First things first: What exactly is a PokerStars passport?
Every year, PokerStars being the great tournament site that it is, awards some of its players with a Pokerstars passport. Essentially, it is buy-in plus travel and accommodation monies for live tournaments of the player’s choice. If you somehow get your hands on one of these coveted passports, it means you get to fly to and play for free in some tournaments of your choosing, while keeping most of the winnings for yourself. Some of the winnings were previously held (say 10%) to fund some tournaments on the TLB for the pokerstars promotion, but in 2008 this trait seems to have disappeared. Winners can use their Passport to enter the Main Event of any PokerStars-sponsored live tournament. This means you can play at any stop on the European Poker Tour, Latin American Poker Tour or the Asia Pacific Poker Tour! You can even use your Passport to play at the World Series of Poker* Main Event!
There are 1-stamp, 4-stamp and 5-stamp passports, with each stamp representing a tournament entry. The higher the stamps, the less common it is, indicative that only one 5-stamp passport has been won this year.
Now, the second most important question: How do you get a PokerStars passport?
To get a PokerStars passport, you have to play and basically win it by winning a TLB showdown, and face the toughest players who also eye this prize, and sacrifice a goat to have some luck on your side to somehow emerge victorious from this tough field, with a PokerStars passport in your pocket.
The top-100 players on the TLB of the previous year play in a satellite, which pays 3 top prizes of a 5-stamp, 4-stamp, and 1-stamp passport. In addition, the other 6 of the final table of this tourney earn some cash prizes.
Then, players number 101-200, 201-500, 501-1000 on the TLB of the previous year play on their own separate satellites, each gunning for a single 1-stamp passport. Again, the rest of the final table gets cash prizes.
Capische?
Next question: So what exactly happened last Sunday?
Well, it all went down. The tourneys took place, and PokerStars awarded the 6 passports to the following lucky players:
5-stamp: phillyJbizee
4-stamp: delfino74
1-stamp: Bruno GT
1-stamp: AOthegreat8
1-stamp: jus2awsum
1-stamp: MangosPapa
Congratulations winners! Be sure to use them wisely!
And if you did not place (or had to sit out because you had a killer hangover from the night before), do not worry since there is always next year!