March 23 2011, Barry Carter

Qualification for the next PokerNews $15,000 Sunday Million Freeroll on PokerStars ends soon. To qualify, all you need to do is download PokerStars, and when signing up, use the marketing code POKERNEWS.COM. Then you need to earn 75 VPPs during March and you’ll be eligible to play in the $15,000 Sunday Million Freeroll in April.

The next $15,000 Sunday Million Freeroll series from PokerNews and PokerStars kicks off April 10 at 14:35 EST.

The Payout

1st: $1,000
2nd: $750
3rd: $600
4th: $450
5th – 50th: $215 Sunday Million Ticket
51th – 260th: $11 Sunday 1/4 Million Ticket

To play in the series, all you need to do is download PokerStars via PokerNews, register a new account using our marketing code, POKERNEWS.COM, and earn 75 VPPs before the end of March. Existing PokerNews-referred PokerStars account holders are also welcome to play, as long as they achieve the VPP target.

Although 75 VPPs may seem like a lot, this turns out to be less than $13 in rake paid. That’s the equivalent of about 250 hands for a $1/$2 limit hold’em player, less than 400 hands for a $0.25/$0.50 no-limit hold’em player, or 13 $11 SNGs.

So download PokerStars today and earn 75 VPPs before it’s too late!

If you experience any problems with this or any of our promotions, please contact our Ticketed Promo Support System.

March 22 2011, Chris Hall

Day 2 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour Snowfest began with 268 players out of the initial 482 who entered. By the end of the day, the field was cut to 81 players, nine places away from being in the money.

Phillip Meulyzer finished the day with the chip lead, bagging 623,500 in chips. Meulyzer overtook the top spot on the chip leaderboard largely in part to a hand he played against Markus Golser. The two had been sparring throughout the opening levels of Day 2 and it all came to a head, on a board reading . Golser moved all in over Meulyzer’s check-raise. Meulyzer called instantly and tabled for the nut flush, leaving Golser and his pocket queens drawing dead. The river was the and Golser was eliminated, while Meulyzer took over the chip lead.

Eight former EPT champions made Day 2. Of the eight, Kevin Stani, Kevin MacPhee, Liv Boeree, Salvatore Bonavena, Anton Wigg, and Max Lykov all made swift exits early in the day. EPT Copenhagen winner, Michael Tureniec continued his ascent of the chip leaderboard. He spent much of the early half of the day battling and playing several large pots against Yann Dion. Tureniec finally prevailed when his queens won a classic coin flip against Dion’s ace-king. That win put Tureniec among the chip leaders, but by the end of the day, he had fallen a bit, and goes into Day 3 in the twelfth spot on the chip leaderboard.

The only other former EPT winner left in the field, Sebastian Ruthenberg, also managed to make it through to Day 3, but with a much shorter stack than Tureniec. Other notables to make it through Day 2 include Cristian Dragomir, James Keys, Martins Adeniya, Vladimir Geshkenbein, and last year’s Snowfest runner-up, Russell Carson.

Team PokerStars is still well represented going into Day 3 with Team SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo, and Team Pros Alex Kravchenko and Luca Pagano all bagging chips at the end of Day 2.

Day 3 resumes at 2:00 p.m. local time on Wednesday, and will end when 24 players remain. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there covering all the action, so keep it locked to the Live Reporting Page for more.

Below is Laura Cornelius with an update from the start of Day 2.

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