Category: Online Poker

Phil Ivey Sues Full Tilt Poker, Won’t play the 2011 WSOP

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Last night Team Phil Ivey released a press release via the popular social networking site Facebook which left many in the online poker world scratching their heads and wondering if his account had been hacked. The press release is real and Mr Phil Ivey will not be playing in the 2011 WSOP unless all US and international Full Tilt Poker players begin to get paid. Ivey also announced that he has filed a lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker parent company Tiltware for $150 million seeking repayment of player funds.

Overnight Ivey took a lot of heat for his statement from organizations like the Poker Players Alliance (PPA). Bryan Spadaro, of the PPA has this to sat via twitter “Never lost more respect for a person from a Facebook post than what Phil Ivey did today. Nice way to see short term and backstab. #jumpship” Once again the PPA doesn’t get it and at this point never will. Holdem Poker Chat privately pulled all support for the PPA following their post Black Friday comments. Now we’re doing it publicly. This organization has run it’s course and has achieved nothing but give poker players false hope.

Shortly after Ivey’s release went viral his good friend and fellow Team full Tilt Pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan also hit twitter offering him a pat on the back by saying “Yo @philivey poker isn’t a sport… Rest of your statement is awesome though.” Dwan will be playing the WSOP, but he has also gone on record as saying that if US players do not get paid that he will give back 100% of the income he received from Full Tilt Poker.

Here is a full copy of Phil Ivey’s Press Release:

For many years, I have been proud to call myself a poker player. This great sport has taken me to places I only imagined going and I have been blessed with much success. It is therefore with deep regret that I believe I am compelled to release the following statement.

I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm. I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

My name and reputation have been dragged through the mud, through the inactivity and indecision of others and on behalf of all poker players I refuse to remain silent any longer. I have electronically filed a lawsuit against Tiltware related to the unsettled player accounts. As I am sure the public can imagine, this was not an easy decision for me.

I whole heartedly refuse to accept non-action as to repayment of players funds and I am angered that people who have supported me throughout my career have been treated so poorly.

I sincerely hope this statement will ignite those capable of resolving the problems into immediate action and would like to clarify that until a solution is reached that cements the security of all players, both US and International, I will, as I have for the last six weeks, dedicate the entirety of my time and efforts to finding a solution for those who have been wronged by the painfully slow process of repayment.

How Did Black Friday Happen Anyway? Daniel Tzvetkoff: FBI Rat.

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If you’re sitting there scratching your head like we were about how the FBI could have built its case strongly enough to get the DOJ to issue those warrants that forced the shutdown of three of the biggest poker sites on the Internet, here’s how: an insider ratted them out. That is, an individual engaging in illegal online gambling entrepreneurial activity himself cut a deal with US authorities to save his own rear from the frying pan by helping to bring down bigger fish than he.

The “he” in question is one Daniel Tzvetkoff, and the more you find out about this guy, the less you like him. He and a partner created Instabill which, as you might now, is one of the payment processors that helps arrange financial transactions between the online gambling sites and its players, including U.S. players – a big no-no according to Uncle Sam.

Apparently (or “allegedly” as we’re supposed to say) Tzvetkoff laundered some $540 million through Instabill: money that was supposed to go to Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker but ended up going into his pocket. Living high on the hog on his clients’ money, it only makes sense they went ahead and sued him.

Arrested in New York in 2008 while attending a conference, Tzvetkoff began worming his way out of his legal hole then by, it seems, turning the tables on those very sites, in essence biting the hand that had stopped feeding him once they realized he’d already bitten a chunk out of them before.

The upshot (call it payback, call it irony) is that Tzvetkoff still faces charges with a penalty of up to 75 years in prison in his own native Australia if they can just get our hands off him and theirs on him.

Victory Poker Closes its Doors

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Victory Poker is now closed. All the players and account balances will be transferred over to Cake Poker. This news does not come as a surprise to anyone. Victory Poker seems to have been doomed to fail from the beginning when they decided to start off on the small Everleaf Network. After a few months they moved over the the Cake Poker network and hired some great poker industry people to run the site and we thought maybe they would turn into a good site. Sadly they never lived up to expectations and we regret promoting them.

On April 17th, 2 days after Black Friday, Victory Poker decided to stop serving US players and focused on the European market. Things did not go as planned and as of now they are closed completely. As mentioned all balances will be transferred as well as any gold chips or pending bonuses.

Quality Online Poker Sites

The moral of the story is that Victory Poker should have spent more time working on a good marketing plan rather then making videos.

