Online poker fans with a taste for fast-moving action have welcomed the launch of Pokerstars’ latest innovation, five-minute Sit-&-Go-style games branded Beat the Clock, in which 48 players start with 5,000 chips with blinds at 200/400 with an ante of 80 which increase every minute to a final level being 500/1,000 with a 200 ante.
Adding more excitement, the games are played in Zoom Poker format at four-max tables, with a five minute time constraint and pressure applied through audible time-limit sound effects.
Those players who are still standing at the end of the five minutes share the prize pool based on their final chip counts.
Pokerstars says that it is possible to win up to a million dollars in minutes in the new tourneys, and that Beat The Clock is just the latest in a series of innovative gaming concepts it is introducing to keep poker interesting.
Previous introductions have included the bounty-based Knockout Poker and the super-turbo Bubble Rush variant.