Atlantic City received a publicity boost over the weekend as the international online poker giant Pokerstars leveraged its partnership with Atlantic City land casino operator Resorts Casino Hotel to kick off its inaugural Pokerstars Festival.
The Festival is a live event-focused project run by an experienced and dedicated Pokerstars team, and this is the first time in six years that the company has organised an event in the United States.
The week-long festivities started on Saturday evening with a cocktail reception and a free-roll played online at Resorts, in which five $1,100 seats were awarded to the PokerStars Festival New Jersey Main Event. That was followed Sunday morning with the first of three starting days for the $340 buy-in PokerStars Cup, and a little later the start of a $2,200 buy-in Six Max No Limit Hold’em tournament.
Sunday also saw the beginning of three 36-player Cap Double Elimination $120 Flipout tournaments and a $560 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Turbo.
A Pokerstars spokesman said that the objective was to inject more fun into poker, and that the festival will include a series of daily blackjack, roulette, video poker and slots tournaments over the next week.
He explained that Pokerstars was easing itself back into the US market by offering diversity as well as quality live poker events.
Adding to the fun, Pokerstars plans to open its StarsFun Skills Zone on the Resorts premises Monday, which will feature daily Golf Hole-in-One Progressive, Hoops Fever Progressive and Pinball Progressive competitions with cash prize pools and free-play table tennis, air hockey, foosball, cornhole and darts.
International poker ace Daniel Negreanu will be at Resorts to host another big event in the festival – the $200 buy-in Third Annual Chad Brown Memorial Poker Tournament, with fifty percent of the prize pool going to a charity.
Other activities during the festival week include a rock concert, Run It Up novelty events featuring members of the Pokerstars pro team, and a series of buy-in live tournaments for more competitive-minded poker fans