Hi all,

My first post here, I've been a lurker for a while but something has come up with my pokerstars account so I thought this would be a good time to post.

This may be something completely normal but it's never happened to me on any poker site before and it seems a little odd so hopefully you guys can help.

So I went on to pokerstars made a deposit and then instantly entered a MTT with my balance. So my balance was roughly $0 when I entered the tournament, anyway while playing the tournament I notice my balance had gone up to $18. I thought that's strange. I checked to see if there was any email from pokerstars or anything to explain this but there was nothing. Anyway I was running very well in this tournament and then all of a sudden very badly, I made a small cash of $30. At this point my balance was now showing just the $30 and the $18 that was in there before seemed to have disappeared so my balance was now correct.

I emailed pokerstars about the $18 that had gone into my balance and they said:
"Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

After reviewing your account, we can confirm that the $18 interim payout of Tournament ********** is indeed, credited to your Stars Account on March ** 2018, and you won the tournament ********** and received another $12.34, hence you have $30.40 in total as balance in your Stars account at the moment, we have attached your playing audit for your review."

Bare in mind this $18 was in my account before even reaching the money in this tournament and while I was still playing.

This seems very odd.

Can anyone tell me what has gone on here? Is this normal?

I understand what they are claiming to have happened. But to pay someone a part of a tournament prize pool before being knocked out of the tournament?

Thought i'd post here before going back to Pokerstars just in case something dodgy is going on.

Was it a knockout tournament? Knockouts get credited instantly.

Stars recently introduced - Early payouts to most of the major tourneys (Bigs, Hots, BBs and other blue tourneys)

Idk if you get any pop up saying that min-cash has been credited to your account but if it doesn't show any pop up, it should so as to not cause any confusion like it did to op. (just how you get pop up when you knockout somebody)

No it was just a standard Turbo MTT.

This must be what happened then. Although I felt as if I had received the payout before even reaching the money and seems odd that pokers emailed me apologizing. There was no pop up. Other than that it makes sense now. Thanks for clearing this up.

Why though?

Good development

They don't want those mincashes tied up until a player is busted from a tournament when it could be lost on a slot in the casino instead.