14 December, 2008
UltimateBet Poker is rolling out a new online poker challenge series for the second half of this month that costs nothing to enter and promises at least $5,000 in prizes and giveaways.
It’s called the Online Forum Challenge and it’s an inter-forum tournament that serves at UltimateBet’s attempt to find out “which online poker forum is King”.
Event #1, the 1st Online Forum Challenge Freeroll, takes place on December 20 at 3 pm ET and is a Texas Holdem event with a $1,000 prize pool plus $500 in bonus prizes going to the winning online poker forums.
Event #2, called “Everyone’s a Winner”, takes place on December 21 at 3 pm ET and has a $5 buy-in which is added to the minimum $1,000 prize pool, along with $2,000 in free UltimateBet tournament seats, and $1,000 in bonuses prizes for the winning internet poker forums.
As an added bonus, Ultimate Bet Star Team player Annie Duke will be competing in both events, and any player who knocks her out (assuming she gets knocked out, that is) will get a 1-year paid membership with the Poker Player’s Alliance.
To be eligible to play in the Ultimate Bet Online Forum Challenge you must go to OnlineForumChallenge.com to pre-register before December 17, 3 pm ET.
9 December, 2008
PokerStars has leaked that early next year it will add a brand new tournament to its line up – the Spring Championship of Online Poker (aka SCOOP).
This on the heels of the sweeping success of this past September’s 7th installment of their World Championship of Online Poker, the 2008 WCOOP attracting 2,185 players to the main event who competed for $200k guaranteed, though both the first and second place winners walked away with $1.2 and $1.4 million respectively, thanks to the chop. This will make the Spring Championship of Online Poker an exciting event for many online poker players who wish to try their hand again at pocketing such hefty sums.
Not much is known about the 2009 SCOOP, other than that the buy-in to the main event looks to be $1,500. They’re even hinting that, by the time the new event rolls around, its name may change. But they do know that the 6th place winner of their upcoming World Blogger Championship of Online Poker will win a free seat in the sure-to-be-popular new PokerStars tournament, whatever it ends up being called.
5 December, 2008
Since all the buzz on the poker news networks this week is last Sunday’s 60 Minutes story on internet poker we might as well give it a second of our time here.
According to the report, CBS News and the Washington Post joined forces starting 8 months ago to investigate online poker, and more specifically the question of cheating in online poker.
Apparently a group of devout and upstanding online poker players had themselves banded together and managed to catch a handful of until-then extremely successful career cheaters. $20 million successful, to be more precise.
In the interest of protecting the innocent, we’ll proudly name the names of the guilty here, and the one 60 Minutes brought to light as being behind much of scandal was Russ Hamilton, a former World Series of Poker main event champ.
What is an online poker player to take away from all this? Two things:
- Cheaters get caught; knowledgeable players are watching closely and looking out for those who don’t know as well what to look for
- Now the general public is even more aware of the need to federally legalize and regulate the internet poker industry so things like this don’t happen again
4 December, 2008
Need a break from online poker? Brain feeling drained from all that mental intensive strategizing? A lot of players join online slots sites to allow them a mindless and somewhat meditative reprieve from the heavy thinking required to play good poker.
Sometimes a little break from the action is all you need to come back refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to step back into the game.
A new online slots site just opened up, and unlike so many other online casinos out there, it accepts US players.
The site is Slots Oasis, and like its online casino forerunners (and still-going-strong) Rushmore Casino and the Cherry Red Casino, this new sots-centric online casino welcomes players from all around the world, including the U.S.
This makes all three of these online casinos perfect options for an online poker player who needs to step away form the felt for just a second to unwind his mind – but still wants a shot at winning some money in his downtime.
21 November, 2008
Starting soon, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) will be joining the World Poker Tour (WPT) and the European Poker Tour (EPT) as well as the World Series of Poker (WSOP) as the newest major land-based poker tournament series to be delivered players through promotions offered by online poker room.
Everest Poker, Party Poker, and poker rooms on the iPoker Network will soon be hosting freerolls, satelite qualifiers, and contests to offer their players opportunities to win seats in various Asian Poker Tour events. This will boost attendance and popularity of the Asian Poker Tour tremendously as these are the world’s 6th, 4th, and 3rd largest internet poker rooms.
Additionally, smaller online poker sites 888, World3Dpoker, PokerTrillion, JBetPoker, and PKR as well as the National Poker League and the Microgaming Network will also be providing the Asian Poker Tour similar support.
With this new support, organizers of the APT expect that they’ll now be able to expand their events considerably, soon being able to offer more events to a larger pool of players with bigger prize packages awarded.
18 November, 2008
An organization named “LifeofSports” has partnered up with popular online poker site Cake Poker to present the North America Online College Poker Championship.
