Poker News

Pam Brunson to Oversee DoylesRoom Brunson 10

Like father, like daughter. Doyle Brunson’s daughter, Pam Brunson, will manage the Brunson 10, according to officials from DoylesRoom. The stable of up-and-coming poker pros numbers four, with six men and two women yet to be named.

A press release distributed by DoylesRoom in recent days notes, “As Manager of the Brunson 10, Pam Brunson will be responsible for overseeing PR requests, handling scheduling and managing the Brunson 10 internally. As the world's biggest poker legend continues to fill spots on his team of poker professionals, Pam Brunson will be tasked with managing their relationship with one of the fastest growing online poker sites and its players.” The younger Brunson is a regular in the online poker site’s weekly Bounty tournament, which offers a refund of the $27.50 buy-in for first-time players.

Amit “amak316” Makhija, Dani “ansky451” Stern, Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark, and top online poker pro Chris “moorman1” Moorman currently comprise the Brunson 10. Stern is the group’s newest addition, having joined the clan during final table play in the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in Las Vegas. A press conference was held at the Wynn for Stern’s introduction, with “2 Months, $2 Million” housemate Jay Rosenkrantz on-hand to witness the festivities.

Meanwhile, former Brunson 10 member Alec “traheho” Torelli departed the online poker site to join Victory Poker, whose roster of pro players includes Antonio Esfandiari, Andrew “good2cu” Robl, and Full Tilt Poker defects Paul Wasicka and Lee Markholt. The site is set to debut on February 1st on the merged Everleaf/UPN network, with a launch party to occur after the Trash Talk Championship of the World Straddle Tournament at the Hard Rock on February 6th.

On replacing Torelli, DoylesRoom officials told Poker News Daily that a fifth member of the Brunson 10 will be named no later than mid-March. In addition, the forthcoming announcement may include the introduction of two new faces to the Cake Poker Network site that welcomes action from the United States. The newest additions will fall under Pam Brunson’s wings.

According to the traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, the Cake Poker Network is the 10th largest worldwide, offering a seven-day running average of 2,100 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, which occur in the evening across North America, nearly 3,000 cash game players call the network home. Besides DoylesRoom and Cake Poker, other sites on the network include City Poker, Lock Poker, PlayersOnly, Poker Host, Red Star Poker, Stryyke, and Phil Laak’s Unabomber Poker, which was added to the family this week.

The 2010 calendar year also saw DoylesRoom unveil its very own online store, which offers unique items like a limited edition Doyle Resitol Cowboy Hat. Other goods available in the DoylesRoom Store include DoylesRoom apparel, laptop bags, Brunson autographed merchandise, GPS systems, iPod accessories, digital cameras, Nintendo Wiis, and “the hottest lifestyle enhancing accessories.” Gold Chips are the currency of the DoylesRoom Store, which can be accessed from the online poker room’s website.

The recent World Poker Tour (WPT) Southern Poker Championship featured DoylesRoom pro Hoyt Corkins coming out on top to claim his second WPT title. Corkins earned $739,000 for his efforts and defeated a final table that also included Jonathan Kantor (second place for $366,00), Jerry Vanstrydonck (third place for $197,000), Jared Jaffee (fourth place for $135,000), James Reed (fifth place for $106,000), and Tyler “Tydean” Smith (sixth place for $87,000). The Southern Poker Championship marked Corkins’ sixth WPT final table appearance. The tournament will air as part of Season 8 on Fox Sports Net.

Pam Brunson finished 364th in the 2007 WSOP Main Event for $34,000. That year, she won a ladies’ event held during the Legends of Poker for the same amount.

Poker Fantasy Moves to Merge Gaming Network

The online poker room Poker Fantasy will be moving to the Merge Gaming Network on January 31st, according to an e-mail received by Poker News Daily last week. As a result, the site will likely be unavailable for two weeks while it updates its software.

An e-mail sent by Poker Fantasy read in part, “As of January 31, 2010, Poker Fantasy will be moving to a new network, the Merge Gaming LTD, officially licensed and regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. There will be an expected downtime of approximately two weeks. During the downtime customer service support will be available to assist you at 24/7. You may direct all inquiries to custserv@pokerfantasy.com.” A downtime of two weeks would put Poker Fantasy’s estimated re-launch around the 15th of February.

Players who opt to withdraw funds from Poker Fantasy prior to the move to the Merge Gaming Network can do so any time prior to January 31st. After that date, customer funds will automatically migrate to Poker Fantasy’s new home on the USA-friendly family of online poker sites. According to the traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, the Merge Gaming Network is the 19th largest worldwide, sporting a seven-day running average of 255 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, around 400 cash game players can be found battling it out on the Merge Gaming Network’s virtual tables.

The new network’s flagship site is Carbon Poker. Other sites on the Merge Gaming Network include Aced, which briefly employed 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event winner Jamie Gold as a sponsored pro, and Iron Duke, which attracted online poker sensation Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh to its ranks. Other well-known sites on the Merge Gaming Network include Poker MVP, Poker Nordica, Reefer Poker, and Spin32 Poker. According to PokerScout.com, the Merge Gaming Network is headquartered down under in Australia and has game servers located on the Kahnawake Indian reservation in Canada.

Poker Fantasy’s move marks one of the first site migrations of 2010. In November, the iPoker Network site Noble Poker absorbed Fair Poker. The former site is based in Gibraltar and has been in existence since 2004. Shortly thereafter, Third Bullet Poker merged its player base with that of Cake Poker. Third Bullet representatives commented in an e-mail sent to players, “What will change is that you will have access to an increased technical and marketing support team that will make your play experience even better. We have full confidence that you will find continued play on Cake Poker to meet or exceed the level of professionalism and customer service you have come to know at Third Bullet.”

Last week, the USA-friendly Everleaf Network merged with the Universal Poker Network (UPN), whose pre-merger fleet of online poker sites included Poker Druum, 5Poker5, My Name Poker, AB Digital Poker, Poker King Bet, Brasilian Poker, Full Kings Poker, Warriors Poker, Win PKR, and Poker Panther. Major rooms on the Everleaf Network included Minted Poker and Poker4Ever. In February, a rumored online poker site faced by Antonio Esfandiari, Alec “traheho” Torelli, and Andrew “good2cu” Robl, among others, may join the merged Everleaf/UPN network.

The Merge Gaming Network is one of only several sites that accept customers from the United States and is the 19th largest worldwide in terms of cash game traffic. Others include PokerStars (#1 worldwide), Full Tilt Poker (#2), the CEREUS Network (#6), the Cake Poker Network (#10), and Bodog (#15). The Merge Gaming Network recently saw its ties with PIC Club severed after alleged non-payment issues, although both sides claimed to have broken ties with the other.

Everleaf Online Poker Network Merges with UPN

The Everleaf Gaming Network and Universal Poker Network (UPN) have combined forces to form a larger network that will attempt to attract more players. The new network, yet to be named, was officially formed on January 19th and will also be adding Victory Poker to the system on February 1st, according to Victory Poker officials.

The new network is expected to attract cash game traffic similar to Betfair, which averages around 600 real money ring game players at any given time. PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, started tracking UPN in October. It began with 60 to 70 cash game players and, just before the merger with Everleaf, the number grew to around 300. PokerScout reported that Everleaf had around 100 cash game players in October, but that number dipped to 70 to 80 before the networks combined.

Prior to the merger, UPN was a Europe-only network with the Euro as its currency. Everleaf Gaming allowed U.S. players and had the U.S. dollar as its currency. The new combined network will accept players from the U.S. and promises a multi-currency system as well as a new cashier with more deposit methods. Players can have their bankroll in Euros or U.S. Dollars and they can request a one-time change in base currency by e-mailing support with their user name.

The networks did not provide players with an e-mail about the merger, which created some confusion among customers who were unaware. "No emails were sent out regarding this as the date for the merge could have and was delayed," said a spokesperson for Everleaf. "We did have a pop up notice on our poker room for the last seven days to ensure everyone was made aware of this merger."

The unification will bring together more than two dozen rooms in the new network. UPN had eight rooms going into the merger: PokerDruum.com, 5Poker5.com, MyNamePoker.com, ABDigitalPoker.com, PokerKingBet.com, BrasilianPoker.com, FullKingsPoker.com, WarriorsPoker.com, WinPKR.com, and ThePokerPanther.com.

Everleaf Rooms had 21 rooms, including Poker4Ever, Raider Poker, and Minted Poker. According to a release from Minted Poker on January 21st, the new network has developed improvements to its software to ensure a better playing experience. The enhancements include table filters, an auto re-load option at cash tables, new avatar uploads, and a $1,000 freeroll to celebrate the new merger, which will take place on Saturday, January 23rd. The entry is 50 Player Points.

"We work hard at Mintedpoker to improve your playing experience," read a statement from the online poker site. "With these additional features Mintedpoker really is one of the best sites to play poker on the internet."

The new network is currently working out some minor software kinks, but is online and running games as scheduled.

Everest Poker Announces Live the Dream Team

The online poker site Everest Poker has awarded 10 of its most talented and active players with a $100,000 contract as part of its Live the Dream promotional event in Vienna, Austria. The winners outlasted 190 other hopefuls in a series of live tournaments, cash games, and interviews to lock up a one-year sponsorship contract.

Over 50,000 players participated in the Live the Dream online qualifications from September to December, with 200 making the cut to take part in the final live event on January 9th and 10th. Participants were judged on a series of tests evaluating their live and online poker skill levels and brand ambassador qualities. At the final event, a judging panel comprised of players, press, and poker professionals awarded each finalist points for online poker skills, live poker abilities, ambassador quality, and a newly added criteria of popular voting.

The 10 Live The Dream winners will represent Everest Poker at tournaments all over the world in 2010, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in Las Vegas, and will receive over $30,000 in travel expenses as part of packages totaling $100,000.

Here are the 10 members of the Everest Poker Live the Dream team:

Fabien "SchumyFab" Perrot (France): A financial advisor who switched from cash games to No Limit Hold'em tournaments and had immediate success. Perrot has wins in Everest's largest-ever online guaranteed tournament – the $500,000 Guaranteed – and the $50,000 Guaranteed during Everest Poker’s Winterfest.

Leonard "leoledingo" Truche (France): A former physical education teacher for special needs and disabled children, Leo honed his tournament game and actually qualified for Live the Dream twice via the All-France Live the Dream direct entry. He recently finished third in the Everest Poker $100,000 Guaranteed and has also won the $30,000 and $25,000 Guaranteed tournaments.

Julien "Garrincho54" Claudepierre (France): After graduating with an engineering degree, Claudepierre took a shot at a poker career and can now be found playing as high as $25/$50 No Limit Hold'em cash games on Everest.

Ronny "Spadesman" Pickard (Germany): His dream is to play in the WSOP Main Event. Now, he'll get his chance. Pickard is a banker that spends a good part of his free time playing online poker. He qualified for the Live the Dream Team via the Summit Point Leaderboard.

Tobias "Tobestar11" Wagner (Germany): At 26-years old, Wagner began his poker career online with Everest just two years ago, grinding away at the lowest cash game levels, eventually graduating to higher-stakes ring games and the top of the VIP Summit Club. He is a student majoring in English and Physical Education.

Koen "koendb" de Bakker (Netherlands): Earned his spot on the Live the Dream Team by topping the sit and go leaderboards. Koen travels the poker circuit already and made trips to 10 different international events in 2009. He is also working on completing an Economics degree.

Javier "elflacokanu" Martinez (Spain):  A civil engineering student who put his academics on hold to pursue a poker career. He still plans on finishing his degree within the next few years. Martinez cashed in a WSOP event in 2008 and made the final table of multiple stops on the Spanish Poker Tour.

