Tag: online poker

Party Poker Introduces Their February Promotion

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Party PokerThe well-known online poker site Party Poker is back at it again, and this time they are making noise from their brand new promotion which was recently released for the month of February.  This new promo is called the “Card Rush”, which gives players the chance to win many different prizes at the real money poker players, simply for doing what they do day in and day out.  Players can not only win free money, but also entries into many different freerolls, Party Points, and Card Rush Race Points.  All of the cards are given out as players play, and you will earn one card for each 15 frequent player points that you get.  Cards are awarded into the players’ accounts, where they can go then go in and see what they’ve won!

As far as the different awards that players can win, it is broken down as follows:

  • Cash Prizes- $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $50, $250, and $5k
  • Freerolls- $2k, $3k, $5k, $7.5k, $10k, $15k, and $20k.
  • Party Points-  10, 20, 50, 100, 150, 250, 750, 5,000, or 25,000 points
  • Card Rush Race Points- 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20.

Players can earn as many as 50 total cards per day, meaning that you have the shot to win quite a bit of money/prizes in a short period of time each day!  Card Rush Race Points go towards a leader board which is evaluated at the end of the month, or win the promotion ends.  The player with the most Card Rush Race Points at the end of the promotion will win a grand prize of $9k, and the top ten will all take home prizes of over $1k.  There are also cash prizes awarded all the way up to 200th place, which will receive $100 still!  They have extended a nice $50 bonus for players who finish on each of the “20th spots” from 220th all the way to 2000th on that leader board as well.

Party Poker is giving away a total of 1.8 million prize cards, and if that number hits before the end of the month then the promotion will end a bit early.  The freerolls that players can win entry into will run in early March, ranging from the 2nd to the 5th of the month.

Poker Stars Celebrates 75th Billionth Hand

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For about a year now, Pokerstars has been on the Road to 100 Billion hands dealt, celebrating the imminent approach of that major milestone with several smaller, incremental milestones, each with a $1 million prize pool up for grabs.

For every millionth hand dealt at the Poker Stars cash game tables between 74.7 billionth and the mega milestone 75 billionth hands, the site will award cash prizes of up to thousands of dollars to the players in that hand. The winner of each milestone hand will win the largest portion of the milestone’s prize pool while the rest is split evenly amongst the other players in the hand.

Of course the 75 billionth mega milestone hand offers the largest prize, with that hand’s winner getting $20,000 minimum.

Poker Stars even offers its players a number of tips on how to increase their chances of being in one (or more) of the milestone hands and how to maximize the prize amount you receive at those times. The best way to increase your shot at being dealt into a milestone hand is to multi-table, that is to play on more than one table at a time.

One way to increase your prize amount is to make the sessions you play longer. This is because the more you play, the more VPP (or VIP Player Points) you earn. The prize amounts you receive for participating in milestone hands is based on this number. Therefore, earning as many VPPs as you can before you hit a milestone hand means your prizes are bigger. Another way to do this is playing in higher action games like Limit Texas Holdem and PL Omaha.

Zynga Poker Could Turn From Play Money to Real Money Poker Soon

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Zynga is the most popular maker of games of Facebook, starting with the viral craze Farmville (soon to be a major motion picture???) and extending to Zynga Bingo and – yes – Zynga Poker. In certain games that Zynga offers, players may pay money for certain assets or extra features, but no real money gambling takes place on any of these games. At least not yet.

It seems the publicly traded San Francisco based Zynga is now looking into getting into the real money poker game, putting all the major players in that already saturated field on alert. Because if there’s one untapped market for what real money online poker sites are offering, Zynga has it tapped. Zynga Poker currently boasts over 30 million players per month.

Zynga has been contemplating a move from play money to real money poker for a year now, but has only recently been able to consider it so seriously, as the DOJ recently reversed its interpretation of the 1961 Interstate Wire Act to open the way for the possbility of intrastate online gambling (that is online gambling taking place entirely within a state’s own borders, from server to end-user).

Zynga, which recently hosted a live poker tourney in Las Vegas, Nevada, seems to have its best chance of setting up its first intrastate real money online poker shop in that state, as it has already made such activity legal and is beginning to form a licensing infrastructure. Launching a branch in neighboring California, however, looks to be an uphill climb for Zynga as the legislature is still deeply divided on this issue.

European Poker Award 2011 Winners Include Team PokerStars Pros

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The winners of the 2011 European Poker Awards have been announced and they include two big names in poker, and members of PokerStars team of poker pros, Pius Heinz and Bertrand Grospellier (aka ElkY). They also included fellow poker celebrity Sam Trickett.

The awards ceremony was held in Paris, France on Wednesday, January 25, 2012. The award for Poker Personality of 2011 went to France’s own ElkY. This award is for more than just success in poker (he earned $2,296,620 over the year, including a WSOP bracelet); it’s for improving the experience of European poker with such acts as publishing “The Raiser’s Edge” Grospellier’s first book, and participating with buddy Lex Veldhius in a kick-boxing match.

