Tag: online poker

Daniel Negreanu Dominates at the PokerStars’ WCOOP

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Daniel Negreanu is one of the best live poker players out there today, but after his recent Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker, he’s shown that he has more than the ability to be one of the best online poker players as well.  Negreanu has won four World Series of Poker gold bracelets, two World Poker Tour titles, and has a total of 26 final table appearances at the WSOP.  He now has quite an impressive 2011 PokerStars’ WCOOP to put on his resume as well.

Negreanu had one of the best WCOOP’s out of any player, and also in recent history as well.  Negreanu decided to participate in 52 out of the 62 total events, and pulled in an impressive 15 cashes; which makes for a very strong 28.8% cash rate.  Overall, those fifteen cashes were good for a $119,193 payday at the end of the WCOOP.  Negreanu said that his biggest reason for the strong play was his level of preparation.  He also ran a stats program on his computer, and took notes on his opponents’ play during the events.

Another story that is interesting about Negreanu’s strong play, is the fact that he actually played the events from four different countries.  He started out in Barcelona, and moved to Montenegro, Budapest, and London, which tells a major story about how well-focused he was throughout.

Negreanu’s 15 cashes made up the second most out of any player who played the event, and his 28.8% cash rate is nearly double what the other 91 PokerStars Team Pro’s were able to finish at.  Another impressive stat about Negreanu’s 2011 WCOOP was the fact that his two highest finishes came from the two highest buy-in events that he bought into.  Negreanu bought into multiple different events, ranging from No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, Triple Stud, and an 8 game event as well.  His two highest finishes came in Event #41, which was a $10,300 No Limit Hold’em Event, that he finished in 4th place and took home $48,000; and the other was Event #61, which was a $10,300 buy-in 8 game event, that he finished in 5th place in and took home $52,500.

Negreanu will look to build on this strong WCOOP performance as events like the World Poker Tour continue to host events all around the world.

Turbo Gold Cards Return to Cake Poker

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Once more, the Turbo Gold Cards promotion has made a reapearrance at Cake Poker, giving players the chance to earn Gold Cards for the $10,000 Match and Win game twice as fast during selected hours.

The October Match and Win Game board is out, and only Gold Cards earned between October 1 and 31 can be used on it. Match your Gold Cards to those on the Match and Win game board and win seats in as many as $10,000 worth of freeroll tournaments. You can’t even by Gold Cards for the Match and Win game at Cake Poker’s The Exchange (where you can indeed by Gold Cards but not ones eligible for this promotion.) You can only earn them by playing at Cake Poker’s real money cash ring game tables.

And if you play during the hours of 6 to 8 am, 2 to 4 pm or 8 to 10 pm GMT, you’ll earn those Gold Cards at twice the rate. That’s a 2-for-1 special on Gold Cards for 6 hours of every day in October, 2011.

Gold Cards that don’t help you with the Match and Win game board can still be sold and swapped at The Exchange. And they can be used to earn players other prizes, like seats in exclusive Gold Card tournaments where no cash buy-ins are allowed.

Tournament players, meanwhile, can still earn Gold Chips at Cake Poker, which also make them eligible for a whole other range of prizes. Gold Chips are not, however, part of the Match and Win Game or Turbo Gold Cards promotion.

Full Tilt Poker Purchase Agreement Signed

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In a stunning release, Full Tilt Poker has announced an agreement with Groupe Bernard Tapie which includes the sale of the company and all assets.

Laurent Tapie announced this morning that the long-rumored purchase by the investment group has finally been signed, but is predicated upon numerous conditions, which most notably includes a promising disposition with the United States Department of Justice. It is the hope of the investment group that this situation is resolved immediately.

The most notable piece of the agreement is one that is bound to shake the poker world: all US players will have funds reimbursed, in full. Between the fines due to the DoJ and the net amounts owed to US players, the rumored number has floated around in the $1 Billion area. While this is an incredibly large number, this group is definitely one with the capital to do so.

Keep in mind that this is a purchase agreement but it is by far a done deal. Next up the Groupe must meet with the US DoJ to get things in motion.

Stay tuned as more information is bound to break on this story.

Introducing 888 Poker Reward Freerolls

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The 888.com Rewards program offers players an increasing array of bonuses as well as ways to increase eligibility for those bonuses.

Players with qualifying status levels can move up a level through special eligible tournaments and participate in weekly and monthly freeroll tournaments with guaranteed prizes of as much as $25,000.

There are 8 rewards tournaments in all: 3 eligible tournaments and 5 status freerolls. The 3 eligible tournaments are the Silver Dollar, Gold Rush and Platinum Record. The Silver Dollar Tournament has a $1 + $0.10 buy-in and is a rebuy/add-on event. It takes place 3 times daily and the prize pool is Silver Status and cash. Bronze players are eligible to play. The Gold Rush Tournament has a $5 + $0.50 buy-in and takes place 3 times daily. The prize pool is Gold Status and cash, and Bronze and Silver players are eligible. The Platinum Record Tournament has a $15 + $1.50 buy-in and takes place 3 times each Sunday. The prize pool is Platinum Status and cash and eligible players are those with Bronze, Silver and Gold Status.

