First woman final tabler recorded at WSOP

June 6, 2011

The 42nd World Series of Poker currently running in Las Vegas delivered more firsts on Day 5 with poker pro, singer and reality TV contestant Maria Ho becoming the first woman to make a final table at the Series, and Eugene Katchalov securing his first gold WSOP bracelet. Ho fought her way through a star-studded […]

Players flock to $1k WSOP event

June 5, 2011

Industry observers have been waiting for the first of the low ($1000) buy-in events at this year’s World Series of Poker in the hope that it might give an insight into how the blitz on internet poker in the US has impacted this prestigious event. On Saturday the first of the low budget competitions, event […]

Brilliant Brit wins WSOP NLHE Heads Up event

June 4, 2011

The 22-year-old Brit online and live tournament player Jake Cody proved yet again that he is a formidable opponent when he took down the World Series of Poker $25 000 buy-in Heads Up NLHE Championship event, besting a some 128 top players culminating in runner up Yevgeniy Timoshenko. The young Brit’s latest victory, which gave […]

The wages of sin are… more wages!

June 3, 2011

Black Friday has proved profitable for county police forces assisting US federal authorities in their investigations into online gambling and subsequent cash and asset confiscations, it appears. The Baltimore Sun reported this week that the Anne Arundel County Police Department has hit the jackpot – getting nearly a half-million dollars for working with federal agencies […]

Online poker network to bar new US players

June 3, 2011

The US-facing Merge Poker Network, which has so far continued to accept US action despite the depredations of US enforcement authorities, has reportedly halted new US player signups with effect from today (June 3). Although no official confirmation has been released by the company, the ban on new signups is widely known and follows a […]

WSOP launches a serious buy-in poker event

June 3, 2011

The World Series of Poker has announced plans to stage a card tournament next year at an unprecedented buy-in of $1 million. WSOP officials said Thursday that the event would have a no-limit Texas Hold ?em format and would be branded The Big One for One Drop, a reference to the Series’s charity initiative with […]

Plenty of action at the WSOP

June 3, 2011

The World Series of Poker continued to provide plenty of action on the second day of its commencement in Las Vegas, with the Casino Employees event reaching a final table but not finishing as scheduled. Officials declared the event, at ten levels, should spill over into the following day with four players still in contention […]

Pokerstars ups the ante again

June 3, 2011

Pokerstars again appears to be attacking the non-US online poker markets aggressively with doubled up prize pools on two of its Sunday flagship competitions. The $215 buy-in Sunday Million tournament this weekend features a guaranteed prize pool of one million dollars, and the $215 buy-in Sunday Warm-Up event now sports a $500,000 guarantee. ?The first […]

Power Poker nixes new US players

June 3, 2011

The latest online poker operator to bar new US player signups is Power Poker, a Malta-licensed and EU-based operation on the Cake network which was founded in 2009. This week the site displayed a notice advising: “Due to recent movements by the U.S. government concerning online poker, PowerPoker is no longer accepting new U.S. players. […]

Online poker market declines 18 percent over past year

June 3, 2011

The independent online poker monitoring site Pokerscout had depressing news this week, reporting that the total worldwide online poker market has declined by 18 percent over the past year, and has been shaken by the events of Black Friday and Blue Monday. The monitoring site gives a few examples of the impact of this reduction […]