June

LAS VEGAS — Poker professional Scotty Nguyen won nearly US$2 million at the World Series of Poker on Monday, topping a field of 148 players and emerging from a marathon final table with his fifth gold bracelet.

Nguyen beat out 23-year-old Michael DeMichele in H.O.R.S.E., a rotating-game tournament that cost $50,000 to enter.

The various games and limited betting structure reward all around play and is said to truly reward the best players over the long haul. Along with the main event, many players consider H.O.R.S.E. the most important tournament in the World Series of Poker.

Joe Commisso won the biggest single cash prize awarded so far at the 2008 World Series of Poker in Event 46, $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Six Handed.

Commisso won $911,855 after out lasting a field of 805 players and the longest heads-up match so far this year at the WSOP.

Commiso is a day trader who turned to poker, and has only been playing the game for three years, which is not a long time in poker. He said winning the tournament and the WSOP bracelet was a big deal for him, but he wasn’t sure he’d be playing in any more tournaments.

My beloved friend and Poker Legend John Bonetti passes

Betfair Poker announced this week that another player had managed the feat of winning the Pokerfecta at the poker site.

El Timba won a $1,500 Guaranteed, a $2,000 Guaranteed and a $600 Guaranteed tournament in just one week to walk away with a $6,000 Pokerfecta jackpot.

Pokerfecta offers poker players what Betfair Poker calls the ultimate multi-table tournament competition. Players must win three multi-table tournaments at the poker site during one week to win the prestigious Pokerfecta jackpot.

Only five players have managed to achieve the Pokerfecta since the promotion was introduced at Betfair Poker in February.

Texas Hold ’em poker, in Ken Rabideau’s mind, is one part skill and one part luck.

You have to play your hands correctly, but in the end, you’ve got to get the cards.

Rabideau, a local mortgage broker, tried last week for the second time to make it to the finals of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Rabideau only made it to the first day’s evening session last Thursday.

His World Series of Poker quest began innocently for Rabideau four years ago.

“I got into a tournament at the Sahara (in Las Vegas),” he said. “Just by luck, I finished fifth.”

Two highly successful poker players offer you the tools you need to cash in off of the poker industry.

What if you can sit behind professional players during a poker game and have them explain their strategy as they were playing? OutstandingPoker.com members receive unlimited access to dozens of poker coaching videos of elite online poker players who walk you through key decisions they make while playing poker. Imagine if you can watch and listen to online poker pros while seeing their hole cards.

Three choices for poker entertainment
 
The Hitwise competitive intelligence facility reports this week that Ladbrokes Poker.com is currently number one with UK players in terms of numbers of visits to the site, equating to a 19.5 percent share of the total online poker market.
 
The achievement coincides with a number of major milestones for the betting company such as the launch of its new look website (see earlier Online-Casinos.com/InfoPowa reports) and the billionth hand of poker played. 
 

Musical creator Tim Molyneux has teamed up with Phil Hellmuth and the World Series of Poker to create "All In: The Poker Musical", scheduled to run July 4th and 5th at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino during the beginning of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event.

The story revolves around the final nine players at the WSOP Main Event and songs are reportedly interlaced with poker analogies and quotes. Hellmuth worked closely with Molyneux and even has his own character in the show.

John Phan, professional poker player, took home his second bracelet of 2008 after winning World Series of Poker Event 40, $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw.

The final table was full of poker elites, because of the game’s obscurity, which included David Sklansky, poker author, Robert Mizrachi and Ben Ponzio, who both won bracelets last year, Shun Uchida and Gioi Luong.

“Going into a World Series, I don’t expect to win a bracelet, but it would be nice to win one,” Phan said. “The first [bracelet], I didn’t really care that much. But [winning] the second one is so difficult.”

ATLANTIC CITY - Perhaps the best thing about playing electronic poker, Marc Zahra said wryly, is that you don't have to tip the dealer.

With the live game of poker exploding in popularity across the country, it seemed only a matter of time before an automated version would appear in Atlantic City to satisfy the high-tech-crazed generation of younger gamblers.

Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino has become the first gaming hall in town to introduce electronic poker tables. They mimic the live version of the game - except that they don't have human beings dealing the cards.

According to Zahra and his girlfriend, Rachel Stalcoskie, who needs human dealers when a machine will do just fine?

Proof that UK poker is getting more and more high profile on the world stage this week, as top European poker room Titan Poker have announced they are running qualifiers to the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour. Now players have the chance to win their seat to four legs of the popular tour in weekly qualifiers starting next month.

