Poker News

Eric Baldwin (basebaldy) Signs with UB, Wins Player of the Year

On Tuesday, 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year winner Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin became a sponsored pro of the USA-friendly online poker site UB.com. He defeated Cornel Andrew Cimpan and Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko in the Player of the Year race.

In April, Baldwin came out on top of the field in a $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event held during the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza and earned $198,000. The colossal six-figure score set up a monumental run at this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP). Baldwin won his first bracelet by besting Danish pro Jonas Klausen in a $1,500 buy-in Limit Hold’em event to the tune of $521,000. About a week later, he grabbed third in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of Pot Limit Hold’em, boosting his bankroll by another $259,000.

After the 2009 WSOP, Baldwin’s quest to take down the CardPlayer Player of the Year title hit full stride. He told Poker News Daily, “"At the start of the year at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, my friends and I were talking about how much fun it would be to chase after that award. I like the structure of a competition like that. It’s so much fun to me. It gives me a goal and something to work with. At the end of the WSOP, I thought it could be my year." In October, Baldwin final tabled the Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic for $126,000. This month, he padded his resume by winning a $1,000 buy-in preliminary event held during the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $256,000.

He was rewarded for his efforts with a contract from UB.com, where he’ll play under the moniker “eric_baldwin,” abandoning his “basebaldy” nickname for the time being. On the November re-launch of UB.com, Baldwin told Poker News Daily, “I thought everything looked slick. I like the new logo and everything runs smoothly. I like the new website and the new features with videos of the pros. We’re going to get into some strategy things on the site that will help people a lot. Everything looks slick, runs slick, and it’s exciting.” UB.com makes its home on the CEREUS Network along with Absolute Poker. Both online poker rooms are owned by Tokwiro Enterprises.

Baldwin is a former baseball player from Wisconsin and will appear on this week’s installment of the UB.com poker news show “Poker2Nite.” He joins a cast of characters at UB.com that already includes Poker News Daily Guest Columnist Annie Duke, 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, Billy “Patrolman35” Kopp, Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire, Brandon Cantu, PokerRoad’s Joe Sebok, Matt “mattg1983” Graham, Michael Binger, and “Amazing Race” contestant Tiffany Michelle.

The site’s marquee poker tournament is the $200,000 Guaranteed, a $215 buy-in event that takes place every Sunday at 4:00pm ET. Over the weekend, JohnnyCashGame earned $45,000 for outlasting the 1,014-player field, defeating Bonezee heads-up. All was not lost for Bonezee, however, as the UB.com member received a $27,000 consolation prize. The top 99 players finished in the money and the tournament is also open to customers of Absolute Poker.

In a press release announcing Baldwin’s signing, Duke commented, "Eric Baldwin isn't just a new UB pro, he is UB. Eric loves this game more than anything in the world, he plays to win, and he's respected for his passion at the tables. We really couldn't be more ecstatic to have the Player of the Year on our team." Besides Baldwin, Cimpan, and Timoshenko, others in the top ten on the 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year leaderboard include Vitaly Lunkin, World Poker Tour Five Diamond Champion Daniel Alaei, Jason Mercier, and 2009 WSOP Main Event winner Joe Cada.

According to CardPlayer, Baldwin earned nearly 7,000 Player of the Year Points in 2009 and piled up $1.5 million in earnings.

Bodog Running 12 Days of Poker Promotion

With the Christmas holiday upon us, many poker players have presents lined up under their trees waiting to be opened. In keeping with the holiday spirit, top online poker room Bodog is offering more presents for players as part of the 12 Days of Poker promotion.

Due to end on December 27th, the promotion gives out entries to players who participate in cash games and tournaments on the site through the accumulation of Bodog Poker Points. For every 25 and 75 Bodog Poker Points that a player earns, they will be entered once for prizes being awarded that day.

Some of the prizes that have been dished out so far over the first few days of Bodog’s 12 Days of Poker promotion include a Sony Bravia 52" HDTV, a Sony Home Theater system, a Sony PlayStation 3 (which was won by Bodog player “lionking2x”), and a TomTom GPS system (won by “salsx”). If these prizes aren’t big enough, Bodog has also handed out 25 seats to its weekly $100,000 Guaranteed, which has been dubbed by many as one of the best value buys for online poker players due to its perennial overlay.

With about a week to go in the Bodog 12 Days of Poker promotion, there are still plenty of great opportunities to pick up a Christmas gift from the online poker site. Up for grabs on Monday are five seats to the $100,000 Guaranteed and a Sony Vaio laptop. Over the remaining run of the promotion, Bodog will give away two more Sony Bravia HDTVs, a Sony Vaio Desktop Computer, a Samsung 55" LED LCD TV, a Sony HD Camcorder, a Canon PowerShot camera, and more seats into the Sunday $100,000 Guaranteed.

Even though there are some highly valuable prizes available, the $100,000 Guaranteed tickets might be one of the most coveted rewards during Bodog’s 12 Days of Poker. In the most recent $100,000 Guaranteed, played on December 20th, 451 players showed up for battle on Bodog’s virtual felts. With the $150 buy-in, this meant that Bodog added over $32,000 from its pockets for the tournament’s guarantee to be met. Of the players who entered in the $100,000 Guaranteed, it was first place finisher “mattlee3” who walked away with the $25,000 grand prize, with runner up “cbo187” ($15,000), and third place finisher “Suraj128” ($9,500), also taking away large chunks of cash.

With the 12 Days of Poker promotion, Bodog is looking to share the holiday spirit with its patrons and spread its own Christmas cheer. For a full list of the prizes being offered each day, visit Bodog and get in on the action.

PartyPoker Offering Premier League Seat and Sponsorship Deal

In the coming weeks, players will not only be trying to satellite their way into the fourth installment of the PartyPoker Premier League tournament, but they are also vying for a sponsorship contract that could be worth $100,000.

The list of top pros taking part in the February event is starting to come together and the winner of the previous Premier League installment, J.C. Tran, will be back to defend his crown.  In December of 2008, Tran defeated a tough final table lineup that included Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Juha Helppi, Peter Eastgate, Roland de Wolfe, and Tony G.  Heads-up play came down to Tran and Tony G, with Tran prevailing over the Aussie pro to take the title.

Tran commented on his return to the Premier League in an official statement from PartyPoker: “I am very much looking forward to defending my Premier League title.  It was a fantastic experience last year and is an amazing format. I am certainly not going to be giving up my crown without a fight!”

This year, a PartyPoker online qualifier will join Tran and the other pros in the event, which features a prize pool of $1.5 million.  The site is giving out 16 packages worth $9,000 that include a trip to Las Vegas and a chance to compete in a Premier League qualifying tournament.  Each prize package includes a $6,250 buy-in into the qualifying event, hotel stay, and $2,000 in spending money.  The qualifier will run from February 9th to 10th and its winner will stick around from the 11th to 18th, when the actual Premier League IV tournament takes place.

As for the $100,000 sponsorship deal, it is available to any one of the 16 players who makes the trip to Vegas, not just the person who wins the seat in the finals.  Representatives from the online poker room will be on hand to evaluate players on their skills on the felt and other factors like marketability and personality.  Of the 16, one will be chosen to join the grassroots team of sponsored pros, which already includes World Poker Tour host Mike Sexton, Felipe “Mojave” Ramos, Ian Frazer, and others.

A PartyPoker spokesperson spoke about the decision-making process in a press release from the online poker room: “One amazing element of this promotion that provides a truly fantastic opportunity is that one of the 16 qualifiers will be chosen by PartyPoker to receive a $100,000 Team Party contract to be a sponsored player.  This decision will be made by PartyPoker within two weeks after the event takes place.  We will only get a flavor of who we want to sponsor once we have had a chance to meet and interact with the 16 players that make it out to Las Vegas.”

Players interested in satelliting their way into the event can do so for as little as $2 thanks to three-tiered series of online qualifiers.  PartyPoker will be running $2 and $6.50 tournaments daily and winners will advance into a $52 buy-in event that will run at 3:20pm ET every day.  One in every ten players in those tournaments will earn a seat into the final online qualifier.  The finals will run each Sunday at 3:20pm and the $480 buy-in tournament will award one prize package for every 20 entrants.

For those who want to avoid playing too many satellites, PartyPoker is also running a rake race exclusively for Palladium Lounge members.  Palladium Lounge is the VIP customer rewards club for PartyPoker players.  The top 600 finishers in the points race, which is running from December 7th to January 3rd, will compete in a freeroll on January 10th to win two of the $9,000 packages.  The top 250 finishers will also be rewarded with a share of a cash prize from a $155,000 prize pool.  The winner will receive a Premier League package and the runner-up gets $6,000.  The remaining 248 players will receive anywhere from $4,500 to $100.

Top Ten Poker Events of the Decade: Part 2

We’ve reviewed half of the top ten poker events of the soon-to-be-completed decade. Now, let’s take a look at the top five events that have shaped the game as we know it during the past ten years.

5. Taking America’s Game to the World

As the middle of the decade approached, poker, and more particularly tournament poker, was still primarily an American pastime. With the introduction of the European Poker Tour (EPT) in 2004, the rest of the world increased its awareness of the game. Like its predecessors in the United States in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and World Poker Tour (WPT), the EPT brought the game to a new audience and further heightened the “poker boom.”

