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partypoker Offering Incredible WSOP And WPT Packages

Posted on 02/27/2012 by phil

partypoker Promotions Roll up, roll up, it’s time for some thrilling poker action at partypoker, where players can secure packages to this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) and April’s World Poker Tour (WPT) Vienna.

Yes, the poker room is offering players the chance to win incredible prizes that will take them to Las Vegas and Italy, as well as possibly gain entry to the Spring Million promotion that is guaranteeing $1 million in prizes come early May.

That’s not all, though, as players can still qualify for the partypoker Card Rush promotion, which will see prizes offered from 10 PartyPoints all the way up to $5,000.

Really, there couldn’t be a better time to sign up to partypoker with so much going on, as well as the poker website’s normal line-up of events and promotions.

Hurry! Card Rush Promotion Ends Tomorrow

But be quick if you want to win some prizes from the Card Rush offer as it closes at midnight tomorrow ET (Eastern Time Zone, February 28). However, if you do manage to get some play in, you can quickly earn 15 PartyPoints for a card that will include a free gift from among the 1.8 million on offer.

Check out the ‘Prizes’ tab, then look for ‘Card Rush Race’ to get going, folks. There are still prizes up for grabs, including entry to $2,000 and $20,000 freerolls, as well as an incredible 25,000 PartyPoints, and even $5,000 in hard cash.

The Card Rush Freeroll Schedule

Friday, March 2, 13:00 ET, $2,000 Card Rush Freeroll; 14:30 ET, $15,000 Card Rush Freeroll
Saturday, March 3, 13:00 ET, $5,000 Card Rush Freeroll; 14:30 ET, $10,000 Card Rush Freeroll
Sunday, March 4, 13:00 ET, $3,000 Card Rush Freeroll; 13:00, $20,000 Card Rush Freeroll
Monday, March 5, 14:30 ET, $7,500 Card Rush Freeroll

Other prizes include as many as 20 Card Rush Race points, which will see the leading 200 earners win from $100 to $9,000, while every 20th placer from 220 up to 2,200 is guaranteed $50.

WSOP 2012 Qualifiers Kick Off

Meanwhile, partypoker’s WSOP 2012 promotion kicks off at midnight ET tonight and runs until 23:59 on Sunday, June 17, when players can grab hold off a $14,000 package through satellites that includes the $10,000 main event buy-in and quality accommodation at a top Las Vegas hotel for 10 nights, as well as $2,000 cash to spend.

Each Sunday from 14:50 ET will see a $750 buy-in WSOP Satellite run, which will reward 5% of the field with those incredible WSOP packages.

However, partypoker know that not everyone has the bankroll to afford such a large buy-in, so the poker room are also providing sub-satellites that run daily, from freerolls to WSOP Satellite Qualifiers that cost just $80.

partypoker WSOP 2012 Freerolls Freerolls to Las Vegas Start Here

The freeroll will see the leading 25 players handed tickets to the daily $2 WSOP Sub Qualifier Speed Rebuy – and thereafter you can aim for a spot in the WSOP Satellite Qualifier as every $80 added to the prize pool provides an entry.

There is also a $4 WSOP Sub Qualifier Speed Rebuy with the same criteria and even a $9 WSOP Sub Qualifier Speed event that will hand out WSOP Satellite Qualifier seats for 10% of the field.

Then, if you are again among the top 10% in this $80 event – which run daily at 14:50 and 19:50 ET, as well as Sundays with a turbo tournament at 12:50 ET – you are in the $750 buy-in WSOP Satellite and just one step away from getting on a flight to Vegas come early July… if you can make the top 5%.

Get on over to partypoker to take a look at their full qualifying structure page for a shot at the big time… and big bucks!

WPT Vienna Satellites Up and Running

Of course, partypoker and WPT Poker are famous for their great giveaways and this is certainly also true of the WPT Vienna promotion that is running right now at the website until 23:59 ET on Sunday, March 25.

If you have your sights set on making it to Vienna’s Montesino Casino for the April 10 to 15 main event, partypoker have numerous WPT packages worth $7,000 to give away.

