Poker Guru Blog

Petter ‘NorthugJr’ Northug was playing $50/$100 Pot Limit Omaha during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Northug is one of the most successful Norwegian cross country skiers ever: the two times Olympic champion won the 50 km classical mass start and freestyle team sprint in Vancouver in 2010, in addition to his 11 world championship titles. The 28-year-old ace was a member of the Norwegian team in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and, while not achieving outstanding results this time, he managed to get some eyebrows raised by his pastime activity.

The States of Nevada and Delaware have struck the first ever Multi State Internet Gaming deal, which allows operators to pool their player liquidity across state borders.

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed an agreement between the two US states that makes poker history: the Multi State Internet Gaming deal allows operators on the two regulated markets to pool their player liquidity.

Eight years ago, PokerStars organised its largest weekly major tournament for the first time. On 2 March, they celebrate the anniversary with an $8,000,000 guaranteed prize pool.

PokerStars makes a habit of celebrating anniversaries in a larger than life fashion, which, of course, makes players happy in turn. On 2 March, the room offers yet another incredible tournament: on its 8th birthday, flagship weekly major event Sunday Million is featuring an $8,000,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The buy-in is $200+$15 as usual, which means a minimum of 40,000 players need to participate if the tournament is not to have an overlay. Talking about the undisputed market leader, it still cannot be taken for granted to happen, although it is most likely to; last year, over 50,000 users registered. Participants can earn their seats through a wide range of qualifiers from $1 to $33.

Apparently, the Winter Olypmics have gotten Daniel Negreanu thinking as he came up with the idea of a Poker Olympics with the participation of six countries.

While a lot of countries with little to no snow throughout the year are represented at the Winter Olypmics, the games are obviously most popular with states where winter sports are second nature to most. Canadian poker pro Daniel Negreanu is accordingly enthusiastic about them and they have even given him the idea of a Poker Olympics.

The streets of Kiev are a combat zone once again as thousands of protesters clash with the riot police in the direct vicinity of Russian Poker Tour venue Khreschatyk Club.

Russian Poker Tour Kiev 2014 Day 1A

On 17 February, the events of the Kiev stop of the Russian Poker Tour kicked off; even though the Ukrainian capital had seen violent riots, the three weeks of relative peace convinced organizers they could hold the event undisturbed. Players obviously expected to be able to relax and win big, yet they are now more interested in getting out of the club unscathed.

The iPoker network has become unable to maintain its operation on the regulated Spanish market; leading skin Poker770 announced its withdrawal as of 1 March.

The failure of the segregated markets to meet preliminary expectations has been reported on several occasions; player numbers keep dropping in Spain, Franc and Italy alike and operators find themselves in an increasingly difficult situation. While their incomes are diminishing, their taxes and fees are not; as a result, less and less of them are able to remain in business on these markets.

Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates won the WPT Alpha8 High Roller Johannesburg event for $500,000, besting a field of only nine players.

This weekend, the Johannesburg stop of the WPT $100,000 Alpha8 High Roller series took place at the Emperors Palace Casino. Three stops had been held before, all with at least 20 participants; this time, however, only nine players entered, essentially turning the event into a high stakes SNG with an illustrious line-up: Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Cates, Jason Mercier, Max Altergott, Philipp Gruissem, Erik Seidel, Jeff Gross and South African businessman Kinesh Pather sat around the table.

Become a real poker pro and make their decisions in this latest poker coaching application.

A poker coaching site with a difference has launched recently; although few will become a true professional based on the information available on it, 1to5.com offers a unique way to both entertain and educate by making it available to all to act in the name of one of the superstars of poker in real spots. The site recreates hands actually played by the participants in one of the most renowned tournaments, like those of the WPT, WSOP, EPT and Aussie Millions series, and cash game shows, including Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker and the PartyPoker Big Game. Players get to make decisions in key spots well played hands.

ARJEL has fined MyBet operator Personal Exchange Limited €300,000, the largest amount ever in France since the regulation of the market.

Even though the French online gaming regulator ARJEL has not appointed a new head since the resignation of Jean-Francois Vilotte over the decision of the French National Assembly not to support the amendment of the law regulating the market in order to be able to open a common one, the regulatory body has been operating actively. News of this has even reached the French mainstream media, which reports that three unlicensed online poker rooms have been fined by the Paris Municipal Court after ARJEL had prosecuted them.

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker parent company Rational Group has confirmed its interest in expanding to the online sports betting market.

For years, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have exclusively been offering online poker but now, parent company Rational Group decides to change that. Last July, the group announced the development of its casino games offering, which has recently kicked off at Full Tilt Poker in the form of blackjack and roulette. In accordance with the agreement between Rational and Leander Games, Full Tilt will use the LeGa platform to launch an expanded portfolio of online casino entertainment products.

Isaac Haxton, Douglas Polk, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius all participated in the $1,000/$2,000 NLHE action, among others.

Douglas 'WCGRider' Polk

The Super High Roller, won by Phil Ivey, marked the end of the Aussie Millions 2014 festival. However, a couple of players stayed at the Crown casino, engaging in high profile NLHE cash game action on the $1,000/$2,000 limits with a minimum buy-in of $250,000. Among others, the likes of Haxton, Polk, Dwan, Ivey, Antonius, Richard Yong and Paul Newey participated.

Ultimate Poker has introduced their latest unorthodox promotion: the room returns the full fee to players in every guaranteed prize pool tournament where there is no overlay.

The first legal online poker room of the United States, Ultimate Poker has built a reputation of preferring to go off the beaten track since its launch in April 2013. For instance, it has discarded the all popular weighted contributed rake system, where rake is calculated in proportion to players’ contribution to the pot and has introduced the winner takes all concept; that is, only the player winning the pot pays rake, therefore users are only eligible for rakeback after hands they have won.

A total of 65 bracelet events take place in this year’s World Series of Poker festival and the winner of the Main Event is guaranteed to take home at least $10 million.

WSOP Main Event 2013 Champion Ryan Riess

For a short period of time, the WSOP 2014 schedule has recently become available; whether out of mistake or as a marketing pull remains unknown. While the company was quick to remove the unofficial schedule from the site, it had already made it to most forums by the time and stirred up the community most notably by hinting at a guaranteed $10 million first prize in the Main Event. Only one champion booked a larger sum in the history of WSOP Main Events: Jamie Gold won $12 million in 2006.

After his victory in 2012, Phil Ivey took down the Aussie Millions A$250,000 Challenge once again, for A$4 million. He defeated Isaac Haxton heads-up.

On 9 February, the Aussie Millions LK Boutique A$250,000 Challenge, or the super high roller event of the festival kicked off. On Day 1, 37 buy-ins were paid out by the players with some of them re-entering the event, like Daniel Negreanu, Philipp Gruissem and Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald. Eventually, 18 of them qualified, a field worthy of a super high roller tournament. The top 5 was as follows:

Erik Seidel – 944,000
Tom Dwan – 815,000
Isaac Haxton – 800,000
Jason Mercier – 767,000
Yevgeniy Timoshenko – 705,000

In the course of the past week, poker rooms have provided the community with a large number of topics: William Hill launched the Poker Coach feature, 888Poker booked a record income and PokerStars keeps dominating the market.

2013, the year of 888Poker

By far, the performance of 888Poker has been the most acclaimed news of late: in Q4 2013, the room yet again showed off an increase in revenues. 888 Holdings plc booked $107 million in income in the fourth quarter of the year, a record in its history, $25 million of which coming from poker. The total annual income from poker was $94 million, $12 million more than the year before. Active player number has also risen: 16% more players were grinding in the room than in 2012.