Sigurd "TheBigViking" Eskeland (Norway): A 23-year-old teacher, Eskeland got some press during the 2008 WSOP Main Event by holding the tournament chip lead on Day 3. He finished 241st for $35,383.

Thomas "DannyMcCoy" Froslev (Denmark): Will graduate with a Financial Economics degree next June, but spends a good majority of his time playing online at Everest Poker. Froslev is primary a cash game player, but looks forward to cutting his teeth on the tournament circuit in 2010.

Viktoria "SexyGirl" Szlasi (Hungary): The only female member of the group, Szlasi gained live poker experience by qualifying for a $1,000 WSOP event in 2009. She has spent two years sharpening her tournament skills on Everest Poker.

Another Poker New Year’s Resolution

For 2010, I order you to honor the following resolution: have fun playing poker. I know, I know, it sounds odd. There is no quantifiable goal here. It’s like saying, “I’m going to lose 20 pounds”, and then rewarding yourself with a fudge brownie when you see the scale’s needle fall to 170 after it was 190 on January 1st. Plus, we all play poker because it is fun, don’t we? It is a game. Games are fun.

But you see, that’s the thing. I have been getting the feeling more and more that we – the poker community as a whole – have not been enjoying the simple pleasure of playing the game of poker enough. To some, it is an endless, day-after-day grind, a way to make a living. To others, it is a game full of stress. Others just find anything and everything to complain about. We need to change in 2010.

How about the people who complained about the changes to the PokerStars VIP system? Over the last few years, online poker rooms have made it harder to earn bonuses and have developed loyalty systems that even a holder of multiple advanced degrees would need to review a few times to figure out. Now, PokerStars has changed its system in order to reward more players more quickly, making it easier to understand, and people are complaining by saying that six-handed grinders need to be rewarded more. Just play poker and have fun.

The people wanting to burn iPoker to the ground are hilarious, too. For those who haven’t heard, VC Poker has informed some winning players that they are no longer welcome at their cash game tables because the network is cracking down on its member rooms that are bringing in too many tight “sharks” who take money off the site and not enough loose “fish” who must frequently re-deposit.

iPoker’s banning and restricting of certain winning cash game players is unfortunate and those who have had nice rakeback deals there and now need to find somewhere else to play do have a legitimate gripe. However, there are those who are talking about suing the poker rooms and hoping they go out of business without even stepping back to think about why this unfortunate situation might be happening. Rather than make empty threats on internet message boards, how about taking a deep breath and moving your bankroll to another poker room?

A year ago, I said that you should all resolve to stop caring so much about your opponents. To quote myself, “Stop acting as if everything that you don’t agree with in a poker game is a personal affront.” Don’t hate life so much that you feel the need to call people “donks” and “idiots” whenever they suck out on you. That person you are berating could be sitting on his couch just goofing around, playing crap cards because he feels like doing something a little silly. He could legitimately be a bad player who likes to play poker and doesn’t know or doesn’t care that he’s bad. When it comes down to it, he’s having fun and you’re not. Remember, you’re supposed to be the good player. Something doesn’t quite jive there. How about this: take a deep breath and realize that that guy’s poor play will eventually allow you to take his money. Let him have fun doing what he’s doing while you have fun doing what you’re doing.

Finally, if poker is becoming less like a game and more like a chore, mix it up! Play a game that you don’t normally play. Are you sick of No-Limit Hold’em? You should try some Fixed Limit Stud High-Low. Are cash games wearing you down? You should play in a tournament. There is even some decent Badugi action going on at PokerStars right now. Play short-handed, heads-up, full ring, or whatever – just do something different. Better yet, take a break from serious poker and get a home game going with your friends. Make it dealer’s choice and be sure you play lots of games with wild cards.

The bottom line is this. It’s time to make poker fun again. Stop worrying about rakeback, VIP points, your HUD, or whether or not someone is busto. Play poker because you love it. It’s a game.

PokerStars Guinness World Record Attempt Attracts 149,196 Players

On a night when Full Tilt Poker’s software went down much to the dismay of players everywhere, PokerStars set the Guinness World Record for largest online poker tournament ever held. The event weighed in at 149,196 entrants.

The mark to beat was 65,000 players, set by PokerStars back in July, meaning that the site trumped the standing record by nearly 85,000. PokerStars was quick to put its record-shattering attendance into perspective, saying, “It would fill the Rose Bowl or Wembley stadiums and still have another 60,000 people with tickets waiting outside in the tailgating parking lot.” In addition, the attendance represented well over 20 times the field of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and 30 times the number of rooms at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The Guinness World Record attempt was a $1 buy-in tournament that guaranteed $300,000 in the prize pool. It played out in less than six hours in a Turbo format and oskar69 earned an amazing $50,000 for first place, or 50,000 times his buy-in. Text found on PokerStars’ website admits, “We're sure oskar69 is happy about the ROI from the win today, as no deal was reached and the entire $50,000.00 was awarded for besting this massive field.” Second place went to Bommel222, who earned a not-so-paltry $30,000. A total of 30,000 players finished in the money.

Others who made the final table in the historic poker tournament included TLWPB (third place for $20,000), willis59 (fourth place for $10,000), kruglay (fifth place for $8,000), madmick62 (sixth place for $6,500), DS1982 (seventh place for $5,250), denmil53 (eighth place for $4,000), and bigsnapper7 (ninth place for $3,000). The top 16 players grabbed at least $1,000 for their 100-penny contribution to the pot.

The PokerStars Sunday Million, the site’s hallmark $215 buy-in weekly high-stakes poker tournament, drew 9,344 entrants yesterday, creating a prize pool of $1.8 million. In the end, PokerStars member coach6999 banked $266,000 for the win, defeating BBOY3110 heads-up. The second place finisher claimed a $196,000 consolation prize and the top 1,350 spots paid out. Others who reached the feature table in the Sunday Million included tsakalias (third place for $139,132), schnaggels19 (fourth place for $93,440), mystinen60 (fifth place for $74,752), OBVAMENTS (sixth place for $56,064), robvleugel (seventh place for $37,376), plusmillion (eighth place for $20,557), and Mr Puckey (ninth place for $13,082).

The Sunday Warm-Up, another $215 buy-in online poker tournament that played out on PokerStars yesterday, generated a field of 4,605 entrants, shattering its $750,000 guaranteed prize pool. In the end, NinjasTyle87 banked $144,000 for first place, while .dmmarquez finished with a $107,000 bankroll boost for second place. The top 675 players finished in the money and others who could be found jumping for joy on Sunday afternoon included JBlaze20 (third place for $75,983), montjeu8 (fourth place for $52,037), Comeback2008 (fifth place for $39,143), Steinapride (sixth place for $29,933), haneferd (seventh place for $20,723), ReadOnYou (eighth place for $11,513), and pokerwille (ninth place for $7,368).

Appropriately, PokerStars is the industry’s largest online poker site, according to PokerScout.com, boasting a seven-day running average of 27,800 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, nearly 50,000 call the site home. PokerScout.com claims that PokerStars’ traffic has grown by 37% year over year and, at the time of writing, which is late morning Eastern Time on Monday, 36,000 cash game players are seated. That figure represents more than double the number of players currently found on Full Tilt Poker, the world’s second largest site.

Full Tilt Poker’s $750,000 Guaranteed, Sunday Mulligan, and Sunday Brawl, among other events, did not play out on Sunday due to a software malfunction. Players were refunded based on their chip counts at the time of the crash.

Team PokerStars Online Announced

After 2,000 online poker players sent in applications to become members of Team PokerStars Online, the group’s 23 inaugural players were announced on Wednesday, just in time for the holidays.

Eighteen countries are represented among the 23 founding members of Team PokerStars Online. Those on the list include Steve Jacobs, known in online poker circles simply as “stevesbets.” The poker player is perhaps best known for winning the 2008 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up event for a staggering $560,000. Also in the mix is Thomas “Boku87” Boekhoff, who was involved in a challenge of his own on the world’s largest online poker site to turn a $5 bankroll into $100,000. Boekhoff is one of the world’s premier grinders, but he’s also had success in the brick-and-mortar poker scene, including a 14th place at the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final in 2008.

Grayson “spacegravy” Physioc is another member of Team PokerStars Online. He’s a former winner of the site’s high-stakes $200 rebuy and recently finished as the runner-up in the PokerStars $10,000 Guaranteed for $11,000. Many will remember Nichoel Peppe from her deep run in the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, where she took 75th place for $69,000. Known in the online world as “NicP,” the favorite of ESPN’s Main Event coverage now takes per place among the team of PokerStars-backed online poker pros.

Anders “Donald” Berg finished 37th in the 2008 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final and took down an event held as part of the Irish Winter Festival of Poker in 2005. In November, he won the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $26,000 and, one month prior, took down the site’s $50,000 Guaranteed for $15,000. Berg hails from Norway and is a veteran of the poker industry. You can find him roving the virtual felts of PokerStars as an online team member.

To say that Team PokerStars Online constitutes an eclectic group would be an understatement. Here are its inaugural members, listed alphabetically: Andres Alisievicz (lobojiji), Jorge Arias (JorgeArias), Boumaaza Bachir (Chiren80), Anders Berg (Donald), Alvaro Blanco (VARICO), Thomas Boekhoff (Boku87), Diego Brunelli (vgreen22), Andre Coimbra (acoimbra), Mathew Didlick (chipstar1), Ta-Chih Geeng (socutiesf), Andrew Goetsch (Kid Nebraska), Martha Gonzalez (marene), Keiran Harris (K_Man2307), Steve Jacobs (stevesbets), Randy Lew (nanonoko), Karlo Lopez (elmagopr), Alexey Makarov (LuckyGump), Kristian Martin (CharismA3), Grzegorz Mikielewicz (DaWarsaw), Nichoel Peppe (NicP), Grayson Physioc (spacegravy), Sebastien Sabic (Seb86), and Amanda Thomas (ROXY24).

A press release distributed by PokerStars on Wednesday reveals that Team PokerStars Online will receive new members in 2010. In addition, modifications to the software client’s lobby will allow easier location of PokerStars-sponsored pros when they hop online. A range of games and stakes are represented in the Team PokerStars Online roster.

This weekend, just two days after Christmas, PokerStars is hosting a Guinness World Record attempt for the largest online poker tournament in history. The standing mark is 65,000, set by PokerStars in July, and the site has upped the ante this time around. The record-setting $1 buy-in tournament will kick off at 14:45 ET on Sunday and feature $300,000 in the prize pool. The event will take on a turbo format and first place may see as much as $50,000 come their way for their $1 investment.

PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker site, with a seven-day running average of 28,400 real money ring game players, according to PokerScout.com. During its peak hours, which occur in the evening throughout North America, nearly 50,000 cash game players call the site home. PokerStars happily accepts real money wagers from the United States and is based in the Isle of Man.

Poker2Nite Welcomes Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton

The UB.net sponsored poker news program “Poker2Nite,” which makes its home on Fox Sports Net, welcomed Mike Sexton this week. The World Poker Tour (WPT) host is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame after being inducted one month ago.

“Poker2Nite” began with Absolute Poker pro Lacey Jones interviewing players at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas. Among those to appear on-camera was dual World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Jeff Madsen, who told Jones, “What it comes down to is the skill level of the players, the structure is good, and the Bellagio atmosphere is good to players in general.” Jones also spoke with Robert Mizrachi and 2009 WSOP November Nine member Kevin Schaffel. The $15,000 buy-in tournament crowns a champion on Saturday.