Starting from July 1st to October 28th, every Tuesday a super satellite to a GUKPT event of the player's choice will run, with a number of feeders to the weekly qualifier. Because Titan Poker are the largest poker room on the iPoker network, they are expecting a lot of International interest, which makes it great value for UK players as each package is very generous with their expenses.

Team Bodog poker player Aaron Kanter is at the final table of Event No. 36 of the 2008 WSOP. (Bodog Beat Image)

After battling through a field 0f 2,447 players the final table for Event No. 36 - $1,500 No Limit Holdem - was set early this morning at the 2008 WSOP, and one of the nine who made it to that final table was Team Bodog poker player Aaron "Gotcha55″ Kanter.

Best known for his fourth-place finish at the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event, in which he cashed for $2 million, Kanter has racked up four WSOP cashes since then, including two this year alone. He has also built a solid reputation online for his prowess in massive multi-table online poker tournaments.

Calgary-based HeadsUp Entertainment has bought the Canadian Poker Tour and Canadian Poker Player Magazine from Langley, BC-based Fifth Street Publishers. The purchase supplements HeadsUp Entertainment's own Canadian Championship Poker brand as it strives to become a national force in poker content on multiple platforms.

Today, the Canadian Poker Tour announced a strategic marketing alliance with the World Poker Showdown, a leader in vacation destination poker getaways, to enhance and promote each others series of events. HeadsUp has also signed a deal with Calgary's mobovivo.com MoboVivo to let iPhone users catch up on the game with full online streaming or mobile downloads of its TV programming.

Littlewoods Poker are the latest poker room to unveil a high profile signing, with the news that they have snapped up Michael Greco as a sponsored professional. The former Eastenders star is one of the few celebrity players on the poker circuit to have an almost unanimous respect amongst their peers for being 'the real deal' at the tables and has proven this with a final table yesterday at the WSOP.

The $10,000 buy-in Omaha High-Low Split World Championship (Event #37) attracted 235 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $2,209,000. The top 27 finishers collected prize money.

This was the largest Omaha High-Low Split prize pool in poker history. In fact, only one previous event had ever surpassed the million-dollar mark – the $5,000 buy-in championship held at the 2006 WSOP. This Omaha High-Low Split tournament ranks as the only $2 million-plus prize pool on poker history.

Betfair Poker has picked up another up-and-coming young poker pro with the addition of Michaela Johansson to the Betfair Poker Team.

Johansson is a 23-year-old professional poker player from Sweden. She signed a sponsorship deal with Betfair Poker that will have her representing Betfair Poker during the Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker.

She will also represent the poker site at the World Series of Poker Europe in September.

Bodog is one of the world's most successful and well-established digital entertainment and online gaming giants who pride themselves on safety and security as well as top quality customer service.

Birmingham -- To celebrate the launch of their brand new poker mind power system, Think Like A Poker Pro have released a free self hypnosis mp3 called Poker Perfection.

The word hypnosis is derived from the Greek word hypnos, meaning sleep. Hypnotism is often presumed to make someone go under a state of reduced consciousness while the person remains awake. The general behavior of those under hypnosis are being extremely positive to suggestions, and achieving a high level of relaxation.

Joe Hachem was born in Lebanon in 1966 and moved to Australia in 1972. He is the first Australian to win the WSOP, having won the main event in 2005 and pocketing $7.5 million. He is only the 4th non-American to have won the World Series of Poker. A former chiropractor, Hachem started playing poker online and at live events in Melbourne; since winning the big one at the WSOP, he now plays poker worldwide and has amassed impressive record-setting statistics. For instance, he is one of only four poker players to have won both the WSOP and the WPT.

Online gambling portal webmasters now have access to free player assists. The free webmaster tools and site content is 100% free and will help webmasters to attract online poker and online casino traffic to their gambling related websites.

Online gambling portal webmaster Jan Balslev and his software development team at Online-Casinos.com is offering webmasters useful online gambling tools and free website content to enhance their sites and attract more traffic to them...and other than an acknowledgment link, it's for free.

Charles Barkley is going back to Las Vegas to hit the tables again, but this time it’s all in the name of charity. The TV personality and former NBA superstar will be testing his poker skills in a celebrity poker tournament, “Ante Up for Africa,” 2 July at the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Although the event is for charity, this news comes as quite a shock after Barkley’s comments about a month ago, after settling a $400,000 gambling debt in a Las Vegas casino.