The EPT, developed by the online poker giant PokerStars, started small in 2004 with only seven events on its schedule. By the time it was in its fourth year, the EPT had grown to 11 tournaments with buy-ins that rivaled its brethren in the U.S. and had proved that a poker tournament schedule outside of the United States could be tremendously successful. It also led to the creation of many of the international tournament schedules that exist today, including the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), and Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour (GUKPT).

4. Poker Faces its Strongest Challenge, the UIGEA

The steamroller that online poker had become would, in 2006, face its strongest challenge ever. Passed through the halls of Congress in the United States as a rider to a key port security bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) threatened to kill the growth of online poker just as it was reaching its pinnacle. Since that time, the poker world has, at the minimum, reached a plateau.

While many inaccurately suggest that the UIGEA makes online poker illegal in the United States, the bill successfully scared many people who would either enter into the game or who had played it. It also had a significant effect on many poker tournaments in the United States; the WSOP Main Event has never returned to its peak numbers of 2006 and other poker tours have either seen a drop in the number of entrants or no growth.

3. Lights, Camera, Action… Poker Comes to Television

Turning on the television at the start of the decade to watch poker was literally impossible. The 2000 and 2001 WSOP Main Events were filmed as documentary-style broadcasts instead of an actual sporting event and appeared on the Discovery Channel. There were no other poker television broadcasts that could be found.

Perhaps sensing the coming wave, ESPN bought the rights to the television broadcasts of the WSOP and, in 2002, presented a more sports-friendly coverage of the tournament series. In 2003, ESPN expanded even further, covering preliminary events and dedicating extensive coverage to the Main Event. After the “Moneymaker Effect” of that year and the ensuing “poker boom,” ESPN has stuck with the WSOP and, in 2009, signed an extension of its broadcast contract with Harrah’s that ensures the WSOP will be on ESPN airwaves well into the next decade.

Add into the mix the wealth of celebrity poker shows, the debut of “High Stakes Poker” on GSN, and network television’s continued dalliance with the game and there is now poker on the “idiot box” at all hours of the day.

2. World Poker Tour Comes into Existence

In 2002, the entrepreneurial minds of Steve Lipscomb and Lyle Berman convinced the Travel Channel to sign on to an innovative idea of a worldwide poker tour, much like what professional golf has. Their creation, the WPT, took viewers to exotic locales that people might never have a chance to experience. In coordination with these picturesque areas, the broadcast of high-stakes poker tournaments captivated audiences. When it hit the airwaves, the WPT forever changed what had once been the exclusive world of high-stakes gambling.

In the eight years since it first was broadcast, the WPT has not only made poker players household names, but also created the first exposure to poker that many people had experienced. The WPT has also created many new millionaires from previously unknown poker players and pointedly exposed the strategy of the game through the innovative “hole card” camera. Without the creation of the camera, it is entirely likely that the WPT would have never seen the light of day.

1. The Birth of Online Poker

In 2000, there were literally only a handful of poker rooms in existence and, with a few exceptions, none of them made an impact on the world of poker. As more poker rooms opened, more people became accepting of a virtual “poker world.” As internet connections became more reliable, the online poker world was the major impetus for many to enter into any involvement with the sport.

As of 2009, there are hundreds of online poker rooms with tentacles that reach every corner of the globe. Poker enthusiasts can now hook into the internet and play with millions of like-minded people at any time, day or night. Add into the online poker room explosion the wealth of poker training sites, forums, and news outlets and it is easy to see that, without the internet and online poker, we may never have seen the renaissance in the first decade of the 21st century.

Everest Poker Acquired by Mangas Gaming

While rumors are flying left and right about potential buyouts and mergers in the European online gaming market, news broke that Everest Poker and Mangas Gaming will join forces.  Mangas plans to buy out Everest in early 2010 as part of a deal worth in excess of $100 million.

The deal will be finalized in the first quarter of 2010.  Mangas Gaming will pay $100 million to Everest’s parent company, GigaMedia, in exchange for 60% of the shares of the company.  A Dow Jones article also stated that the final portion of the deal would be paid out after the company’s fair market value is reassessed in 2012.  There is also an option that allows GigaMedia to buy back Everest Gaming in 2013 should it see fit to do so.  GigaMedia is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ Stock Exchange, where it can be found under the symbol “GIGM.”

While the name Mangas may not sound familiar, the sites it owns and operates are well-known within the online gaming market: BetClic, Expekt Poker, and Bet-At-Home.  The French-based company appears to be taking more interest in poker as of late.  In addition to brokering the Everest deal, the company also signed World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Scotty Nguyen as an Expekt spokesman earlier this year and debuted former Team PokerStars Pro Isabelle Mercier as a BetClic spokeswoman at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio.

The increased efforts of Everest Poker to heighten its profile in the French marketplace make even more sense in light of this deal.  The company, which is the official on-felt sponsor of the WSOP, signed a deal with November Nine member Antoine Saout after he made the Main Event final table and added Fabrice Soulier to its roster of pros last month.

Mangas Gamings Chief Executive Officer Isabelle Parize commented on the deal in an official press release announcing the acquisition: “We are very proud that Everest is joining our group.  It is a great company; it is a brand with an outstanding awareness in the world of poker, well-known for its know-how, its platform reliability, and its strict policies. Mangas Gaming is reinforcing its position as a major European player in both the online poker and sports betting markets.”

GigaMedia’s CEO, Arthur Wang, expressed similar sentiments in his statement.  “We were looking for a reference partner with complementary activities to ours,” Wang explained.  “Our strategy is to participate in the growth of this innovative and dynamic industry in Europe. We are glad to do it alongside the French leading sports betting and online gaming group.”

Poker News Daily has learned that once the deal is complete, players on Mangas’ other online poker rooms will be shifted towards Everest.  Expekt is expected to disappear entirely before the end of 2010 and all of the company’s customers will be shifted over to Everest.

Since the announcement of the deal, shares of GigaMedia saw a spike in trading value.  After trading as low as $3.53 on December 11th, stock prices shot up as high as $4.24, an increase of 20%.

Applying Online Poker Skills to One-Week Fantasy Football Leagues

We’re in the midst of the fantasy football playoffs in many leagues and, with some managers not a part of the post-season, the popularity of one-week contests has ballooned. Online poker players, in particular, should be quite successful in these games.

Fantazzle.com has partnered with Poker News Daily to help our readers enter the world of one-week fantasy games and put their online poker skills to the test. Most weekly fantasy sites, in fact, have online draft lobbies that look nearly identical to the ones you’d find on your favorite poker room, showing the maximum capacity and number of players already registered. Familiar buy-ins like $5, $10, and $20 parallel sit and gos nicely, especially as it relates to understanding payouts and rake.

At Fantazzle.com, two different types of one-week fantasy sports leagues exist. The first is a salary cap format whereby each manager receives a set number of dollars with which to buy players. How does this relate to poker, you ask? In poker, you have to be able to spot value and weakness in opponents. In fantasy football, it’s the same way. If Jamaal Charles (RB - Kansas City Chiefs) is going for only $30,000 and plays the Cleveland Browns in Week 15, he might be a better one-time play than DeAngelo Williams (RB – Carolina Panthers), who might have a price three times larger and also has a tougher match-up in the Minnesota Vikings, one of the league’s top run defenses.

In poker, it’s all about spotting value. Knowing when you can profitably make a play at a pot is key, as is mathematically understanding whether a play is in line with expected value. Being able to spot value in tournament registrations, such as overlays, is also extremely important. If a tournament like the Bodog $100,000 Guaranteed has a perennial overlay, knowing this information and then registering for it increases your value in an event. In fantasy drafts, understanding value in the middle and late rounds is especially vital to your success.

Fantasy football is really all about exploiting match-ups. Who plays who typically pre-destines success or failure in a given week. If your fantasy players face off against the likes of Detroit, Oakland, and Seattle, then chances are you’ll be flying high. However, if your quarterbacks are locked down against teams like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or the New York Giants, then look out. In one-week drafts like those you’ll find on Fantazzle.com, understanding the match-ups and compiling your team accordingly is what determines your relative success. In poker, some of the top players in the world are heads-up specialists, capitalizing on their skill relative to others in order to make a living.

Fantazzle.com has been in business since 2008 and its owner, Ryan Parr, told Poker News Daily, “You will be assigned to a group of people. You don’t have to wait around for others to come.” Unlike a poker sit and go, you won’t have to stand by until a table fills up to play. As soon as it’s game time each week, you’re off to the races. While many fantasy football managers are currently shut out of the playoffs, at Fantazzle.com, everyone is able to participate. Metaphorically, all you need is a chip and a chair.

Online poker sites are all about building credibility. Using names like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu to sell a site’s viability results in players swarming the online poker room left and right. At Fantazzle.com, the New York Giants’ Steve Smith foots the bill, as the wide receiver is lending his autograph to tournament winners each week. Smith leads the Giants in receiving yards and receptions by a large margin and has found the end zone five times in 2009, tied for the second most on the team.

Visit Fantazzle.com today and put your online poker skills to good use!

Full Tilt Poker Bot Lawsuit Focuses on Attorney Background

While several litigations against Full Tilt Poker appear to be resolved or dead in the water, the online poker room is still not in the clear when it comes to a lawsuit accusing the site of unfairly seizing player funds, using bots on the site, and racketeering.

