Poker News

Dusty Schmidt (Leatherass) Recaps Drag the Bar Signing

Poker News Daily: Congratulations on signing with Drag the Bar. Give us the background to joining the site after leaving StoxPoker.

Dusty Schmidt: I started as a member at StoxPoker, got promoted to coach, and they made me an equity holder. It was exciting, we had a good group of guys, and post-merger with CardRunners, they sometimes lost sight of what got them there. I did my best to stick in there, but StoxPoker wasn’t headed in the same direction as it was before. I wanted to go with a newer and more enthusiastic company that was similar to the product that StoxPoker was a few years ago.

PND: In your opinion, how was StoxPoker changing for the worse?

Dusty Schmidt: It’s more or less the commitment to the product. I didn’t feel like the site was getting the tender love and care it needed to be successful. StoxPoker didn’t have the flashiest players, but we had a solid group of guys who put out some killer content. I tend to be pretty enthusiastic and making coaching videos is typically not the best thing financially for a high-stakes player. If I am going to be taking time away from doing something that’s more profitable for me, I want to be enthusiastic about it.

PND: Tell us about your new role at Drag the Bar.

Dusty Schmidt: Basically the same thing as at StoxPoker. At StoxPoker before we merged with CardRunners, I was involved in the decision-making and a lot of the direction of the site. I didn’t have the ability to do that post-merger. At Drag the Bar, I’m producing content, writing blogs, and helping people’s games out.

PND: Who is Drag the Bar best suited for?

Dusty Schmidt: It’s well-suited for the grinder. I pride myself on making money through hard work. People who are willing to put in the hard work and surround themselves with good people can be a great source of inspiration.

PND: What poker training videos have you produced so far?

Dusty Schmidt: We’re just getting going. I have a video up there of a mid-stakes game and there are low- and high-stakes videos by me coming out soon. Drag the Bar most certainly aims to perform as well as or better than other coaching sites. We’re going to start with humble beginnings and build from there.

PND: Can Drag the Bar compete with sites like CardRunners and PokerXFactor?

Dusty Schmidt: I think we can. We’re going to take a few people by surprise.

PND: How can poker training sites differentiate themselves nowadays given that the industry is pretty saturated?

Dusty Schmidt: What CardRunners did with TrulyFreePokerTraining was definitely an angle that no one had taken before and it worked out really well for them. We'll look at some of the things that the successful training sites do and try to do everything as well as them.

PND: Does it feel good, in a sense, to get back to your roots?

Dusty Schmidt: I love being a part of something. I don’t want to be #1682 with the company. I like to be part of a smaller group and root each other on. That’s what it’s all about. I’m not thumbing my nose at money from coaching videos, but I do this because I want to interact with members, teach, and get messages from people thanking me for videos. That type of stuff is really rewarding. I don’t do this because it pays me better than poker.

PND: You’re in the midst of a one-year suspension of your amateur status by the United States Golf Association (USGA). How excited are you to get back into the game?

Dusty Schmidt: I am really excited. It’s definitely one of my true loves. I always wonder whether I should be playing poker or playing golf.

Leatherass Dumps Stox to Drag The Bar

Poker training site DragTheBar.com announced Tuesday Schmidt has joined the company as its lead instructor.

“Dusty is one of the top mid-to-high-stakes players in the world, period,” said DragTheBar.com CEO Hunter Bick. “But as good a player as he is, he’s an even better instructor. It’s unusual to find someone who can do both.”

Schmidt spent three years as lead instructor with StoxPoker, which merged with CardRunners in 2008.

He resigned the post last week citing “irreconcilable differences” with the sites.

“I couldn’t be more excited about coming to DragTheBar.com,” Schmidt said. “I was feeling as though I was getting away from my teaching roots a little bit and this allows me to do what I love and do best. The relationship just feels really, really good. They support my interests, and in turn I’m looking forward to watching this site become the finest in the world in very short order. I can’t wait to get involved with their members and watch them improve as poker players.”

Bick, who founded DragTheBar.com in June with partners Phil Nagy and Korey Gillis, said Schmidt will blog, make instructional videos and participate in member forums on the site.

“Dusty is a huge asset,” Bick said. “Just a few years ago he was playing low stakes, so he knows where those players are coming from and he can help them accelerate their learning process. Our members will benefit greatly by having such an incredible instructor at their disposal.”

Schmidt, 28, has played nearly 7 million hands online over the past five-years winning more than $3 million.

In 2007, he achieved Poker Stars’ SuperNova Elite status in just eight months playing high-stakes cash games exclusively.

Prior to his start in poker, Schmidt was a top-ranked golfer, but gave up the game and turned to poker at age 23 when he suffered a heart attack.

Visit PokerListings.com

E-Books: Future of Poker Training

In the last two years, poker training sites have exploded.  Mainstays like DeucesCracked and StoxPoker, which have been around for years, are contending with upstarts like Drag the Bar, which just wooed Dusty “Leatherass9” Schmidt into its ranks.  Over the years, these sites revolutionized the way poker players learned through videos.  Moving into 2010, the poker training market might be moving toward an old friend in the form of books, but this time with a digital twist.

The digital revolution has fully crossed over into book sales, as Amazon’s e-book device, the Kindle, sold like hotcakes this holiday season.  The device broke sales records in November thanks to hefty marketing, a price drop, and an international release.  Without revealing numbers, Amazon announced that more Kindle books were sold than real books through Amazon on Christmas Day.  The announcement shows a growing segment of the public leaning towards e-book readers.  What does this have to do with poker?  It’s maybe a taste of things to come in 2010 for poker training content.

Two books from well-known poker players, Ed Miller and Schmidt, were recently released.  The books were self-published and both are available in an e-book edition through the authors’ personal websites.  There is little doubt that e-books are the wave of the future and, for authors, it gives them freedom to publish a book like never before.  Will future poker strategy authors create e-books for sale while video training websites die off?  That’s very unlikely.  Will future strategy books be sold and distributed the way that Miller and Schmidt are doing now, with tie-ins to training videos?  Absolutely.

Poker News Daily graciously received e-copies of each book.  We’ll offer a quick summary and unbiased opinion of each.

“Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em” by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, and Matt Flynn
Cost: $99.95 (35% off until January 15th)

About the Book

This book is the highly-anticipated follow-up to “Professional No-Limit Hold’em,” which had a six-week run at number one on Amazon’s poker and gambling best seller list.  This time around, the authors have focused on beating $1-$2 Six-Max online cash games.  Structured as an example-driven content piece, the book aims to teach critical No Limit concepts.  The authors believe that if a player can consistently beat this game, then they can beat 99% of the games online.  The book is available for e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle.

