Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Phil Hellmuth Rumored to Appear in 'Dancing with the Stars'

According to his the latest Tweet, Phil Hellmuth could be appearing around the 12th time of the ABC show Dancing with the Stars.

The 46-year-old Hellmuth, that has unsuccessfully auditioned for a location in the past, published: OMG! Phil Hellmuth (me personally!) on “Dancing with the Stars!” Outrageous! Might make a fool out of me personally on Around the world Television yet another time…

Although the forged for the spring season are not announced until sometime next month, Hellmuth’s Tweet provides hope which he will be picked for the well-known show. The date from the season elite has not yet been determined.

Hellmuth will not be the only typical on the tournament circuit to get graced the actual dance floor looking at millions of readers. Actress and poker person Shannon Elizabeth was obviously a contestant on the sixth season regarding Dancing with the Stars within 2008. The lady was your seventh celeb eliminated in the contest.

Furthermore, other Staff UB Pros are already able to make a look on countrywide TV beyond poker. Annie Battle each other finished second on Movie star Apprentice a couple of years ago, as well as Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho seemed on CBS’s The spectacular Race in '09.

Monday, December 13, 2010

High-Stakes Player Isildur1 Team Up With PokerStars

The online high-stakes superstar, who got the holdem poker world simply by storm final fall actively playing seven in the ten biggest pots within online poker historical past with the loves of Phil Ivey, Mary Dwan and Patrik Antonius, like the first two really worth over one thousand dollars, has become a Crew PokerStars Pro.

Even though widely rumored being Viktor Blom, he has nevertheless yet for you to publicly uncover his identification. PokerStars now claims he will achieve this in the very close to future.

“I thought i would join PokerStars simply because it's the most significant site and will also be a thrilling challenge,Inches Isildur1 said. "It indicates a great deal to get playing inside a team together with players including Daniel Negreanu, Dario Minieri and Ashley Lodden.

“My goals currently are to enhance my stay game for many upcoming occasions, continue to target Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em, but also try and develop my personal Pot-Limit Omaha online game.”

In an attempt to show he is the superior heads-up cash player on the planet, Isildur1 will probably be playing a few high pegs heads-up matches upon PokerStars.

The Movie star Showdown formatting consists of a individual session of two,500 palms at simply no lower than $50/$100.

The very first match begins at Some p.mirielle. ET Dec. Twenty with the opposition to be called in the on its way days.

"It’s only a few day a player similar to Isildur1 comes along,In . said other Team PokerStars Seasoned Daniel Negreanu. "If you look the definition of the phrase ‘phenom’ you'll see an image of the face.

"When he's playing, the particular poker globe takes detect. Hate to be able to overuse the actual poker time period ‘sick’ but Isildur’s No-Limit Hold'em sport is just in which - ill!

"Few people boost to the dish against your pet, but the versions who have, generally have value for his / her raw skill.”

Saturday, December 4, 2010

GPL and UB to Jointly Host Landmark Event

The Global Poker League is an interesting organization that has started to get together the concept of regular professional poker leagues in much the same way that organized sports work to this day. UB.com is of course a well known online poker site endorsed by Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke. When you combine those two things, what you have at the end of the day is a UB franchise that is willing to host GPL events in order to drum up more interest in the overall competition.

The GPL events will be both team based and individually based on the UB server. At the time of writing, dozens of different teams had already signed up with locations in Canada, USA, Russia, Germany, Spain and even Afghanistan, showing the truly worldwide phenomenon that online poker has become.

In terms of individuals, GPL events have already had thousands of different signups with primarily males in their 20s making up the bulk of the entrants into the competition. There is much diversity to be had amongst the signups though and that is why both the GPL and UB.com are excited about all of the possibilities in store for this particular online poker event.

The way the system works is simple. There are three periods to the regular season, each of which is good for 50 days. Any player ending up in the top 50% of people playing in the season is a player that will make it to the playoffs. Players that are able to enter the sit and go tournaments and play well over many of them will therefore not only receive their share of the prize pool, but will also be able to go onto bigger and better things once the playoffs come along.

During the playoffs, money that has been taken from sit and go prize pools throughout the season will be up for grabs. Because three 50-day seasons will have been involved by that time, the prize pool will be quite exceptional and it will give players the chance to play for something significantly larger than they had been playing for up to that particular point in time. Overall, this definitely lays the groundwork for what will be an interesting time had by all.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Poker Stars Encouraging Women to Satellite into PCA

The Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) is one of the highlight tournaments held live every year under the Poker Stars banner. One thing that makes this event such a great one each year is that there is a Main Event set aside just for women, a trend that will continue during the 2011 iteration of the event scheduled to start on January 6th and continue all the way through to the 16th.