Qualifiers run every day between now and March 25, with freerolls providing the leading 25 players with entry to the $1 WPT Vienna Sub Qualifier Speed Rebuy tournament.

However, players can also buy into the $6 Sub Qualifier Speed event – with both Sub Qualifier tournaments offering seats for each $40 added to their prize pools in the Satellite Qualifier that runs every day.

The WPT Vienna Satellite Qualifiers start at 13:45 and 20:45 ET every day, while there is also a Sunday turbo event. Similar to the above satellites, every $375 added to the prize pool will provide one seat at the next WPT Vienna Satellite.

World Poker Tour Vienna $7,000 Packages to be Won

One $7,000 package is already guaranteed from the $375 buy-in Vienna Satellite that runs every Sunday at 15:20 ET, while each extra $7,000 added to the prize pool also assures places in the main event come April 10.

The WPT Vienna prize package includes the $4,700 buy-in to the main event, as well as six nights’ hotel accommodation and $900 to spend.

Keep the faith and maybe you’ll be lining up alongside some of the world’s best poker pros as they all aim to emulate Dimitry Gromov’s success from last year when he defeated fellow Russian Maksim Kolosov in their heads-up encounter to leave Italy with $636,733.

If you are interested, check out the full qualifying structure here and get registered today for an opportunity to face up to the top pros in Vienna.

WPT Foundation Lines Up Celebrities And Pros For Several Charity Events

Posted on 02/24/2012 by phil

Whoever said that poker is a force for evil as it encourages people to gamble might well have to eat their words as the World Poker Tour (WPT) has got together with numerous poker pros and celebrities to launch the WPT Foundation with the aim of using the tour’s influence as an “engine for important change in the world”.

The WPT Foundation plans to host several charity poker events entitled WPT Playing for a Better World that aim to raise cash for their worldwide charity partners, including World Central Kitchen, We Advance, Enough Project, and Conservation International.

The first tournament will be hosted on Sunday, March 11, by SLS Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, with the celebrities already signed up including the likes of Joel Madden, Jeremy Piven, Don Cheadle, Gerard Butler, Maria Bello, Eva Longoria, Woody Harrelson and Will Ferrell.

Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari Signed Up

These stars of the big screen and music industry should certainly enjoy the event as they will be able to compare their poker skills – and maybe even win a lesson or two – against pros such as Andy Frankenberger, Maria Ho, Jamie Gold, Tony G, Vanessa Selbst, Antonio Esfandiari, Dan Harrington and Daniel Negreanu, as well as the WPT’s very own Tony Dunst and Mike Sexton.

The first stop will see celebrities enjoy some poker lessons, before then getting down to the serious business of playing in a $500 buy-in round-robin tournament, enjoying an auction and a raffle – with tickets priced at $100 – to raise funds for the previously mentioned charities.

The WPT has already made a donation of $100,000 towards the event, with the tour’s chief executive officer Steve Heller saying he expects a positive response from all concerned.

Steve Heller Says WPT is ‘Dedicated’ to Supporting Charities

Heller stated: “World Poker Tour has always been dedicated to supporting charitable causes, but by establishing WPT Foundation we are making a deep, lasting commitment to philanthropy the likes of which the poker world has not seen before.”

Steve Heller “With poker as a platform for an ongoing programme and the support of celebrities, our poker player family and fantastic global charities, we’re confident the world will be shown how WPT and the poker community can be an engine for important change in the world, and we’re pleased to fuel that engine with an initial $100,000 donation.”

“The launch event of WPT Playing for a Better World at the beautiful SLS Hotel will be a night to remember and the first of many such WPT Foundation events to come.”

Players will definitely enjoy more than just top-quality poker, though, as multi-award-winning Spanish chef José Andrés will be on hand to provide a buffet from his The Bazaar restaurant, which is attached to the SLS Hotel.

If you want to know even more about the event, then visit WPTFoundation.org.