Next up was UB.net pro Phil Hellmuth presenting Phil’s Best Blow-Ups. There are a multitude of meltdowns to choose from, but Hellmuth recapped his explosion against Cristian Dragomir during the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Dragomir called Hellmuth’s raise pre-flop with 10-4, only to flop top pair. Hellmuth explained, “Of course, this joker gets rewarded for his donkey play and that just did not sit well with me.” His tirade against Dragomir featured lines such as “He’s the worst player in history and they’re cheering” and “To you, it’s poker. To me, this is my life.”

After recapping Sexton’s Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which took place during the dinner break of the 2009 WSOP Main Event, the bracelet winner joined the “Poker2Nite” crew. On being elected to the Poker Hall of Fame, Sexton told “Poker2Nite” hosts Joe Sebok and Scott Huff, “To me, it’s the ultimate career achievement award. To reach this level, it’s a pretty big honor.” Sexton was the only member of the Class of 2009 and, in order to be elected, had to receive 75% of the vote of a panel of media members and current Hall of Famers.

So-called “Sextonisms” have become a staple of modern poker lingo, but the WPT host noted that one of his favorites is, “You can only slide so far on barbed wire.” This author would have preferred “Bingo, bango, bongo,” but laughed nonetheless. Sexton also discussed PokerGives.org, which he founded along with Poker News Daily Guest Columnist Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Lisa Tenner. Sexton commented, “It’ll be a way the poker world can give back to worthwhile charities.”

A new segment called Coin Flipping aired, pitting Sebok and Huff against each other to see what option had a slight mathematical edge. First up was who was the better No Limit Hold’em cash game player, Phil Ivey or Patrik Antonius. Sebok remarked, “I’m going with Phil because he looks scarier.” Also discussed was whether winning the $50,000 HORSE Championship or WSOP Main Event was more prestigious, as was whether Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin or Cornel Andrew Cimpan should be the Player of the Year. On the latter, Sebok gave his two cents: “I don’t think this one is really that close” and chose Baldwin, who effectively has already taken down the CardPlayer Player of the Year title for 2009.

Dana Workman dished out the Bluff Magazine sponsored Weekly Misdeal segment, poking fun at WSOP Main Event runner-up Darvin Moon’s conspiracy theory about ESPN crews sharing information, champion Joe Cada taking to Capitol Hill in support of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), Montel Williams facing a lawsuit from the International Team Poker League, and Marcel Luske’s new album.

“Poker2Nite” airs on Wednesdays at 11:00pm in each market on Fox Sports Net. However, the show is often pre-empted for local sporting events, so viewers are advised to check their local listings for airtime and channel information.

Truly Free Poker Training Catching Fire as 2009 Comes to a Close

As 2009 comes to a close, the online poker tournament fields around the Web continue to become tougher with Truly Free Poker Training from CardRunners and StoxPoker. The program was launched earlier this year in conjunction with Full Tilt Poker.

After players enroll in Truly Free Poker Training, their Full Tilt Points (FTPs) will be tallied at the end of every month. A total of 5,500 FTPs are required for a one-month membership to CardRunners and 3,000 are needed to receive a one-month subscription to StoxPoker. For 8,500 FTPs, Full Tilt Poker customers can receive one month of poker training on each site. FTPs aren’t deducted from a player’s account; they are merely a way to ensure that customers keep coming back to the world’s second largest online poker site.

Free poker training from CardRunners and StoxPoker is actually doled out in weekly increments, with 750 FTPs required for one week of StoxPoker and 1,375 needed for a week of CardRunners. The latter’s Director of Marketing, Lana Maier, told Poker News Daily, “There are no diplomas in poker and you might as well light a bonfire with your money if you stop improving. Members of CardRunners and StoxPoker understand this and thousands of them enjoy complimentary poker training simply by playing at Full Tilt Poker. It costs no points and takes two minutes to sign up. There is no easier or more cost-effective way to stay on top of the games running today.”

Truly Free Poker Training does not affect rakeback on Full Tilt in any way and players can begin receiving their education the month after they’ve earned the requisite number of points. The total number of points a player has is displayed when customers of the site log into CardRunners or StoxPoker. Full Tilt Poker happily accepts players from the United States.

A dozen CardRunners instructors are members of Team Full Tilt, including Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby, Brian Hastings, and Brian Townsend. Hastings was the recent winner of more than $4 million at the expense of Swedish online poker player Isildur1. All told, according to Poker Table Ratings, Hastings has amassed $3.8 million from the mystery Swede in just 8,400 hands, an average of $450 per pot. Hastings has quickly emerged as one of the top high-stakes pros after his domination of Isildur1. In addition to Hastings, CardRunners instructors Townsend, Cole "CTS" South, and Haseeb "INTERNETPOKERS" Qureshi have all battled against the Swede on Full Tilt.

Other CardRunners instructors include Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron and Ryan “Daut44” Daut. Baron has taken down the Full Tilt $750,000 Guaranteed and PokerStars $100 rebuy during his poker career. In April, he emerged victorious from the field in a $55 rebuy held during the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) for $97,000. Daut won the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $1.5 million, defeating Isaac Haxton heads-up. He also final tabled that year’s Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, a stop on the World Poker Tour (WPT).

In September of 2008, CardRunners and StoxPoker merged, creating one of the largest poker training conglomerates in the industry. Six months earlier, CardRunners instructors officially joined Team Full Tilt. In January of this year, Truly Free Poker Training was launched, with a CardRunners representative telling Poker News Daily at the time, “We’re always looking to give something back to our community. Our relationship with Full Tilt Poker made this possible. We approached Full Tilt Poker and said we should try to structure an arrangement whereby if a player is high-volume, then we can give them something for free like a CardRunners membership.”

Full Tilt Poker is the second largest site in the world, boasting a seven-day running average of 19,200 real money ring game players, according to PokerScout.com. During its peak hours, around 30,000 cash game players call the site home, giving Truly Free Poker Training customers ample ways to accrue FTPs.

Bodog Founder Calvin Ayre Featured in National Post

On Saturday, the National Post ran an article entitled “Calvin Ayre online gaming tycoon,” a profile of the founder of the popular online poker room, casino, and sports book Bodog. Ayre donned a Bodog Fight shirt for the interview’s image.

Diane Francis was tasked with interviewing Ayre in Antigua and the news outlet described the internet mogul as “semi-retired.” The article begins with Francis asking Ayre about the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), approved by better than a 3:1 edge in the House of Representatives before being attached to the SAFE Port Act at the urging of then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). When asked if Canadian authorities had pursued Ayre in any capacity related to the 2006 law, he told the Post, "No. I haven't lived in Canada for ten years or been in the Canadian tax system. The legal system did not allow me to do this in Canada. Now I like living in the tropics.”

Ayre revealed that he owns the rights to the domain name Bodog.com and licenses the rights to the network to affiliates located around the globe. In the United States, for example, Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, a Canadian outfit, owns the rights to market the brand. After recently releasing “Survivor: China” castaway Jean-Robert Bellande, Bodog’s stable of poker pros currently stands at three: Evelyn Ng, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, and David Williams.

The Post then inquired about Bodog’s revenue figures. Ayre explained, "My current deals aren't revenue based and are all different structures which I don't talk about. Forbes audited our books and based the number on the same multiple that the British public companies were trading at, or more than $1.5 billion. In 2006, Bodog made US $320 million in revenues and 25% profit." After the UIGEA was passed into law, online poker sites with publicly traded parent companies like PartyPoker and Pacific Poker exited the market, leaving sites like Bodog, PokerStars, and Full Tilt Poker to pick up the slack.

On the current legality of online poker in the United States, Ayre told the Post, “Poker is not illegal to bet online in the U.S. because it's considered a skilled game. It's a gray area, but there are lots of American companies with poker sites.” This year, Bodog forged its own poker network and will purportedly begin accepting non-Bodog domains into its ranks next year. Jonas Odman, Vice President of the Bodog Network, told Poker News Daily that a “unique solution” to rakeback will help differentiate the family of sites from others in the industry.

In September, Ayre served as the keynote speaker at the Budapest Affiliate Conference. He told event organizers at the time, “I’m very flattered to have been asked to be this year’s keynote speaker in Budapest. The iGaming space is the birthplace of the Bodog brand, and it remains one of the must dynamic and fascinating sectors in the entertainment space.” In addition to Morris Mohawk, Bodog’s licensees include Bodog Europe and Bodog Asia. The former recently opened its doors to Canadian online poker players.

According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, Bodog is the 15th largest site or network worldwide with a seven-day running average of 860 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, around 1,500 cash game players call the site home. Its traffic is comparable with that found on PKR and every Sunday, the site hosts its $100,000 Guaranteed, a $162 buy-in event that kicks off at 4:00pm ET. The tournament regularly sees a $20,000 to $30,000 overlay, with $29,000 kicked in by the site last week.

Read the entire Calvin Ayre interview with the National Post.

State of the High Stakes Poker Nation

From names like bad_ip, Fast_Freddie and just a handful of others trading pots worth hundreds of thousands at $200/$400 on what was then the Prima Poker Network, to the game’s biggest superstars wagering seven figures nightly heads-up at Full Tilt’s $500/$1,000 tables.

Stakes and pot sizes appear to be constantly on the rise, but the game has changed as well.

While No-Limit Hold’em continues to be the most popular poker variant with the masses, it’s a different story when it comes to the upper echelon.

Within the last year, Pot-Limit Omaha has clearly taken over as the game of choice for players at the highest stakes, and with the exception of the odd opportunity to take advantage of some fresh fish at their chosen game; No-Limit Hold’em has been all but ignored.

With a little more gamble, more complexity and the fact the edge in No-Limit Hold’em is getting smaller by the day considering the amount of books and education resources available to players, there are numerous reasons for the rise of PLO.

“People find PLO much more interesting and entertaining because you can play more hands and there are many more multi-way pots,” explained Finnish high stakes regular and Team Full Tilt Pro Patrik Antonius. “There is just much more happening. Hold’em is pretty much a boring game without antes, as a cash game, because you fold so many hands pre-flop.”

With million dollar pots and multi-million dollar swings becoming a regular occurrence online, it appears the high-stakes regulars simply love the thrill PLO gives them.

“Most everyone likes to gamble and you get that gamble so much more in PLO,” said Ashton “Ashman103” Griffin, who dominated the nosebleed PLO games this summer. “Sometimes you don’t even have to think.”

Online vs. Live

Perhaps it’s only natural that the games at the highest levels online have undergone a change. It’s a trend that has been going on for years in live poker.

Bobby’s Room regular and experienced live high-stakes cash game player Barry Greenstein said he’s seen a variety of games come and go while playing at the highest stakes.

“There have been a lot of changes in the nature of games I have played over the years,” Greenstein said. “We still like to pull out old variants when things get boring. It always seems to benefit the older more experienced players when we bring back an old game like Single Draw Ace-to-Five Lowball.”

When it comes to live poker, it’s a well known fact that at the highest stakes in Bellagio’s Bobby’s Room are played using a mix of limit games. However, Greenstein admitted the game goes wherever the fish want to take it and he believes online poker is no different.

'The games go where the catalysts play.'

 

“PLO has more possibilities than No-Limit Hold’em, but the games go where the catalysts play,” said Greenstein. “On Full Tilt, David (Benyamine) and Gus (Hansen) are the catalysts for the big action and they play a lot of PLO. They would probably rather play mixed games, but the young high stakes players can’t compete in all the variants yet.”

Hansen agrees.

“There has been a trend in the online high stakes,” he said. “People have been following this guy who is called Gus Hansen. So I think, very soon, there is going to be some action in the 7-game mix. Going by the results, it looks like I have definitely not had an edge in the PLO and I know I have been doing alright in the 7-game, so that’s my plan for now and we’ll see how it goes.”

The Future

It appears Gus Hansen’s prediction is true.

Before an unknown Swede calling himself Isildur1 jumped into the high-stakes fray this fall, Hansen went to the mixed games on Full Tilt and the rest of the nosebleed-stakes community was quick to follow.