Luvin Poker Introduces the “Bad Beat Guard”

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Luvin Poker and the Everleaf Poker Network know that you’re sick of bad beats? That is exactly why they invented the patent pending Bad Beat Guard!

The concept is simple really, anytime you play at a BBG table (labeled as “BAD BEAT GUARD”), you’ll have a shot at recovering the money lost from each and every bad beat you experience at a cash game table.

Whenever a player goes all-in at a BBG table, the software automatically calculates the winning chance of every player in the pot. These chances are then displayed as a percentage under the name of each player. Now, if someone loses a hand while their winning percentage was higher than the bad beat cutoff (the percentage displayed in the table label), they’ll have what they put in that pot refunded, in full!

Aside from that, everything about the BBG tables is identical to to all the other tables.

Get to those tables and start saying no to bad beats!

Terms and Conditions:

  • Not all poker tables have a Bad Beat Guard*.  Texas Hold’em games featuring BBG are identified by the description (e.g. Bad Beat Guard).
  • Standard ring-game and tournament rules apply while playing tables with a Bad Beat Guard.  The rules of play do not change; only pot distribution is occasionally modified to refund players if a qualifying Bad Beat occurs.
  • If you take a qualifying Bad Beat in a main or side pot, you’ll be refunded the entire wager you committed to that pot.  However, this does not necessarily mean you’ll be refunded the entire wager you committed to every pot that hand.  Each main or side pot is evaluated separately for qualifying Bad Beats to ensure required conditions are satisfied and pots are distributed appropriately.
  • The calculation of win probability includes the hole cards of players who contributed to the contested pot and still remain at the showdown, as well as the community cards shown at the point of the hand when the relevant All-In wager was made for that pot.
  • The calculation of win probability does NOT include the cards of players who folded in the hand. This is true even if a player called the All-In wager in the pot, but folded in a later round of betting for another side pot.
  • The calculation of win probability includes the probability of winning by a tie.  Therefore, a player with 64.74% probability to win outright and 5.65% probability to win by tie, will show a win probably of 70.39%.
  • The Bad Beat Cutoff % is a distinct percent (i.e., 70%) set prior to play commencing, which acts as a hurdle percentage rate upon which your win probability must exceed in order to qualify for a Bad Beat.  The BBC% of each game can be found in the table or tournament description (e.g., @ 70%).
  • In order to qualify for a Bad Beat, your win probability when rounded at 2 decimal places must exceed the BBC%.  Therefore, if the BBC% is set at 65%, then a player with win probability of 64.99% or even 65.00% would NOT qualify.
  • If there are two or more hands that qualify for a Bad Beat in the same pot (due to probability of a tie), then each player would be refunded the entire wager they committed to that pot, effectively overturning both Bad Beats.  The high hand is then awarded the remainder of the pot.
  • A player receiving disconnect-protection is considered to be “technically all-in” for Bad Beat qualification purposes.
  • Luvin Poker does not tolerate collusion. All players must act independently and not reveal their hands to other players, nor tell them how to act.  Failure to abide by these rules may result in the closure of your account.

* Patent Pending Technology

Some Full TIlt Poker Accounts Unfrozen

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According to a report on eGaming Review, some Full Tilt Poker bank accounts have been unfrozen by the US Department of Justice to faciliate player paybacks. According to the report most of the funds seized on April 15th belonged to Full Tilt Poker which is something most in the poker community where beginning to figure out when Full Tilt couldn’t pay players. Over the last couple of weeks rumors had been going around that Full Tilt were trying to sell off part of the company in order to raise money to pay players in the US.

Here is part of what was posted by eGaming Review:

The Full Tilt source explained this resulted from players’ poker balances being credited with money held in bank accounts seized by authorities before Full Tilt itself had been made aware of the seizures. “Because of the broad-sweeping nature of the Black Friday seizures, you had a seizure combined with a backlog and this has resulted in millions which all of a sudden became owed,” the FTP source said.

“Normally Full Tilt would cover that and take that loss, but because all their banks got shut down there was no way of doing that until recently when the government agreed to unfreeze the [Bank of Ireland] account,” he said.

We hope that this means that players will soon get paid and be able to make it to Las Vegas for the WSOP which begins next week.

Party Poker Holds The Big Draw for a Porsche 911 Carrera and More

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Throughout the entire month of June, 2011, Party Poker will be holding The Big Draw, a raffle-style promotion in which players can win prizes including iPads, television, trips to the Caribbean or Las Vegas…even a Porsche 911 Carrera.

