PokerStars History

2007: Introducing the Supernova Elite

In January, the fourth PCA was held at the Atlantis Resort and Casino. The Main Event featured 937 players creating a prize pool of over $7 million. The first prize of over $1.5 million was won by Ryan Daut, who defeated future PokerStars Team Online member Isaac Haxton heads-up. In March, the one-year anniversary of the Sunday Million tournament saw 10,508 players create a prize pool of over $2.1 million. It was won by Danish player ‘Zeddor’, who took home $271,106.

Ten Billion Hands and Supernova Elites

In May, almost exactly a year after dealing its five billionth hand, PokerStars dealt its 10 billionth hand, which ‘JUSTINE0003’ won for $100,000. In the same month, PokerStars introduced a new VIP level called ‘Supernova Elite’, which required a player to earn one million VIP Player Points (VPPs). The first person to reach Supernova Elite was Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, followed just two weeks later by ‘BigJoe2003’.

Soon after, PokerStars donated $1 million to the Darfur charity Not on Our Watch, which was sponsored by the stars of the Oceans 13 movie, and in June, Canadian poker pro Daniel Negreanu joined Team PokerStars Pro. He would eventually become the top spokesman for the company.

In July, the Sunday Hundred Grand set a record for the largest real money poker tournament field with 20,000 players. The tournament was won by ‘Lynna1’ from the US, who took home $20,000.

In August, PokerStars launched the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) with four events (Manila, Seoul, Macau, and Sydney).

Also in August, PokerStars added multi-language support to its software client. By the end of the year, 14 languages were supported.

PokerStars Record Breakers

In September, the 2007 WCOOP featured 23 events, including short-handed tournaments for the first time. The total prize pool was $24,218,600 and more than 40,000 players from 107 countries participated. The Main Event had 2,998 and a prize pool of $7,495,000. The event was won by ‘ka$ino’, who took home a first prize of $1,378,330 - the first ever $1 million prize in WCOOP history.

In December, PokerStars had 150,000 players on the site simultaneously for the first time and released a native software client for the Apple Mac.