It appears to be a trend that's happening all over the online world.

“On PokerStars, the 8-game gets most of the action,” added Greenstein. “We have a bigger player pool and the big games are slightly more affordable, even at the highest stakes.”

Brian “sbrugby” Townsend wrote in a blog post earlier this year that he was getting bored with PLO and Hold’em and was one of the first to get in on the mixed game action on Full Tilt.

But once Isildur1 did come, the action went straight back to Omaha.

There are players who would argue that PLO is the ultimate online game because of the gamble involved, but No-Limit Hold’em could always make a comeback at the highest stakes.

Earlier this year, another unknown Swede calling himself martonas shook the poker world by playing No-Limit Hold’em at $500/$1,000 on Full Tilt. It was a game that had been dead for months before martonas hit the scene, but it was suddenly packed with players like Phil Ivey and Antonius looking for a piece of the action.

While Isildur1 appears to also be playing PLO with the high-stakes regulars, he was also able to draw the crowd back to No-Limit Hold’em when he first appeared, as did Luke “__FullFlush1__” Schwartz.

“It’s always like that,” explained Antonius. “When there comes a new guy who wants to play with the regular high-stakes cash players, he can pick any game and people will be willing to play that game. But it will not go back to Hold’em once they are gone.”

It seems unlikely there will ever be a time where 2-7 lowball, or stud games become more popular than No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha at the highest stakes, simply based on the action the games seem to create.

“Players will go where the action is,” said Greenstein. “However the Stud games aren’t conducive to multi-tabling online.”

'It's just so much easier to create high-stakes action in (PLO).'

 

Tom “durrrr” Dwan, who broke into the high stakes games as one of the most successful Hold’em players in online history, says while the odd trend back towards No-Limit Hold’em or into mixed games may be spotted, PLO is truly the future.

“The high-stakes action may have been moving back to Hold'em or into 7-game recently,” he said “But in the future I think it will move more and more back to Omaha rather than mixed games. It's just so much easier to create high-stakes action in that game."

A New Game?

Earlier this year a thread popped up on popular poker forum Two Plus Two asking if a new, more skillful, variant of poker should be invented.

Within days the thread had tens of thousands of hits with suggestions like one card Hold’em with seven streets, Tahoe Hold’em and even somewhat obscure poker variants like Crazy Pineapple.

While it all seems very unlikely, there are those who wouldn’t mind something new.

“There are a million more possibilities,” said Hansen. “So why not? I know there are people sitting in their basement right now trying to think of what the new poker game will be. They are bound to come up with something.”

With the top high-stakes players penchant for playing Chinese Poker for as much as $5,000 and $10,000 a point whenever they get together in person, that game may be the future online as well.

“Chinese poker is too addictive,” said Antonius. “If I want to feed my gambling addiction, that’s what I do.”

But in the end, the game, and the stakes, might not matter at all.

Regardless of what the future holds for online high stakes, one of the most successful players in poker's brief online history seems to know what he wants.

“I don’t care what’s next,” said Ivey. “I just hope to keep playing. Just to be able to play poker everyday is great for me, and to play it at a high level. To me that’s important.”

- With Files From Martin Derbyshire

Joe Hachem Comments on the State of Australian Poker

With the conclusion of the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) in Sydney, Australia last week, another successful season came to an end and one more Aussie champion was born. Online qualifier Aaron Benton won the AUD $6,300 Grand Final Main Event to become the third straight Australian-born player to capture the title. Additionally, fellow Aussie and former APPT champion Van Marcus defeated a tough field to win the APPT Tournament of Champions.

2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion and Team PokerStars Pro member Joe Hachem recently wrote an article in the Sydney Morning Herald discussing the growth of poker in Australia. Hachem, who was born in Lebanon and moved to Melbourne at age six, talked about the APPT, the Aussie Millions, and the poker culture that has taken over Australia since his life-changing victory in 2005.

"Obviously we are yet to reach the heights of popularity that the sport has achieved in America, where every major tournament is televised and attracts thousands of live spectators, but the popularity and the competitors continue to grow," Hachem wrote. "For a professional player, I always hope we'll get to that point. The growth so far has been satisfying as the standard of the events available in Australia continue to improve, as we attract more international talent as well as retain our best home-grown players."

That home-grown talent has made some serious noise in 2009. Jeffrey Lisandro (born in Perth) won three WSOP bracelets in 2009 while capturing Player of the Year honors in a year that saw five different players win multiple events. Lisandro, known better as a successful cash game player, now has four bracelets and joins fellow Aussies Hachem, Mark Vos, Gary Benson, and Mel Juda as WSOP champions.

In January, Bilambil Heights native Stewart Scott earned $1,865,724 by winning the Crown Aussie Millions Main Event. Scott became the first Aussie to keep the prestigious title in his home country since the event went international in 2003. The event, which was first introduced in 1997 as a $1,000 buy-in Limit Hold'em tournament, has developed into one of the biggest poker events on the planet. The number of entrants has increased every year since 2003, helped greatly by Fox Sports Net's broadcast that reaches millions of homes internationally. Poker fans were able to watch Gus Hansen claim the title in 2007 and Alexander Kostritsyn defeat Erik Seidel to win it in 2008.

Benton, who already had a claim to fame coming into the APPT Grand Final as a former contestant in the Australian edition of “Big Brother,” collected AUD $594,000 for his victory in Sydney last week. Benton bested a field of 396 players, including seven Aussies at the final table. Though the tournament drew fewer entrants than the past two years (561 in 2007 and 477 in 2008), Hachem is still pleased with the direction the game is headed in his homeland.

"From the Aussie Millions and this weekend's Pokerstars.net APPT, (the largest poker tour in the region) to smaller events that still offer a genuine challenge like the ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour), a professional player could quite happily now play a full season in this country and boast an impressive record of events," Hachem said.

The 2010 Aussie Millions gets underway on Thursday, January 14 with a $1,100 No Limit Hold'em event. Several similar preliminary events will take place up until the $10,500 Main Event kicks off on January 24.

Poker News in Brief: Nov. 30-Dec. 6, 2009

With all that quality front page poker news there were a number of stories that almost fell through the cracks here at PL.com.

Fortunately, we publish our Poker News in Brief feature every Sunday and we’re going to recount some of the lesser-known stories below.

This week we’ll take a look at the original WSOP location shutting down its hotel, an Australian going back-to-back at the APPT High Roller’s event, a UB Poker pro winning a side event at Bellagio and more.

Binions Hotel Shuts Doors

Binions Gambling Hall & Hotel, the original location of the World Series of Poker, will be shutting down the hotel component of the business, according to a statement from owners this week.

Lisa Robinson, a spokesperson for Owners TLC Casino Enterprises, told the Associated Press the decision was made to keep the rest of the property operational.

She went on to say the facility was heavily affected by the economic downturn and the hotel rooms were no longer competitive.

The casino and legendary poker room will remain in business.

The property was originally known as Binion’s Horseshoe and it was there that Benny Binion conceived the WSOP.

The WSOP brand was sold to Harrah’s in 2004 and the next year the tournament was moved to the Rio All-Suites Hotel.

Graham goes back to back at APPT Sydney High Rollers Event

Jarred Graham pulled off an unlikely repeat performance as the APPT Sydney High Roller champion this week.

The young Australian outlasted 26 players including notables Jeff Lisandro, David Steicke and Terrence Chan to take down the $156,000 (AUD) first place prize.

This is the second year the $15,300 (AUD) buy-in event has been held and last year was actually more difficult for Graham, as he had to beat 36 players.

Graham now has life-time tournament earnings of $468,602, which puts him 21^st on the Australian all-time money list.

PartyGaming Wins Poker Operator of the Year

PartyPoker won Poker Operator of the Year honors at the eGaming Review Awards (EGR) in London this week.

An independent judging panel recognized that PartyPoker had made the most headway in the real-money poker sector over the last year. The judges were looking at originality, growth, scale, usability, payment processing and marketing.

Other notable poker winners included PKR for Best Online Marketing Campaign with special mentions to Betfair for Mobile Gaming Operator and ChiliPoker for Rising Star of the Year.

Russian Takes European Masters of Poker Slovenia

A Russian stole the show at the Slovenia leg of the second season of the European Masters of Poker this week.

Vladimir Mefodichev outlasted 252 opponents to take down the €58,190 first place prize in the three-day event.

The €1,000 buy-in event drew players from across the globe and the final table had players from Denmark, Russia, Israel, Sweden, France and Romania.

The European Masters of Poker now heads to Casino Las Canaria, Spain for the next tournament, which takes place Jan. 28-31.

Michael Binger Wins Five Diamond Side-Event

UB sponsored pro Michael Binger added yet another side event title at the 2009 Bellagio Five Diamond series this week.

Binger outlasted 127 players to win the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for $124,160.

Since bursting onto the poker scene with a third place finish in the 2006 WSOP Main Event for $4.1 million, Binger has taken down the 2008 WSOPC Lake Tahoe title for $181,379 and side events at the L.A. Poker Classic and Five Star World Poker Classic.

Adding in numerous cashes from around the globe, Binger has slightly more than $6.2 million in lifetime tournament earnings.

Power Hours on UB, Absolute Poker

Absolute Poker and UB players now have opportunity to earn twice the frequent player points during certain times.

Starting this week both sites will offer Power Hours from Monday-Saturday between the hours of 1-4 a.m. ET and 1-4 p.m. PT where players will earn twice the UB or AP points. The promotion is open to both tournament and cash-game players.

On Sunday, all players can earn double points between the hours of 1-4 a.m. ET with a special 1-5 p.m. ET session just for cash game players.

Players do not need to sign up and the points will simply be added to their account balance.

Full Tilt Signs Jani Vilmunen

It appears that Full Tilt Poker has signed Jani “KObyTAPOUT” Vilmunen as their latest red pro.

At the start of the week, the Finnish PLO-expert was still playing by his KObyTAPOUT alias but by mid-week a red Jani Vilmunen showed up at the tables on Full Tilt.

Vilmunen is most well-known as a fierce high stakes online cash game player, but he’s also had success in tournaments. Vilmunen won the Pot-Limit Omaha event at the WSOPE this fall for $336,396 and he also won the $2,100 PLO Six-Max WCOOP event on PokerStars for $172,140.

Full Tilt has yet to publicly confirm it has signed Vilmunen.

UB, Poker Player Magazine Hold Tournament for Armed Forces

Poker Player Magazine and UB Poker will host a freeroll this January to benefit those serving in the United States armed services.

All members of the armed forces, including veterans, are encouraged to participate, but the event is open to all players who would like to show their appreciation for men and women in uniform.

“This is a great event for everyone,” said Poker Pro Media Vice President Will Jordan, a former Marine. “But it is especially gratifying because we will be getting our servicemen and women involved. They deserve our gratitude, and this is just one small way to show it.”

The grand prize will be a $10,000 seat in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, along with $2,000 in expense money.

To sign up for the freeroll simply go to UB.com by Dec. 27 and use the promotion code PKRPRO.

PartyPoker Launches Full House Promotion

Throughout the month of December, PartyPoker will be holding the Full House promotion. The three-pronged promotion covers the worlds of cash games, sit and gos, and multi-table tournaments. PartyPoker does not accept players from the United States.

The first component of PartyPoker’s Full House promotion is the $50,000 Cash Game Race. The site’s Bronze, Silver, and Gold players are eligible for the five-figure purse and the top prize is $3,000. The top 500 players on the points-based leaderboard will walk away with cash, with the minimum payout being $10. The top seven players will earn over $1,000, while the top 200 will take home at least $100. The $50,000 Cash Game Race runs between December 3rd and 23rd and only Party Points earned at ring games will count.