All you have to do to earn your first raffle ticket is play in at least one raked hand at any Party Poker ring game table in June. From there, PartyPoker will give you an additional ticket for each and every player point you earn at the site. And you don’t have to give up the points to claim the tickets either. The raffle tickets are just a bonus on top of the PartyPoker points added to your regular, ongoing tally.

Party Poker will hold drawings every day in June and as long as you earned at least one ticket on that day, you qualify for the drawing. What’s more, all tickets that haven’t yet been drawn are reused in each and every drawing. So if you earn a ticket on June 15th, for example, you’ll be entered in that day’s drawing once with that ticket and once for each ticket you’re still holding from all the previous days of June.

In all, Party Poker is giving away $500,000 in prizes, including weekly mega draws held every Sunday for the biggest of the prizes on the slate: on June 5 the prize will be a VIP Vegas trip for two; on June 12 the prize will be a Caribbean cruise for two; on June 19 the prize will be a Harley Davidson Fatboy Motorcycle and on June 26 the prize will be a Porsche 911 Carrera.

Quicktender UseMyWallet Update

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As we previously reported, some bank account funds at QuickTender – UseMyWallet were seized in the US.

Earlier today they sent out this email message to all account holders.

Since our last email communication where we advised any funds in your QuickTender account could still be used to purchase at QuickTender accepting sites we had been working hard to reinstate our withdrawal facility and ensuring your funds where safe and secure.

However, further developments specifically relating to our main bank processing company have resulted in our accounts being frozen subject to a seizure order giving us no ability to make payments in any currency.

In light of these developments we have had no option but to discontinue the Quicktender service with immediate effect and for the foreseeable future.

At this time we are unable to confirm when or if we could make payments of remaining balances.

We will keep you advised of future relevant developments.

QuickTender Support

888 Poker Introduces $100K Sunday Challenge

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There is a brand new promotion over at 888 Poker, taking place every Sunday from now on, each time offering $100,000 in guaranteed cash prizes.

The concept of the Sunday Challenge is not entirely new to 888 Poker, which until recently hosted a $50,000 challenge every Sunday. The only difference is, as of now, if the face of a growing player base (currently standing at over 8.2 million players), 888Poker has doubled the guaranteed prize pool for that event.

The 888 Poker $100K Sunday Challenge takes place every Sunday at 19:35 GMT for a buy-in of $75 + $5 (the same buy-in, incidentally, as for the event’s predecessor: the $50K Sunday Challenge).

Speaking of doubling prizes, don’t forget 888 Poker’s Double Up array of promotions, from the double-sized deposit bonus to double the number of tournaments, promotions, and bonuses in general.

The EGR (eGaming Review) Awards gave 888 Poker the prize for Socially Responsible Operator of the Year. 888 Poker is listed on the London Stock Exchange, certified by eCOGRA, TRUSTe, McAfee and other leading Internet authorities, and processes hundreds of thousands of financial transactions securely each and every month.

888 Poker is the site that introduced PokerCam tables where you can view your opponents in real time, the 8-cent tournament, where you can win a share of $2,500 up to $1,000 for just $0.08, and win seats into exclusive freeroll tournaments worth thousands of dollars in cash prizes just for playing at 888 Poker on two or more days of any given week.

Bodog.com is now Bodog.eu

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As of today, Tuesday, May 24th, you will find Bodog at its new home: www.bodog.eu.

You will find that all of your account information and any funds have automatically been transferred, and your account number also remains the same. The website as well as all of the services remain the same too. It’s the same exact site with a new address.

Why the move? The www.bodog.eu address gives the brand a more permanent home as they continue to expand into new markets. Bodog also anticipates the industry will be subject to ongoing fluctuating market conditions and they want to ensure we are prepared to manage them without any interruption to your play.

Changes on the Merge Poker Network

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Merge Gaming issued a statement today which affects players in France and the United States, in short:

1. Players from France will no longer be able to play on any Merge Poker Network site for real money. Their only access will be to the Cashier so they can withdraw their bankroll. This applies to new and existing players.

2. Players from the following US states are now restricted from creating new real money accounts on any Merge Poker Site:

– New York
– Washington
– Maryland
– Missouri
– Louisiana

NOTE: This only applies to new players from these states – existing players are unaffected.

Also, as I am sure you’re aware rakeback will no longer be offered to new players after June 1st, 2011. They will be offering new promotions to replace rakeback, they’re currently in the final stages of planning and we will release information about the new program in the next few days.