Impressions

As a player who competes in $0.50-$1 Six-Max games, it would seem that this book is aimed at someone like me.  I want to move up to the $1-$2 games, but there’s a definite barrier, as those games are a lot tougher than the ones I play, but the money to be made borders on a professional level.  The topic and focus they’ve chosen are perfect, as many agree that if you can beat $1-$2 Six-Max, then you’re able to rise the ranks once your bankroll allows it.  The subject matter in the book covers key points such as stealing pots from opponents, barreling, and how to get value.

There are a lot of good topics that can be applied even if you are playing in micro-stakes games.  In addition, readers will find a lot of sections that will make you re-think your game in a more scientific manner. You’ll also understand 3bet/4bet/5bet theory and how to handle opponents’ aggression.

The final part of the part book is summed up nicely by its title, “7 Easy Steps to No Limit Hold’em Success,” and just about every online poker player should read it.  One of the better sections of the final part was “Keep Your Head In The Game,” where the mental aspect of playing poker is addressed.

The price tag seems a little hefty, but for the discounted rate of roughly $65, the book is a tremendous investment.  As a player dying to jump into the games addressed in the book, I feel like I have a lot more knowledge about beating them than I did before reading it.  The book is best read by small-stakes grinders aching to get ahead and increase their “Poker IQ” so that they can climb the cash game ladder.

“Treat Your Poker Like a Business” by Dusty “Leatherass9” Schmidt
Cost: $39.99 (E-Book Version PDF or Printed Version), $59.99 for both

About the Book

Schmidt is the ultimate grinder who has made millions of dollars playing online poker after starting out at the micro-stakes and watching strategy videos.  His career has spanned seven million hands and he plays as many as 20 tables at a time in the mid- and high-stakes levels.  With this book, he’s not promising to make you the next Phil Ivey, but he’ll outline a way to monetize your abilities.  The book’s focus is best summed up in a quote from Schmidt: “All of the poker books and training sites have made poker players’ games better, but they haven’t necessarily taught them to make money.”

Impressions

There are two types of poker books I’ve read in my years of studying and playing the game.  There are those that teach you the facts, mathematics, plays, and strategies necessary to win.  These types of books are extremely valuable if you ever want to improve enough to keep moving up in stakes.  The other type of book deals with topics never covered before, but gives essential tips to surviving in the industry.  “Treat Your Poker Like a Business” is one such book.

The topics covered include bankroll management, how to rationalize variance, why you should be playing more tables, and how to avoid tilt.  Essential topics also include when and how to move up in stakes, discovering new sources of revenue, and how to be more profitable.  The book isn’t a difficult read, but it goes into detail of what Schmidt put together to create a successful formula for becoming an online poker pro.  There are some endearing chapters, one of which is written by his wife about dealing with the social stigma of playing poker professionally.

The story of Schmidt should be one that inspires many of us to start monetizing our skills and passion for the game.  Schmidt’s book is available as a traditional book or a PDF e-book that will load on to any reader like the Amazon Kindle.

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt Joins DragTheBar.com

Poker training site DragTheBar.com announced Friday that renowned online player and instructor Dusty “Leatherass9” Schmidt has joined the company as a lead instructor. Schmidt will make poker videos and actively participate in the site’s member forums, according to DragTheBar.com CEO and professional poker player Hunter Bick.

“Dusty is one of the top mid-to-high-stakes players in the world, period”, Bick said. “He’s played so many hands at such a high win rate that his depth is simply unmatched. But as good a player as he is, he’s an even better instructor. It’s unusual to find someone who can do both. We don’t want our site to just have good poker players as coaches – they must be well spoken and great teachers too. Dusty embodies those qualities better than anyone.”

Schmidt, 28, joins DragTheBar.com after spending three years as a lead instructor for StoxPoker. Schmidt joined the site as a member and gradually worked his way into a role as co-owner and instructor. He resigned from the company last week due to “irreconcilable differences.”

On the felts, Schmidt has earned more than $3 million during his five-year career, logging nearly seven million hands over 10,000 hours. In 2007, Schmidt achieved PokerStars’ SuperNova Elite status in just eight months while playing high-stakes cash games. He posted the world’s highest win rate in both $5/$10 No Limit and $10/$20 No Limit in 2007 and 2008. In a four-month period between November 2007 and February 2008, Schmidt won in excess of $600,000 playing high-stakes cash games. Today, he can be found playing as high as $25/$50 No Limit online, often as many as 20 tables at a time.

“I couldn’t be more excited about coming to DragTheBar.com”, Schmidt said. “I was feeling as though I was getting away from my teaching roots a little bit and this allows me to do what I love and do best. The relationship just feels really, really good. They support my interests, and in turn I’m looking forward to watching this site become the finest in the world in very short order. I can’t wait to get involved with their members and watch them improve as poker players.”

Schmidt becomes the 11th coach at DragTheBar.com, a roster that includes some of the world’s top online-poker players, including Jeremy “ChipSteela” Menard and Ian “IggyMcFy” Gordon. The site offers affordable memberships and its poker-training videos are compatible with iPods and other mp3 players.

On top of coaching and playing, Schmidt recently released his top-selling book, Treat Your Poker Like a Business. The book focuses on teaching players how to develop a professional approach to the game, both on and off the felts. He provides readers advice on a range of subjects from winning strategies and profitable times to play to software and record keeping.

“Poker has done a tremendous amount for me in terms of the independence and quality of life I’m able to experience now”, Schmidt says. “I like to think that I have something to offer all poker players, from those who view it as recreational to aspiring pros who want to turn the game into something more serious than a hobby.”

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt Resigns From Stoxpoker/CardRunners Team

Much of the attention of the poker community in recent days has been focused on the amicable parting of Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo and Bodog. In another announcement that came out earlier this week, a top poker teacher has announced that he will no longer be a part of the poker training team he helped reach its current prominence.

In a blog posting earlier this week, noted poker player/golfer Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt used his 400th post on the popular Stoxpoker/CardRunners site to announce his departure from the training team: “I will admit I never really thought this day would come, but due to irreconcilable differences with Stoxpoker/Cardrunners, I am resigning as a lead coach."

While he doesn’t go into detail about what the “irreconcilable differences” are, Schmidt is gracious in his departure: “I want to thank everyone who watched my videos and followed my blogs over the past three years here at Stoxpoker.com. It was you guys who kept me going during some of these difficult times with Stoxpoker/Cardrunners.”

