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.

Phil Laak, Cake Poker Network Launch Unabomber Poker

In the online poker world, having a room named after you is perhaps the most notable sign that you have made your mark in the industry. From DoylesRoom, fronted by the legendary Doyle Brunson, to Devilfish Poker, hosted by top English pro David “The Devilfish” Ulliot, many professional poker players have made the move to the online world with their own iconic rooms.

The Cake Poker Network announced today that top pro Phil Laak will join its family of sites with his own room. Called Unabomber Poker, the site will feature Laak in action on the network and through a blog that will be available on the site. Along with the announcement of Unabomber Poker, the Cake Poker Network also announced the addition of seven other new network poker rooms, including 7Win Poker, Redback Poker, Amsterdams Poker, Safari Poker, Dimeline, Rags2Riches Poker, and Burro Poker.

“We knew we wanted to launch the sickest poker site possible,” Laak stated during the announcement of the new venture. “By joining a network that focuses on player rewards and accepts players worldwide, we knew we would be starting out on the right track. I love getting involved from the ground up.” A Cake Network spokesperson added, “The addition of Unabomber Poker to the Cake Network is a cause for great excitement. Phil’s enthusiasm for the game is infectious and brings a great energy to the network.”

With the addition of the eight new rooms, the Cake Poker Network now encompasses a total of 55 online poker sites. Some of the most popular sites offered by the Cake Poker Network include DoylesRoom, PokerHost, Lock Poker, Gutshot.com, and its own eponymous site. The Cake Poker Network is among the Top Ten in the online poker industry by cash game traffic, according to the poker industry tracking site PokerScout.com, averaging 2,100 real money ring game players.

Unabomber Poker offers many of the player amenities that are a fixture of the Cake Poker Network. Through participating in the action on the site, players earn Gold Chips and Gold Cards that can be exchanged for cash, merchandise, or free play in tournaments on the network. Unabomber Poker will also participate in the Cake Poker Network’s premier monthly event, the $250,000 Guaranteed.

Laak is arguably one of the most visible players in the game today through both his play and his exuberant behavior at the table. He exploded on the poker scene in 2004 with a victory in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Invitational at the Commerce Casino and has remained a formidable foe at the tables since then. In 2005, Laak was runner up to Johnny Chan at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event when Chan captured his tenth bracelet. In a brief six-year career, Laak has earned slightly over $1.8 million from the tournament poker circuit.

Laak is famously called “The Unabomber” because his attire at the poker tables – a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses – gives Laak a resemblance to the forensic sketch of notorious convicted mail bomber Theodore Kaczynski. Laak can confound players with antics at the table such as push-ups, talking to the cards, and offering buyouts to players to show their winning hands. Away from the felt, Laak also makes a great deal of noise. He has one of the most high-profile poker relationships with former WSOP Ladies’ Champion Jennifer Tilly and has been a part of television show “I Bet You” with his longtime friend and former roommate Antonio Esfandiari.

Cake Poker Announces Gold Stacks Rewards Program

You’ve heard of Gold Chips and Gold Cards on the popular USA-facing site Cake Poker, but now the room has shaken up its rewards program by introducing Gold Stacks. Instant bonuses will be automatically placed in players’ accounts.

While accumulating Gold Chips on Cake Poker, customers will also be building Gold Stacks. Every time a stack is completed, a player will take home a prize. A total of 50 levels of Gold Stacks are available and each requires a certain number of stacks and a specific number of chips in each stack. For example, in a graphic posted on Cake Poker’s website, Level 20 requires 11 Gold Stacks to advance to Level 21 and 40 Gold Chips are required for each stack.

A guaranteed instant reward is available regardless of how long it takes a player to fulfill the requirements for one level. However, if players advance quickly, they’ll earn additional bonuses. Cake Poker explains, “The faster you fill each stack, the more rewards you’ll reap. If you want to play against the clock, visit My Account while logged into Cake Poker to the view time remaining to earn Turbo and Super Turbo rewards.” Once players reach a Gold Stack level, they can only fall back if they fail to rack up three Gold Chips in back-to-back months.

