This month of October, 2011, Carbon Poker is offering three different ways to rake in the VIP points faster than ever. Double the amount of points you earn at Carbon Poker in October by playing any multi-table tournaments (MTTs), Sit and Go tournaments (SNGs) or cash ring games during 2x Tuesday and 2x Thursday between 00:00 and 23:59 server time.
You can also double your VIP points earnings by participating in 2x Omaha, going on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during the month of October 2011 at Carbon Poker. That’s double the VIP points at any Omaha game of any variety, all month long.
To have your play tracked to count toward double points earnings through the 2x October promotion, players must first click the button reading “Activate Promo” under their Player Admin area.
All points are credited to player accounts the day after they’re earned, before 2:00 am server time.
Bonus points players earn through the 2X October promo can be used for VIP-Points-for-Cash redemption, online poker tournament entries and purchases from the CarbonPoker VIP store, but they will not be counted toward a player’s placement into a VIP tier in November.
This offer cannot be combined with any other offer to increase points earned beyond twice the ordinary earning rate. As always, all Carbon Poker terms and conditions, including disqualifications for collusion, team play and fraudulent activity, apply.
Carbon Poker is part of the Merge Gaming Network and offers a broad variety of poker variations, as well as other casino games online like roulette and blackjack.
The European Poker Tour London’s Main Event was a seven day grind for players, and it has finally wound down to a winner. A total of 691 players bought into the event, which was played at the Hilton Metropole, and created a total prize pool of £3,351,350, and paid out first place an impressive £750,000. The event was quite a grind, but one that finally came down to two of the more well-known players at the final table.
When all was said and done, the top six players were paid out six figure paydays, and Steve O’Dwyer was heads up against Benny Spindler. Both players have had some big scores in their tournament history, but in the end Spindler was the one who prevailed as the EPT London champion. O’Dwyer was sent home in second place, with a solid £465,000 payday for his strong run. Spindler on the other hand took home the grand prize, and also one of his largest scores of his career.
Here’s a look at the final table results, as well as the payouts for the final eight players:
1st- Spindler, £750,000
2nd- O’Dwyer, £465,000
3rd- Andre Klebanov, £265,000
4th- Juan Manuel Pastor, £200,000
5th- Mattias Bergstrom, £155,000
6th- Kevin Iacofano, £120,000
7th- Martins Adeniya, £86,000
8th- Miroslav Benes, £64,000
Spindler’s largest career cash to this point was a $1.1 million third place finish at the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He also has a $469,000 cash at the £25,000 EPT High Rollever event last year; and has now totaled a win total of nearly $3 million in his live poker career.
Spindler entered heads up play with a massive chip lead of 10,000,000 chips to the second place player Klebanov, who had 3,775,000 chips. O’Dwyer was actually sitting in fifth out of five at this point, but was able to make a comeback and outlast the other three players at the table. In the end though, Spindlers’ chip lead held up and he took down the event.
Keep an eye out for Spindler’s name over the next few European Poker Tour events, as he is quickly and quietly becoming one of the more well-known names in the live poker circuit.
Being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame is one of the most most prestigious awards in poker, and only a select group of players has made it in so far. Currently there are a large number of big named players who have made it, and we’ll mention a few such as Doyle Brunson, Benny Binion, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, TJ Cloutier, Barbara Enright, Phil Hellmuth, Dan Harrington, Erik Seidel, and Mike Sexton.
Players must be voted on in order to have a chance to be inducted into the 2011 Poker Hall of Fame, and the induction process is now through. The top 10 vote-getters are now voted on by a group of 17 men and women from the poker media, and also will be voted on by the 18 current living members of the Hall of Fame also.
Recently, the rules have changed a bit, and as of last year the eligibility rules have been modified. There are quite a few things that go into determining what makes a player eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame. Some of the requirements that factor into the players eligibility are that a player must have played poker against top competition in the game, must be at least 40 years old at the time of their nomination into the Hall of Fame, must be a high stakes player or have played high stakes at some point, must have gained respect from other players and played well, and also must have positive and consistent results in terms of being a profitable poker player.
There are ten players who are eligible for being inducted into the 2011 Hall of Fame, and only two of these ten players will make it into the Hall. The players are listed in alphabetical order starting with Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Linda Johnson, John Juanda, Marcel Luske, Jack McClelland, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen, and Huck Seed. While all of these names are excellent players, one interesting player is Luske, who is actually a Stud Poker player predominantly, and is also the first player from Europe to make the voting cut.
