Tag: online poker

Carbon Poker Gives New Depositors Cash Chase

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In addition to its standard first depositors bonus, Carbon Poker is offering new players another incentive to join the site. It’s a personalized 30-Day Cash Chase, during which it’s you against a leaderboard against the time. For 30 days you play as much and as well as you can and as you do you’ll advance up a leaderboard and earn increasingly rewarding prizes.

How it works is you earn VIP points by playing at Carbon Poker’s real money cash ring games, multi-table tournaments and sit and go tournaments. As you accumulate these points, you climb the leaderboard. As you climb the leaderboard you earn more and more cash prizes, starting with $5 (at 500 VIP points) and working your way up to the $500 mark (for 25,000 VIP points).

The time clock starts the instant you place your first deposit into a real money Carbon Poker account.

You don’t need to opt-in to this promotion to qualify for prizes. Every first-time depositing member is automatically opted in to the promotion. Players can track their progress and view their current VIP points standings through their Player Admin page. Prizes are automatically deposited into player accounts within 24 hours of the close of their 30-day Cash Chase promotional period.

These prizes are cumulative, so as you advance up the leaderboard and qualify to earn new prizes, you still get to keep the prizes you’ve previously earned. You also get to keep your VIP points after your prizes are awarded, getting you started for a lucrative time as a new Carbon Poker member.

Some, Not All U.S. Player Funds Returned

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The Poker Players Alliance’s Executive Director John Pappas suggested that the amount of player funds withheld because of the U.S. Department of Justice’s actions against several top poker sites on April 15, 2011 (or what has been dubbed Black Friday) might run an estimated $100,000,000 to $500,000,000. As it turns out, if he’s not right then he’s underestimating, as the lower of those two amounts, $100 million, is the amount of money Poker Stars announced last Friday having already returned to players, and that doesn’t even take care of all  of it.

And that’s just one site. Full Tilt Poker has yet to start returning player funds, as does Absolute Poker, even though both sites have come out saying they will soon, and that they have successfully negotiated a way with the US Justice Department to do so. Players are skeptical about Absolute Poker’s abilities to follow through on this promise, however, as Blanca Gaming still hasn’t convinced its community that it’s not considering filing for bankruptcy.

Full Tilt Poker issued a public explanation of its delay, albeit over one of its player forums via an vaguely identified representative, which sat as no more than an excuse with many players who are watching their PokerStars counterparts starting to get their monies back. So in addition to being a legal nightmare for Full Tilt Poker, this could turn into a PR nightmare for them as well. At least Poker Stars is trying to stay on top of that end of things while other parts of their business fall apart (or at least under scrutiny).

Lock Poker Holds Monthly Sit & Go Leaderboard Contests

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Every month, all month long, Lock Poker keeps SnG Leaderboards with cash prizes for the highest performers. All Sit and Go tournaments at Lock Poker qualify for placement on the SnG Leaderboard, including Bounty SnG tournaments and satellite SnG tournaments. Leaderboard points are determined using a formula that takes into account the disparity in tournament stakes and other factors.

There are two sets of prizes awarded at the end of each month’s SnG Leaderboard competition. One distributes a $10,000 prize among the top 25 finishers on the monthly leaderboard. The first place finisher gets $2,000; second gets $1,250; third gets $1,000 and down from there, to the 25th place finisher who gets $100. The other leaderboard distributes a $2,000 prize among those who had the best winning streaks of the month, with the top finisher getting $750; second place getting $500; third getting $350; fourth $250; and fifth $150.

Besides the buy-in, also used to help determine leaderboard points are the number of entrants in a SnG and a player’s final position, with an additional bonus called the Final Placing Bonus applied for the top finishers of each qualifying SnG. Ordinarily, in MTTs (multi-table tournaments), a final table bonus would go out to all the players who made the final table. In the case of SnGs, this has been altered to apply a scaled bonus to the players in a 6-seater or 10-seater SnG based on when they bust out of the event.

Lock Poker leaderboard rules forbid Team Play under a single account.

Black Friday Consumes Poker Income

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April 15, 2011 will forever be known in the online poker world as Black Friday. It was on this day that the US Department of Justice seized the American domains of the three largest online poker rooms, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. This put an end to millions of players wagering at these sites. Poker has moved from being a mere source of entertainment to a professional occupation that enables persons to earn a livelihood. In the last few years with the woes of the economic downturn many persons have relied only on playing poker at online sites for the roof above their heads and the bread on the table. In one stroke this was snatched away on Black Friday.

