Poker Blog

bwin Poker Introduces New Double Or Quits Sit & Go Format

Posted on by giorgio

Double or Quits Sit & GosIn bwin Poker’s newest style of poker to be introduced into their online poker repertoire, half the players will win and half will lose.

The only question is, in which half will you be? Double or Quits is the name of the new game and as bwin Poker describes it, it’s basically a twist on the Double or Nothing style of tournament that has lately become so popular in live poker.

bwin Poker’s Double or Quits Tournaments are a Sit & Go style of tournament which means that they run around the clock, a new one beginning each time the requisite number of players (in this case, 10) is met.

The first difference between bwin Poker’s Double or Quits and your standard sit and go tournament is that in Double or Quits, the top 5 players are paid out. That’s half the playing field of each tournament walking away from the table in the money. It’s not even split according to placement in the top 5, but rather split equally amongst all 5 players, hence the “Double” in the name, because the top five double up and the bottom five bottom out.

From there, bwin Poker puts another spin on the structure and gives every player, that’s all 10 players, whether they made the top 5 or bottom 5, are permitted a rebuy within the first half hour (30 minutes) of the game. This gives players knocked out before making the top 5 another chance at doing so, and it rewards the other players by enriching the total prize pool to be split amongst half of them, hence the “Quits” in the name, as players have to choose early on whether to contribute double their investment into the pot for a 50/50 shot at winning it back or quit now.

The starting stack for Double or Quits Sit & Gos is 1,500, with blinds going up every 6 minutes. The original buy-in (and rebuy) is $6 (or $5 + $1), giving the top 5 finishers from each Double or Quits tournament a minimum of $12 back, but probably a whole lot more because, after all, who can resist a rebuy?

888 Poker Gets Social

Posted on by giorgio

888 Poker is making big waves, and the perfect kind for surfing – first with a new 3D online poker room and now with full social media integration.

Social media integration means that 888 Poker can now be joined with and enhance the experience of all your social networks. Connect your 888 Poker account (at my.888Poker.com) to your various accounts with social networking sites Facebook, Twitter, and maybe best of all YouTube.

Compare 888 Poker performance with your Facebook friends, Tweet about your progress in a game on Twitter, and record your poker games and capture those incredible hands to share with your connections on YouTube.

Plus, the social networking experience at my.888Poker.com includes Blue Carpet Events, behind the scenes looks at various big money live poker tournaments in exotic locations, an insider look at the World Series of Poker, and an bustling community of players like you posting blogs, commenting on discussion forums, join themed groups with like-minded people on subjects that interest you, ask and answer questions, study up on the successes (and hard-won lessons) of the elite group of 888 Poker Ambassadors, post photos and videos, take poker polls, and win prizes by participating in exclusive 888 Poker social media promotions. An example of one such promotion is a huge refer-a-friend bonus of $50 for you and $25 for each of your friends you refer who sign up for my.888Poker.com.

At the time of this writing there were 15,117 members in 35 groups writing, reading, and commenting on 276 blog posts, 2,678 photos, and 210 videos on my 888 Poker.

Members of my 888 Poker also get the opportunity to set up private tables and private tournaments at 888 Poker. So you can invite your Facebook friends to an exclusive 888 Poker tournament or cash game with a select invitation only group of players.

partypoker Hosts WPT Amneville Satellites

Posted on by giorgio

WPT Amneville 2010partypoker, lead sponsor of the World Poker Tour, is now holding satellite tournaments into November’s WPT Amneville, France main event.

In all, partypoker will be giving away five prize packages into this, the premiere WPT event to be held in France, each package worth $7,000 and including the $4,500 buy-in into the WPT Amneville main event, hotel accommodations during your stay for the tournament, and $1,200 for expense money. In addition, the WPT Amneville prize package winners will also be treated to partypoker’s world renowned world class hospitality.

partypoker WPT Amneville satellites and qualifiers start Monday, September 13 and run through Sunday, October 17, 2010. The cheapest way to enter the qualifying structure is through one of partypoker’s daily WPT Amneville freeroll tournaments in which the top 50 players from each will advance to a sub qualifier speed rebuy event.

Players can also opt to buy in directly into this sub qualifier speed rebuy event for a $1 buy-in. These events take place daily and award an entry into the weekly WPT Amneville satellite qualifier for every $40 in the prize pool. Alternatively, players can win a seat in the weekly satellite qualifier through one of partypoker’s daily $5 + $1 sub qualifier speed events; one in eight players will win.

