Posts Tagged ‘Pca’

ESPN2 to Broadcast NAPT

ESPN2 will televise 16 original hours of the new poker tour, starting April 2010. All of the NAPT stops will be featured including Las Vegas, Connecticut and the Bahamas for the PCA.

“Having the North American Poker Tour on ESPN2 is going to take poker on this continent to a different level,” said Team PokerStars.net Pro Daniel Negreanu.

“With some of the most important gaming venues in the US on board and the reach of ESPN2, the NAPT is set to bring the excitement of world-class tournament poker to millions who love this game as much as I do.”

The NAPT, which was announced at the PCA in January, is set to offer numerous tournaments around North America with a variety of buy-ins and huge payouts.

The main event for the first season has been set at $5,000 with a variety of ways to qualify on PokerStars.

ESPN2’s coverage of the first event at the Venetian will include the unique $25,000 High Roller event, which will feature a number of the world’s biggest poker celebrities such as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari and Tony G.

The NAPT event at the Venetian in Las Vegas is set to take place Feb. 20-24, 2010. Visit PokerStars website for the complete NAPT schedule.

big-field live poker requires big strategy changes

According to at least one player who has weaved his way through some big numbers before, big-field live poker requires big strategy changes.

“There’s a different approach because it’s a longer tournament,” said Jeff Madsen, who managed to best a similar-sized field of 1,579 to win his first of two World Series of Poker bracelets in 2006.

“The style of just trying to double early and get chips really fast isn’t as effective. You may have chips early, but you still have to get through a few more days. You have to be more patient. You want to survive and get much deeper before you start playing huge pots and taking big risks. Otherwise you are never going to see a Day 3.”

Kevin Saul, who managed an eighth-place finish at the 2009 PCA, says you might be aware of it but you simply can’t think about the massive field size when you sit down at any live poker tournament table.

“You only sit with eight people at a time, so for me, it’s just normal poker until the field dwindles,” he said. “I just care about my chip stack and what everyone has at my table. I don’t really worry about what’s going on in the tournament as a whole.”

The PCA presents a different picture from the average big-field event, considering roughly half of the 1,500-plus players have qualified online. Saul says he certainly adjusts his strategy to account for that.

“You can follow the real satellite qualifiers,” he explained. “I mean, I won a satellite, but I would have bought in anyway. Then you have the other people who wouldn’t have bought in. They probably satellited into a satellite and took a few steps to get there and you spot them and try to apply pressure to them.”

Madsen says he does the same thing.

“These guys are good, but a lot of them don’t have much live-tournament experience and they’re used to playing a lot of hands and playing really fast,” he said. “In that respect I’ll probably play a little tighter. They may be looking to push me around or play bigger pots, because online players tend to do that, so I’ll usually just play a little tighter and wait for things to come to me more.

“Especially because I don’t know these players and I don’t really know their style, I’ll take a little time to get to know the players at my table first.”

In the end, Madsen says even the biggest fields get pared down to size and you simply have to play your game and stick to your reads.

“You really can’t look at the whole tournament from the beginning or else it’s overwhelming,” the Full-Tilt pro said. “You have to take it one hand at a time. No matter how big the field is, in a couple of days, it’s still going to get down to the money. So yeah, you take it one hand at a time and try not to think about how many people are in the tournament right from the start.”

To see how Madsen and Saul fare against the massive field this time around,  follow all the action from the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Growth Continues.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure takes place at the Atlantis Resort and Casino situated on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.  Atlantis is one of the world’s most exclusive and luxurious hotels and has everything you need to make your stay at the 2010 PCA one to remember.

And as Day 1a of the PokerStars Caribbean adventure kicked off in the Bahamas Tuesday, every indication is that growth is not about to slow down.

In 2005, the tournament got off the boat and moved to its current home at the Atlantis Resort and Casino on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

But it wasn’t until 2007 that the real growth began.

The 937 registrants that year helped the PCA break the record for the largest poker tournament ever held outside the U.S. for the first time.

And after becoming a stop on the PokerStars European Poker Tour schedule in 2008, the event has broken the record every year since, including last year when Canadian Poorya Nazari beat a massive 1,347-player field to bank a $3 million first-place prize.

EPT Founder John Duthie says it’s the PokerStars part of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure that has truly made the difference.

And with 735 online qualifiers making the trip in 2009 and another 750 expected this year, it’s hard to disagree with him.

“I think it being connected to the largest poker site in the world gives it a critical mass that can’t be competed with,” he said. “When you have so many millions of people playing online you have a huge pool of people from which to send to live events and that’s exactly what we see here.”

Because of the event’s connection to the European Poker Tour and the Bahamas close proximity to the United States, the PCA has grown into a popular destination for poker players from both sides of the Atlantic.

In fact, Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier says it appears the entire poker world now descends upon the Bahamas annually for the event.

“It’s like nothing else because you run into people that you’ve met everywhere,” he explained. “Pretty much everybody in poker comes to the PCA. You run into people that you’ve met in Vegas, on the European Poker Tour or the World Poker Tour. Everybody is here.”

This year the PCA is an entire poker festival, boasting as many as 50 events, but with Atlantis’ huge marine habitat, marina, water attractions, beach, spa and casino, Duthie says it’s more than just poker that’s attracting people to the PCA.

“For one reason or another, more people seem to bring their girlfriends or wives and families,” he said. “So it has much more of a feeling like an outing or a holiday and the poker just happens to be part of it.”

Close to 700 players sat down for Day 1a Tuesday and with as many as 900 expected for Day 1b Wednesday, the event appears poised to smash records again.

Now, the incredible growth the PCA has enjoyed has helped grow the EPT into the biggest poker tour on the planet.

A fact Duthie never imagined he’d see.

“First of all, I didn’t think we would ever come to the Caribbean, because I never considered the Caribbean part of Europe, but it became an addition to the EPT because of PokerStars’ involvement. I always thought it would get big in Europe because poker was really taking off. But I never thought it would get as big as it has become.

“It’s an interesting feeling looking at it now because it bears no resemblance to what it was when we started.”

And as far as Mercier can tell, the growth will continue.

“I expect it to keep on growing because PokerStars keeps running so many satellites and it just grows every year,” he said. “PokerStars keeps growing, so more people qualify and poker is not declining; it’s sort of leveling off. So as long as PokerStars continues to grow, the PCA should continue to grow as well.”