The PokerStars Festival being held in Atlantic City marks the of PokerStars Live Events to America.
This is the brand’s first event in the country in over six years after it exited the market due to regulatory concerns. The Festival was part of the company’s plan to re-enter the U.S. poker market offering fresh elements to interest players.
The mega poker festival is being held between Nov. 1 and 5 at the Resorts Casino Hotel and has a schedule filled with a whole host of exciting tournaments. A cocktail reception along with an online $5,500 free roll kicked off the event this weekend.
The poker festival began with the starting flights for the $340 PokerStars Cup and the two-day $2,200 Six-Max No-Limit Hold'em.
PokerStars
PokerStars has said that it plans to measure the success of the event not on the number of entries received but the amount of fun people have. To make this happen, a set of daily tournaments for several games including blackjack, slots, roulette and video poker is being introduced to bring in the fun element. The schedule also has three 36 Player Cap Double Elimination $120 Flipout tournaments scheduled in addition to a $560 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Turbo.
In a statement, Neil Johnson PokerStars Department Head of Live Poker Operations, said
You hear people say all the time that the fun is missing from poker a little bit and that's what we want to change. Everybody knows how to play no-limit hold'em with the hoodies and headphones. We want this to have a little bit of a different feel than just a room full of 100 tables and that's what you experience
There are also plans to introduce a StarsFun Skills Zone which will have a plethora of fun tournaments having cash prize pools such as daily Golf Hole-in- One Progressive, Pinball Progressive and Hoops Fever Progressive. Apart from this, on offer is free-play air hockey, table tennis, foosball, darts and cornhole for those looking for some enjoyable times.
The program will have a Run It Up Day featuring fun events by Jason Somerville the Twitch.tv star and a member of Team PokerStars along with Survivor celebs Tyson Apostol and Mariano.
A number of high roller and entry level poker tournaments with buy-ins starting from $200 and going upto $5,000 will be available for those looking for serious play. A charity event called the 3rd Annual Chad Brown Memorial Poker Tournament with a $200 buy-in will be hosted by Daniel Negreanu on Nov. 5. The charity poker tournament will be donating over 50 percent of the prize pool to the TJ Martell Foundation.
