PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker site with a near 2.5-to-1 lead in traffic over their closest competitor. Most players choose PokerStars for its generous VIP program, massive player volume and soft games, while other players come attempting to make a name for themselves. If you’re looking for recognition in the poker community there is no better way of getting it than winning the PokerStars tournament leader board.
Countless big name pros such as the notorious Josh Fields (JJProdigy) and young female poker phenomenon Annette Obrestad (Annette_15) first got their recognition in poker by winning the PokerStars leader board. Of course Josh Fields would go on to become known as poker’s most notorious cheat, while Annette Obrestad would go on to become the youngest ever World Series of Poker bracelet winner when on September 17, 2007 she captured the inaugural WSOPE Main Event title a day before her 19th birthday.
In this article we’ll cover exactly how the PokerStars tournament leader board works. At PokerStars every scheduled tournament (outside of satellite tournaments, heads-up tournaments, shootout tournaments, restricted-entry tournaments and private tournaments) and every sit and go with 41 or more players is a tournament where leader board points can be earned. In these tournaments the top 15 percent of finishers are given leader board points with the number of points determined by a complex formula. The good news is you don’t need to know or understand the TLB formula to earn points.
Points are automatically added to your account regardless, and the PokerStars website has a points calculator as well as downloadable spreadsheet that can be used. For those of you who like the gritty details the actual TLB points formula is: Points = 10 * [sqrt(“number of entrants”)/sqrt(“finish position”)] * [1+log(“buy-in”+0.25)] Once again the equation is complex, but using the tools on the PokerStars website you can calculate how many points you’ll earn in a particular tournament.
Only Your Top Finishes Count To help keep things fair PokerStars does not allow frequent players to keep piling points on top of each other. If they did even losing players would have a strong chance at winning if they kept on playing. How it actually works is only a player’s top 10 finishes are considered for the weekly tournament leader board, only their top 20 finishes for the monthly and only their top 100 for the annual. In case you haven’t caught on, PokerStars offers three different tournament leader board races with the prizes as follows.
PokerStars Weekly TLB: Each Sunday at 14:30 the weekly TLB winner faces a Team PokerStars pro in a heads-up match. The prize pool for this match starts at $1,000 and if the PokerStars pro wins the prize carries over to next week, meaning it is progressive.
PokerStars Monthly TLB: Each month the top 200 monthly leader board finishers share a $30,000 prize. The top ten players in order of first through 10th receive $5000, $3000, $2000, $1000, $750, $500, $400, $350, $300, $250 and 11-25 get $200, 26-50 get $150, 51-100 get $100 and 101-200 get $50. The top 1000 players also receive entry into a $20,000 PokerStars leader board freeroll.
PokerStars Yearly TLB: The annual PokerStars Tournament leader board gives the top three players seats into live events. First place gets a five-stamp PokerStars Passport, second place gets a three-stamp PokerStars Passport and third gets a two-stamp PokerStars Passport. A PokerStars Passport stamp is redeemable for entry into any tournament on a PokerStars sponsored tour such as the North American Poker Tour (NAPT), European Poker Tour (NAPT) or the Asian Pacific Poker Tour (APPT). Also the top 100 finishers of the PokerStars annual tournament leader board are invited to a $100,000 freeroll.
Tracking your Tournament Leader Board Results On the PokerStars website you can find a list of currently weekly, monthly and yearly TLB leaders. Of course if you’re not one of the leaders this list isn’t much good for determining how close you are to making the leader board. The good news is you can find that information from the PokerStars software by mousing over the “Requests” text in the upper taskbar.
PokerStars Tournament Leader Board Hall of Fame If you’re one of the highest ever finishers on any of the PokerStars leader boards your name will show up in the PokerStars TLB hall of fame. Perhaps the most famous PokerStars Hall of Fame member is Shaun Deeb who as a teenager deposited $30 into an online poker site and soon later had over a $33,000 bankroll. Deeb managed to parlay his winnings into one of the most successful online poker tournament careers of all time. He was the PokerStars annual TLB winner in back to back years 2007 and 2008.
In 2009 Deeb semi-retired from online tournaments giving up a shot at three in a row but still managed to finish 14th for the year. Deeb is the most featured player on the PokerStars TLB Hall of Fame page; he currently holds five out of sixty top ever TLB scores, one spot ahead of aprilfools who has four of the sixty best finishes. If you like to compete and want a chance at online poker immortality we strongly suggest you play your tournament poker online at www.pokerstars.com.
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