Just a few weeks after launching, PokerStars MI, the first regulated online poker room in Michigan, has been rolling out niche variants 8-Game and HORSE for the first time.
It spread a few events during its inaugural MICOOP tournament series, and now has them available on the regular weekly schedule.
For almost 20 years, PokerStars has been the vanguard of online poker innovation, Offering more games, in more formats than any of its rivals. It is constantly tweaking and refining how the digital variety of the game is played.
The Michigan online poker story is still in its early chapters, with PokerStars launching the Great Lake’s first poker room on January 29 this year. It now has its first competition, with BetMGM MI Poker going live on Monday.
Stars MI is showing determination to offer its clientele something more than just the run-of-the-mill poker variants. For poker players who enjoy something other than Texas Hold’em, this comes as particularly good news.
- For more than a decade, PokerStars has led the industry with the best software, largest player pools and safest environment to play
- Great Welcome package: $50 worth of Spin & Go and MTT tickets as soon as you play a single cash hand
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STARS600 - Home of the Sunday Special, MICOOP, Spin & Gos and more
Early Signs Suggest Plenty of Interest
Barely three weeks after it went live, PokerStars MI offered players their first chance to play Mixed Games. Stars ran its first Mixed Game tournament on February 22. There was little fuss or fanfare and the poker room rolled out the new format gradually in order to ensure confidence in the games and to be certain that player liquidity in such a nascent ecosystem was sufficient to support these variants.
If this was something of an experiment, then it looks to have been a success. PokerStars added HORSE and 8-Game events to its inaugural Michigan Championship of Online Poker (MICOOP) tournament series later in the month and has been running mixed game tournaments on an almost daily basis since. On top of this, it is now offering mixed games at its cash tables as well.
The MICOOP series was a great success—and the mixed games were no exception. PokerStars MI ran two mixed game events during the series: Event 26 was a $50 HORSE Tournament, and Event 50 was $50 8-Game. Both tournaments easily met their guarantees, with the HORSE event more than doubling it. Over 270 runners took part in each event, resulting in a first prize of $2,413 in the HORSE and $2,389 up top in the 8-Game.
Stars also runs mixed games in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which suggests the operator is committed to offering them on a long-term basis. And with Michigan recently passing a bill to allow interstate online poker, the ability to pool players looks increasingly likely in the not-too-distant future. The bigger fields and increased prize pools that would result from this means the future of mixed games is looking very rosy.
Draw Games Also Now Running
Alongside its mixed offerings, PokerStars has also started to roll out Draw games. So, if you do play a bit of 8-game and fall in love with the madness of 2-7 Triple Draw, you can now play that game in its stand-alone version. Or if you are feeling really old-school and want to play poker like cowboys do in the movies, you can even try your hand at 5-Card Draw.
Of course, It is worth remembering that you do not have to risk any money while learning these new breeds of poker. PokerStars runs all the above variants at its play money tables. So, if you want to try any new game, completely risk-free, that option is always open to you.
Mixed games offer the perfect environment to explore new flavors of poker. And the variety and action on offer will remind you why you fell in love with poker in the first place. So why not jump in and give something new a try? As we say in my local Dealers’ Choice game: two cards are fun—but more cards are funner.
