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British Barry Denson has broken Phil Laak’s poker endurance record, playing 120 hours and 20 minutes in a row and earning £850 in profits, which he will give to charity.

Barry Denson

On 2 June, 2010, during the annual World Series of Poker, WSOP and WPT champion Phil Laak started his poker session to break the Guinness World Record of poker endurance, set by Paul ‘The Marbella Kid’ Zimbler at 74 hours, playing heads-up during the 2009 WSOPE. ‘The Unabomber’ aimed at 80 hours to play in the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Yung ‘Andy’ Hwang started in the chiplead at the 8-handed final table of the WSOP National Championship. The WSOP Circuit (WSOPC) National Championship was organised in 2011 for the first time as an invitational-only event for a golden bracelet, despite not being an integral part of the World Series.

In 2012, WSOP organised the event with a different structure: in addition to the best 100 players of the WSOPC Season 2011/2012, the best 100 WSOP and WSOPE players of the past two years could also register for $10,000. The entire sum from the buy-ins went to the prize pool.

The most renowned players of the world were among the total of 6,598 to enter the first event days of the Main Event of the 43rd World Series of Poker. Event #61 $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em resumes now with 4,344 grinders in play for Event Days 2A-C.

Phil Hellmuth

With a „Shuffle up and deal!” shout from Ellen ’Gram’ Deeb, Shaun Deeb’s grandmother, play started in the $10,000 NLHE Main Event of WSOP 2012 in the weekend. 1,066 players registered for Day 1A but only 657 made it through to Day 2. Among those who were eliminated was 12-times bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, railed by Michael Tureniec’s three of a kind.

Ray Bitar paid the $2.4 million bail and will be transferred to house arrest within 48 hours. Meanwhile, Howard Lederer asks for drop of charges.

Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitar was arrested on 2 July at John F. Kennedy International, New York, where he arrived from Dublin with the intention to turn himself over to the authorities. It did not go as he planned, however; contrary to his previous deal with the FBI, he was faced with additional charges in the new indictment.

PokerStars has released the schedule for their micro stakes online series, the MicroMillions II. The event kicks off on 12 July and features 100 micro stakes tournaments until 22 July. MicroMillions was designed specifically for micro stakes players, who have a small bankroll, but always dreamt big. In this series, players can win amazing prizes with very low buy-ins. Last year's Micro Millions attracted 1,294,883 registrations.

Bobby Crosby, the renowned writer of the +EV comic strip now aims to raise funds to publish 150 of the best strips in printing. To achieve this, he calls for the help of the international poker community.

In order to be able to publish the softcover and hardcover copies, he needs to raise $5,000 until 15 July, 2012.

Using the KickStarter fundraising engine, Crosby offers various features in return for your support. For $10 or more, you receive a digital copy of +EV Volume 1 both in PDF and in an e-Reader format of your choice. For $25 or more, you get a softcover copy of the book (in addition to the digital one, which goes with all packages); $30 or more grants you a signed copy and $45 rewards you with a signed and numbered hardcover edition. Do not forget to add $5 if you want your reward shipped outside the US.

5050 Poker Holding AB has officially announced that they are able to refund only 15% of their players’ money frozen on their room accounts. The Holding claims to have been cheated by their subsidiary company 5050 Poker Ltd.

In mid-June, 5050 Poker, then part of the Microgaming network, became unavailable to players and withdrawals from the room got suspended. In an official statement, the room stated that the actions of the Microgaming network, deemed discriminative by 5050 Poker itself, to reduce the number of playable tables to 2 at certain operators, including 5050 Poker, in addition to the introduction of the True Value rakeback system, much like Ongame’s Essence, come 1 July, rendered it impossible for the room to remain profitable. Moreover, they announced that they would consider suing Microgaming for damages. Finally, 5050 Poker confirmed what players had already experienced, that as long as audits take place, the room would not fulfil withdrawal requests.

Just not to let this year’s WSOP pass entirely in the spirit of excitement and fair competition, six thugs attacked and beat up Big One event runner-up British Sam Trickett, most likely out of pure envy.

