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Although it was definitely an option, the World Poker Tour (WPT) remains without a female champion; Gigi Gagne finished 2nd in the Seminole Hard Rock main event.

Gigi Gagne

Gigi Gagne begin the WPT Seminole Hard Rock $3,500 main event 6-handed final table in the chiplead; her victory would have been the first in the history of the series. In the second place was Matt Juttelstad, who had been in the lead on Day 2 but was forced behind by Gagne on Day 3.

Gus Hansen chose to play on instead of flying home and paid the price. Hansen first hit the high stakes tables in Macau in January this year and made the most of it: he is said to have piled up $3.86 million in three 24-hours long sessions. The Dane pro then headed for Melbourne, Australia for the Aussie Millions for $823,579 by finishing 3rd in the Super High Roller event.

Gus Hansen

Following his successful sessions, Hansen returned to Macau for yet another set of high stakes games; only this time, it cost him more than he had bargained for. Although exact amounts are as yet unconfirmed, the pro was relieved of a huge load of money at the StarWorld casino.

According to an official press release issued by PokerStars, they acquired a Malta license, and will soon launch their .eu site aimed at licensed European markets. The license was granted by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta, which will enable PokerStars to enter presently closed markets in the future.

"I am pleased to announce PokerStars has secured a Malta Remote Gaming License and very soon we will launch www.PokerStars.eu, giving us the ability to provide enhanced service to players in several European markets. You'll be hearing more about our plans for Pokerstars.eu in the coming days, but its origins lie in our dedication to serving players' needs" - stated Eric Hollreiser, PokerStars' Head of Corporate Communications on PokerStarsBlog.com.

The Global Poker Index Player of the Year title has the potential to become the most important recognition for live poker players.

The Federated Sports & Gaming (FS+G) brought the Epic Poker League (EPL) to life exclusively for the world’s very best players. The top list was not compiled arbitrarily, however; FS+G created the Global Poker Index (GPI) that calculates the scores for the players on a mathematical basis, considering tournament field sizes, entry fees and individual results.

Randy 'nanonoko' Lew

PokerStars Team Pro member Lew’s latest remarkable feature was his Guinness record set during the last PCA. In an effort to set the record of the most hand played online in 8 hours with profit, he played 23,493 hands and even made a (minor) profit of $7.65.

At the age of 47, Russian poker pro Nikolay Evdakov passed away on 6 February, 2012.

Nikolay Evdakov

Following a prolonged illness, former Full Tilt Poker pro Nikolay Evdakov passed away on Monday, 6 February, 2012. The sad news was first published by his loving wife, Natalya, via the cgm.ru Russian poker forum.

Even though it was held in Madrid last year, Monte Carlo will give place to the EPT Grand Final this year. The Grand Final will take place between April 23-May 1, 2012.

While Canadian PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu was enjoying his flight home, someone was playing from his account without his knowledge, the unknown infiltrator lost $46,000 in one session.

Daniel Negreanu reported on a popular poker forum that his email account and then his poker account has been hijacked, he tweeted:

"Important: Do NOT send me any emails the account appears to have been hacked. Just landed in LA nice news."

Phil Ivey being eliminated on Day 5 of the Aussie Millions AS10,600 Main Event in 12th place, the Final Table saw 7 players returning for the title. Australian Oliver Speidel recorded his greatest success so far, winning the event.

On Day 6 of the Main Event, the Final Table took place, with Bjorn Li in the chiplead with 4,775,000. Renowned online pro Mohamad ‘TerrorOfSweden’ Kowssarie was also present as shortstack. The setup of the final was as follows:

Kowssarie started out well, winning several major pots and even doubling up on Li, which resulted in him becoming the chilpeader with 4,490,000. The first to be eliminated, on the other hand, was Yann Dion, followed by Li and Patrick Healy.

According to Subject: Poker, Chris Ferguson has distributed close to $60 million from Full Tilt Poker’s accounts to ones held by Pocket Kings for him.

Chris Ferguson

In September, 2011 the United States Department of Justice amended its civil complaint, charging the Full Tilt Poker director board – Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst, above all – with stealing around $443 million from the company’s players. They are accused of the theft of $41,856,010, $40,954,781, $25 million and $11,706,323, respectively.

Zynga Poker's spokesperson told the site AllThingsD that Zynga is indeed looking for partners in order to launch their real money poker solution.

Zynga Poker currently offers play money games only, but that is about to change, it seems. Last year, when asked about real money games, Zynga Poker's General Manager Laurence Toney refuted this. Now it seems the game has changed.

"We build games and experiences that our players want and love. Zynga Poker is the world’s largest online poker game with more than 7 million people playing every day and over 30 million each month. We know from listening to our players that there’s an interest in the real money gambling market. We’re in active conversations with potential partners to better understand and explore this new opportunity." - said the spokesperson to AllThingsD.

Zynga currently offers play money games only and lives off of advertisement and the selling of virtual goods (chips). They have announced the launch of a new game, Zynga Casino on Facebook in October, which is still yet to be released, but it hints that if the company will be able to offer real money games, they will offer a casino as well.

With the numerous changes since Toney's last comment on the issue such as the legalizations of online poker in a few states in the United States and the recent acknowledgement by the United States Department of Justice that the Wire Act, which prohibited gambling and betting since 1961 does not apply to online poker, the market opened up to legalized online poker rooms in states which have already done that. This open market is surely of interest to Zynga, who can realize a vast profit if they can migrate their players to their real money tables.

This is also great news to the poker pros, as never such a huge fish pond opened its gates in the history of online poker. Of course the rollout is still months away at best, and Zynga will have to find the proper partners and go through some major legal hurdles such as the acquisition of licenses and facilitating a secure environment for real money transfers, but it shouldn't be a problem for the biggest online poker provider in the world.

Will this be the next online poker boom?

IGT has recently purchased DoubleDown Interactive, developer of DoubleDown Casino for Facebook, for an amount that can reach $500 million.

Nevada-based slot machine manufacturer giant International Game Technology (IGT) expands further into the online domain by purchasing the developer of the Facebook gambling application DoubleDown Casino, DoubleDown Interactive, LLC. The DoubleDown virtual casino has been running since 2010 and currently entertains 4.7 million active users per month.

High stakes pro Phil Galfond offers a number of interesting ideas to improve online poker in his latest blog post.

Phil Galfond

A couple of weeks back Phil Galfond left Bluefirepoker where he had been working as a coach for long and also led his blog. One of the best PLO players in the world, Galfond did not leave his fans blog-less, however; on 8th January, philgalfond.com was launched, to provide room for his thoughts further on.

His latest entry bears the title “Let’s Make Some Changes” and it did not miss to instantly generate a constructive debate among forum members. The pro shared in it his own ideas and opinion about the possibilities and areas to improve in online poker.