Poker News

On 27 May, the single most important poker festival of the year, the 45th World Series of Poker launches.

They shuffle up and deal in two events: as usual, the $500 Casino Employees NLHE kick off the schedule, yet the other event is a novelty: the $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE. A total of 65 bracelet events are offered, three tournaments more than last year. The venue of the festival is the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, as usual. With daily satellites, complementary deep stack events and cash games, the non-stop action is guaranteed for about 50 days.

Antanas Guoga, better known in the poker community as Tony G, has been elected a Member of the European Parliament from the list of the Liberals Movement of the Republic of Lithuania.

In October 2013, Tony G announced on his Facebook page that he would participate in the European elections this year as a candidate, representing the Liberals Movement of the Republic of Lithuania. As he wrote, his country needed a change and his party was the most capable of delivering it. Tony G brings in his experience as a businessman and successful poker player (his total live tournament winnings exceed $5 million), which he believes can assist him in his political career.

Ongame network parent company Amaya Gaming is rumoured to be preparing to gain control over PokerStars, enabling the latter to finally grab a share of the US market.

According to CalvinAyre, the market leader online poker room PokerStars and Ongame network owner Amaya Gaming may fuse in the near future. Stock exchange movements seem to support the rumours, as Amaya shares have increased significantly in recent days: from $7.71 per share on Monday, on Friday they closed at $10.25.

PokerTracker 4 has extended its partnership deal with the European Poker Tour, remaining one of the sponsors of the festival in the next series. This is the second year the renowned developer teams up with the European series.

Due to the renewed contract between EPT and PokerTracker, the utility software company remains to be designated as “the official poker tracking software of The European Poker Tour.” Representatives of the developer, the product of which is in its fourth generation and ever popular among players, will be present at the EPT Season 11 venues to promote PT4 and to demonstrate how it works to players.

WSOP has just announced that all non-US players seeking to play the WSOP or play online at WSOP.com will be asked to present a second form of identification besides their passport, as proof of their residency.

In fact, the new regulation is based on federal law and affects all companies involved in major money transactions, to help prevent money laundering. WSOP Media Director Seth Palansky has issued the following statement on the matter:

WSOP has introduced a range of modifications in its rules, including allowing playing online during the World Series in Las Vegas.

On 27 May, the 2014 World Series of Poker launches and the usual press conference to prepare the festival has taken place just recently. Organisers have used the opportunity to make a number of announcements, the most interesting of which arguably being that playing online will be allowed to players during the live events.

Full Tilt Poker has recently updated its poker client and introduced casino slot games to a wider audience, including titles developed by Leander Games. The mobile offer will be delivered by NetEnt.

In January, Full Tilt Poker started to introduce its casino games on certain markets. First, it experimentally launched its blackjack and roulette offerings, before contracting a more experienced developer, Leander Games, to provide titles for the Rational Group skin. Following the agreement, the Full Tilt Casino portfolio expanded further with popular games like Megadeth, Ali Baba or Queen of Thrones. The introduction of casino games in the poker client has first been tested on selected markets, including the United Kingdom.

Players from the United States who had previously moved to Canada or Mexico have found their 888Poker accounts closed and their funds reimbursed. The room has not yet provided a public official statement on the case.

Apparently, 888Poker has banned US players who had previously moved from the States to Canada or Mexico. Player reports stated that American citizens playing from either of the two neighbouring countries have been sent emails, informing them of the move and providing instructions to be able to access their funds. Apart from the messages sent to players, no official statement from 888Poker has arrived.

Renowned Liverpool FC forward Luis Suárez, nicknamed ‘Cannibal’, joins 888Poker as brand ambassador.

One of the best soccer players around, Liverpool FC forward Luis Suárez has become a brand ambassador to 888Poker, as announced at an official press conference yesterday. Uruguayan Suárez started his career at Nacional Montevideo and entered the adult league at the age of 18 in 2005, scoring 12 times in 34 matches. For the next season, he was signed by Groningen in the Netherlands, where he scored 15 goals in 37 games.

Daniel Negreanu says he or Phil Ivey is to win at least one golden bracelet at this year’s WSOP. They are offering a bet with odds of 1:1 on wagers of $5,000 to $1,000,000.

Six times WSOP champion Daniel Negreanu has been owning live tournaments recently: in the fourth consecutive year, he has won over $1,000,000 in total: in 2011, he scored $1,534,367, in 2012 $1,690,020, in 2013 $3,208,630 and this year, he has already racked up $1,701,763 in live winnings. Additionally, the Canadian won the Player of the Year title from both CardPlayer and Bluff and finished 2nd in the contest of GPI, just behind Ole Schemion.

Full Tilt Poker’s Micro Turbo Online Poker Series (MTOPS) kicks off on 25 May with Days 1A-1N already underway for the Event #1 $3.30 NLH Turbo Multi-Day Tournament. All 75 events of the series are turbo and multi-entry tournaments.

Full Tilt Poker launches the MTOPS with $1,000,000 in guaranteed prize money with at least $400,000 up for grabs in the multi-day $15 Main Event. Two additional tournaments have multiple Day 1s: $3.30 Event #1 and $5.50 Event #37 and the former offers no less than 15 of them, already underway, while the latter and the Main Event both feature nine.

Both in terms of the international market and including the regulated ones, Full Tilt Poker is not far from losing its Top 5 position on the online cash game traffic list.

Despite constantly introduced new features, like the Take It Down promotion, the Flipout Tournaments before that, or a planned venture into the online casino market, Full Tilt has been less and less able to maintain its player pool and is slowly getting taken over by PokerStars Italy as well as Bodog on the international market. The Top 5 position of the renowned room is, therefore, now in definite danger in terms of average online cash game traffic.

Former poker prodigy and scandal villain Jose ‘Girah’ Macedo has recently emerged in the news for the first time since 2011. The 21-year-old Portuguese has been engaged in a successful cleaning business in the UK.

Jose ‘Girah’ Macedo had gained fame as a wonder kid of poker before becoming the bad guy in one of the loudest scandal in the history of online poker. The ex-Lock Poker Pro, or the “Portuguese poker prodigy” as many would call him at the time, got caught cheating first in May 2011: he dominated the field in the Lock Poker Challnege and won the event before getting banned for multi-accounting. Another player had been proven to use his account during the challenge.

Molly Bloom has hosted illegal highs takes poker games with the participation of the likes of Hollywood superstars Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In 2013, 34 people have been prosecuted on charges of conducting illegal sports betting and poker; according to the lawsuit, which contains 27 counts, the syndicate organising these games has made tens of millions of dollars and has been in direct connection with the circles of Russian organised crime. The defendants included recognised poker pros like WPT champion Vadim Trincher, WSOP title holder Abe Mosseri and Justin ‘BoostedJ’ Smith.

Recreational players are targeted in the latest promotion announced by Full Tilt Poker. The Take It Down offer rewards post-flop pots won, regardless of pot size.

In their latest cash game promotion, Full Tilt Poker aims to reward recreational players for the number of hands played – and pot won – rather than the size of the pots or other aspects of the game. Running from 9 to 18 May, a bonus prize pool of $18,000 will be distributed among the top twenty players of each of two leaderboards, low and high.