bwin Make The New Players Feel Like Winners

So much in the world of poker is aimed at the big players, the big hands and the big money prizes. This can come about for a variety of reasons but usually the more money you have at your disposal, the more chances you have of winning. This is the way of the world but sometimes there is the opportunity for the smaller player or novice to get the benefits that can make them feel on top of the world. bwin may have a massive reputation in European betting and gaming as well as being associated with some of the biggest names in football but the site is also able to look out for the smaller player too.

bwin Poker Rookie Challenge

An interesting opening bonus

The Rookie Challenge, as you would expect, is based around new players to the bwin website and goes further than the usual opening bonuses. The introductory bonuses for poker sites have become quite staid, usually offering a 100% bonus of your deposit amount and occasionally some freeroll incentive as well. This is not enough to differentiate a site from the many other sites offering similar incentives so there is a need for something else. Providing a tournament that pits newcomers up against each other is one way to make people feel as though they can become a winner early on in their time on a site.

5 stages to get through

The concept of the Rookie Challenge on bwin Poker consists of 5 separate stages with the players battling their way up from the bottom. Taking on opposition players in head to head matches gives you a chance to win money for nothing that can be used at a later date. A victory in a head to head match gives the victor 3 freeroll tickets and a further 3 tickets with a value of $1.20, which are able to be used at a later date in a real money poker tournament of the victors choosing. Building confidence and bankrolls on a site is crucial to becoming a regular winner and this is what the Rookie tournament helps players to do.

Each newcomer is rewarded with 10 free tournament tickets for the Rookie Challenge, which should give everyone a chance of victory in the Sit & Go tournament and then try to progress through the stages as quickly as possible.

bwin may be one of the biggest names in online poker but by looking out for the newcomer with their Rookie Challenge, they have shown they are able to look out for everyone in the world of poker.

bwin Poker Introduces New Double Or Quits Sit & Go Format

Double or Quits Sit & GosIn bwin Poker’s newest style of poker to be introduced into their online poker repertoire, half the players will win and half will lose.

The only question is, in which half will you be? Double or Quits is the name of the new game and as bwin Poker describes it, it’s basically a twist on the Double or Nothing style of tournament that has lately become so popular in live poker.

bwin Poker’s Double or Quits Tournaments are a Sit & Go style of tournament which means that they run around the clock, a new one beginning each time the requisite number of players (in this case, 10) is met.

The first difference between bwin Poker’s Double or Quits and your standard sit and go tournament is that in Double or Quits, the top 5 players are paid out. That’s half the playing field of each tournament walking away from the table in the money. It’s not even split according to placement in the top 5, but rather split equally amongst all 5 players, hence the “Double” in the name, because the top five double up and the bottom five bottom out.

From there, bwin Poker puts another spin on the structure and gives every player, that’s all 10 players, whether they made the top 5 or bottom 5, are permitted a rebuy within the first half hour (30 minutes) of the game. This gives players knocked out before making the top 5 another chance at doing so, and it rewards the other players by enriching the total prize pool to be split amongst half of them, hence the “Quits” in the name, as players have to choose early on whether to contribute double their investment into the pot for a 50/50 shot at winning it back or quit now.

The starting stack for Double or Quits Sit & Gos is 1,500, with blinds going up every 6 minutes. The original buy-in (and rebuy) is $6 (or $5 + $1), giving the top 5 finishers from each Double or Quits tournament a minimum of $12 back, but probably a whole lot more because, after all, who can resist a rebuy?

bwin Poker Holding Free Rookie Challenge

How good do you think you are at online poker? Not very good at all? Perfect! Then you’re just the kind of player bwin Poker is looking for to participate in the free Rookie Challenge.

In the bwin Poker Rookie Challenge beginners at online poker get the opportunity to square off against other online poker beginners. All you have to do to participate is be a new player at bwin Poker (sorry, existing players). As long as you don’t have an account yet at bwin Poker you’re golden. Just sign up and bwin Poker will automatically credit you with 10 tournament tickets into its Rookie Challenge.

The bwin Poker Rookie Challenge is comprised of 5 stages of Sit & Go tournaments, in which players begin at the bottom of the ladder and climb their way to the top to ultimately win tickets into real money events.

  • Rookie Challenge Stage 1 is a 10-player tournament with 1st place getting 3 tickets into Rookie Challenge Stage 2 and 2nd place getting 2 tickets into that event.
  • Rookie Challenge Stage 2 is also a 10-player event, which awards 1st place 2 tickets into Rookie Challenge Stage 3 and awards 2nd place 1 ticket into Rookie Challenge Stage 3.