In a press release distributed by Cake Poker on Friday night, the site’s Card Room Manager, Lee Jones, commented, “This is a great new program for Cake players. It rewards them simply for playing in our ring games, tournaments, and sit and gos. Furthermore, it does it automatically. The player doesn’t have to do anything; they’ll just see extra gold chips or cash drop into their account.” In an interview with Poker News Daily, Jones stressed the automatic filling of bonuses as being one-of-a-kind compared to other sites, where players must take action to reap rewards.

Additional Gold Chips, pending bonuses, and cold hard cash are available for Gold Stack fulfillment. Jones explained, “We’re also proud to have a program that doesn’t keep the player on a treadmill to maintain a level. With just a negligible amount of play, a player maintains the level that they’re at. We understand that our players have lives outside of poker and if they need to be away for a month, we respect that. When they come back at the end of the month, they’ll be at exactly the same level as when they left and can pick right back up from there.” Players cannot fall back a level below #11 and, according to Jones, just “showing up for a little bit” should be enough to earn the three Gold Chips required to maintain a player’s current level.

Last weekend, the Cake Poker Network, of which Cake Poker is the flagship site, ran its monthly $250,000 Guaranteed. The $268 buy-in tournament attracted 1,286 runners, boasting a $321,000 prize pool. In the end, “PIIIGEEEOOON” earned the $63,000 first place prize, while “thepokerkinq” earned a sum of $44,000 for second. The top 180 players finished in the money, while the top six earned at least $10,000.

According to the traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, the Cake Poker Network is the 10th largest worldwide with a seven-day running average of 1,900 real money ring game players. Other sites that join Cake Poker on its namesake network include DoylesRoom, Lock Poker, Players Only, and Poker Host. Its traffic is on par with that found on Boss Media’s International Poker Network and the Microgaming Network. The Cake Poker Network is the fourth largest to accept players from the United States.

The Gold Stacks rewards program kicks off on December 9th on Cake Poker.

English Poker Open 2009 Online Satellites

The English Poker Open 2009 is Europe’s newest event and the inauguration takes place this coming September 15th to 17th. The first English Poker Open is to be held at Europe’s premier poker venue, Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, England with the buy in to the Main Event being $5,300 – but that’s not all that’s going on, there will be Side Events too. The Main Event will be capped at 270 players and there will be a prize pool of at least $1m to be shared out amongst the top players and that’s guaranteed.

This is an event that will go down in poker history and it would be a shame to miss out on so, unless you’ve $5,300 in spare bankroll wanting to be spent, I suggest you read on!

Full Tilt Poker are inviting their European players to play at the English Poker Open 2009 in Nottingham this September and compete for a share of the $1m prize pool. Full Tilt are offering a prize package worth $6,500 which relates to $5,300 for your buy in to the Main Event plus $1,200 to cover your expenses. There are prize packages to be won every Sunday at 6.00pm UK (1pm New York) in the English Poker Open Qualifier, to buy in at this stage will set you back $216, these will be running right up to September 6th. Satellites to the English Poker Open Qualifiers are running now and the cheapest one I could find was $22 buy in. As ever the satellites are quite difficult to recognise on the software, so there may well be lower priced satellites running that I couldn’t find – clues are that once you go through the lobby / tournaments / satellites they are very dark green and their status is ‘restricted’. So, if you’re not already a Full Tilt player Download, Create an Account using the Full Tilt Referral Code FTPGOLD and get set to play on one of our Top Five Poker Sites - Full Tilt Poker - with a sign up bonus of 100% up to $600 plus entry into exclusive Pokernews Freerolls.