This unique internet poker tournament is open to college and university students only, and only those residing in North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico). According to LifeofSports it is the only tournament like it currently in existence in North America.
The top prize is a year’s free college tuition along with a bonus vacation to Cancun, Mexico, a grand prize worth about $20,000.
Cake Poker will be hosting regular freerolls to award contenders seats in the main event. The 3 top placers in each freeroll tournament will win a shot in the May 2009 finals.
13 November, 2008
The GSOP, as its known for short, is Hollywood Poker’s annual online poker tournament features a $2 million guaranteed prize pool.
The 2008 HollywoodPoker GSOP schedule of events is as follows:
- I: Nov 21 – NL Texas Holdem
- II: Nov 22 – NL Texas Holdem
- III: Nov 23 – NL Holdem Deepstack
- IV: Nov 24 – NL Holdem Shorthanded
- V: Nov 25 – PL Omaha
- VI: Nov 26 – NL Texas Holdem
- VII: Nov 27 – PL Omaha
There are several ways for contenders to win their way into the Grand Slam Finals on December 7:
- daily Hollywood Poker 2008 GSOP satellite tournaments – all NL Texas Holdem tournaments, held from Nov 21 – 29 at 3 pm and 8 pm EST, with buy-ins considerably lower than those for the direct GSOP events
- the Grand Slam Finals leaderboard tournaments – following the above-mentioned events will be 3 Grand Slam leaderboard qualifiers on December 6 where the top 100 players on the Grand Slam leaderboard will vie for 1 Grand Slam Finals seat
- direct Grand Slam Finals qualifiers -regular, Turbo, and Omaha qualifiers with buy-ins ranging from $7 + $1 to $20 + $2
The 2008 GSOP is not to be confused with Hollywood Poker’s ongoing Grand Tournament, a monthly event with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool taking place on the last Friday of every month.
6 November, 2008
To jump off online poker for a bit here, I would just like to mention a great site I found the other night while looking for an online casino. CasinoTop10.net is a great online gambling resource that allows users to find just the right online casino for them.
CasinoTop10.net not only offers excellent online casino reviews and stats so you find the best online casino, but they also offer an extensive collection of casino game strategy articles as well as flash casino games to play yourself so you can fine tune your skills before playing for real cash online.
My favorite flash game at CasinoTop10.net has to be Blackjack, but coming in a close second is Roulette. One of my favorite games to play with a large group of people ready to spin the wheel.
So head on over to CasinoTop10.net and find the best online casino for you and start playing your favorite online casino games as well for free. I just can’t stop playing their flash Roulette, it is one of the best flash games I have played online.
27 October, 2008
More and more, poker (online and off) is becoming another culture of celebrity, with poker sites scrambling to sign ever-more, ever-bigger names to their list of endorsers.
UltimateBet Poker, for one, signed to its Star Players Team, Adam Levy (aka “Roothlus”), a top online poker player made recently famous by being reamed for 5 minutes straight by Phil Hellmuth, Jr. at a WSOP featured table.
Levy joins “Hollywood” Dave Stann (aka “The Bad Boy of Blackjack”) as the other most recent addition to the UltimateBet Star Players team. In 2007, Stann was named one of the Top 10 poker players in the under-$1,000 buy-in category, and in 2008 he boasts a-quarter-million in winnings so far.
Anyone can become an UltimateBet Star Player – even you. All you need in order to be so honored, as put by Team UltimateBet superstar Annie Duke are:
- an obvious and unarguable high skill level
- high integrity
- respect of one’s peers
Might you be the next UltimateBet Star Player?
23 October, 2008
Friday, October 17, World Poker Tour Enterprises declared that it will be shutting down WorldPokerTour.com, its real-money online poker room. A Cryptologic poker room launched in June 2007, as of November 14, 2008, it will be no more. WPTE will pay a fine for breaking a contract with the game software maker that was supposed to last until 2011, (Cryptologic, meanwhile, is joining with PartyGaming, but that’s another story.)
While closing one door, however, World Poker Tour will be opening another, with a new relationship between the WPTE and social networking mammoth, MySpace. The MySpace WPT community will offer MySpace members opportunities a chance to play free multiplayer online poker games with other MySpace members.
Materials planned for the new online community include
- Video clips
- Player profiles
- Tournament news
- Poker strategy tips and tricks
- Behind-the-scenes reports
Also, the WPT’s US-legal subscription site, ClubWPT.com, will remain open, and MySpace WPT members can win real money (over $10,000) and prizes (including WPT tournament seats) for $19.95 per month. Also, be sure to check out our poker site reviews to find out more about ClubWPT and more.