New PokerStars Platinum Passes Coming Via Somerville, Boeree, Staples

PokerStars announced new ways for players around the globe, including the US, to win themselves one of the hottest tickets in poker.

Those tickets: Platinum Passes to the inaugural $25,000 PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) that will be held during the 2019 PokerStars PCA in January.

Ever since Platinum Passes sprang into being at the PokerStars Championship Prague Main Event in December, they’ve become one of the most sought-after commodities in the poker world. The value of a Platinum Pass is around $30,000, and includes a seat in the $25,000 PSPC tournament, as well as travel and accommodations.

In order to make sure the tournament is a good mix of professionals and amateurs, PokerStars has been handing out Platinum Passes for specific achievements, and at random.

In all, PokerStars plans to hand out 300 Platinum Passes, which means it’s coming up with some very creative ways to award them, like the Platinum Pass Adventure promotion that launched last month.

Platinum Pass Adventures aren’t your grandfather’s satellite

The Platinum Pass Adventures challenge players in a variety of ways.

Three “Adventures” are already in progress:

• The first of the Platinum Pass Adventure programs launched, “As random as it Gets” formulated by Twitch presenters Fintan and Spraggy, will culminate in an online final tournament on July 29, where the first Platinum Pass winner will be crowned on the PokerStars Twitch stream.
• Felix and his two ‘Pokerbros’ Murat Tülek and Niklas Ehrenholz have been busy handpicking entrants to represent their respective teams and battle for Pokerbro glory in monthly live Sit & Go’s held at Felix’s streaming studios in Cologne, Germany. All selected monthly players will be entered into The Online Bro Battle Final on Sept. 2, when the overall winner will win a Platinum Pass.
• Andre Akkari will hold live qualifying Sit & Go’s at three Brazil Series of Online Poker (BSOP) events, starting with BSOP São Paulo in July.

Today, PokerStars announced three more adventures that will award a total of four Platinum Passes:

• Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov: Next Great Poker Minds
• Jamie Staples: Your Ultimate Sweat
• Jason Somerville: Next Great Twitch Streamer

Here are the basics of each challenge.

Liv & Igor present: the Next Great Poker Minds

The Next Great Poker Minds is something like bar trivia, only the questions will have some correlation to success at the poker tables.

“What we’ve always loved most about poker is the strategy of the game and how it constantly challenges you to think deeply,” Boeree and Kurganov said. “When PokerStars gave us two platinum passes to give away to our followers, we immediately knew we wanted to do something around rationality and logic.”

Here’s how it works.

Every three weeks a new quiz awaits the participants that challenges skills that are necessary at the poker tables.

There will be four preliminary quiz rounds of multiple choice questions that are open to all contestants:

• The ten contestants with the highest total score across the four preliminary rounds will advance to the final on Wednesday, Oct. 3
• Each quiz round (including the final) will take place at the exact date posted and cannot be taken at any other time outside the time window announced.
• To resolve any potential tie-break situations, each preliminary round quiz will also be timed. If, after the three rounds, two or more contestants have identical scores and are close to the bubble of the final ten contestants, the contestants with the lowest total times will advance to the final of then contestants.
• The final quiz will also be timed to determine the two Platinum Pass winners.

More details and terms and conditions for the Next Great Poker Minds contest can be found here.

Jamie Staples brings you: Your Ultimate Sweat

Jamie Staples and his brother Matt were already successful poker players and Twitch streamers, when they were offered a prop bet for the ages by Bill Perkins. The goal was for the 305-pound Jamie and the 135 pound Matt to reach identical weights within a year.

The brothers accomplished the feat, and the legend of the UltimateSweat was born.

Now Staples is offering up a Platinum Pass to the person who achieves their own life goal, be it weight loss or something else entirely.

“I wish people could have their own UltimateSweat experience. Through embarking on my weight loss journey, I learned so much about how to live a healthier life, and also gained confidence that when I put my mind to something, I can achieve it,” Staples said. “Thanks to PokerStars, all of you now have a chance to have your own ultimate sweat, and it doesn’t just have to be about health.”

Here’s how it works:

“Is there something you have always wanted to do? Maybe its lose some weight, or get stronger? Or maybe it’s something not related to health at all. Perhaps learn to play the piano, or read a book a day . Figure out how that crazy Omaha game works and move up in the levels. Anything at all! You can set your own challenge that you want to complete. When you have a challenge in mind, you must submit a video on twitter and over the email address [email protected] using the #myultimatesweat describing: your challenge, your plan for how to accomplish it, what benchmarks you will be measuring, and when people can expect to get updates from you.”

Prospective winners will be judged on the following criteria before a winner is selected:

• Personality and creativity: 1-5
• Frequency of updates: 1-5
• Level of difficulty: 1-5
• Goal achievement: 1-10

Here’s the timeline:

• June 27: Launch
• July 1: Opening the submissions
• July 15: Submission closes
• Oct. 15: Submitting the result as video
• Oct. 17: Top five entries are chosen
• Oct. 21: Winner is chosen and announced
• Oct. 22: Coaching and mentoring phase starts

More information and terms and conditions for the Your Ultimate Sweat contests can be found here.

Jason Somerville is in search of: the Next great Twitch streamer

The third new challenge is being run by the godfather of poker streamers, Jason Somerville.

The challenge is pretty straightforward. Somerville and a panel of judges are looking to discover the next great Twitch poker personality.

According to Somerville:

“I am incredibly excited about the Platinum Pass that PokerStars will be giving away to the next top Twitch poker streamer. What an amazing opportunity for someone to get involved in Twitch poker, try your hand at Twitch poker streaming and be awarded with a Platinum Pass. If you need any help getting started with your streaming journey, we have a comprehensive guide on RunItUp.com and I am excited to see who gets involved and what these streams look like. I think it is going to be awesome for both poker and Twitch. Good luck everyone and I can’t wait to watch you guys out on the Twitch streets.”

Players can opt in by sending their name, twitch page, country of origin and a short paragraph about themselves to the submission email [email protected] from June 27-July 27.

At the end of the contest, Nov. 15, the streamers will be judged by a committee consisting of:

• Somerville
• Lex Veldhuis
• Kevin Martin
• Jaime Staples
• Ben “Spraggy” Spragg
• Jeff Gross
• Fintan Hand
• An audience selected twitter poll.

More details and terms and conditions for the Next Great Twitch Streamer contest can be found here.

More Adventures on the way

According to the PokerStars press release, more Adventures are in the works. Stay tuned to see if future Adventures are your path to a Platinum Pass.

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