Pius Heinz was the favorite for Best Tournament Performance for being the first German player ever to win the WSOP Main Event (claiming $8,715,638 for his accomplishment), and sure enough he took home the predicted award.

In other awards, Rookie of the Year was Andrey Pateychuk who, after cashing in his first live tournament in 2010, went on to earn $2,085,014 in 2011. Online Player of the Year was Ilari Sahamies after best the PokerStars Cash Game leaderboard after winning $2,183,832 over the year.

Player of the Year for 2011 went to the U.K.’s Sam Trickett, who earned $4,598,038 over the year, including first place in the Aussie Millions $100k Championship and second place in the Aussie Millions $250k Super High Roller event as well as winning the Big Game in Macau and the Partouche Poker Tour €8,500 Main Event.

Who Will Be February’s Carbon Poker Tourney King

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Yesterday, we told you about the weekly King of the Felt contest for SNG players at Bovada Poker. Today, we’d like to remind you of a similar contest for tournament players running monthly at Carbon Poker. It’s called the Tourney King promotion, and the crown comes with a first prize of up to $3,000 and a total prize pool of more than $20,000.

Carbon Poker offers two leaderboards with two sets of prizes in this contest, crowing two Tourney Kings at the end of each month instead of one. There is both a low-stakes and a high-stakes contest in this promotion, so that players of all bankrolls can participate. The low limit leaderboard is for tourneys with buy-ins of $0 – $19.99 while the high limit leaderboard is for tourneys with buy-ins of $20 and higher.

To participate in the Tourney King contest, play in as many tournaments at Carbon Poker as you can and perform in each of them as well as you can. Points are awarded based on a complex formula that accounts for the buy-in cost, number of entrants and a player’s final position in the tournament. Participants also get a bonus multiplier applied to their score for reaching the final table of a given tournament. To place on one of the Tourney King leaderboards, just be in the top 250 points earners at the end of the month.

With January nearing an end, it means a new Tourney King will soon be announced and a new Tourney King contest will start afresh with the coming of February.

James Akenhead Wins Pokerstars Sunday Million

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Final tabler from the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, UK poker pro James Akenhead, has just shown once again that his success in poker is not a fluke, as he has just taken down the Pokerstars Sunday Million.

It hasn’t been a winning year for Akenhead, with a series of tough losses after going deep in big money tourneys. But persistence paid off last Sunday, January 22, 2011.

For this particular win, playing under the username Asprin1, Akenhead started out the 9-seated final table with the third highest chip stack, holding 9,600,000.

One of the most exciting hands of this tournament saw Akenhead accidentally raising a bet to over 8 million when he meant to raise it to just over 800,000. His opponent, holding pocket Queens, called. Fortunately for Akenhead, the flop paired his King which was enough to hold out for him on the turn and river.

To quote Akenhead’s Facebook status after the event was over: “YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!”

28-year-old UK native James Akenhead claimed $213,750 for his win, adding it to his $2,994,779 career winnings in live poker since 2005. That includes a $1,263,602 cash at the 2009 WSOP for his ninth place finish.

Runner-up pnp23 took the $157,277.25 second prize. Ansgar2000 rounded out the top third, claiming $114,000.

The PokerStars Sunday Million takes place every Sunday for a $215 buy-in and promises a guaranteed $1 million prize pool. Throughout the week leading up to each Sunday Million, Poker Stars holds daily satellite tournaments awarding free seats in the event.

Who Will Be Bovada Poker’s King of the Felt?

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Of the many traditions carried over from the now-defunct Bodog Poker to the newly launched Bovada Poker is the monthly King of the Felt promotion.

In Bovada Poker’s King of the Felt promotion, as with the original of the Bodog Poker era, players who place in any Sit and Go tourneys at the site earn a chance for a $1,000 prize in a heads-up battle, as well as $2,500 per week in freeroll tourneys. Eligible players must place (that’s finish in 1st or 2nd) and receive payment from three Bovada Poker sit and go tourneys in a week’s time. That will earn you entry into a weekly drawing for the chance to play heads-up against the current king and win the $1,000 prize. Place in any more sit and gos than that and earn seats in the $2,500 worth of King of the Felt freeroll tourneys. The reigning King of the Felt will play heads-up matches against the contender who wins the raffle drawing each week until, ultimately, unseated, each time winning the $1,000 prize. If a Bovada Poker King of the Felt can win 10 of these heads-up matches in a row, then in addition to the $10,000 in cash that will have won him, he’ll also win a seat in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event.

The more times you qualify for an entry in any given week’s contest, the more entries you earn. Each week’s King of the Felt drawing is held at Bovada Poker on the Monday following it.