Doyle Brunson Sticks Up For Friends At Full Tilt Poker

Posted on 02/24/201211/02/2021 by elizabeth

Doyle Brunson has taken Daniel Negreanu to task for the Canadian player’s public tirade against Full Tilt Poker and its associated players, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. Negreanu made waves with his anger and wishes for violence against his repeated declarations of hostility. While Brunson doesn’t mention Negreanu by name in his blog at doylebrunson.com, he does make reference to some of Negreanu’s past comments (like his desire to hit certain FTP people in the groin with a baseball bat). Brunson said, “I don’t want to take a baseball bat and crush their grapes and I don’t want to keep them from rejoining the poker world. Where do you stop the level of responsibility? I don’t know, I only know all of the FT people were my friends and they still are.”

He blames Ray Bitar (but who doesn’t, at this point?), saying, “Ray Bitar for sure knew about the cover up and has to answer for his actions. You can believe or disbelieve the fact that Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer knew about the problems. I know the majority of the poker world wants blood and believe they did know. I believe time will tell us the answer to that.” He also stated that he didn’t see any reason why Lederer or Ferguson should have been suspicious, because “if you were a stockholder, would you question the management of a company that was sending you hundreds of thousands of dollars each month? I doubt you would, I know I wouldn’t, I’d think life is good!”

Brunson’s statement has caused quite a bit of stir in the poker community, where players seem to have broken into two camps: the first says, “Come on, how could the players NOT have known what was going on with Full Tilt?” and the other says, “Maybe there’s a chance that the players didn’t know what was going on.” The poker community hasn’t seen a clearer line drawn between cynics and idealists in a long time. But really, what’s the truth about what happened? Negreanu cries fowl while Brunson says that it was all a misunderstanding– but when this misunderstanding cost a lot of players a lot of money, and they lose more and more hope of seeing those funds ever returned to them, it’s easy to see why so many people are not only anti-Full Tilt, but avidly anti- the players formerly associated with the sinking company.

Ray Bitar It’s true, as it’s been said on various poker forums, that sometimes the details can just fly right on by when you’re delegating responsibility to someone else and trusting them completely. It’s also mostly true that Lederer, Ferguson, and the rest are poker players and not businessmen (although when you start to market yourself as a brand, there’s a certain amount of business-mindedness going on there). Yet other players have agreed with Brunson that no one would intentionally run a company into the ground (history tells us that this isn’t true at all when the people involved stand to gain loads of money in the process), and that the players probably just didn’t question the ridiculous sums of money that they were being given. If you started getting hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, you wouldn’t be even a little curious about the details? Really? Even if the only crime of which the FTP-associated players are guilty is gross negligence and a heavy dose of ignorance, doesn’t that still make them accountable?

We may never know exactly what went on behind closed doors at Full Tilt. It’s been almost a year since Black Friday, and we’re no closer now to answers than we were then. One thing is for certain, however– everyone has his or her own opinion about the matter, and the heated public discussions are just getting started.

PokerStars Eureka Poker Tour Back For Season Two

Posted on 02/23/2012 by phil

Poker tours are appearing all across the globe right now as the world’s greatest game continues to expand and develop at a pace no one could realistically have predicted, with one of the most recent additions, the PokerStars Eureka Poker Tour, returning for a second year.

We already have the big-name series such as the World Poker Tour (WPT), European Poker Tour (EPT), Asian Poker Tour (APT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT).

Then there are more localised events, including the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT), North American Poker Tour (NAPT), Partouche Poker Tour (PPT), Italian Poker Tour (IPT), Estrellas Poker Tour, Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), and even the Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT).

Essentially, the majority of the world is well covered by tours, with only a few exceptions, although the World Series of Poker (WSOP) have moved beyond their Vegas home in recent years to create the WSOP Europe and right now the WSOP Africa is smack bang in the middle of a second season in South African city Johannesburg.

Eastern and Central European Poker Boost

But, incredibly, eastern and central Europe have been sidelined somewhat, so the return of the PokerStars Eureka Poker Tour for a second outing will be most welcome in countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

Certainly, poker players throughout the region warmly welcomed the five events that were held last year as the tour took in Prague (twice), Zagreb, Varna and Nova Gorica.

