PokerStars allows a whole range of tools and Heads-Up-Displays to be used while playing on the site, including Hold’em Manager (right), Holdem Indicator, and PokerTracker.
In fact, around 100 pieces of software which can give a player an advantage over their competitors are deemed acceptable tools and services by PokerStars, with any others not on the list possibly permissible pending a review by the site.
However, PokerStars stipulates that any information gathered through the use of software tools should be accumulated through your own play, thus making the use of software like Poker Edge, or data mining site like HighStakesDB or Poker Table Ratings (PTR) against their terms of service
Yes, players are already playing in online poker qualifiers for the 2012 WSOP at Bovada, but the best place to play online poker continues to deliver the weekly tournament action you want. This past Sunday featured Bovada's weekly $100,000 guaranteed poker tournament and Naim R claimed the top spot, earning an even $20,000 for their play. Greg K got $13,500 for his second-place finish and Bart C rounded out the top three and got $10,000 for his bankroll.
The rest of the final table for the weekly $100,000 event played out as followed: Kevin B ($7,500); Danny H ($5,260); Lada A ($4,000); Tim C ($3,000); Todd R ($2,000); Edward F ($1,350).
Of course, $100,000 events are just part of the action that goes down at Bovada. Here are some selected winners from the past week's big-money tournaments:
• April 10— $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Daniel H
• April 11 — $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Craig N
• April 12 — $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Philip M
• April 13 — $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Crystal W
• April 14 — $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Robert M
• April 15 — $15k Guaranteed Turbo Double-Stack: Cameron J
• April 15 — $10k Guaranteed Turbo Double-Stack: Stephan H
• April 15 — $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack: Ramy I
Bovada's guaranteed online poker tournaments mean that there's always a big cash pool and with more players getting in on the action every week, that means there's more to be won! Play poker online at Bovada and get your share today!
It has been one year since Black Friday drastically changed the poker world. While the effects of that fateful day have yet to run their course, and likely won’t for years to come, online poker has been altered forever. Players all over the world were impacted, but none more so than players in the United States. U.S. players, like Justin Bonomo, were forced to make drastic decisions about their poker careers.
If you recall, Bonomo announced last August that he was moving out of the country to continue playing online poker, stating “Drastic times call for drastic measures.” He chose Malta as his new home, though he later relocated to Toronto. Black Friday totally changed his life, forcing him to crisscross the globe to continue making a living, something he had to do minus the six-figures he has trapped on Full Tilt Poker.
Read more: Black Friday Chronicles: Justin Bonomo Reflects on the Past Year | PokerNews
The internet can be a place where things go on in the background that most users never see or even care about. There are those companies out there that need the internet to survive and are trying to make sure it is safe and secure.
One of the most popular poker rooms in the world PokerStars has been very active in fighting the process of data mining of their information. A post on the PokerStars Roundtable website by Head of Home Games for the firm, Lee Jones indicates that the poker room has had enough of the leaching and has issued ‘Cease and Desist’ letters to Poker Table Ratings (PTR). Poker Table Ratings takes information from the poker hands of Poker Stars and another various rooms and sells them to anyone looking to cash in on those stats.
Read More: PokerStars Online Poker Wants To Stop Data Mining
With a number of massive events looming on the horizon on both the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour, and the World Series of Poker just over a month away, things are about to get shaken up in the Card Player Player of the Year race sponsored by Lock Poker.
The past week’s events were not quite as sizable, but still awarded hundreds of thousands and plenty of POY points.
Here are the most significant results:
Read More: Player of the Year: Phil Collins, Robert Baguley and Morten Christensen Win
April 15 marked the one-year anniversary of “Black Friday,” the federal shutdown of the online poker business in the United States.
In one big swoop, the light was turned off on the three largest operators, as the domains were swiped by the FBI on a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The seizure, which was first set in motion with the 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, created a lot of confusion and chaos in the poker industry that remains to this day.
Read more: ?Black Friday' hardly a celebrated anniversary - San Antonio Express-News
At the earlier start of the month it was reported that Full Tilt Poker’s Dublin-based Pocket Kings was hiring new staff, leaving many wondering the current state of affairs in the negotiations between the FTP, the DoJ and investors Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT).