Similar to Bonomo’s situation – in which he stated that there are several sponsorship opportunities available to him – Schmidt is looking to the future of his poker teaching career. “In the coming days and at an appropriate time, I will announce which training site I will begin making videos for”, “Leatherass” tells his readers. It was quickly revealed that Drag the Bar would be his new home.

Schmidt started out on Stoxpoker as a low-level grinder who was looking to improve his own poker game. After intense participation in the forums, Dusty became a co-owner of the site and began to provide his own instruction to others. Along with fellow Stoxpoker members Nick “Stoxtrader” Grudzien (who was one of the founders of the site), Bryce “Freedom25” Paradis, and Matt Matros, Stoxpoker became one of the top poker training sites in the world.

In September 2008, the merger of Stoxpoker and CardRunners was finalized, with both the Stoxpoker team and the CardRunners team – Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby, Andrew “muddywater” Wiggins, Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, Brian “stinger85” Hastings, Mike “Schneids” Schneider, Cole “cts” South, and Eric “p3achy_keen” Liu – offering training that crossed their respective borders. While continuing to teach on Stoxpoker, Schmidt made other news in the poker world through a prop bet he proposed.

A top-notch golfer, Schmidt made a $1 million prop bet in April 2009 that he could beat anyone in a 72-hole golf match and in 10 heads-up poker matches, which no one accepted. At the time, Schmidt was a noted amateur player who, by his own admission, had broken some of Tiger Woods’ amateur records. The proposed prop bet, however, incurred the wrath of the United States Golf Association (USGA), which yanked his amateur status over the wagering and the promotion of the event.

Schmidt challenged the USGA's decision, even threatening to take the leading authority in the golf world to court in July. After losing a preliminary hearing on the subject, Schmidt dropped his suit and decided that, eventually, he would attempt to play on the PGA Tour while continuing to play poker. He is currently suspended from amateur play for one year.

Dusty finishes his blog post by saying, “Thanks again to everyone for all of the fantastic experiences. I really enjoyed my time here helping out so many members. Stoxpoker.com truly is a great community and I will miss it greatly.” Poker fans can now catch up with Schmidt at Drag the Bar.

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.

Haseeb Qureshi Comments on Isildur1 and High-Stakes Poker

Swedish newcomer Isildur1 has dominated the action on Full Tilt Poker in recent weeks, helping grow the eight largest pots in online poker history. One of his opponents, CardRunners instructor Haseeb “INTERNET POKERS” Qureshi, sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss Isildur1’s recent dominance.

Isildur1 has largely competed in Pot Limit Omaha against high-stakes Full Tilt regulars like 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine member Phil Ivey, Durrrr Challenge namesake Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, and Power Poker front man Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies. Qureshi has dropped $452,000 to Isildur1; according to PokerTableRatings.com, Dwan has lost 10 times that amount.

On the newcomer’s No Limit Hold’em game, Qureshi told Poker News Daily, “He doesn’t trip up nearly as often in No Limit Hold’em [as in Pot Limit Omaha]. Of course, one of the biggest differences in No Limit Hold’em is that you can bet larger than pot and it’s in his over-betting strategy, which has become his trademark, that he really differentiates himself.”

Many have questioned when and if Isildur1 would go broke, including a poll that appeared on the popular online poker forum TwoPlusTwo.com revealing that 18% of those who responded stated that the Swede would go bust before 2010. Qureshi weighed in: “He’s a high-stakes poker playing degenerate who is very good and wants action. As long as nobody busts him, he’ll keep playing. I’d say it’s more likely than not that he goes bust relatively soon, but it’s still quite likely that he manages to rage on for a very long time.” PokerTableRatings.com began tracking Isildur1 in mid-September. This month, the eight largest pots in online poker history have played out.

On what types of strategies players could use to overcome opponents like Isildur1, Qureshi revealed, “Every basic strategy you could come up with is all too small and naive to be used. You should wait for hands and yet beat his aggression with more aggression. You should make fearless calls and yet be cautious in big pots. Choosing one pole or the other is basically handing him the match before it starts.”

Antonius laid claim to the largest pot in online poker history, $1.3 million, at the expense of Isildur1. The Full Tilt Poker pro also defeated Isildur1 in a massive $878,000 pot, which took place one week ago. Isildur1’s win over Ivey in a $1.1 million pot, the second largest of all-time, helped right the ship. The Swede has taken down three of the top six richest pots ever, while Antonius has scooped two of the top three.

Qureshi is an instructor for the poker training site CardRunners.com and recently tackled the Isildur1 phenomenon in an informative blog entry. On how he got started in the game of poker, Qureshi recalled, “In the PartyPoker days, there was a free $50 signup bonus deal running. I got on that and somehow donked up my money to $200 and then I started my ‘poker career,’ per se, at $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold’em ring games. I worked my way up the old fashioned way with 20 to 30 buy-in bankroll management. There were no tournament scores or trust funds for me, unfortunately.”

Finally, Qureshi explained that he never would have thought he’d be part of something as historic as Isildur1’s entry onto the poker scene: “My dream was to be playing $1/$2 and by the end of the first year, I had made over $100,000 and was just moving up to play $5/$10 six-max games.” Besides Qureshi, others who have tangled with Isildur1 include David Benyamine, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Brian Hastings, and Brian Townsend.

Cardrunners offering a Piece of Taylor

The Piece of Taylor promotion will award 1% of the Full Tilt pro's earnings at the final table to one lucky player who registers for CardRunners' Truly Free Poker Training.

"When Full Tilt did the Piece of Ivey I thought it was a really cool promotion," explained Caby. "I actually wanted to play but as a red pro I was ineligible. We thought this would be a good time to run that kind of promotion again."

Caby will be competing against Luke "FullFlush" Schwartz, Dag Mikkelsen, Juha Helppi, Peter Vasilou, James Akenhead and an online qualifier at the final table Dec. 4 with a first-place prize of $500,000 on the line.

"I've played with Juha Helppi and some of the other guys and I know about FullFlush so I feel pretty good," he said. "It's a shallow structure, but at least there are no antes in the beginning."

Even if Caby busts first, the promotion winner will receive $500, but if CardRunners' instructor takes it down, the prize will swell to $5,000.

When asked if he was feeling any extra pressure over the Piece of Taylor promotion, Caby was quick to dismiss the notion.

"I don't think so," he laughed. "This is by far my biggest live tournament cash, so I'm probably putting more pressure on myself just to perform well. I'd really like to ship some money to a CardRunners player though."

Caby, who built a reputation online with the username Green Plastic, started playing poker professionally in 2003 and quickly progressed from a Sit & Go tournaments to high stakes cash games.

