It's the weekend with plenty going on in the world of PokerStars. Here's your to-do list...

To play

A full card of weekend majors ahead, topped off as usual by the Sunday Warm-up and Sunday Million, which will take the edge of at least one player's Monday morning. You'll find all the details you need in the PokerStars Lobby, and how to qualify for a fraction of the price.

Plus there's some extra motivation to log in this weekend, or to open a PokerStars account if you don't already have one (which you can do here), for anyone with a fondness for high stakes poker, in a luxury resort, somewhere warmer that wherever you are right now.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Mega satellite is this Sunday, starting at 13.05 ET. There are 25 seats guaranteed with what is effectively a $700 price tag. But then even that prize can be slashed with entry via one of the feeder satellites, with entry from as little as a dollar. A great opportunity also for anyone who loves air conditioning.

To read

Among the posts on the blog this week was this one from PokerSchool Online. They'll be twitching later today (more on that below), but this was a great piece for anyone feeling philosophical about their poker life and their real life. Read it, go "huh, how about that", and then tune in.

Read the full piece here.

To hear

It's podcast time again. We'll let the team explain what's in store this week...

"Although bad weather delayed their flight, James and Joe are back from Malta. They recap the last few days of the festival, including an in-depth review of the world's best buffet. A young, up-and-coming poker player called Mickey Petersen joins the boys in the studio to compete in this week's edition of 'Superfan vs Stapes'. Asking the questions: Matt Broughton, making his second consecutive guest appearance on the podcast. Ronnie Bardah is on board for the TV Recap, talking about his beat-boxing, flirty antics in the latest episode of 'Shark Cage'. And there's a spoiler-filled review of the new James Bond movie SPECTRE. This is the last item in the show, so skip it if you're not interested, or haven't seen the film yet and don't want your cinematic experience ruined by two pseudo critics!"

#EPTNotLive

Listen to the show on your link of choice below:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/ept-not-live/id970248920?mt=2
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ept-not-live
https://www.pokerstars.com/ept/podcast/
https://www.pokerstars.eu/ept/podcast/
https://www.pokerstars.uk/ept/podcast/

To watch

Over on PokerStars.tv you can find the latest episode from Season 2 of Shark Cage. Expect Isaac Haxton, Theo Jorgensen and pink drinks:

To learn

About that Twitch thing we mentioned. Team Online are at it again later today, this time on the subject of Spin & Go's. The man answering the questions (and hopefully showing how it's done) is Andre Coimbra, who'll will shed some light on how to make the most of them. Thought it was all about the spin at the start? Let Andre persuade you otherwise.

You can watch it all here.

To reminisce

A week ago this weekend we were enjoying the closing stages of the EPT Malta festival, whether that was bracing the stormy weather outside the Portomaso Casino, or online, watching live coverage on EPT Live and the PokerStars Blog.

The Main Event was won by Niall Farrell, a British Pro on top of his game. Read the report of his win here, while you can start from the very beginning on our festival coverage page, which has details of all the winners from the side events, and the €10K High Roller.
Happy days.

To get a little perspective

This week PokerStars announced Helping Hands, it's corporate giving partner, was renewing relationship with Right to Play, a global organisation that uses the educational power of sports, games, and play to provide disadvantaged children and young people in over 20 countries around the world with learning, health and social skills to overcome the effects of poverty, disease and war.

As this article explains, the partnership provides an additional donation of £300,000 (US $464,267) which will go towards training another 2,500 volunteer coaches throughout the world, allowing the charity to help transform the lives on another 400,000 children and young people.

This video will tell you more...

To look forward to

As the EPT Malta festival ends, action in Asia begins with the Asia Championship of Poker Main Event. The prize pool is a guaranteed HK$!5,000,000 (US$1.9 million) and it runs from Monday November 9 to 14 at PokerStars LIVE Macau. What's more among those taking part in the HK $100,000 buy-in event is Team PokerStars SportStar Ronaldo Nazario, on his first visit to Macau. Read what he had to say here, while you can find details of the ACOP schedule here.

All that's left to say is good luck at the tables this weekend. Tell us all about it on Twitter @PokerStarsBlog

Ready to sign up for PokerStars? Click here to get an account.

Do you like air conditioning? Then you're going to love the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Quite frankly we've devised a 104 event schedule that should mean you'll never step foot outside the luxury Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island. No need to feel the same in your toes, the sea at your feet, or the sweet taste of those intoxicating pink drinks that make everyone adopted children of Bahama Mama.

Air conditioning as far as the eye can see

We know it's the same story when we talk PCA. So in order to appeal to everyone we're highlighting a few of the benefits not spoken of, that we think will appeal to the dedicated poker player. So let's forget the weather for a second.

Free air-conditioning: That's right. Wherever you go in the Atlantis Resort, including the tournament room you'll be washed in Frigidaire. No sweat and sun burn for you.