Cake Poker are also set to make an appearance at the English Poker Open 2009 and have put out the call to their players to join them. Their prize packages are worth $7,000 to include $5,300 for the buy in to the Main Event with $1,700 to help with your expenses. The prize packages are up for grabs on Sundays at 9pm UK (4pm New York time) and to buy in to the English Poker Open $7k Final would cost you $268 but, sats are running now until August 30th and are from just $4 or why not use up your gold chips and enter a satellite for just 6 gold chips to get you to the Final through a cheaper route. The Satellites are very easily found through Cake Poker Lobby / Tournaments / Satellites. Newcomers to Cake Poker are in for a tasty treat once you’ve downloaded just use Cake Poker Sign Up Code VIP600 to ensure you receive the first time depositors incentive of 110% up to $600.

This is one highly anticipated event and one we hope will the first of many to come.

Bookmark to:

Lee Jones Discusses the Future of Cake Poker

Recently, we reported that Lee Jones, the former Poker Room Manager on PokerStars, signed with Cake Poker. The agreement marks a coup of sorts for the USA-friendly site, the flagship member of a network that also includes Doyle’s Room, Poker Host, and Sportsbook.com, just to name a few. Poker News Daily sat down with Jones for an exclusive look at his role and the future of the site.

Poker News Daily: Congratulations on your new role with Cake Poker. Tell our readers what responsibilities you’ll be assuming.

Jones: My official title is Card Room Manager. One of my most important roles will be acting as a player advocate. You’re going to see me at live events, I’ll be playing on the site, and I’ll be hosting tournaments. I’ll also have an internal role where I’ll be consulting on tournaments and the client software. I’ve spent the last few days working with them. They’re great folks and we’re having a good time together. I’m benefiting from their perspective and they’re benefiting from mine. It’s a great opportunity for me and I hope I’ll be able to contribute a lot to Cake.

PND: You left CardRunners in February after serving as the poker training site’s Chief Operating Officer. How did you find your way to Cake Poker?

Jones: It’s a small business that we’re all in. I was talking to Nat Arem about something completely unrelated and he suggested that Cake Poker might be a good fit. One thing led to another and we got started from there.

PND: What made Cake Poker an appealing online poker site to sign with?

Jones: They were already on my radar because I was really impressed with an enterprise that could develop critical mass under the shade of PokerStars and Full Tilt. I thought they had something because it’s a tough business to break into.

PND: From what we’ve heard from players, Cake Poker could use a new software client. Do you agree?

Jones: We are working on it right now. We consider the client to be our weakest link. That came up in the initial conversation I had with Cake Poker’s senior management. My professional background is in software, so I’m really sensitive to that. We talked early on and agreed that the client is behind the times. I’ve seen what’s under development. There are people actively working very hard on a new client and I think it’s going to be state of the art when it comes out. It’s crucial to get the client up to standing with what PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker offer.

PND: After leaving PokerStars, you worked with the European Poker Tour for one year and then with CardRunners for one year. Are you looking forward to settling down with Cake Poker?

Jones: I am enthusiastic about this. It’s interesting coming from PokerStars, which we grew from a small into a big company. It’s fun being back in a small company and seeing if we can do this again. I spent 25 years in Silicon Valley and you’d see that with guys over and over. The fun part is growing the small company and seeing what you can do differently. You can look back on things that you did right and can do better. The staff here is great and a lot of them have strong industry experience.

PND: What will it take for Cake Poker to be on the same level as PokerStars in the eyes of players?

Jones: We’re coming up with a unique rewards program. We’ve got things like the Gold Cards and Gold Chips programs, but over the next year, you’ll see it expand into something that’s completely different than anything else in the business. Once we roll that out, it will blow people’s minds in how it affects the whole industry.

We are also departing from PokerStars’ path in some ways, but ones we think are good for the players. For example, we permit players to change their screen name every week. I advocated something similar to that in a blog post a couple of years ago. We allow tracking software only for monitoring your own results, not “fish finding,” if you will.

