PokerStars Introduces “Battle of the Planets”

Intergalactic space travelers, prepare yourselves: leading online poker site PokerStars announced this week that they will be launching a new sit-and-go (SNG) tournament leader board concept named “Battle of the Planets”. Participants are highly recommended to come prepared with their best light sabers and space suits because “Battle of the Planets” will pay out over $3,000,000 this year.

Each of the eight divisions that will be available will be named after one of our solar system’s planets in order of increasing size. The separate divisions will break up the participants in terms of skill level, making for competitive action at all levels. For example, the Mercury division will govern all SNGs with buy-ins from $1-$2.99. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, will only host players who can cough up the cash for buy-ins at $300 and up.

This innovate tournament set-up will split winners into “low orbit” and “high orbit” brackets. These will separate the players into both moderate and high levels of SNG participation. The way this will work is as follows: a qualifying group of tournaments in any level’s “low” orbit bracket would consist of 20 tournaments and each of these would be followed be followed by another block of 20 tournaments. Each block is counted separately for qualifying purposes. Following a similar design, the “high orbit” brackets are to be computed based on 100 SNG blocks as opposed to twenty, thereby requiring a higher level of participation to qualify.

Qualifying SNGs will contain fewer than 40 players. Points will, more or less, be awarded for the money spots. The tournament will be going on all week, every week with specific buy-in levels and the total payouts for each level as follows:
Division ● SNG Buy-in ● Low Orbit Prize Pool ● High Orbit Prize Pool
Mercury ● $1-$2.99 ● $1,500 ● $1,500
Mars ● $3-$4.99 ● $2,000 ● $2,000
Venus ● $5-$9.99 ● $2,500 ● $2,500
Earth ● $10-$19.99 ● $3,000 ● $3,000
Neptune ● $20-$49.99 ● $3,500 ● $3,500
Uranus ● $50-$99.99 ● $4,000 ● $4,000
Saturn ● $100-$299.99 ● $4,500 ● $4,500
Jupiter ● $300+ ● $5,000 ● $5,000  

In addition to the prizes that will already be available on “Battle of the Planets”, the top ten players from each division will be awarded free entry into a PokerStars freeroll tournament with $50,000 in prize money up for grabs in a triple shootout format.