranteed in New Jersey-Michigan and $1.25 million is guaranteed in Pennsylvania.
The Main Events for both will run two days, starting on June 25, and have a $100 buy-in. The guarantee in New Jersey-Michigan is $125,000 and in Pennsylvania it’s $100,000.
PokerStars is awarding “exclusive merchandise” to players in certain events, including the Main Event. One such piece of merchandise is a “trophy,” which PokerStars really did put in quotation marks, which makes me a little confused as to what it actually is.
Naturally, since this is PokerStars, players can qualify for events via Spin-and-Go’s and traditional satellite tournaments.
Skimming the schedule, it looks like there are a minimum of five Summer Stacks events per day, including opening day this coming Friday. Buy-ins go as low as $10, though there aren’t many of those. There are plenty of $20 and $30 buy-in tournaments to go along with $50 and $100, so most people should be able to find something affordable.
Another part of the Summer Festival which will be of less interest to poker players is the Bonus Bonanza on the casino side of things. Running June 13-19, Bonus Bonanza will give 100,000 free slot spins to players in each of Pennsylvania and Michigan and 10,000 to players in New Jersey.
To opt in and complete the challenge, players must wager at least $10 on slots during that week. PokerStars will then award the bonus spins based on the number of people who participating. So, for example, if 10,000 players complete the challenge, then those who did so in Michigan and Pennsylvania will each receive ten free spins.
PokerStars promises that there will be more “acts” announced as the summer goes on, including Spin-and-Go races and a chance to win “epic” prizes.
