If you don't know the phrase Mega Path, it's one you should probably commit to memory right now. Go on. Do it. We'll wait. Done? Good. Now, here's why: we're about to tell you how to get to the PCA for a lot less than the cost of a stuffed PokerStars monkey.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Mega Path satellites came to be in advance of the 2010 PCA as a way to give PokerStars players a way to play a huge event like the PCA for a fraction of a fraction of the cost. In the months leading up to the last PCA, PokerStars hosted 4,300 multi-table tournaments that led to a final that awarded PCA seats. A dozen players made it all the way to the Bahamas for less than 200 Frequent Player Points.

Among those players is one of PokerStars more regular qualifiers, Darren 'Woodylord' Keyes. He made it to the PCA after starting in a 75-FPP Round 1 satellite. He worked his way to the top and finished..wait for it...in tenth place for $150,000. His ROI was in the 12 million percent range.

Said PokerStars tournament guru Bryan Slick, "Few things we do when setting up tournaments, especially satellites, are as thrilling as seeing players get the opportunity to live out a dream. Not only do tournaments like the PCA give players the chance to compete on an even playing field with the world's best, the satellites to the events provide an opportunity for just about anyone to make their way here."

Now, the PCA Mega Path satellites are back and the first final is just a few days away. Right now, you can get into the Mega Path for as little as 5 Frequent Player Points. If you make it through the path and to the August 29 final (6pm ET), you'll be competing for at least ten full event packages that include your buy-in, nine nights accommodation, and expenses.

Tens of thousands of players have already tried their hand in the Mega Path events. Now it's your turn.

To register, open the PokerStars lobby, click 'Events' & 'PCA'. For more information, visit the PCA Mega Path satellites page.

We're looking for a person who can beat a 12 million percent ROI. Is that you?

While you might expect PokerStars Italian Poker Tour events to be packed full of locals, recent tournaments have been happy hunting grounds for players from elsewhere in Europe. But IPT San Remo was a little different - all eight finalists were from the home country.

No surprise, then, that an Italian won the event - step forward Sergio Castelluccio, 34, who pocketed €200,000 after besting a bumper field of 396.

Castelluccio's heads-up opponent was PokerStars qualifier Stefano Demontis who took €120,000 for his second place. The final hand saw Demontis shove with [Kc][Qh], called by Castelluccio with [Ad][7s], and the board ran a convincing [7d][7c][9h][2c][9d] for a full house.

The next stop of IPT Season 2 is at Nova Gorica from September 22 through 27. It promises to be another cracker.

by Mad Harper

Some of the best poker players in the world are heading for Portugal's stunning Algarve coast this week to compete in EPT Vilamoura, the second stop of EPT Season 7.

Among the players is poker legend and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, a super-keen golfer who has been lured to Europe partly by the prospect of competing in the special EPT Vilamoura Fairways and Felts Challenge. KidPoker is one of four PokerStars players already signed up to play this unique event, a €1,100 golf-and-poker contest which tees off on Vilamoura's celebrated Pinhal Golf Course on September 1.

Also planning to swing into action at Pinhal are Friend of PokerStars and England football legend Teddy Sheringham, EPT founder John Duthie, and event host JP Kelly, as well as WSOP bracelet winner James Dempsey. The tournament is a brand new format where players buy-in or win a €1,100 golf/poker prize package (€770 + €70 for the poker, €260 for the golf) and battle it out over two days of action on the fairways and then at the poker tables. Players' golf scores determines how many chips they get on Day 2 at Vilamoura Casino.

Playing the Main Event (August 28-September 2) are a wealth of stars from around the world including American David Williams, playing his first EPT as a member of Team PokerStars Pro, Arnaud Mattern, who came third at EPT Tallinn last week, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Pieter de Korver, Lex Veldhuis, Luca Pagano, Dario Minieri, Ruben Visser, Vicky Coren, Matthias De Meulder, Marcin Horecki and Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville. Also competing are Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo, last year's Vilamoura champion Antonio Matias and EPT Award winners Kevin MacPhee, Allan Baekke and William Thorson.

Team PokerStars Portugal will also be out in force: Henrique Pinho, Nuno Coelho and Joao Nunes will be joined by Andre Coimbra from Team PokerStars Online.

More than 130 players have already won their seats to EPT Vilamoura online with PokerStars.

This weekend was, as it is known in certain circles, the Sunday before the Sunday before.

In less than two weeks, the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker will begin, rendering this weekly report of the big weekend activity moot. Why, ye ask? Because for a solid twenty-something days, WCOOP will cover this blog like batter on a corn dog.

Next Sunday, we'll be right back here as players work out some last minute kinks before the big month. For now, we have a few successes to note from this weekend.

Among the most notable in this week's run is the first place finish of Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen. Chen, a noted and spooky-good player at all games, took down this weekend's $215 Weekly Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo event.

We also can't let the day go by without recognizing Team Online's Steve Paul. He made the final table of the Sunday $530 No-Limit Hold'em contest for a cool $10,000.

Oh, that's not enough Team PokerStars action for you. Then how about none other than Johnny Lodden? YugiohPro cut deal at the final table of the Sunday Warm-Up, eventually taking the title and $104,060 for his victory.

For a complete rundown of the big weekend action, check out the 8-22-10 PokerStars Sunday tournament results.

One more Sunday to go, folks. Let's make it a good week!

As you probably know we like to follow Salvatore Bonavena here on the PokerStars Blog. The Italian Team PokerStars Pro became a firm favorite after taking down EPT Prague two years ago, and we've loved his pink jumpers ever since. We're therefore a little sad that he did not make the final table of the Italian Poker Tour event in San Remo. What cheers us up a little, however, is that another man called Salvatore is chip leader.