“For right now, the next year or two, I’m not going to gamble,” Barkley said after the ordeal. “Just because I can afford to lose money doesn’t mean I should do it.”

Second Ante Up for Africa scheduled for July 2
 
A slew of big name poker pros and poker playing celebs will be supporting this year's Ante Up for Africa tournament, which has been scheduled for the afternoon of July 2 at the Rio in Las Vegas, taking advantage of the attention that the World Series of Poker is receiving at that venue.
 
This is the second run of the charity event, which was conceived by actor Don Cheadle and poker ace Annie Duke to raise money for the victims and bolster public awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan. In its inaugural run, the event raised a praiseworthy $700 000 for the cause, thanks to a stellar turnout of players and Hollywood celebrities, who donated at least half their winnings.

Chewey Lam, founder of PokerAcrossAmerica.com, has announced that a seat in a $1500.00 No Limit Hold 'Em tournament has been awarded to James Forsythe of California.

Denver, CO -- Chewey Lam, founder of PokerAcrossAmerica.com, has announced that a seat in a $1500.00 No Limit Hold 'Em tournament has been awarded to James Forsythe of California. The drawing for the prize was held Saturday, May 31, 2008 in Aurora, CO at a free poker tournament. Chuck Plante and Jay Mairley of PokerAcrossAmerica.com were on hand to document the event as hundreds of spectators cheered the drawing.

When students from Ohio State graduate, they usually go into a career that is within their selected major, but one Buckeye took a different road.

Mike Sexton, who attended The Ohio State University in the 1960s on a scholarship for the school's gymnastics team, is now a professional poker player and commentator years after leaving the campus.

"I've been fortunate both as a player and since I transcended over to the business side of poker now as a TV commentator on the World Poker Tour," Sexton said. "Life has been good for this Buckeye."

Sexton said he began playing cards at age 13 and continued to play a lot of cards while at Ohio State during his free time.

Winning poker is about positioning

Whether you're playing in a cash game or a no-limit hold 'em tournament, a lot of poker advice suggests an automatic raise pre-flop in a blind-vs.-blind situation.

"They've only got it half-right," accomplished pro Daniel Negreanu said. "When you're in the small blind, you're supposed to minimize your loss because you're out of position. But when you're in the big blind, you're supposed to maximize your win. That's true of any situation with position, especially in tournament poker."

The power of position also requires some careful play, as Negreanu showed in this hand from the World Poker Tour's $15,000-buy-in Doyle Brunson World Poker Classic at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2007.

Gary Rich owns his own business, so he knows what it's like to take a risk. But putting $10,000 down for a buy-in to the World Series of Poker competition in Las Vegas is something the 39-year-old father of three could only dream about.

Fortunately for Rich, the Jacksonville Poker Association is making this particular dream come true for him.

The Orange Park resident and medical supply distributor came out on top in three competitions last year to claim the group's top prize: a $10,000 buy-in to the poker series and $1,000 to help cover expenses in the gambling capital of America.

A new campaign by the Poker Players Alliance aims to increase poker's political presence in Washington in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election.

Online poker games are a fun and exciting way to spend your time.  If you enjoy the game of poker, then online poker games are a great way to get enjoyment out of your relaxation time from the comfort of your own home.  You can play a game of poker online before you go to bed, pick a quicker online poker game for a stretch of free time or play online poker to win your seat and a chance at immortality by winning the 2008 WSOP. You can even play poker online while you are watching television and kicking back. 

Another casualty in the DGN debacle
 
Online poker venue Wingows Poker has been taken over by Colkom Inc., owners of the Walker Poker.com website in what appears to be a 'white knight' arrangement to limit financial prejudice to players. Walker Poker is a member of the Merge Poker network.
 
According to a press release from Colkom this week, the takeover was effective June 6 and involves the company acquiring all of the assets of Wingows Gaming, including the player database. Players will be migrated across to the Walker Poker operation in stages.
 

I love using metaphors- figures of speech in which a word denoting one thing is used in place of another to suggest a similarity between them. A classic example often cited is, "The ship plowed the sea." Now, a ship doesn't actually plow the sea, but the similarity is quite striking. You get the picture!

Our game of poker is full of metaphors. We use metaphors without realizing it. For example, a monster hand is not really a monster-an animal of strange or terrifying shape. Nor is a monster pot. In fact, we love to win those. It may be strange in that it is rare, but it certainly does not terrify us.