New World Record for PokerStars

An intriguing power battle took place last weekend when the world’s two most powerful online poker sites both competed for a place in the record books. It all started when Full Tilt Poker announced a few weeks ago that they would be attempting to set the new record for the world’s largest online poker tournament as part of their ongoing five-year anniversary celebrations. The current record had been set by the other online behemoth PokerStars back in December 2008 when they attracted an impressive 35,000 players to compete in a small buy-in MTT.

Full Tilt scheduled a $5 tournament, assuming that would be good enough to break the record. And it would have been if PokerStars hadn’t decided to retain their own record at all costs. In a direct challenge to their main rivals PokerStars organised a smaller $1 buy-in MTT for the very same day, starting an hour earlier.

Full Tilt’s offering was certainly successful in terms of turnout as 50,000 players shelled out for the tournament. To help encourage the numbers they added a huge $250k to the prize pool (equalling a $500k prize pool in total) but even that wasn’t enough to stop PokerStars who attracted 65,000 players to their own extravaganza – this time with just a $130k prize pool.

PokerStars retained their place in the Guinness Book of World Records and reminded everyone that they are the true power players in today’s online poker industry.