Salvatore Chillemi may need to work on getting a snazzy hat and adding some pink jumpers to his wardrobe, but he seems to know how to accumulate chips like his Team Pro namesake.

As the final eight players sit down later today to fight over the €200,000 first prize, Chillemi, a 53-year-old Italian, has 1,782,000, more than 600,000 ahead of closest rival Christian Cipriano.

Details of the final players are below. You can follow the action as it happens over on our sister Italian blog, where Matteo Viola is very excited (and that must be something to see - Italians are excitable anyway) because all the finalists come from Italy. Remember to use Google translate if you need help following his writing.

Stefano Demontis, 1,005,000
Stefano is a PokerStars qualifier who plays with the UserID 'delf1no74'. He's been playing poker for two and a half years with excellent results, including a third place at the last IPT San Marino.

Christian Cipriano, 1,150,000
Christian is 25 and has been playing poker for two years on Pokerstars with the UserID 'Tisciali'. His best results include a 11th place at a €1,100 side event in San Marino.

Salvatore Chillemi, 1,782,000
Businessman Salvatore, 53, has been playing poker for four years. He's planning to use his winnings for his family and to play as many IPTs as possible.

Alberto Di Vilio, 938,000
Alberto is 41 and will be celebrating his first tournament cash in San Remo. He's thinking of spending his winnings on a house. When asked to define his playing style, he said: "Maniac!".

Sergio Castelluccio, 1,088,000
Sergio is 34 and has been playing poker for three years. He's plans to play all the IPTs this season. He considers himself a professional poker player and started to play poker for fun with friends.

Giuseppe De Blasio, 746,000
Giuseppe, 30, has played for three years and enjoys the action in PokerStars and after making the final table wants to play in all of the remaining Season 2 IPT events.

Alberto Palchetti, 834,000
Alberto is a 25-year-old student who will be using his winnings in San Remo to build his bankroll. He describes himself at the table as "loose and aggressive".

Matteo Taddia, 370,000
Matteo is a 37-year-old professional player. He's been playing for six years and will be putting his winnings here into his bankroll.

While the remaining 31 players at IPT San Remo are already guaranteed €3,100, it's the €200,000 for the winner that they're all after..

As they prepare for today's Day 3, the man leading the chase for first is Alberto Di Vilio on 721,500. Not far behind is Sergio Castelluccio with 639,000 and Demontis Stefano with 500,000. Other highly-placed players are Nicola D'Alessio with 474,000 and Alberto Palchetti with 441,500. The average stack is 255,774.

You can follow today's action on our sister Italian blog - for help understanding it all, use Google translate.

They say a week is a long time in politics - just ask the Australians who are going to the polls today for one of the tightest elections in years. But the poker world packs a lot into seven days, too: PokerStars has crowned the first champion of EPT Season 7 in Tallinn, UKIPT Edinburgh is in full swing, and the Italian Poker Tour is continuing its love affair with San Remo. Oh, and next week we begin EPT Vilamoura.

While all that is going on, allow us to give Davide Pennelli his moment in the spotlight. The Italian was chip leader at IPT San Remo after Day 1B last night with 172,000. He was one of 220 starters yesterday who, along with the Day 1A players, completed a field of 396 generating a tasty €768,240 prize pool. 56 will get paid and €200,000 will go to the winner. Nice.

Among those through to today's Day 2 are Team PokerStars Online Antonio Tarantino and the Hungarian Tamas Lendvai, winner of the last IPT event in Venice.

A total of 146 runners will sit back down for Day 2 today. If you can read Italian you'll have no problem following all the action over on our sister Italian blog. But if you can't read lots of words with double letter 'ls', 'ns', 'ts' and loads of 'is', you can always pay a visit to Google translate and it will do the job for you.

First San Marino, then Venice and now San Remo - idyllic locations, great venues and fine food. No wonder the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour is so popular.

San Remo is like a second home for the IPT, and the latest stop this week for IPT Season 2 saw Nicola D'Alessio hold the Day 1A chip lead last night with 199,100.

A bumper 194 players from around the world started out on Day 1A, including 28 who qualified online at PokerStars for much less than the €2,000 + €200 entry fee..

A total of 67 survived, including 12 qualifiers, and they'll return for Day 2 on Saturday. They include Italians Angelo Patane (126,400) and Roberto Buratti (122,000). Other notable players who survived a fast-and-furious nine levels of play include Sergio Castelluccio, Leonardo Claudio Pagano and Luca Colangelo.

Day 1B will kick off later today with another large field, including Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri, Luca Pagano and Salvatore Bonavena.

You can follow all the action on our sister Italian blog. Can't read the Italian on offer from blogger Matteo Viola? No matter - make sense of it all using Google translate.

A few things you might not know about the phrase "Triple Stud:" First, it's syllabic structure allows for it to be sung to the tune of "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts. Second, it has never been the title of a movie, adult or otherwise. Third, and perhaps most importantly in this context, it is how PokerStars describes its newest mixed game offering.

Triple Stud is just as simple and not nearly as naughty as it sounds.

You know all those seven-card games you like to play? Now you can play them while sitting at the same table and without having to contend with those nasty little Hold'em and Omaha games like you do in HORSE.

Triple Stud, like most mixed games, works in a rotation. It stars with Stud High, moves on to Razz, and then finally gives you a shot at Stud Hi/Lo Eight or Better. You'll get eight hands at each game and then move back to the beginning.

And if you're ready to play, apparently the phrase of the day is, "Seat open!"

PokerStars has made sure you don't have any reason to get confused about what game you're playing. Just look at the top border of the table window and it will always display that game that is in play.

If you're itching for some seven-card, Triple Stud action, just go to your PokerStars lobby, click on Other Games > Mixed Games > Triple Stud.

To learn more, visit the PokerStars Triple Stud page.

Good luck!