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Joe Barton thinks yes but Marsha Blackburn says the devil is in the details. Out-of-place reasoning and counter arguments collide during the hearing on the bill for the federal level legalisation of online poker in the US.

Republican Congressman Joe Barton filed a bill to legalise online poker in the United States on a federal level in July. In the draft, Barton suggests a state level regulation-friendly solution; individual states would be able to decide whether to allow online poker within their borders but if they do, they would have to be part of a merged, federal level market. In other words, he proposes an opt-in/opt-out system.

Arguably the largest ever media hype surrounds this year’s EPT Prague with a charity event starring Rafael Nadal and soccer legend Ronaldo. Meanwhile, the Eureka Prague Main Event seems to boast the largest ever turnout in its history.

The Eureka Prague €1,100 Main Event kicked off this weekend with a total of over 1,200 players, a record number in the history of the series. Organisers even had to add more tables in the tournament hall to be able to host all the entrants of Day 1B. What is more, the Eureka is but the first of a series of high volume poker action in Prague, with the EPT €5,300 PLO Championship, the Eureka €2,200 Highroller and the EPT €5,300 Main Event still coming up.

Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard and Norwegian parliament member Erlend Wiborg are past their first session in the challenge to prove poker is a game of skill. The high stakes pro walked away with $2,666 in profits after 1,000 hands on $0.5/$1 PLO tables.

One of today’s best PLO players, Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard, has challenged the members of the Norwegian legislation to a 10,000 hands heads-up poker game. His move had been provoked by poker being regarded a game of luck and therefore banned in his home country.

GTECH reportedly aims to focus on regulated markets in the future. Unofficial sources claim this could mean the end for the International Poker Network.

The online gaming department of GTECH, SPIELO G2, operates five individual poker networks; four of them are active in the regulated markets: the Canadian Poker Network, the Poker Club Italia, the Spain Poker Network and the Swedish Svenska Spel. The fifth one is the International Poker Network (IPN), or former Boss Media, which is operating in the .com field. According to Pokerfuse.com, the latter network might be shut down in the near future.

On 20 October, Stefan ‘mindgamer’ Jedlicka finished 2nd for $129,000 in the largest weekly tournament at PokerStars, the Sunday Million. On 1 December, he entered the event again and booked a 1st finish for $222,934. His achievements rocketed him to the 2nd place on the online MTT world list.

Stefan ‘mindgamer’ Jedlicka has shown off an impressive run to say the least in the past weeks. The online multi-table tournament regular finished 3rd in Tuesday’s $109 NLHE 6-Max at PokerStars for $2,780 but this is almost dwarfed by his run in the Sunday Million tournaments: he played heads-up in two of them within a couple of weeks’ time.

Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard and Norwegian politician Erlend Wiborg kick off their 10,000 hands heads-up session on 7 December at PokerStars.

One of the very best PLO players around, Ola ‘Odd_Oddsen’ Amundsgard has decided to prove that the Norwegian legislation is wrong to consider online poker a game of luck and therefore to ban in the country. In order to do so, he has challenged the Norwegian politicians for a 10,000 hands heads-up game. He stated he would be able to beat any of them in this run, regardless of hands and luck.

Former footballer and professional poker and backgammon player Jean-Philippe Rohr says Full Tilt Poker Pro Gus Hansen plays high stakes backgammon and is a major winner.

Gus Hansen used to be a shark at the high stakes tables but is today one of the prime targets of the regulars. The WSOP champion lost a total of $8.5 million this year in online high stakes cash games and the sum is an even more frightening $11,786,654 if we consider his performance all the way since the re-launch of Full Tilt Poker. This makes him one of the biggest all-time losers, second only to Guy Laliberté. However, Laliberté is a recreational player, owner of Cirque du Soleil and an estimated wealth of $2.6 billion in 2012, rendering his losses seem almost insignificant.

Unibet has officially announced that it launches its standalone client in mid-January. Users of the room will be able to play in the Microgaming pool until February.

In January 2014, Unibet Poker discontinues its offering through the Microgaming network and will continue to operate as a standalone room. Players of the room will be able to access the pool of the Microgaming network until February.