To get into the event which will be held at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, women will need to win their way through a series of different satellite tournaments. There are $11 rebuy events taking place everyday at Poker Stars and in addition to that there are also $33 freezeout events happening on the same site. Winning any of these satellite tournaments will get you into the final satellite tournament where one seat to the tournament will be available for every $3480 in the prize pool as that is the exact value of the prize package that is being given out this year.

What makes this prize package so special is the fact that not only do you get the $1000 needed to buy into the tournament, but you can also go right ahead and get a lot of other perks such as $300 free for enrolment into a boot camp taught before the tournament by none other than Vanessa Rousso.

The powers that be in both the online and offline poker communities understand that one of the reasons that poker has not grown as much in the last five years of the 2000s as it did during the first five (after the obvious legal situations) is that the poker community has not done enough to get women to become a part of it.

This is why events like the women’s main event at the PCA are so important and it is also why several high-profile women poker professionals will also be making appearances to play. These include but are not limited to Vicky Coren, Katja Thater and the aforementioned Vanessa Rousso.

Monday, October 11, 2010

WPT France Entry Celebrated at Party Poker

The World Poker Tour has been all over the place in Europe, but one country has been notably absent from the proceedings at Party Poker This country is of course France, but recent procurements in the legal structure of the country have started to allow poker events to take place within its borders.

As a result, the World Poker Tour has added a stop in Amneville to the overall tournament tour and this in turn will allow the French population to get more directly involved in the expanding poker activities taking place all over the world.

This year, WPT Amneville will be starting on November 2nd and will run through to November 6th In order to celebrate this newfound interest in their poker tournament series, Party Poker ahs decided to pull out all of the stops and host one of the most involved satellite tournament structures available for any WPT event in their history At least, this is true relative to the size of the event in its first year.

Players that are able to wade through the satellite structure at Party Poker will receive a WPT Amneville prize package that is worth $7000 This includes not only the $4500 that is needed for a buy-in at the event, but it also includes money on top of that for you to spend on accommodations, travel and spending money during the times when you are in the city but not necessarily playing poker at one of the tournament tables.

Another thing that players will get from this prize package is the hospitality of the Party Poker online poker organization, something that has been world renowned for some time especially as it relates to their World Poker Tour festivities.

This time around however, Party Poker will be pulling out all the stops to make sure that their online poker operation goes as smoothly as possible A successful 2010 WPT Amneville festival will certainly give rise to more stops in France in the future and that of course is what Party Poker is after A good investment for the present that allows players to truly appreciate this tournament will lead to even better things down the road.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

World Poker Tour Festa al Lago big at Party Poker

The World Poker Tour Festa al Lago tournament is one of the more popular ones each year, partially because of the fact that it comes with an impressive prize pool that numbers in the seven or even eight figure range and partially because it is run at the Las Vegas Bellagio, one of the legendary casinos of the world.

Whatever the reason, people do seem to take an intense liking to this tournament and Party Poker has recognized that enough to run a series of new online poker promotions that deal with the Festa al Lago.

Players can start from the bottom playing for $2 or less in tournaments that allow them to go through different steps until they get into a qualifier that allows them to win a prize package by winning the tournament. In this way, it is possible for you to parlay nothing, $2 or $9 into a seat at the event and potentially a six-figure payday if you are able to get high enough in the final tournament rankings. Players going from the freeroll and $2 qualifiers can win their way into the $9 qualifier and from that point you have a chance of exactly 10% to get into a tournament that offers one of the prize packages.

If you’d prefer to skip all of that and just take a shot at the prize package right away, you can enter the daily satellite tournament that allows you to get in for $75 + $5. The same 10% number applies here to players that get directly to the full $700 + $50 satellite taking place each Sunday which awards at least one prize package per tournament.

Any players winning a prize package will be claiming a prize worth $14,000 in value. This includes not only the buy-in for the tournament which is worth $10,000 + $300, but also an extra $2000 to spend and seven nights at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Overall, it is one of the juicier prize packages offered by Party Poker and there is no reason why someone can’t parlay a single-digit buy-in into one of the biggest tournament stakes in history.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Play Aces Poker Offering Players the Full Package

Play Aces Poker has become an online poker site of noteworthiness lately through not only its creation out of other online poker sites like Sportsbook Poker, but also the fact that its tumultuous creation has apparently allowed it to prosper.

