PokerStars PlaySCOOP

April 15, 2011 is regretfully known among the poker playing community as "Black Friday" - the day when major online poker companies, including PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, stopped offering real money play to their United States customers, as a result of a crackdown by the federal government. 

As a small fish myself, I didn't have real money held up in my accounts on these sites but I was disappointed to be closed off from online real money events, including satellite opportunities to the annual World Series of Poker events held in Las Vegas: "The companies accounted for a large proportion of World Series of Poker qualifiers via online satellites. Additionally, other players lost access to the funds they could use to play in the events. As a result, the 2011 World Series of Poker main event had the highest percentage of foreign players (and lowest percentage of American players) in history... " [Wiki quote].

After Black Friday, Full Tilt was mired in scandal, allegedly operating a Ponzi scheme, and was subsequently acquired by PokerStars as part of a settlement with the U.S. government. PokerStars has emerged from the fallout with its integrity intact, returning funds to U.S. players. Unfortunately, the impact of Black Friday on poker has been huge - online poker pros were cut off from their livelihoods in the U.S. and games for recreational players like myself evaporated. No longer having a real money presence in the U.S. also effected a loss of advertising revenue, leading to cancellation of many of my favorite poker shows, such as Poker After Dark, The Big Game and High Stakes Poker. Opportunities for U.S. players to win their way into poker competitions dried up. There's been a sad state of affairs of online poker in the U.S. for years now, and while online poker has been legalized recently in a couple of states (including Nevada and New Jersey), most of the country still exists in an online poker vacuum.

PokerStars, a company I have respected for a long time, has now been leading an attempt to generate interest among U.S. players in play money tournaments. Play money online poker is not a new thing. These games usually suck however - with no semblance whatsoever to real money games, because there's no real money involved. However, PokerStars has tried to replicate the feel of large money events and tournaments in the play realm by creating high chip level stakes - the idea conceivably being that the level of play may possibly elevate if the buy-in would take some effort to accumulate, for example, a million play dollars. 

Some effort, or some actual dough - as PokerStars has incorporated a money-making enterprise as part of this whole endeavor. Players who have not yet accumulated millions in play money can purchase them online, with packages as low as $1.99 for 350K and better value options, such as $9.99 for 2M. This could add a modicum of seriousness to the usually senseless play money game, with my hope being that if you're buying play money chips, you'll value them more.

Now, it may seem far-fetched to use real money to buy fake money but U.S. poker players have been so deprived that this scheme could work. Not to mention, there are other games that have successfully lured players into investing real money into online ventures that involve no financial gain (damn you Clash of Clans for sucking up so much wasted time of my life). 

Complementing the play money packages for sale, PokerStars has implemented tournaments like the Sunday Billion - billed as the premiere event for their play money players (i.e. all of America). Along with offering a prize pool of a billion chips, PokerStars very cleverly advertises the tournament as an opportunity for players to prove their skills, stating on its website: "Anyone who can take down the Sunday Billion is surely a player to be reckoned with!" So now, PokerStars is smartly appealing to U.S. poker players looking to engage in competitive play and feel pride in their results, which was pretty much nonexistent on a play money level. PokerStars reinforces the value of play money tournaments on their official blog as well.

This week, PokerStars also introduced PlaySCOOP, a new play money version of their prestigious (and lucrative) real money series of tournaments know as the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). PokerStars describes PlaySCOOP as "... your chance to experience the thrill of a major poker tournament, and play for your share of millions." Play money millions now have some sort of value, given the more you have, the more readily you can participate in PokerStars high-stakes play money games without having to invest in buying play chips.

While playing with fake money is never truly going to resemble real money games, PokerStars has successfully elevated the play money poker game in my experience so far. I spent a large part of this lazy Sunday playing the first three events of PlaySCOOP (each having a high and low buy-in version) and had a decent showing. Of the 7 tournaments I played, including the Sunday Billion, I cashed 
in 4:

PlayScoop Event #1 NL Hold'em [6-Max] (High Buy-in: 2M buy-in) – Finished 5/22 winning 14,270,000

PlayScoop Event #1 NL Hold'em [6-Max] (Low Buy-in: 20K buy-in) – Finished 21/860 winning 106,800

PlayScoop Event #3 NL Hold'em [Turbo, Progressive Super-Knockout] (High: 1M buy-in) – Finished 7/221 winning 3,978,000

Sunday Billion (1M buy-in) – Finished 155/868 winning 2,500,000

So, I wound up winning for the day over 20 million dollars (not including the bounties I earned from knocking out players in Event 3 and not subtracting the cost of the buy-ins). Wow, I'm fake rich bitch!

I would like to play more events in this first ever PlaySCOOP tournament series, ideally every No-Limit Hold'em event. However, on account of my real money-generating job, I'll miss many events this week. 

I am enjoying the feeling, even if it's exaggerated, of poker accomplishment. It would be nice, and would further support their mission, if PokerStars would offer a PlaySCOOP leader board or "Player of the Series" as they do with SCOOP. Now, if PokerStars wanted to generate even more interest in their play money offerings (as well as sell crazy play money), I'd suggest they offer WSOP main event seats based on performance in premiere play money tournaments. That would be amazing!

@PokerStars Thanks for PlaySCOOP! Why not have a leaderboard or player of the series? http://t.co/w69ame438L
— What The Eff? (@effwalkingdead) May 5, 2014