Tessa Munt, Member of Parliament for Wells and a member of the Liberal Democrat political party in the UK, had a bit of verbal finger wagging for the 37-year old singer, telling The Daily Mirror, “I’m outraged by this. It directly targets his fans, including children. The money he makes should go to addiction charities.”

Much of her ire stems from Williams’ own personal struggles with addiction. In the early 1990’s, when Williams was in his teens and early twenties as a member of the pop group Take That, he began drinking alcohol to excess and using cocaine. It eventually became such a problem that he almost overdosed in July 1995 the night before Take That was to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards. As the years went on, his most significant problem became addiction to prescription drugs, many of which he used to battle depression. In 2007, Williams checked into a rehabilitation clinic in Tucson, Arizona to help get himself off of a variety of drugs including Xanax, Seroxat/Paxil, and Vicodin. He has also fought alcoholism and nicotine addiction. Munt feels that Williams is taking advantage of problem gamblers, a group with whom he should easily sympathize.

While many Williams fans are excited to try out the new site, others have similar opinions to Ms. Munt. Interestingly, however, not all who are against the idea of the poker room oppose it because of the potential gambling aspect. Some members of the fan community on Robbie Williams’ official website are upset that special Robbie Williams prizes (including the chance to meet the man himself) are being offered on a poker site, rather than just to the loyal fans at RobbieWilliams.com.

“…I fell [sic] that this opportunity to join a special online community (er hello? don’t we have one of those already HERE) and the potential for that community to have access to special perks and benefits (which by rights should also be offered here at the same time) threatens to alienate and offend the Friends here on RW.com,” one fan wrote on the RobbieWilliams.com forum. “People are bound to want to join up because of the potential benefits and rewards that Chrissie has outlined above. It is human nature to not want to miss out on something special from our favourite singer.”

“If perks are to be made available, the logical place to have made them available first surely must have been here [RobbieWilliams.com],” she added.

Robbie Williams Poker bills itself as a place for “…having fun with your friends and keeping up with the Robbie Williams community.” No real money is required to play, though it is possible to spend money on the site. Every player gets free play money chips every day, which can then be used to play in games like normal. As players win, solve “missions,” and unlock achievements, they collect experience points (XPs). These XPs are used to advance “levels,” which allow users to unlock more content. Poker winnings, in addition to being used to continue to play poker, can also be used to customize player avatars or buy power-ups that temporarily increase XP and chip earnings. Virtual chips have no cash value and cannot be withdrawn from the site.

The other form of currency at Robbie Williams Poker is “gold.” Gold can be purchased for real money and can be used to enter exclusive tournaments and gain access to restricted items in the avatar shop. Gold purchases are completely optional and are not required to play most of the games at the poker room. The vast majority of tournaments are freerolls, most of which reward winners with chips, avatar items, and even gold, while some do offer real prizes.

Robbie Williams Poker essentially follows a similar model as that of many “Free to Play” online games on the market today, except that it is packaged in a gambling wrapper. Typically, “Free to Play” games use some sort of credit system, allowing customers to play as long as they have credits remaining. Usually, free credits are rewarded every day so that everyone can get a decent amount of game time for free. Players then typically have the option to purchase additional credits to extend their play time or purchase a secondary form of in-game currency (compare this to “gold” in the case of Robbie Williams Poker) that offers additional benefits. The players that are able to advance the farthest and acquire the most valuable/powerful items (ex: weapons, armor) are usually the ones who commit real money to the game, but many games often have in-game economies that players can use to buy and sell items and game currency, allowing even those who don’t pay to have a rich gaming experience, albeit at a slower pace than those who do pay.

Despite Robbie Williams Poker’s status as a non-gambling site, it still adheres to the same rules as many real-money poker rooms, such as no chip dumping, no collusion, and no bots.

Haughey, who hails from Scotland, is the founder and Chairman of City Refrigeration, a company with turnover of £400 million.  His great success in business has allowed him to spend significant time and money on charitable endeavors, including the establishment of the City Charitable Trust. According to Haughey’s website, the Trust has donated over £5 million to various charities since its creation, including over £1.3 million in 2010. Most of the charities the Trust supports are local to Glasgow and Scotland, but Haughey helped organizations and people worldwide. For example, Haughey had his company’s engineers actually travel to West Africa to build water wells for a charity, rather than simply cut a check. The wells have helped supply 47,000 people with fresh water.