In short, we’re emphasizing poker as entertainment. That’s a very different model than Full Tilt, for example. They have a really strong brand message of playing against the pros. Our message is a different one and we think that’s good for us. Let’s not forget that poker is a game. In some respects, the only reason you play with money is because it’s a component that makes the game interesting. To many of us, it’s not about the money; it’s about the competition, the math, and the psychological battles. Money can quite literally be a way of keeping score.

PND: Talk about the importance of providing top-notch customer service, which you helped instill at PokerStars.

Jones: If you don’t respect what PokerStars did before, during, and after my tenure, you’re not paying attention, but there’s nothing in the world that says they’re the only ones that can do that. I worked at IBM for years and people said no one could surpass them; nothing is guaranteed. PokerStars is number one and Full Tilt is number two, but good ideas, good people, hard work, and executing plans – no one has a corner on that market. The beauty of the honest business world is that if we provide good customer service and a great player experience, we can advance. We are going to do that.

Cake Poker Mobile and Bodog Mobile Go Live

Amid demand in the online gaming industry, it has taken years for online poker rooms and casinos such as Bodog to hear the demands of customers and develop software applications for mobile platforms.  With popular operating systems such as the iPhone OS, Blackberry OS, and Windows Mobile OS, there has never been a better time for companies to develop gaming applications.  Cake Poker, the flagship site of the 10th busiest network in the industry, has released a fully-functioning mobile software application for the Windows Mobile OS allowing any player to compete for real money from anywhere their cell phone gets an internet connection.

Currently, major online poker rooms Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars have no such mobile client available, meaning Cake Poker has a leg up on the untapped market of mobile gaming.  This one-of-a-kind application is a free download from the Cake Poker Mobile website and requires that Windows Mobile 5.0 be installed on the cell phone.  If you find that the application fails to install, you might require a download of Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework.  An internet connection via 2G, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, or a direct connect to a PC for access is required.

Cake Poker has stated that accessing and interfacing with Cake Poker Mobile is, in theory, the same as if you had logged into the site via a regular PC.  Gold Chips and Gold Cards are accumulated just as they are on the regular client and Cake Poker does not add on any extra fees for playing via the mobile software.  They do warn users that your wireless provider might have restrictions on its data plan, so extra charges might come in the form of data overages.  As a guide to estimate the amount of data transferred, the site said that the mobile client will transfer about 10MB of data per hour on a full ring table.

Cake Poker Mobile edition looks and acts just like a poker room should, only on a limited platform.  The first window that pop-ups after launch is a login screen that requires your e-mail address and password.  This information is not cached or stored on your cell phone, so if someone were to steal it, they would have no way to access your Cake Poker account.  Interfacing with the software itself during game play is a fairly smooth and largely automated.  Cards are set to automatically muck and blinds are posted without input from the user.  The software supports a stylus for those phones that use one and employs arrow and number keys to make decisions such as folding, betting or raising (and to what amount).  Although the layout is truncated and avatars are missing in order for the table to operate smoothly, the experience in itself is fun and definitely beats not having any mobile poker platform.

Bodog, which also offers full sports wagering, has also released a mobile client with bodogMobile.  The mobile casino for Bodog is offered on phones like the Motorola Razr, Palm SmartPhones, and Blackberrys.  Like the Cake Poker Mobile client, this software is free and links to your existing account.  The software supports slot machines, video poker, or blackjack for real money, making it a full-fledged mobile gambling casino.  On top of that, other table games are offered such as Craps, Bingo, Light Speed, Super 21 and Caribbean Stud Poker.  It should be noted that the popular Bodog Poker Room is not supported via the mobile client. Not to be outdone, the Ongame Network has been developing its poker room software, focusing on heads-up action for a number of years. The company has routinely showed off advances at the yearly International Casino Exhibition in London.

