Poker News

The news of Amaya purchasing PokerStars parent company Rational Group almost instantly gave rise to concerns among players regarding the future of the market leader room. Steve ‘PokerStars Steve’ Day responded to counter these voices.

Mark and Isai Scheinberg

On 12 June, it was officially announced that Amaya Gaming had purchased the Rational Group for $4.9 billion, meaning the Ongame parent company is now the owner of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. The deal has been in the centre of discussion ever since in the poker community with a wide range of questions arisen and concerns voiced. Rumour has even had it that PokerStars would stop accepting players from Canada.

12 players survived until Day 3 of WSOP Event #30 $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8-or-Better. In the lead was Eric Kurtzman with 490,000 in chips, ahead of online MTT ace Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson, who sat back behind a stack of 356,000.

The eight-handed Final Table was formed after Matthew Kelly, David Brooker, Robert Goldfarb and six times WSOP champion Ted Forrest got eliminated. In addition to Anderson, Jimmy Fricke and Joe Tehan were also at the table, to name a few notables.

As of 16 June, iPoker discontinues a range of cash game tables and gametypes unpopular with users to increase the liquidity of the more frequented games.

The iPoker network, home to skins like Everest Poker, Betfair and Winner Poker, has announced the implementation of a range of substantial changes to its cash game offering to increase its liquidity, effective today, 16 June. Most importantly, high stakes and anonymous tables will be completely discontinued: NL1,000 remains the highest limit available. Additionally, shallow and deep ante tables are also withdrawn from the heads-up and full ring offerings.

Day 3 of WSOP Event #21 $1,000 No Limit Hold’em saw 16 players returning with November Nine member Bob Bounahra in the lead ahead the likes of Thayer ‘THAY3R’ Rasmussen, Dominik Nitsche and Mickey ‘mement_mori’ Petersen.

The seat draw of the nine-handed Final Table was as follows:

A collection of PokerStars-related news has surfaced late last week. The room has closed and then reopened the accounts of a pair of renowned pros, meanwhile announcing a staggering WCOOP Main Event prize pool guarantee.

PokerStars has recently announced that a prize pool larger than ever will be guaranteed in this year’s World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event: at least $10,000,000 will be up for grabs. In 2012, the event offered $5,000,000 and in 2013 $8,000,000. The $5,200 WCOOP Main Event kicks off on 28 September this year, yet no additional information has been revealed, not even a full schedule. The announcement comes with the launch of the WCOOP ME online satellites, running from as little as $1.65 (Round 1).

After three lost WSOP heads-ups, including this year’s $10,000 Limit 27TD event, Justin Bonomo has finally scooped in the coveted gold bracelet.

10 players qualified for Day 2 of WSOP Event #11 $1,500 6-max No Limit Hold’em with Mike Sowers in the lead; the holder of numerous WSOP, WPT and EPT ITM finishes had 1,413,000 in chips to his name. He was closely followed by this year’s Event #6 $ 10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw runner-up Bonomo with 1,294,000 and an ambition to finally score a title after three 2nd finishes in the series. WSOP 2013 Event #18 $1,000 No Limit Hold’em winner Taylor Paur came in third with 1,120,000.

Jonathan Dimmig became a millionaire by winning this year’s WSOP Event #8 $1,500 Millionaire Maker, beating the odds.

On Day 4 of WSOP Event #8 $1,500 Millionaire Maker, the nine-handed final table took place. Chipleader Stephen Graner was the favourite to win the life changing sum: with a stack of 12,005,000, he had three times as many chips as chip counts runner-up James Duke. The Seat Draw was as follows:

According to the latest news, a fight erupted between five times WSOP title holder Jeff Lisandro and WPT winner Brandon Cantu in a hotel hallway at the WSOP over some unpaid debts.

After the rooms of a number of players had been broken into at the very beginning of this year’s WSOP, yet another scandal is here: five times WSOP champion Jeff Lisandro engaged two times bracelet holder and WPT champion Brandon Cantu in a hallway.

A whole range of WSOP 2014 events have been wrapped up during the weekend. Here are the highlights of the finales of Event #4 $1,000 NLHE and Event #5 $10,000 2-7 Triple Draw Championship.

WSOP Event #4 $1,000 NLHE saw 2,224 entrants accumulating $2,001,600 in prize money. By Day 3, only 12 players remained and five times WSOPC title holder Kyle Cartwright was in the lead. He was accompanied by WSOP 2008 Main Event 4th finisher Ylon Schwartz, among others.

A whole range of WSOP 2014 events have been wrapped up during the weekend. Here are the highlights of the finales of Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max and Event #3 $1,000 PLO.

Only the final heads-up remained for Day 4 of WSOP Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE tournament with Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mo returning to the table. What made the clash even more interesting was a previous tweet from Mo, calling Selbst “so bad” after she eliminated Mo’s close friend Ryan Fee.

On the 4th day of this year’s WSOP, Event #1 got concluded, Vanessa Selbst made it to the final heads-up in Event #2 and Steve ‘MrSmokey1’ Billirakis leads the Final Table in Event #3.

An unplanned Day 3 for WSOP 2014 Event #1 $500 Casino Employees NLHE had to be introduced after the heads-up could not be concluded within the 10 blind levels time frame per day established for the series. As such, Roland Reparejo and Corey Emery returned and resumed playing on Level 23 (5,000/20,000/40,000). In only six hands, the fate of the first bracelet of this year’s festival was decided: Reparejo limped from the Button, Emery shoved and Reparejo insta-called.

The field of WSOP 2014 Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE reached on Day 2 the 16 ITM finishes, with top pros getting eliminated along the way. Meanwhile, Event #3 $1,000 PLO kicked off with a similarly strong pool.

60 players returned on Day 2 of WSOP 2014 Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE, including the very best of the game around, like chipleader Vanessa Slebst or Brian Rast, Michael Mizrachi, Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates, Ravi Raghavan, John Juanda, Stephen Chidwick and Aaron Jones, just to list some of the Top 10. The field aimed at reaching the 16 ITM finishes, playing at 6-max tables. First out was PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, whose jacks got cracked by Kevin Song’s A-Ks hand. The Canadian did not take it hard, commenting “First flip of the series, yo.”

The European Poker Tour was born in Barcelona, Spain and it returns to the city to celebrate the 100th stop of the series between 16 and 27 August this year. A total of 43 events await players.

The single most important poker series of the Old Continent, the European Poker Tour (EPT) celebrates a major jubilee with the start of the 11th season. In august, Barcelona hosts the kick-off festival of EPT XI, which is also the 100th stop in the history of the Tour. That the occasion would be an excuse for a larger-than-life poker festival was announced in January; now, all the details have been published with the release of the EPT Barcelona 2014 schedule.

On 27 May, the first two events of the 45th WSOP launched: players of the $500 Casino Employees NLHE are already in the money, while Vanessa Selbst leads the remaining 60 in the $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE, featuring some of the biggest stars.

WSOP Event #1 $500 Casino Employees NLHE saw 876 entrants and a prize pool of $394,200. The tournament was kicked off WSOP director Ty Stewart, whose speech culminated in a money cannon being fired, covering the floor with $10,000 cash in $1 notes.

American multi-table tournament specialist Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson has been hunting for the SCOOP Player of the Series title since the start of the series in 2009. Finally, he has succeeded.

Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson has won the Player of the Series title of the 2014 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). Since 2009, the introduction of the festival, the US pro playing from Mexico has been determined to grab the title. It has eluded him for years, but not anymore.