Poker Players Score $51,000 in Presents as The Beast Turns One | IXGAMES

(Press Release) San Jose, Costa Rica – August 1, 2013 – It looks like August’s Beast leaderboard prize is just icing on the cake. Popular online poker site Americas Cardroom today announced that it’s giving away an extra $51,000 in celebration of The Beast’s 1-year birthday. The $51,000 is being handed out through daily and weekly leaderboard competitions in August. “It’s The Beast’s birthday, but the gifts are reserved exclusively for our players,” stated Americas Cardroom spokesperson Michael Harris. “Over the last year, The Beast has handed out nearly $2 million in leaderboard prizes. It’s the biggest, most successful points race in online poker history and this month it’s shaping up to be bigger than ever.” The Beast is Americas Cardroom’s progressive points race that’s funded entirely through the poker site’s jackpot tables, using players’ shared jackpot contribution money. At the end of each month, the prize pool in The Beast is distributed to players who rank on The Beast leaderboard. Anyone who sits down at a cash table marked Jackpot automatically becomes part of The Beast competition by earning points through participation in a raked hand. For the month of August, Americas Cardroom is adding 35 additional leaderboard competitions, on top of the already popular monthly competition. The 35 competitions come in the form of 31 separate $1,000 daily leaderboard competitions and 4 weekly $5,000 competitions. The daily and weekly leaderboards are not cumulative, so everyone has a shot at winning. Each daily leaderboard resets at midnight to give all players a fresh start. The weekly leaderboards run from August 1-9, August 10-16, August 17-23, and August 24-31. Each leaderboard resets at midnight each start date. To participate in these leaderboards Americas Cardroom players will have to sit down at the different Beast Jackpot Tables and accumulate regular beast points, just as if they were participating in the regular monthly Beast promotion. The Beast has been wildly profitable for hardcore grinders. The US online poker community is likely familiar with the name MamaCoolJ, an online poker grinder who has profited immensely from playing The Beast. From November 2012 through May 2013, MamaCoolJ took the top spot on The Beast monthly leaderboard, earning $85,000 in extra cash along the way, plus six separate tournament seats. But it’s not just grinders who can profit in a major way. The Beast uses the contributed method of earning to calculate leaderboard points. This means that anyone who contributes to the pot will receive equal share of the points awarded for the hand, no matter how much they contributed.