Sam Trickett injured

One of the most successful young live cash game players, Sam Trickett, who is also a talented live tournament player, added another great result to his already impressive portfolio on 3 July: he finished 2nd in the most expensive tourney in poker history, the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop event. He earned $10,112,001, rocketing his total live tournament winnings to a whopping $16,471,099 and making him 4th on the all-time money list after Big One champion Antonio Esfandiari ($23,245,828), Erik Seidel ($16,945,834) and Phil Ivey ($16,691,415).

Only the 8-handed final table was left for Day 3 of WSOP Event #55 $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop, the biggest buy-in tournament in poker history. Antonio ’The Magician’ Esfandiari started in the chiplead, slightly ahead of Sam Trickett. Whoever had been to win the event was bound to jump right on top of the all time money list.

The Big One Final Table

Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitar has turned himself over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as part of a deal soon to be concluded with PokerStars.

Ray Bitar

Ray Bitar has set foot on American soil for the first time since Black Friday, 15 April, 2011. The Full Tilt Poker (FTP) CEO is one of the 11 defendants charged with fraud, money laundering and organising illegal gambling following the FBI actions on Black Friday. The aim of Bitar’s current visit was to turn himself over to the FBI and face the civil and criminal charges.

Two Phils, Ivey and Hellmuth are also included on the entrants list for the biggest buy-in event in poker history ever. The prize pool is $42,666,672, the future winner can take home $18,346,673.

WSOP has officially released the WSOP $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop tournament, launched yesterday, 1 July, entrants list with 48 names. This revealed, among others, the much debated presence of Phil Ivey. Since his name had previously been undisclosed, it had been assumed that he would not participate on the grounds of the FTP scandal; as is known, Ivey promised not to participate in the WSOP until FTP pays its players. He actually broke this promise this year and the fact that he paid $1,000,000 for an entry may target him for further criticism.

The license of 5050Poker has been suspended by The Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta (LGA) recently, and has set up a procedure, following which players might be able to cash their bankrolls out of 5050Poker.

LGA issued 5050Poker's license, but recently it has been suspended. Furthermore, the company announced they are initiating legal action against 5050Poker to facilitate the release of player funds. For players who still have money with 5050Poker need to send an email to LGA.

Shuffle Master, a casino game developer operating in Las Vegas was reportedly in "advanced talks" in acquiring the Ongame Network, according to pokerfuse, but now negotiations fell short, and Shuffle Master declined the deal.

As pokerfuse reported, Shuffle Master has already been in advanced talks in purchasing the Ongame Network, that online poker network that is currently the home of poker rooms like Betfair, Betsson, bwin. The news was confirmed by the Sunday times, they reported that Shuffle Master was indeed in talks with bwin.party. The price of the Ongame Network is surprisingly low, only €16 million according to some predictions.

According to today's news, Shuffle Master no longer has interest in the US poker market via the Ongame Network, and has already backed out of the deal. However, there is no additional information on the reasons behind the breaking of the deal.

The iPoker network has officially confirmed the „division of its liquidity into two distinct tiers,” CalvinAyre.com reports. Skins will be referred to the top or bottom tier, based on room performance.

iPoker has announced major changes in its structure, resulting in a split in liquidity, that is, the creation of two distinct tiers for the different rooms. Effective 1 July, iPoker evaluates room performance on a monthly basis against a set of criteria; the skins that do not comply will be associated with the bottom tier.

14 players remained at the start of WSOP Event #33 $1,000 No Limit Hold'em, day 3. Vitaly Meshcheriakov was in the lead with 946,000 chips. The nine-handed final table started at the 23rd blind level (3,000/10,000/20,000).

First to leave was Christopher Shaw. Surprisingly, Meshcheriakov had to go next. He went all-in against Samuel Gerber pre-flop with A K, and although an Ace fell on the river, it wasn't enough against Gerber's 6 6, which made a flush with the same card.