Twitch's PokerStars - Should You Be Watching These Streams?

Have you always wanted to be a poker player but never really knew how to get about doing it? While watching movies and other primetime television shows, more times than not, there was a group of guys having a poker night, and some even playing it online.

Ocean’s 11 or James Bond, the heroes of these shows knew how to play poker and racked in big always. Now with the big screen shows, their winning is scripted. So it would not make much sense trying to learn from them, but you can still emulate their success.

There are many platforms where you can learn the art of playing poker. In some cases, it is a gamble of luck, but in most, it requires skill, and the top poker players and famous gamblers have both going for them.

Twitch is a popular platform where you can follow some of the world’s more regular and best poker players.

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Wait, What Is Twitch?

With so many of us having made the shift to working from home, we have been exposed to more technology and social media platforms. Now you might have just gotten more used to your company’s communication platforms and maybe rediscovered your old Twitter account, and up comes Twitch.

Eeeerm Twitch is not Twitter? They are both social media platforms and are almost similar in spelling, but that is as far as it goes.

According to the company, “Twitch is where millions of people come together live everyday, to chat, interact and make their own entertainment together.” Twitch has gained many followers from the online gaming industry and the music industry. Twitch was launched in 2014 as a spin-off to Justin.tv, Amazon purchased it in 2015 and has been growing ever since.

In 2020, Twitch had over three million monthly broadcasters offering different content. It had close to 15 million active daily users. Twitch collaborated with gaming websites like Curse and service providers. By doing so, users of Twitch can buy games off links posted during streams, which has also created an additional source of revenue for content creators who get commission on sales.

Twitch’s huge following amongst the esports community and gaming community as a whole is why poker players have taken a liking to it.

PokerStars On Twitch

If you did not already know about PokerStars, we will shed some light on them now. The online cardroom has been around since 2001 where in December of that year, it began offering players real money wagering online.

PokerStars is responsible for some of the biggest names in poker history, including Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion and the first to qualify for an online poker site.

PokerStars has been an influencer in the online poker communities. It launched and has run the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) since 2002, and it also started the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) in 2009. The latter is slightly different to WCOOP as it offers three buy-ins. These buy-in stakes are Low, Medium, set at ten times the Low stake and High, which is 100 times that of the Low stake.

WCOOP is also regarded as the online equivalent of WSOP. It also has the largest online tournament prize money of $2,2 million won by Tyson “PotterPoker” Marks at the 2010 event. As of 2014, there were over 500,000 online tournaments hosted by PokerStars, and in a bid to increase its reach, it joined Twitch.

In their view, what better way to have players and non-players alike come together to enjoy the game and also to learn from it. And to kick off and grow the interest amongst its patrons, PokerStars has been giving away $215 daily to players who watch PokerStars streamers.

The promotion kickstarted during SCOOP 2020. PokerStars players had to link their PokerStars account to their Twitch account to be eligible for the promotion. Players also had to have their stream chat open as they watched a PokerStars streamer, with the goal being to allow players to experience their winning moments whilst watching poker content on Twitch.

Some of PokerStars’ brand ambassadors have incorporated Twitch into their play. For instance, Lex Veldhuis and Fintain Hand broadcast their SCOOP 2020 tournament. Veldhuis broke the Twitch record for most viewers for an online poker streamer with 580,000 concurrent viewers. For a brief period, his channel was number one on Twitch.

So To Twitch Or Not To Twitch

One of the greatest advantages technology has brought us is that we are able to interact more across the globe. If you are a poker player and have tried out PokerStars, you definitely want to watch the streamers.

Not only do you get to watch masters at work, but there are so many opportunities to learn from them. Many top poker players affiliated with PokerStars take part in the company’s poker school initiative, and some of these classes take place on Twitch.

Seeing as you are already online playing poker, you can always watch a prerecorded video on Twitch or a live stream to help you in your current game. The technology is there to help you; why not embrace it and also bag yourself a bonus with some of the many promotional incentives that PokerStars offers.