From here, only the 1st place winner is awarded any prize. Rookie Challenge Stages 3 and 4 are both 5-player events with the winner of Rookie Challenge Stage 3 winning 3 tickets into the Stage 4 event, and the winner of Rookie Challenge Stage 4 winning 1 ticket into the Rookie Challenge Stage 5 heads-up final, in which the winner will be awarded 3 real money tickets worth $1.10 each that can be used at any bwin Poker tournament and 3 Rookie Challenge Freeroll tickets.

The bwin Poker Rookie Challenge Freeroll has a $300 guaranteed prize pool. In addition to winning tickets through the Rookie Challenge, you can also get your first 14 tickets into the bwin Poker Rookie Challenge Freeroll by making your first deposit into a real money account at the site, and then earning just one bwin Poker point.

Win WPT France Seats At bwin Poker

bwin Poker is holding satellite tournaments awarding as their grand prizes free entries into the 2010 World Poker Tour’s France stop, better known as the WPT Amneville.

Get into the World Poker Tour action just in time for Season 9 of the WPT to start its second half. You can sit in alongside some of France’s finest poker players by winning one of the $8,500 WPT France Packages that bwin Poker is offering up for grabs through its WPT Amneville satellite tournament series.

The Season 9 WPT Amneville satellite series starts out with daily qualifiers, both of the freeroll and cash qualifier (or “Regular Qualifier”) variety. Let’s now follow both paths to WPT Amneville glory.

WPT France Freeroll

Would-be freeroll entrants need only collect a single Player Point and redeem it for entry into one of bwin Poker’s WPT France Freeroll Qualifiers by using the claim code “FRANCE”. Players can do this 7 times, entering the WPT Amneville Freeroll seven times before having to take their subsequent shots at a WPT France prize package through the regular qualifier path.

The WPT France Freeroll Qualifiers take place August 21 – October 2, every Saturday at 20:00 GMT + 1. And the WPT France Freeroll that these qualifiers lead into takes place on October 9 at 20:00 GMT + 1. At this event, 2 prize packages will be awarded into the WPT France 2010.

Live Event Qualifiers at bwin Poker

As for the cash qualifier path, players can enter Daily Live Event Qualifiers at bwin Poker, August 15 – October 10, which lead into the $17,000 WPT France Finals held every Sunday between August 22 and October 10 at 20:00 GMT + 1, so called because at each event, two $8,500 WPT France 2010 prize packages will be awarded.

Travel dates for the WPT France are November 1 – 7. Each prize package includes the $4,500 main event buy-in, $2,700 for hotel accommodations, and $1,300 to use toward flights and other expenses.

bwin Poker Hosting 5th Grand Series Of Poker And Mini Grand Series Of Poker

Grand Series of Poker 5bwin Poker has announced the 5th installment of its beloved Grand Series of Poker, along with the lower stakes but equally anticipated Mini Grand Series of Poker.

The GSOP 5 is a 15-day long online poker marathon with a total guaranteed prize pool up for grabs of $2.5 million. Of the 15 main events in the bwin Poker Grand Series of Poker 5 is the Grand Slam, a deepstack event boasting a guaranteed prize pool of $300,000.

bwin Poker is now hosting a wide range of Daily Qualifiers and Last Chance Qualifiers for the various main events in GSOP 5 with separate Grand Slam Qualifiers and Leaderboard Qualifiers (also for the Grand Slam deepstack tournament).

In terms of the leaderboard, bwin Poker will be tracking players’ progress throughout the event, and the player who earns the most points calculated by a careful formula gets a free Grand Slam ticket. The remaining top 100 players get to compete against each other in one of 3 Grand Slam Leaderboard qualifiers on October 9, at each one the winner receiving a seat in the Grand Slam.

The 15 GSOP 5 main events run from September 19 to October 3, with the Grand Slam taking place October 10 for a direct buy-in of $5,000.

Mini Grand Series of Poker 5

The Mini GSOP 5 is, just as it sounds, a miniature version of the GSOP, with lower cost buy-ins and smaller prize pools. The Grand Slam Mini deepstack event, for example, has a guaranteed prize pool of $30,000.

There are qualifiers into the GSOP Mini just as there are for the regular GSOP, including a separate leaderboard tracking players’ progress for one of four Grand Slam Mini tickets being awarded that way. The direct buy-in for the Grand Slam Mini is $525.

