PokerStars Does it Again!

If you thought online poker tournaments were big, then checkout the figures from PokerStars latest tourney – it made a new world record! Details of it are all here

The Guiness Book of World Records has been hot on the tail of the world's largest online poker room, PokerStars, ever since it set the record for the "Largest Online Poker Tournament" ever last December of 2008. featuring no less than 35,000 players, it was a title to be proud of, and a figure that simply blew away the industry.

Well if you thought that was impressive, then be prepared to be blown away all over again. Only several days ago, the poker room offered a $130 Guaranteed $1 online tournament in order to try and maintain its crown and further even break its own record. A whopping 65,000 players showed up for the event – enough to do both, and how!

The decision to try and break the record for the Largest Online Poker Tournament was made following the announcement by Full Tilt Poker several weeks ago, that it was going to attempt to break it first. Full Tilt Poker set the goal to beat it as part of its lucrative "Full Tilt Poker Five" promotion, yet PokerStars, determined to remain number one when it comes to poker records, snatched the challenge from them, and even set their attempt for the same day as Full Tilt's!

Full Tilt Poker was indeed able to break the record that day with an impressive 50,000 active players taking part in its $5 cap tournament. Yet with a significantly lower buy-in, PokerStars raked in an extra 15,000 players to grab the record title from them. This means that on that day, an incredible 115,000 poker players were participating in online tournaments at these two sites alone – surely another record in itself?!

Despite that Full Tilt Poker had a cap on its tournament that was five times the size of PokerStars', it did offer a cash jackpot prize of $500,000, whereas PokerStars was just over a fifth of that. Full Tilt also awarded one of its players with a $45,000 prize for being "The Record Breaker".Yet if the smaller buy-in is what attracts the players, then perhaps next time these poker rooms attempt to break the record they will set the bar even lower in the race to draw them in.