Click Here for Online Poker Sites Accepting US Players

Poker Players Alliance is a body that is lobbying for legalization and regulation of online poker in the United States. After Black Friday, John Pappas its executive director revealed some very pertinent figures. He said 8 million to 10 million Americans play poker online for money. About 50,000 claim to be full-time, professional online poker players, while an inestimable number use online poker to supplement income from day jobs. The three online poker sites that were shut down on Black Friday catered to roughly 70% of the American online poker market.

Hence it is easy to realize that there has been a massive loss of poker income on account of these sites being forced to shut down. There are two types of online poker players that are most affected. One is the player whose substantial savings were lying as deposits at these online poker rooms. PokerStars has initiated the process of refunding the deposits and others will follow, but this will take time. Meanwhile money locked up at the poker sites is money lost. It cannot be mobilized to create other income, not even to play poker at land casinos. One such sad tale is that of Ziethlow. He now sings for donations outside casinos to earn a fraction of what he earlier did.

The other type of online poker player who is badly affected is the one who is physically challenged and hence has little other opportunity for earning a living. ESPN did a story on Brian Ford after Black Friday. Brian is confined to a wheelchair because of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. His work of doing data entry dried up in 2008. Since then he has been surviving on online poker. Online poker has given Ford more than an income. It has given him income with the comfort of anonymity. Now both are lost. It’s estimated that thousands of disabled Americans play online poker daily to supplement their meager disability income.

Loss of income to poker players is the direct fallout of Black Friday. There is considerable collateral damage as well. The closure of these online poker sites will lead to job losses there. Absolute Poker employees in Costa Rica are already beginning to feel the heat. Then there is the poker training industry consisting of poker software, poker books and online classes. There are agents who represent players in getting them the best sponsorship deals. With income to the poker sites drying up, their sponsorship activities will take a hit and affect the representation business as well.

PartyPoker Promotions for May 2011

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Party PokerPartyPoker is one of the leading online poker rooms. It belongs to PartyGaming, which has recently joined up with Bwin. PartyPoker is licensed and regulated by the Government of Gibraltar. PartyPoker offers an exciting range of promotions for its players. Some of the promotions are standard and are carried forward from month to month. But the more interesting promotions are the topical ones.

WSOP, the biggest land poker extravaganza begins on May 31 in Las Vegas with the Main Event taking place in June. Some of the May promotions at PartyPoker offer WSOP packages. The WSOP 2011 promotion runs right through May. The prizes are $14,000 WSOP packages that include $10,000 WSOP Main Event buy-in, $2,000 spending money and eight nights’ hotel accommodation. In this promotion PartyPoker players can enter through a daily freeroll tournament and work their way up to the WSOP Satellite in which 1 out of 20 players will be given WSOP packages.

The Gladiator is an exciting promotion that runs from May 1 to May 31. PartyPoker has declared different levels of daily targets for loyalty points earned and has designated prizes for players achieving the targets. The prizes are in the form of freeroll tournaments with prize pools ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. Players who earn 1,200 points on each of 30 days will get the grand prize of a WSOP package.

One of the most popular online tournaments at PartyPoker this May will be the $250K Guaranteed Sunday. It will be held every Sunday at 12:45 hours ET. The tournament offers a guaranteed prize pool of $250,000. Players can directly register for the event by paying the buy in of $215. But most PartyPoker players will win entries through a series of low priced qualifiers, some of which are even freerolls. One of the qualifying promotions is the 50 Seat Frenzy, which guarantees 50 seats to the $250K Guaranteed Sunday. The direct buy in for this event is $15. However, there are two qualifiers, one of which is a country specific freeroll and the other is a $2 buy in Saturday morning event.

There are a large number of newbie players at PartyPoker. Especially for them PartyPoker offers a number of freerolls in which they play for free but win cash prizes. In May the combined prize pool of all such freeroll tournaments offered is over $20,000. A large number of these are country specific freerolls, in which players compete with others from the same region. However, the best freeroll promotion is the $1.5K New Player Freeroll. It will be held every Saturday in May. Each event will be capped at 5,000 players and the eligibility criterion is that the player must have made his first deposit in the 60 days before the start of the tournament.