At the time of writing, the top player on the $50,000 Cash Game Race, “luckboxing47,” has luck boxed his way to 6,466 Party Points and, if the promotion ended today, would be in line for a $3,000 payday. The 500th player, “alfie1906,” has 348 points. PartyPoker’s Palladium Lounge members are not eligible to battle in the $50,000 Cash Game Race.

The Jackpot Hunter is geared towards sit and go aficionados on PartyPoker. This part of the promotion, which runs all month long, offers a colossal $160,000 in potential payouts. One $50,000 prize is available for any player who manages to take down not one, not two, not three, not four, but five $55 buy-in or higher sit and gos in a row. Three $20,000 prizes are available for players who can accomplish the feat in $12 to $54 buy-in sit and gos and five $10,000 jackpots are available for sit and gos ranging in buy-in from $3 to $11. All wins must be consecutive.

Jackpot Hunter prizes are awarded on a first come, first served basis. PartyPoker’s website explains the redemption process: “Once you’ve won five consecutive STTs at a particular level, e-mail your account name to info@partypoker.com immediately.” This part of the Full House promotion began on December 1st. Here’s the fine print: all five sit and gos won must be of the exact same buy-in and only 10-seat single-table tournaments are eligible. Double-or-Nothing events do not count and players can claim as many jackpots as they can achieve.

The final part of the Full House promotion on PartyPoker consists of $1 Million Multi-Table Tournament Jackpots. Running all month long, the Multi-Table Jackpots require players to buy into daily $5,000 prize pool tournaments with a price tag of 20 Party Points. The top 200 players in each $5,000 event move on to a $250,000 Grand Final on January 3rd. PartyPoker players who fail to qualify for the Grand Final can pony up 1,000 Party Points to enter. Any player who wins two of the $5,000 events will earn $100,000 and, if a player can snag titles in any three of these tournaments, they’ll earn a life-changing $1 million.

The wins in $5,000 events don’t have to be consecutive and PartyPoker customers must e-mail the site if they’re eligible to win the $100,000 or $1 million prizes. Jackpots are awarded on a first come, first served basis.

PartyPoker is the fourth largest online poker site or network worldwide with a seven-day running average of 4,700 real money ring game players according to PokerScout.com. During its peak hours, which occur in the evening throughout Europe, well north of 7,000 cash game players can be found on its felts. PartyPoker is the second largest site or network to accept U.S. players behind the mammoth iPoker Network, whose family of rooms includes Titan Poker, CelebPoker, Mansion Poker, Paddy Power Poker, and William Hill.

Three ways to win are available this month as part of the PartyPoker Full House promotion. Visit the site for more details.

ESPN Ranks Top Poker Players; Phil Ivey Number One

Who is the top all-around poker player in the world? Online or live, cash games or tournaments, whose game reigns supreme over the rest of the industry? According to a panel of experts organized by ESPN.com, the answer is Phil Ivey.

The voting block consisted of ESPN’s Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, and Bernard Lee, along with Bluff’s Lance Bradley and Michael Friedman, Poker News Daily’s Dan Cypra, and PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington. Each of us was asked to name our top ten players in the poker world irrespective of whether we were talking about online or live play, tournaments, cash games, or game type. In the end, the first ever list of “The Nuts” was compiled.

Topping the chart was Ivey, the seventh place finisher in the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Ivey won two bracelets in preliminary tournaments leading up to the $10,000 buy-in Main Event, one in Deuce to Seven Lowball and one in Omaha/Seven Card Stud High-Low. He owns seven bracelets and over $5 million in career WSOP earnings. Coupled with nearly $3 million in high-stakes cash game winnings off Swedish poker pro Isildur1 alone, Ivey makes a strong case as the top name in the business. Out of the seven pollsters, six chose Ivey as their top dog. The lone exception was yours truly.

My pick for best poker player today was Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko. While players like Ivey have been successful, Timoshenko has dominated high-profile events. In April, Timoshenko took down the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship for $2.1 million, one year after winning the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Macau Main Event. He finished 25th in the 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event and proved his online prowess by winning the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $1.7 million in September. He followed that performance up with a victory in the Full Tilt $1K Monday. His stakes aren’t as high in cash games as Ivey’s, but he’s also not a member of Team Full Tilt.

Second overall on “The Nuts” was Patrik Antonius. Another participant in the high-stakes games against Isildur1, Antonius lays claim to winning the largest pot in online poker history, $1.3 million, set last month. Friedman noted, “I know this may be controversial, but I think Antonius may be the best online cash game player out there at the moment.” Going against Antonius is his lackluster performance in tournaments; he has not turned in a live score of over $20,000 since May of 2008, according to HendonMob.com.

Rounding out the top three was Daniel Negreanu, who was not ranked by Poker News Daily. Negreanu has final tabled the Main Event of WSOP Europe in back-to-back years and recorded eight in the money finishes in the Las Vegas series in 2009. Negreanu has been actively involved on televised poker programs like “High Stakes Poker” and the “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge,” serving as one of the game’s top ambassadors. His cash game accolades seem less obvious than Ivey’s and Antonius’, who Poker News Daily ranked as #3 and #6, respectively.

So who did the seven pollsters rank in the first ever edition of ESPN’s “The Nuts”? Here is the illustrious list of today’s top poker players:

1. Phil Ivey
2. Patrik Antonius
3. Daniel Negreanu
4. Tom “durrrr” Dwan
5. Barry Greenstein
6. Jason Mercier
7. Jeffrey Lisandro
8. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier
9. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond
10. Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko

Others who received votes included Tommy Vedes, Isildur1, J.C. Tran, Allen Cunningham, Steve “gboro780” Gross, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements, Michael Binger, Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, David “The Dragon” Pham, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Dan “djk123” Kelly, Antoine Saout, Brian Townsend, Brock “t soprano” Parker, and Matt Hawrilenko. Check out the full ESPN list for more details on each player selected.

What do you think? Should Ivey have been number one? Leave a comment here and let us know!

Top 10 Poker Players Right Now

When it comes to listing top 10 of poker players, I’m sure that if 100 person would make the list, there would be 100 different lists of players. Still, there are some players that almost everybody would put in their list.

So this list is not the top 10 of all time, but the top 10 of players who have achieved great success recently. From bottom to top, espn top 10 list looks like this:

10. Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko. Timoshenko has been on a tear recently, winning both live and online tournaments, WPT Championship tournament, WCOOP main event and $1K Monday win among them.

9. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. One of the best online cash game players in the world, who consistently wins in nosebleed games at Full Tilt Poker. Has been having a rough year in 2009 though and there for he shouldn’t be listed here.

8. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier. Former Starcraft professional, who won Two World Championship of Online Poker titles in September 2009. Has won over 2 millions in tournaments this year live and online.

7. Jeffrey Lisandro. Won three WSOP bracelets this year and the POY rankings of WSOP 2009. Master of seven card games of poker.

6. Jason Mercier. A tournament poker powerhouse who had another great year in 2009. Nine final tables in 2009, which resulted in four wins and two runner-up finishes.

5. Barry Greenstein. “The Bear” is a familiar figure playing the biggest cash games in the world at Bobby’s Room, but he can also put together good results in tournaments. Greenstein managed to cash 13 in 2009 including seven at the 2009 WSOP.

4. Tom “durrrr” Dwan. One of the most creative poker players in the world. Dwan is an online poker legend, but after losing over six million dollars in November, he shouldn’t really be on this list.

3. Daniel Negreanu. The all-time tournament winnings leader and the master of small ball poker. Managed to make it to the final table of the WSOP Europe Main event second year in a row, finishing in second place after couple tough bad beats.

2. Patrik Antonius. Antonius is a no-brainer on this list. Antonius is a player who Andrew Feldman thinks is “maybe the best online cash game player out there at the moment”. I agree.

1. Phil Ivey. If Antonius was an obvious pick, Phil Ivey is even more. Ivey is the player who everybody who knew anything about poker would pick in their top 10 list. Didn’t win the WSOP Main Event, but managed take few millions out of Isildur1 in last weeks. The best poker player in the world overall.

Ivey is the number one.

As I said in the beginning, it is hard to list poker players, but I thinks this list has couple obvious flaws. It is not fair to have Galfond and Dwan listed in a “who’s hot” list when they obviously are not hot. Why Joe Cada is not listed, he just won the most coveted title in the poker world?

In my opinion, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies should be on this list instead of Galfond and Brian Townsend instead of Dwan, but not necessarily on same places on the list. Both made huge profit in November and arguably are the players who are hot right now in online poker world.

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Top 10 Poker Players Right Now

Lodden: “Isildur1 is young and doesn’t understand the value of the cash”

Johnny Lodden was the online poker player everybody was talking about few years ago, when he played online under the nickname “bad_ip”. Nowadays Lodden doesn’t play online high stakes anymore and has focused more on competing in live tournaments. But the PokerStars pro still remembers the time when he was young and reckless high stakes gambler.

“It was pretty crazy,” says Lodden about the record pot that he lost to Kowssarie. “I might have smashed my computer. I smashed a lot of computers back in the day.”

In 2006, games were lot smaller than today and highest games were played with $200/$400 blinds, mostly at Microgaming Network, formerly known as Prima Poker Network. Just 21 years old at the time, Lodden couldn’t properly understand the value of money he was winning or losing.

“When you have the money online it’s different,” Lodden said. “If I had a briefcase in front of me with $3 million it would be different thing. When you just have chips and numbers on a computer, you just treat it differently.”

Lodden feels that Isildur1 is in a same place where he was three years ago, playing against best in the world in Patrik Antonius, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, all players which Lodden has played against when he was active in high stakes circuit.

“I think he’s young and doesn’t understand the value of the cash,” he said. “But I love his No-Limit (Hold’em) game. I mean, he’s really good at (Pot-Limit Omaha) but he’s much better at No-Limit (Hold’em).”

Even though norwegian Lodden made a reputation as being one of the most fearsome cash game players in the world, he says he is more than happy playing live tournaments these days.

“I really want to do well in live tournaments because this is the thing everybody cares about.” Lodden says. “I love to play tournaments, especially the EPTs and nowadays I’m not playing so high, so I have to grind it out in these.”

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Lodden: “Isildur1 is young and doesn’t understand the value of the cash”

Full Tilt Poker Sit and Go Madness Returns December 4th

On Friday, players on Full Tilt Poker, the world’s second largest online poker site, will once again be able to compete in Sit and Go Madness. The 48-hour promotion kicks off at 16:00 ET and runs through Sunday.

Only sit and gos highlighted in green in the Full Tilt Poker lobby are eligible for the promotion and the one-table contests are broken up into four groups. Group A consists of sit and gos with $1 to $2 buy-ins, Group B encompasses sit and gos with $5 to $11 buy-ins, Group C consists of sit and gos with $20 to $33 buy-ins, and Group D is composed of high-dollar sit and gos with $50 to $110 buy-ins.

The 48-hour Sit and Go Madness promotion is divided into 24 two-hour time blocks. During each period, the top seven players on each group’s leaderboard will walk away with cash prizes ranging from $1 to $500. The first two-hour period begins at 16:00 ET on Friday, December 4th and the final events of Sit and Go Madness will take place at 16:00 ET on Sunday, December 6th. The top prizes every two hours vary between $20 and $500.

In addition to the hourly leaderboards, an Overall Leaderboard for each group will also be kept. These include the top performances, points-wise, over the two-hour time blocks. Full Tilt Poker candidly explains, “So even if you put up a high score in one of the two-hour blocks, it pays to keep trying to best your score.” The top two players in each group’s overall leaderboard will move on to the $5,000 Sit and Go Freeroll, where the top three finishers will walk away with prize money. The freeroll takes place on Saturday, December 12th at 15:05 ET and will feature a field of eight players.

