Bigger Deal

Pulchritudinous, poker-savvy Victoria Coren will turn thirty-something (we’re too polite to ask) on Tuesday 19 August. So we have decided to celebrate her birthday in the name of our monthly tournament.

As you can see from the panel at the top of our home page, VCoren is the (case-sensitive) password for the first in a new series of BiggerDeal.com’s Tuesday Night Games on PokerStars.com, starting at 8pm (UK time) that evening.

After an unavoidable four-month gap, for which we apologise, our monthly freeze-out is back - and we will be boosting the prize-pool by $1,000 each month.

Vicky C is being a bit coy about whether she herself will be able to play this month; Tuesday is the night of her own home game (as it was of mine for 30-some years), and it’s also her birthday…. so, hey, anything could happen.

With or without her, however, we will be hoping that the hundreds of you who have regularly joined us in the past will be returning to the fray. I’m delighted to see that the legendary Dr Pauly of New York has already signed up!

I will embarrass myself, as usual, by playing under my own name, as will other bloggers from this site. And the entry fee is no more than the equivalent of a fiver!  So hurry, hurry while seats last. The entry fee for the tourney is $10. It’s a No-Limit Hold’em freezeout; the blinds start at $10-20 and increase at a stately pace, with occasional five-minute breaks, and we generally reach the final table (all of whom will receive signed copies of Bigger Deal) around midnight, wrapping it up by 1 a.m. or so (GMT).

Ten percent of starters get into the money, and there is a really good atmosphere throughout. Much friendlier than most such tournaments, with a good deal of merriment in the chat boxes, usually at my expense. There is also a $50 bounty for the lucky (by definition) players who knock out me and Al ‘The Croney’ Alvarez.

To play, you first have to download the PokerStars.com software onto your laptop, PC or Mac. If you don’t already have it then it is easily obtained via the tourney panel at the top of our home page, or by visiting the Bigger Deal Download page  and clicking on FREE POKER DOWNLOAD.   Then you must open an account (if you don’t already have one), and deposit a few dollars – a minimum of $11 to enter the tournament.

To register for The Tuesday Night Game tournament, just log in to PokerStars.com and up the top of its home, or ‘lobby’ page, click on the green button reading TOURNEY. Seven options appear across the top under the ‘Tourney’ button; click the one at the right reading PRIVATE, then scroll down to Aug 19th at 1500 (because it’s listed as EST) and double-click on ‘The Tuesday Night Game’.   Click register and you will be asked for the password, which this month is VCoren (all one word, case sensitive). Entry closes one minute before the tournament is due to begin.

It’s important to note that the password changes each month, for each event, and this will always be displayed on the banner at the top middle of our home page.

Go get ’em / us !  

And see you at the final table !