Online1Poker – Online Poker

In just about ten minutes the auditorium of St. Amand Pasino will open its doors to many participants of this last stage of the Super Satellite Partouche Poker Tour (PPT). The tournament takes place not in the traditional “Chatam room” because of the big number of players. The latter will host the tournament reserved for the Ladies.

We recall the issue, even if one expects a smaller crowd than usual because of the many events scheduled during this weekend, and the WSOP held in Las Vegas, participants will fight for two days to claim their place in the final of the Partouche Poker Tour to be held in Cannes from September 2.
10% of players qualify for the final then the PPT, and the first six win, and more, packages worth € 4,500 including transportation, accommodation and tickets for the Partouche Poker Million (PPM). The first stage of the MPC will take place from July 28 to August 1 at the Casino Gran Madrid in Spain.

In this stage of Saint-Amand is the last Super Satellite PPT. Two hundred players have already qualified for the finals of the PPT. However, there are still opportunities for qualification. Throughout the summer, the Summer Satellites allow the chance to win a ticket worth of € 8,075 for the grand finale of Cannes.
Here are the dates:
- La Grande Motte from 23 to 25 July 2010.
- Lyon-Green: 30 July and 1 August 2010.
- Dieppe: from 6 to 8 August 2010.
- Royat: from 13 to 15 August 2010.
- Arcachon from 20 to 22 August 2010.
- Aix-En-Provence: from 27 to 29 August.

Apart from this final PPT, players will have the opportunity to participate in numerous side events accessible to all budgets, and a superb tournament heads-up to 3000 € buy-in.

Someone recently asked Doyle Brunson which poker player, living or deceased, he respected the most.

Brunson, the 76-year old Godfather of Poker, responded nearly before the question was even finished.

“Chip Reese,” Brunson blurted out.

Brunson’s admiration is just one example why the David “Chip” Reese Memorial Trophy might be the most coveted piece of hardware in all of poker. It will be up for grabs starting at 5 p.m. Friday at the Rio, where the 2010 World Series of Poker gets under way with the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.

Reese, a Las Vegas professional who died at 56 years old in 2007, won the inaugural $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Tournament at the 2006 World Series. The World Series named the title in his honor before the 2008 event.

While every poker player aspires to win July’s $10,000 Main Event, the mixed-game event is considered the ultimate championship among professionals.

“To play with all the big boys, you need to learn all of the games,” said Eli Elezra, a high-stakes regular in Las Vegas. “I think this proves you’re the best.”

The format of the tournament will change this year, transitioning from a traditional five-game H.O.R.S.E. combination to an eight-game mix.

Play will switch every eight hands between limit hold ‘em, Omaha hi-low, razz, seven-card stud, seven-card stud hi-low, no-limit hold ‘em, pot-limit Omaha and 2-7 triple draw lowball.

The final table, which will be played Tuesday, will feature all no-limit hold ‘em. It was a concession players agreed to make so the event could be aired on ESPN.

“For the mom and pop that watch on TV, I think it’s the best thing,” Elezra said. “I tried to watch razz on TV and it was very hard to explain to someone who was sitting next to me, a family member even.”

When Reese won the tournament, the final table was all no-limit hold ‘em. The World Series, however, switched it to a mixed final table when a handful of players complained that it compromised the event’s integrity.

ESPN pulled out from filming the event last year, which decreased the number of entries to a record-low 95 players. This was partly because sponsors were not willing to shell out the pricey buy-in with no television time.

The decision to switch back to a no-limit hold ‘em final table for 2010 came after the World Series of Poker’s Player Advisory Board, which includes popular pro Daniel Negreanu, decided it was too momentous of an event to not be aired on ESPN.

With the promise of television back, everyone is expecting entries to increase this year.

“We feel it’s going to get a great turnout,” Tournament Director Jack Effel said.

Elezra said he hoped the Poker Player’s Championship would attract about 200 participants, which would make the first place prize around $3 million. David Bach, a pro from Athens, Ga., took home $1.2 million when he won last year’s tournament.

No matter what the prize pool is, everyone in the field will be gunning for Reese’s trophy.

