Bwin Poker is hosting full satellite tournament series’ for the seventh season of both the Grand Series of Poker and the Grand Series of Poker Mini.
The GSOP 7 takes place between September 25 and October 16, 2011 and is made up 18 events all leading up to a GSOP $500,000 Grand Slam Final. In all, $3.1 million will be awarded in this year’s series.
The GSOP Mini 7 main event takes place over the same dates and culminates in a GSOP Mini $200,000 Grand Slam Final. The total guaranteed prize pool for this years GSOP Mini is $600,000.
Players can win seats in the GSOP 7 Grand Slam Final and GSOP Mini 7 Grand Slam Final in a number of ways. For one, Bwin Poker will be running leaderboards for both series’, tracking players’ progress across all 18 events in each one. The top player on each leaderboard will automatically win a seat in the respective Grand Slam Final while the rest of the top 100 players on each leaderboard will face off for three more free seats in the respective Grand Slam Final.
You can also win seats in one of the Grand Slam Finals through daily qualifiers at Bwin Poker. The direct buy-in for the Grand Slam Mini Final is $525, while the direct buy-in for the Grand Slam Final is $5,000. Bwin Poker is also running daily qualifiers and last chance qualifiers for all of the events comprising each GSOP 7 series.
In addition, Bwin Poker is holding a separate but related GSOP Sidebet Tournament with a $1,000 buy-in and a Grand Slam Final ticket as top prize, along with a share of the sidebet prize pool split among the top participating scorers on the GSOP leaderboard.
Right now you have a chance to join the elite Owner’s Club at 888 Poker, and win a potentially lucrative share in your very own racehorse, and for as little as fifty-five cents.
The 888 Poker Owner’s Club is a joint venture with Circuit Racing to give away 20 shares worth £3,000 each in a racehorse trained by none other than Ralph Beckett, a legend in horse racing.
For as little as $0.55 you can land a seat in the 888.com Racing Syndicate Qualifier tournament, taking place every two weeks, and giving away 1 £3,000 share in this premium racehorse at each tournament.
If you’re one of the 20 lucky winners, you’ll also recieve membership in the exclusive Owner’s Club, which includes invites to various owner related gatherings, not least of which is the ceremony at which the horse will be named, taking place at the Westbury, a 5-star hotel. You’ll also get stable visits to Kimpton Down, Ralph Beckett’s own training facility in the countryside of the Berkshire Mountains. And you’ll get access to the owner’s area at horse races and owner’s badges anytime your horse is running, with the opportunity to buy additional owner’s badges at a discounted rate. And best of all, you win 5% of any prize money that your horse wins.
The 888.com Racing Syndicate Qualifier takes place every other Thursday at 19:55 GMT. It costs $200 + $20 to buy-in to each event, though you can win a seat instead by winning one or more Step Feeder tournaments.
The Step 1 Feeder takes place daily and has $0.55 buy-in. The Step 2 Feeder takes place daily as well and has a $8.80 buy-in. Finally, the Step 3 Feeder takes place Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays for a $48 buy-in.
Luvin Poker is smack dab in the middle of its month-long PokerPoints Frenzy. It’s a four tournament online poker series with a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000 at each event, making for a grand total guaranteed prize pool of $4,000.
The Luvin Poker PokerPoints Frenzy runs from September 1 to 30, 2011, during which four weekly PokerPoints Frenzy Tournaments will take place at each of which a $1,000 cash prize pool will be given away.
What makes this a PokerPoints Frenzy and not just a four tournament frenzy is that there are no cash buy-ins for these events. You can only buy in with PokerPoints, which you earn by playing at Luvin Poker’s real money tables. It costs 500,000 PokerPoints to enter the $1,000 guaranteed tournament, but you can win your way there for much cheaper.
Luvin Poker is holding a Step tournament satellite series leading up to the $1,000 PokerPoints Frenzy, with daily 10-seat tournaments with the following buy-ins: 250 PokerPoints for Step 1; 1,000 PokerPoints for Step 2; 5,000 PokerPoints for Step 3; 25,000 PokerPoints for Step 4; and 100,000 PokerPoints for Step 5. Only the winner of each of these Step satellite tournaments will win a seat in the next Step satellite in succession.