While the schedule for this year’s tour is still not yet complete, three stops have been announced – with Latvia, Croatia and Bulgaria the first countries to be certain of welcoming thousands of players and spectators to some of the world’s most beautiful cities.

Season Two will kick off in Croatia on April 9, lasting six days until the 14th, at Zagreb’s Golden Sun Casino and featuring a €1,000+€100 buy-in main event from the 11th until the 14th.

Croatia, Bulgaria and Latvia on 2012 Schedule

The other confirmed dates are in Bulgaria and Latvia, of course, with Varna’s Casino & Hotel International at the Golden Sands Resort staging a seven-day event from June 4 to 10, with this leg also including a €1,100 buy-in main event from the seventh to the 10th.

Four months later, from October 1 to 7, Riga’s Royal Casino will also play host to a four-day main event that again possesses a €1,100 buy-in and kicks off on the fourth.

Now, many of you online poker hopefuls in eastern and central Europe will surely have eyed up live tournament competition – and where better to begin than in Zagreb come the middle of April?

OK, OK, OK, I realise the vast majority of you won’t have the €1,100 buy-in readily available. But that’s where PokerStars comes in – as the poker room are offering free entry through a series of online satellites to players in Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

PokerStars.net Freerolls to Zagreb Running Now

These freerolls are staged on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays every week right now at 19:30 CET (Central European Time) on PokerStars.net, with each event offering more than €100-worth of added satellite tickets.

The satellites can be found in the PokerStars lobby. Once there, look for the following tabs: ‘Tournaments’, and then ‘Regional’. If successful, you’ll have to follow up by visiting ‘Events’ and then ‘Special’ for the main satellites.

Of course, it’s all up to you to secure those main satellite event seats and, hopefully, one of the packages on offer from PokerStars.

There are seat-only prizes, as well as the more sought-after seat, hotel accommodation and expenses award, so – if you fancy getting ready for a trip to the Croatian tournament that promises to possess a prize pool in excess of €200,000 – it could be time to check out the satellites.

Follow in the Footsteps of Richard Bodis

Hungarian Richard Bodis won last August’s €730+€70 buy-in main event in Season One for a top prize of €47,298 ($68,061) after outlasting a 259-player field in Zagreb that created a prize pool of €183,400 ($263,908). But you can expect that winner’s cheque and starting line-up to be larger this year.

However, never fear, if you’re not already signed up to PokerStars, it’s really easy. Just get on over to http://www.pokerstars.net/sites/download/ and follow the instructions.

You can also take advantage of their 100% first-deposit bonus for as much as $600. Click here to visit PokerStars.net.

Remember to bookmark Max Poker Bonus so you can get the latest information on the second season of the Eureka Poker Tour, including updates on additional stops being added to the series.

The PokerStars Eureka Poker Tour Season Two Schedule

April 9-14: Eureka Croatia, Golden Sun Casino, Zagreb, €1,000+€100* buy-in main event (April 11-14, 400-player maximum)
June 4-10: Eureka Bulgaria, Casino & Hotel International, Golden Sands Resort, Varna, €1,000+€100* buy-in main event (June 7-10, 500-player maximum)
October 1-7: Eureka Latvia, Royal Casino, Riga, €1,000+€100* buy-in main event (October 4-7, 500-player maximum)

* 3% of prize pool covers floor staff and dealers costs.

PKR Backs The Poker Wiki – Now Online!

Posted on 02/17/2012 by elizabeth

Attention, poker fans– there’s a new poker information site on the web, and they’re gunning for the number one spot when it comes to comprehensive poker information. The Poker Wiki, backed by PKR Poker, who coughed up a lot of the funds to make this brilliant concept a reality, is now online. While the site is still new, it already offers plenty of great information, and it’s expected to grow rapidly and steadily until it becomes the internet’s best source for all things poker related.

