Poker Guru Blog

Ever since the virtual version of online poker became a hobby (or profession) for millions of players across the globe, the state of the game has changed enormously. From a handful of options to endless menus filled with poker variants of all shapes and sizes, online poker is now a glowing a vibrant industry.

iPoker has merged the iPoker 1 and the iPoker 2 networks in off-peak hours since December 10. There was no prior notice and it is unknown how long the situation will remain like this or whether a full merger can be expected in the future.

Last week the final big tournament series of the year was organized at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the two biggest events were the $100,00 buy-in WPT Alpha8 Las Vegas and the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Andrew "luckychewy" Lichtenberger defeated an extremely tough final table to win the Alpha8, while Mohsin Charania overcame a 9-1 chip deficit to claim his second WPT Main Event title in two years.

Full Tilt has released the schedule for MiniFTOPS XXVII which will run between January 4 - 18 and feature a guaranteed prizepool of $1.25 million. The schedule is exactly the same as it was for the recently finished FTOPS, only in the MiniFTOPS the buy-ins will be divided by 10. The buy-ins start from $5 and the Main Event will have a $75 buy-in and a $400,000 guaranteed prize pool. 

The Microgaming network has conducted a research based on 175 million hands and concluded that winners win more while losing players lose their money much quicker at anonymous tables compared to regular tables.

Matt "All In At 420" Stout recently posted the following picture on his Twitter, from the charity poker tournament of the One Step Closer Foundation. The event was a big success with many poker and mainstream celebrities showing up for the good cause. 

Yesterday was a big day at EPT Prague, as both the €5,300 Main Event as well as the €10,300 High Roller played down to the winner. In the Main Event, nobody could stop Stephen Graner, who came into the day as chipleader and never released his spot, while Andrey Zaichenko won the €10,300 High Roller for €448,000.

PokerStars has officially announced that in the beginning of 2015 they are going to withdraw the PokerStars 6 software and players will only be able to play on the recently introduced PokerStars 7 client. In other news, they have added an All-in Equity display to both clients that shows the winning percentages of hands after players have gone all-in.

Day 5 of the EPT Prague Main Event started with 22 players in the hunt for the €969,000 first prize with Fabio Sperling in the lead, and with several big names still in the tournament including Vanessa Selbst, Davidi Kitai and Eureka Prague Main Event winner Balazs Botond. By the end of the day, there were 7 players left and American Stephen Graner amassed a massive chip lead. Watch the live stream with revealed hole cards below!

Day 4 of the EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event started with 61 players in the hunt for the €969,000 first prize. By the end of the day, there were 22 players left, with Vanessa Selbst and Davidi Kitai still alive, check out the live stream from Day 5 in the article.

Eugene Katchalov posted the following picture on his Twitter, which shows the huge excitment of the money bubble at the €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event. Busting in a AA vs. A-K cooler is a cruel way to exit any tournament, but it is even more painful to do it on a €8,970 bubble after almost 3 days of playing poker.

Mickey "mement_mori" Petersen is one of the most accomplished online tournament players, and in a recent interview with PokerListings, he talked about his daily routine, online security, and about Scandinavian players. You can read the excerpt from the interview below.

On Sunday, Day 3 of the EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event started with 200 players and with the lead of Brian Altman. By the end of the day, the players reached the 159 paying spots and the field dwindled down to 61 players. The chipleader is the 21-year old Swedish pro Simon Mattsson, you can check out the live stream from Day 4 in the article.

On December 11, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) have raided Amaya Gaming's Montreal offices. Several other companies, such as investment bank Canaccord Genuinity and insurance firm Manulife Financial have also been the target of the ongoing investigation.

The final table of the EPT Prague €50,000 Super High Roller started with the lead of Leonid Markin, and the Russian player managed to turn his chiplead into a €771,360 score, the biggest of his career. He defeated a tough final table consisting of Stephen Chidwick, Paul Newey, Juha Helppi, Ivan Soshnikov, Brian Roberts and Vladimir Troyanovskiy.