In his interview with PokerNews, Haughey said that the charity aspect of Peter Eastgate’s WSOP bracelet sale was the reason he bid. “That was the only reason why I bought the bracelet,” Haughey said. “I paid $150,000 for the bracelet, but if the money wasn’t going to charity I wouldn’t have even paid $50,000 for it. Some of the younger players said that the integrity of the bracelet was lost, and there was no respect, but the kids in Africa will be cheering Peter Eastgate today and not worrying about what the poker blogs are saying.”

Now, however, Haughey wants to give the bracelet back. Not to Eastgate, necessarily, but to the poker community in general. In a sense, he would like to resell the bracelet for charity. But rather than simply put it up for bids again, he would like the WSOP to possibly have a special tournament with Eastgate’s bracelet as the prize and proceeds going to charity. He is open to the idea of an online event, as well.

Part of Haughey’s inspiration, he said, was the One Drop $1 million buy-in charity event scheduled for the 2012 WSOP. “I would say I will make a special offer: If the WSOP can come up with a good idea about how we can potentially raise $1,000,000 for charity, I will match it. Whatever they raise, if they have a bracelet event, I will match [the buy-in] up to $1,000,000. Half of the money can go to a WSOP charity, and the other half will go a cancer hospital that’s going to be built in the U.K.,” he told PokerNews.

$142,915.50 from Peter Eastgate’s auction went to UNICEF, while the remaining $4,587.50, or 3%, was taken by MissionFish, eBay’s non-profit beneficiary. When questioned as to why he would sell an award that most poker players would consider priceless, Eastgate said, “Of course, I still have great pride in my title, but I will never use the bracelet.  I thought they (UNICEF) could better benefit from the bracelet.  Hopefully it will do a lot of people good.”

William Haughey has also given to UNICEF directly, donating 100,000 to the organization a year ago to aid children affected by flooding in Pakistan.

The entire PokerNews.com interview with William Haughey can be read here.

In a press release, the Melbourne resident detailed some of the reasons for the partnership on his end. “After many years working extensively around the world, I made the decision that my next venture would keep me closer to home, would allow me to spend more time with my family and was something that presented me with a wider range of opportunities,” Hachem said.

“I am delighted to announce that I have decided to partner with a consortium comprising the AsianLogic Group and some of their contemporaries,” he continued. “I will be working with the group in several areas, initially as a new ambassador for the Asian Poker Tour to further the growth of poker and to assist them with several strategic opportunities in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.”

Hachem had been with PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room, for six years, establishing the relationship after he won the WSOP Main Event.  That partnership came to a mutual end in December.  At the time, Hachem said, “It’s been a great run with PokerStars and I’m proud of my association with the people and the company. But it’s time for me to pursue other career opportunities and it will be fun to have some down time to spend with my family. I look forward to the future with much excitement and anticipation and will always have fond memories of my time at PokerStars.”

The Aussie is obviously best known for his $7.5 million win in the 2005 WSOP, but he has also seen his fair share of success since his big moment. The following year, he nearly captured a second bracelet, finishing as the runner-up to Dutch Boyd in the $2,500 Short-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event, earning himself over a quarter million dollars. During that same 2006 WSOP, he also placed 4th in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em event and had a fairly deep run in the Main Event, placing 238th. In December of 2006, Hachem won the $15,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic, a score of over $2.2 million.

He has a long string of cashes since then, including an 11th place finish in the 2008 European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final ($159,818), a win in the 8-Game Championships at the 2009 EPT London ($67,499), and a runner-up finish in the Main Event at last year’s The Big Event in Los Angeles ($300,000). All told, Joe Hachem has won over $11.3 million on the live tournament circuit in his career.

To conclude his thoughts about his new relationship with AsianLogic, Hachem said, “I considered offers from several other brands, but this partnership was the best fit for me as it gave me an active role and the ability to participate as the businesses evolve. The Asia Pacific poker market is still in its infancy and has in my opinion, huge potential for growth relatively to the European more mature markets. The United States are also going through an important phase and it will take a little time before things come into place and operators emerge. Working with a partner in the same time zone makes life a lot easier and whilst I am still going to be traveling to the major poker tournaments, being able to spend more time at home is fantastic.”