In 2005, Caby, along with fellow poker pro Andrew Wiggins, founded the poker training site CardRunners, which now has over 9,000 monthly subscribers.

Visit PokerListings.com

CardRunners Offers a Chance to Win a Piece of Taylor Caby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jay Rosenkrantz Recaps 2 Months, $2 Million

We’re eight episodes through the G4 online poker reality series “2 Months, $2 Million” and the cast is $507,000 in the black. Among those who made waves in last week’s episode was Jay Rosenkrantz, who sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss his heads-up match against David “Viffer” Peat and the show in general. “2 Months, $2 Million” airs at 8:00pm ET on Wednesdays on G4.

Poker News Daily: Has it been surreal to watch “2 Months, $2 Million” unfold on G4 every week?

Rosenkrantz: It’s very, very, very surreal.  Emil Patel and I live together in New York City and host a weekly party with all of our friends and family.  Dani Stern is here for most of those also.  Watching a hyper-stylized version of our summer with friends from childhood and college is pretty damn fun, but definitely weird.

For instance, seeing Emil get sneak attacked and destroyed by water balloons is hilarious both in the fact that it’s just really funny, but also that we somehow convinced a television network to put our dumb asses on television.  Each “week” is actually around 80 hours of footage broken down into 21 minutes, so while the Jay, Emil, Dani, and Brian Roberts developed on television are very much accurate depictions of all of us, sometimes we get sold a little short (or are given too much credit).  All in all, though, it has been an awesome experience and we all badly want to go back for Season 2 next summer.  $2 million or bust!

PND: Has there been a traffic boost on your poker training site, DeucesCracked, as a result?

Rosenkrantz: Yes, our traffic and signups have gone up and I’m really happy with the results.  We’re not talking like we doubled our membership, but considering a lot of people watching the show have never been exposed to poker or poker training videos before, I like the influx of new, genuinely curious users.  [CardRunners founder] Taylor Caby got a deal with Full Tilt, so obviously I had to go out and one-up him with a television show.

PND: Talk about the roller coaster of a ride against David “Viffer” Peat.

Rosenkrantz: Some behind-the-scenes information about that match.  First, it was one of our producer’s (Brandon) duties throughout the summer to try to arrange high-stakes matches for us.  We wanted to play pretty much anyone (other than the top, top players) at heads-up No Limit.  As our results started to not look great around Week 5 or 6, the four of us realized that we needed to push Brandon to seek out more matches for us.  He put word out to most of the card rooms and poker agencies, but a lot of people just didn’t understand what the show was about, didn’t want to play us, or the money we wanted to play for was too big.

A few people accepted though, among them David Benyamine, Viffer, and Sami Kelopuro (LarsLuzak).  Viffer’s doing a television show called “The Bet” and wanted the guaranteed exposure, so the match was set up to occur near the end of Lockdown (Lockdown, by the way, was an idea I had before the summer even started that the network wasn’t really into, but we were able to convince them of its merits when push came to shove).

We started playing and Viffer was playing really erratically and running me over.  I was coming off 36 hours straight in the war room and had not only just lost back everything I made during Lockdown, but also lost a great episode for the TV show because now I was down a lot.  I was expecting him to be a loose-passive live pro, but he wasn’t really anything like that, which caught me by surprise.  The producers had their heads in their hands, they didn’t know what to do, and they’re not from poker, so they were just lamenting why I didn’t stop when I was up on him.  Not only that, Brandon was feeling awful that he set me up to get crushed by this live shark and our chances of coming anywhere close to the goal were basically shot.

Then, Viffer took a break to get food and came back playing crazier than ever.  I bad beat him in a huge pot to get close to even and this sent him on huge tilt.  Total bajunky - this is when he started mashing pot.  He had been doing it earlier, but not nearly as often, and now he was re-raising tons of hands and mashing pot constantly.

People speculate about how he would have such an obvious tell, but honestly it’s not obvious when you’re sitting there stuck $100,000 trying to claw back to even not only so you can win your money back, but also so you can save an episode of a TV show.  We’re playing $40,000 No Limit, I had a big piece of myself, and the cameramen and producers were visibly shaken by what was going on.  I had a lot of things on my mind unrelated to clearly processing what was going on in the match, not to mention that I had spent 38 hours in the war room!

PND: Did Peat’s betting tell prove to be true 100% of the time? How tough was it not exposing it every time so he wouldn’t adjust?

Rosenkrantz: Not 100%, but close to it.  As you can see in the episode, the atmosphere in the room transformed from tense and excited to giddy and incredulous.  It was really important to make sure that I didn’t take away or hero call down every single pot he was bluffing in and I’d have to guess that is definitely why he didn’t notice until it was too late.  In that last $316,000 pot they showed, it was actually a good bluff by him where I happened to have a huge hand, but considering how often I was defending to his 3bets, it was a good bluff and I have to fold all of my non-two pair hands by the river.  There were lots of cooler pots I also won that they didn’t show like 3-3 versus A-K on an A-3-X flop and A-K versus A-J on an ace-high flop.  So, while it was an amazing, rock solid read, it was definitely made to be a little bit more cinematic than it actually was.

Funny aside - when I got back to up $100,000 on him, the producers started begging me to quit.  They were so shook up that they could barely hold the cameras straight.  The money was just so huge and incomprehensible, I had just completed this legendary comeback, and they couldn’t bear to deal with the thought of me losing more again.

Of course, we’re all poker players and there was a drought of nosebleed action this summer, so all of a sudden I had this insanely profitable spot and there was absolutely no way in hell any of us were stopping.  There’s all of this great rough footage of Paul and Terry (the Executive Producers) begging me to pick up and go relax with the guaranteed win outside the war room and the four of us just berating the hell out of them for being huge donkeys.  I think Brian threatened to cut off someone’s pinky finger.  Anyhow, it worked out, the producers knew not to try to argue with us about poker ever again, and Brandon got out of the doghouse and was celebrated as a hero for the production.

The next day, the network executive in charge of the show showed up to the house to see how Lockdown had gone, saw the big black number in my column on the tally board, and G4’s collective brain exploded.  Two years in development, seven episodes’ worth of footage and storylines, and they still didn’t fully understand the kinds of swings and drama that were possible in poker until that moment.

PND: Did you foresee fewer high-stakes games happening this summer? Had that been the trend?

Rosenkrantz: It was the trend, but every summer for the past three years, the games had picked up.  We didn’t foresee the complete death of nosebleed No Limit and, because of that, we were really ill-prepared.  I wasn’t as good at Pot Limit Omaha as I should have been and a few of us should have learned mixed games over the year.  Second season or not, we won’t be caught off guard like that again next summer.