With the new client, several changes will be implemented. First of all, it will not allow the use of utility software, such as HUDs, and rake will be lowered on lower limits. Unibet is a lead operator in the sports betting and casino gaming markets and they aim to provide easier access to these offerings for poker players and vice versa. Specifics on the technical side of this have not yet been released. The new proprietary software is being developed in cooperation with Estonia-based Relax Gaming.

The i2Ninja malware allows hackers to collect information from our computer and e-mails and can serve as a kind of “PokerGrabber” on the devices of users playing in the major poker rooms.

The i2Ninja was created by Russian hackers and is a malware specifically targeting poker players and utilizing I2P. The I2P is a piece of free software, used for building anonymous or pseudonymous virtual private networks. The name refers to the original acronym of Invisible Internet Project. The VPN established by the I2P is a simple layer for the programs to use for anonymous communication in a shared dynamic network.

Niklas ‘ragen70’ Heinecker crushed the online high stakes cash game field in November. The German has an annual total profit of $5.6 million, while Gus Hansen continued to run poorly for a total of $8.5 million in losses this year.

The first weeks of November brought about the dominance of Niklas ‘ragen70’ Heinecker: the German amassed a whopping $1,358,115 in winnings in the period. He then moved on to harvest dollars at an even crazier speed for a total of $2,436,939 in 13,921 hands. Heinecker exclusively played draw games and scored the biggest by far in the past month.

Compared to games played in Bitcoins last year, today’s high stakes sessions almost seem micro. That is, if you consider the current exchange rate of the digital currency.

More and more poker rooms accept Bitcoin, the digital currency of ever growing popularity. For instance, iPoker network’s WinPoker integrated it into its deposit/withdrawal system, while it is the single accepted method of payment in other rooms, most notably at SealsWithClubs. Also, it turns out the highest stakes actions of 2012 did not occur at PokerStars, nor at then newly re-launched Full Tilt Poker but at the aforementioned room – as long as we take the current exchange rate of Bitcoins into consideration.

888.com has scooped in the title for Operator of the Year, 888Poker is Online Poker Room of the Year and 888Casino is Online Casino of the Year.

Respectable egaming medium EGR magazine has once again hosted the most renowned awards ceremony of the online gaming industry. The EGR Operator Awards has seen titles being awarded in several categories, the most important ones practically all going to 888.com. The company has scooped in the Operator of the Year, Online Poker Room of the Year as well as Online Casino of the Year titles.

The top register of the online MTT world list has undergone some intriguing changes recently, even though Chris ‘moorman1’ Moorman’s edge appears to slowly become irreducible.

With the latest update of the online multi-table tournament world list, it has become clear that Chris ‘moorman1’ Moorman is heading into the finish with a major lead; the British pro has 7,678 PLB points and has been constantly dominating the field for three weeks straight. In recent days, he has booked four-digit scores, including Full Tilt Poker’s Triceratops for $4,565. Just to put his run into context, he reached the $10 million mark in lifetime online MTT winnings in late September and has won over half a million dollars since.

Magnus Carlsen is the new world champion of chess. The 22 years old Norwegian celebrated his victory over Viswanathan Anand with a poker session lasting all night long.

Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen won the World Chess Championship finale in Chennai, India. While planned for 12 games, the Norwegian grand master dethroned Viswanathan Anand in the 10th game, achieving a draw with white for 6.5 points in total for a victory, two games before schedule. Carlsen is the 20th world champion of men’s chess.

Greek players are trying to trick the system by maneuvering with tournament entries in order not to exceed the daily tax free limit in profits. The technique used by the players earned the witty name Taxes Hold’em.

PokerStars (and Full Tilt Poker) have launched their legal online poker room in Greece last week. Players of the .gr site are able to play against the .com pool but have to pay their taxes after their profits on a daily basis. The Player Withholding Tax (PWT) means that winnings of €100 or less are tax free, profits between €100 and €500 are subject to a 15% tax and players pay 20% after winnings of over €500. Of course, the room still deducts rake and losses are apparently (although not confirmedly) not deducted from the amounts won; they are likely to simply fall into the €100 or less category.