We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the final vote, and the decision for which two players will make it into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Luvin Poker is the latest online poker site that will be sending players to the next Punta Cana Poker Classic in the Dominican Republic, with a $500,000 guaranteed main event.
Following in the footsteps of sites like Bodog Poker and Doyle’s Room Poker, Luvin Poker is now holding Punta Cana Poker Classic satellite tournaments. These are organized in a Steps tournament series format, with players able to work their way up the steps from a daily freeroll costing nothing to buy-in to the bi-weekly Punta Cana Final at which the prize packages into the 2011 Punta Cana Poker Classic will be awarded. Steps tournament buy-ins range from nothing for the freeroll to $420 + $50 for the final.
The Luvin Poker Punta Cana Freeroll takes place five times daily and has an unlimited $0.10 rebuy and add-on. At each event, two seats will be awarded for Step 1 of the satellite series. Step 1 costs $3 + $0.30 to buy-in directly and has an unlimited rebuy and add-on of $3. It too takes place five times a day and awards one ticket into Step 2 of the series for every $17 in the pot. All the remaining step tournaments in the series are freezeout events with no rebuy or add-on. Step 2 costs $16 + $1 to buy-in, takes place 4 times daily and awards one seat in Step 3 for every $80 in the pot. Step 3 has a $75 + $5 direct buy-in, takes place twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and awards a seat in the final held every other Sunday for every $450 in the pot.
Luvin Poker’s prize packages for the 2011 Punta Cana Poker Classic are valued at $3,000. The Punta Cana Poker Classic 2011 takes place November 8 – 13, 2011.
Benny Spindler may not be the most well known name in poker, but he’s making some big time moves that will draw quite a bit of attention at the European Poker Tour’s London Event. After Day 1, Spindler was the second largest chip stack with 160,800 chips. After Day 2, Spindler ended with 469,800 chips, and is sitting at the top of the leaderboard heading into Day 3.
Spindler first made some noise on the live poker tournament scene back in 2009, when he pulled in a third place finish at the European Poker Tour PokerStars’ Caribbean Adventure, and took home an impressive payday of $1.1 million. His strong play in 2009 continued on since then, as he has had some excellent finishes such as his $44k payday last year at this EPT London Event. He has also made three final tables this year, cashing for $48k at the EPT Berlin, finishing second at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event for a nice $469k payout, and taking down the $10k Single Reload event at the EPT Talinn for $71k. All in all, Spindler has been able to top the $2 million mark in terms of his live tournament earnings in his career.
Day 2 saw some big name eliminations, as well as some big names who will move on; and there is a total of 160 players who will kick off Day 3. The top 104 players will make it into the cash for the event, and the players who are able to make it into the final six of the event will bring home a six-figure payday.
Some of the names who have made it through to Day 3 include Doyle Brunson, John Gale, Humberto Brenes, Jake Cody, Brian Hastings, Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi, Andrew Feldman, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Toddy Terry, Freedy Deeb, and James Akenhead.
A few of the names who were unable to make it through Day 2 were players like Joe Cada, Ivan Demidov, Joe Hachem, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, and Vanessa Rousso.
Day 3 has been ongoing throughout today (Monday) and will have the final players who make the cash by the end of the day today. The final table is already scheduled to kick off on Thursday the 6th and will be a televised event.
The PokerStars.com European Poker Tour (EPT), Europe’s richest and most popular poker tour is coming to London this month. In its’ eight year history, almost 40,000 players have hit the felt, and the EPT has paid out over £200 million in prize money. In August this year, the EPT Barcelona event broke all previous records and became the largest live poker event ever held in Spain with 811 players taking their seats to play for share of the £3.5 million prize pool. The EPT London is set to continue this record-breaking trend with the prize pool expected to exceed £4 million.
Celebrities such as ex-tennis star and professional poker player Boris Becker, model, presenter and previous EPT title winner Liv Boeree, and well known broadcaster, journalist and 2006 EPT London winner Vicky Coren will sit down alongside the biggest names in poker, all eager to pick up the title and first prize, which is set to hit the £1 million mark for the first time ever.