Another reason that Play Aces Poker has the ability to prosper in these tough economic times is the fact that its software package appears to be rich in features. Some of these features are relatively standard in the world of modern online poker, but some of them are not.

In the standard column would be things like the bad beat jackpot, although the one with Play Aces Poker activates the jackpot at a loss with four of a kind in sevens or higher, something that is a bit lower than many other online poker websites that have been around a lot longer. The time back feature that allows you to call for time on a particularly difficult decision is another example of a great feature that is standard in the world of online poker today.

Other relatively standard features from Play Aces Poker include the ability to play poker instantly if you are not too picky about the type or the place, the ability to play more than one table at the same time, the ability to use emoticons in real player chat and the ability to take notes on the other players.

All of these features are great, but they can be seen anywhere. What really makes Play Aces Poker such a great online poker website is the fact that it has a lot of great features that are less common in the world of online poker. These features include the “deal it twice” function which allows you to deal a hand twice just like you’ve seen on television shows like High Stakes Poker. You can also go rabbit hunting, giving you the opportunity to see cards that would have come up on the board after a hand was folded before the river. If you’re looking to put an opponent on tilt, you can even choose to expose just one of your hole cards to keep them guessing.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Poker Stars Offering EPT London Prize Packages

The European Poker Tour (EPT) has many great stops but the Ladies Event that takes place during the London leg of the tour is definitely one of the highlights of the overall tour. Many women poker players have been put on the map by their victory in ladies events, two popular examples being Jennifer Tilly at the World Series of Poker Ladies Event and Vicky Coren who won this particular tournament four years ago.

Poker Stars is definitely eager to send some of its own female players to this tournament and that is why they will be holding satellite events that will have GBP 1500 prize packages available covering entry into this particular tournament.

Entry into the actual tournament with a prize package is $109 and these tournaments will be held at 1530 ET on August 9th as well as on the 16th, 23rd and the 30th. All four of these tournaments will result in the winner getting a seat to the EPT London event in question.

As is usually the case for these types of qualifiers, players that are not interested in paying that much money can go for super satellite tournaments to try and win their way into the final qualification event. In this way, it is possible for a player to pay as little as $3.30 to get into a satellite tournament and then parlay that seat through victory into a seat at the $109 tournament and eventually the main EPT London event.

The smaller qualifiers will run throughout the month of August with different qualifiers on a weekly basis draining into the final tournaments on the dates mentioned above. Furthermore, Poker Stars will also offer freeroll qualification tournaments for people that would like to pay an even smaller amount of money to beat a larger field to earn that spot in the final.

Overall, Poker Stars offers many different options for people that are interested in getting a seat at the table. That is why it is definitely a good idea for you to play online poker here for the next little while if getting to the EPT London is something you want to do.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Party Poker Celebrating 200th Oktoberfest with a Bang

This year, Munich will be the home to a festival never seen before as it rings in the 200th year of Oktoberfest. This milestone will never come again and because of that authorities in the city are organizing a big deal party over the course of the festival. Anyone that attends it won’t soon forget what happens and to help send some people there Party Poker is offering 35 different prize packages relating to the festival. Each package is worth an impressive $75,000 and players only have to keep playing in order to have a chance at getting one.

The prize package itself includes two tickets for Oktoberfest as well as accommodations at a world class hotel for three days and two nights and added amenities like free spa access and open bar meals for breakfast and dinner. Overall, you and a friend could have a blast there with these prize packages if you are lucky enough to win one.

Speaking of winning the prize package, Party Poker will be holding an all out points race over the course of August in order to see who gets these prize packages. It starts with four weekly races taking place August 2-8, 9-15, 16-22 and 23-29. Each week will see the winner receive $2000 in cash and 1000 points towards the overall race with cash prizes going all the way down to the top 100 with 100th place receiving $25 in cash. The points awards go all the way down to 500 however and anyone finishing 500th will get 50 points.

In that way, points are awarded for individual excellence in a particular week but also for consistency throughout. At the end, the top 500 places will be calculated and the top 30 will receive prize packages to Oktoberfest 2010. The remaining players will enter a freeroll tournament and the top five in that tournament will get the last prize packages.