While a great deal of ignorance and misinformation makes its way around the Internet, one statement needs to be made: online poker is NOT going to be illegal in the US on June 1st.
Activist Robin Morgan once said, “Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.” Much to the glee of the opponents of Internet gambling, the poker community has been ablaze with talk of the shutting down of online poker; the idea that the UIGEA is going to do this is part of the tyranny of ignorance.
As author Mark Twain said about rumors of his demise, “The report of my death was an exaggeration”, so go the rumors of poker’s death. The UIGEA does not outlaw poker; the law prohibits banks from making transactions with companies that fund illegal gambling.
This is already happening in many cases. As John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance points out, “Many financial institutions have already stopped funding online gambling accounts, and the UIGEA doesn’t expressly forbid banks to deal with online poker companies. The law just forces them to ensure that they do not fund illegal gambling activities.”
Many, including Pappas, state that the UIGEA won’t stop online poker. He says, “There is what amounts to a safe harbor already embedded in the law, so that any bank that does want to transact with an online poker business simply needs a reasoned legal opinion that it their client is not involved in restricted transactions.”
If knowledge is truly power, poker players need to be powerful when it comes to this subject. The opponents of poker will continue to fight, but poker isn’t illegal in the US; and the UIGEA is unlikely to be anything more than an annoyance until legislation to license and regulate online poker has been passed.

If you qualify to the WSOP with Everest Poker, you can take advantage of an offer really advantageous, because all those who reach the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP Side Event # 54, with satellite tournaments organized by Everest Poker , or through a live tournament organized by the poker room, will be entitled to receive a portion of one million Euros .
The promotion of the Million Dollar Match is restricted exclusively to Everest Poker players, last year in a similar occasion, as many as 50 players received € 20,000 each, after qualifying online for the WSOP Main Event.

The prize pool money with the $ 1 Million Match will be redistributed to players who will qualify in World Series of Poker WSOP event according to which you are qualified and based on the amount of buy-ins, of course greater buy-in, the higher the payment.

For example, all players who are able to qualify for the $ 10,000 WSOP Main Event will get 10 shares of prize money, while those who qualify for the $ 1,000 WSOP Side Event # 54 would receive a share of the jackpot.
Do not wait, start playing at Everest Poker tables to qualify for one of the most exciting online poker event of 2010

Federal prosecutors are again indicating they mean business in going after the online poker business. Their strategy is focused on the industry’s payment processors, the folks who move the money among players, banks and poker companies.

The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan struck a big blow on Tuesday by getting Douglas Rennick, 35, a Canadian payment processor, to show up in New York and plead guilty to violating the Wire Act by processing more than $350 million in the U.S. for Internet poker companies and other online gaming firms.

The plea deal hits the biggest online poker companies offering U.S. play, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Rennick agreed to forfeit $583 million, funds that partly belonged to players of those and other companies. PokerStars and Full Tilt reimbursed the players after federal prosecutors froze funds handled by Rennick in June 2009.

Rennick faces 12 months in prison and is slated to be sentenced in September. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan declined to comment on whether Rennick is cooperating with any ongoing investigation. Rennick’s plea agreement only says it is conditional on “subsequent conduct prior to the imposition of sentence.” The question is whether Rennick’s plea deal is part of a prosecutorial strategy that is going after only payment processors, or the online poker companies as well.

As Forbes pointed out in February, the owners and operators of the biggest online poker firms are an open secret–and many of them can be found regularly playing poker in Las Vegas or promoting their companies at U.S. events shown on television.

The U.S. online poker industry services 2.5 million Americans who play and bet $30 billion annually. Since PartyGaming exited the U.S. online poker market, it has been dominated by PokerStars and Full Tilt, a company associated with famous poker players like Howard Lederer and Christopher Ferguson.

The online poker firms take the position that online poker does not violate any U.S. laws, but the Justice Department has consistently said that facilitating for-money online poker is illegal. Speculation that the Obama administration’s Justice Department would not pursue online poker cases as aggressively as was the case during the Bush administration appears to be receding.

Still, U.S. law is vague enough on the issue of online poker that the Justice Department has appeared reluctant to confront online poker firms directly and in court. Federal prosecutors have been much more comfortable going after payment processors. In April Daniel Tzvetkoff, the Australian owner of another payment processor used by online gaming firms, was arrested in Las Vegas and charged by federal prosecutors of bank fraud and money laundering.

Rennick’s legal problems began last June when the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan froze $34 million owed to at least 14,000 players from companies that processed payments for poker games hosted by Full Tilt and PokerStars, which both reimbursed its players. The companies targeted in the seizures included Rennick’s Account Services Corporation, which had $16.3 million in an account at Wells Fargo frozen.

Rennick tried to contest the seizures in federal court in San Diego with the support of the Poker Players Alliance, a Washington, D.C., lobbying group whose chairman is Alfonse D’Amato, but Rennick was indicted by federal prosecutors shortly afterwards. Rennick is forfeiting the frozen funds as part of his plea deal.