For platforms like the Windows Mobile OS and Blackberry, it seems that it's only a matter of time before all of the major poker rooms and online casinos get in on the potential action of mobile gaming.  The mobile application and gaming industry has seen a widespread boom in 2009, one of the few segments of the tech industry actually experiencing growth.  For Apple iPhone users, unfortunately, companies including Cake Poker have gone on the record saying that no iPhone application is on its way until Apple lessens its restrictions on application development or allows for Flash applications via its Safari browser.  Until then, Cake Poker players on Windows Mobile OS phones will be enjoying poker, for real money, from anywhere they take their cell phone.

PokerWorld Moves to Cake Poker Network

On Sunday, April 5th at 4:00pm ET, PokerWorld will host a $1,000 freeroll celebrating its move from the Gold Chip Network to the Cake Poker Network. Players on PokerWorld will also be able to take advantage of Gold Chip and Gold Card promotions, which are staples of the Cake Poker family of sites.

The $1,000 freeroll is open to any PokerWorld member and registration will be available the day before the tournament. Aside from the freeroll, PokerWorld members will now be able to take advantage of the monthly $250,000 Guaranteed, which boasts a buy-in of $268. Weekly, the Cake Poker Network hosts a $162 buy-in $100,000 guaranteed event. Both tournaments, which are held on Sundays, kick off at 5:00pm ET during the peak hours in North America, which where many players on the USA-friendly Cake Poker Network are located. A $50,000 guaranteed event with a $109 price tag serves as the warm-up for both of the six-figure prize pool tournaments. It kicks off at 3:00pm ET.

Gold Chips can be exchanged for tournament buy-ins or items from the PokerWorld Mall. In the latter, you'll find gifts like the 8 GB iPod Touch, an Xbox 360, a Canon PowerShot camera, and a Samsung 46 inch LCD television. There's even a genuine American Alligator billfold that will set players back 2,580 gold chips. Players can earn Gold Cards by playing at real money ring game tables. They are awarded randomly and can be exchanged for cash and prizes. Gold Cards will be used in conjunction with a promotion to send PokerWorld members to the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) to play in Event #54, a $1,500 No Limit Hold'em contest.

On Sundays at 4:30pm ET, a time when many high-stakes players are on the site to battle it out in the $100,000 Guaranteed or $250,000 Guaranteed, PokerWorld offers a $455 satellite into the 2009 WSOP Main Event. One prize package (which includes the $10,000 Main Event buy-in plus $3,000 in cash) will be awarded for every $13,000 in the prize pool. Cash satellites beginning at $5.50 are available and run daily. Three step sit and go tournaments as well as Gold Chip qualifiers are also available.

The move of PokerWorld to the Cake Poker Network may spell the end of the Gold Chip Network. Other sites that made their home on it included RaiseAndFold, which recently sent its players to Intertops. The U.S. version of SportsInteraction has followed PokerWorld's lead and jumped from the Gold Chip Network to Cake Poker. Landmark Poker also redirects players to download a skin of the Cake Poker Network. Three sites that previously existed on the Gold Chip Network – 2bet, Miami Poker, and The Greek – no longer exist. Finally, Full Bet now redirects to Everest Poker, which is the official sponsor of the WSOP and does not accept players from the United States.

The Cake Poker Network recently welcomed Doyle's Room and PokerHost to its ranks. Besides its flagship site, the Network also includes PlayersOnly, City Poker, RedStarPoker, and Sportsbook.com, among others. According to traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, the Cake Poker Network is the 10th largest worldwide with a seven day running average of 1,740 cash game players. Its 24 hour peak is 2,442.

The Gold Chip Network uses Dobrosoft as its software provider and is based in San Jose, Costa Rica. At the time of writing, one of the only Gold Chip sites to open up to the Network's software is Century Poker. PokerScout, which has not yet updated its site list for the Gold Chip Network, reveals that it has a seven day running average of just 36 ring game players with a 24 hour peak of 50. The Gold Chip Network also accepts players from the United States.