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Many televised poker programs in the U.S. were casualties of Black Friday, but the popular PokerStars Big Game is set to return next week on PokerStars.tv. The show, which is hosted by Joe Stapleton and Scott Huff, will be broadcast every weekday at Noon ET on PokerStars.tv for the next six weeks, starting June 27… Read more »
Representative Joe Barton of Texas introduced a bill Friday that would allow for the legalization of online poker in the United States. The bill, named the “Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection, and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2011,” would allow individual states to choose whether they want to allow residents access to online poker rooms.… Read more »
Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire is among at least 11 people being sued by trustees for his winnings in a series of high-stakes Hollywood poker games, Star magazine reported Wednesday. Maguire, as well as former High Stakes Poker host Gabe Kaplan and professional poker player Dan Bilzerian, have been accused of taking winnings from Brad Ruderman,… Read more »
So who predicted that the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) would be on a record-breaking pace at its halfway point? You did? Liar. After the United States online poker market imploded as the result of the U.S. Department of Justice indictments of eleven principals at Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker, the WSOP… Read more »
Considering he has a record eleven World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelets, the old saying “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” wouldn’t quite be appropriate, but it must feel like that for Phil Hellmuth this summer. Early Tuesday morning, Hellmuth fell just shy of his twelfth bracelet for the second time at the 2011… Read more »
According to the Washington, D.C. Insider website TheHill.com, Rep. Joe Barton (R – Texas) could introduce his new online poker bill as early as this week. The bill will start in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Barton is the chariman emeritus and senior ranking Republican. It is thought that it will be… Read more »
Hall of Famer Mike Sexton might best be known for his unparalleled wit as the voice of the World Poker Tour. But at the core Sexton is a poker player. He’s proven his knack for playing cards for more than three decades, and this week he was inches away from claiming his second ever World… Read more »
The vast changes made to the broadcast of the World Poker Tour during its ninth season are apparently paying off. According to a WPT press release this week, FSN’s coverage of the popular program has increased in ratings by 35 percent over last season, with an average number of weekly viewers at 669,000. The WPT… Read more »
With titles on the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour to his credit, along with numerous online accomplishments, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is considered one of the most talented No Limit Hold ’em tournament players on the planet. The Team PokerStars Pro has accrued more than $7.5 million in live earnings, plus another $2 million… Read more »
It wasn’t exactly a tightly kept secret, but the team at PokerTracker officially let the cat out of the bag Monday with the announcement PokerTracker 4 (PT4). Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, PokerTracker will launch public beta testing of its new release late in the third quarter of 2011, with commercial sales scheduled for the… Read more »
We are not going to tell you to get your hopes up because, as we all know by now, lawmakers have a knack for inflicting soul crushing blows upon the poker community, but it looks like there may be a glimmer of light on the online poker legalization front. A glimmer. Nobody overreact, please. As… Read more »
The story at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) over the weekend was the incredible battle between all-time greats John Juanda and Phil Hellmuth in the $10,000 2-7 No-Limit Draw Lowball Championship. It would have been interesting enough had it just revolved around Juanda winning his fifth gold bracelet, but the attention of the poker… Read more »
Phil Hellmuth was so close to winning his 12th bracelet on Saturday night you could virtually hear the cork pop on the Dom Pérignon. Hellmuth absolutely punished the final table of the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship to reach heads up play with another legend of the game, John Juanda. The “Poker Brat”… Read more »
There are several fascinating storylines going into the final day of the World Series of Poker $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. The stacked field of nine features two former WSOP Main Event champions, a former WSOP Europe Main Event Champion, and the winner of last year’s 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. Eight of the nine remaining… Read more »
Russia’s Viacheslav Zhukov entered the $10,000 Omaha High-Low Split Championship this week as one of only a few unfamiliar faces in the tournament. But the 22-year-old poker pro, playing in his first World Series of Poker, never felt threatened playing in one of the most star-studded fields of the WSOP. Zhukov bested 201 talented players… Read more »
A magistrate judge in New York has denied bail to one of the 11 men indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on Black Friday. Judge James Cott refused bail to 53-year-old Ira Rubin, one of the alleged payment processors that assisted PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker in “tricking” banks by disguising payments as transactions… Read more »
Remember that scene in the movie Rounders when Mike McDermott cleans up at the Binghamton police officers’ poker game (until Worm comes along and ruins everything)? Well, if you live in Maryland and lost money when the United States federal government indicted two online gambling companies in May, seizing ten domain names along with player… Read more »
There was no shortage of action at the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) on Monday, as three bracelets were clinched in three entirely different events. To be fair, the final days of two of the tournaments were actually started on Sunday, but the bracelets were won after the clock struck midnight, so we’re going… Read more »
As we approach the two month mark since online poker’s Black Friday, most of the people named in the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) indictments have remained silent. A couple have pleaded guilty and a couple have made short statements proclaiming that they have violated no laws, but nobody has claimed to not have been… Read more »
Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov captured his first World Series of Poker bracelet Saturday by winning the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud title in Las Vegas. The 30-year-old pro from New York collected $122,909 in prize money and removed his name from the list of the best players in the world that have fallen short of poker’s… Read more »
If you didn’t know the name Jake Cody before now, it’s time to start paying attention. The 22-year-old from Rochdale, England accomplished an extraordinary feat late Friday evening, taking down the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship at the World Series of Poker to complete the last leg of poker’s Triple Crown. Cody has now won events at… Read more »
It was a busy day at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Thursday as a total of six events were spread around the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas. On top of that, the WSOP announced the inception of a $1 million buy-in tournament starting next year that will benefit One Drop, a foundation which… Read more »
The poker community was stunned this week to find out that the game’s biggest star, Phil Ivey, was boycotting the 2011 World Series of Poker. Ivey, speaking publicly for the first time since Black Friday, released a statement on his Facebook page late Tuesday evening that faulted Full Tilt Poker’s “painful” slowness in returning player… Read more »
With all the hand wringing over the collapse of online poker in the United States since Black Friday, one big thing has been largely ignored by the poker community as a whole: the 42nd Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP). The largest and most famous poker festival in the world kicked off Tuesday as thousands… Read more »
Over the last few days, rumblings could be heard in the online poker community that Full Tilt Poker was going to make some sort of announcement on May 30th. People’s hopes were raised, thinking that this may mean that Full Tilt was ready to start sending payments out to U.S. customers, who have had their… Read more »