PKR Poker are the number one 3D online poker room, and the UK-based company has released a true wiki– “an online poker encyclopaedia created by players, for players.” True to wiki fashion, users will be able to add and edit articles, verify the sources, and add citations and links to other pages. As the PKR press release put it, “”Users of The Poker Wiki can access all content for free, and in true wiki fashion can also submit edits and updates as well as adding their own articles. Poker players may write biographies of their poker careers to date, bloggers can provide articles about their websites, casinos can add details of their cardrooms and tournament schedules and live tournament organisers can provide information on their events, including results and reviews.”

While the site is doing well at providing information and has already grown considerably since their launch, there are naturally some areas that could use improvement. Some of the pages need editing, and whether The Poker Wiki lacks them entirely or they simply can’t keep up with the influx of new pages has yet to be seen. The pages are full of citations, which is a promising sign that the people writing the articles are making sure that they verify their facts. The links between articles are currently largely lacking, which means that when you find something interesting in one article and want to move to the next, you have to do a search for it, rather than simply clicking. With time, this will also surely improve.

PKR Now that the site has gone live, PKR Poker has released it into the wild, so to speak. According to their press release: “Although initially funded by PKR, The Poker Wiki has been developed as a standalone project. PKR Media Manager Dan Grant explains: “PKR has worked with a team of writers to get The Poker Wiki up and running, but from now on our involvement will be very hands-off. The Poker Wiki’s future is now in the hands of the poker community who we hope will pick up the baton and contribute content to help create the world’s foremost repository for all things related to poker.”

The main page of the site currently features articles on Doyle Brunson and the 2012 WSOP Schedule Announcement, as well as recently added articles on poker strategy, poker terms (like ante, poker dice, and table image), online poker sites, poker tournaments, and professional players. For wiki newbies, the site even offers a Users Guide that tells users how to do pretty much everything they could imagine, so there’s no excuse for not pitching in and exploring the site!

PokerStars Mobile App Has Gone Live In The Uk!

Posted on 02/17/2012 by elizabeth

PokerStars Mobile PokerStars has just launched their mobile app in the UK, which allows players with compatible phones to play real money games, even if they’re away from their computer. The app, which was made available for download on February 14th, allows players to play sit-and-go games, multi table, and compete in all the PokerStars tournaments.

The app is available throughout Great Britain (save for Northern Ireland), and versions exist for the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and various Android devices. The game has been rescaled to fit perfectly on the screen of the various devices that can use it, and the graphics and playability are uncompromised. Truly, using the PokerStars Mobile App is pretty much exactly like playing PokerStars from your computer, but with added portability! Now you can play from absolutely anywhere– waiting in line, on a plane (if the plane has wi-fi, that is), during boring business meetings. The new PokerStars app aims to revolutionize the way that players relate to poker and fit it into their lives, and from what we’ve seen, it has the potential to do just that!

PokerStars mobile is ideal for the casual player who is trying to beef up his or her game whenever the opportunity presents itself (and when you can play a few hands at the grocery store checkout, that opportunity presents itself far more often). The poker games currently covered by the app are Hold’em, Omaha, and Omaha Hi/Lo, and all come in No-Limit, Pot-Limit, and Fixed-Limit. Multi table doesn’t work exactly like it does on the computer– but it’s a reasonable approximation for the platform. Four tables is the limit for all devices except for the iPad, which can accommodate five, and one nice thing about multitabling on PokerStars Mobile is that your hole cards are clearly displayed, despite the small screen size.

PokerStars launched a mobile app in Italy last year, and while Italian players could only play for pretend money, rather than use their PokerStars funds, the app was popular and allowed PokerStars to run a successful beta test among an existing client base. A year later, with some added functionality thrown in, the same technology is seeing a re-release as PokerStars mobile 2.0, aimed at Britain.

So how does the app work with the functionality of your phone and plan? Well, for one, if you answer a call, you’ll have so sit out a hand, and if you’re gone for more than 25 seconds, you’ll be booted. Playing runs smoother over Wi-fi than 3G, but the same can be said of pretty much all apps that require a constant data stream. Because the game is using data (1MB down and 500KB up per hour), you’ll probably want to think carefully about whether or not to use the app if your plan isn’t unlimited.