The GSOP 5 Grand Slam starts at 20:00 GMT and the Mini GSOP 5 Grand Slam Mini starts at 20:00 (GMT + 1), or 21:00 GMT.

bwin Poker B’inside Tournaments – Points For Buy-in, Cash And More Points For Prizes

bwin Poker B'Inside TournamentsB’Inside is the name of the bwin Poker VIP Club (or player rewards programme). The currency that bwin Poker uses in this program are called Market Points. And one of the great benefits of earning Market Points at bwin Poker is all the exclusive online poker tournaments with real money prizes (and big ones too) that you can gain entry to. Prizes for B’Inside Tournaments also include additional Market Points. Collectively, B’Inside Tournaments award a guaranteed $55,000 every month and 10 million Market Points every 2 months.

Buy-ins and other eligibility requirements for various B’Inside Tournaments vary based on a player’s status level in the B’Inside programme, but regardless of status level, these events have Market Points buy-ins only. No cash buy-ins available. Green level is the lowest status level and has access to the least number of big money B’Inside Tournaments. Then comes White level, which has access to all the B’Inside Tournaments with cash awards but not the 10 million Market Points event, which is only available to Yellow level members, the highest level in the B’Inside program.

The B’Inside Tournaments currently running are as follows:

  • Daily $500 GTD
  • Weekly $5,000 Qualifier (every Sunday)
  • Weekly $5,000 GTD (every Sunday)
  • Monthly $20,000 Qualifier (last Sunday of each month)
  • Monthly $20,000 GTD (last Sunday of each month)
  • Bi-monthly 10 million Market Points (3rd Sunday, every other month)

bwin Poker recommends you boost your bankroll by availing yourself of the sundry poker bonuses the B’Inside programme makes available to you. Just buy in to any of the B’Inside Tournaments, trade your Market Points in for poker chips, and get a bonus.

For example, redeem 6,000 Market Points for poker chips into a B’Inside Tournament, and get $5 as a bonus. You just have to collect 40 Poker Points while playing at bwin Poker in order to activate or “clear” your bonus. Bonus amounts tend to vary depending on the player’s status level, with the highest bonus available at $500 (for Yellow players who redeem 200,000 Market Points, then needing to collect only 4,000 Poker Points to clear it).

Essence, The New bwin Poker Rake Scheme

bwin Poker has recently introduced a new rake scheme, along with its parent network, the OnGame Network, that went into effect as of July 15, 2010. It’s called Essence, and this is the … well, essence of it:

The official bwin Poker word on Essence, as revealed in a memo issued to its Affiliate Partners, is that it is an improved algorithm designed in such a way that “the player’s overall contribution to the poker ecology becomes a major component to its healthy balance.”

Ordinarily a poker site (or land-based poker room) will have a set rake that the house takes out of any pot (often limiting it only to pots where a flop is dealt). That rake is typically determined by the size of the pot, the number of players dealt cards in the hand, and the table stakes. It’s how the house pays itself.

But with bwin Poker’s new rake scheme, certain new, additional factors will be taken into account in an effort to more fairly personalise the rake requirement on each player.

The Essence rake scheme will take into account each given player’s playing style, their contribution to the pot, their skill level, the effects each player has on all the others over the long term. In this way, bwin Poker hopes to define each player’s value to the site. That value, determined over the past 90-days performance, will be converted into a numerical coefficient that will allow bwin Poker to distribute the rake obligation of players more equitably. At the end of each pot, the rake contributed by each player will no longer necessarily be divided equally. It may be, but if factors are diverse enough among players at the same table, different layers will pay a different rake.

The existing rake scheme for tournaments (which is really just the fee tacked on after the plus sign “+” in a tournament buy-in), will remain unaffected and unchanged by the new Essence guidelines. As will the existing bwin Poker Points system. The new bwin Poker Essence rake scheme only affects cash games at the site (and those of other OnGame Network Poker sites).

Read our detailed info about the bwin Poker Bonus on how this will affect clearing the poker bonus.

Let bwin Poker Take You To The Partouche Poker Tour

Partouche Poker Tourbwin Poker is now hosting online satellite tournaments awarding as their top prize a package that includes a free seat in the upcoming Partouche Poker Tour Final in Cannes, France.

The Partouche Poker Tour Final will be taking place between August 29th and September 8th at the Palm Beach Resort in Cannes. The event boasts a guaranteed prize pool of EUR 3 million. The playing field will no doubt include the gamut of players from starry-eyed amateurs to the poker pros themselves, including members of the bwin Poker Team.

bwin Poker is offering its members two different ways to win free seats in this main event: the $15,000 Partouche Finals and the $160,000 Partouche Final.

The $15,000 Partouche Finals will be taking place each Sunday at bwin Poker at 20:00 GMT. At each of these events, at least one Partouche Poker Tour Final prize package is guaranteed to be awarded. These events have a $300 + $20 direct buy-in, although satellite tournaments are running at a rate of twenty per day qualifying players for this event for buy-ins as little as $2. The first of these events took place on the 4th of July. The last of these is scheduled for August 15, 2010.