The five freerolls include the $75 Daily Freeroll and the $750 Weekly Bronze Freeroll, for both of which Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum players are eligible. There is also the $1,000 Weekly Silver Freeroll for Silver, Gold, Platinum and VIP players, the $4,000 Monthly Gold Freeroll for Gold, Platinum and VIP players, and the $7,000 Monthly Platinum Freeroll for Platinum and VIP players.

Rewards Tournaments can be found in the 888 Poker Tournament lobby under the Rewards tab.

Poker770 Announces $25k Showdown

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While most online poker sites have been struggling in terms of their tournament guarantees, one site has decided to step their game up a bit with a brand new $25k guaranteed event.  The event will give players from all limits the opportunity to play, as the buy-in is only $7.70 with an optional rebuy and add-on.  The event will kick off on October 28th at 21:00 CET at the online poker site Poker770.

While most guaranteed events will feature massive numbers of players, Poker770 has decided to cap the event at 3,000 players, and rebuys are limited to only 10 per player up until the first break in the action.  The add-on feature give players the opportunity to add additional chips just after the rebuy period ends.  What this means, is that this tournament could not cost any one player more than $100, and it offers an incredible $25k in guaranteed money.  This tournament is a great value to players, as the prize pool almost certainly won’t hit the guarantee.

To make this even better, players can win their way into the event without actually having to spend their own money, as there will also be freerolls ran daily, and satellites that cost only $0.77+$.07 to play in as well.  The freeroll events will guarantee 10 seats, and must have a minimum of ten players to begin.  As far as the cash buy-in satellites go, there will be one seat guaranteed, with a seat added for every ten players who buy-in.

Bounty Events

The bounty events at Pro770 are just another great option for players as well.  These events feature a €5 buy-in, and have great prize pools, as well as the option for you to to knock out multiple pros and win prizes depending on how many you are able to KO.  Right off the bat if you knock out one pro, you’ll win $100, and the prizes increase from there.  If you are able to knock out a total of four pros in one single week, you’ll receive the grand prize from the site.  The first thing that you will win is a $50k grand prize, and also receive a one-year pro sponsorship deal from Poker770 to be a part of Team 770.

AGCC Suspends Full Tilt Poker Licences

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The Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspended the licences of Full Tilt Poker earlier today by issuing the following announcement. As mentioned in the release, this does not prevent future ownersship from applying for a new license.

AGCC Commissioners, sitting as a tribunal, have today revoked the licences of Vantage Limited, Filco Limited and Oxalic Limited, trading as Full Tilt Poker (FTP), with immediate effect. This follows the earlier suspension of the licences on 29th June 2011.

At a hearing held in London over six days, it emerged that FTP had fundamentally misled AGCC about their operational integrity by continuously reporting as liquid funds balances that had been covertly seized or restrained by US authorities, or that were otherwise not actually available to the operator. Serious breaches of AGCC regulations include false reporting, unauthorised provision of credit, and failure to report material events.

At the commencement of these proceedings on 26th July AGCC made clear its preference to hold the hearing in public, to the benefit of players and media alike. However, the tribunal was persuaded that the hearing should be held in camera on the basis of claims by FTP that this would maximise the chance of a commercial rescue of the business for the benefit of players. For this reason an adjournment of 54 days was allowed.

It is important to note that the revocation of FTP’s licences does not, as has been suggested, prevent a reactivation of the business under new ownership and management. Unresolved claims by players against FTP become a matter for the police and civil authorities. Now that FTP’s licences have been revoked, AGCC no longer has jurisdiction over these companies.

The licence of Orinic Limited, a recently added geographic sub-division of the FTP poker room, remains suspended.

The determination notice containing the decision of the Commissioners and reasons for it is available at http://www.gamblingcontrol.org/userfiles/file/Determination%20Notice%20290911.pdf

Poker Stars Hosts EPT 8 Skrill Satellites

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The online payment processing company Moneybookers is changing its name, and presumably some of its services and technologies, to Skrill. Now the official payment processor of the European Poker Tour, Skrill is sponsoring special tournamnets with 10,000 Euro prize pools at all of the EPT Season 8 events. The creator and host of EPT 8, Poker Stars, is hosting freeroll tournaments to find the players to seed into those tournaments.

Each EPT Skrill Grand Final tournament is a single-table event with 10 seats, all of which will be filled by PokerStars qualifier winners. These freeroll qualifiers take place regularly, for each and every stop on the season 8 EPT itinerary, the next Skrill freeroll qualifier taking place October 2 at 14:05 ET or 20:05 CET for the Skrill Grand Final at this year’s EPT London.