Katchalov, winner of the Bluff Player of the Year award, started the year off with a bang and continued his strong play through the summer’s World Series of Poker (WSOP).  During just the first week of 2011, he won the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller event at the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, cashing in for $1,500,000.  He followed that up with a runner-up finish in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Six-Max event in the same tour stop ($131,920), with a 74th place finish in the $10,000 Main Event ($28,000) sandwiched in between.  In April, Katchalov finished second once again, this time in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Bounty Shootout at the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Uncasville stop ($68,000) and then placed 27th at the EPT Grand Final ($51,948) in May.

At the World Series of Poker, Eugene Katchalov cashed three times, including his first ever WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event ($122,909) and a fourth place finish in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout tournament ($50,993).  Later in the summer, he finished 3rd in the EPT Barcelona $5,000 Main Event for $453,812.

It was an extremely close race for the Bluff POY award, as Katchalov just barely beat out Bertrand Grospelier, 1,089.28 points to 1,071.67 points.  Bluff uses a proprietary formula to determine its POY standings, using a player’s finishing position, tournament buy-in, and number of entrants to award points for each open tournament in which a player participates (Katchalov also did well in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship and Epic Poker League this year, but these were not open events, so they were not counted).  Adjustments are made for the type of tournament: freezeout, shootout, heads-up, short-handed, etc.  Only a player’s top ten finishes during the year count towards Bluff’s POY standings.

Card Player Player of the Year, Ben Lamb, did not start 2011 nearly as quickly on the live tournament circuit as Eugene Katchalov.  In fact, he didn’t have a single live cash until the World Series of Poker.  But boy did he have a World Series of Poker.  For his opening act, Lamb was the runner-up in the $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event, banking $259,918.  A week later, he finished one spot better, winning his first WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship ($814,436).  He then finished a measly 12th place in the $10,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship ($56,140) before another final table – 8th place – in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship ($201,338).  The topper and clincher of his WSOP POY run was his 3rd place finish in the $10,000 Main Event, where he won $4,021,138.

And that’s it.  Five live tournament cashes for the year, all at the World Series of Poker.  But because of how fantastic those cashes were, he was able to win the Card Player Player of the Year award.  He was the only player in Card Player’s rankings to eclipse the 6,000 point mark.  His 6,036 points bested Chris Moorman’s total by 161.  Card Player also uses a player’s finish, tournament buy-in, and field size in its calculation, but only awards points to those who reach the final table (an exception is made for tournaments with fields greater than 2,500 players – the final three tables count for these).  It does not differentiate amongst different tournament types, except for determining the size of the final table.  Card Player also allows invitational tournaments to count if the prize pool is at least $500,000.

For comparison, Eugene Katchalov finished ninth in Card Player’s POY rankings, while Ben Lamb finished third in Bluff’s.

10) Police Receive Gambling Funds – Apparently, even though law enforcement agencies want us to believe that gambling is bad, they are more than happy to accept a big check derived from gambling funds.  In June, the Anne Arundel County (Maryland) Police Department was awarded almost half a million dollars by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, all of which was seized from online gambling companies after ICE HSI ran an undercover sting operation to catch the companies making illegal gambling transaction.  This money wasn’t taken from the coffers of the companies themselves – they were funds on deposit from U.S. players.

9) NFL Says “No” to Charity – Around 30 professional football stars were forced to watch a charity poker tournament from the sidelines in February when the NFL prohibited them from playing in the event at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.  The NFL, despite getting a fantasy sports exemption in the UIGEA, has publicly opposed the legalization of all things gambling, an opposition that apparently goes so far as to forbid players from playing in a legal tournament in a legitimate casino to raise money for the Starkey Hearing Foundation and Pros for Africa.  Interestingly, Adrian Peterson, one of the football players trying to participate, hosted a celebrity charity tournament two days before the Super Bowl.

8) PartyPoker Eliminates Tourney Fees – Many poker players, maybe even the majority of them, view online poker rooms as greedy entities who just want grab as much rake from our hard-earned pots as they possibly can.  But PartyPoker went the other way this summer, eliminating entry fees for multi-table tournaments for a limited period of time.  The cynic in me says this was just a loss leader strategy to attract more players and funnel them to cash games, but my inner eternal optimist wants to say PartyPoker was just being cool.  And the poker room is doing it again in January.