The PokerPoints Frenzy tournament takes place every Wednesday in September, 2011, with the first having already taken place September 7 The remaining PokerPoints Frenzy tournaments will take place today, September 14 and September 21 and 28.
You can find the PokerPoints Frenzy tournament and all Step satellite tournaments leading up to them in your Luvin Poker SnG lobby.
Party Poker has launched a new points race promotion for the month of September, 2011, and like other similar races of past PartyPoker promotions, in this one players are racing only themselves and the clock. In the Party Poker Accelerator race, like their previous Snowball promotion, players try to earn as many PartyPoker Points as they possibly can in the time allowed — in this case the one month period between September 1 and 30. The more points a player can accumulate, not only the bigger the prizes in store, but the more prizes also — as every prize a player earns the player gets to keep, even as they advance up the tiers toward ever-increasing rewards.
The prizes start out with freeroll entries, worth $2,000 for 5 PartyPoker Points, $5,000 for 25 PartyPoker Points, $10,000 for 50 PartyPoker Points, $15,000 for 100 PartyPoker Points and $25,000 for 200 PartyPoker Points. Then, with entries to all $57,000 in freerolls, players start to earn cash, climbing from $3 for 300 PartyPoker Points all the way to $10,000 for 75,000 PartyPoker Points.
Players will be awarded each of the prizes they earn in succession as soon as they reach the set number of points to release each one. After one minute before midnight on September 30, the Accelerator promotion ends and the Accelerator freerolls begin, taking place one per day starting with the $2K event and ending with the $25K event between October 3 and 7, each at 2:30 pm ET.
Remember: you must opt-in to the Accelerator promotion at the Party Poker website or the “My Accounts” section of their PartyPoker lobby before the points you earn in September will start being applied toward earning you prizes.
Earlier today, Ladbrokes Poker, announced it is guaranteeing 10 seats (worth €550 each) for the main event of the 2011 Irish Poker Festival in the weekly qualifying final on the 15th September. Ladbrokes Poker has also lowered the buy-in to the weekly final to €50+5 with daily satellites available.
The Irish Poker Festival is a must on anyone’s Poker calendar – the 2010 event saw 633 runners in the main event alone, and 2011 is already shaping up to be bigger. The four day event will be held from the 29th September to 2nd October, with the €550 main event once again having a guaranteed prizepool of a massive €250,000.
Ladbrokes is also throwing in a value bursting offer for the first 10 Ladbrokes qualifiers who are knocked out of the Killarney Main Event. They will be entered into the two day side event starting on Saturday 1st October (seat worth €300). Ladbrokes qualifiers who are knocked out 11th to 20th will be entered to the one day side event on Sunday 2nd October (seat worth €150).
Ladbrokes has also released odds on the winner of the tournament, so those who fancy a flutter on the nationality, age, sex and even how they qualified can have one. At the moment it is 4/7 that the winner will be from Ireland or 15/8 that he or she will be 24 years old or younger. Ladbrokes is also offering odd of 9/2 that a woman will make the final table again this year.
Susanna Havukainen, from Ladbrokes Poker said:
“The excitement is really building for this year’s Irish Poker Festival in Killarney. We are delighted to be able to guarantee 10 seats for the main event from the qualifier on September 15th , and with the live event so close and so many still wanting that ticket the competition is bound to get intense.”
Cake Poker is looking for players to send to next year’s Aussie Millions tournament, to be held between January 12 and 30, 2012 at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, where the first prize this time around is estimated to be about $2 million AUD.
Satellites into the 2012 Aussie Millions started at Cake Poker on September 1 and continue through December 18, with buy-ins starting as low as $0.20.
