World News Of Poker

When the poker boom first took place, the number of poker room expansions and upgrades that happened worldwide at different casinos and poker rooms was unlike anything the gambling industry had ever seen. Poker rooms were once small, cramped spaces that were poorly decorated and unclean. Now, every major casino from Vegas, Atlantic City and overseas has poured small fortunes into their poker rooms in the hope of capitalizing on the poker revolution. One of the largest stand alone card rooms in the world, the Bicycle Casino (also known simply as The Bike), has now jumped on the bandwagon by unveiling their all new Grand Poker Ballroom, a massive tournament event center that comes complete with all the trimmings.

The ballroom was completed in time to host the WPT Legends of Poker event, which has long been the Bicycle Casino’s premiere tournament. With the ability to hold more than 50 poker tables, the new poker ballroom will allow the Legends of Poker event to have only one starting day instead of two. Additionally, the room also hosts almost a dozen flat screen TV’s and a completely revamped décor.

“We’ve already had an amazing poker facility here for a long time, but with this newly expanded and luxurious event center, we now step to the head of the class for not only Southern California, but the country,” said Bicycle Casino Director of Marketing Kelley O’Hara. “This grand event center will be the future home of our Legends of Poker tournament, our WPT televised events and numerous other first-class, large-scale poker tournaments and special events held here throughout the year.”

In line with the debut of the Grand Poker Ballroom, the Bicycle Casino is also taking this opportunity to unveil its newest restaurant, the Legends Deli and Grill, which will offer both quick meals for players that need food on the go, as well as sit-down dining for those looking to take a break from a session. The Bike is one of my personal favorite card rooms in the world and if you haven’t made a trip down to Southern California yet to check it out, you now have more reasons than ever.

ESPN has a contract with the World Series of Poker until 2010, and Fox Business is reporting that they are signing a new seven year broadcast contract with the World Series of Poker. They will continue to broadcast the World Series of Poker through 2018. Although televised poker ratings haven’t been at an all time high lately, ESPN has apparently seen a reason to continue their coverage of the biggest poker event in the world.

The 2008 World Series of Poker broadcasts drew an average of 1.13 million viewers which was more than in 2007. However, this year is down 8% from their 2008 ratings. This is most likely due to the poor coverage of events during 2009. In 2008 the H.O.R.S.E. event was covered by ESPN and brought a lot of viewers that wanted to see the big names. This year, the H.O.R.S.E. event was not covered. Also, ESPN cut other events out of their broadcasts and will only be showing the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em event, the Champions Invitational, Ante Up for Africa, and the Main Event. This is only a small amount of coverage considering there were over fifty events in the 2009 WSOP.

Although the ratings might be down for ESPN’s coverage of the WSOP 2009, those ratings are expected to sky rocket with the coverage of the Main Event. On Tuesday August 18, at 8 pm EST, the first episodes of the Main Event will premiere. There are 24 episodes leading up to the final table which is set to take place in November. Phil Ivey, poker’s most prolific player, is on the final table and will surely be driving the ratings of the Main Event broadcast this year. There are a few other pros on the final table to duke it out with the amateurs which will make for an exciting final table. There is no doubt that the ratings will improve from last years as the broadcast of the Main Event final table draws closer.

ESPN has not officially announced their new contract with the World Series of Poker, but will most likely make an official statement by the week’s end. Thankfully, poker coverage will continue to be brought to our living rooms for years to come.

Liv Boeree has been making a name for herself over the last year or two, and now she has signed on with Ultimate Bet. She initially got her start in the poker world on a poker reality game show where Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke taught her the tools of the trade. She was groomed to know the skills of the game and went on to become a brand ambassador for Absolute Poker.

The British poker player is excited about her move to Ultimate Bet. “Annie and Phil are two of my favorite players so to sit on the same team as them is a bit of a surreal experience, but one I’m definitely proud of.”
Boeree also has some tournament cashes in her poker career. She took down the Ladbrokes Ladies European Championship in 2008 for $30,000. Along with some WPT event cashes, she had two cashes in this year’s World Series of Poker. Now that she is on team Ultimate Bet she will probably be making more appearances in the bigger buy in events.