You can download the app from pokerstarsmobile.com, although you’ll need a PokerStars account beforehand. PokerStars is currently offering a sweet 100% match on opening deposits, so there’s never been a better time to join PokerStars and play… now from anywhere!

Vadzim Kursevich Makes EPT History By Winning EPT Deauville

Posted on 02/10/2012 by elizabeth

When Vadzim Kursevich made it to the final table in Deauville during the most recent stop of the European Poker Tour, he had already made poker history. He was the only Belorussian player to make the final table at more than one EPT event, and he did it in back-to-back seasons. Kursevich sat at a table of Frenchmen and Italy’s Luca Pagano, who has long been a regular at the EPT tables (and has been in the top three on the EPT All-time Leaderboard pretty much from the very beginning of the tournament series), so while his presence didn’t go unnoticed, no one really expected him to win. Even though he entered the final table second in chips and there was no clear “strongest player” at the table before the game started, when poker commentators were making their guesses about the outcome of EPT Deauville, Kursevich’s name rarely came up.

The first player out was Irishman Mick Graydon, who went all in on Ac9h and lost it all on what would become a battle of the high cards (Guichard held AdKc). It took two hours for first blood, and the game would prove to be a long one before the night was done.

EPT favorite Luca Pagano performed in this final table as he has in most other final tables. This is the seventh time that the Italian has made it to a final table at the EPT, and he closed out the day in seventh place. While his performance at the final table was unimpressive, he made it over the two million dollar mark for live tournament earnings and boosting his rank on the all-time Italian Money List.

Three and a half hours into the game, Olivier Rogez was sent home with sixth place and €155,000 (another out by Guichard), and two hours later, Than Trong sent someone else home: Bruno Jais was out in fifth. The players took a much needed hour break, and when they returned, the tone of the game shifted, and the players took off the gloves (perhaps they were simply tired from playing for six hours already).

Kursevich made his first elimination of the evening by taking out Yorane Kerignard when his KJ came out higher than the Frenchman’s Q9 (the board showed trip 5s and nothing else of use to either player. Not content with one notch in his belt, Kursevich gunned for Than Trong, taking him out in third place, Ace high to King high.

Finally, the game was down to only two– Kursevich and Frenchman Paul Guichard. On the final hand, Guichard held pocket 5s and Kursevich held 3h6h for a flush/straight draw. The board read Js-7h-5d-9h, and the 8c on the river busted Kursevich’s flush draw, but gave him the straight that he needed to win the hand and the game, sending Guichard home with only (only!) €557,000 for second place.

The final places and amounts won are:

Vadzim Kursevich – €875,000
Paul Guichard – €557,000
Vuong Than Trong – €328,000
Yorane Kerignard – €260,000
Bruno Jais – €200,000
Olivier Rogez – €155,000
Luca Pagano – €110,000
Mick Graydon – €67,200

The European Poker Tour has announced that this season’s Grand Final will once again take place in Monte Carlo, Monaco, after last year’s segue to Madrid. Kursevich has scored himself a seat at that event with this win, and one thing is for certain: should he make it to the final table in another EPT event, he won’t be overlooked again.

Full Tilt Sale Stalled By Big Name Players

Posted on 02/06/2012 by elizabeth

Full Tilt Poker News Full Tilt Poker, it seems, is bound and determined to stay in the news, one way or another. The ongoing negotiations between Groupe Bernard Tapie and the United States Department of Justice are making news again– this time because several professional poker players still owe the site a hefty debt that is throwing a wrench into the sale of the company.

Groupe Bernard Tapie’s lawyer, Behnam Dayanim, has stated that the debts owed by big-name players (almost all of whom were at one point Full Tilt Pros) are only one among a number of problems that are stalling the company’s purchase of the now-defunct poker site from the DOJ, but when certain pro players owe FTP somewhere between 10 and 20 million dollars, it’s certainly a big issue, and one of the hardest to address.

