Online Poker News

The time is almost upon us for the alleged “official” end of legal U.S. online poker. As of December 1st all online poker sites, other online gambling sites, and most especially internet payment processors are legally required to abide by the UIGEA “guidelines”. What this boils down to is a requirement that all these businesses find ways really fast to prevent U.S. players from sneaking onto their sites (or using their services to transfer money to and from said sites).

Fresh off the heels of failing to squelch the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act’s enforcement altogether, the Poker Players Alliance is now trying to delay the Dec. 1st deadline at least. As an interest group, the PPA was able to submit a petition to Timoth Geithner, the US Secretary of the Treasury, asking him to push the deadline one year, to give affected businesses the proper time to make the changes necessary to comply with UIGEA. Geithner has 180 days to think it about it before he has to reply. That’s half a year! And December 1st is less than 2 months away.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Back on September 6, PokerStars broke its own record in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Most Players at an Internet Poker Room”. It was a Sunday when Poker Stars had 307,016 players playing at 42,814 poker tables at once. This beats the old record by more than 100,000 online poker players.

This is not the first time PokerStars broke one of its own Guinness World Records Book records, having a set another bar a level higher just a few months ago in July when it attracted 65,000 players to a single multi-table online poker tournament at once, beating its own previous record for “Largest Online Poker Tournament.” On that same July day, Full Tilt Poker tried to thwart PokerStars’ new record attempt by attempting one of its own, but failed.

PokerStars, which launched in 2001, now claims to have more than 27 million registered players and has had the honor of dealing out over 33 billion online poker hands.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Guess who’s going to be providing the official poker software for the new online poker rooms soon to be launched (though no dates have been given yet) by Harrah’s Entertainment, Casear’s Casino, and the World Series of Poker.

It’s 888.com – the portal site for, among others, Pacific Poker.

For now, these offerings will only be available to online poker players in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe as well as anywhere else that online poker is legal. Currently (as you no doubt already know) the U.S. is not one of those places – but hopefully that will soon change.

In the meantime, players in Europe and the U.K. eagerly await the online poker rooms that Harrah’s, Caesar’s, and the WSOP will someday soon be releasing. And if you have any doubt of it really happening, just keep in mind that Mitch Garber, the guy who once ran Party Poker and Party Casino, now runs Harrah’s which in turn owns the WSOP.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sateliites are going on now over at PKR, the 3-D poker site, for the third incarnation of its sole live tournament each year, with PKR Live III.

PKR Live III will take place on November 20, 2009 at the Loos Cannon Club in London, England. It will be a 3-day event culminating not, as you may think, in the main event, but in a PKR Bounty event, in which a $200 buy-in gets you the opportunity to shoot not only for the grand prize but for PKR celebrity pro players as well, with cash bounties on each of their heads for whoever knocks each one out of the tournament – cash bonuses independent of who wins the overall tournament.

The main event, on day 2 of PKR Live III, has a $1,500 buy-in and a $40,000 first prize (double the one won by last year’s main event winner Philip Conneller).

This is PKR’s 3rd year in business since launching in 2006 as the only 3D online poker room, and each year the site has increased its player base by 1 million, making it currently an over 3 million member player pool.

PKR Live III satellite prize packages include the $1,500 main event buy-in, accommodations, and a bit of spending cash.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XIII just wrapped up, and here are some highlights:

• the Main Event, and its $453,663 prize, was won by Matthew “Poligraph” Waxman, winner of Event 15 in the last FTOPS XII; he also made another final table inthis latest FTOPS XIII, at Event 56
• Jake Toole had the biggest takedown, though, with $453,687 for winning the 2-day $2,500 event; runner-up was FullTilt Pro Brian Hastings
• the $300 Razz Event, #21, and its almost $40,000 prize was won by Billy Kopp, who finished deep in this year’s WSOP Main Event; Kopp just got signed by UltimateBet Poker
• the Ante Up For Africa charity poker tournament earned $50,000 more for the humanitarian cause
• coming up September 9 is the $3 million guaranteed Mini-FTOPS XIII, with the same lineup of events as the FTOPS XIII but with 1/10 the buy-ins

And on an interesting side note, chopping the pot (or deal-making at the final table) has become quite popular in online poker, and it sure showed here, with several final pots being amicably split (almost) evenly between the two heads-up players remaining at the final tables’ end.

Some of the FTOPS XIII hosted some of the Best Poker Satellites that we have seen to this years main events.  In order to qualify yourself for the next FTOPS finals, you may want to consider taking a poker test to see if you meet the standards.

