As an America, we've been banned on Stars for a full decade now (sigh)
But about 4 years ago or so, we were allowed back onto the site, but only on the play chip side of things.
Luckily for me, I've never played poker to win money. I play poker because I love to play poker.
Also luckily for me,
poker stars had graciously kept the 11 million play chips in my account, they were still there waiting for me! I guess prior to 2011 I had worked the free 10,000 chips they give you all the way up to 11M. It was a good starting
bankroll, and I set my goal to work it up to 1 billion chips, which at that time was a very difficult goal to reach due to lower buyin levels at that time. The tournaments were smaller prize pools. Today they are huge but back then they weren't and reaching 1 billion play chips was a huge achievement - in fact, Poker Star even had what they called the "Billionaire Club" if I recall correctly. Anyone reaching 1B chips would be invited in. That was my goal.
A few years later I had progressed but was still grinding up thru the 100's of millions... finally, one day, I won a tournament and went over 1B. I literally threw myself a small party. LOL For me, it felt just like I had won the
wsop Main Event, I had achieved my goal and felt great about dedicating myself to that goal.
However, in those years, things had changed on Stars. For the better! But now having 1B chips wasn't such an achievement, in fact by the time I got there, Stars had already closed the Billionaire Club...
Now I play at the highest level possible, today is the bi-weekly 5B tournament (5 billion chip entry fee), and even tho my 40B chip bankroll is not exactly large enough to handle the swings of 5B tourneys... so what? LOL I'm a play chip baller now, and this is how I practice taking excessive risk for future reference. I realize its poor bankroll management to enter one tournament for 12.5% of my entire bankroll (2% is probably a good idea for a maximum in
real money play), but I have enjoyed my time on Stars immensely these past four years or so, I am extremely thankful we can at least use the play chip side... and thus I like to support them by participating in the big tournaments and help to increase the field sizes.
Over the past four years, the play chip side of Poker Stars has grown into its own community, we all know each other, first names anyways, and it is a wonderful crowd of poker lovers there. As I like to say, everyone on Stars play chips is there for all the right reasons, and none of the wrong ones.
They're there because they love poker, not because they love money... and in my opinion, that is a good winning formula.
I HIGHLY recommend Poker Stars to anyone, even if they only wish to use the play chip side. There's no better software in the entire poker world, Stars will always be #1 in my book.