The Full Tilt Poker FTOPS Main Event saw 5,306 players put up $535 to take their shot at the $2.653 Million prize pool. This event is one of the major online titles so the pros were out in force today. Among those in attendance were Allen Cunningham, Andy Bloch, Berry Johnston, Eli Elezra, [...]

This September a new poker event will take place in the Bahamas. Twenty five of the greatest professional poker players will join forces with twenty five of the greatest sports stars for a legendary poker event. This four day event will be held at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort. Participants will have a full schedule of sit-n-goes, cash games, golf, and training sessions with the pros. At the end of the four days, there will be a championship event where the sports pros, poker pros, and other participants will pair up to compete in a winner take all finale. This will be aired on Thanksgiving Day on the Fox Sports Network.

So far some pretty big names from both sides of the professions have been named as participants. Antonio Esfandiari, Mike Sexton, Annie Duke, Gavin Smith, and Johnny Chan will represent the professional poker players. From the sports side, Troy Airman, Rocco Mediate, Tony Hawk, Herschel Walker, and Sugar Ray Leonard will be attending.

Greg Raymer, the 2004 WSOP Main Event winner, has been a very outspoken poker advocate in recent years to much acclaim from the rest of the poker community. Normally Raymer spends his time lobbying for the legalization of online poker in the U.S., but recently he can be found fighting against a new poker-related lawsuit that has brought three counts of conspiracy against Douglas Rennick, who owns several poker payment processors. Rennick is being sued for almost $566 million in recovered money for allegedly violating various counts of U.S. Code.

“Anytime something immoral happens, I’m outraged by it. And I consider what these prosecutors have done to be immoral,” said Raymer, a patent attorney and a member of the board of directors of the Poker Players Alliance, the industry’s largest advocacy group. “If they actually think online poker is illegal, they’re incompetent. That’s just not an appropriate interpretation of any of these federal laws.”

The indictment, filed by acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin, cites that Rennick is being sued for money laundering conspiracy, bank fraud conspiracy and gambling conspiracy. While it is known that Rennick has supplied payment services to poker players through various companies, Raymer contends that this does not mean that Rennick is guilty of any crimes. “Casino games aren’t illegal under any federal law for online gambling sites, only sports betting,” said Raymer.

If found guilty, Rennick could face up to 55 years in prison for the three charges. The lawsuit was filed in the same New York district court that also seized $30 million in online poker funds earlier this year in June, money that Rennick sued to get back.

“”Join the PPA if you’re not already a member. We’re fighting this,” said Raymer. “Congress will listen. If it’s only one person, they don’t have to listen very hard. But when it’s millions of members of the PPA, then they have to listen.”

Vanessa Rousso and Chad Brown, poker’s favorite couple, will be hosting the Gulf Cost Poker Championship. Held in Beau Rivage in Biloxi, MS, this 12 day event will begin on September 3rd. The preliminary events will have a range of games including Pot Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud, and Stud 8 events. The buy ins range from $300-$500 for the preliminary events. There will also be a $5,000 buy in Main Event. The Main Event will last three days, and the winner will not only take the top cash prize, but will also win a $10,000 WPT Southern Poker Championship seat.

In addition to hosting the event, Rousso will also be providing her instructional workshop. Big Slick Boot Camp is a personal training session where players can learn from Rousso some of the trade secrets of the pros. The workshop will be held on September 11th.

MGM Regional Director of Poker Operations Ken Lambert Jr. says these events will “provide an opportunity for poker enthusiasts of all levels to compete in a variety of events at both Beau Rivage in Biloxi and Gold Strike in Tunica. The tournaments grow in buy-ins and lead up to January’s WPT Southern Poker Championship and a chance to win a $25,500 seat in the WPT World Championship at Bellagio in April 2010.”