Poker News Daily first reported the story of Lary “pokergirl z” Kennedy in early October.  The gist of her rather complicated case is that Kennedy was accused of using a bot by another player on the site who was also a frequent poster in the TwoPlusTwo poker forum.  As a result of those accusations and Kennedy’s own admittance that she used another player’s account when her own screen name wasn’t eliciting enough action, the site seized the funds in her account, which amounted to just over $80,000.

After a long period of communication with Full Tilt, Kennedy decided that her best course of action was to file suit against not only the company, but also several individuals involved with Full Tilt, including Raymond Bitar, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, John Juanda, Chris Ferguson, Perry Friedman, and Patrik Antonius, just to name a few.  While the crux of the complaint centers on Kennedy’s alleged mistreatment by the site, it also levels numerous charges against two companies involved with Full Tilt, Vert Enterprises and Tiltware.  The charges in the suit include fraud, libel, slander, false advertising, and somewhat surprisingly, racketeering.

The invocation of the Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act stemmed from what Kennedy and co-plaintiff Greg Omotoy claimed were hundreds of illegal gambling transactions.  While most typically associate the RICO Act with mobsters and gangs, it is actually common when it comes to civil suits, as those affected by RICO are able to receive three times the amount of damages they would otherwise have gotten.

Nonetheless, the accusations, which include claims that Ferguson and Bloch created and implemented bots used on the Full Tilt site, has raised a few eyebrows regarding its legal merit.  Full Tilt, which is notorious for keeping mum in legal situations, spoke out against the suit, calling it “baseless” and “frivolous.”

Kennedy’s official website documenting the case shows no new information as of late and most of the attention following the announcement of the suit has been directed at her counsel, Cyrus Sanai.  The UCLA Law School graduate has been in the news before for another internet-related matter, a case involving California Judge Alex Kosinski.  In mid-2008, Sanai uncovered a number of lewd photographs on the sub-directory of a personal website belonging to Kosinski and filed a disciplinary complaint against the judge, who was in the midst of a high-profile pornography trial.  Some legal blogs like Overlawyered and Patterico have suggested that Sanai has a less-than-stellar reputation in some corners of the California legal community.

When Pokerati posted a story chronicling some of Sanai’s actions over the past couple of years, a commenter purporting to be Sanai posted rebuttals to the criticisms and directed the focus back to the case itself.  The comments stated that he tried repeatedly to resolve the matter with Full Tilt representatives and even sat down for a mediation session that failed to produce any results.  Within the comments, Sanai also expressed interest in learning more about other cases in which the site seized customer funds.

These sentiments are echoed on Kennedy’s personal site as well, which encourages anyone with a similar story to contact Sanai, who would consider taking on new clients on a contingency basis.

PartyPoker Starts Premier League IV Qualifiers

The online poker room started satellites for the Premier League IV today. The event is scheduled to take place in February and it’s possible to qualify on PartyPoker for as little as $2.

A total of 16 players will qualify for a special playoff in Las Vegas that will determine which player gets the $100,000 buy-in to face 11 professional players in the official Premier League IV.

PartyPoker will also award one player with a lucrative Team Party contract worth $100,000.

“One amazing element of this promotion that provides a truly fantastic opportunity is that one of the 16 qualifiers will be chosen to receive a $100,000 Team Party contract to be a sponsored player,” said a PartyPoker spokesman.

“This decision will be made by PartyPoker within two weeks after the event takes place. We will only get a flavor of who we want to sponsor once we have had a chance to meet and interact with the 16 players that make it out to Vegas.”

TV crews are set to film both the qualifier playoff and the Premier League IV Final, which means even the satellite winners will get their time in the spotlight.

J.C. Tran, winner of the Premier League III, has already been confirmed to take part in the upcoming Premier League. Tran outlasted a stiff field last season that included Tom Dwan, Tony G, Roland de Wolfe, Peter Eastgate and Juha Helppi.

“I am very much looking forward to defending my Premier League title,” said Tran. “It was a fantastic experience last year and is an amazing format. I am certainly not giving up my crown without a fight.”

The Premier League began in England and has crowned Juha Helppi, Roland de Wolfe and the aforementioned J.C. Tran as champions over the span of its three year existence. The event follows a shootout-style format that sees winners in the preliminary heats qualify for the final table.

PartyPoker is set to announce the rest of the poker celebrities that will take part in the Premier League IV over the coming weeks.

Mangas Gaming Acquires Everest Poker

Mangas Gaming, which also owns BetClic, Expekt and Bet-at-Home, will hold 60% of Everest Gaming stock with the remaining 40% held by current shareholder GigaMedia.

 “We are very proud that Everest is joining our group,” said Isabelle Parize, CEO of Mangas Gaming.

“It is a great company; it is a brand with an outstanding awareness in the world of poker, well known for its know how, its platform reliability and its strict policies. Mangas Gaming is reinforcing its position as a major European player in both online poker and sports betting.”

Established over 10 years ago, Everest Poker has a strong presence in Europe and Asia and is consistently one of the biggest online poker rooms in the world.

Everest Poker is also one of the few rooms that runs its own proprietary poker software and is the exclusive poker table sponsor for the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

“We were looking for a reference partner with complementary activities to ours,” said Arthur Wang, CEO of GigaMedia. “Our strategy is to participate in the growth of this innovative and dynamic industry in Europe. We are glad to do it alongside the French leading sports betting and online gaming group.”

Mangas Gaming has a presence in more than 25 countries and over four million customers. Earlier this year the Mangas-owned BetClic announced it had signed famous poker pro Isabelle Mercier as a consultant and sponsored player.

CNBC Illegal Gambling Feature to Air on Wednesday

On Wednesday night at 9:00pm ET, CNBC will air a one-hour exposé entitled, “The Big Business of Illegal Gambling.” The report from CNBC’s Melissa Francis will put the multi-billion dollar industry into focus and include a segment on internet gambling.

Wednesday’s show marks one of the most high-profile television programs about internet gambling since “60 Minutes” aired a feature on the cheating scandals at the online poker rooms Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker one year ago. According to a preview found on CNBC’s website, the show will “take viewers inside this high-stakes business that brings some people immense wealth, while others pay the ultimate price.” Francis is co-anchor of the CNBC show “The Call,” which airs for one hour beginning at 11:00am ET during the week.

The CNBC description begins, “The one-hour program delivers an in-depth look at just how mainstream illegal gambling has become.” Francis will speak with a bevy of industry representatives, including a bookmaker simply named “Paul” and a professional gambler named "Vegas Runner." Among those CNBC will speak to with a first and last name is Nick Sarillo, whom the show describes as “a restaurant owner who freelances as a bookie [and] crosses the Mob and pays a heavy price.” These three will likely be offline gamblers.

Then, Francis and company will explore the world of internet gambling. The preview of the CNBC special explains, “Technology has made illegal gambling much more accessible and the same computer used for work or to connect with family and friends can also be used to wager outside the law.” Among those to be interviewed is Jay Cohen, the co-founder of the World Sports Exchange who was found guilty of violating the Wire Act of 1961. He was sentenced to 21 months in jail and fined $5,000; World Sports Exchange boasted revenues of $200 million and he was freed in 2004.

Also featured is Scott Damiani, the Executive Director of the Outreach Foundation. The show’s website explains, “Illegal gambling costs Scott Damiani is home, business family... and almost cost him his life. After hitting rock bottom, he picked his life back up and now devotes his time to helping other gambling addicts as the Executive Director of the Outreach Foundation.”

Poker News Daily has also learned that Tokwiro Chief Operating Officer Paul Leggett filmed an interview for the CNBC program. The two Tokwiro-owned online poker rooms, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, were at the heart of a ten-minute feature by the CBS news program “60 Minutes” over Thanksgiving weekend in 2008. The report questioned why no one had been prosecuted in the case and ended with segment reporter Steve Kroft calling Russ Hamilton’s home in Las Vegas. Hamilton, who won the 1994 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, was fingered as the main man responsible in the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal. To date, no one has been convicted.

Finally, Francis will dive into a high-spirited internet gambling debate featuring Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Online poker players can thank the latter for helping to bring the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to life back in 2006. McDermott, meanwhile, has authored legislation seeking to extract 2% of deposits from licensed internet gambling companies in the United States under legislation proposed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA). Curiously, Frank’s name does not appear on the preview for the CNBC program despite being legalized internet gambling’s number one proponent on Capitol Hill. Also absent is the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the industry’s main lobbying group.

Poker News Daily will have a recap of the show after it airs on Wednesday night. Video clips, slideshows, and even an illegal gambling quiz can be found on CNBC’s website.

Top Ten Poker Events of the Decade: Part 1

As 2009 prepares to fade into the pages of history, it will also close the doors on a decade that has been like no other for the sport of poker.

When the Third Millennium began a short ten years ago, poker could arguably be said to be on life support. A poker room in a casino was hard to find, there was only one prominent tournament schedule on the poker professional’s calendar, and the game had no place in the media. Poker was reviled as a pursuit of degenerate gamblers; those considered to be the best at the game had very little attention paid to them.

A decade later, the situation has completely reversed itself. Even the smallest casino, wherever it may be in the world, has a poker room. Bookstores have dedicated sections to house their wares of poker books and poker programming airs daily on television. Instead of just one tournament schedule, there are several offerings that require players to choose which one to participate in. Finally, poker pros are respected as adventuresome mavericks whose abilities, education, and intelligence are critical to their success.