7) Emmitt Runs Over a Pro – It seems like there is a big upset in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship every year, and 2011 was no exception.  This year, the NFL’s all-time rushing leader, Emmitt Smith, defeated David Williams in the first round.  The fact that an upset happened isn’t surprising, it’s just that the football Hall of Famer has never been viewed as a celebrity who might be at all skilled at poker.  Other upsets have been produced by avid poker playing celebrities or at least by amateur qualifiers, but Smith was seen as basically a celeb who played for fun while not really knowing what he was doing.

6) Greg Raymer Leaves PokerStars – PokerStars, in addition to being the largest online poker room in the world, has perhaps been best known as the home to several World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champs.  Of all of them, 2004 champ Greg Raymer was arguably the most respected, viewed as a legitimately skilled poker player and the most well-spoken advocate for the game.  People associated Raymer with PokerStars and PokerStars with Raymer.  They were joined at the hip…or were they?  In late January, the two went their separate ways.  While Raymer addressed the situation on Two Plus Two, he never gave a specific reason for the decision.

5) WSOP Alive and Well – Many thought the combination of Black Friday and the struggling worldwide economy would break the World Series of Poker.  Not so.  As it turned out, the 2011 WSOP set the record for most entrants (75,672) and total prize pool ($191,999,010).  The Main Event was the third largest ever; with 6,865 entrants, it ranked behind only 2010 (7,319) and 2006 (8,773).

4) Phil Ivey Takes a Break – Arguably the best poker player in the world, Phil Ivey stopped playing poker for the bulk of 2011, highlighted by a self-imposed boycott of the World Series of Poker.  Frustrated by how Full Tilt was treating its players after Black Friday, Ivey announced that he did not feel right playing in the WSOP when so many Full Tilt customers could not because their funds were tied up at Full Tilt.  Ivey returned to the tournament poker scene in November at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau.

3) Kyl Softens on Poker – It isn’t quite the same as Megamind becoming a good guy, but Senator Jon Kyl, probably poker’s public enemy number one on Capitol Hill the last couple years, seemed to soften on poker in April.  On his website, he wrote that he would consider carve-outs in the law to allow for online poker as long as prohibitions against other forms of online gambling remained in place. This coming from a guy who wanted the UIGEA provisions enacted so badly that he held up President Obama’s Treasury appointments.

2) DoJ Reverses Course – Even though the Fifth District Court ruled in 2002 that the Wire Act of 1961 only applied to sports betting, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) didn’t seem to care and has always viewed online poker as illegal.  Just before Christmas, the DoJ changed its mind, announcing that the Wire Act does, in fact, only have to do with sports betting. What this means for online poker is still up in the air, but there is hope that this could serve as a boost towards federal regulation and legalization.

1) Full Tilt Stole from Players – Black Friday was obviously the biggest poker story of the year, but to many it wasn’t all that shocking that the other shoe finally dropped on some poker rooms (though the extent of the carnage was probably a big surprise).  Out of all the lunacy since April 15th, the biggest face melter was the revelation that the owners of Full Tilt Poker stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the site’s customers.  In September, the U.S. Attorney’s Office called Full Tilt “a global Ponzi scheme” and alleged that between April 2007 and April 2011, Full Tilt owners and Board members received almost $444 million in payouts from the company.  Much of this money has been alleged to come from player funds, not company operating funds.  At the time of the Black Friday indictments, Full Tilt owed players worldwide over $300 million, yet continued to accept deposits from players outside the U.S.  Internal e-mails by Howard Lederer and Ray Bitar were brought to light that showed ownership knew that the company only had a few million dollars on hand after April 15th and even though it had no ability to pay its customers, it continued to accept funds from them, telling everyone their funds were safe.

A PokerStars VIP Manager going by the screen name “PokerStarsCaleb” posted a call for action on the Two Plus Two message forum, asking forum members to come up with the idea for the world record.  There are two criteria for the record: it must be “poker authentic” with a preference towards online poker and it must be easy for the non-poker playing public to understand.