However, even if you don’t win one of those there is still the possibility of picking up cash prizes in each of the four weeks as well as prizes of $500 to $1000 in the second chance freeroll. That means that even without the benefit of a prize package this could still be a lucrative promotion for you.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

World Series of Poker 2010 Will See Tournament of Champions

It is an interesting event that has been run in different ways through different years (and not been run at all in other years), but there is no question that the Tournament of Champions at the World Series of Poker always draws a lot of attention. Anyone can win the Main Event, but only the best of the best will emerge as the winner of the WSOP ToC.

The field for the 2010 running of the ToC will contain 20 names that will be familiar to most people that even casually follow the world of professional poker. Seven slots were chosen beforehand and include previous ToC winners like Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton. Joe Cada, the winner of 2009’s Main Event will also be there and joining him will be the winner of WSOP Europe 2009 Berry Shulman. Bertrand Grospellier and Andrew Barton round out the seven pre-selected individuals, respectively the winner of the WSOP Academy tournament and the WSOP online qualifier for the United Kingdom.

Joining these seven people are 13 that were selected by a popular vote from all of the fans of poker. Starting with a field of 500 players, WSOP officials asked players to vote for their favorites and eventually lower-placed players were removed and their votes recast. Overall, more than 350,000 votes were put into the selection process with the top five placements going in order to Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson.

Overall, the field at the 2010 ToC will be the same competitive field that it always is. Although other WSOP events can end up with final tables that do not have many stars in them because of the swings of variance and luck, the ToC is only going to contain people that are the best poker pros around or people that have made it into the event by winning a big name title such as that of the previous year’s WSOP Main Event. Therefore, it could seriously be considered the toughest 20-player field in the world of tournament poker.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Play Aces Poker Offering One Million Dollars in June

Play Aces Poker has not been around very long as it was not too long ago that both Sportsbook Poker and Players Only Poker decided to join forces and launch this online poker website in lieu of their own floundering operations.

Ever since that time Play Aces Poker has been putting forth different promotions in an effort to drum up more interest in their operations. Their latest will take place over the month of June in its entirety and will have a total prize pool of $1 million up for grabs.

It starts on level 1. The first 5000 players to earn 250 VIP points will get $2.50 in cash and advance on to level 2. At level 2, there will be fewer prizes available for the advancement to level 3 and so on up to the 15th level which represents the highest level in this particular promotion. Each level has a cash prize available for advancement to the next level so any player that is able to run deep into this promotion stands to get dozens or even hundreds (and maybe even thousands) of dollars in prize money.

The good news about this promotion is that Play Aces Poker is actually interested in making sure that everyone has a chance to go deep in this promotion and not just their high roller players. As a result, they’ve already put together a strategy that guide that players with smaller bankrolls can use in order to end up with more VIP points.

Of course the best way to earn more VIP points is through upping the stakes at which you play. However, if you do not want to do that or simply do not have the ability to do that there are always alternatives such as playing in multiple sit and go tournaments at the same time. Doing that will allow you to do more with each passing moment of time and that in turn will give you the chance to earn enough points to get through some of the levels that are present during this promotion.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Big Game is Back at Poker Stars

Poker Stars has previously done a promotion where the winner got a chance to play in a cash game with a large stack and a chance to take some money home against some of the best players around. That promotion was so successful that Poker Stars has decided to do a second round of the promotion starting with online qualifiers that lead into the event.

The online qualifiers are running right now at Poker Stars under the name “The Big Game”. The not so subtle name is obviously an homage to the Las Vegas cash game of the same name that has cash game chip stacks running deep.

Players can get a chance to be the Loose Cannon at the table of the next Big Game that Poker Stars runs. The Loose Cannon position is exactly what it sounds like. It is a person with very little known about them that at the same time is a person that could potentially do some damage to the poker professionals that are sitting at the table.

The final 200 players remaining in the online Big Game promotional tournament will each be invited to submit a video about themselves. That video will then be compared with the other submissions and a Loose Cannon will be chosen from those submissions. In the end, it is a great way for a player to get some access to the televised poker world.

