[PokerStarsJeff]

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This weekend I have seen the message 'Hand # 65432000000 is about to be dealt on one of our cash ring game tables, cash and prizes yada yada yada'

My question is how do they 'know' that hand is going to be dealt on a cash ring game table? With the 1000's of tournament and sit-n-go tables also running at the same time - shouldn't it be just as likely the hand be dealt at one of these tables?

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The PokerStars server reserves hand numbers ending in 5 zeros for real money cash games. Such numbers cannot be assigned to tournaments or play money games.

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If they are dealing these hands only on specified 'cash game tables' doesn't that mean in some way or another they are manipulating the 'random shuffle'?

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Absolutely not. The deck is still randomly shuffled, as always. The table number is simply a database query -- "give me the next sequential hand number, I'm about to deal a new game". The random number generators aren't even aware of the hand number.

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Why aren't rake paying sit n go and mtt players included in this promotion?

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The decision not to include tournament players in the
milestone hands is quite deliberate, and it's not because we don't like tournament players. We LOVE tournament players, as our recent revamping of the tournament schedule to add even more tournaments and tournament innovations shows.

The problem with including tournaments in these promotions is one of integrity. When such a hand is dealt at a table, there's tremendous incentive to be the winner of the hand. The money you have stacked in front of you is often inconsequential in comparison to the windfall award
for the hand winner... so many players push all in in the hopes that others will not make the correct decision (i.e. that they'll fold, thus increasing the jamming player's chance of winning the hand).

In a ring game, this is not a big deal -- each hand is its own separate universe. In a tournament, the milestone hand would not be its own little universe, but would affect every hand to follow in the entire tournament. Someone would quadruple up (or better) on garbage cards, which offers that lucky player an unfair advantage over everyone else at the table and even to everyone else at other tables in the event.

In the interests of fairness, then, we do not permit milestone award hands to be dealt at tournament tables. Instead, for our tournament players, we've offered a series of $1,000 and $5,000 tournament freerolls, several
times a day.

Best Regards,

Jeff
PokerStars Support Supervisor