With this in mind, Poker News Daily decided to look back at the last decade in an attempt to figure out what were the catalysts for such a return to prominence and what nearly derailed it.

10. Poker Rooms Make a Comeback

At the start of the 21st century, casinos across the United States didn’t consider poker to be a moneymaker for their operations. With that in mind, poker rooms were closed and slot machines began to invade their territory.

By the end of the decade, poker rooms, which had been near extinction only ten years earlier, obtained a greater prominence than they ever had in a casino. The live poker room should continue to be a staple of the casino world in the future.

9. Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker Superuser Scandals

The ugly head of corruption and scandal arose when two of the most popular online poker rooms in the industry, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, succumbed to “superuser” cheating rings. These cheating scandals allowed players to see their opponents’ hole cards, making it impossible to lose a hand. These rings - the Ultimate Bet group, which was allegedly led by former World Champion Russ Hamilton, and the Absolute Poker team allegedly led by former employees Scott Tom and A. J. Green - took millions of dollars off of unsuspecting players and gave ammunition to anti-poker zealots in the war against the game.

After outrage from the online poker community, both organizations made financial amends to those affected, but didn’t prosecute anyone for the operation of either scam. Today, the two sites are part of the same network and have seemingly recovered some of their former respect (including the recent certification from eCOGRA, the online gaming watchdog). Still, the scandal could have had a devastating effect on the online game and it has cast doubt as to the legitimacy of online poker, much like the Mississippi riverboat games of centuries ago almost stopped poker from becoming what it is today.

8. Amateurs Dominate WSOP Main Event

Throughout its early history, poker, and in particular the World Series of Poker (WSOP), it was the bastion of professional rounders willing to live life on the edge, to take thousands of dollars out of their own pockets and risk that they were the greatest poker player in the world. With the advent of satellites and online poker, where a player could get into a tournament for a significantly smaller fee, amateur poker players began to take a shot at the upper echelons of the game.

Since 2002, an amateur or previously unknown player has won the $10,000 Main Event at the WSOP and been crowned World Champion. Some, such as Jerry Yang and Jamie Gold, have stayed on the peripheral of the poker world and have arguably not done much since their victories. Others, such as Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, and Chris Moneymaker, have continued to be at the forefront of the game, advocating in political circles for the regulation of online poker as respected professionals in their own right. Whether they have experience or not, amateurs have become a part of the WSOP.

7. New Blood Infuses the Game

All forms of business need an infusion of new customers to continue to drive their endeavors. Poker is no different. For some time, older players, mostly men, populated the game and the required influx of “new blood” was seemingly missing. Through the development of online poker, new players, both male and female, have made their marks.

In what was perhaps the most stunning tournament win of the decade, Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad’s victory at the inaugural WSOP Europe Main Event made her the youngest player to win a major championship and demonstrated that the youth movement in poker had arrived. In the last two WSOP Main Events, Phil Hellmuth’s longstanding record as the youngest ever champion has been eclipsed twice. As we look at the next decade, young players will continue to make their names in an arena that previously had been dominated by the “Old Guard” of the game.

6. Twice is Nice – Dan Harrington, Mike Matusow, and Jeff Shulman

With the growth of the WSOP Main Event, the odds of a player repeating as champion, as Johnny Chan did in 1987 and 1988, are nearly infinitesimal. The feat of making two final tables is nearly as difficult, but three men - Dan Harrington, Mike Matusow, and Jeff Shulman - managed to pull off the feat. While none won the tournament, the ability to make two final tables during the decade, against such sizeable fields, is definitely a significant achievement.

Harrington’s feat is arguably the best of the three players. Battling through, at the time, the two largest WSOP Main Event fields ever, the 1995 champion nearly captured his second title in consecutive years (2003 and 2004). Matusow announced his presence on the game with his first final table in 2001 and marked his resurrection as a poker player by returning in 2005. Shulman finished seventh in 2000 and came back in 2009 with a fifth place finish.

2009 World Poker Tour Year in Review

For the World Poker Tour (WPT), 2009 was a year of incredible highs, but the organization was also faced with issues away from the felt that had to be overcome for the company to remain viable in other arenas.

Without a doubt, the biggest news of 2009 for the WPT was the sale of the popular poker tour. In what turned out to be a frenetic bidding war, WPTE, the tour’s parent company, received an offer in August from Gamynia Limited for around $9 million. Officials from the WPT’s parent company accepted the offer from Gamynia, but the battle was just beginning. A second offer from Party Gaming, which upped the ante to $12.3 million, eclipsed Gamynia and made it appear that the former online gaming giant would be the one to take over ownership of the WPT. As a part of this deal, there a $1 million cash advance would allow WPT to opt out of its deal with Gamynia.

As the deal with Party Gaming was moving towards completion, a third bid for the WPT came to light. As stockholders prepared to approve the agreed upon sale to Party Gaming in October, Mandalay Entertainment (not a part of the Mandalay Bay hotel ownership) stunned the poker world by issuing a bid for the WPT to the tune of $36.5 million. After reviewing the respective bids, the stockholders bypassed the Mandalay Entertainment offer and approved the sale of the WPT to Party Gaming. As of the end of 2009, it isn’t known how Party Gaming will utilize its ownership of the WPT.

In news away from the felt, the WPT was looking for an outlet to continue to air its popular tournament schedule. The one-year deal with Fox Sports Net was renegotiated in February and ensured that the WPT would continue to be on television for Season 8. In addition to the deal with Fox Sports Net, the WPT was also able to bring on Full Tilt Poker as a major sponsor of its broadcasts, marking the first time that the tour had aligned itself directly with an online poker room. Previously, sites had been sponsors of individual stops on the WPT, but never the entirety of the tour itself.

At the start of 2009, WPTE was facing a de-listing from the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in New York because its shares were not trading above the required $1 level. WPTE was given an extension due to the travails of the financial world in late 2008 and, by the middle of 2009, it had returned its stock to the required levels to maintain the seat on the NASDAQ. It was officially removed upon the sale to Party Gaming.

On the tables, the WPT continued to provide quality events, albeit with a drop in actual tournament attendance. Numbers for WPT events were down as much as 25%, but this was attributed to the global economic recession for the most part. The smaller numbers ensured that there were quality fields that took part in each stop of the WPT through the end of Season 7 and the beginning of Season 8.

Veterans of the poker world such as Freddy Deeb (WPT Invitational), Steve Brecher (Bay 101 Shooting Star), and Vadim Trincher (Foxwoods Poker Classic), all earned championships as Season 7 began to wind down. In April, the WPT Championship crowned up and coming poker superstar Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko as its latest winner and also bestowed the title of WPT Player of the Year to Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.

After taking its traditional summer break, the WPT came back for Season Eight, with players such as Alexandre Gomes (Bellagio Cup) and Prahlad Friedman (Legends of Poker) taking down titles. After a stirring run at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, Tommy Vedes demonstrated why he is considered to be one of the most underrated players in the game when he captured the title at the Festa al Lago in October. In perhaps the best calendar year run on the WPT, Cornel Andrew Cimpan claimed two WPT titles, the L.A. Poker Classic during Season 7 in February and the Foxwoods World Poker Finals during Season 8 in November.

Finally, the WPT put the “World” back into its moniker by hosting several tournaments in Europe. WPT Europe crossed the continent, ranging from such traditional gaming areas as Barcelona and Venice to exotic locales like Cyprus and Marrakech. These tournaments were warmly received, with strong European contingents filling out the fields alongside many of the best in poker from the United States.

With the new ownership of Party Gaming in its pocket, the future for the WPT is definitely bright.

PokerStars Launches Team Pro Tuesdays

This week marks the second installment of Team Pro Tuesdays on PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site. Every Tuesday through December 29th, PokerStars sponsored pros will be hitting the virtual felts in earnest.

Team PokerStars Pro includes the reigning champion of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, Joe Cada, who became the youngest winner ever of the $10,000 buy-in tournament in November. Cada shattered fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Peter Eastgate’s standing record by a full year, as the site boasts the last two WSOP Main Event champions. Chris Moneymaker, widely considered to be the man responsible for starting the modern poker boom, is also a card-carrying member of Team PokerStars Pro. Moneymaker took down the feature tournament in 2003 as a little-known accountant from Tennessee, defeating established pro Sammy Farha heads-up.

In 2004, Greg Raymer became poker’s newest star and Aussie Joe Hachem followed in 2005. Both are now sponsored by PokerStars and are benevolent ambassadors for the game. Text found on PokerStars’ website explains what players can expect as part of Team Pro Tuesdays: “On this day every week, scores of our pro players will be logging on and playing at the tables, covering everything from cash games to tournaments across a wide range of games and buy-in levels. You’ll be able to watch your favorite players in action and talk to them from the rail.”

PokerStars pros will take to the felts during two separate time blocks each Tuesday, from 12:00 to 15:00 ET and again from 19:00 to 22:00 ET. In order to figure out which pros are online, visit the “Team Pro” link at the bottom of the PokerStars lobby. You can also click “Requests” on the top menu bar and then hit “Find a Team PokerStars Player.” The concept of playing with the pros is similar to the main marketing message of rival online poker site Full Tilt, whose stable of players includes Howard Lederer, Gus Hansen, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, the newest member of the team.