To get a seat in these freeroll qualifiers just try out the new Skrill to make a deposit into your Poker Stars account. Using Skrill, the company says, is the same as using Moneybookers. Only the look has changed. To be credited for the deposit to receive a seat in an upcoming Skrill freeroll, be sure to use the bonus code: SKRILLEPT when making the deposit.

In addition to the seat at the exclusive €10,000 Grand Final at an upcoming European Poker Tour stop, players in Poker Stars Skrill Freerolls will also be competing for a €500 added prize pool. Buy-ins for each of these freerolls is only €1. The runner-up of each freeroll will also win 300,000 Skrill VIP Club Loyalty points, while the third place finisher will get 100,000.

PartyPoker Announces the Pokerfest

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Party PokerWhile the PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is now over, the online poker world now shifts back to their normal daily grinds of playing which games and or tournaments that they would typically play.  The next poker tournament series on the schedule would typically be the Full Tilt Poker Online Poker Series (FTOPS), but with the fallout of Full Tilt, that event will be no more.  This is where PartyPoker has decided to come into play, and has decided to start its own online poker series, called Pokerfest; which will kick off at the end of October.

Pokerfest is an event that will feature 47 events, and give away over $3 million in guarantees.  It will run from the 23rd of October, all the way through the 6th of November.  The Pokerfest has decided to go a different route than just offering huge events, as there will typically be three events each day; with the buy-ins offered appealing to multiple different levels of players.  The first events will feature buy-ins based around Party Points (the loyalty program on PartyPoker), the other events will be between $6 and $33 for mid stakes players, and then the high stakes tournaments will be between $55 and $1,060 to enter.

There will be multiple different satellites offered into the events that have buy-in’s larger than $55, and these satellites will start as low as $1.  Some of the events that caught our eye right off the bat are Event #1, a $215 NLH $300k guarantee, Event #23, a $215 NLH $350k guarantee, Event #46, a $33 $50k guarantee, and Event #47, a $640, NLH Championship Event with $1 million guaranteed in the prize pool.

There will also be leaderboards which will pay out prizes for how well you do during the events, with a $500 first place prize going to the low buy-in events, a $2,500 prize going to the mid sized buy-in events, and a $5,000 prize going to the higher buy-in event winner.  To top that off, PartyPoker has decided to give $20k to the person who is able to win three Pokerfest events, $10k to the person who final tables 10 events, and $5k to the person who cashes ten times throughout all of the events.  There will also be random giveaways for iPads, different chip sets, and also different merchandise and prizes from PartyPoker.

Was Full Tilt Poker a Ponzi Scheme? Feds Say Yes

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As if Full Tilt Poker’s troubles weren’t huge enough, now there are allegations floating around that the online poker site was actually…get this: a Ponzi scheme. On September 20, 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors are claiming that Full Tilt Poker was a global Ponzi scheme and not a legitimate online poker company at all.

Poker Sites for US Players

Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice assert that the owners of Full Tilt Poker used the website to illegally take money out from player accounts and paid that money to themselves. The Justice Department alleges that Full Tilt Poker took $444 million out of player accounts and gave that money to the members of its board. While the company protested with assurances that player accounts were secure, when the feds seized FullTilt’s bank account they found it contained only $60 million. That leaves more than $380 million left to cover the funds players legitimately deposited or won and had left to use or withdraw. According to the lawsuit, one of Full Tilt Poker’s top execs, Raymond Bitar, currently under criminal indictment for these and related charges, received $41 million illegally from player accounts and celebrity poker pro Howard “The Professor Lederer allegedly received $42 million while fellow poker pro and one of the original founders and principal owners of Full Tilt Poker, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson supposedly got $25 million with another $60 million promised.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was the one making the accusation that the company was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, not only defrauding the banks but cheating its own members as well.

888 Poker Hosts Teams Poker

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888 Poker has just introduced Teams Poker, a promotion based on European football teams. In 888 Poker’s Teams Poker, players can win money for supporting their favorite teams in some of their biggest matches, including teams in Barclay’s Premier League from England, La Liga from Spain and Bundesliga from Germany.

Throughout the entire football season for each of these leagues, 888 Poker has scheduled an online poker tournament for each of the league’s big matches. These events all have a $0.99 buy-in and a $100 prize pool. When you join any of these tournaments, you’ll be asked to select one of the two teams competing in the actual match corresponding to the event. If your team wins the tournament, you win money however you individually finish in the event. On the first of October and the first of November are also special teams poker fixtures called the Zodiac Wars: Battle of the Star Signs.

888 Poker is also hosting weekly tournaments for each of the three leagues. The weekly Barclay’s Premier League event takes place every Monday at 19:40 GMT; the weekly Bundesliga event takes place every Sunday at 19:40 GMT; and the weekly La Liga Challenges take place every Thursday at 19:40 GMT. These events feature all the teams from each league. They are played just like a normal 888 Poker tournament, except that half the prize pool is split amongst the players in the winning team. That means even players who bust out of the tournament can still wind up in the money.