PND: What’s your favorite non-online poker activity you guys have done so far and why?

Rosenkrantz: Definitely trampoline dodgeball.  Unfortunately, I think it’s cut from the show, but if you can get a group of people together in Las Vegas and want to blow off steam, there is nothing more fun than trampoline dodgeball.  I can’t even properly describe it because it’s so crazy.

PND: Would you use a different strategy from the beginning if you had to do the show all over again?

Rosenkrantz: If we get a second season, we will have 10 months to prepare and now that “2 Months, $2 Million” has a passionate following in the poker community, I think more well-known pros will want to play us.  More game selection, more opponents, and more chances to win or lose big - I think those are the best parts of the show.  We learned so much this summer about how to approach the goal and about how to make a compelling television show about it.  I just know in my heart that if we go back, it will be week to week, consistently, the best poker television there has ever been.  I’ll guarantee that.

PND: Heading into Week 9, how are you feeling about making up $1.5 million to reach the goal?

Rosenkrantz: Not good.  We obviously are not going to make it, but the question is whether or not we will crack $1 million.

Two Months, Two Million Moves to Wednesdays

After four weeks in its Sunday 9PM time slot, the G4 reality show “Two Months, Two Million” will be changing nights, moving to Wednesdays at 8PM for the remainder of its ten episode season. There will be no new episode on Sunday and the network will instead air a two hour marathon of the first four episodes from 9PM-11PM ET.

The show was facing stiff competition from NFL coverage and popular HBO shows “True Blood” and “Entourage.” In an effort to make sure the show finds its audience, the network relocated it to the Wednesday time slot where competition will theoretically be much less tough. The show will also have the benefit of picking up G4’s popular “Attack of the Show” as its lead-in. The program, hosted by Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira, airs nightly at 8PM ET Monday through Thursday. The guys of “Two Months, Two Million” are already familiar to “Attack of the Show” since Dani Stern and Jay Rosenkrantz made an appearance on the show last week.

The next new episode of “Two Months, Two Million” is scheduled to air on Wednesday September 16th and Rosenkrantz gave some additional hints about what to expect in the new episode in his blog. The previews for next week’s show included footage of Stern doing some heavy partying with a group of young women and Brian Roberts logging plenty of hours in the house’s War Room where all the guys gather for their online poker sessions. Rosenkrantz, who offered his own makeshift titles for upcoming episodes in his most recent blog entry, referred to the episode as “Double Dates and Home Again.” Considering the latest promos for the new episode included Rosenkrantz expressing doubts about their $2 million goal, the latter half of the title suggests some time away from Vegas might be in the young pro’s future.

The show’s time change is not the only big move for those involved with “Two Months, Two Million” this week. A blog post from Stern officially announced that he would no longer be serving as an instructor for the online poker training site PokerSavvy. Stern’s short blog post wished the company well and thanked the site and its members for their support. PokerSavvy’s current roster of instructors includes Isaac Haxton, Tony “Bond18” Dunst, Mike “SirWatts” Watson and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. Despite the good company, Stern still decided it was time to move on to bigger and better things.

“The launch of my new TV show has opened up some new promotional opportunities for me that make staying at PokerSavvy impossible right now”, Stern wrote in his blog. “As such, I’ve decided I need to move on to pursue those opportunities.”

He failed to disclose what those exact opportunities were, but the prevailing opinion on the popular internet poker forums is that Stern will defect to rival training site DeucesCracked. Rosenkrantz is one of the founders and owners of DeucesCracked and fellow “Two Months, Two Million” cast members Emil “whitelime” Patel and Brian “flawlessvictory” Roberts are affiliated with the site as well. In an interesting side note, even the show’s personal chef, Chef Robert, is listed as a coach on DeucesCracked’s official website, making Stern the only cast member who is not connected to the company.

iPhone 3G S Brings High-Powered Poker Applications

With the release of the new iPhone 3G S, poker players are more excited than ever about the robust hardware and internet features of this amazing device.  There are many poker resources available with the iPhone, including podcasts, training videos, and other applications.

Accessing the iTunes Store will reveal a ton of programs that mainly focus on playing poker against the computer or other players in a play money format.  For many, this is a fun way of satisfying their poker craving on the road or at home, as the application is available for those on the 3G network or connected to the internet via Wifi.  Zynga’s Live Poker 40k is one of the most popular iPhone applications and, at $2.99, the price is easy to swallow.  In terms of games like this that allow you to play live opponents or a friend in the same room, there are literally too many to mention.

For those of you who like to play at home, a fun application might be Poker Tournament Manager, which will turn your iPhone into a command center for your home game. It organizes buy-ins, blind levels, and even monitors performances from tournament to tournament.  This handy application is only $4.99.  You can also find a familiar-sounding application called Poker Tracker (not related to the online tracking tool) that allows you to enter in your progress in live games and save it to your phone.

Also, check out three applications from PokerCruncher: Hold’em Odds Quizzer ($1.99), PokerCruncher ($4.99), and Poker Odds Teacher ($0.99).  The first application is a slick quiz program that helps test players judge equity ranges in a wide variety of Hold’em situations, both pre- and post-flop.  PokerCruncher is basically PokerStove for the iPhone and the Poker Odds Teacher is a great refresher (or introductory) program for learning poker odds.

Podcasts have been all the rage the last few years in getting quality content out to users in a cheap and easy method.  Simply record your podcast (either video or audio), submit it free to iTunes, and people will be able to hear your message.  Full Tilt Poker offers podcasts that center on tips from the pros.  ESPN might have the best podcast around with Phil Gordon and acclaimed columnist Andrew Feldman.  The show constantly has A-list guests for insightful and interesting discussion.  Sites like PocketFives.com also offer up podcasts related to online poker every week.  Since podcasts are almost universally free, they are highly accessible for users.

Many poker training sites including Stox Poker and Deuces Cracked now offer iPhone editions of their popular training videos.  Instead of watching the best training money can buy while at your computer, you can load up the video onto your iPhone and watch it on your lunch break at work.

Given that podcasts, training videos, and applications are available, the technology suggests that the iPhone is ready for poker rooms.  Any site is free to develop an iPhone application.  Cake Poker already has a platform available for the Windows Mobile operating system that lets players play for real money.  Since the iPhone 3G (now $99) and the new iPhone 3G S ($199 and $299) both access the speedy 3G internet network for low-end DSL speeds, there’s no doubt that the hardware and internet capabilities can handle an application to allow people to play poker.

