As part of their 10th anniversary celebration, PokerStars asked their sponsored players for our early memories of playing on the site. You can find out how I got started on PokerStars in my recent piece for the PokerStars blog:
PokerStars was the first place that seemed to be in it for the long term. They had clearly invested in their product and their personnel. As a result, it seemed to be where all the best players were playing, both those I recognized from TV and the legends of the online poker forums.
What do you remember about the early days of PokerStars? When and why did you start playing there?
Summer of 2003: I busted my first $25 bankroll on PartyPoker and wanted to try online poker again. I liked the fact that the board ran out a bit slower on Stars–I wanted to sweat my all-ins. A close friend and I used to swap some action on the $1-$3 huge-field NLHE tournaments and stay up late sweating each other and talking strategy. I was renting out a room in a frat house for $200/mo in New Haven. For a while this frat had a reputation as the “gay and/or Asian” fraternity. I am neither gay nor Asian, nor have I ever been a member of a frat, but it was a great place to spend a summer.
It was apparent that PokerStars knew some things about customer service–even stuff that now gets taken for granted, e.g. that running huge-field tournaments is a great way to get people excited about poker, even if you don’t collect much rake from the tournament itself. I remember the first months of the VIP system, and how exciting it was, and how it felt so much more legitimate and fun than the gray-area (or worse) rakeback deals that were one’s only option at other sites. It was also a great way to easily measure how many hands you’d put in, and to set volume goals, if you were into that sort of thing.
When $6/45-man and $11/45 tournaments were introduced, they were a great way to pump up one’s bankroll. Many other MTTSNG grinders have been better than me, but I think I was one of the first. In the spring of 2006, after I quit my job in Baltimore, I fondly remember grinding a few dozen SNGs and wandering around Charles Village, loving the city and wondering why the dog-poop-bag receptacles were positioned so high off the ground.
In the fall of 2004, PokerStars was The Place for high-stakes HU SNGs. I didn’t play them, but they were great to sweat. Whenever I see “teacuppoker” I remember that he was Yahtzem’s first opponent in a $5K HU.
I switched from Full Tilt to Stars to clear a PokerSavvy bonus a year ago. Reasons I stayed were the large player base & great software, and yeah, the reputation of the customer service was definitely a factor. In hind-sight I wonder if the somewhat shoddy customer service at Full Tilt was indicative of the deeper problems which emerged.