Every Sunday at 5 pm EST, Cake Poker will hold a final satellite at which one prize package into the 2012 Aussie Millions will be awarded for every $16,000 in the prize pool, and a guarantee of at least one prize package to be awarded at each final. To get into this final you can win $30 Semi-Final, or win your way into that through a $5.50 Satellite, each of which run several times daily. The Super Satellite has a $1 buy-in, runs daily every 4 hours beginning at 12 am and awards seats in the Satellite. A $0.20 Super Super Satellite runs every 2 hours each day beginning at 1 am and awards seats in the Super Satellite.
Each Cake Poker Aussie Millions 2012 prize package is valued at $16,000 and includes the $10,600 AUD buy-in into the Aussie Millions main event along with some cash for travel expenses and a special entry into the 10th Anniversary VIP players party for this year’s event.
The last day to win a seat in the 2012 Aussie Millions at Cake Poker is December 18.
Football season is starting in the U.S. and Europe and Cake Poker is kicking off two football-themed bonuses to celebrate. For fans of football in Europe and the U.K., the site is holding The Footie 50 Challenge and for fans of NFL football in the United States, the site is holding Money Night Football.
Both events involve guaranteed tournaments taking place Monday nights at Cake Poker. The first is $3,000 Guaranteed rebuy and add-on event taking place at 6:30 pm ET Monday nights with a $33 buy-in. As part of the Footie 50 Challenge, the guarantee on that event will be boosted to $5,000 for the entire month of September. Similarly, as part of the Money Night Football promo, the prize pool on the $2,000 guaranteed tournament taking place Monday nights at 8:30 pm ET for a $22 buy-in will be boosted to $4,000.
The top 50 players at each of these two Monday night events will also get, in addition to their prize money from the pot, a seat in a freeroll tournament happening the following weekend. The Footie 50 Challenge freeroll takes place Saturdays at 13:00 GMT while the Money Night Football freeroll takes place Sundays at 2 pm ET. In both cases the prize pool is a guaranteed $2,000, to be split among the top 10 finishers.
And if both of these opportunities sound good to you, whether you’re a fan of football U.S. or U.K. style, or both or not at all, the Footie 50 Challenge and Money Night Football promotions are set up such that you can participate in both.
In a huge story that was recently released by subjectpoker.com, the US Department of Justice seems to have decided to take action against the Merge Gaming Network. The US Attorney’s Office of the District of Maryland has been said to be planning to seize assets of the payment processors who had played a role in the transactions that occurred between the Merge Network and their US based online poker players. There have been no specific processors to this point who have pointed out as the ones who will be under fire, and there have also been no statements as to whether indictments will come along with these seizures. We’ve contacted all of our sources and none can corroborate this story.
While the Merge Network is currently one of the best online poker options for US based poker players, they have attempted to avoid issues with the US Department of Justice in the past. Back on May 24th they decided to stop accepting US players, which seemed to be a step in that direction; but it was unknown as whether they did this to follow the anti-gambling laws in the United States, or whether it was due to an incredible amount of new sign-ups and the fact that Merge needed to catch up on payouts to current players.
In the end though, Merge is still allowing US based poker players, and allowing them to play for real money; which means that they have not followed the DOJ’s interpretation of the UIGEA. It is unknown currently when these seizures will actually happen, if at all now. They were originally planned for mid to late September, but it could really be any time before or after that time frame. The idea has also been thrown out by subjectpoker.com that the DOJ may actually not even follow through with this plan since it has been released to the public.
As of now, there is really nothing that US players can do. Even if you play on the Merge Network and are looking to withdraw your money off of the site, it could take over a month to get your payment sent to you. So this essentially means that you would not have your withdrawal processed before the seizures actually occur, which would leave you in a tough spot. In reality, a withdrawal could actually move the money of an online poker player into the reach of the DOJ since they are targeting the payment processors themselves. So in the end, it’s very unlikely that withdrawing money off of a Merge Network site will avoid issues of your money being locked up in the end, and instead it could leave you with multiple delays.