Dayanim broke it down like this: “The analogy that I like to use is that if you think of the target as a shiny apple. At the start of the diligence process, you expect that there are going to be some bruises on that apple, but after you finish your diligence, the problem here is that there are more and deeper bruises than we had anticipated. The professionals’ obligations to the company are a larger and deeper bruise than we had hoped, and we have had less success than we had hoped in trying to brush off that bruise.”

Phil Ivey Full Tilt It’s no wonder that GBT’s lawyer uses the apple analogy, as FTP has been less than forthcoming about their finances, and these debts only came to light due to extensive searching by the prospective buyers. Dayanim stated that very few of the players who owe money to FTP have made any effort or expressed any willingness to pay it back. These players include Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren, and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, although there’s speculation that the debts extend all the way through the lineup of recent Full Tilt Pro players.

Will the Full Tilt Poker sale be completed as hoped, or will negotiations fall through because of this? If the sale is the only way that players can hope to get their money back, what does it mean if the GBT sale doesn’t happen? Perhaps most importantly, if the other issues can be resolved but the big-name pros who owe the company money refuse to make good on their debts, can we expect a backlash against these players by the little guy who may never see his money again? Let’s face it– if you leave a drowning company with a few million of the company’s money, you’ve come out ahead, but if the company is holding onto your funds, then you’re at a loss. Doesn’t it seem like the wins and losses should be the same across the board, rather than the more famous players being blatantly privileged?

The US Department of Justice has issued a resolution deadline of February 29th– stay tuned as we bring you news of the latest developments in this and other poker news.

WSOP 2012 Schedule Announced, New Surprises Unveiled

Posted on 02/05/2012 by elizabeth

Fans of the World Series of Poker will be disappointed that the promised end of the November Nine is not a return to the ways of old, but rather a rescheduling due to the 2012 elections. The WSOP 2012 Main Event final table will be moved up a week, making it the “Very late October Nine,” which we suppose just doesn’t have the same ring to it. There’s still a substantial delay between the final table play and the rest of the tournament, and there’s no telling if we’ll see a return of the November Nine in years when the United States isn’t holding presidential elections. All of this seems a little misleading, especially after the WSOP let their Twitter followers to believe that they could expect a real change with their Tuesday tweet: “A few hints on WSOP schedule coming tomorrow…you won’t find the November Nine returning.”

Fans have been speaking out since continuous play in the WSOP stopped back in 2008, and loud criticism coupled with the added pressure on poker tournaments to maintain the public’s interest in the wake of Black Friday was thought to be enough to return the schedule to its previous format, but apparently not. The 2012 WSOP will break for 14 weeks instead of 15, a change that does little to allay the concerns of players and spectators and comes off as more than a little patronizing.

Like the 2011 WSOP, next year’s Main Event final table will also be aired on a 15-minute delay. One of the starting days of the Main Event has been dropped from the lineup, along with the scheduled day off. The folks in charge of scheduling the WSOP aren’t making any friendds with decisions like these. Many poker pros will have been playing consistently throughout the tournament, and the scheduled break has long been a way for them to get their bearings and catch up on missed sleep so that they can bring their A game. Chances are, many players will be annoyed at the implication that poker should evolve into a stamina-based sport.

Lots of new events have been added to the 2012 World Series of Poker Schedule, including some new bracelet events: $3,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em/PLO Tournament, $5,000 Mix Max No Limit Hold’em Tournament, $2,500 4-Handed No Limit Hold’em Tournament, $1,500 Ante-Only No Limit Hold’em Tournament, and the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop Platinum Bracelet Tournament.

The One Drop Tournament is one of the most significant changes to the WSOP lineup, as it will potentially offer the biggest prize in poker history. There are 48 seats open for this incredibly high-stakes game for charity ($111,111 of each $1,000,000 buy-in will go to raising awareness about lack of drinkable water in large parts of the world). If the seats fill up, the first place winner will be looking at over $17 million in prize money, while second place will walk away with $9 million– both are amounts larger than Pius Heinz, the 2011 Main Event winner, earned during his victory. It will be interesting to see how this shift in prize money also shifts the attention of the players and viewers– if it takes too much attention away from the Main Event, that 14 week wait is going to seem even more cumbersome.

