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Always wanted to know what would it be like to play poker with The Heavy, Tycho, Max, and Strong Bad?

Well, I haven't. But seemingly Telltale Games thought that there are a lot of gamers out there who won't miss out a chance to bluff the Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2 to see if they can survive his good friend Sasha, the minigun.

The European Poker Tour’s next stop will be in Vilamoura, Portugal. With all the usual events being held, this stop of the EPT offers something truly unique: an extra event will be held, in which the poker players also need to prove their golf skills.

The beautiful Vilamoura coastline

Named ’Fairways and Felts’, the tournament will consist of one day of golf play, and one day of poker play. The buy-in will cost €770+€70 for the poker tournament, and an extra €260 for the golf event, making a €1100 total buy-in.

According to an article published on RakeRace.com, the biggest online gambling firms continue to grow in revenue across Europe and the United States, despite the economic crisis.

In Europe, most companies release financials every quarter year, and many have recently made their quarterly profit viewable for the public.
Paddy Power, Ireland’s biggest betting company reported a nice revenue growth during the first half of this year, with their profits leaving  those of this time last year behind by 50%. This also has to do with this summer’s FIFA World Cup, which has earned Paddy Power €11 million in bets. Customers of Paddy have won €205.6 million altogether in the first half of 2010.

One of the most renowned naturist resorts, Cap d'Agde (Hérault, France), is to celebrate its 40th anniversary – by organising a poker tournament, as a result of the cooperation between the local casino and the Union of Professionals of Naturist Tourism.

The Paddy Power World Strip Poker Championship in 2006. This is what
you're probably NOT going to see in Cap d'Agde.

Although no exact date, event structure or buy-in information is yet available, the entrance fee is announced to be €150 (and, of course, you’ve got to lose your pants). The main purposes, according to poker777.com, are to popularise nudism and “reach a wider audience” with the association. Cap d'Agde, hosting about 40,000 people summertime according to The Cake Blog, provides visitors with everything a usual resort does, except here all these can be enjoyed naked.

Unfortunately, I must agree with most of my sources: on poker games like this, you can expect 0.5-1% of the participants to be women, at best.

Joe Lacob, together with Peter Guber, has recently purchased NBA’s Golden State Warriors for $450 million, which is a record sum of its kind. Lacob has interests in Boston Celtics and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well and is admittedly a fan of poker.

Joe Lacob

In an interview with Tim Kawakami, published in the Talking Points column of the San Jose Mercury-News blog, Lacob finds a number of similarities between the skills needed in venture capital (including the way he plans to make a winner of his newly acquired franchise) and in poker. He says that you have to come to terms with a calculated risk that is always present as there are always unknown factors, no matter how well you “do your homework.”

A new branch of online betting seems to be evolving as a New York-based company called Ultrinsic has recently introduced their unique method to inspire students to get good grades at university: bet on the mark you will get in a particular class or your GPA.

Another way of inspiring the acquisition of better marks

On how it all began, founder Jeremy Gelbart writes on the website: “While hanging out together one Sunday afternoon, I mentioned to my friend Steven Wolf that I had an exam the following day and that if I were to study I was sure to get an A. (At the time, I was a student at University of Pennsylvania.) But I was enjoying my Sunday afternoon, and I told Steven that I had no intention of studying. That's when, in order to provide me with motivation, we made the following agreement: If I got an A on the exam, he would give me $100, and if I didn't get an A, I would give him $20. Steven and I quickly realized that lots of other students might like this kind of motivation.  To that end, we began developing what is now Ultrinsic Motivator Inc.”

Released on 27 July, StarCraft II is one of the most anticipated titles of the past decade in the PC player community. Many of the committed players of the 1998 first instalment are also pro or semipro online gamblers. Question is to what extent will SCII affect online poker?

Have a taste for some Finnish hip-hop? If so, check out the northern Uniikki’s music video for ’Pojat On Poikii’ (meaning ’Boys will be Boys’), in which your favourite loudmouth PLO pro Ilari ’Ziigmund’ Sahamies takes a leading role. Have fun!  