Caleb used Bertrand “ElkY” Grospelier’s recent record of “Most Online Poker Tables Played in One Hour,” in which he played 62 Sit-and-Go tournaments in a single hour while at the same time making a profit.  The thing is, the name of the record isn’t exactly congruous with what ElkY actually did.  That’s because to the average person, “Most Sit-and-Go’s in One Hour” is meaningless, as is the importance of the profitability requirement.  When people see “World’s Longest Hair” or “Most Consecutive Jump Ropes,” they understand that; they can visualize it without actually seeing it.  A record full of poker jargon has no meaning to most people.  Most Sit-and-Go’s?  What is that?

Thus, suggestions such as “Most Four-Bets Pre-Flop in One Hour” or “Highest VPIP While Making a Profit in One Hour” will not work.

PokerStars will reward the person who suggests the best record (as determined by PokerStars and Lew, one would assume) with a $215 entry into this weekend’s Sunday Million.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is a part of the European Poker Tour and is one of the most popular major live events every year.  The festivities begin at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas on Thursday, January 5th and conclude on Saturday, January 14th.  The $10,000 + $300 Main Event will run from January 7th through January 13th.

Randy Lew has been one of the most successful and admired online poker players for several years.  A member of Team PokerStars Online, “nanonoko” achieved Supernova Elite status four consecutive years, from 2007 through 2010.  He did so not by playing at nosebleed stakes, but rather by massively multi-tabling (read: 24 tables at one) mid-stakes tables, typically no higher than $5/$10 No-Limit Hold’em.  His quest for a fifth straight Supernova Elite was ruined by Black Friday, as he could no longer play on PokerStars from the United States.  Lew eventually moved to Vancouver and resumed his online career in September.

According to PokerTableRatings.com, Lew has won over $2.3 million playing over 5 million hands online since the end of August 2008.

Less than a month ago, Lew made up for his time missed online by winning the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau Main Event and almost half a million dollars.

The ten member voting panel consists of ESPN.com poker contributors Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, and Bernard Lee, Poker Road’s Court Harrington, Bluff magazine editor-in-chief Lance Bradley and managing editor Jessica Welman, ESPNdeportes.com poker editor Nahuel Ponce, PokerNews.com editor-in-chief Elaine Chaivarlis and the site’s tournament reporter Don Peters, and PocketFives.com’s Dan Cypra.

On the live tournament front, there was a lot of activity in October.  There were two European Poker Tour (EPT) stops, the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and a World Series of Poker Circuit stop.  The World Poker Tour’s World Poker Finals likely just missed the cut, as it ended on November 1st, even though it began in October.

The top four in the rankings – Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, Eugene Katchalov, and Ben Lamb – stayed the same.  Mercier and Seidel kept rolling, with three and two cashes at the WSOPE, respectively.  Neither Katchalov nor Lamb made any money in live tournaments during the month, but the voters don’t typically punish players for a slow month or two if they’ve been so hot prior to the drought (plus, Lamb had the November Nine to worry about).

The biggest riser was Shawn Buchanan, who debuted in the fifth spot of “The Nuts” rankings.  He cashed four times at the WSOPE, including a second place finish.  Don Peters commented on ESPN.com, “Seriously, if Buchanan doesn’t start getting the love and respect he deserves in poker, then I honestly will lose my mind. The kid has been crushing tournaments for years and 2011 is much of the same.”

Bertrand Grospellier moved up one spot to sixth on the back of a fifth place finish in the €3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout at the WSOPE and a fifth place finish in the £10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six Max High Roller event at EPT London.

Jake Cody, who debuted in the rankings in the tenth spot last week, moved up to seventh after a seventh place finish in the WSOPE Main Event.  Phil Hellmuth, who almost made a final table at the WSOPE, fell from fifth to eighth, probably more because of the success of Grospellier, Cody, and Buchanan than because of anything he himself didn’t do.

The final two players in the rankings are making their debuts.  Chris Moorman is ninth after finishing as the runner-up at the WSOPE Main Event.  As Dan Cypra wrote, “$7.4 million in tracked online earnings on PocketFives, a WSOPE main event runner-up finish, and two final tables at the 2011 WSOP in Vegas. It’s about time Moorman received some recognition from this panel.”

Sam Trickett, who rounds out the list, made a final table at both the WSOPE and EPT London, banking over $200,000 in total.

Dropping out of the rankings this month are Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, and Vanessa Selbst.