The partypoker WPT Amneville Satellite Qualifier takes place every Sunday at 1:45 pm ET. Players can either win their seat through one of the aforementioned methods, or they can buy in directly for $37.50 + $2.50. One out of every ten players in each of these weekly satellite qualifiers will land themselves a seat in the WPT Amneville Satellite on Sundays at 3:20 pm ET. The direct buy-in into this event, in which partypoker will award one in every twenty players a $7,000 prize package, is $350 + $25.

Win 2010 Apt Macau Seats At Celeb Poker

Posted on by kurt

Asian Poker TourIt’s time once again for another Asian Poker Tour event held at City of Dreams in exotic Macau, fast becoming one of the new poker capitols of the world.

The 2010 Asian Poker Tour Macau will take place November 6th – 14th, with the Main Event scheduled for November 10th – 14th. Every Saturday, starting now, Celeb Poker will be giving away seats in this upcoming APT Macau 2010 Main Event via special satellites tournaments.

These APT Macau Super Satellite Tournaments can be bought into directly for $250 + $18, or players can enter one of CelebPoker’s many satellites taking place throughout the week prior to each big event in the form of ongoing Sit & Go tournaments and win their way into the super satellite.

The last 2010 APT Macau Super Satellite will be held on October 30th.

Celeb Poker reminds players that they must be 18 years old minimum in order to participate and that, by registering, they are implicitly assenting that they can indeed attend and play in the 2010 APT Macau Main Event, should they win a seat.

Celeb Poker will not do any refunds, transfers, or any cash-out of the equivalent value, but rather any player who wins a 2010 APT Macau seat and cannot attend forfeits their prize. Remember that travel documents are one of these crucial prerequisites.

Each Celeb Poker prize package into the 2010 APT Macau Main Event is worth $7,000 and includes the $4,180 + $320 ticket into the APT Macau 2010 Main Event, $900 to apply toward the necessary 7 nights of accommodations at the City of Dreams (November 9th – November 14th), a stipend of up to $1,500 to apply toward air travel and/or other expenses as each winner sees fit, and $100 to use for the necessary registration fees.

New 3d Poker Room At 888 Poker

Posted on by giorgio

888 Poker 3D888 Poker’s slogan is “We play different” and they’re not kidding. Case in point: the new 3D poker room that 888 Poker has just released.

888 Poker’s new 3D poker room is nothing if not stunning. It gives players an incredibly choice in the look and feel of their game, with graphical choices in the deck that you use (with different front and back designs on the cards), and table layouts and themes, including the option of placing 3D featured images behind your table. You also get to choose from a broad selection of 3D player avatars. Additional game settings (such as auto muck hand, and post blinds) and color indicators (such as to indicate whether each player Folded, Called, or Raised) make game play not only more visually appealing but smooth, intuitive, and much easier to follow the action.

The 888 Poker lobby has also been improved with its 3D renovations, with a bevy of customisable options for players comfortable using the 888 Poker lobby, and a quick-click beginner’s lobby offered as an alternative to players who aren’t quite accustomed to the full breadth of options offered in the regular 888 lobby.

In honour of their new 3D poker room, 888 Poker is holding a special promotion called 3Directions to Win, in which players can win prizes like iPads and cash up to $15,000. The 888 Poker 3Directions to Win promotion includes crazy give away tournaments offered at buy-ins of just 8 cents, as well as prizes awarded to players who participate in at least 10 Sit & Go tournaments in the new 3D 888 Poker room at stakes over $1.

Already 888 Poker boasts an overall 5 million player pool. With news of this innovative 3D poker experience the site is now offering, players can only expect this action to continue to build.

London Calling To PKR Poker

Posted on by giorgio

PKR Poker and Fox Poker Club are holding an event called London Calling this October, 2010. The first event of its kind, London Calling will be a full live poker series lasting 28 days, during which a total of 57 different poker tournament events of varying types and stakes will take place. The slogan for this first-ever PKR Presents London Calling at the Fox Poker Club is “Poker To The People”.