It is currently unknown if the Merge Gaming Network will keep funds in segregated accounts, and if this is the case then the segregated accounts may not be in jeopardy of being seized. While places like the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have stated that they are not seizing segregated accounts and that they are still encouraging sites to repay their players; the Maryland USAO has been much less sympathetic to players, and has not made any statements similar to the ones above. This leaves quite a bit of doubt as to what would happen to players’ funds if the Maryland USAO did move forward with this.
If you visit a Merge Network online poker site, you’ll find that most of their sites have moved to country code top-level domains, which are based out of either the European Union, or Antigua. The regular .com domain names are redirected now to websites that are not affiliated with the United States. There have also been thoughts thrown around that a site could avoid DOJ actions by restricting the United States based players to specific states, and it is unclear if this is possible.
The Merge Network is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission which requires no fund segregation. But, this network received a letter of intent to be able to secure a license from Malta’s Lotteries and Gaming Authority. The Merge Network has recently been added to the LGA’s list of class four licensees, and some of their main merge skins (such as Lock, Carbon, and Hero Poker) have all added the LGA logo. The reason why this is important, is because the LGA has very strict policies when it comes to the segregation of funds. Neither Merge nor LGA has confirmed the new license, and LGA even stated that Lock Poker was not licensed by them.
This story has drawn quite a bit of attention as of late, and we were glad that Subject: Poker was able to cover this story very early on. All poker players throughout the United States will have their eyes locked on this situation with the Merge Gaming Network, but only time will tell what will happen with one of the few poker networks that allows US players still.
Party Poker is now holding qualifiers for the Grand Series of Poker Greece event coming up October 12th through 15th, 2011. Only players 21 and older are eligible to participate in the qualifier series, running August 22nd through September 25th.
The GSOP Greece Satellite tournaments take place every Sunday at 14:20 Eastern. One out of each 15 players will win a prize package valued at $3,600 and that includes five nights at the site of the event, the Porto Carras Grand Resort and Casino in Sithonia, Greece with $700 to spend as you like, and of course the seat in the GSOP Greece main event, worth $1,650 itself.
The buy-in into the GSOP Greece Satellite is $260 but you can avoid paying that by winning your seat in the satellite instead. Satellite qualifiers run daily for a $28 buy-in. On Sundays, play in the satellite qualifier turns into a turbo event. These events will each award 10% of the participants seats in the GSOP Greece Satellite.
You can win your seat in the satellite qualifier just as well, through one of two routes: either a $3 sub qualifier speed tournament that awards 10% of players seats in the satellite qualifier or a $1 sub qualifier speed rebuy event that awards a seat in the satellite qualifier for every $28 collected in buy-ins. Finally, there’s a freeroll entry into the $1 sub qualifier taking place every day as well. This event awards seats in the $1 event to the 20 highest finishers.
The Party Poker GSOP Greece prize package is non-transferrable and there is no alternative cash redemption value.
Bodog Poker will be sending 30 of its players to the Punta Cana Poker Classic, taking place in the Dominican Republic and featuring a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. From September 1 through October 16, Bodog Poker is holding a series of satellite qualifiers for tournament players and random drawings for cash game and sit and go tournament players to find the members of Team Bodog to send to this anticipated annual event.
The qualifier series is built of three different levels, each of which you can enter directly by paying the respective prize pool or win your way into via the previous event. It starts with a $0.50 + $0.05 Cheap Seat, leads into a $35 + $3.50 Punta Cana Semifinal which in turns leads to the $230 + $20 Punta Cana Satellite where the prize packages will be awarded.
Each of the 30 Punta Cana Poker Classic prize packages up for grabs is worth $4,000 and includes the $1,650 buy-in into the main event, a 5-night stay at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, a travel allowance of $1,000, a $1,500 voucher to spend on hotel amenities and access to exclusive side events, cash games and hotel entertainment and nighttime activities.
The other way you can win one of these 30 free seats in the $500K guaranteed Punta Cana Poker Classic is through the Qualify by Draw route. Here, you receive one draw entry and $10 for for every 75 poker points you earn. You can earn an unlimited number of draw tickets this way, but only a maximum cash reward of $150.
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