ESPN.com “The Nuts” Poker Rankings – October 2011

1.    Jason Mercier (1)
2.    Erik Seidel (2)
3.    Eugene Katchalov (3)
4.    Ben Lamb (4)
5.    Shawn Buchanan (NR)
6.    Bertrand Grospellier (7)
7.    Jake Cody (10)
8.    Phil Hellmuth (5)
9.    Chris Moorman (NR)
10.    Sam Trickett (NR)

That one player: the incomparable Phil Ivey.

The voters for “The Nuts” attempt to compile a list of the best poker players “at the moment,” meaning that while a player may have a fantastic reputation, if he hasn’t actually accomplished anything in a long time, he (or she) is not one of the “moment’s” best poker players.  Thus, you won’t see immortals like Johnny Chan or Doyle Brunson on the list.  For them, check out the Poker Hall of Fame.

All poker is considered, from tournaments to cash games, from live to online play.  On ESPN’s list, live tournament results tend to be the most highly considered simply because they are the most reported, though significant online results often find their way into the rankings.

The voting panel consists of ESPN.com poker producers Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, and Bernard Lee, Bluff magazine editor-in-chief Lance Bradley and managing editor Jessica Welman, ESPNdeportes.com poker editor Nahuel Ponce, Poker Road’s Court Harrington, PokerNews.com editor-in-chief Elaine Chaivarlis and the site’s tournament reporter Don Peters, and PocketFives.com’s Dan Cypra.

Ivey has not played poker for much of this year; he did not play in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) at all.  It was actually a wonder that he took so long to exit the rankings.  Wrote Feldman, “If on the first day we put out ‘The Nuts,’ you would’ve asked me the odds on Ivey coming off this list within its first three years, I would’ve said it wasn’t possible. The complete removal of Phil Ivey from this list for the first time ever highlights the view of the panel that Ivey has truly distanced himself from the game that he once dominated.”

The biggest riser in the rankings was Daniel Negreanu, who jumped from tenth to sixth on the strength of 15 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) cashes.  That was good for a third place finish on the WCOOP leaderboard.  Perhaps interestingly, Bertrand Grospellier cashed 13 times in the WCOOP and is currently second in the Bluff magazine Player of the Year race, yet did not move from his seventh spot on “The Nuts” list.

Entering the rankings for the first time is Jake Cody, who was recently named “Best Tournament Player” at the 2011 British Poker Awards.  This summer, he won his first World Series of Poker bracelet, becoming just the fourth person to capture poker’s Triple Crown: a WSOP bracelet, a World Poker Tour title, and a European Poker Tour title.

The complete “The Nuts” rankings are as follows (last month’s ranking in parentheses):

1.    Jason Mercier (1)
2.    Erik Seidel (2)
3.    Eugene Katchalov (3)
4.    Ben Lamb (4)
5.    Phil Hellmuth (5)
6.    Daniel Negreanu (10)
7.    Bertrand Grospellier (7)
8.    John Juanda (6)
9.    Vanessa Selbst (9)
10.    Jake Cody (NR)

The criteria for Poker Hall of Fame induction, according to the World Series of Poker website, are as follows:

•    A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
•    Played for high stakes
•    Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
•    Stood the test of time
•    Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.

Additionally, nominees must be at least 40 years of age, though the criteria on WSOP.com have not been updated to reflect this.  This rule is new in 2011, affectionately known as the “Chip Reese” rule, as it was instituted 20 years after the poker legend was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the age of 40.

Here are the nominees, in alphabetical order:

Annie Duke – Duke has been one of the highest profile female poker players for the better part of a decade, winning both a WSOP bracelet and the WSOP Tournament of Champions in 2004.  Her $4.2 million in live tournament earnings also includes her $500,000 win in the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.  Duke has also been an outspoken proponent for online poker and was the runner-up on the 2009 season of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Barry Greenstein – the “Robin Hood of Poker,” aside from being a great player, has made his mark by donating all of his tournament winnings to charity, while playing cash games to support himself.  Greenstein has won over $7.5 million in his tournament career and countless more money at the cash tables.  He has won three WSOP bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championships.

Jennifer Harman-Traniello – known in high stakes circles as arguably the best female cash game player of all time, she has also won two WSOP bracelets and has approximately $2.6 million in career live tournament earnings.