In addition to being able to play with pros in cash games, PokerStars is running a pair of Outlast the Pro tournaments. The first installment takes place at 13:00 ET on Tuesdays, while the second running issues its “Shuffle up and deal” command at 20:00 ET. Each tournament has a buy-in of $11 along with $1,000 in cash added to the prize pool. Players who remain in each tournament longer than every single one of the pros in the field will divvy up the $1,000 in added funds. For example, if Cada were the last pro standing and knocked out in 83rd place, the remaining players would each pocket $12.20, or $1,000 split 82 ways. The Outlast the Pro tournaments can be found by visiting “Tourney” and then “All” in the PokerStars lobby.

Other members of Team PokerStars Pro include “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge” front man Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Humberto Brenes. Its roster also includes top female pros like GoDaddy Girl Vanessa Rousso, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, Chad Brown, Gavin Griffin, and Maridu Mayrinck, who was featured in this year’s WSOP Main Event coverage on cable station ESPN.

According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, PokerStars is the largest site worldwide with a seven-day running average of 28,600 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, well over 40,000 cash game aficionados call the site home. It happily accepts customers from the United States.

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.

PartyPoker Offering 25 Aussie Milllions Prize Packages

Ever since the popular online poker room PartyPoker signed 2009 Aussie Millions Main Event winner Stewart Scott as one of its sponsored pros, it has gone out of its way to promote both online and brick and mortar poker in Australia.

This weekend, PartyPoker is offering players a chance to win one of 25 seats in the 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event for just $600.  On Sunday, December 13th, the site will host two separate online satellites, one for citizens of Australia and New Zealand and one that is open to the rest of the PartyPoker customer base.  Both will feature a $600 + $40 buy-in, although many players will have won their way into the tournaments for much less since the site has been running micro-satellites.

The Aussie-only tournament will give away five tournament packages, each valued at $12,000.  The package includes buy-in to the AUD $10,000 Aussie Millions Main Event, hotel accommodations at the Crown Promenade in Melbourne, and $500 to be put towards travel expenses.  The tournament will begin at 2:45am ET.

The open field tournament will get underway a little later in the day at 2:30pm ET.  It will reward seats to the top 20 finishers and offer a slightly more lucrative version of the Aussie Millions prize package.  In addition to the buy-in and the hotel accommodations, the package will also include $3,500 to cover travel expenses.  Should a non-Aussie take part in the early tournament, PartyPoker will not offer any additional money to cover travel expenses.  Conversely, if a player from Australia or New Zealand wins one of the $15,000 packages, they will still receive the full $3,500 to cover travel.

Stewart Scott commented on the satellite tournaments in an official statement from PartyPoker: “I’ve been playing at PartyPoker.com for five years. These great packages are an amazing opportunity for other players to play in this huge tournament. Claiming the Aussie Millions title has been the highlight of my career and I’d love to see another PartyPoker.com player take the title.”

PartyPoker gave away 96 seats to the Aussie Millions in November as part of the site’s Gladiator promotion.  The players who earned at least 1,000 PartyPoints each day in November won their way into the event and the site doled out even more seats as part of a series of online tournaments featuring Scott.

Scott is the reigning Aussie Millions Champion and the first local player to win the tournament since it took on its new moniker and became one of the premiere events on the international tournament circuit.  In January, Scott defeated a field of 681 players to take down the AUD $2 million first place prize.  Peter Rho of Las Vegas finished in second place and earned AUD $1 million.  Other past winners of the Aussie Millions include Alexander Kostritsyn of Russia and Team Full Tilt member Gus Hansen.  Last year’s event also played home to one of the biggest live cash games in history with a minimum buy-in of AUD $1 million.

The previous Aussie Millions event boasted a guaranteed first place prize of AUD $2 million.  The Crown Casino is expecting an even larger turnout than 2009 and the tournament’s official website is predicting more than 800 runners in the upcoming Main Event.  There will also be a host of side events, including an AUD $100,000 buy-in High Rollers Event, a Heads-Up Event, and several Pot Limit Omaha events.  In total, the Crown will offer 20 different tournaments from January 14th to 31st, including the Main Event, which will run from January 24th to 30th.

2009 WSOP Year in Review

When the late gaming legend Benny Binion brought the World Series of Poker (WSOP) on the world, little did he know what it would become. What began 40 years ago as a gathering of Texas road gamblers in a quaint Las Vegas hotel has grown to become a behemoth that now spans an entire calendar year. By 2009, the WSOP was no longer a week-long reunion, but rather a year-long caravan that traverses the United States and ventures across the Atlantic to play in England.

While many may still think the WSOP begins in June, it truly takes place year-round with the WSOP Circuit. Now in its fifth year, the WSOP Circuit was created to combat the drawing power and success of the World Poker Tour (WPT) and, for the most part, has been successful. In 2009, many Circuit events took place that brought special moments.

The WSOP Circuit could be considered the minor leagues of poker, offering previously unknown players a chance to make their name in the game. In addition, such professional players as Gavin Smith, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Matt “All In At 420” Stout, and Alex Bolotin made final tables during the run of the 2009 WSOP Circuit schedule prior to the start of the Las Vegas WSOP in May. Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo and Los Angeles poker veteran Jean “Prince” Gaspard took home WSOP Circuit championships, but perhaps the person who can say he “pwns” the Circuit is Dwyte Pilgrim.

Pilgrim began an unprecedented run by capturing the title at Harrah’s Rincon in San Diego in April and rolled off four consecutive cashes in WSOP Circuit Championship Events, something that no other player had ever done. With this performance, the Brooklyn, New York poker player established himself as one of the up and coming stars of poker.

Days after Gaspard’s triumph at the New Orleans WSOP Circuit Championship Event, the 40th Anniversary WSOP kicked off in Las Vegas at the Rio. With a new sponsor in Jack Links Beef Jerky, the 57 bracelet events drew combatants from around the world, with over 120 nations represented. While it wasn’t known when the cards first flew in late May, the 40th WSOP would go down as arguably one of the best of all time.

For the first time ever at the WSOP, a No Limit Texas Hold’em event was held that exceeded the traditional $10,000 Championship Event. The $40,000 Anniversary Special drew some of the top names in the game. Former World Champion Greg Raymer drove deep into the event before falling in third place. Eventual champion Vitaly Lunkin bested Isaac Haxton to take down the once in a lifetime championship.

In such a combative field over the multitude of events, there were an astounding four multiple bracelet winners during the 2009 WSOP. Full Tilt Poker could claim two in Phil Ivey and Greg “FBT” Mueller and Brock Parker announced his arrival on the poker world with his two bracelet victories. Making history, though, was poker veteran Jeffrey Lisandro; his three bracelet wins in different Stud disciplines were enough to enable him to capture the 2009 WSOP Player of the Year award.

The $10,000 Main Event drew a substantial field of 6,494, which would have been larger except for a Day 1D fiasco that prevented an estimated additional 500 players from participating. After two weeks of play, the poker world was once again set for the November Nine, with amateur poker player Darvin Moon leading a pack of players that included Ivey and fellow poker notable Jeff Shulman.

The £10,000 WSOP Europe Main Event drew 334 players and saw two members of the 2009 “November Nine,” Antoine Saout and James Akenhead, make the final table. Eventual champion Barry Shulman, the father of Jeff, defeated crowd favorite Daniel Negreanu via a stunning, rivered two-outer on the next to last hand of the tournament.

After the furor of WSOP Europe calmed down, the November Nine came back to the felt on November 7th to determine the next World Champion. Moon held his own at the final table, as Ivey was dismissed in seventh and Shulman departed in fifth. Saout made a stirring run at the title, starting as the short stack, but battling through adversity to finish third. The true story of the November Nine, though, was Joe Cada.

Cada rode a roller coaster through the final table, his chip stack surging up and down throughout the 14-hour battle. At one point, his stack was at 2.5 million, but he began a comeback for the ages.

With a tremendous chip lead, the youthful Cada, who was weaned on online play, seemed to be the odds-on favorite to take out Moon, who eschewed sponsorship from online poker rooms. It took a rousing two and a half hours of play, with the chip lead shifting back and forth, before Cada emerged as the champion. With the victory, Cada eclipsed the record for youngest WSOP Main Event champion ever, set in 2008 by Peter Eastgate.

The most stunning development of the year in the WSOP occurred after the completion of the November Nine. Longtime WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack announced on November 13th that he would step down as the leader of the penultimate event in poker after a four-year run. During his time as Commissioner, Pollack increased the visibility of the WSOP, brought huge sponsorships to the tournament, and introduced the November Nine concept to the Main Event. While there were some low points in his tenure as commissioner, Pollack helped to enrich the history of the WSOP and left his mark on the venerable institution. As of December, there has been no move to replace Pollack in the position of WSOP Commissioner.

As the calendar turns to 2010, the WSOP continues to roll along. Even now, people are already in preparation for the event, much as it has been for the past 40 years and will continue to be for decades to come.

ECOGRA Certifies CEREUS Poker Network

The CEREUS Network has taken another step towards regaining the trust of its customer base.  The independent certification group eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) recently announced that CEREUS met all of the qualifications for the organization’s seal of approval.