It is also of course a great chance for a player to head to Las Vegas on a freeroll and attempt to work some cash prizes from the deal. Any player winning the Loose Cannon role will be given $100,000 and a seat at the table against Poker Stars professionals like Daniel Negreanu. They can get in for free and anything over that amount that they win is theirs to keep. A freeroll with 100% stake in the profits is a pretty sweet deal and it is exactly the deal that is available to any Poker Stars player lucky enough to get through this promotion and come out on top.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

CEREUS Launching Series of Innovative Poker Events

The CEREUS Network is composed of UB and Absolute Poker, two of the biggest names in the business of online poker. UB is the larger site within the network and with the cancellation of the 2010 iteration of their Aruba Poker Classic, they have decided to push several online events that will pick up some of the slack that has been left by that event’s absence from the running this year.

The first of those events is called the Perfect 10 Challenge on UB and the Trip Tens in April promotion on Absolute Poker. Although they have different names, the two sites will be sharing the leader board for the entire event.

Here’s how it works. Every single day in April will see ten tournaments being run with a buy-in of $11 each. Players can play in as many of the tournaments as they want over the month of April and at the end of the month players will take their ten best finishes in those tournaments and have points towards the leader board calculated based on those results. When all is said and done, the top 50 finishers on that leader board will get a payday based on the amount of points they have been able to accumulate.

This promotion is interesting because of the fact that it allows you to play a variable number of tournaments yet count just the ten best finishes towards the overall total. There is $100,000 in the prize pool for this promotion with the top three finishers receiving $20,000, $10,000 and $5000 respectively. Everyone that gets a prize however will get at least $500 plus the cashes from their tournaments so this is definitely a good one to go after in terms of expected value.

Don’t think it will be too easy though because you can expect to see professional players from UB vying for those top spots. Although no confirmations have been done yet, there is the possibility of players like Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth being present when the ten tournaments on the first day get underway along with the other great poker players that make up team UB.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Poker Stars Dream Job Australia Final Fast Approaching

It has been weeks since Poker Stars started their Dream Job Australia promotion and now it looks as though the first stage of the tournament will be coming to an end soon. The final for Dream Job Australia is scheduled for tomorrow (March 27th) and will begin at 4:30 PM Eastern Time.

Players that have been able to perform well on the satellite tournaments that have been running for weeks are the same players that will be able to enjoy a relatively cheap entry into the Grand Final that will be run tomorrow. However, even if you haven’t played a single satellite there is still time for you to either win your way into the final or else buy your way into it with direct buy-in cash for the final event.

The good news is that if you do the direct buy-in, performances of other players at previous satellites don’t really mean that much. This is because the Poker Stars Dream Job Australia Grand Final will send the 10 players that are left at the end to the second stage of qualification regardless of how they got to the final in the first place.

All ten of these players will be sent to Sydney, Australia, at which point Team Poker Stars Pros will quiz them on their knowledge of poker and generally help them with getting recognized and eventually selected as the final person out of the ten that should be going for this selection.

The final player that ends up being selected out of these ten candidates will be the player that receives the $100,000 contract from Poker Stars. This contract will include $5000/month as a salary as well as $40,000 to be used by the player to buy into the Australia and New Zealand Poker Tour events of their choice. They will be representing Poker Stars by wearing their gear while playing and at the end of the tournament series it is quite possible that they may walk away with a lot more than that in cold hard cash. No matter how you slice it, this is definitely a Dream Job Australia opportunity.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Full Tilt Poker to Renew Espana Series

The first round of live poker tournaments in Spain was so popular for Full Tilt Poker that they have decided to keep it going for a second season. As a result, the Full Tilt Poker Espana Series is now back with at least four different dates being run.

The first tournament will take place in Gerona starting on April 25th and running through the 27th at the lovely Casino Castell de Peralada. Following on the heels of that will be a tournament in Malaga at the Casino Torrequebrada starting on June 4th and running through to June 6th. At that point, the series will pause in deference to the World Series of Poker, the main live poker tournament series in the game.

It won’t pause for long however as the Spanish capitol of Madrid will host a tournament at the Casino Gran venue that starts on August 27th and runs through to August 29th. Bringing up the rear and therefore rounding out the second season of Full Tilt Poker Espana will be the Barcelona Grand Final starting on December 2nd and continuing through to the 5th of the same month. The Casino Gran de Barcelona will host that event, giving the brand two out of the four events listed so far in this season’s Espana Series.

As with all good live poker tournaments sponsored by online poker sites, satellite tournaments are available for all of the Espana events. There is a $216 satellite tournament that gets players into a tournament with three prize packages offered and a $535 satellite tournament with 5 prize packages offered. The former will be held every Tuesday and Thursday while the latter will run on every Sunday.