Linda Johnson – one of the favorites to be elected, Johnson has not done a whole lot in tournaments since winning a WSOP bracelet in 1997, but she has been one of the biggest contributors to the game over the last few decades.  Johnson was the publisher of CardPlayer magazine before selling it to Barry Shulman and the co-founder of the Tournament Directors Association.  She has been a prolific poker writer, is an organizer for CardPlayer Cruises, and helped found the charitable organization PokerGives.org in 2009.  Mike Sexton dubbed her the “First Lady of Poker.”

John Juanda – one of the most accomplished tournament players of all time, Juanda is the owner of five WSOP bracelets, including one this year.  He is 6th on the all-time money list with almost $12 million in lifetime earnings, which doesn’t even include what he’s won at the cash tables, where he is one of the most respected players in the world.

Marcel Luske – “The Flying Dutchman” has been relatively quiet in terms of tournament results in recent years, but with just about $4 million career earnings, he has definitely made his mark.  He is perhaps best known for his upbeat antics at the table, which include singing and wearing his sunglasses upside down, as well as his 10th place finish in the 2004 WSOP Main Event, a final table which saw David Williams, Luske’s protégé, finish second.

Jack McClelland – Tournament Director extraordinaire, has run the show for both the WSOP and WPT.

Tom McEvoy – won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 1983, defeating Rod Peate heads-up in what was the longest heads-up match in WSOP history until 2006.  McEvoy was the first Main Event winner to earn his seat via a satellite.  He has won a total of four WSOP bracelets in his career, but might be more highly thought of in poker circles for his writing some of the most highly respected poker books ever published.

Scotty Nguyen – one of the most colorful characters to ever grace the poker table, he won the 1998 WSOP Main Event, the 2008 $50,000 WSOP HORSE event, and a WPT title in 2006.  All told, Nguyen has over $11.4 million in career tournament earnings.

Huck Seed – if you like the tall, silent type, Huck Seed is the man for you.  Many forget that he won the WSOP Main Event in 1996, one of his four WSOP bracelets.  He won the 2009 National Heads-Up Championship and 2010 WSOP Tournament of Champions.  Seed is also known for the litany of crazy prop bets that he has both won and lost.

A panel of 17 media members and the 18 living Poker Hall of Fame members will now decide which, if any, of the nominees will be members of the Class of 2011.  The announcement will be made later this month, with the induction taking place during the November Nine festivities.

The auction itself includes the following (stats as of 6/14):

• The pokernewsdaily.com domain name.
• The PokerNewsDaily brand name (there are no registered trademarks)
• All of the content (articles, site reviews, player profiles, videos, etc) on the site. There are over 5,300 posts, over 3200 comments and over 3100 registered users.
• The PokerNewsDaily facebook page with 236 likes.
• The PokerNewsDaily twitter account with 6174 followers and 283 listed.
• Any other data contained in the PND database such as registered users, external click tracking data, etc. Nothing of substance or potential usefulness will be deleted prior to transfer.
• The full customized WordPress install including the custom theme and the configured plugins.
• The original PSD for the theme (which was purchased in a contest on 99designs) and the .AI file for the logo (which was purchased in a separate contest on 99designs).
• The PokerNewsDaily Google Apps account which includes our support@pokernewsdaily.com email address and several years of emails. This account also includes our Feedburner feed with 1552 subscribers (813 of those are email subscribers via FeedBurner).
• The PokerNewsDaily Google Analytics account which has data going back to July 24th, 2009. This account has the Google Apps account as an administrator so you can simply delete our access to it once the deal has closed.

However, the auction does not include existing affiliate accounts, writer contracts or a non-compete from PND’s parent company, Protos Marketing. The full auction listing includes additional information and the full terms.

In addition to PokerNewsDaily, Protos has also put up PokerTerms.com for auction. PokerTerms is a leading online poker dictionary with over 1200 term definitions and some very high Google rankings for highly-searched poker terms. PokerTerms has attracted an additional 13 bids and significant attention.

You can view the auctions here: PokerNewsDaily Auction on eBay and PokerTerms Auction on eBay. If you sign into your eBay account you can add the auctions to your watchlist for easy retrieval on Friday and Saturday.

Both auctions will end on Saturday afternoon (in the US) or Saturday evening (in Europe). Even if you aren’t a potential bidder, it will certainly be interesting to see how the auctions play out this weekend. Stay tuned!