According to an announcement on eCOGRA’s site, CEREUS passed the certification process with “flying colors.”  The eCOGRA staff traveled to CEREUS headquarters to review the software and the company that produced it.  The lengthy review process analyzed the company’s random number generator and its management team.  eCOGRA used its Total Gaming Transaction Review system to assess CEREUS’ gaming transactions in terms of fairness and efficiency.

When all was said and done, eCOGRA was more than impressed with CEREUS’ operation.  Sean Roberts, Compliance Manager for eCOGRA, commented on the group’s findings in its official statement: “The active measures taken, in light of events that impacted players, coupled with an impressive range of additional mitigating controls that have since been implemented, have contributed to the CEREUS online poker network’s software reaching the standards we require for software accreditation.”

The London-based eCOGRA has long been considered to be one of the more prestigious and reputable online gaming certification groups out there.  Sites are certified by the Board of Directors, which consists of Executive Director Andrew Beveridge and Independent Directors Bill Henbrey, Michael Hirst, Bill Galston, and Frank Catania.  The board also includes three non-executive directors.  The four executive directors include an accountant, a former board member of Ladbrokes PLC, a retired inspector from the British Gaming Board, and a founder and president of a consulting group.

Beveridge also serves as the CEO of eCOGRA and has been at his post since 2003.  He possesses more than a decade of knowledge and experience in the world of online business and gaming.  A former executive at International Gaming Networks, Beveridge expressed confidence that CEREUS would uphold the standards expected of sites with eCOGRA certification: “CEREUS management’s complete cooperation and commitment to an in-depth inspection and monitoring process involving the network’s transaction records and its software has been remarkable.  Going forward, we are confident that the network’s adherence to our standards and best business practice requirements will prevent any reoccurrence of the unfortunate incidents of the past.”

Obviously excited to hear the good news, Paul Leggett, CEO of CEREUS’ parent company Tokwiro Enterprises, conveyed his feelings about the certification in the official eCOGRA press release: “Doing everything possible to reassure the poker community that our operation and software are completely safe and secure is a priority for us. This is why we decided to work with eCOGRA and apply for the Certified Software accreditation seal,” Leggett explained.  “Their inspection team was extraordinarily thorough, looking at a wide range of elements in our software. We are proud that our product passed the tough requirements to achieve this important accreditation. We have learned a great deal from eCOGRA and we respect and support their ongoing efforts to make the online poker industry more accountable.”

This announcement is not the first time that an outside organization has commended the company for its efforts to improve the safety and fairness of its online poker rooms following the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet cheating scandals.  Earlier this year, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) issued its findings on the scandal and stated that no one at Tokwiro was aware of the impropriety or was involved in the cheating.  Despite not finding Tokwiro liable for any of the theft, the KGC instituted a list of requirements for UB to retain its CEREUS-issued license, including KGC testing, independent testing, internal audits, and KGC approval on new employee hiring.

Sportingbet PLC Reports Strong Third Quarter 2009 Revenues

While many companies around the world continue to dig themselves out of the yearlong recession that has affected global business, some online gaming companies seem to be doing quite well for themselves. In announcing its third quarter numbers for 2009, Sportingbet PLC joins a small list of gaming companies that have been able to turn a profit.

During the announcement last week of the company’s third quarter 2009 earnings, Sportingbet PLC, which owns the popular online poker room Paradise Poker, reported an increase in revenues versus the same time period last year. Sportingbet PLC was able to show a net profit of £48.6 million for the third quarter 2009, up 26% against the £38.6 million that the company pulled in during the third quarter of 2008.

European betting on Sportingbet’s online sports book seems to be the driving factor for its third quarter success. Amounts wagered on sports betting in Europe grew by 38.2% during the third quarter 2009 to £263.8 million versus 2008’s £190.9 million. “I am pleased to report a solid performance,” stated Andrew McIver, the Group Chief Executive for Sportingbet PLC. “Group performance continues to be driven by the European sports betting business, which has seen strong growth in all its key metrics including amounts wagered and active customer numbers.”

Sportingbet PLC, which is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “SBT,” admitted to cutting some costs during the third quarter, however. In July, Sportingbet divested itself of ownership in Italian operations, Sportingbet Italia S.p.A., which had been a drain on profits. In addition to this cut, Sportingbet stated that its overall profits could have been better, but continued loss of American revenue and the competition with other online poker rooms that accept U.S. play cut into the bottom line.

McIver continues to be optimistic about the future of the company: “Trading (in Sportingbet PLC stock) since the start of the second quarter has remained robust… The Group performance to date gives the Board confidence with regard to the remainder of the financial year.”

The third quarter report comes on the heels of Sportingbet’s announcement of its fiscal year 2009 numbers, which reflected growth in bookmaking operations and a continued drop in players at Paradise Poker.

In October, Party Gaming announced the results of the third quarter and showed a drop of about 4% of revenues. Party Gaming officials attributed the drop to “higher player numbers offset by lower yields,” meaning they weren’t pulling in as much money even though they had more players. Much like Sportingbet PLC, Party Gaming does not accept any American action. Recently, Party Gaming completed the purchase of assets of the World Poker Tour (WPT), trumping a bid submitted by a subsidiary of the iPoker Network.

UB.com and Absolute Poker Introduce Power Hour

Players looking for an opportunity to rack up player points on the CEREUS Network will be happy to hear that Absolute Poker and UB.com are now offering two Power Hour sessions daily in which players can earn twice the UltimatePoints.  Each session is three hours long, offering players up to six hours per day to earn double points.

The new Power Hours launched on December 1st on both online poker rooms and will continue daily for the foreseeable future.  Each day, there will be up to six hours of Power Hour play, running from 1:00am ET to 4:00am ET and again from 1:00pm ET to 4:00pm ET.  The double points qualify on all ring games as well as poker tournaments with a couple of exceptions.  Most notably, the afternoon sessions on Sunday do not award double points on poker tournaments, but ring game players will get an extra hour of time, as the afternoon Power Hour runs until 5:00pm ET.  The other major exclusion applies to heads-up games, which are not eligible for this promotion at any time.

Players who want to ensure they are playing on Power Hour eligible tables need to pick out the tables in the site’s lobby that have a lightning bolt next to them.  Players earn double points for all hands played on the table during the promotional time period, but if they continue to play on those tables after Power Hour closes, they will go back to earning the regular number of points.

UltimatePoints are doled out based on how many hands are played at a given limit of ring game on the sites.  For example, for every two hands a player logs at a $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold’em ring game, they will earn one UltimatePoint, while players at the $10/$20 tables earn two points per hand.  The points vary for Fixed Limit games as well.  Players can also earn one UltimatePoint for every $0.30 paid in tournament fees at the multi-table tournament and sit and go tables.  UB.com users can also earn points at the Blackjack and Blackjack tournament tables.

Thanks to the RAI$E Status Levels, players can earn up to five times as many points as normal.  RAI$E is the loyalty program for UB.com and players earn different status levels based on how many points they earn each month.  All UB.com users are considered members just for having an account, but they can move up the status ladder if they earn 50, 500, 2,500, or 5,000 points in a given month.  Each step up the RAI$E ladder results in a player’s UltimatePoints being multiplied by as much as five times what they are worth.  The top level of the RAI$E ladder is reserved for Icon members, who earn extra perks like concierge services, VIP gifts, games with UB.com sponsored pros, interest on their account balances, and the opportunity to trade in UltimatePoints for cash.

UltimatePoints can be used to purchase a host of items ranging from UB.com gear to electronics to sports equipment.  Players of any and all status levels can redeem their UltimatePoints at the site’s online store.  Absolute Poker offers a virtually identical loyalty program, FAME, in which players can earn up to five times as many AbsolutePoints depending on what status level a player is on the FAME scale.  The same regulations and restrictions mentioned previously apply.

BetClic Signs Isabelle Mercier

Mercier will act as a consultant for the site, which is a part of the Mangas Gaming group, and will be involved with developing a strategy for BetClic Poker.

“I am delighted to be working with BetClic and the Mangas group,” Mercier said.

“I am super impressed by the energy and ambition of this young company which is really going places. As with poker I’ve always made decisions based on both analysis and instinct, and this project has a great feel to it. I know it will be really exciting.”

Mercier brings years of experience from the poker industry, where she originally started as a poker room manager at the Aviation Club de France.

She was also a successful player and her big break came in 2004 when she won the WPT Ladies Night Out II event. Since then she has won over $1 million on the tournament circuit including a final table in the 2006 WSOP where she finished fifth for $175,404.

 “We are proud to welcome Isabelle to our team as an ambassador and advisor,” said BetClic managing director Nicolas Béraud. “She will give us new vision and excitement in this fast growing sector.”

Although Mercier will be a consultant for the company she will also continue to play poker, joining the rest of the sporting ambassadors at BetClic including footballers Marcel Desailly, Deco, Arrigo Sacchi, Mateusz Borek and Stefan Effenberg.

BetClic was created in 2005 and has grown from a start-up to a major player in the online gaming world. The company operates across 15 countries with over 1.5 million customers.

Although the site is known primarily for sports betting it has started to push its poker offering. BetClic also recently acquired Bet-At-Home and Expekt, both of which offer online poker rooms.

Mercier was rumored to have joined BetClic back in September, but she denied the claims at the time.

