PokerStars is a must try poker destination. Every online poker player should have an account at PokerStars, it’s the biggest online poker room, offering the largest tournament fields, biggest prize pools, and highest stakes games in the industry.
In addition to the pure size and scope of the poker room, PokerStars provides excellent value to its members with great promotions, VIP rewards, and a $600 welcome bonus.
But before we get into the bonus details, here’s a brief summary of some of the more unique software features of PokerStars.
| PokerStars | Highlights |
|---|---|
| The Good | Massive player base, biggest tournaments, awesome VIP program |
| The Bad | Does not accept US players |
| The Ugly | Did we mention they don't take US players? |
First off, PokerStars offers the widest selection of poker games, providing tables for Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha High Low, Stud, Stud High Low, Triple Stud, Five Card Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, HORSE, Razz, 8-Game Mix, and even Badugi! PokerStars also has multi-table tournaments in all these games.
The stakes of the games also vary from micro-limits of $0.01/$0.02 up to high stakes games of $1000/$2000, so there’s a poker game available to all players of every skill level.
In addition to providing games with various betting structures such as limit, no limit, and pot limit games, there are also specific tables allowing “short” buy-ins and “deep” stacked games. “Short” games allow the players to sit down with less chips, where the “deep” tables require a minimum of a 100 big blind buy-in.
And, finally, there are also “Fast” tables designed for players who prefer a faster pace of game play. The “fast” poker tables provide the following modifications:
- You receive only 15 seconds to act in a Limit poker game, instead of 25.
- You receive only 18 seconds to act in a No Limit or Pot Limit poker game, instead of 35.
- You only have 1 second to show or muck, instead of 3 seconds.
As a truly global brand, PokerStars entertains players from around the world (except for the USA of course) and offers language support in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian or Japanese.
PokerStars provides various themes to change the look and atmosphere of your playing environment, uploadable images for your avatar, opponent note-taking ability, your personal player statistics, hand histories, resizable poker tables with unlimited multi-table ability, and even specific multi-tabling options.
Some of their latest innovations include hotkeys to create shortcuts for various in-game actions, Easy Seat feature that can quickly seat you at multiple tables, show one card feature, and opponent note taking color-coded labels.
And of course the Home Games feature which is designed to let you create and manage your own private Poker Club, where you play the ring games and tournaments you choose, with just your friends, scheduled whenever you want. All you need to do is visit the new ‘Home Games’ tab in the lobby and open your own club or join a club created by one of your poker buddies.
Visit www.poker-download.eu/pokerstars-download/ to follow step-by-step instructions on downloading and install PokerStars.
Cashing out the free $600 is a relatively simple process as long as you are prepared to deposit a total of $600 into your new PokerStars.com account, and play the necessary amount of real money ring games or MTT’s and SnG’s.
First off, visit PokerStars and open your new account with the 2012 PokerStars Marketing Code of “PSA7201“. This special PokerStars Marketing Code qualifies you for further perks, which we describe at the bottom of the page!
New players qualify for the Poker Stars welcome bonus as soon as they make their initial cash deposit. The Poker Stars welcome bonus is a 100% match bonus, meaning if you deposit $200, your bonus will be $200. The largest bonus possible is $600, €465, £390, or CAD $625.
Use the PokerStars Bonus Code STARS600 each time you make a deposit to qualify, up to your first three deposits or up to $600. Type STARS600 into the “bonus code” field on the deposit screen before processing your payment!
The deposit amount can be of any size, but you must deposit a total of $600 within 3 deposits, and within the first 90 days to take full advantage of the maximum bonus of $600. The PokerStars download has recently included this flexibility – allowing 3 deposits within a 90 day period – to ease the process for new players to earn the complete $600 bonus amount.
Again, be sure to type in the PokerStars.com bonus code STARS600 when making your first deposit and any subsequent deposits that count towards the new player bonus (first 3 deposits).
You achieve the bonus cash, once you have earned the required number of VIP Player Points (VPP’s).
Players earn VPP’s by participating in real money tourneys and cash games at PokerStars.com. The real money poker games charge a rake or an entry fee that the player pays, and this equates to VPP’s. Players collect more VPP’s by playing in tournaments and ring games with higher rakes. Each $1 spent on the rake awards the player 5.5 VPPs. The rake cost varies depending on the specific game. For example, a $20+2 tournament has a $2 rake. This means you pay $20 dollars to the prize pool and $2 to the house rake. Participating in this tournament earns you 11 VPP’s. A $5 dollar tournament has a $0.50 fee, so you would earn 2.75 VPP’s.
You don’t have to win the game or tournament to obtain the VPP’s, each player participating automatically achieves the VPP’s. Click the “Cashier” button and then the “Check My Bonus Status” button to check your VPP’s.
You are required to earn VPP’s equal to 17 times the bonus amount (based on $USD figure, see table below for VPP clearance rates in other currencies). So to earn the maximum bonus of $600, you would need to achieve 17×600 or 10,200 VPP’s. The cash bonus is awarded in increments of 10 ($10, £10, €10 etc), each depositing into your account as you clear the required VPP’ss (e.g. 170 VPPs for every $10 increment). You have six months after each qualifying deposit to earn all the VPP’s necessary to collect your bonus money, which is plenty of time to get the maximum bonus of $600, €465, £390, or CAD $625!
The bonus rewards will automatically be transferred into your cashier account and you will receive an email from PokerStars.com letting you know that a bonus has been put into your account. You may check your PokerStars account screen to confirm that the bonus is no longer listed as “Pending”, and then check “History” in the “Cashier” section to see that it has been applied to your real money balance.
Breaking down the PokerStars welcome bonus for the tournament player, you must spend about $3 in tournament fees to earn $1 in bonus. This 3:1 ratio is normal among the online poker rooms. But PokerStars offers more flexibility with its welcome bonus by allowing 3 deposits to count towards the bonus and 6 months to earn the necessary VPP’s.
As stated earlier, opening your new account with the PokerStars Marketing Code of “PSA7201” delivers some exclusive perks! Type PSA7201 in the Marketing Code field, and qualify to enter in $1,000 worth of freerolls and money added tournaments every month!
Here’s an overview of the special tourneys you can play in, each month:
$500 freeroll – You must earn 200 FPP’s the month prior the freeroll, and you qualify to play for free! This tournament is held on the 14th of every month!
$500 money added – $5 buy-in and restricted for ONLY those who sign up to play on PokerStars with the marketing code PSA7201 and then open a http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerforum/ account at our partners at FlopTurnRiver.com. The password is published in the FlopTurnRiver.com forums every month!
Visit www.poker-bonuscode.eu/pokerstars-bonus-code/ for more information.
Not only can you receive $600 of free bonus money, but also participate in private tournaments that have $1,000 added to the prize pools each month!
PokerStars.com offers various other promotions that deliver real value. The VIP Program is one of the best in the industry allowing players to spend their frequent player points on gadgets, tournaments, and even more bonus cash. The Multi-Table Tournament Leader Board awards thousands of dollars in prize money. The boards rank the best tournament players each week, month and year, across all stakes. The PokerStars MTT Leader Board is the largest leader board promotion in the online poker industry.