For players that do not want to pay that much money for a chance at one of the seats, Full Tilt Poker naturally offers super satellite tournaments as well. The lowest buy-in at the moment is $5 and players will have to parlay that into multiple victories if they want to make their way into one of the larger satellite tournaments and win a prize package from them. It is harder, but of course it can be done.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

WSOP Tournament of Champions Reborn

It was run in 2004, 2005 and 2006 as a meeting of the greatest poker players of the time. However, it wasn’t really thought of as an all-important all-star game but rather more as a fun way to celebrate the end of another successful World Series of Poker.

Now however, with live tournament poker looking for ways to increase its image through marketing, the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions will return to Prime Time and this time will be billed as an All-Star Game that will feature the best players at the time fighting it out for poker supremacy and all the bragging rights.

The 2010 WSOP Tournament of Champions will feature a field of the 27 greatest poker players in the world today. Included automatically in the list will be Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton, the respective winners of the 2004, 2005 and 2006 iterations of the event. Also included will be 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada and 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event champion Barry Shulman. Two sponsor exemptions to be determined at a later date will round out the first 7 players in the field and the final 20 will be chosen through online balloting by all of the fans in the world of poker.

The main reason for the lion’s share of players being chosen by the fans is quite simple. The WSOP Tournament of Champions from 2010 onwards is going to be run like an All-Star Game. No matter what sport you look at, be it baseball, basketball, football or hockey, you will see that the top North American leagues in the sport all have All-Star Games where the attendees are chosen by the fans. The WSOP Tournament of Champions is attempting to follow in those footsteps and that is where this entire idea comes from.

For that reason, the Tournament of Champions will also be broadcast on ESPN as part of their WSOP coverage. The first part of the tournament will take place June 27th and the last on July 4th, but the actual broadcast date on ESPN is August 3rd.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Test Your Cash Game Might at Party Poker

While everyone else has been running around trying to find out who the best online tournament poker player is, Party Poker is more interested in finding out who happens to be the best online cash game poker player. It is in the spirit of gaining that information that they have announced the first Online Cash Game Championship. The OCGC for 2010 will go from March 1st to April 2nd and will feature more than $250,000 in prizes given out by Party Poker to the best cash game players around.

In total, there are going to be seven levels run for the championship, each cutting players out of the running. In all of the levels, you need to play at least 400 hands to qualify for consideration and the best performers over 400 or more hands will be able to advance to the next level. Players will start on level one from March 1st to 5th with the best players advancing to level 2 which will be played March 8th to 12th.

Successful players will win $50 and advance to level 3 which will be played March 15th to 17th. This time successful players get a cash prize of $200 before playing in level 4 from March 22nd to March 23rd. Success here is worth $400 in prize money and a spot in level 5 from March 25th to March 26th. Players that are successful here will advance to the final two levels and gain $1500 in prize money at the same time.

These secondary prizes are nice, but they pale in comparison to what players can win on April 2nd if they make it to the final table of the OCGC 2010 event. The highest stack at the end gets the grand prize of $40,000 while the runner up gets $20,000 and the third place finisher still nets an impressive $10,000.

If the event is successful, Party Poker has certainly not ruled out the possibility of coming back with an annual or even more than once per year version of the OCGC for its players to compete in.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

2010 WSOP Main Event Prizes Available Through Titan Poker World Challenge

Titan Poker is interested in any big major poker tournament that usually holds a large European continent. The Main Event at the World Series of Poker certainly falls under that banner and that is why Titan Poker is getting a jump on the competition by offering five prize packages for the 2010 WSOP in this early series of promotional tournaments.

It’s called the Titan Poker World Challenge and it will see the best from each country face off against each other until only five people remain. Those five, ostensibly the cream of the Titan Poker crop, will then represent Titan Poker as members of the team that they send to the 2010 Main Event.

The tournaments have already started, but due to the large number of them it is still possible for you to get in on the action and show the world what kind of skill you have. They are broken down based on geography and that means that people from the same country and the same region will face off against each other multiple times in order to see who rises to the top. In total, there are 18 weeks of tournaments to play, each of which will contribute to the overall leader board that Titan Poker will have for each country.

The winner of each region and country at the end of those 18 weeks will then go through a final 8-round tournament flurry at which point the top five players will become readily apparent. Those five players will then receive $13,000 prize packages to go to the 2010 WSOP. Those packages include airfare and accommodations in Las Vegas as well as the $10,000 Main Event buy-in.