The 7-day long poker festival presented by PokerStars.com, will offer players some of the best quality tournament poker action in the world. There are 31 events on offer, including the European 8-Game Championship, the No Limit Hold’em Women’s Event, the two-day long £20,000 buy-in High Roller tournament and of course, the coveted EPT London Main Event.
This year also marks the first ever EPT London Quest, an exciting competition run through Twitter where one lucky player will win a seat in an EPT London side-event tournament. Poker fans will need to follow the account @PokerStars and hashtag #EPTQuest from 8.30am on Sunday 2nd October for clues for a password and details of a secret central London location. Once they crack the code and turn up to the location, they will need to correctly say the password then play and win a 5-minute heads-up tournament. Win the tournament, and they will receive one of nine golden chips to enter a live game against the other eight winners. The champion of this table will take their seat at the “No Limit Turbo – Win the Button!” tournament at 8.00pm the same day.
Last year the record-breaking PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Main Event was the biggest poker tournament ever held in the UK, attracting 848 players. It made David Vamplew the highest-earning Scottish poker player ever with an amazing £900,000 first prize.
The PokerStars.com EPT runs from September 30 – October 6, 2011 at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel in central London.
It’s time once again for another World Championship of Online Poker, courtesy of the slightly smaller but still world’s largest poker site: Poker Stars.
The 2011 World Championship of Online Poker (or WCOOP, for short) consists of 62 tournaments ranging from No Limit Hold’em to Fixed Limit Badugi and everything in between. Over half-a-dozen events have prize pools topping $1 million, several reaching $1.5 million. The action takes place from September 4 – 25 with most days seeing at least two, sometimes three or four, events. It all leads up to the main event, of course, taking place September 25 for a direct buy-in of $5,200 and a guaranteed prize pool of at least $5 million with a guaranteed 20% (that’s $1 million minimum) going to first place.
Buy-ins for WCOOP 2011 start at $109 and climb to $10,300 for the several high-roller events. But the site is already holding satellite tournaments awarding seats in the series’ various events for much lower cost, starting at only 100 FPPs (Frequent Player Points) or $1. There are also STEPS Sit and Go satellites into the 2011 WCOOP as well.
There will also be a leaderboard running to determine the WCOOP Player of the Series, who will win a massive prize package that includes a Champions Trophy, an EPT (European Poker Tour) Season 8 Grand Final prize package, a 2012 SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) main event entry, a prize package into the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and a special edition poker chip set.
Months after Black Friday many poker players in the US are still trying to figure out where and how to play online. While many of the high stakes players have moved outside the US, not everyone can just pick up and leave. Therefore we’ve compiled a list of online poker sites still operating in the US.
At the top of the list is Bodog Poker, which is a well-established name in the US. Bodog recently announced that they will be changing the name of their US facing operations but have no fear the only change will be in the name. They offer players a 110% bonus up to $1100 and run a weekly 100k tournament. Players are stating that they are receiving withdrawal checks in under a week.
Another well-established sports booking site has set its sight’s on the US poker market and that is BetOnline. They’ve been around for over 10 years and have a great reputation. Their poker software is proprietary and they are aggressively marketing to players by offering a 25% up to Unlimited bonus.
Luvin Poker on the Everleaf network is also offering a massive bonus of 200% up to $1000 and the play is super soft. While they don’t boast the number of players that the bigger sites do, they are a great site for the lower stake games. They are also 100% mac compatible.
The Merge Poker network sites are do to reopen to new US players this month. There are two online poker sites on the Merge network that we highly recommend and those are Lock Poker, which has been signing many of today’s top young poker pros, and Carbon Poker, which is the flagship site of the Merge network. Both offer generous bonuses but players claim that cashouts from Lock Poker are slightly quicker then those from Carbon Poker.
Make sure to visit Holdem Poker Chat regularly for updates on the above poker sites as well as all poker news. We’ll continue to update and monitor all US Poker Sites daily so all you have to do is play and win.
Final Table Set at 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event
“November Nine” Features Players from Seven Nations
ESPN’s WSOP Coverage Continues on Tuesday Nights through November 8, 2011
The 42nd annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship – commonly referred to as the Main Event – is down to its final nine players. The “November Nine” – a diverse and international group – is all that remains of the massive field of 6,865 players who entered the iconic tournament seeking poker’s most coveted title and a top prize of more than $8.7 million.
