Last year, PokerStars dismantled the European Poker Tour and created two new live tournament tours, the PokerStars Championship and the PokerStars Festival. They are your traditional tours, the PokerStars Championship looking very much like what the EPT was, with the PokerStars Festival coming in at a lower buy-in, akin to the World Series of Poker Circuit. On Friday, PokerStars announced yet another new live tournament series, called the PokerStars MEGASTACK (yes, and ugh, it is all CAPS), geared towards recreational players who cannot afford to compete in high buy-in tournaments.
The first PokerStars MEGASTACK will be at London’s Hippodrome Casino April 7th through April 9th. The buy-in is just £170, which is still a solid chunk of change for most people, but for poker players interested in competing in a good tournament, that is as light of a payment as one can hope for. All players start with 50,000, so there should be plenty of opportunity to play some poker (obviously, that all depends on the blind structure, but one would assume since it is live PokerStars event and not a daily nooner at a random casino off the Vegas Strip that things will be alright). Each tournament has three opening flights with one re-entry permitted per flight.
And since these are tournaments for recreational players trying to build a bankroll the PokerStars MEGASTACK events only run Friday through Sunday. As a PokerStars blog post put it:
We know it’s not always easy to find the time to play live tournaments, with one eye on your straight draw and the other on the clock as you try to work out if you can make it to work on 45 minutes sleep. That’s why MEGASTACK events are designed to fit your schedule rather than that of your boss, taking place from Friday to Sunday, leaving you all the time you need to enjoy the game.
There are also online satellites available for those who want to try to get in for even less money than £170.
If you are looking at that price point and thinking to yourself that there are no MEGASTACKS tournaments scheduled for the United States because the price is in British pounds, then you would be correct. Currently, there are only events scheduled for the Hippodrome, but according to Pokerstars, they will spread to other locations in the United Kingdom and Europe. No mention of the U.S. yet.
Here are the dates on tap so far for the Hippodrome:
• April 7th – 9th
• May 5th – 7th
• June 30th – July 2nd
• September 22nd – 24th
• October 20th – 22nd
And that’s really it. Frankly, I’m surprised that I was able to write even this much about the MEGASTACKS tournament series, as it isn’t all that big of a deal. But while I downplay it a little, it really could be a very nice addition to the live tournament schedule. Instead of having to watch as all those deep-pocketed poker players get to play in four and five-figure live tournaments, casual players can get in on the fun in what one would expect to be well-run tourneys with good blind structures.