Access to complimentary water fountains: You'll never go thirsty. And being positioned at various spots around the tournament room, you're never more than a shuffle away from a refreshing sip of water.

A starting stack: All entrants to any of the 104 events at the PCA, which runs from 6-14 January 2016, will receive a free pile of chips with which to play. Leave yours at home, we've got it covered.

Cards and dealers: They'll take care of everything.

What's the easiest way to get to the PokerStars Conditioned Air (PCA) Festival? By winning your seat in a satellite of course, we have just the PCA Mega satellite coming up this weekend.

Starting this Sunday November 8, at 13:05 ET, PokerStars will host a massive $700 PCA satellite guaranteeing 25 packages. That's 25 people with something to celebrate on Monday morning, and a tan (or a lack of one) to explain in late January.

What's more you can get in on this for as little as $1 in any of the feeder satellites currently taking place on PokerStars. You'll find them in the lobby, but start now to book your place.

Seriously, while we may have run out of original ways to say how much we look forward to the PCA, how big it will be, and what kind of time you can expect when you get there, it's only because we've looked into the hot, sweaty, dehydrated eyes of those who can't make it.

For everything else, including more plausible reasons to win your seat to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, check out the PCA homepage. For now, prepare to pack a warm sweater for your Bahamas trip. That air con can get chilly.

Good luck on Sunday.

Sometimes reading the PokerStars Blog can put you in a place you'd never expect yourself to be. For PokerStars' $ickFLop, that place will be this weekend's $700 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Mega Satellite.

We told you about this event on Monday, but click that clink if you missed it. In short, on Sunday PokerStars is hosting a $700 Mega satellite with 25 PCA prize packages guaranteed. That is, at the very minimum, 25 of those players will be joining us in the Bahamas for the PCA.

We thought we'd have a little fun and decided to give away a ticket to the event. The rules were simple. All we needed was for you to post a picture of yourself in a real money game at PokerStars and let us see it on Twitter along with a couple of other tidbits.

Today, our random draw landed on this eligible tweet.

Just for doing that, $ickFlop will be playing in this weekend's big PCA Mega. If he does well there, well, we'll be seeing him in the Bahamas in just two months for the PCA Main Event.

Now, we understand, some folks will be disappointed that they didn't win. So, we feel obligated to remind you that there are a lot of ways to win your PCA seat this week. Just check out all the PCA Week promotions here.

Did you miss out on this contest? Then make sure to follow us on @PokerStarsBlog so you don't miss us the next time.

Congrats, $ickFlop. Good luck on Sunday!

Albert Einstein once said that 'Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in School', while Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted as saying we should 'Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever'.

Learning is something that every single one of us does intuitively from the moment of birth onwards. Some seem better at it than others, grasping concepts at an incredibly fast rate while others take a bit longer to soak in and retain new information. That, however, is one of the reasons the world is such an interesting place. If we were all the same it would indeed be quite dull.

Competition wouldn't be quite the same either. Imagine if all the players in an event you were taking part in had equal knowledge of both the game and how their opponents play? The fact that some players are adept at learning new information, and gaining tells while the game is in progress, gives them an edge.

So, we agree learning is good!

The story of Twitch streamer gorgeous_gameris the story of a Parisien discovering a new passion for the game, with a big dream for the future.

Having started streaming as a gamer over a year ago, playing games such as League of Legends (her Brother is ranked among the top players of League of Legends) and Heartstone, a game also played by PokerStars Pro Bertrand 'ElKy' Grospellier, she stumbled across poker and quickly became intrigued.

Her approach is quite simple, to learn the rules and skills needed to succeed while playing live on her Twitch channel. By learning 'live on air' she feels that this has helped her improve and master the game's techniques.

"Usually people find it funny that I play while looking at my Poker chart and taking notes on Poker vocabulary," she says. "Nevertheless, viewers realise that I really would like to learn and are happy to help and share their knowledge."

Gorgeous_gamer also stumbled across PokerSchoolOnline, the official PokerStars poker school, and reached out to them.

"I heard about PokerSchoolOnline from some of my viewers who recommended it as a great place to learn about the game and improve my skills. It's both educational and fun and an ideal place to learn for any level starting from Beginners to Intermediate."

This Friday evening on the PokerSchoolOnline Twitch channel you can tune in to see gorgeous_gamer getting coached live on air by PokerStars Team Online's André Coimbra at 15:00 EST (8pm UK time).

It promises to be an entertaining stream and an opportunity for us all to hangout and learn more about this wonderful game that we love.

Who knows where gorgeous_gamer's journey will end? She could become one of the World's most famous poker players, who can tell? All we do know is that she is certainly on the right path, and the passion and dedication that she has shown so far will serve her well, not only in the game of poker, but the game of life.