The $160,000 Partouche Final will be the pinnacle of this promotion at bwin Poker, a 10-package guaranteed event, meaning that at least 10 players in the event will win Partouche Poker Tour Final prize packages. What’s more, $10,000 in cash prizes will also be awarded to the runners-up in this event. Satellites qualifying players for the $160,000 Partouche Final start with buy-ins as little as $1.

The prize packages into the Partouche Poker Tour Final include the $10,500 buy-in into the main event plus $1,300 spending cash, and accommodations at hotel 3.14 for the dates of the event.

bwin Poker Introduces New Snowball Sit & Go And Super Secret Poker Freeroll

bwin Poker SnowballA way to stay icy cool on a hot summer day, bwin Poker’s new Snowball Sit & Gos create an avalanche-like snowball effect from the first deal to the last, meaning it doesn’t take very much time at all from start to finish, and at the climactic end the results are near-catastrophic (for one of the player’s at least)!

In bwin Poker’s new Snowball Sit & Go tournaments the blinds increase slowly at first, only to pick up pace as the game progresses. Specifically, the blinds make start out increasing every 10 minutes, but then go up progressively quicker each time, next coming every 8 minutes, then every 6, every 4, every 2, and at last, when the snowball effect is at its most ginormous (that’s gigantic + enormous), they increase every minute.

It won’t take long for many of the players in these 10-seater sit & go tournaments to dwindle their 1,500 starting chip stack down to nothing. The top three positions get paid out in these events.

bwin Poker’s Snowball Sit & Go tournaments are available at the following buy-in levels: $1 + $0.20; $5 + $0.50; $10 + $1; $20 + $2.

Super Secret Poker Freeroll

Also happening now at bwin Poker is the Super Secret Poker Freeroll, a chance to win cash prizes in a special freeroll tournament with only one entry requirement: a password, hence the “super secret”. In order to find out these super secret password you need only listen to the bwin Poker podcast or read the bwin Poker blog.

For an example, at the time of this writing, July 14, 2010, there is a YouTube video on the bwin Poker Blog (which means it’s also on YouTube, so we implemented it into this article) called the “World Series of Poker 2010 Secret Freeroll July 13th, 2010”. If you watch the video you’ll see the password for today’s Super Secret Poker Freeroll and you’ll learn where, when, and how to use that password to enter.

bwin Poker Champion Chip Promo Offers $150k Weekly

bwin Poker Champion Chipbwin Poker offers players a variety of fun and wacky ways to win large sums of money for little investment. One of them, bwin Poker’s ongoing Champion Chip promotion, gives players the chance to win a share of $150,000 weekly guaranteed.

There are several ways players can try to win bwin Poker’s weekly Champion Chip promotion: via Sit & Gos, Scheduled Tournaments, Special Tournaments, and Direct Buy-in.

You might as well want to read a previous article we have published about bwin Poker’s Champion Chip promotion, where you can read some more detailed about the tournaments’ structures, back then still a $250K guaranteed tournament.

Champion Chip Sit & Gos

The Sit & Go route is the most complex, with three choices of entry points: Step Qualifiers, Champion Chip Qualifiers, or Championship Turbo Qualifiers.

Step 1 Qualifiers cost $0.90 + $0.10 to enter and seed players into choice of two Step 2 Qualifiers, one with a direct buy-in of $5.40 + $0.60 and a Shorthanded version for the same price. These seed, respectively into a $23 + $2 Step 3 Champion Chip Qualifier or a $40 + $3 Shorthanded version which in turn seed players into the actual $190 + $10 Sunday Champion Chip Final for the $150K guaranteed prize pool.

Champion Chip Sit & Go Qualifiers and Turbo Qualifiers seed directly into the Champion Chip final for players choice of $10 + $1, $20 + $2, or $30 + $3 buy-in.

Champion Chip Satellites and Special Tournaments

Scheduled Satellites also seed directly into the bwin Poker Champion Chip Final for player’s choice of a range of buy-ins: $2 + $0.20, $3 + $0.30, $5 + $0.50, $10 + $1, $20 + $2, and $30 + $3.

Special Tournaments earn players chips into the bwin Poker Champion Chip Final include a variety of Mad Tilt Tournaments (in which every hand is All-In), Turbo Tournaments (in which the blinds go up every 3 minutes), and Rebuy Tournaments (which give players the chance to chase chips even faster).

Champion Chip Direct Buy-in

And of course, if you want to skip all the preliminaries and go straight to the $150,000 guaranteed main event, just pony up the $200 buy-in for the Champion Chip Final any given Sunday at 18:00 (GMT + 1) at bwin Poker.