Also taking place on Saturday, December 12th is the $50,000 Madness Freeroll. The only way for players to win their way into this freebie is by taking down two sit and gos during the 48-hour promotion. Two-time winners will automatically be entered to win their share of $50,000 and the top payout is estimated to be around $5,000, or one-tenth of the purse. The Madness Freeroll encourages repeat play until two victories are obtained and can be found in the Tournament lobby of Full Tilt Poker.

The final component of Sit and Go Madness is the wildly popular Madness Raffle. The grand prize up for grabs is a posh Full Tilt Poker Deluxe Home Game Package, which consists of a freestanding poker table, 500-piece chipset, and two leather card cases. A total of 10 players in the Raffle will claim 500 T$ and another 25 will take home 200 T$. Seventy-five Raffle winners will receive $75 Satellite Tokens, while 100 other winners will receive $26 Satellite Tokens. Nine-hundred Full Tilt Poker shirts and hats will also be given out, for over 1,000 prizes total.

To hunt down qualifying sit and gos during the promotional period, open the Full Tilt Poker client and click on “Sit & Go” and then “1-Table.” Remember, Sit and Go Madness tables are highlighted in green. All sit and go results count for the hour in which the event began.

According to PokerScout.com, Full Tilt Poker has seen its traffic grow by 25% over the last four weeks thanks in part to its Holiday Hundred bonus promotion, which ends on December 6th. Its annual growth rate tops 125% and the site is the second largest worldwide with a seven-day running average of 18,600 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, which occur in the evening throughout the United States, over 30,000 cash game players call Full Tilt Poker home. The site happily accepts U.S. action.

Titan Poker Set For New Year With $2,010 Promo

In total, the poker room will award $120,000 to its players over a two-month span with various options for tournament, cash and sit & go players.

Starting today, Titan Poker will run nightly tournaments with a buy-in of just $2.10. The top 10 players in each event will not only score their normal cash prizes, but also gain entry into the site’s monthly $2,010 freeroll.

Also starting this week are three separate frequent player point races: One for cash game players, one for sit & go players and one for tournament players. Each race will offer $2,010 in prizes.

Next week, Titan Poker will offer several exclusive races for its VIP players with prizes ranging from $2,010 up to $4,020.

Meanwhile, new depositors will receive four free entries into special $2,010 freeroll tournaments. See the website for full details.

In addition to all the 2010 promotions, Titan Poker is preparing to host its $1,580 buy-in, $1.5 million guaranteed European Championship of Online Poker V main event on Dec. 6.

Satellites for the event start at just $11.90 and are currently running on Titan Poker.

Frenchman Fabrice Soulier Signs with Everest Poker

Everest Poker, an independent online poker site, is continuing to build its influence in France by signing Fabrice Soulier. 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event third place finisher and fellow French player Antoine Saout is also a sponsored pro of the site.

A press release distributed by Everest Poker claimed that the move to sign Soulier was made in order to reinforce “its presence in the country in a continued effort to develop poker in France ahead of the opening of the market.” Soulier has a wealth of live poker cashes dating back to before Chris Moneymaker bested Sammy Farha in the 2003 WSOP Main Event. In 2001, he won the Grand Prix de Paris for over $50,000 and, the next year, finished as the runner-up in a $500 buy-in tournament during the Jack Binion World Poker Open in Tunica for $41,000.

In 2006, Soulier made his presence felt on television, taking fifth in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament for $240,000, an event ultimately won by Nam Le. Soulier won a €1,000 buy-in event as part of the Deauville Poker Festival in late 2007 and went on to win the Marrakech Poker Open’s Main Event for $135,000 two years later. During the recently-held 2009 WSOP, he took 49th in the Main Event for nearly $140,000 and recorded six other cashes.

A press release distributed by Everest Poker explained Soulier’s influence within France: “He is a regular at key French poker rendezvous throughout the year and has participated in a number of television shows and projects which have helped improve and develop the perception of the game in France and mold the poker scene into the mature and leading market that it is today.”

According to PokerScout.com, Everest Poker is the sixth largest site or network worldwide with a seven-day running average of 2,350 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, which occur in the evening throughout Europe, over 5,000 competitors can be found battling it out on Everest Poker’s virtual felts. At the time of writing, which is early afternoon in London, a total of 2,912 cash game players are logged in. Everest Poker does not accept players from the United States and its traffic is similar with that found on the CEREUS Network, which includes the newly-branded UB.com and Absolute Poker. It is the official on-felt sponsor of the WSOP.

A French news outlet in Las Vegas during the conclusion of the 2009 WSOP Main Event told Poker News Daily that Saout winning the $10,000 buy-in tournament would likely result in a poker renaissance in the European nation. Every hand won by the Frenchman led the site to blog with earnest. However, Saout ultimately finished third after his pocket queens could not withstand champion Joe Cada’s pocket deuces when the flop fell 7-2-9. Saout came out on the short end of a race shortly thereafter with pocket eights against Cada’s A-K when a king hit on the river. The two unfortunate hands ended Saout’s run at the Main Event title, but he earned $3.5 million for his efforts.

According to an update provided last Sunday on PokerScout.com, Everest Poker has seen its traffic slide 3% year over year. Contrastingly, traffic on Full Tilt Poker and the Entraction Network has grown by 110% and 65%, respectively.

Patrik Antonius Takes Record-Setting $1.3 Million Pot from Isildur1

The ongoing clash between Isildur1 and the game’s most vaunted high-stakes cash game players reached new levels over the weekend, as the cagey Swede played record-setting sessions with Full Tilt Pros Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan. The online poker world watched in awe as Isildur1 got involved in multiple $1 million pots at the $500/$1,000 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) tables.

The biggest pot ever played on the internet came on Saturday between Isildur1 and Antonius, who has taken any opportunity to play against the Swede at the $500/$1,000 PLO tables. With Antonius sitting on a stack of $1.26 million and Isildur1 with $678,000, Isildur1 raised the button to $3,000. Antonius re-raised to $9,000, Isildur1 put in another raise to $27,000, and Antonius came back over the top for a total of $81,000. Isildur1 decided to call and the two players saw a flop of 5c-4s-2h. Antonius led out for $91,000 and Isildur1 raised to $435,000, leaving $162,473 in his stack. Antonius moved all-in and the Swede quickly called with 9s-8h-7d-6d. Antonius revealed Ah-3s-Ks-Kh for the wheel and, with the 5h turn and 9c river, Antonius dodged a higher straight to collect a pot worth $1,356,947, the largest pot in the history of online poker. The previous record, an $878,958.50 pot, was set a few days earlier by the same two players.

The onslaught continued into the night, as Antonius was able to take more than $2 million from Isildur1 over a 24-hour span. In total, Isildur1 has lost more than $3.5 million over 12,604 hands to Antonius since the Swede burst on to the scene this month, according to PokerTableRatings.com.

Isildur1 was able to recoup some of those losses on Sunday evening when he and Phil Ivey played a lengthy match at the $500/$1,000 PLO tables. Another $1 million-plus pot went down, but the Swede came out on the winning end of this one. With Ivey holding $563,500 and Isildur1 holding $638,500, Ivey raised his button to $3,000 and Isildur1 re-raised to $9,000. Ivey put in a four-bet to $27,000 and Isildur1 called out of position. The flop brought Ks-Js-Jd and both players checked. On the 10d turn, Isildur1 checked again and Ivey bet $41,000. Isildur1 check-raised to $177,000 and Ivey called, boosting the pot to $408,000. The river brought the 5d and the Swede moved all-in, putting Ivey to a decision for his entire $360,000 stack. Ivey called and mucked his hand when Isildur1 flipped over Kd-Kc-5h-4d for a flopped full house.

The $1,127,955 pot, while massive, was just a hiccup in what has been an Ivey-dominated match thus far. PokerTableRatings.com has tracked 6,174 hands between the two players, with Ivey up by nearly $3 million. We expect much more heads-up action from the two players in the near future.

Tom Dwan made his way back to the nosebleed games on Full Tilt Sunday evening. Fresh off his victory at the live “Durrrr” Challenge against Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, and Sammy George, Dwan sat down with Isildur1 again to try to regain some of the $4 million he’d lost to the Swede in November. After nearly 1,500 hands, Dwan found himself down another $645,000 after a series of coolers and bad beats. Dwan’s total losses to Isildur1 reached $4,548,473 after Sunday’s session.

The fearless Swede, who lost around $3.3 million to Antonius and Ivey during the past 48 hours, is still up more than $500,000 since he first showed his face on Full Tilt Poker. He has logged major victories over Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Full Tilt Red Pros Cole South, David Benyamine, and Haseeb Qureshi. Most of his losses were to the aforementioned Antonius and Ivey, but Isildur1 has also given away more than $100,000 each to Hac “trex13″ Dang and Brian Hastings.

Rumors continue to circle about the identity of Isildur1, with likely candidates being Robert “gulkines” Flink, Stefan “el_matador” Matsson, and Viktor “blom90″ Blom. Regardless, Poker News Daily will continue to follow the progress of the Swedish sensation. Stay tuned.

CardRunners Offers a Chance to Win a Piece of Taylor Caby

Those looking for a good sweat or just looking for a little extra cash before the holidays may want to investigate a new promotion from the online poker training site CardRunners. The site recently launched a promotion in tandem with TrulyFreePokerTraining.com in which one lucky person has a chance to win as much as $5,000 courtesy of CardRunners co-founder and instructor Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby.

The promotion, called Piece of Taylor, offers the chance to win a 1% stake in Caby when he participates in the final table of the televised invitational tournament, the Full Tilt Poker Million. Caby is one of the six players in the 72-person field to advance through the preliminary and semi-final heats of the shootout style event to secure a spot at the final table. He will be joined in the finals by recent ninth place finisher in this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event James Akenhead, online poker pro Luke “FullFlush1″ Schwartz, Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Juha Helppi, and online qualifier Peter Vasiliou. A seventh player, an online qualifier from Full Tilt Poker, will also be added to the lineup. The final table is scheduled to play out in London on December 3rd, with action airing live on the Sky Sports network in Europe.

Caby and the others will be battling for the top prize of $500,000, but each will walk away with a minimum payout of $50,000. That means that those who take part in the Piece of Taylor promotion will win anywhere from $500 to $5,000 depending on where Caby ends up finishing. In order to participate in the promotion, players must register with TrulyFreePokerTraining.com, a site that allows players to take advantage of both CardRunners and StoxPoker just by earning points on Full Tilt Poker. To be eligible for the Piece of Taylor promotion, users must sign up before December 3rd. A random drawing will be held on December 7th to determine a winner.

There is no cost to enroll with TrulyFreePokerTraining.com, which credits users with subscriptions to the two training sites based on how many Full Tilt Points a player earns. For example, if a user earns 3,000 points on Full Tilt, they get one free month of StoxPoker training, while 5,500 points merit one free month of Cardrunners. Players do not have to cash in their Full Tilt Points in order to redeem their free memberships, they simply have to sign up through the site and log time at the tables.

Caby spoke with Poker News Daily about how the idea for the promotion came about: “To be honest, we saw Full Tilt had a promotion where they were giving away 1% of [Phil] Ivey at the WSOP Main Event final table, so we thought we’d offer a version of that at CardRunners. Kind of just to be funny, but also to give members and people that signed up for TrulyFreePokerTraining something to sweat while I’m at the final table.” Caby also emphasized that, even if someone doesn’t win the promotion, there is still a lot to be gained just by signing up for the benefits of the site: “A lot of people are getting their CardRunners subscriptions fully paid for just by playing at Full Tilt.”

