The changes at PokerStars keep on coming, and this time the Tournament Leaderboard (TLB) is getting a pretty big makeover starting in 2015. Players need not fear these changes like they have had to do with other announcements as more money will potentially be awarded than in previous years.

Pokerstars, under new management group Amaya, has made another announcement about the changing landscape of the sites promotions and operations. This time the Tournament Leaderboard is getting a huge makeover, but about $40,000 worth of T$ are going to be awarded and the payout structure is going to be a bit more flat for the yearly prizes. These changes are a mixed bag of good and bad, depending on where you finished on the year’s TLB both yearly, but also on the monthly and weekly ones.

Weekly TLB Changes

The PokerStars Weekly TLB gets the smallest changes out of the 3 leaderboards for Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs.) The winner of the weekly TLB will still play a heads-up match against a PokerStars Team Pro for $1,000 at a game of the TLB winners choice. Unlike in previous years where the money would be rolled over to the match next week if the Team Pro won it will instead be put into a prize pool for a freeroll for all of the TLB winner on January 26th in 2016. The winner of the Weekly TLB is the player with the best 10 results in terms of leaderboard points that week.

The changes are overall better for players as even if someone loses the match against the Team Pro they are not out of a chance to win money. Some lucky players will be hurt by not being able to win a rollover week, but that number is small and in reality very random. This provides losing players a chance to win money back and previous winners a chance to get even more money from the promotion. This is a bit more fair, on balance and doesn’t change the overall amount of money being given out.

Monthly TLB Changes

This leaderboard is getting some of the largest changes. Previously players qualified by being in the top 1,000 players when scores for the top 20 tournaments that qualified for the leaderboard were calculated for the month. Players would then receive their share of the T$ 44,300 prize pool with T$ 2,000 going to first place. That is changing drastically as now the monthly TLB will be scrapped.

There instead will be a similar TLB offered during June, July and August that will award T$ 100,000 to players. This total amount of money distributed will be smaller than the previous amount, but that luckily will be rolled into the yearly TLB, which will get to next. This change is good and bad on a lot of levels and has to be taken with the yearly TLB changes to be accurately and truly evaluated.

Yearly TLB Changes

Previously the bubble from 10th to 11th place in the yearly TLB hosted by PokerStars was enormous. That is about to change, and it’s about to change in a really big way. The top-end is going to get a bit chopped off, but 100 players will now win some sort of prize instead of just the luck 10. The prize breakdown looks like this:

1st :$35,000 cash, up to one year’s worth of Sunday Million tickets, $5,000 worth of major online series tickets, entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

2nd: $25,000 cash, up to one year’s worth of Sunday Million tickets, $5,000 worth of major online series tickets, entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

3rd:$15,000 cash, up to one year’s worth of Sunday Million tickets, $5,000 worth of major online series tickets, entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

4th – 10th: Up to one year’s worth of Sunday Million tickets, $5,000 worth of major online series tickets, entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

11th-40th: $5,000 worth of major online series tickets, entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

41st-100th: Entry to a $75,000 freeroll.

One of the most interesting notes is the “Up to one year’s worth of Sunday Million tickets.” The reason that it is worded in this particular fashion is that players will receive 52 tickets for that particular tournament that expire at the end of the year. so if the winning players play every Sunday they will get full value, but if they miss a Sunday, then they will just lose the ticket and its value. This payout is significantly more flat, but also a lot better for a majority of players. When taking the changes to monthly and yearly leaderboards together it’s a slight increase in money total awarded, potentially, but it’s distributed in a very different way. overall, it really comes down to how much you will be playing. If you plan to play more, or not attend the World Series of Poker (WSOP) then you are going to be in a better position than you were under last year’s system.

Summary and Conclusions

PokerStars has decided to make some huge changes to yet another leaderboard. This time, the changes aren’t all bad, (such as with the Battle of the Planets) but they are not all good either. Grinders should be helped the most with more emphasis being put on the yearly TLB and tickets for the next year being awarded it would set players up well for the next year. This is likely what PokerStars is trying to accomplish. Read our PokerStars review for more information.

Overall, it’s a hard thing to evaluate and is something all players need to consider on their own. We want to hear how you feel about it though! Tell us on Twitter and Facebook so we can get a better idea of how everyone feels!

If you are in the market for an alternative poker site with a monthly tournament leader board, perhaps give TigerGaming a try, before or after reading our Tiger Gaming poker rakeback review. While not nearly as large as PokerStars, the tournaments are super fishy and the leaderboard has good value. They also offer a $50,000 monthly SNG rake race for those of you who moonlight playing sit and go tournaments, as well as guarantee 24 hour payouts or double your money!