With ESPN downsizing the coverage of the World Series of Poker this year, it is nice that other poker television shows are popping up to keep our interest intact. The G4 network is bringing a poker reality television show which will be centered around four online professional poker players. These players will live together and have a goal of winning $2 million dollars in poker winnings.

Each week the player that has been doing the worst with their $2 million dollar goal will be ridiculed by the other players. They will be given tasks that aim to humiliate them. Some tasks include going out on the strip and playing instruments for tips, or wearing absurd outfits around town. The combination of watching these pros live the Vegas professional poker lifestyle and the tasks that they will have to do might be really exciting to watch.

The participating professional players include Jason “pr1nnyraid” Rosenkrantz, Emil “whitelime” Patel, Dani “ansky” Stern, and Brian “Flawless_Victory” Roberts. The show, 2 Months, $2 Million, will debut on August 16 at 9:00 p.m. EST on the G4 Network.

The return of legalized online poker in the states appears to get more and more likely as the months progress, and last Thursday was a major step forward when Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a bill to the Senate that aims to both regulate and tax online poker in the U.S. If passed, the bill would gather both federal and local revenue, while at the same time instituting protection safeguards for users as well as age-verification procedures.

The 91-page bill, entitled the “Internet Poker and Games of Skill Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009”, is considered far more comprehensive than similar bills introduced to the House of Representatives earlier in 2009. While previous bills lumped numerous forms of online gambling together, such as casinos, lotteries and bingo, Senator Menendez’s legislation only applies with games of skill like poker. The bills do have one thing in common however, and that is they both recommend the prohibiting of sports betting.

The bill goes on to state that the government will receive a monthly tax equal to 10% of all deposits from American players from each approved and license poker site. 5% of the tax will be sent to the federal government, with the remaining 5% allotted locally. The bill wouldn’t force the legalization of online poker to all 50 states however, as each governor of a state can choose to opt out of the bill as long as they inform the Secretary of the Treasury before the 90-day deadline after the day the bill goes into effect.

Still, the news still leaves much to be excited about, and the PPA has already expressed their approval of the legislation in a statement they released earlier today.

“The PPA is pleased that Senator Menendez chose to introduce his bill to license and regulate Internet poker and include additional consumer protections,” said Alfonse D’Amato, the PPA chairman and former New York senator. “His continued support for protecting the Internet freedoms of poker players specifically, and Americans generally, is greatly appreciated.”

Watch my blog for more updates as they happen.

Poker star and founder of Cirque de Soleil, Guy Laliberte, looks like he’ll be spending his winnings on becoming one of the first civilians to enter space.

The entrepreneur, who made his name eating fire and walking on stilts before creating the hit worldwide show Cirque de Soleil, Laliberte came fourth in 2007’s World Poker Tour, netting himself $696,220 and booking a place on GSN’s High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark.

Laliberte will pay a staggering $35 million for the zero gravity experience. It shouldn’t infringe too much on his fortune, though. The celebrity poker personality is worth an estimated $2.5 billion!

Space temperatures may be sub-zero, but Laliberte won’t go into space cold. He’ll have to spend time at Johnson Space Centre in Houston preparing for his weightless adventure.

If he completes the training and passes the necessary exams, he’ll be flying with Commander Maxim Suraev, a former Russian air force Colonel, and Jeffrey Williams, an experienced NASA astronaut.

The flight, aboard the Soyuz TMA-16, was organised through the Space Adventures Ltd and will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan on September 30th this year.

Laliberte and his crewmates will fly to the International Space Station and spend nine days aboard before Laliberte and Gennady Padalka, the Outgoing Station Commander, and Michael Barratt, a NASA flight engineer, return to Earth.

Although the mission holds a serious purpose, Laliberte hasn’t ruled out the possibility of some zero gravity poker. “Maybe I’ll teach them a couple of card tricks”, he said, “but I don’t know in weightlessness how those things can take place”.