At the EPT Malta festival last week an interesting side event took place, small enough not to make the official list of events, but big enough to get more than a little attention from passers-by.

In the year since they began the Spin & Go concept has been hugely successful on PokerStars, with millions of dollars in prizes awarded in one of the most exciting concepts in the game, with six winners last week alone during the anniversary celebrations.

But it had never before been tried live, until Malta.

And so a special Spin & Go table was set up with, you've guessed it, an actual wheel to spin. Three players at a time, trying to contain their excitement, watched as the wheel slowed down to settle on the prize they would be playing for. For the most part it was €100 (the buy in was €50). But every so often the red €400 marker would be hit. Then one day it seemed every third spin inched around to settle on the €1,000 maximum.

Fun, popular and profitable as they are though, there's more to these contests than getting lucky on the spin. Take that away and you have a three-way sit and go, with a top heavy pay out, and little room for error. It's enough to make you wonder: What is the best strategy?

Well, if you were thinking this then your timing couldn't be better.

Coming up this Friday, November 6 at 20.00 GMT, in the latest Twitch show from PokerStars Team Online, Andrew Coimbra will be talking about just that.

Andre Coimbra

Coimbra, an experienced online sit & go player, will be hosting a live training session, with a lucky PSO member, focusing on Spin & Go strategy, all of which coincides with the Spin & Go anniversary promotion which last week turned six players into millionaires.

Watching is easy. Simply tune in at http://www.twitch.tv/pokerschoolonline and be ready with your spin (or sit) & go questions. If you have none, or don't know what to ask, you'll still learn a lot by watching Coimbra.

Who knows, what you pick up from him might even translate to great success in Spin & Go's. We still can't help with the spin.

Ready to sign up for PokerStars? Click here to get an account.

Rocco Palumbo of Italy is no stranger to tournament success, having amassed more than $1.5 million in live earnings including wins in events on the European Poker Tour, the World Poker Tour, and at the World Series of Poker. Palumbo has won a similarly impressive amount online as well at PokerStars where he plays as "Sephirot88," and tonight added another nice score to his collection after topping a challenging field of 527 to win the $1,050 buy-in Super Tuesday.

Palumbo picked up a nice $88,840.24 first prize following a two-handed deal. Here's the story of how he did it.

The tournament had entered its sixth hour when Ravi "govshard2" Raghavan was knocked out in 64th by Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo and the money bubble was burst.

About an hour and 15 minutes later they had crossed the seven-and-a-half-hour mark. By then the field had been whittled down to just 18 players gathered around the last two tables, with Mike "munchenHB" Telker having jumped into the chip lead after building a stack of more than 330,000.

Kent "ForzaVaxholm" Lundmark (18th), THEMOS17 (17th), and Raphael "tiarc" Wimmer (16th) were the next players to go, each earning $4,216. Then Blunty2004 (15th), Allan "Sifosis" Baekke (14th), and SukkerHans (13th) were eliminated, with those three taking away $5,270 apiece. Then aiamolinbaby (12th), OnUrOnUrOnUr (11th), and BillLewinsky (10th) went out, cashing for $6,324 each.

With Telker still in the mix and sugery having moved up into the top spot, the final table was underway.

Seat 1: sugery (Hungary) -- 483,825
Seat 2: Joao "jricardosc" Fernandes (Brazil) -- 384,520
Seat 3: C_Löfgren (Sweden) -- 308,654
Seat 4: 2pacnrw16 (Germany) -- 212,737
Seat 5: Igor "lechuckpoker" Kurganov (United Kingdom) -- 167,932
Seat 6: Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo (Slovenia) -- 213,476
Seat 7: duubadaaba (Finland) -- 266,655
Seat 8: Mike "munchenHB" Telker (Cyprus) -- 241,788
Seat 9: r1d3rst0rm (Canada) -- 355,413

Not long after the final table began, the blinds were 4,500/9,000 when Igor "lechuckpoker" Kurganov open-raised all in for 123,682 from the hijack seat, then duubadaaba reraised all in over the top from the button, causing both blinds to fold. Kurganov showed [Kh][Qc] while duubadaaba had [Qh][Qd], and five cards later -- [5h][Jh][5c][Ad][2d] -- Kurganov was done in ninth.

Some time after that the blinds had increased to 5,000/10,000 when a hand arose that saw the table fold around to 1/20/15 Super Tuesday winner Joao "jricardosc" Fernandes in the small blind who shoved all in for 53,393 with [Ad][9c], and leader sugery called from the big blind with [Kh][Jc]. The board rolled out [4c][5s][Kc][6s][4d], giving sugery kings and fours and ending Fernandes's run in eighth.