Full Tilt Poker Players Rushing to Claim Holiday Hundred Bonus

Only a few days remain in the Full Tilt Poker Holiday Hundred promotion, offering online poker players a $100 bonus on the world’s second largest site. The room has seen its high-stakes action balloon in recent weeks thanks to Isildur1.

Happy Holidays from Full Tilt Poker. One month before poker players awake on Christmas morning or participate in Hanukkah and Kwanzaa festivities, Full Tilt members can claim a special $100 Holiday Hundred bonus. Players have until the end of the day Eastern Time on December 6th to cash in. All they have to do is open the Full Tilt Poker Mac or Windows client, log in, and click “Requests” on the top menu bar. Then, select “Check My Bonus Offer” and click on “Accept Offer.”

Full Tilt Poker members have 30 days to release their bonus money by earning Full Tilt Points (FTPs) in real money ring games and tournaments. Every FTP earned means that players will claim $0.06 of the Holiday Hundred bonus, which will be paid out in increments of $10. Simple math will allow you to calculate that 167 FTPs are needed to clear each $10 increment and 1,667 are required for the full bonus to be unlocked. For each dollar that Full Tilt rakes from a pot, every player who was dealt cards in the hand receives one FTP. Each $1 paid in tournament entry fees means that players will earn seven FTPs.

Now, for the fine print. Players who have never deposited on Full Tilt Poker before should sign up for the site and clear the initial 100% first-time deposit bonus by the end of the day on November 30th. Then, Full Tilt will issue the Holiday Hundred bonus by December 2nd and players must accept it by the 6th. Full Tilt Poker customers who already hold active bonuses have until the end of the day on November 30th to clear their full value. Then, Full Tilt will place the Holiday Hundred bonus in their accounts by December 2nd and it must be accepted by the 6th.

The world’s second largest online poker site has seen its high-limit table action increase since the beginning of the month after the arrival of Swedish online poker mystery man Isildur1. The newcomer has battled a bevy of Full Tilt Poker pros in Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold’em games. His cast of opponents has included newly-minted site pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan, 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event November Nine member Phil Ivey, Durrrr Challenge participant Patrik Antonius, and CardRunners pros Brian Townsend and Cole South.

According to PokerScout.com, which tracks online poker room traffic, Full Tilt boasts a seven-day running average of 18,800 real money ring game players. During peak hours, the site approaches 30,000 cash game enthusiasts. It’s the second largest site worldwide behind PokerStars and happily accepts customers from the United States. Besides Ivey, Dwan, and Antonius, other members of Team Full Tilt include Howard Lederer, Gus Hansen, Andy Bloch, Jennifer Harman, Andy Bloch, and bad boy Mike “The Mouth” Matusow.

Full Tilt Poker is gearing up for the second running of the Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series (MiniFTOPS), which kicks off on December 9th and wraps up 11 days later.

Everest Poker signs Fabrice Soulier

He signed with Everest Poker to help reinforce the online poker room's presence in the French market and support the French playing community that already exists on the site.

Soulier is ninth all-time in French tournament winnings with $1.5 million and an active proponent of poker in his home country.

Some of his notable international results include a WPT final table at Bay 101, a win at the 2008 Marrakech Poker Open, four WSOP final tables and seven cashes at the 2009 WSOP.

Soulier is also a regular at key French poker events throughout the year and has participated in a number of TV shows and projects which helped improve the public opinion of poker in France.

This marks the second time this year a French poker pro has joined Everest Poker. During the summer the online room signed 2009 WSOP November Niner Antoine Saout to a sponsorship deal.

Soulier has certainly had his share of online poker room sponsors. He has been affiliated with Unibet Poker, Poker770, ChiliPoker and Full Tilt Poker at varying times in his poker career.

Blonde Poker set for iPoker axe… due to winning players

Poker News in Brief: Nov. 16-22, 2009

The 21-year-old generated some major mainstream press coverage this week by appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman and CNN's American Morning.

There was plenty of news that didn't involve Cada, however, and as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief Feature we're going to break some of it down for you today.

This week we'll look at another man winning a ladies event, the end of Fair Poker, more support for an online poker bill, an upgrade for Cake Poker and more.

Man wins Ladies Championship at Lake Tahoe

Greg Sessler became the latest man to enter and win a female poker tournament last week.

Sessler won the Ladies Championship at the World Series of Poker Circuit stop in Lake Tahoe by outlasting all 95 players that entered the tournament. Of that total, four were men.

Although organizers encourage only women to play, Harrah's cannot exclude any player based on gender. After winning the tournament Sessler defended his decision to play.

"Me playing in this tournament really had nothing to do with trying to take advantage of the ladies or thinking it was a softer field," he said.

"If Jennifer Harman would have come and played in the ladies event, she would have been much tougher competition than me. I came here because I only had one day and I really like the structures and the payout."

Back in September Abraham Korotki entered a ladies event at the 2009 Borgata Poker Open and went on to win it. Former baseball star Jose Canseco also famously entered a women's tournament a few years ago.

More support for Frank's pro-online poker bill

The U.S. bill that would both legalize and regulate online poker has another co-sponsor.

Rep. Anthony D. Weiner of New York's 9th district signed on board this week as the 63rd co-sponsor of the legislation.

Rep. Barney Frank originally introduced the bill last spring but it has yet to be heard before committee.

Frank's bill would essentially repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that was passed in 2006 and put a regulatory system in place for the online gambling industry.

Unfair outcome for Fair Poker

Lesser-known online poker room Fair Poker disappeared this week, but its players found a new home at Noble Poker.

Both sites were members of the iPoker network and were merged into one site earlier in the week. Fair Poker players had their account balances and the iPoints they had earned transferred to Noble Poker.

iPoker remains one of the busiest online poker networks in the world with Titan Poker, ChiliPoker, Bet365, CD Poker, William Hill, Mansion Poker and numerous others all under the iPoker banner.

The 2009 BC Poker Championships, starring Liz Lieu, will be televised.

HeadsUp Entertainment to televise BC Poker Championships

HeadsUp Entertainment, operators of the Canadian Poker Tour and Canadian Poker Player Magazine, will help televise coverage of the 2009 BC Poker Championships in Vancouver.

"We are very pleased to be part of Canada's premier poker tournament," said HeadsUp President Kelly B. Kellner. "We consider it a privilege to be able to cover the event through both our magazine and on television."

HeadsUp Entertainment made a deal with The Score Television Network, which is the exclusive broadcast partner of the Canadian Poker Tour, to show highlights from the tournament.

The 2009 BC Poker Championships began this week with 606 runners. The event received the attention of some big name poker players including Tiffany Michelle, Liz Lieu, Maria Ho, Greg "FBT" Mueller, Gavin Smith and Brad Booth.

Last year Canadian poker super-star Daniel Negreanu outlasted 689 players to win the 2008 BCPC for $300,708.

Cake Poker adds players, synchronized breaks

Cake Poker had a busy week adding synchronized breaks to its software and taking players from Third Bullet Poker.

Third Bullet was already a member of the Cake Network and the company's executives made the decision to merge the player base onto Cake Poker for better technical support and customer service.

Meanwhile, Cake's synchronized breaks will let multi-table tournament players take a break no matter how many tables they are running. The breaks will occur at 55 minutes past the hour, every hour.

The breaks do not affect Sit 'n' Go tournaments with less than 30 players.

The feature is quickly becoming an industry standard as Absolute Poker and UltimateBet recently added synchronized breaks as well.

CNBC Closing Bell Tackles Internet Gambling

The Global Gaming Expo is currently unfolding from Las Vegas and, as part of its coverage of the event, CNBC’s “Closing Bell” aired a four-minute segment entitled, “Odds Favor Online Gambling?”

Two industry experts joined CNBC “Closing Bell” host Melissa Francis on Thursday, Andrew Parmentire of Height Analytics and David Katz, an Oppenheimer gaming analyst. The former began the discussion, which did not take in a debate form, but rather featured both parties agreeing that legalized internet gambling in the United States is inevitable. Parmentire explained, “Barney Frank has put a bill out there and the stars are lining up in a lot of ways. Harrah’s has shown that they have an online strategy, Congress and states are in desperate need for money, and $50 billion can offset a lot of social programs that Democrats are pushing these days.” The proposed health care initiative, for example, could come with a price tag approaching $1 trillion.

Katz told CNBC viewers, “Gambling in the U.S. has become a far more acceptable consumer product than it was five or ten years ago. That said, we really are much more focused on the publicly traded companies and that would be the brick-and-mortars like Harrah’s as well as the game providers and the technology companies that support those industries.” Katz added that Harrah’s has become a major proponent of licensing online gaming. The Las Vegas-based private company recently launched Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment (HIE), based on Montreal, to oversee its online brand, with former Party Gaming CEO Mitch Garber as its lead figure.

Harrah’s inked an agreement with 888, the parent company of Pacific Poker, to fill its online gaming needs. 888 is a publicly traded company in London, where it can be found under the same three-number acronym. Katz explained that with casinos slowly reaching their limits in the live space, the switch to the Web is inevitable: “If you go to the Bellagio, they have a couple of hundred seats to sit in, so there’s a physical constraint. If you look at the number of states out there that are considering legalizing gaming, they’re going down every year. There’s a finite opportunity for the brick-and-mortar guys to expand in the United States and at some point, they have to start thinking globally.”

