Why Pokerstars?

[over_c]

OK. You guys have convinced me to put some money on PokerStars and try out their tournaments. Does anyone know of a deposit bonus they have, and will it work if I just play tournaments there?

[Paul2432]

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You get to start with more chips 1500 vs 1000/800 in the SnG's. Although, at the end of these and later in the MTT's, the blinds + antes end up higher than Party.

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Thank you for posting this. Just to elaborate, the notion that Party MTTs have less play is a very common misconception.

During the first round, Stars stacks are 75x the BB and Party 66 2/3. However, during the second round the Stars stack is 50x the BB, exactly the same as Party. For the rest of the tournament, the Party stack is bigger in terms of number of big blinds. In practice, a Party tournament nearly always last longer with the same number of players.

Now consider the big weekly tournaments. Here Stars starts with 2500 in chips, and Party only 1000. However, Party extends their rounds to 20 minutes. At the start of the second hour, the starting stack is 16 2/3 times the BB at Stars and 20x the BB at Party. Again, the Party tournaments with similar numbers last longer.

Paul

[Tom Bayes]

I don't think there is a deposit bonus running right now, although they will run one every few months. The last one coincided with the lead-in to the WCOOP. Since that is over and they are getting ready to hype their World Cup and EPT events, there could be a deposit bonus in the near future.

Unfortunately, the deposit bonus is extremely difficult to work off if you play only tourneys and SNGs. The deposit bonus is released once you have earned the proper number of FPPs (frequent player points). The way you get FPPs is through tourneys/SNGs with entry fees or by playing ring games-once a certain amount is raked from the pot, you get a FPP. It will take forever to earn your bonus unless you play some ring games-even then it takes a while. Micro-limits won't work for getting FPPs; you'll need to play at least $1/$2 IIRC. All of these details are on the PokerStars website in case I forgot something or said something wrong.

[Hotchile]

Unfortunately, the deposit bonus is extremely difficult to work off if you play only tourneys and SNGs

This may be true, but I think Stars is the only site that allows you to work off a bonus with Tournament play. All other sites (that I am aware of), force you to work bonuses off in ring games.

HC

[Ghazban]

You can work off bonuses with tourneys and SNGs on Ultimate Bet as well (though it takes forever).

[thylacine]

What `little round images'? What are you talking about?

[Toro]

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What `little round images'? What are you talking about?

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In front of every players seat there is a round circle. You can choose to leave it blank or you can customize it with an image of your own choosing. For example I have a Bull in my circle.

[thylacine]

I don't see a circle or images. I just see a box with text saying name, town and chip count. And there is the annoying feature that when a player acts you see the word `check' (or whatever) and can't see their chip count for several seconds.

I'm not seeing this other stuff. Do I have something set wrong?

[Toro]

The circle is right above the box with the screen name. It could be blank or if the user customized it have an image inside.

[nolanfan34]

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OK. You guys have convinced me to put some money on PokerStars and try out their tournaments. Does anyone know of a deposit bonus they have, and will it work if I just play tournaments there?

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You can clear the bonus playing tournaments. I'm surprised they haven't offered another bonus after Greg's win was finally aired on ESPN. They're really blowing it not running some commercials - you don't think a commercial talking about Raymer and Williams being PS players wouldn't draw some fish? I haven't seen commercials in my local market at least.

Another bonus for Pokerstars is the number of different tournament buy-in levels they have. I don't think most other sites have freerolls, $1, $3, $10, $20, and on up, etc. Lots of variety for different bankrolls. And that doesn't even include the rebuys as well.

Finally, I like the fact that it takes a couple of seconds for the turn and river to come when you're all-in. Gives you time to get out of your chair and root for the card you need, unlike Party, which just fires out the cards before you can even see what you're up against.