This is the first major live final table for Caby, who is better known as a cash game player than a tournament pro. He and the other players will start the match with the same number of chips they ended with in the semi-finals, putting Caby in the middle of the pack. He offered some insight on how he plans to approach the event when he returns to London in a couple of weeks: “The structure is pretty shallow. I think the chip leader has something like 40 or 50 big blinds, so there’s not really a whole lot of room for crazy maneuvering. To be honest, I’m just going to try to go in and play the best strategy I can for having a shorter stack and I’m not too concerned about any certain player.”

While Caby expressed enthusiasm about his own chances at winning a half-million dollars, he was equally excited about the chance to win money for someone taking part in Piece of Taylor: “I’m not really going to change how I play, but I’ll feel a lot better if I can send someone a lot of money.”

Jean-Robert Bellande Out as Bodog Sponsored Pro

Former “Survivor: China” contestant Jean-Robert Bellande is no longer a sponsored pro of Bodog, according to a representative from the online poker room. His current agreement expired at the end of October and was not renewed.

Only three sponsored pros currently appear on Bodog’s website: Evelyn Ng, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, and David Williams. The runner-up in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Ladies Night Event in 2003, Ng also took 11th in the Season IV Borgata Poker Open for $64,000. That same season, Ng grabbed 39th in the WPT Championship for $73,000.

Bonomo is one of the industry’s top online poker players, but has also dominated on the brick-and-mortar felts. Bonomo won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Event Championship at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in April for $227,000. One month later, he final tabled the $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament commemorating the 40th running of the WSOP for a colossal $413,000.

Rounding out the shrunken crop of Bodog pros is Williams, who boasts the only bracelet of the trio. Williams captured his piece of hardware in 2006 by virtue of taking down a $1,500 buy-in Seven Card Stud tournament for $163,000, defeating a talented final table that also included “Miami” John Cernuto and 10-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan. Text found on Bodog’s website still refers to “four pros,” but only three profiles appear.

“Jean-Robert Bellande’s deal with Bodog Poker expired at the end of October and the decision was made not to renew the deal. It has been an absolute pleasure having Jean-Robert as one of Bodog.com’s Poker pros and we wish him all the best,” the room’s Poker Manager told Poker News Daily. In February, Poker Royalty, which represents Bellande, boasted that the pro had renewed his sponsorship agreement with the USA-facing site. At the time, Bellande commented, “I am thrilled to continue my relationship with Team Bodog. Bodog is a fantastic organization and I am excited to continue with such a select team of world-class poker players.”

During the 2008 WSOP, Bellande finished as the runner-up to Matt “mattg1983” Graham in a $1,500 buy-in Limit Hold’em Shootout for $173,000. The final table of the marathon tournament wrapped up after 7:00am at the Rio in Las Vegas. In 2005, Bellande grabbed third in the Rio’s WSOP Circuit Event Championship for $210,000 in a contest that saw Doug Lee and Full Tilt Poker pro Jennifer Harman battle heads-up.

Bellande was one of 16 contestants to head to China for the 15th cycle of the CBS reality series “Survivor.” Bellande was the eighth player voted out of the popular program and became the second member of its jury, the group of seven castaways who selected flight attendant Todd Herzog as the show’s $1 million winner. Bellande was on the Fei Long tribe both before and after a tribal switch-up; the group then merged to become Hae Da Fung.

In 2006, Bellande made waves by competing in the WPT’s Bad Boys of Poker against the likes of Tony G, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Gus Hansen. In the end, Tony G triumphed over the invite-only six-handed table and earned $25,000. All told, Bellande owns over $75,000 from WPT felts.

According to the tracking site PokerScout.com, Bodog is the 14th largest site or network worldwide with a seven-day running average of 930 real money ring game players. It features a 24-hour peak of 1,411 cash game players and, at the time of writing, which is around 8:30pm ET on a Sunday night, 1,359 combatants have taken to its ring game felts. Bodog is the fifth largest site or network that accepts U.S. action, trailing PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, CEREUS, and the Cake Poker Network.

Poker News in Brief: Nov. 9-15, 2009

Although poker legend Phil Ivey didn't win his eighth bracelet, fans were still treated to a thrilling final table that saw 21-year-old Joe Cada become poker's youngest world champion.

There was plenty of poker news that nearly slipped through the cracks, however, and as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature we've compiled a list of the lesser-known stories below.

This week we'll take a look at Fox Sports en Español picking up the LAPT, Tom "durrrr" Dwan starting his own blog, Joe Sebok passing the one million mark in Twitter and more.

Fox Sports en Español Broadcasting Latin American Poker Tour

Fox Sports en Español and PokerStars reached an agreement this week that will see the network broadcast the Latin American Poker Tour in Spanish.

The Fox Sports en Español broadcast will feature highlights from tour stops in Costa Rica, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.

"It's amazing to see how poker has become one of the most popular sports in Latin America, it has taken off like wildfire," said Team PokerStars Pro Humberto Brenes. "To think that the prize pool has nearly doubled in just one year is a testament to the power of poker."

Coverage is scheduled to air on Friday nights at 8:00 ET on Fox Sports en Español.

Joe Sebok hits one million twitter followers

Pokerroad.com president and UltimateBet pro Joe Sebok hit over one million Twitter followers this week.

It's an impressive feat considering if you combined the followers for Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth you still wouldn't have even 25% of Sebok's following.

To put things in perspective Sebok also has more Twitter followers than Tom Cruise (153,905) and Lindsay Lohan (142,474).

Will Tom 'durrrr' Dwan share strategy tips in his new blog?

UltimateBet is celebrating the occasion by offering a $5.50 tournament with $24,000 in added prizes and a $1,500 bounty on Sebok. The event is scheduled to take place Dec. 13 at 3 p.m. ET.

Tom "durrrr" Dwan starts blogging

Noted high stakes online player Tom "durrrr" Dwan is giving fans an inside look at his life thanks to a new blog launched this week.

One of the few players without a training site or blog, Dwan did mention in his first post that he was officially blogging for Full Tilt Poker, which he recently joined as a team member.

In his first post, Dwan discussed taking a helicopter ride with Patrik Antonius to see a Jay-Z/Coldplay show in London and skydiving while inebriated.

He also said he would be recapping some of the action at the live durrrr heads-up challenge scheduled to take place in London later this week.

You can check the blog out here.

Annie Duke to host "Use Poker Skills for Life"

UltimateBet.com poker pro Annie Duke will be hosting a special presentation on how to use skills learned in poker in real life settings.

The "Use Poker Skills for Life" presentation will take part in conjunction with the Annie Duke Celebrity Poker Night which benefits the Decision Education Foundation. Both events will take place on Nov. 19 at the Commerce Casino in L.A.

The free presentation will start at 6:30 p.m. and guest entry is on a first come, first serve basis, for up to 80 attendees.

Duke won't be the only famous poker player speaking as Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch and Ali Nejad will all take the podium during the evening.

The presentation is sponsored by Stakes Supper Club.

Brad Booth once bought into 'High Stakes Poker' for a cool million.

Brad Booth joins GR88.com

Former Full Tilt poker pro "Yukon" Brad Booth has signed with new gaming site GR88.com as their official spokesperson and head of poker development.

Primarily a cash game player, Booth is perhaps most well-known for buying into High Stakes Poker for $1 million and pulling off a risky bluff against Phil Ivey.

Although he now resides in Vancouver, Canada, Booth earned his nickname by playing underground games in the Yukon.

Booth made his biggest tournament score when he came in third place in the 2006 WPT Mandalay Bay Championship for $319,180.

High Stakes Poker Season 6 Filmed at Golden Nugget

The sixth season of the GSN franchise “High Stakes Poker” filmed this week at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas. Friday marked the third of three days of filming for the $200,000 buy-in show.

A bevy of poker pros have wandered the halls of the Golden Nugget since Wednesday, each looking to strike it rich in the sixth cycle of the poker television staple. Last year, Tom “durrrr” Dwan made his “High Stakes Poker” debut in style, scooping the largest single pot in the show’s history at the expense of Team PokerStars Pro member Barry Greenstein. Dwan took down $919,000 when his K-Q drew out on Greenstein’s aces and, given the dramatic pots up for grabs, Dwan told Poker News Daily that he’s looking forward to Season 6: “I’m excited to be back. We’re playing for a whole lot of money this time around.”

One player making his “High Stakes Poker” debut is 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine member Dennis Phillips, who took third in the $10,000 buy-in feature tournament last year for $4.5 million. The St. Louis native told Poker News Daily about his mindset headed into the high-stakes cash game: “I’m ready to do this and rock and roll. I sat down at ‘Poker After Dark’ last week and had some fun.” On making a run in the world of cash games, Phillips explained, “I played cash before I played tournaments. I played cash in London and in Monte Carlo as well.” Phillips admitted that he normally plays $25/$50 or $50/$100 cash games.

Common in previous seasons of “High Stakes Poker” were a variety of prop bets, many orchestrated by poker regulars Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak. While waiting to head into the “High Stakes Poker” suite, Laak explained the stance of Executive Producer Mori Eskandani towards prop betting in Season 6: “The prop bets where people would guess on cards, for example, they’ve been trying to get rid of that. Mori is trying to steer towards less betting at all. The bottom line is that he doesn’t want viewers at home to be bogged down with players prop betting in addition to poker.” Prop bets during Season 5 revolved around push-ups, movie ratings, and hole cards.

Daniel Negreanu commented on his Twitter feed that he’s looking forward to running into more quads during the show’s sixth season. He’s appeared on every cycle of the program so far and told Poker News Daily how this year’s installment has varied from previous airings: “The show has progressed really far from Seasons 1 to 5. Season 1 was the smaller names because most of the guys who played were at higher stakes anyway. Now, the antes are up, the buy-ins are up, and the percentage of good players to bad players has gone up. It’s definitely more serious poker now. It’s more cutthroat.”

Also found at the Golden Nugget this week is Barry Greenstein, who, like Negreanu, has been a staple of “High Stakes Poker” ever since Season 1. Greenstein explained how the sixth season differs from years past: “The poker economy is down, so the money seems tougher to come by. There are few guys who you know play big online that have money, but the majority of people are thinking they’re taking a $200,00 shot and they’ll see what happens. The first year we did this, players felt better funded. I think what will happen is that there will be two guys like Phil Ivey and Durrrr who will try to muscle everyone around. Others will try to pick their spots.”

Released in the original cast list for Season 6 of “High Stakes Poker,” but not participating, was cash game player Sammy George. Those slated to take part in the festivities include Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Dwan, Eli Elezra, Esfandiari, Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Andreas Hoivold, Ivey, Mike Matusow, Allan Meltzer, Negreanu, Phillips, Lex Veldhuis, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko. The series premieres on Sunday, February 14th at 8:00pm ET and features Kara Scott reporting on action from the “High Stakes Poker” suite.

Tom Dwan (durrrr) Joins Team Full Tilt

The elite group of 13 poker pros that comprise Team Full Tilt Poker has a new member joining its ranks.  The online poker room just announced that its 14th member of the team will be 23-year old high-stakes online poker pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan.

Full Tilt Poker recently added Dwan to its roster, but Dwan has been a noticeable presence on the site for quite some time prior to the new sponsorship deal.  Full Tilt has been hosting Dwan’s “Durrrr Challenge” cash game tables since the epic bet first came to light in February and the youngster is a mainstay on all of the highest stakes cash game tables on the site as well.

Prior to Dwan, the last addition to the squad was Patrik Antonius, who joined Team Full Tilt in the summer of 2008.  The other members of the exclusive group are Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harman, Allen Cunningham, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow, Andy Bloch, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, and Erick Lindgren.  The group has a collective 37 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and is widely considered to represent some of the best tournament and cash game players in the world.  Dwan is now the youngest member of the group, but in his brief career, he has made an indelible impression on both the online and live poker communities.