Stay tuned as Max Poker Bonus brings you more WSOP updates as they become available.

European Poker Awards Names 2012 Winners

Posted on 01/30/2012 by elizabeth

No small number of fierce competitors were up for the 2012 Player of the Year title at the European Poker Awards– in fact, the competition has been deadly all around, with names of major players appearing in every category. Even though very few of the players could actually attend the EPAs this year because they were playing in the Aussie Millions (while the Paris location of the EPAs at the Aviation Club de France was convenient for any players hanging out in Europe between European Poker Tour events, it was a bit out of the way for those in Melbourne, playing in the largest tournament happening at the time), awards were still given out, usually to proxies who had been sent to the awards in the stead of their friends and fellow players.

Individual Poker Player Awards

Player of the Year: Sam Trickett

Sam Trickett took the Player of the Year title, snatching it away from fellow nominees Pius Heinz, Eugene Katchalov, Andrey Pateychuk, Jake Cody, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier– all of whom one could argue are the best players of the last year. Trickett is an English specialist in high-stakes games (which explains why he was in Australia for the tourney there and had to send PokerStrategy blogger Barry Carter to pick up his award there), and his massive wins in last year’s Aussie Millions (first place in the 100,000 No Limit Hold’em, which brought a little over $1.5 million, and second in the 250,000 Super High Roller No Limit Hold’em, which added another $1.4 million to his bankroll) and the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in Cannes (first place again for another $1.36 million) made him this year’s winner.

Best Tournament Performance: Pius Heinz

It would be a crime to send Pius Heinz away empty-handed after his WSOP Main Event win (after all, he took home $8.72 million dollars there). This German’s performance in the largest poker event of the year earned him the Best Tournament Performance title.

Rookie of the Year: Andrey Pateychuk

Pateychuk may not have taken Player of the Year, but he claimed the well-deserved Rookie of the Year title. With a strong and impressive run in the World Series of Poker Main Event, along with first place wins in the EPT San Remo and WPT Prague events (and a sixth place finish in the EPT Prague re-entry), saying that Pateychuk has had a good year is a massive understatement. It’s truly hard to believe that Pateychuk appeared on the poker scene only a year and a half ago, and it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.

Europe’s Leading Lady: Natalia Nikitina

Russia’s Natalia Nikitina beat out fellow nominees Liv Boeree and Victoria Coren of England, Nesrine Kourdourli and Barbara Martinez of France, and Cecilia Pescaglini of Italy. Pescaglini finished second in the World Poker Tour event in Malta in September, while Martinez took the WSOP Europe Ladies’ event in Cannes.

Internet Player of the Year: Ilari ‘Ilari FIN’ Sahamies

Ilari Sahamies took the Internet Player of the Year title away from Ireland’s Jude Ainsworth, Viktor Blom of Sweden, France’s Rui Cao, and England’s Chris Moorman.

Lifetime Achievement: Jesse May

American Jesse May was also up for the Poker Personality award, a title that fits him perfectly, because Jesse May has personality and he has it in spades. He’s been one of the fundamental voices of poker, appearing on television and tournaments as a commentator as well has having a past poker career. He’s frequently called “The Voice of Poker,” and this year, he is honored with the Lifetime Achievement award for his contributions to the game.

Bertrand Grospellier Rob Gardner Memorial Award for the Poker Personality of the Year: Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier

France’s Grospellier beat out two very vocal poker celebrities– Jessie May and Tony G– for the Poker Personality of the Year award. While the category was full of solid nominees, it seems almost like the EPAs were giving Grospellier a consolation prize for his loss in the Lifetime Achievement category, because while Grospellier is a poker icon, he’s not really known for his personality– at least not to the extent of several of the other nominees.

Winners were announced in two other EPA categories this year:

Best European Event of the Year: WSOP Europe Cannes
Poker Staff Person of the Year: Warren Lush (international public relations department at bwin.party)