The CNBC spot occurred about two weeks prior to December 1st, the date by which the financial services industry in the United States must fall into line with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the industry’s main lobbying voice, issued a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to postpone the date by one year while effective legislation can be crafted. However, the two government officials have not yet responded.

The UIGEA was passed during the waning moments of the 2006 Congressional session at the direction of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (D-TN). It was approved by a 3:1 margin in the House of Representatives and by unanimous consent in the Senate after being attached to the SAFE Port Act. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the UIGEA did not in and of itself make any sort of internet gambling activity illegal. Instead, the legality of an online activity depends on a player’s jurisdiction. Parmentire candidly explained, “There is a lot of anger as to how this happened in 2006.” The PPA has expanded its membership from 50,000 in 2006 to over 1.2 million today.

Concurrently with the Global Gaming Expo, 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion Joe Cada, who represents the online poker room PokerStars, has spread goodwill by appearing on mainstream outlets like the “Late Show with David Letterman,” ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” and USA Today. Cada, an online poker pro, became the youngest winner of the $10,000 buy-in tournament ever at age 21, breaking Peter Eastgate’s record of 22 years-old set in 2008.

Malta Police Investigate Eurolinx and BetOnBet Closures

The ongoing Eurolinx and BetOnBet sagas continues, as the investigation of the now-defunct online poker rooms has left the jurisdiction of Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) and is now in the hands of the Malta Police Department.

The LGA first became involved in the case following the sudden announcement that former Microgaming sites BetOnBet, Eurolinx, and Linx Casino were shutting their doors in the wake of the liquidation of the parent company, Linx Media Company. Shortly after Linx Media announced its intentions to liquidate, the Microgaming Network terminated its relationship with the company and instructed customers with money on the site to contact “the relevant liquidator” once that information became available.

In the wake of this announcement, a number of forum threads on the popular poker forum TwoPlusTwo cropped up discussing the avenues of recourse available to the players affected by the sudden shutdown. As Poker News Daily reported previously, the tone of these threads were pessimistic regarding the chances that players would be able to recoup their losses. One suggested course of action was to sue former Eurolinx manager and owner Jo Remme of Norway, but one poster, “ditou26,” warned that a private investigator told them that Remme was broke and would be financially incapable of reimbursing players even if successfully prosecuted.

There is still a chance that those behind the Eurolinx debacle will be caught and punished. Government officials in Malta are currently investigating the company, which was based in the small European Republic. The LGA posted an update on the pending investigation on its official website, informing interested parties that “the company Eurolinks Ltd is not and has never been a licensed operator with the LGA. The LGA also notifies that the sportsbooks of Alpine Malta Ltd (BetonBet and Eurolinx) are not and never were licensed by the LGA.” While those entities were not properly licensed, Alpine Malta Ltd possessed Class 1/4 and Class 3/4 licenses for BetOnBet, but the LGA posted reports that those licenses have since been suspended.

As part of the LGA investigation, it accepted complaints via e-mail from those whose money on BetOnBet was never returned. More information about how to contact the LGA to file a complaint can be found on its official website. However, when Poker News Daily sought an update on the investigation, sources said the investigation is no longer an LGA-run matter and has instead been passed on to the Malta police.

The source informed Poker News Daily that the LGA’s portion of the investigation has come to a close and it is waiting to hear the results of the police department’s inquiry before proceeding any further in the matter. The source also stated that the results of the police investigation will be made public and those who have inquired about the case will be filled in on the situation as soon as possible.

No details about either the LGA or police investigations were available at this time, but it appears that the Maltese government does not intend to drop the issue any time soon. Poker News Daily will continue to keep tabs on the investigation as it develops.

UB.com Launches, Rebranding of Ultimate Bet Complete

Tuesday signified a landmark day in the online poker industry, as Ultimate Bet, a USA-facing site on the CEREUS Poker Network, rebranded itself UB.com. The two-letter acronym has been the site’s nickname since its launch 10 years ago.

“Raise, Stack, Own” becomes the new mantra of UB.com, which retains the gold color theme of the old Ultimate Bet, but adds a baby blue hue as well. “Celebrity Apprentice” runner-up Annie Duke, 11-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, and PokerRoad CEO Joe Sebok become the front men of the new site, which can be accessed by visiting UB.com or UltimateBet.com. A software update went live this morning and players’ user names and passwords will remain the same as they were prior to the UB.com transition.

UB and its sister site, Absolute Poker, are both owned by Tokwiro, whose CEO, Paul Leggett, commented in a press release, “The launch of UB.com represents a turning point for our company. We have assembled a great group of professionals who are passionate about poker to build the UB brand. Our goal is to create products and services that poker players really want. We are trying to listen very carefully to both our players and the poker community to help us achieve this goal.”

New lobby filters made their debut on Tuesday as part of the software update to UB.com. Omaha tables can now be filtered, making finding a game even simpler. In addition, the new update added color-coded icons to the tournament and ring game lobbies. In the former, special designations are given for Turbo, Ultra Turbo, Rebuy, Deep Stack, Bounty, Six-Max, Four-Max, and Heads-Up formats. In cash games, color-coded icons exist for Turbo, Jackpot, 7-2, Deep Stack, 50 Minimum Big Blind, and Ante tables on the virtual felts of UB.com. At the bottom of the lobby, a horizontal legend reminds users of what the new icons signify.

The lobby takes on a sleek yellow feel and the total update when we ran Ultimate Bet’s Mac version was 8,600 KB, which took about two minutes to download. The upper left corner of the lobby features the sleek UB.com black and yellow logo with the player and table counts given right underneath it written in white block lettering. The Mac version, which was rolled out in September along with an Instant Play option, is still limited to a maximum of four open tables. The Instant Play version requires the latest version of Java to be installed on the Mac or Windows device.

The new cash game filters include the maximum number of players, stack sizes, and table type. In addition, you can specify the number of players per flop and the number of players per table to ensure that only desired tables come up in the search. A total of 30 new tournaments featuring $1 million in guaranteed prize money have been introduced as part of a gradual overhaul, quickly establishing the USA-friendly CEREUS Network as one of the top around.

Hellmuth, who has long served as the face of the popular online poker site, talked about the movement from Ultimate Bet to UB.com: “In the ten years since I have been involved with the UB brand, I have never been prouder to represent the company as much as I am right now. We have great people captaining the ship, we have a great vibe, and some serious swagger. I look forward to the day when we are the largest poker site on the planet.”

According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, the CEREUS Network is the sixth largest worldwide with a seven-day running average of 2,750 real money ring game players, about one-tenth of the traffic of PokerStars, the largest site in the industry. UB.com made waves in late October by changing its raise logic and launching synchronized breaks in its larger tournaments at 55 minutes past each hour, in line with the precedents set by PokerStars and Full Tilt.

Jean-Robert Bellande no longer Bodog pro

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.

Fair Poker Absorbed by Noble Poker

Two sites on the iPoker Network have merged into one, as members of the online poker room Fair Poker have had their accounts transferred to Noble Poker.  Players on Fair Poker recently received a notice informing them of the change and offering a deposit bonus as a welcome to the new site.

The e-mail from Fair Poker assured users their username and password would remain unchanged and the entirety of their Fair accounts would show up once they log into Noble Poker.  Fair Poker’s website has already been re-branded as Noble Poker and makes no mention of why the changeover occurred.  Gibraltar-based Noble Poker set up shop in 2004 and offers users a range of Hold’em, Omaha and Omaha High-Low cash games, sit and gos, and multi-table tournaments.

Noble offers a daily $100,000 Guaranteed tournament, a monthly Sunday tournament with a $1 million prize pool, weekly Sunday tournaments with a guaranteed prize pool of $250,000, and satellites to other major iPoker Network events like the European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP).

This change comes just before the launch of ECOOP V, hosted by fellow iPoker site Titan Poker.  The online tournament series gets underway on November 23rd and satellites are already running on Noble and other iPoker affiliates.  The upcoming two-week long series features 14 tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $100 to $2,500 and there will be more than $4.5 million in guaranteed prize money up for grabs.  Satellites for the event have been running since September 21st and players can win their way in for as little as $1.50.  Sites on the iPoker Network, run by Playtech, currently do not accept U.S. customers.

Fair Poker, also established in 2004, was best known for its Jackpot Sit and Gos and loose action at the cash game tables.  Noble Poker, which is a substantially larger site than Fair Poker, also has a reputation for juicy cash game tables in addition to its ever-growing multi-table tournament schedule.

According to the official e-mail to Fair Poker customers, iPoints earned will transfer over to Noble.  Those points will go towards eligibility in Noble’s VIP Crown program, which rewards loyal customers with a player points store, monthly freerolls, VIP rake races, and other special promotions.  There are six VIP Crown levels based on how many points that players earn each month, with the highest level reserved for those who rack up at least 35,000.

Other than the e-mail to customers, which referred to the Noble Poker transfer as an “upgrade,” none of iPoker’s sites offer any explanation as to why the Antigua-based Fair Poker closed its doors.  It was one of the smaller rooms on the iPoker Network, which hosts over 30 online poker rooms including Titan, Noble, Chili Poker, William Hill Poker, and Expekt.  Neither Playtech’s nor iPoker’s websites featured any press release detailing the change.  Fair Poker is still listed on iPoker’s site as one of the poker rooms in its expansive network, but the link to sign up for Fair Poker directs users to Noble Poker information.