About two orbits later the blinds had jumped again to 6,000/12,000, and after duubadaaba min-raised to 24,000 from early position, 2pacnrw16 reraised all in for 79,237 from the big blind and duubadaaba called, turning over [Ac][Th] to 2pacnrw16's [6d][6h]. The [Qd][Kc][As] flop then hit duubadaaba's hand, with the [Tc] turn making two pair. The river was the [3h], and 2pacnrw16 was eliminated in seventh.

Just a couple of minutes later r1d3rst0rm open-pushed from the small blind for 76,805 (just over six big blinds) and sugery called from the big blind. r1d3rst0rm had [Kd][2h] and sugery [Td][9d], and the [9s][Ks][Jh] flop gave both players a pair. The [8d] turn kept r1d3rst0rm in front, but the [7d] then fell on fifth street to make a straight for sugery, thereby beating r1d3rst0rm's pair of kings and sending the latter railward in sixth.

They pushed on past the tournament's 10-hour mark, and a few minutes later the blinds were 7,000/14,000 when sugery opened for 42,000 from the small blind, C_Löfgren pushed all in from the big blind for 162,462, and sugery called. It was [Ah][2h] for C_Löfgren and [Ks][Jd] for sugery, and for four community cards -- [7s][5h][6d], then [4d] -- C_Löfgren remained in front. But the [Kh] came on the river, giving sugery kings and knocking out C_Löfgren in fifth.

Nearly a half-hour more passed, during which time duubadaaba moved up into first position while sugery slipped back to become the shortest stack of the remaining four. Then came a hand in which duubadaaba min-raised to 36,000 from UTG, sugery three-bet to 135,000 from the small blind, duubadaaba shoved for 932,714 total, and sugery called all in with the 485,958 behind.

duubadaaba had [9d][9h] and a big edge over sugery's [8h][7h]. The board then ran out [Jd][Ts][Kd][6c][Tc], duubadaaba's nines held, and sugery was sunk in fourth.

Soon after that Mike "munchenHB" Telker open-raised all in from the small blind for 145,036 (about eight BBs) and Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo called from the big blind. Telker had the edge with [As][Th] against Palumbo's [Ac][2c].

The community cards then came [3d][7d][9h], then [4c], then... [2d]! The deuce on the river paired Palumbo, abruptly stopping Telker in third.

The final two players played a single small hand, then paused the tournament to discuss a possible deal with duubadaaba leading with 1,621,172 versus Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo's 1,013,828. "ICM"-based numbers were produced, leaving $8,000 aside for which to play, and after a bit of talk both agreed to the proposed figures.

Soon cards were back in the air, and after a few minutes more they'd made it to the 11-hour mark of the tournament. duubadaaba continued to lead for a short while longer, but then Palumbo seized the lead after winning a preflop all-in with [Kh][Js] versus duubadaaba's [8c][8d]. In that hand Palumbo four-bet shoved and duubadaaba called, and when a king came among the community cards Palumbo was up close to 1.38 million to duubadaaba's almost 1.26 million.

A dozen hands later Palumbo was ending close to 1.5 million while duubadaaba dropped back just under 1.14 million. Then came the night's final hand.

With the blinds at 10,000/20,000, duubadaaba opened for 44,000 from the button, Palumbo called, and the flop came [9c][3h][8h]. At that Sephirot88 checked, duubadaaba bet 50,000, then Palumbo check-raisd to 155,000. duubadaaba responded with a reraise back to 320,000, Palumbo shoved, and duubadaaba called all in for 772,590.

Sephirot88: [Qh][Jh]
duubadaaba: [Jd][Jc]

It had been something of a theme at the final table for the at-risk player to start out with the better hand, then watch the community cards take the lead away and cause an elimination. Such would be the fate of duubadaaba here as well, as the [9c][3h][8h] flop and [3d] were fine for duubadaaba, but the [Td] river made a straight for Palumbo, earning him the last pot, the $8K left on the table, and a Super Tuesday title.

Congratulations to Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo for outlasting a tough final table to earn the win, and kudos as well to duubadaaba for making it to the heads-up deal to secure a handsome share of the prize pool as well.

11/3/15 Super Tuesday ($1,050 No-Limit Hold'em) results
Entrants: 527
Prize pool: $527,000.00
Places paid: 63

1. Rocco "Sephirot88" Palumbo (Slovenia) $88,840.24*
2. duubadaaba (Finland) $85,069.76*
3. Mike "munchenHB" Telker (Cyprus) $54,017.50
4. sugery (Hungary) $41,106.00
5. C_Löfgren (Sweden) $28,985.00
6. r1d3rst0rm (Canada) $22,397.50
7. 2pacnrw16 (Germany) $17,127.50
8. Joao "jricardosc" Fernandes (Brazil) $11,857.50
9. Igor "lechuckpoker" Kurganov (United Kingdom) $8,748.20
* = denotes a two-way deal leaving $8,000 for the winner

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