Because of the gruelling nature of this tournament and the fact that it lasts more than 18 weeks, we won’t know who these five players are until April. If you want to be one of them however, you need to get started now. After all, you can’t claim to be the best in your country unless you can prove it over an extended period of time.

Monday, January 11, 2010

All You Wanted To Know About High Stakes Poker

High Stakes Poker is a television program involving high stakes of cash in the poker game. The cable TV network of GSN broadcasts this novel program across the US. The type of poker game played on this show is the no limit Texas hold ‘em kind and as of now, the television series has finished the fifth season.

A brief history
The very first season of this high profile game of high stakes poker was taped in Las Vegas in the Golden Nugget. The show was first broadcast during January of 2006 and comprised 13 episodes. The show was hosted by the comedian turned poker professional Gabriel Kaplan and A.J. Benza. The second season of high stakes poker comprised more episodes 16 in number and was taped at the exotic Palms. The third season was filmed inside South Point Casino and started being broadcast on January 15th of 2007. There were a couple of new poker players included in the third season and these included Phil Ivey, Jamie Gold, Patrik Antonius, Chris Ferguson, David Benyamine, Paul Wasicka, Brian Townsend etc. Of course, the poker players of the previous seasons were also there in the third season.

The best hands
The season five of high stakes poker showed some really neat hands being played amongst the poker players. One such poker player by the name of Tom Dwan earned a massive pot totalling 919,600 USD against Barry Greenstein. Whilst earlier seasons such as the season 2 where Gus Hansen got 575,700 USD along with four different fives beating Daniel Negreanu, were historic moments on the show. During the episode aired on 12th November of 2007, Patrik Antonius won a massive pot of 743,800 USD against Jamie Gold. One of the biggest pots in the show high stakes poker has to be the one between Antonius and the other poker player Sammy Farha. This pot totalled 998,800 USD and was aired on 26th November of 2007. Antonius decided to go all in once the flop was over and Farha decided to call. Whilst the odds were quite even, Antonius won.

Successful bluffs
High stakes poker has seen many instances of bluffing, some amasing and some gone terribly wrong. The most successful bluff happened during the third season of the poker show and happened with Brad Booth bluffing Phil Ivey with King of Hearts and King of Diamonds. The flop soon followed and Ivey soon bet followed by Booth raising to 300,000 USD. This was when Ivey folded and Brad won. However, in the series of bluffs, which happened off and on in the high stakes poker shows, the most unsuccessful one happened between two amateurs Brian Brandon and Antonio Salorio. This bluff went all the way to raised flop with 7-2o as well as K-K in succession. As Brandon flopped the best hand, Salorio continued betting and lost over a 100,000 USD and finally gave up.

High stakes poker is an amasing poker show which every poker enthusiast should watch.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

EPT Berlin Created for 2010

Typically, the European Poker Tour (EPT) has a stop in Dortmund where many of the best German poker players in the world take a shot at a large pot of Euros. This year however, in an effort to boost the number of entrants on the German leg of the EPT, the organizers have instead opted to move the tournament from Dortmund to the country’s capital in Berlin in the hopes that this will drum up more interest.

Another thing that might drum up interest for the new EPT Berlin event is the prize pool. For the first time on the German leg of the tour, a whopping grand prize of EUR 1 million is guaranteed to the person that wins the tournament. This will be good news for Sandra Naujoks, a member of Team Poker Stars Germany and the defending champion of the EPT Dortmund tournament that took place last year. She won over EUR 900,000 for her efforts and this year will get a chance to improve on that cash.

Joining Sandra on the EPT Berlin will be the rest of Team Poker Stars Germany as well as a few other players that frequent the online halls of that hallowed online poker site. In addition to poker professionals, famous celebrities like Boris Becker and Jan Heitmann are scheduled to make an appearance at the tournament.

Last year, the EPT Dortmund event was blessed by 667 players entering the tournament. This year, even with a somewhat hefty entry fee of EUR 5000 + EUR 300, it is expected that the EPT Berlin event will draw many more players. This is indeed what the organizers were hoping for when they made the switch, but the larger field also means that in order to successfully defend her title and get the higher cash prize, Naujoks will have to wade through a field likely much larger than the one she defeated at Dortmund in 2009.

The tournament will begin on March 2nd, 2010 and will run through to March 7th, 2010. Satellites for entry into the tournament are already available at various online poker sites.