Popularity: 7% [?]

PokerStars is hosting Extreme Satellites awarding 100 seats or more into the upcoming 2009 World Championship of Online Poker with a $40 million total guaranteed prize pool.

Extreme Satellites start today August 4 with a $7.50 Extreme Satellite adding 100 $109 seats to the prize pool, and run several times daily through August 16 on which 50 $5,200 main event seats will be added to the prize pool. On August 8 and 10, 50 seats each day will be added worth $1050 each. And on August 15, 50 extra $2,100 seats will go out. The rest of the Extreme Satellites have 100 seats worth various dollar amountsadded to the prize pool.

Also in big PokerStars news, the site has upped the maximum bonus amount on its 100% first deposit bonus from a measley $50 to a mouth-watering $600, along with a 50% reload bonus up to $300.

STEPS tickets are eligible for entry into Extreme Satellites, and players can use the STEPS system to gain entry into these events.

Popularity: 6% [?]

One of the 9 players in the final table for the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, to be played on November 7, just won $45,000 in an online poker tournament. The player is Joe Cada, a 21-year-old from the Detroit area who plays online every Sunday. The tournament was a $150 rebuy tournament at Full Tilt Poker, in which Cada took second place. He adds this $45,000 prize to the $28,214 he won in two 2009 WSOP side events.

And this is on top of the minimum $1,263,602 Joe makes for making it to the 2009 WSOP Main Event final table. Like all of the “November Nine”, including the crowd and odds-makers’ favorite Phil Ivey, Joe is hoping for that $8,546,435 top prize

Joe says that between now and Nov 7, besides playing online every Sunday, he will also be entering the WPT Legends of Poker event at the Bell Gardens, California Bicycle Casino from August 22 to 26.

Popularity: 6% [?]

It seems like the last one only just wrapped up and already its time again for another Full Tilt Online Poker Series–but we’re sure not complaining.

Full Tilt Poker has released the schedule for FTOPS XIII and its lower-budget companion, the Mini-FTOPS. The prize pool for FTOPS XIII is a guaranteed $16 million across 25 events; the prize pool for the Mini-FTOPS XIII is a guaranteed $9 million.

Like last time, the Mini-FTOPS schedule will reflect that of the FTOPS precisely with one exception: a buy-in and prize pool at one-tenth those of the FTOPS. Unlike last time, however, there’s another exception: that being that the Mini-FTOPS will not be running at the same time as the FTOPS. Instead, FTOPS XIII will run from August 5-16, and the Mini-FTOPS XIII will not start until September 9.

Highlighting FTOPS XIII is August 15th’s high-roller two-day $2,620 event with a guaranteed $2 million prize pool. The main event is another highlight, a $535 event with a $2.5 million guaranteed prize pool.

Popularity: 5% [?]

According to a recent news story released by Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter, the screenwriters who brought us the classic poker flick “Rounders” (Brian Koppelman and David Levien) as well as several other hot hitting movies (like “Ocean’s Thirteen”) are teaming up once again to write yet another gambing flick – this one about the world of Costa Rica based online poker rooms. The big news about the movie hit the presses today as its star had just climbed on board – that being none other than Leonardo DiCaprio.

The movie is currently untitled and has no script. DiCaprio is working closely with Koppelman and Levien to help write the script.

From the sound of it, even online video poker fans who also enjoy the high-action, Hollywood thrill-ride this film is sure to offer will probably be the film’s greatest fans and promoters. And if they don’t, they can always pop “Rounders” back into the player.

Popularity: 14% [?]

In addition to their already generous 50% signup bonus (up to a $200 max) and 5 chances to compete in their $20,000 New Depositors Freeroll, throughout the month of June Titan Poker is offering poker lovers yet another incredible reason to join the site: the $35,000 Year of World Poker promotion.

The Year of World Poker promotion is just what it sounds like – a unique opportunity to “Play Poker Around the World”. Many poker sites offer players a chance to satellite into a free seat in one of the year’s many land-based tournaments with large cash prizes, but with this promotion, Titan Poker is going to give one lucky (and skillful) player a free seat in 5 major land-based poker tournaments, including the Main Event of the 2010 World Series of Poker.

The other 4 free tournament entries included in this prize package are:

* APT Macau
* EC Poker Tour
* Irish Open
* Irish Winter Festival

New Titan Poker player making their first deposit into the real-money account will receive 4 tokens worth 4 chances at winning this unparalleled prize of prizes.

Popularity: 22% [?]