On January 9th, a two-week Low-Stakes PLB Competitionorganized by PocketFives.com member FouTight (pictured) will kick off. The event, which brings out many of the game’s rising stars, could feature more than 60 runners and counts the top 50 scores per team. Fourteen scores from an individual are permitted and the buy-in runs $100 a head.

Besides potentially making money on the virtual felts, the Low-Stakes PLB Competition serves as a way to meet fellow players and improve your own game. FouTight told PocketFives.com, “It’s +EV for everyone involved, no doubt about it. Most importantly, it’s a great way to feel like you’re not alone playing poker online. It feels like there are three, four, or five of you together, depending on how many players on your team are playing that day.”

FouTight added that communication among teammates is of the utmost importance: “Usually, the captains will make sure to have everyone’s AIM or Skype contact information and hold group conversations on most of the days of the competition. It can be a good networking tool for players who don’t have many friends who play poker and would like to get to know more fellow grinders.” The maximum stakes are $55 freezeouts and $11 rebuys.

On January 6th, a snake-style draft similar to a fantasy football league will be held to determine teams. As of the time of writing, five players had volunteered to be captains and five more were waiting in the wings.

We asked FouTight why he decided to start holding PLB competitions in the first place. He responded, “After a great MTT run in October, I decide to take a shot and play some higher-stakes tournaments. At the same time, I happened to see Gags30‘s (pictured) mid-stakes contest, which included all freezeouts up to $130 as well as $33 rebuys and under. The top of that buy-in range was clearly out of my price range, but the $260 contest buy-in was reasonable enough for me to play it. I knew that even though I wouldn’t be playing all of the higher stakes MTTs, I would be compensating by playing a ton of mid-stakes MTTs.”

He added that participating in a contest opened his eyes to the value of squaring off against others: “During that contest, I realized how much fun they were and the great motivational tool it was. Wanting to put in a lot of volume in December, I thought I would motivate myself by running a similar contest, but at my normal stakes of $55 freezeouts and under.” You can do the math to see that January will mark just the second Low-Stakes PLB Competition that will be held.

There were a dozen teams in the December cycle of the competition. In the end, Team ThaSquirrel dominated the competition and logged 2,918 points, 300 more than the second place team. One of the participants in the December cycle was Stay_calm86 (pictured), who commented in a thread in Poker Discussion, “Had a great time chatting with my team every night. Definitely added some small tweaks to my game that should be very beneficial in the future.”

If a team contest sounds like your idea of a fun time, then be sure to sign up before January 6th. The scoring for the festivities is the same as the PocketFives.com PLB and FouTight added that he’s gunning for five-man teams.

Visit the official thread in Poker Discussion for more details and registration information. As a reminder, PocketFives.com does not sanction this private contest in any way.