The holdup, as evidenced by feedback from Cake Poker software developers on their feedback forums, are the restrictions that Apple places on applications submitted to their store.  At this point in time, poker rooms believe that Apple would not approve such an application and, therefore, it isn’t worth the time and resources to build.  Once the legal climate is cleared up in the United States, there’s little doubt that all of the major poker rooms would immediately begin production on free iPhone applications to let players battle for real money.  In the meantime, we have plenty of wonderful goodies in the iTunes App Store along with videos and podcasts to satisfy our poker bug.

Chris Wallace (Fox) Interview with Poker News Daily

Poker News Daily: How did you get started in poker?

Wallace: I needed a distraction in my life. I needed something to focus on. When I learn things, I get very into them. I was working with exotic hardwoods and developed an allergy to them that was going to kill me if I didn’t stop, so my career was over. My marriage was over and I needed something to distract me. Poker was a good thing. I had a friend, Adam Stemple, who goes by the name “Hatfield.” He had been playing semi-pro for 20 years and I had been playing blackjack for 10 years. He said I should try poker and sold me on the idea. He loaned me a couple of books and, a week later, I had 20 books and five notebooks trying to learn the game.

PND: You’re an instructor at PokerXFactor. What separates it from other poker training sites like it in the industry?

Wallace: It’s a tough industry. It’s like the “Cola Wars” for poker training sites right now. Everybody is starting a poker training site. The tournament roster at PokerXFactor is incredible. The technology that they have available is incredible. When I ran my own site, we were a little two man operation and didn’t really put a lot of money into it. While we were good teachers, we didn’t have a lot of technology. Now, I use the PokerXFactor Replayer with all of my students. I load their hand histories into the Replayer before we start a lesson. Then, we can look through them and talk about hands.

The constant adding of technology is also big. You can watch a hand in the Replayer, stop it, and then add an audio comment. When someone replays the hand, they can hear your comments. Having Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy commenting on your hand histories – it doesn’t get any better than that.

PND: Explain how you become involved with PokerXFactor.

Wallace: I ran my own site. I think we were one of the first poker training sites ever. We were tired of being webmasters and wanted to be poker players. We wanted to teach people poker, but we didn’t want to run a website. It got to be a real pain. We got tired of trying to deal with the technical problems and all of that hassle. We knew that it was going to be the year when everyone was going to start a poker training site. There have to be 100 of them now, at least. We didn’t want to be just another site and we didn’t want to spend a lot of money to compete with the big dogs.

We were looking around trying to decide what to do. I met Scott “Mindwise” Pendergrast from PokerXFactor. He wanted to expand his cash game roster and cash games were what we did. He brought us in and bought our site. We have both primarily done cash game videos. I’m really happy about the way it worked out.

PND: There is a big debate in the poker software industry as to whether PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager is the better program. Which do you prefer and why?

Wallace: I probably hear that question once per day. I even made a video comparing the two on PokerXFactor. They’re remarkably similar. They both took a lot of cues from a lot of modern programming. PokerTracker 3 and Hold’em Manager are a quantum leap from what we’ve had in the past. They’re remarkably better. The two are so similar that it’s tough to pick one.

What I tell everyone is that they both have a free trial where you can run some hands and see how it works on your computer. They were designed on different systems, so some people have bug problems with the Heads-Up Display in PokerTracker 3. People also have problems importing hands. Some people have problems with Hold’em Manager, which doesn’t run on their computer. I tell everyone to download them both because one of them is going to be the most important piece of software that runs on your computer. See which one works better and which one makes the most sense to you.

PND: What advice do you have for newcomers in the game?

Wallace: Study. There are so many resources available to you now. Originally, there were a couple of books. “Super System” was the big one. You could talk to your friends and try to learn the game, which was tough. If you didn’t have any natural talent, you weren’t going to make it. When I got started around 2002, there were a lot of books and I bought them all. I have a huge shelf full of poker books. I studied really hard and, right from the beginning, I was a winning player. The first time I deposited, I was winning. I’ve never had to re-deposit on a site. I’ve only deposited when I try out a new site.

Now, we have an incredible amount of information. Join a training site and become active. Be active in the TwoPlusTwo forums. Be active on PocketFives. Be active on FlopTurnRiver. Become a member of a poker training site and a part of that site’s community. There’s a chat room on PokerXFactor where you can drop by at 3:00am and there may be no one else except for me in there. That means you’re getting a free one-hour lesson with me. If you want to study, there’s so much information out there and the training sites give you such an advantage. I don’t know how people survive without being a member of these training sites.

Lee Jones Discusses the Future of Cake Poker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lee Jones Signs with Cake Poker

On February 6th, longtime industry icon Lee Jones left his post as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of poker training site CardRunners after nearly a year with the company. Now, Poker News Daily can confirm that Jones has signed with Cake Poker.

StoxPoker co-founder Jim Varnon became the new COO of CardRunners, leaving supporters of Jones in the United States and around the world to wonder what the next chapter in his tale would be. On his reason for leaving CardRunners, Jones commented in a post on the site’s forums, “The issue is that we’ve got too many managers for the work that needs to be done, and that’s too many mouths to feed. Everybody else is tied to CardRunners by a substantial equity position, so I’m the natural candidate to step aside.” StoxPoker and CardRunners merged in September. Four months later, the two sites teamed up to introduce Truly Free Poker Training through Full Tilt, where CardRunners instructors are sponsored pros.

In the same post, Jones speculated on his future, claiming, “I don’t expect to be taking a regular job in (or out of) the poker industry in the foreseeable future. I have a couple of poker-related projects I’m looking at, but nothing even approaching full-time.” He’ll now join Cake Poker, the flagship site of the Cake Poker Network. The USA-friendly family of sites currently sits as the 10th largest worldwide according to traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, boasting a seven day running average of 1,660 real money ring game players; its 24 hour peak is a healthy 2,624. Other sites on the Cake Poker Network include Doyle’s Room, which is fronted by 10-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner and industry legend Doyle Brunson. Also making its home on the Network are Lock Poker, which played host to March’s Bluff Online Poker Challenge, and Players Only.

Poker World moved to the Cake Poker Network in April, while Poker Host joined in February after leaving Microgaming. Cake Poker happily accepts players from the United States and is part of the fourth largest USA-friendly network behind PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and CEREUS. Jones gained fame in the industry by serving as the Poker Room Manager of PokerStars until 2007. He epitomized top-notch customer service, earning PokerStars a reputation as a highly consumer-oriented site. He spent one year working with the European Poker Tour (EPT), which is sponsored by PokerStars, before heading back to the United States to work with CardRunners.