The final nine players represent seven countries – the most ever in WSOP and tournament poker history; Ukraine, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic, Belize, Great Britain and the United States. The players will return to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in November to vie for poker’s ultimate trophy – a WSOP gold bracelet – and the lion’s share of the Main Event’s $64,531,000 total prize pool. The winner will receive a first-place prize of $8,711,956, with the other eight players sharing another $19 million-plus.
The November Nine and their respective chip counts are as follows:
1. Martin Staszko – 40,175,000
Staszko, of Trinec, Czech Republic, is a 35-year-old poker professional. He is the first Czech ever to make a WSOP Main Event final table. In addition to poker, he plays competitive chess and tennis for pleasure. He said it would be “unbelievable” to be the first person to bring a Main Event gold bracelet back to the Czech Republic.
2. Eoghan O’Dea – 33,925,000
O’Dea, of Dublin, Ireland, is a 26-year-old student. The son of Donnacha O’Dea – widely regarded as the greatest Irish poker player of all time – Eoghan is becoming quite the poker force himself. He now has a total of five WSOP cashes, four of which he earned this year. The father-and-son tandem now has a total of three WSOP Main Event final tables, with Donnacha having finished sixth in 1983 and ninth in 1991. It is the first time in WSOP history a father and son has made it to the Main Event final table.
3. Matt Giannetti – 24,750,000
Giannetti is a 26-year-old, self-taught poker professional from Las Vegas. Prior to launching his poker career, Giannetti graduated from the University of Texas.
4. Phil Collins – 23,875,000
Collins, 26, of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a professional poker player. His considerable entourage at the Main Event spurred on the former University of South Carolina student by loudly singing lyrics by the famous musician with whom their friend shares his name. Collins’ chip count kept him near the top of the leader board for much of the past few days, leading to numerous amateur renditions of “In the Air Tonight” echoing throughout the tournament room.
5. Ben Lamb – 20,875,000
Lamb, 26, is enjoying a career year at the WSOP, leading the race in Player of the Year points by a healthy margin. In addition to making the Main Event final table, Lamb’s other accomplishments at this year’s WSOP include a gold bracelet win, a second-place finish and eighth- and twelfth-place tournament finishes. The Tulsa, Oklahoma, native now boasts a total of 12 WSOP “in-the-money” finishes that have paid more than $2.1 million in total prize money (excluding the minimal ninth-place money he is guaranteed for making the November Nine).
6. Badih Bounahra – 19,700,000
Bounahra is the oldest member of the November Nine. At 49, the resident of Belize City, Belize, has been playing poker for about six years. Away from the felt, Bounahra says he enjoys fishing and sleep.
7. Pius Heinz – 16,425,000
Heinz is a 22-year-old student and poker professional from Cologne, Germany. He is the first German ever to make it to a WSOP Main Event final table, a feat he accomplished after a promising seventh-place finish in a previous WSOP event.
8. Anton Makiievskyi – 13,825,000
Makiievskyi, of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, is a 21-year-old aspiring poker pro. When he isn’t competing on the felt, he enjoys cycling and anything pertaining to music, particularly teaching himself guitar and drums. This year marked his first trip to the WSOP in Las Vegas. Makiievskyi hopes to become the fifth Ukrainian to win a gold bracelet at the 2011 WSOP.
9. Sam Holden – 12,375,000
Holden, a 22-year-old professional poker player from Sussex, Great Britain, will enter the final table as the short stack. This first-time WSOP participant will need to pick his spots carefully in November if he is to bring poker’s most prestigious title back to England.
John Hewitt, 23, finished in 10th place, just one spot away from the November Nine. Hewitt is originally from Chicago but now resides in San Jose, Costa Rica. The former student demonstrated an aggressive style of play during the Main Event, at one point even holding the chip lead. In the end, it was not enough to make the final table.
In addition to the first-place prize of $8,711,956, prize money for the remaining eight spots is as follows*:
2nd place: $5,430,928
3rd place: $4,019,635
4th place: $3,011,665
5th place: $2,268,909
6th place: $1,720,396
7th place: $1,313,851
8th place: $1,009,910
9th place: $782,115
When play resumes in November, the players will pick up with 34 minutes and 57 seconds remaining in Level 36. The antes will be $50,000 and blinds will stand at $250,000 and $500,000.