Poker tournaments are not the only promotional events in May. New players are entitled to a 100% welcome bonus up to $/£/€ 500 on their first deposit. Regular players can earn loyalty points called PartyPoints for participating in cash games and tournaments. PartyPoints can then be redeemed for cash.

Doyle Brunson leaves DoylesRoom

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Doyle Brunson, the Godfather of poker, has left his namesake online poker site DoylesRoom.com in the wake of federal indictments against the owners of 3 or the world’s largest online poker sites. The news comes just 2 days after DoylesRoom released a major software upgrade. Today’s news is no doubt on advice from Doyle’s attorney’s to get out of the spotlight.

Brunson issued this statement to Gambling911.com earlier today,

“Reluctantly, I have decided to terminate my endorsement contract with Doylesroom.com. It pains me to leave at this time. I have aspirations of reentering the online poker business when the United States Government passes legislation, that officially legalize online poker sites. Doylesroom management has decided to continue to serve U.S. customers. Although they believe they have the right to market the name Doylesroom and to use my name and likeness for a period of time, I have asked them not to.  Good luck-Shuffle up and deal.”

We contacted the DoylesRoom marketing team shortly after learning this news and they had no idea that Doyle was leaving.

Update: Doyle Brunson was a sponsored pro by DoylesRoom.com and he has left his endorsement contract. DoylesRoom has purchased his image and likeness and are allowed to continue to use it. Doyle will still continue to play in the Bounty tournament.

PokerStars SCOOP is Underway

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The Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is an annual online mega tournament hosted by PokerStars, which is a leading poker room. It is modeled after the World Series of Poker (WSOP), which is the biggest land based poker tournament extravaganza. The objective of SCOOP is to give online poker players an experience of a mega poker event. SCOOP 2011 has begun on May 8. It will span 38 events and run till May 22.

There is one major difference between SCOOP and WSOP. Each SCOOP event is actually three independent events with low, medium and high buy-ins. This allows low rollers to participate and also ensures that players are not forced to play at stakes that do not suit them. All events have a guaranteed prize pool that will be shared by the winners in the declared manner. The total prize pool across all 114 events (38 x 3) is $25 million.

As in WSOP, there is a declared Main Event, which is the most prestigious, has the largest prizes and enjoys the greatest participation. At SCOOP 2011 the Main Event is Event #38, which is the last event. The poker variant is Texas Hold’em and the betting structure is No Limit. The combined prize pool for this event is $4.75 million. The low buy-in event gets $750,000, the medium buy-in event gets $1.5 million and the high buy-in event gets $2.5 million. Some of the other notable SCOOP 2011 events are Event #20 No Limit Hold’em and Event #35 No Limit Hold’em Heads Up Match Play. There are events in Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Razz and H.O.R.S.E. as well.

Apart from a major slice of the prize pool the top winner of each SCOOP event will be given a swank Movado gold watch with the PokerStars spade and SCOOP Champion on the face. The winners of every high, medium and low event will receive the watch. PokerStars has also announced a SCOOP Leader Board. Players will receive points based on how they perform in the various SCOOP events. The player who finishes on top of the leader board will receive the Player of the Series trophy, a seat at the main event of WSOP 2011, a prize package to the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, a seat at the Grand Final of the European Poker Tour and a special edition PokerStars chip set.

Players can enter the SCOOP events by paying the designated buy-ins. However, satellites to SCOOP events are running round the clock at PokerStars. The buy-ins to the satellites are much lower and this is a great way of winning a seat at the SCOOP events. Some of the buy-ins are as low as $0.25.

When the SCOOP 2011 schedule was first announced earlier this year it was with a much larger prize pool base. The sum total of the prize pools was then $45 million. After the seizure of the American domain of PokerStars, it was evident that there would be no participation from American players. Therefore the prize money had to be reduced considerably.

Merge Poker adds Weekly 100k Guaranteed

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Lock PokerThe Merge Poker Network has announced that $100,000 will now be the guaranteed prize pool for the Sunday Deepstack every week, including this one. Take your seat this Sunday with a $109 entrance coupon, by buying in for $100 + $9, or by qualifying through the 100 Seats to $100K Freeroll. There are several online poker sites that we highly recommend on the Merge network with Lock Poker being the most popular one.

The Merge Poker Network has become the place to play since Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars pulled out of the US. Look for their daily and weekly guaranteed tournaments to continue to grow as the network grows. More USA Accepted Poker Sites.