Many in the poker industry proudly own a copy of Jones’ best-selling book, “Winning Low-Limit Hold’em.” It was released in 2000 and can even be purchased on Amazon.com for the affordable price of $16.47. The book has received acclaim from Amazon.com customers, as out of 140 reviews submitted at the time of writing, 95 were for five stars, or 68%. Jones’ publication includes a series of quizzes to ensure learning along the way and weighs in at over 200 pages.

The Cake Poker Network now stands to gain a considerable amount of publicity and credibility as a result of adding Jones. Chris Wallace, an instructor for PokerXFactor.com who is known in the online poker world as “Fox,” told Poker News Daily, “Lee Jones signing with Cake Poker is going to mean that the site gets more exposure and people will know the name. Hopefully, Lee brings more professionalism to Cake Poker in terms of upgrading the online poker site’s software and getting people to show up.” The room is in the midst of qualifying its players for the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas through an ongoing Gold Chip Lottery. To date, a total of 53 Cake Poker members are headed to the “Big Dance” at the Rio to play in preliminary tournaments.

We’ll have more for you on Lee Jones joining Cake Poker as information is released right here on Poker News Daily.

Mike McDonald (timex) Becomes Full Tilt Poker Red Pro

There ain’t no mountain high enough to keep Mike “timex” McDonald from becoming the newest Full Tilt Poker Red Pro. For the youngster from Canada, it’s another accomplishment in what has already been a highly successful tournament poker career.

McDonald is fresh off a fifth place finish in the €5,000 buy-in European Poker Tour (EPT) Dortmund event for $249,000. That tournament saw three Germans sweep the top spots, with McDonald serving as the lone Canadian to finish in the money. He won the tournament in 2008 for over $1.3 million, besting Andreas Gulunay heads-up. American online poker player Christinan “charder” Harder took eighth for $125,000 at the talented final table. McDonald is not yet 21 years-old and therefore is not of age to compete in the upcoming World Series of Poker (WSOP). Nevertheless, you can expect to find the newest Red Pro at the Rio anyway. He told Poker News Daily, “I might head down for a week or so to hangout with friends, but Las Vegas when you're under 21 isn’t a lot of fun.”

On how being a Red Pro came to fruition, McDonald recalled, “CardRunners wanted more team pros and they found that my tournament videos were the most popular on the site. They asked if I would be interested in becoming a part of Team CardRunners. I was definitely interested and they sent my bio to Full Tilt Poker. Although it took a while for the site to get back to them, they eventually said sure.” McDonald does not currently appear under Team CardRunners on the Full Tilt Poker website. Instructors from CardRunners include Andrew “muddywater” Wiggins and Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby. The winner of the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Ryan “Daut44” Daut, is also part of the team.

McDonald’s videos on the popular poker training site include play in the $22 rebuy on Full Tilt Poker, the $109 Double Shootout on PokerStars, and the Stars $1K event. Average ratings for these videos by CardRunners members range between 7.4 and 9.6. He’ll receive a special designation in future videos made on Full Tilt Poker and told Poker News Daily about potentially having a target on his back: “I don't necessarily mind that. I'm pretty good at reacting to different dynamics and I doubt it will take long to adjust.”

The primary faces of Full Tilt Poker include 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event Champion John Juanda, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, Allen Cunningham, Erik Seidel, and Howard Lederer. On being part of the second largest online poker site worldwide, McDonald explained, “I definitely didn't expect it, especially pre-Dortmund. After that, I thought it was a reasonable possibility one day.” McDonald has primarily focused on playing outside of the United States because of his age. He grabbed eighth place in a AUD $2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament held during this year’s Aussie Millions in Melbourne, earning AUD $10,000 for his efforts.

Back in August, fellow CardRunners pro Brian “sbrugby” Townsend had his Red Pro status removed for six months as a result of playing under two screen names on Full Tilt Poker. He commented in his blog at the time, “To compensate those who were hurt by my actions, I am going to be donating $25,000 to a charity to be determined in the future. This money will be removed from my CardRunners distributions.” Townsend finished 15th in the WSOP Europe Main Event last year for £45,250.

Online, McDonald picked up a win in the challenging $100 rebuy on PokerStars two weeks ago for $38,000. He also won the tournament, which regularly boasts the top names in the online poker community, back in November.

Dusty Schmidt (Leatherass) Outlines Poker and Golf Challenge

Recently, Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt outlined a high-stakes $1 million prop bet that pairs golf with poker. The competition consists of 72 holes of golf plus 10 heads-up poker matches. PokerNewsDaily.com sat down to talk with the young poker prodigy, who is also an instructor at the popular poker training site StoxPoker.

Poker News Daily: The most recent golf challenge we can remember concerned Full Tilt Poker pro Erick Lindgren playing four rounds of under 100 in one day during the 2007 World Series of Poker. What did you think of his prop bet and is he a candidate to take you on in your challenge?

Schmidt: Erick’s challenge was relative to his skill. My challenge is open to the entire world. There are not a lot of people who could potentially take me up on this. I don’t think that anyone from the poker community can expect to legitimately compete with me on this. On the golf side, there is no one who would have an edge on me heads-up in poker.

I assume that Erick and I are close in skill in heads-up poker. As far as golf goes, he shoots in the high 70s or low 80s. Even though that’s good, there is very little variance in golf. I probably have a 12 shot edge on him.

PND: Will short-term variance come into play over 72 holes of golf or 10 heads-up matches?

Schmidt: There is some short-term variance involved. If I were to play Tiger Woods at golf, I would expect him to win seven out of eight matches. The possibility could exist that he could be off his game and I could be on my game, so we’d be even. It’s unlikely, but it's possible. If you take away Tiger Woods and put in an average PGA Tour player, his edge on me in golf is a shot and a half or two shots per 18 holes, which is one shot in nine. That’s the difference between a putt lipping in or out.

PND: Tell us how the idea for the challenge came about.

Schmidt: I was hanging out with Nick “stoxtrader” Grudzien. I had played some golf with him and we had a couple of drinks and started talking. We were wondering if there was a better golfer and poker player if we did a combined event. We started throwing out names, but there wasn’t anyone we could come up with. There wasn’t anyone who I felt I’d be in bad shape against. Even if Tiger were to take me up on it, he doesn’t play poker at all.

PND: Talk about your golf background.

Schmidt: At one point, I was on track to becoming someone who would expect to do well in golf and make it on the Tour. I broke some of Tiger Woods’ junior records. I went to college and didn’t have much success, so I turned to the Tour. I played for two or three years and struggled to get financial backing, but with the opportunities I had, it went well. I competed on the Golden State Tour and led that money list. However, my career was cut short when I had a heart attack at age 23.