PKR Poker promises that London Calling events will include Pot Limit Omaha (PLO), Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better (PLO8), even heads-up events and a two-day long HORSE event (HORSE, if you don’t know, is a mixed game event of alternating hands of Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, and Eight or Better). Buy-ins for London Calling events are being kept purposely small, with most ranging between £20 and £100. The London Calling Main Event will have a £300 buy-in.

The dates of this inaugural running London Calling are from October 11 to November 7. All 57 events comprising London Calling over the entire 28 days will take place at the famous Fox Poker Club on Shaftesbury Ave in the heart of down town London.

In addition to the normal payouts the top finishers in each tournament will receive from the pot (and the guaranteed prize pool), a leader board will also be kept, ranking players on a points basis throughout the entirety of the series. At the end of the series, those points will be transferred into chips comprising each player’s starting stack in a special freeroll tournament to take place online at PKR Poker.

What makes this poker series so unique, PKR Poker points out, is that it gives those players who wish to compete in high stakes live poker tournaments with live human dealers but don’t have the bankroll to foot it, the chance to have that experience at a cost they can afford.

Cash In Big At The Big Up This September At Celeb Poker

Posted on by kurt

Celb Poker's The Big UpSeptember, 2010 is The Big Up at Celeb Poker. What’s that mean? It means that throughout the September Big Up promotional period at Celeb Poker, players can “exchange less points for more cash”.

Earn $3,000 for just 225,000 Celeb Poker Points, or $2,200 for just 165,000 Celeb Poker Points. Either way, that’s only 75 points for every dollar earned. Earn:

  • $1,000 for 82,000 CPPs (that’s 83 points per $1)
  • $750 for 65,000 CPPs (that’s 87 points per $1)
  • $500 for 45,000 CPPs (that’s 90 points per $1)
  • $300 for 28,000 CPPs (that’s 93 points per $1)
  • $200 for 23,000 CPPs (that’s 115 points per $1)
  • $150 for 17,700 CPPs (that’s 118 points per $1)
  • $100 for 12,000 CPPs (that’s 120 points per $1)
  • $75 for 9,500 CPPs (that’s 126 points per $1)
  • $50 for 6,500 CPPs (that’s 130 points per $1)
  • $30 for 4,000 CPPs (that’s 133 points per $1)
  • $20 for 2,700 CPPs (that’s 135 points per $1)
  • $10 for 1,400 CPPs (that’s 140 points per $1)
  • $5 for 750 CPPs (that’s 150 points per $1)

To be sure to earn the right cash bonus rate during The Big Up month of September 2010 at Celeb Poker, don’t go to the ordinary VIP Club’s Claim Cash Reward tab, because if you do, you’re liable to accidentally get stuck with the regular (lower) rate of return on your hard-earned CPPs.

Instead, go the Promotions tab of the website and click on The Big Up. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page, past the informational charts, and you’ll see a grid of “Purchase Now” links, one for each of the above-mentioned cash rewards.

Click on the appropriate Purchase Now link for the amount of cash bonus you want, being sure you have the listed requisite number of CPPs earned during The Big Up promotional period of September, 2010 at Celeb Poker before you do so.

bwin Poker Holding Free Rookie Challenge

Posted on by giorgio

How good do you think you are at online poker? Not very good at all? Perfect! Then you’re just the kind of player bwin Poker is looking for to participate in the free Rookie Challenge.

In the bwin Poker Rookie Challenge beginners at online poker get the opportunity to square off against other online poker beginners. All you have to do to participate is be a new player at bwin Poker (sorry, existing players). As long as you don’t have an account yet at bwin Poker you’re golden. Just sign up and bwin Poker will automatically credit you with 10 tournament tickets into its Rookie Challenge.

The bwin Poker Rookie Challenge is comprised of 5 stages of Sit & Go tournaments, in which players begin at the bottom of the ladder and climb their way to the top to ultimately win tickets into real money events.

  • Rookie Challenge Stage 1 is a 10-player tournament with 1st place getting 3 tickets into Rookie Challenge Stage 2 and 2nd place getting 2 tickets into that event.
  • Rookie Challenge Stage 2 is also a 10-player event, which awards 1st place 2 tickets into Rookie Challenge Stage 3 and awards 2nd place 1 ticket into Rookie Challenge Stage 3.