Eight Players Have Sued Old Poker Site Ultimate Bet

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UB.comThis bit of poker news has the poker world simply saying that it’s “about time”.  After Black Friday hit and some of the largest online poker sites found themselves either not allowing online poker players from the United States, or not having enough players to be able to continue to run games; a large number of those players were searching for ways to get their money back.  This was the the story for players on the old site Ultimate Bet, and it seems that as we approach 9 months after the fact, that the players on UB are now fed up.  This is also paired with a pretty big cheating scandal that occurred back in 2008, and this is where our story comes in.

This led to eight of the bigger professional poker players who played on the site deciding to file a lawsuit against the controlling company of the ex-poker site.  The company is called Excapsa Software, Inc, and the players will be seeking damages for their role in the cheating scandal that came out back in 2008.  The players who are involved are Brad Booth, Thomas Koral, Daniel Ashman, Dave Lizmi, Greg Laverly, Joseph Sanders, Daniel Smith, and Dustin Woolf.  All of them listed specific amounts that they are filing for in their damage claims, which range between $20k for Smith and Koral, all the way to $500k for Booth and Lizmi.  All other players are in between those two numbers.

The scandal that is being mentioned here related to the the site and their controlling companies inside players using software to see players’ hole cards.  This led to them winning millions of dollars, and before long they were caught.  There are eight different Causes of Action in this suit, ranging from conspiracy and conversion, to things like fraud and negligence as well.  The players above are hopoing to get both “monetary relief” and “equitable relief”

While these players are definitely hoping that the site and their controlling company are punished for what they’ve done, they definitely want to get back the money that they lost from this situation as well.  It had to have taken a good amount of time for these players to put together the numbers that they feel they are owed, so we will see what the outcome of this lawsuit is.

Lock Poker Adds Melanie Weisner

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Lock PokerLock Poker is one of the more popular online poker sites for players in the United States currently, and this is for quite a few reasons.  Lock Poker is a part of the Merge Network, which also has Carbon Poker, and is one of the few networks who still allow online poker players from the US to play!  Currently, Lock Poker features one of the stronger lists of poker pros outside of the biggest sites out there like PokerStars.  Their current roster consists of a combination of well-known players, and also just some excellent players including Chris Moorman, Leo Margets, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Bryan “PrimordialAA” Pellegrino, and Brett Jungblut.

We can now add one more name to the team LockPRO Elite as of yesterday, since they have decided to add another well-known poker pro in Melanie Weisner.  Weisner has been incredible in the online poker tournament world over the past few years, and is considered one of the top heads-up Sit-and-Go players out there.  Weisner was a pro on the well-known site Full Tilt Poker, so she definitely had her choice of many different games to choose from, and she ranked near the top in all types of different categories for Sit-and-Go’s in 2010.  Her overall rankings for any stakes in any games featured her as 20th overall out of any player out there.  As far as her heads up game goes, she was 9th in the rankings for heads-up Hold’em games between $301 and $1,000, and in overall heads-up games she was 14th overall when it came to Hold’em.

When you really take into the account the total number of players that these numbers include, the fact that she was consistently in the top 20 is very impressive.  She hasn’t been on the live poker tournament circuit much until this past year, but when she got on it, she brought in results.  In total she has won over $388,002 on the live poker tournament circuit, which included a 33rd place finish at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, a third place finish at an event at the European Poker Tour London, and a fourth place finish at the EPT London in another event.  She has also won two events in her career as well.

She’ll be a fun player to watch on Lock Poker in 2012, and hopefully in the coming years after that as well.

Regular Specialty Tournaments at 888 Poker

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In addition to all the usual tournament excitement taking place over at 888 Poker, there’s also a collection of specialty tournaments players have to choose from whenever they like as well. Among the most popular of these are the Double or Nothing tournaments, the Daily Challenge Series, and more chances to win under the new Special Tab.

In 888 Poker’s Double or Nothing Tournaments, half of the players walk away with double their money. These are fast-paced, high-action sit and go events where between 8 and 10 players duke it out at the online poker table until 4 to 5 (depending) remain. Each remaining player walks away with an amount equaling their buy-in plus one of the losing player’s buy-ins. Buy-ins range from $2.50 + $0.35 and up.

With 888 Poker’s Daily Challenge series, every day is another chance for one lucky player to walk away with a share of a monthly guaranteed $1 million prize pool. Each day it’s something different with this series. On Sundays it’s the $100k Sunday Challenge 1R; on Mondays it’s the $10k Monday Twins Challenges; on Tuesdays it’s the $25k Tuesday Challenge; on Wednesdays it’s the $15k Wednesday Challenge; on Thursdays it’s the $30k Thursday Challenge, R&A; on Fridays it’s the $25k Friday Challenge; and on Saturdays it’s the $30k Saturday Challenge.

And with 888 Poker’s new Special Tab, players can enter tournaments with prizes other than cash or seats in live poker events. Instead they can win exclusive poker gear, tickets to premium racehorse syndicate events or Tottenham Corp box events, god iPhones, concert tickets, sports tickets, and free sports bets at 888 Sports.