In a press release announcing the news, Lederer spoke about the young pro and why they decided to include him on the team: “Team Full Tilt doesn’t take adding a team member lightly, but Tom Dwan has proven, through skill and dynamic play, that he will be a force to be reckoned with for many years to come. We are proud to count Tom as one of our own.”

Dwan’s list of accomplishments include over $1 million in tournament poker winnings, three WSOP final tables, a World Poker Tour final table, and several successful appearances on poker television shows like “Poker After Dark” and “High Stakes Poker.”  Dwan holds the record for both the largest pot in “High Stakes Poker” history as well as the largest pot in televised poker history, which he recently won off of Ivey during the filming of the “Full Tilt Poker’s Million Dollar Cash Game.”  Dwan won the $1.1 million pot when he turned a seven-high straight against Ivey’s five-high straight and the two players got it all-in.  The big hand is scheduled to air as part of the show on U.K.’s Sky Sports in January of 2010.

Now that Dwan is a member of Team Full Tilt, he will be facing off against his fellow team members as action continues in his “Durrrr Challenge” bet.  Dwan and Antonius have played a little over 27,000 hands of the 50,000 required.  Dwan currently holds a $779,248 lead over Antonius.  Once Antonius finishes his 50,000 hands against Dwan, fellow Team Full Tilt member and recent seventh place finisher in the 2009 WSOP Main Event, Ivey, will step up, as will David Benyamine.

Dwan is set to take part in the upcoming season of “High Stakes Poker,” which will be filming at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas from November 11th to 13th and will likely be sporting a Full Tilt Poker patch as part of his duties.

High Stakes Poker Season 6 Cast Released, Kara Scott Confirmed as Co-Host

In a press release distributed by cable station GSN on Thursday, Kara Scott was confirmed to be the new co-host of “High Stakes Poker,” replacing A.J. Benza. In addition, a list of 17 players was revealed.

Scott replaced Benza, who had flanked “Welcome Back, Kotter” star Gabe Kaplan in the “High Stakes Poker” announcing booth for the first five seasons. Scott’s role will not be play-by-play; instead, the television personality and expert poker player will “report from the High Stakes Poker suite, interviewing poker players about poker strategy, big hands, and the table dynamics,” according to network officials. The show will take on the same feel as NBC’s “Poker After Dark” for its sixth season. The two franchises are produced by the same company, Poker PROductions.

Season 6 of “High Stakes Poker” will begin airing on Valentine’s Day – Sunday, February 14th, 2010 – at 8:00pm ET. Encore presentations will air at 11:00pm ET and 2:00am ET on Sunday nights, meaning that poker fans have three chances to catch new episodes every week. Each of its contestants coughed up $200,000 of their own money as a minimum buy-in.

Five players are making their first appearance on “High Stakes Poker,” including Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko. The youngster has been on a tear on the live poker circuit despite only weighing in at 21 years of age. Timoshenko was born in the Ukraine and won the 2009 World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship for $2.1 million. In September, Timoshenko took down the Main Event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) for another $1.7 million and is a former winner of the Asian Poker Tour’s (APT) Macau feature tournament.

Also making his debut on GSN’s “High Stakes Poker” is Dennis Phillips, who gained notoriety by making back-to-back deep runs in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Last year, Phillips finished third in the $10,000 buy-in gala for $4.5 million after entering the final table as the chip leader. Phillips came armed to the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio with a throng of followers donning red St. Louis Cardinals baseball caps and white button up shirts. This year, Phillips finished 45th for $178,000 after being sent to the rails when an opponent made a flush with A-K suited; Phillips also held A-K.

High-stakes cash game player Sammy George will be right at home in the Golden Nugget when filming of the GSN poker franchise kicks off next week. George, who has earned the nickname “Any Two,” was scheduled to face off against Tom Dwan in the live version of the Durrrr Challenge in London back in September. However, the festivities never took place, although organizer Eddie Hearn noted that the mano-a-mano live contest may occur in December in Las Vegas. Dwan will take to the felts once again as part of “High Stakes Poker” Season 6 after making his debut last season.

Returning to “High Stakes Poker” after a two season hiatus is WSOP November Nine member Phil Ivey, who currently appears on the cover of “ESPN: The Magazine.” Ivey last appeared on the GSN series back in Season 3 and is seeking his third WSOP bracelet of 2009 when the Main Event resumes on Saturday from the Rio. Ivey has career tournament winnings in excess of $12 million and is the horse of many pros in this weekend’s Main Event final table.

Andreas Hoivold and Lex Veldhuis will both be appearing on “High Stakes Poker” for the first time during Season 6. Returning to the program are Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Allan Meltzer, and Daniel Negreanu. The season will once again be taped at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas from November 11th to 13th.

Merge Gaming Network Fires Back at PIC Club

In a statement released in recent days by the Merge Gaming Network, the family of online poker sites fired back at Players Investment Company, or PIC Club, a major online poker payment processor that uses its status as a trading organization to operate legally in the United States.

A terse e-mail, authored by Merge Gaming CEO Anthony Taylor, read, “It has been brought to my attention, via comments in a public forum, that there is some confusion regarding a relationship we have with a payments provider. To be clear, it was Merge Gaming, who served notice on our agreement with Pic Club.” An e-mail sent by PIC Club members to players on October 15th noted that the two sides “mutually agreed to end their business relationship.” October 18th, three days after the e-mail was sent to players, marked the final day of transactions between the two entities.

Speculation on the motivation for either side ending its agreement with the other has run rampant throughout the major online poker forums, leading to Taylor’s statement. He attempted to shed some light on the point of contention by remarking, “The reasoning behind this is a matter of private record. Merge Gaming attempted to resolve the issue brought on by PIC Club, one of its principals, and one of its members, and without resolution, felt it was in the best interest of our customers to end this relationship immediately.”

The Merge Gaming CEO crisply ended his e-mail by claiming, “It is regrettable that I have to respond to the statements of the past week, but our hand has been forced. We’ve cancelled our agreement to protect our players, our network partners, and our reputation going forward.”

According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, the Merge Gaming Network is the 17th largest worldwide with a seven-day running average of 420 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, up to 700 cash game players can be found seated at its virtual felts. Its family of online poker sites includes ACED, Carbon Poker, IronDuke, Poker Nordica, Reefer Poker, and Spin32. PokerScout.com notes that the Merge Gaming Network’s headquarters is in Australia, while its servers are hosted on the Kahnawake reservation in Canada.

Chuck Kidd, the CEO of the trading company, authored the e-mail to PIC Club members ten days ago. In it, he lamented, “We regret the dissolution of this business relationship, however we believe it is in the best interest of PIC Club and our valued members.” Players who withdrew money from Merge Gaming Network sites through PIC Club would see their funds placed in a “pending status,” which meant they would only be released when funds were received from the Network. After cashouts had been processed, PIC Club officials planned to solicit relationships with individual Merge Gaming Network sites. Big Bet Poker and rooms on the IGS System were not affected by the agreement’s cessation.

Kidd recently sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss the origins and operations of PIC Club, but told us that he was unable to answer questions about the Merge Gaming Network squabble until at least Monday, October 27th. An interview will be held this week with Kidd to discuss the situation, which unfolded publicly on online forums, news sites, and other media last week.

PIC Club skirts the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and other overarching laws in the United States by “buying shares of [a] pooled commodity” and selling it to an online poker site, according to Kidd. Player’s available shares accounts received dividends of 10.5% in 2008 and 14.25% in 2007.

ESPN Inside Deal Welcomes Joe Cada

This week’s installment of the ESPN.com poker franchise “Inside Deal” featured 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event November Nine member Joe Cada. Laura Lane and Poker News Daily Guest Columnist Bernard Lee host the show.

The news segment of ESPN “Inside Deal” began with Lee praising World Poker Tour (WPT) Host Mike Sexton for his election to the Poker Hall of Fame: “I think it’s tremendously well-deserved. Mike has had a phenomenal career. A lot of people think of him from the WPT, but remember, he is a very well-accomplished player.” Sexton is the lone representative of the Poker Hall of Fame Class of 2009. Others who were up for consideration included Tom McEvoy, Dan Harrington, Daniel Negranu, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, and Men “The Master” Nguyen.

Attention then turned to the letter authored by the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner petitioning for the delay of the regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) by one year to December 1st, 2010. Lee explained what would happen if the current deadline stood: “The impact would be devastating. We’re fearful that the banks will err on the side of caution and ultimately block payments that the online sites would give.”

Making headlines this week was the news that the GSN staple “High Stakes Poker” had dropped host A.J. Benza for Season 6, allegedly replacing him with a female correspondent. Lee explained, “I’m a little surprised. For five years, A.J. and Gabe Kaplan have seemed to have a good rapport, so I’m surprised they’re making this switch.” Poker News Daily broke the news that Vanessa Rousso, the presumed frontrunner for the job, would not be Benza’s replacement. Other possible fill-ins include former WPT hostess Shana Hiatt, Kara Scott, Absolute Poker pro Lacey Jones, and Shannon Elizabeth.

Cada, who could become the youngest Main Event winner ever if he takes down the feature tournament next month, then joined the show. He noted how his life has changed as a result of the increased exposure as a member of the November Nine: “I’ve been playing poker my whole life, so the only thing that’s changed for me is the media.” Cada is primarily a cash game player, only hitting up the tournament scene online on Sundays. He purchased a 2,400 square foot house at age 19 as a gift to himself and is a sponsored pro of PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room.

Heading into the 2009 WSOP, Cada found himself on a $150,000 downswing. He sought the aid of two longtime cornerstones of the poker industry, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy and Eric “sheets” Haber. Cada recalled, “I was lucky enough to have them back me and I’m very grateful for that. I knew I could win before I came in.” Josephy, a former Ultimate Bet pro, and Sheets will receive 50% of Cada’s earnings. The top prize in Las Vegas is $8.5 million.

ESPN.com Poker Editor Andrew Feldman joined the show to discuss a series of dream teams. News broke last week that Dream Team Poker would return with tournaments at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles coinciding with Monday Night Football. Feldman’s “Dream Team Young Guns” consisted of Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion Peter Eastgate. “Dream Team Lady Luck” was comprised of Shannon Elizabeth, Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, and Jones. Finally, Feldman unveiled “Dream Team Old Guard:” Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. Cada added that his ultimate Dream Team would be Ivey, Patrick Antonius, and Dwan.

Finally, Cada revealed that on Day 8 of the 2009 WSOP Main Event, his stack had dropped to 20% of the average before he clawed back. He knocked out between 10 and 15 players en route to the final table and, upon heading to Connecticut to film ESPN “Inside Deal,” dropped some dough at the Foxwoods blackjack tables.

“Inside Deal” is released every Tuesday on ESPN.com.

UltimateBet gears up for November Nine

Players can qualify for a seat by climbing to the top of UB's Multi-Table Tournament Leaderboard, finishing in the number one or two spots of the Daily Sit-And-Go Tournament Leaderboard, or by earning the most STATUS Points in the Daily Ring Game STATUS Points Race.

Plus, cash game players that achieve Ultimate Player Status, Ultimate Contender Status, and Ultimate Legend or Icon Status in UB's RAI$E program will qualify for one of three freerolls, each with a seat on the line.

The $50k Epic 9 final will go off Nov. 10 at 9 p.m. EST with a $25,000 first-place prize, $15,000 for second and $10,000 for third.

Plus, there will be a bounty on Hellmuth's head, giving the player that eliminates him a seat in UB's $200,000 Guaranteed tournament.

UltimateBet is also giving away $500, $300 and $200 to the top three players in both its Points Race Leaderboard and the Sit-And-Go Tournament Leaderboard throughout October as a part of the promotion.

For the full details check out UltimateBet's Epic 9 promotion page.