The 2011 Main Event has received unprecedented nearly-live coverage on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3.com. Comprehensive WSOP television coverage will begin airing Tuesday, July 26 at 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. Coverage will continue in two-hour blocks each Tuesday at 9 p.m. for 16 weeks, culminating with Main Event Final Table coverage on Nov. 8, 2011.
The 2011 Main Event capped the largest-ever WSOP, both in terms of total participation and prize pool. A total of 75,672 players from 105 countries entered the 58 events on this summer’s WSOP schedule, generating a total prize pool of $191,999,010.
The 2011 Main Event was the third-largest in the tournament’s illustrious history, drawing 6,865 players from 85 nations. Only the 2006 Main Event (8,773 participants) and the 2010 Main Event (7,319 participants) were larger.
*The final nine players each received ninth-place prize money upon reaching the final table; the remainder of the prize pool will be placed in an interest-bearing account to be added to the prize pool on a percentage basis for the final eight finishers.
ABOUT THE WSOP
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world, awarding millions of dollars in prize money and the prestigious gold bracelet – globally recognized as the sport’s top prize. Featuring a comprehensive slate of tournaments in every major poker variation, the WSOP is poker’s longest running tournament in the world, dating back to 1970. In 2011, the event attracted 75,672 entrants from more than 100 different countries to the Rio in Las Vegas and awarded more than $191 million in prize money. In addition the WSOP has formed groundbreaking alliances in broadcasting, digital media and corporate sponsorships, while successfully expanding the brand internationally with the advent of the World Series of Poker Europe.
The 2011 World Series of Poker has narrowed the field down to where everyone still playing is sitting in the same room at the same time. Day 2B is in the books and Ben Lamb was the leader. He ended Day 2B with 551,600 chips, which is good enough to give him the overall lead heading into Day 3. He was followed close by Kevin Saul with 542,200 chips though. Those are the only two players over the 500k mark in chips. Out of all the big named players out there, probably the biggest name near the top of the leader board is Patrik Antonius, who has 361k in chips, and is in 12th place currently.
Lamb has played incredible during this World Series, with a 12th place finish in the $10k Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship, an 8th place finish in the $50k Player’s Championship, a 2nd place finish in the $3k Pot-Limit Omaha event, and he also won his first gold bracelet in the $10k Pot-Limit Omaha Championship. He’s sitting in second place in the Player of the Year race behind Phil Hellmuth, and is in a great spot to make a push in the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event.
Day 2B began with 2,490 players and ended with 1,043 who are advancing on to Day 3. This sets the total for Day 3 to have 1,866 players who are still alive and pushing for the gold bracelet. 693 players will be paid, meaning that they still need to eliminate nearly two-thirds of the field in order to get into the money. While a large number of players from the field are shooting for their first gold bracelet, there are seven former Main Event winners who are still alive heading into Day 3, Joe Cada, Robert Varkonyi, Carlos Mortensen, Huck Seed, Phil Hellmuth, Berry Johnston, and Tom McEvoy. Jamie Gold and Joe Hachem were both still alive heading into Day 2B, but were eliminated before the end of the day.
This month of October, 2011, Carbon Poker is offering three different ways to rake in the VIP points faster than ever. Double the amount of points you earn at Carbon Poker in October by playing any multi-table tournaments (MTTs), Sit and Go tournaments (SNGs) or cash ring games during 2x Tuesday and 2x Thursday between 00:00 and 23:59 server time.
The European Poker Tour London’s Main Event was a seven day grind for players, and it has finally wound down to a winner. A total of 691 players bought into the event, which was played at the Hilton Metropole, and created a total prize pool of £3,351,350, and paid out first place an impressive £750,000. The event was quite a grind, but one that finally came down to two of the more well-known players at the final table.
Being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame is one of the most most prestigious awards in poker, and only a select group of players has made it in so far. Currently there are a large number of big named players who have made it, and we’ll mention a few such as Doyle Brunson, Benny Binion, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, TJ Cloutier, Barbara Enright, Phil Hellmuth, Dan Harrington, Erik Seidel, and Mike Sexton.
Months after Black Friday many poker players in the US are still trying to figure out where and how to play online. While many of the high stakes players have moved outside the US, not everyone can just pick up and leave. Therefore we’ve compiled a list of online poker sites still operating in the US.