Then it was reported that, Full Tilt is “applying to expand the one license it held with the AGCC that was not revoked during hearings in July 2011.”
And now as of this week, according to findings around the industry, two newly registered companies in Malta were also discovered under the names “Full Tilt Holding Ltd.” and “New Full Tilt Ltd.” also reported as well, GBT principal Laurent Tapie’s is named as director and secretary on an Irish registration for New Full Tilt Ltd.
Read More: Online Poker Room Full Tilt Poker's Current Status of Affairs | Casino Scam Report
The game of poker has changed significantly throughout its history. Once practiced by outcasts and outlaws, it now sits alongside baseball and football as a great American pastime generating billions of dollars in revenue. And like those sports, poker’s past is a turbulent one filled with colorful characters.
Poker’s storied evolution is on full display in All In: The Poker Movie, a new documentary screening at the Gene Siskel Center on Monday, April 23. The film is a love letter to poker created for lovers of the game, but the uninitiated will find it fascinating, too.
Read More: P-p-p-poker face | Metropolis | Chicago Journal
With the demise of Full Tilt Poker and UB-com, there has been a bit of a void in the online poker tournament series space. PokerStars rules the roost, of course, with fantastic series such as the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). But without Full Tilt’s FTOPS and UB’s UBOC, there are gaps in the calendar that are longing to be filled. Last year, PartyPoker launched its answer, Pokerfest, and it got rave reviews. Pokerfest is back this year for its second annual showing and it is ready to kickoff this weekend.
It's not just bigger guarantees and the $500k Liberty Weekends that are attracting U.S.-based online poker players to Americas Cardroom. For the fourth straight month, Americas Cardroom has ranked first when it comes to payment processing, a feat that's being heralded as impressive given the concerns with cashing out from an online poker site post-Black Friday.
"When it comes to reliability and trustworthiness, we're continuing to prove that no other site in the U.S. stacks up to Americas Cardroom," said Americas Cardroom spokesperson Michael Harris. "We take great pride in our A rating by Poker Affiliate Solutions, and we work hard every single day to earn the respect of players all over the world."
In a report released by Poker Affiliate Solutions on April 12, Americas Cardroom received an A rating for payment processing. Americas Cardroom was also awarded an A rating in March, up from an A- the month before.
The first-place ranking - the fourth in four months - puts Americas Cardroom at the top of the cashout reliability list. Other notable sites include Merge Gaming with a B rating, and Cake Poker with a D- rating.
According to the report, debit card withdrawals at Americas Cardroom take from 1-2 days, transfers are processed within 1-4 days, and check withdrawals are processed within 1-2 weeks.
The report noted that not only is payment processing at Americas Cardroom fast, but it's also incredibly consistent, month over month.
Currently there are two promotions running at Bovada Casino that are based on featured slot games. One of these slot games is Rain Dance which is a popular Realtime Gaming title. The other slot game is Indiana Jane, which was released earlier this month. Bovada Casino is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
Rain Dance is the feature slot game for this week's Win-Win Friday promotion. Every week on Friday Bovada Casino players can wager on the featured slot game. If they end up winning then it is well and good. But if they end up losing then Bovada Casino will reimburse 50% of their losses as cash back up to $50. The cash back will be deposited directly to the qualifying player's account the following day. It will carry a 20x rollover requirement on online slots games.
Read More: Bovada Casino Featured Slots Promotions
Bovada Poker is giving players like you a chance to win a seat in the 2012 World Series of Poker* Main Event for just a buck! Through June 24th, the best place to play online poker is giving you the best chance for a seat in the biggest event in the game with over 2,000 daily qualifiers starting at just $1.10 and a dozen weekly satellites in which 2 to 10 seats in the big show are guaranteed per event!
The aggressive online tournament schedule at Bovada means that players can play to win their way to Vegas on their own timetable. You can choose from regular, turbo or Sit and Go tournaments to win a seat in the weekly satellite event, and in addition to the regular qualifiers, there ‘s a series of last chance qualifiers where you can get into the $470 + 30 main event for as low as $25 + 2.50.
Winners from the weekly satellite are going to win a lot more than a seat in the Main Event. If you win, you’ll get a taste of that famous Bovada lifestyle thanks to a $12,000 prize package that includes the $10,000 Main Event buy-in, along with money for airfare, accommodations and much, much more.