Copenhagen, Denmark, is in itself an outsanding city definitely worth a visit, but a club opening next month, called 7th Heaven, gives us another reason to start packing.

In middle of Denmark’s capital, 7th Heaven is set to open next month, awaiting not only the most wealthy visitors (the entry fee will be only €25).

7th Heaven’s main profile, if all goes well, will mainly be poker and lapdancing. Dane Slim Isaksen, owner of the concept, said the following:

“I have more than 15 years of experience in running clubs and, when I got the idea with 7th Heaven, I thought that it should be a place where people could come and enjoy themselves in the right atmosphere. Something extra to offer Copenhagen and a place where you can feel a bit spoiled, and the low prices are a crucial part of the concept. The club is the first of its kind in Scandinavia.”

At the moment, the club is striving to receive a poker licence, but the games played will not necessarily have cash rewards, rather champagne or..hm…other services.

Spending my time watching videos on YouTube on the weekend, I once again realized how good and soothing it can be if all you have to do is to play poker.

At home.

The video that triggered this thread of thought in my head was this one:

These poor Japanese businessmen (and women) are hustled onto these trains several times every single day during rush hours. If someone or something doesn’t seem to fit in, the metro staff appears and helps pushing them on the already overloaded trains.

Of course, this system works with the Japanese, as they are probably the only people on this planet that are orderly enough to tolerate and control this kind of traffic, but I (because I do have a choice) would prefer working from the warmth of my home, far from the troubles of crowds and mass transportation.

And by playing poker, this is not at all impossible. Moreover, it is pretty evident that poker players don’t have to go to offices every day, which already makes it sound like the job of your dreams.

Especially if you live at a place like this one, for example (of course, this specific place is reserved for my humble self to retire to after a few happy poker years ):

Here, you will not have to worry about being pushed on trains

We still have about one month to enjoy the hot summer weather, and in this post I would like to recommend five of the coolest places to the lovers of exclusive swimming pools.

Any millionaire would look good on the side of the Neptune Pool, the outdoor swimming pool of Hearst Castle. The complex was built by William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s.

The Neptune Pool

In the case of bad weather, visitors can enjoy the equally amazing indoor pool of the castle.

It is pretty easy to stumble upon a millionaire in New York City, according to a recently published query reasearching the number of American millionaires.

According to Capgemini, there were 667,200 millionaires in NYC in 2009, which means that every 12th New Yorker has at least a million dollars (not including real estates)! With this, New York City has officially become the city with the most millionaires in the US, with the numbers showing an 18.7% increase compared to 2008’s results.

This growth seems to be true all around the States: On average, the number of big city millionaires has risen by 17.5%.
Second place in the top 10 is taken by Los Angeles, with 235,800 millionaires.

CardRunners video pro Lee Przytula has made this funny little video, wittily introducing online poker and the benefits of the Internet (Google in particular) in less than two minutes.

PartyGaming has officially announced to have produced a 30% increase in revenue in the first half of 2010 to €181.2 million, compared to last year’s €139.9 million.

PartyGaming’s statement says the growth is due to “acquisitions and strong growth in casino and sports betting”.

After merging with Bwin to become the largest listed online gaming company in the world, PartyGaming had to cover serious marketing expenditures. Also, the company bought the bingo operator Cashcade, and these meant that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) only rose 14%.

Phil Laak and his friend, Antonio Esfandiari had some ATV quad fun in Oregon yesterday, which ended with Unabomber being taken to hospital, seven bones broken.

Phil Laak first informed public on Twitter that he had suffered an accident on Thursday, so instead of casinos, he will enjoy the Oregon hospital for some time: “Atv accident, massive arm injury and lacerations to eye in oregon. Life is good”

Later on, other details surfaced in connection with the accident. Phil went on an ATV trip in the Oregon desert with Esfandiari, and unfortunately Laak crashed his quad, which cost him seven bones and an eye injury.

Phil posted the following picture on Twitter:

There is no information yet concerning when Laak will recover. Poker pros follow each other sending their get-well wishes, with Doyle Brunson noting in his usual dark humor that he would be happy to take care of Jennifer Tilly if Phil’s state turned worse.