$100,000 Sunday Guaranteed

When: Sunday, May 15th @ 15:00 Merge Poker Time (16:00 EST)
How: $100 + $9, $109 Deepstack Coupon, 10,900 VIP Points
Prizes: $100,000 Guaranteed
Where: Tournaments >> Scheduled >> Special

In addition to the usual buy-ins, players can now qualify for this major tourney via the 100 Seats to $100K Freeroll. Earn 250 VIP points in the week before the 100 Seats freeroll, then finish in the top 100 to win a $109 Coupon for Sunday’s showdown.

100 Seats to $100K Freeroll

When: Saturday, May 14th @ 15:00 Merge Poker Time (16:00 EST)
How: Earn 250 VIP pts before the freeroll starts
Prizes: 100 free seats for $100k Guaranteed
Where: Tournaments >> Scheduled >> Special

Full Tilt Poker Series Goes Ukrainian

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Full Tilt Poker is taking their live poker series to the Ukraine, with three newly scheduled tournaments offering up a total guaranteed prize pool of about $1 million. With the full support of the Ukranian Sport Poker Federation behind it, the inaugural Full Tilt Poker Russia and Ukraine Poker Series will take place July 24 – 31, September 18 – 25 and November 18 – 27 in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev. Buy-ins for these three events range from $1,500 to $2,500 but satellites are running now at Full Tilt Poker offering seats in these events for as little as nothing.

Freeroll satellite qualifiers into the Full Tilt Poker Russia and Ukraine Poker Series started on May 1, 2011 and run three times daily, at 14:00, 17:00 and 20:00 MSK. Each event’s player pool is capped at 1,000. From each of these events, the top 100 players will move on to a weekly freeroll final taking place every Thursday at 19:00 MSK. From each of these final round freerolls, 5 players will win seats in the next scheduled live event in Kiev.

Besides winning seats in these first-ever Full Tilt Poker Russia and Ukraine Poker Series events, satellite winners will also receive live poker lessons from Full Tilt pros Vitaly Lunkin and Nikolay Evdakov.

The first two events on the schedule have $1,500 buy-ins while event #3 is being considered the Grand Final of the inaugural Full Tilt Poker Russia and Ukraine Poker series and therefore has a $2,500 buy-in.

Building a Bankroll

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Building a bankroll is essential if you want to become a winning poker player. It goes without saying that you need to win more than you lose if you want to build your bankroll but there are other important steps to take, and winning alone is not enough.

Bankroll Management

The first and most important step to take is to set aside some money to be your starting poker bankroll. Use money that you can afford to lose and to live without. This way you will not have to take money out of your poker bankroll to pay bills and you will also be able to put your winnings back in to the bankroll allowing it to grow.

Set some guidelines on how you will be managing your bankroll. You don’t need to make up a whole lot of rules and in fact it is probably better if you only start out with a few. The most important rule to start out with is:

  • Do not buy in to a game with more than 5 % of your total bankroll balance. This rule is absolutely critical and without it you are destined to fail. This rule will protect you from something called ‘Variance’. Variance is the name for the extended good and bad periods that every poker player experiences until the true percentages have a chance to balance out. For example if you flip a coin there are only two possible outcomes, heads and tails. This would mean that half of the time it will come up heads and half of the time tails. If you try this out with 10 flips of the coin you may find that heads came up 7 times or 70 %. Over a longer period of time the results of the coin flip will even out to 50 %. If you buy in to a game using a bigger percentage of your current bankroll and run in to a negative variance you will risk losing your entire bankroll before the percentages have had a chance to even out.

Take Advantage of First Deposit Bonuses and VIP Rewards Programs

All online poker sites have a first deposit bonus where you get a certain amount of bonus money usually based upon your first deposit amount. These bonuses get converted in to cash based upon the poker points that you earn from playing cash games and tournaments. Once you have cleared your bonus or the remaining amount of the bonus has expired then you will want to continue playing at the site if there is some form of VIP rewards program or else move on to another site where you get another first deposit bonus again.

The reason that getting a first deposit bonus and a good VIP program is so important is because at the end of the month you will find that you have built your bankroll up even if you did not win any money during the month of play. Basically with the bonus and the VIP rewards you will be building your bankroll even if you only broke even during your month of play.