Visit Bovada's WSOP Main Event online qualifiers and satellite page and find out just how easy it can be to find yourself in Las Vegas for the big show.
The Boston Herald is reporting that a Massachusetts lawmaker wants the state to adopt a plan that would grant three intrastate poker licenses. Massachusetts recently authorized the construction of brick-and-mortar casinos, but it hasn’t yet been decided who will win a license bid. Each Internet poker license would reportedly have a minimum price tag of $10 million, and sites would pay a tax of 25 percent.
After flirting with language in 2010 that criminalized web poker, the state considered legalizing the activity in September 2011. A Department of Justice letter on the Wire Act in December 2011 has made the issue more clear with regards to federal law.
Other states currently considering online gaming legislation include California, New Jersey and Delaware. Nevada is far ahead of the pack, as it has already legalized the activity and is moving toward its licensing phase.
Reports that in the twelve months following the notorious "Black Friday" events that shut down major online poker sites and dramatically rocked the entire online gaming industry, players in Canada have fared comparatively well. Immediately following the shutdown of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, sites like 888 Poker with a strong focus on Canadian poker players have experienced rapid growth. These sites' distance from the shutdowns and legal issues have allowed them to expend even more resources to accommodate the Canadian online poker market post-Black Friday.
Read More: G-poker: Canadian Online Poker Industry Thriving on Anniversary of Poker Sites PokerStars & Full Tilt Poker Being Shutdown - MarketWatch
PokerStars runs the $1,050 Super Tuesday tournament, which, as its name suggests, is held on Tuesdays. This event is among the most popular online poker tournaments in the online poker gaming world, with around 500 online poker players, including a number of top professional online poker players, participating.
The Super Tuesday of this week had 441 online poker players playing for their share of a total prize pool of $441,000. The number of players was smaller because many top poker pros were participating in the Main Event of the Berlin leg of the European Poker Tour (EPT).
Read More: Poker Pro Ainsworth Wins $84K in PokerStars Super Tuesday
In an attempt to fill the void and satisfy the need for some more online poker tournaments, Party Poker launched Pokerfest last year, which became very popular and got some good reviews. Party Poker is going to launch the second edition of Pokerfest, called the Pokerfest II, soon.
Pokerfest II is reported to comprise 47 tournaments with a total guaranteed prize pool of $3.5 million. The online poker tournament will commence on April 22 Sunday with four NL Texas Hold’em tournaments and will close on May 6 Sunday with a Main Event having a buy-in of $640 and a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million.
The US Congress is set to vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, April 23, which is similar to the defunct Stop Online Piracy Act in so much as it dispels with the red tape that keeps government agencies within their own sphere and a reasonable distance from the military and big business.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act due to be introduced in the American Congress could have far reaching implications. This act will make an individual’s personal information on company data bases more accessible to various government departments. The reasoning behind the act is to protect the country from cyber threats. The CISPA has a very broad definition of what constitutes a genuine cyber threat which disregards the companies firewalls and rights to privacy. CISPA considers a threat, “Efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy government or private systems or networks,” It continues to detail a threat constitutes, “Theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property or personally identifiable information.” That means anyone downloading a song or movie is a cyber threat by definition.
Read More: Poker Players Alliance Uses Cyber Intelligence Bill as Vehicle
Professional poker player Phil Laak is known for his endurance at the online poker tables; he can play for long hours at a stretch, but he shocked the entire poker gaming community when he lost a hand worth €60,000 at the Party Poker Big Game, which is a televised event that runs for 48 hours. However, he later emerged victorious, having won €160,100.
Read More: Phil Laak Loses Over ?60,000 but Wins ?160,100
In fact, around 100 pieces of software which can give a player an advantage over their competitors are deemed acceptable tools and services by PokerStars, with any others not on the list possibly permissible pending a review by the site.
However, PokerStars stipulates that any information gathered through the use of software tools should be accumulated through your own play, thus making the use of software like Poker Edge, or data mining site like HighStakesDB or Poker Table Ratings (PTR) against their terms of service
Read More: PokerStars, HUDs And Tracking Software