From here, only the 1st place winner is awarded any prize. Rookie Challenge Stages 3 and 4 are both 5-player events with the winner of Rookie Challenge Stage 3 winning 3 tickets into the Stage 4 event, and the winner of Rookie Challenge Stage 4 winning 1 ticket into the Rookie Challenge Stage 5 heads-up final, in which the winner will be awarded 3 real money tickets worth $1.10 each that can be used at any bwin Poker tournament and 3 Rookie Challenge Freeroll tickets.

The bwin Poker Rookie Challenge Freeroll has a $300 guaranteed prize pool. In addition to winning tickets through the Rookie Challenge, you can also get your first 14 tickets into the bwin Poker Rookie Challenge Freeroll by making your first deposit into a real money account at the site, and then earning just one bwin Poker point.

Tuesdays & Wednesdays, A One-two Punch At bet365 Poker

Posted on by giorgio

bet365 PromotionsEvery Tuesday and Wednesday is a one-two punch of promotional goodness at bet365 Poker, with Guaranteed Bonus Tuesdays and the 500 Euro Freeroll.

The Guaranteed Bonus Tuesdays and 500 Euro Freeroll Wednesdays differ in one key way, that being that the former is offered only for a limited time while the latter is an ongoing promo at Bet 365 Poker.

Every Tuesday between September 7 and October 5 at bet365 Poker will be Guaranteed Bonus Tuesdays, which means that players will be entitled to receive a bonus of as much as $1,000 per player with no deposit required. What’s more, each player can earn this maximum $1,000 bonus each and every Tuesday of the promotional period. Since there are 5 Tuesdays between Sept 7 and Oct 5, that means each bet365 Poker player can earn up to a $5,000 bonus for free.

To earn some part or all of your Guaranteed Bonus Tuesdays bonus, just play your heart out at bet365 Poker every Tuesday of the promotion. Each Tuesday you earn a bonus equivalent to your results for the day, regardless of it’s a positive or negative number, in other words, if you come out for the day with a $900 loss, bet365 Poker will amazingly pay you a $900 bonus. And your opponent who came out $900 ahead gets the same bonus too. As bet365 Poker says, this is far better than even a reload bonus because there isn’t any deposit or money transfer required in order to win.

The following day, Wednesday, is bet365 Poker’s €500 Freeroll. As already mentioned, this is an ongoing promotion at bet365 Poker. To play for a part of the weekly €500 guaranteed prize pool, you just need to earn 10 Merit Points at bet365 Poker’s real money tables during the week prior to the Wednesday €500 Freeroll event, which takes place at 19:00 GMT. Games played at both Euro (€) and Pound (£) tables apply.

Win WPT France Seats At bwin Poker

Posted on by kurt

bwin Poker is holding satellite tournaments awarding as their grand prizes free entries into the 2010 World Poker Tour’s France stop, better known as the WPT Amneville.

Get into the World Poker Tour action just in time for Season 9 of the WPT to start its second half. You can sit in alongside some of France’s finest poker players by winning one of the $8,500 WPT France Packages that bwin Poker is offering up for grabs through its WPT Amneville satellite tournament series.

The Season 9 WPT Amneville satellite series starts out with daily qualifiers, both of the freeroll and cash qualifier (or “Regular Qualifier”) variety. Let’s now follow both paths to WPT Amneville glory.

WPT France Freeroll

Would-be freeroll entrants need only collect a single Player Point and redeem it for entry into one of bwin Poker’s WPT France Freeroll Qualifiers by using the claim code “FRANCE”. Players can do this 7 times, entering the WPT Amneville Freeroll seven times before having to take their subsequent shots at a WPT France prize package through the regular qualifier path.

The WPT France Freeroll Qualifiers take place August 21 – October 2, every Saturday at 20:00 GMT + 1. And the WPT France Freeroll that these qualifiers lead into takes place on October 9 at 20:00 GMT + 1. At this event, 2 prize packages will be awarded into the WPT France 2010.

Live Event Qualifiers at bwin Poker

As for the cash qualifier path, players can enter Daily Live Event Qualifiers at bwin Poker, August 15 – October 10, which lead into the $17,000 WPT France Finals held every Sunday between August 22 and October 10 at 20:00 GMT + 1, so called because at each event, two $8,500 WPT France 2010 prize packages will be awarded.

Travel dates for the WPT France are November 1 – 7. Each prize package includes the $4,500 main event buy-in, $2,700 for hotel accommodations, and $1,300 to use toward flights and other expenses.