PND: Talk about your poker background.

Schmidt: I started playing a few months after the heart attack. I had to spend a lot of time at home. I had a friend who played online poker who got me into it. Within six months, I became pretty good and that was about the same time that the money was running out for me. I decided to roll the dice and become a poker pro. I put the money I had left online, which was about $1,000, and was fortunately able to grind out those bonuses pretty hard. From there, I started developing a bit of a bankroll. I contacted Nick for some private coaching. We became great buddies because we both love golf and hit it off. I ended up switching from Limit Hold’em to No Limit Hold’em. Within four or five months, No Limit Hold’em felt natural to me and I became a StoxPoker coach.

Andrew Feldman Joins Full Tilt Poker

U.K. poker player Andrew Feldman is the newest Full Tilt Poker red pro according to a press release from Check-Raise Management. He’s an esteemed cash game player and is the biggest winner on the current installment of “The Poker Den.”

Feldman was the winner of the 888 U.K. Open IV in October of 2007 and bested Gideon Barnett heads-up. Two months later, he finished fourth in a €2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament during the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) Prague stop for €28,000. He finished 58th in the 2008 Aussie Millions for AUD $25,000. Feldman commented on his signing as a red pro: “I’m totally thrilled to sign with Full Tilt Poker as a red pro. In many ways, it’s a dream come true. The site has the best software and strongest team of players, so I hope I can do them and myself proud.”

Feldman is listed on the online poker room’s website as a “Full Tilt Pro.” Others include World Poker Tour (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Star Champ Steve Brecher, reigning WPT World Champion David Chiu, John D’Agostino, online poker pro Peter “Nordberg” Feldman, and 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine member Scott Montgomery. He’s also surrounded himself with some of the world’s best athletes off the poker felts, having competed under the British flag in badminton at the Macabbiah games in Israel. He can also be found rooting for the Watford FC on a daily basis.

His agent at Check-Raise Management, Nick Ferro, commented in a press release, “Andrew is a phenomenal natural talent and it’s not surprising that he has signed with the best in the business. He’s still only young, so expect much more from him as he develops over the coming years. The prospects are, quite frankly, frightening.” Feldman stormed onto the live poker scene by grabbing third in a £750 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament held during the Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour stop in London in 2007. He cashed for £8,610 in the event, which was ultimately won by David Lloyd.

Full Tilt Poker’s primary selling point is that Average Joes can play with the game’s best. The site’s Team Full Tilt includes Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, and Patrik Antonius. Other groups associated with Full Tilt include the pros from poker training site CardRunners as well as the Hendon Mob.

Starting on May 6th, each event held as part of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) will be hosted by a Full Tilt pro. The Main Event takes place on May 17th at 6:00pm ET and is a $535 buy-in $2.5 million guaranteed tournament. In a similar fashion to the ongoing PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), each FTOPS event will have a MiniFTOPS counterpart, guaranteeing a total of $18 million. Everyone who makes the final table of an FTOPS XII tournament will grab a limited edition jacket. Winners of FTOPS tournaments will also claim a gold jersey and a special avatar to display when they are battling it out online.

A special FTOPS Tournament of Champions takes place on May 20th. Winners from tournaments during FTOPS IX, X, XI, and XII will compete in a freeroll with a 2009 WSOP prize package on the line. The tournament series in Las Vegas begins on May 27th with a $500 buy-in Casino Employees No Limit Hold’em event. The $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament commemorating the 40th running of the WSOP begins the next day.

Feldman is a native of London. According to Full Tilt Poker, the youngster prefers ring games to tournaments “because skill will always prevail and by the end of the month, the best players will always show a profit.”

New Version of the PKR Poker Software Released

PKR.com is the most well known poker room that is offering a 3-D software. Last weekend they made an update to their software and they have now added Omaha Hi/Lo and a time bank amongst other things.

PKR Poker is offering a different kind of software to the one that the conventional online poker rooms have. When playing at PKR Poker you will be using a poker software that is in 100% 3-D and where every player at the table can be custom designed and make chip tricks and express emotions at the tables.

The PKR Poker client is frequently being updated and last weekend it was time for a new update where a couple of new features were added to make the game more enjoyable. You will now be able to play Omaha Hi/Lo since that game was added with this update, the game is available in both pot limit and fixed limit. This game was added to both cash games and Sit and Go tournaments and according to PKR.com they are also going to add a couple of Multi table Tournaments for this game.

The other poker games at PKR Poker have been updated with a couple of new functions. At all the tables you will now be able to use a time bank where you can request extra time at the tables if you are facing a difficult decision.

Another function that will make all you tournament players happy is that it will now be possible to skip the breaks when playing tournaments if all players agree to it. This means that if all players are ready to skip the break before a final table it will star immediately.

PKR.com also added that they have expanded their VIP Shop where you can use your PKR Points to buy items. You can now buy subscriptions to poker magazines and pay for a membership at the poker training site BlueFirePoker that PKR work together with.

Source: OnlinePokerNews.org

New Poker Training Site Rocks the Online Poker Industry

As a poker aficionado, perhaps someone who lives and breathes poker, wouldn't you love the opportunity to pick the brains of some of the poker greats that you  have encountered during your time as a player? A new poker training site has just launched, PokerSwat.com. It features some of the ...

New Poker Training Site ProPlayLive Launched

Following months of preparation, the new poker training site ProPlayLive.com was introduced this week, distinguishing itself from the pack of other educational sites thanks to the credentials of its impressive roster...

Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond Lanches BlueFirePoker.com

One of the best cash game players in the world, Phil Galfond (OMGClayAiken) is not only a professional when it comes to playing poker, but also when it comes to teaching poker to new players. This is why he has decided to launch a new poker strategy site called BlueFirePoker.com where both new players and the more experienced ones can come to learn the game of poker.

Galfond has been asked to join many of the poker training sites out there but he always turned them down and now it is obvious why he did so since he is launching his very own poker training site. Just a couple of days after Galfond announced the launch of BlueFirePoker.com a new press release was sent out stating that they had now teamed up with online poker site PKR.com. The deal they have with PKR.com is that they will provide strategy material to both PKR.com and PKR TV and in exchange they will be able to offer PKR players the opportunity to pay for their BlueFirePoker.com membership in the PKR Poker VIP Shop.

You can also get a $600 bonus at PKR when using the PKR Poker bonus code EASYPOKER600 when you create your account.