Poker forum archive

This past Sunday, November 28, saw the latest in Bodog Poker's weekly $100,000 guaranteed tournaments. These massive events take place on Sundays at 4pm EST and feature some of the best online poker action going. MutterLund took first place and ended up with an additional $23,600 in their bankroll. They were followed by dirtymike81 ($13,600) and Kuroc, who rounded out the top three while earning $9,100. Here's the rest of the final table results: BertieWooster ($7,000); pdi88 ($5,700); horningt12 ($4,500); KujaKK ($3,500); silverfern ($2,200); cruiserjade ($1,300);

In addition to our show-stopping Sunday events, Bodog hosts its regular weekly tournaments to players, and here's the winners of last week's events!

* November 22 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack dw_boss_2
* November 23 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack sharkhawker
* November 24 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack sanzard
* November 25 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack mfbf78
* November 28 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack Cmoney500
* November 28 $10k Guaranteed Turbo Double-Stack StevenKarp

After seeing that Peter Eastgate’s 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event took over $147,000 on eBay, it looks like another pro has decided to see what they can get for that a piece of poker history. Paul “Eskimo” Clark’s 1999 WSOP bracelet, won for his victory in the $1,500 Razz tournament, is now up for bidding.

The minimal bracelet is a marked contrast to the diamond-encrusted Main Event bracelet that Eastgate sold, with a simple engraving and a lower historical value, but the amount of gold in the bracelet alone could fetch around $5,000 in the open market. The bracelet's currently at $3,850 with two days left in the bidding.

There's also the matter that Eastgate's sale was made to benefit UNICEF while this appears to be a strictly for-profit venture on the part of the seller. Clark's bracelet lists the item location as being in Donegal, in Ireland, placing it far from his usual environs, which adds another bit of mystery to the sale.

It’s been a few weeks since two of the top online players locked horns in the million dollar challenge, but once Tom “Durrrr” Dwan took to the felt against Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates the action was certainly worth the wait. With many people across America taking advantage of Black Friday, the two players sat down for two sessions that eventually ended with “Durrrr” making a small profit of $13,000. During the sessions the pair exchange a number of 6 figure pots including a $128,370 pot that went “Durrrr’s” way when his 6h 3s connecting with the 3d 6s 6d flop to best “jungleman12’s” pocket kings.

With large pots flying in all directions it was no surprise that at one point “Durrrr” was almost $800,000 down overall in the challenge, however, a few well timed pots got him back to even for the sessions and into a small profit. The young poker pro is still lagging well behind Cates, however, with the challenger holding a $645,667 lead over Dwan.

With the Christmas holidays approaching and the live scene entering a lull it’s likely the two will lock horns some more in the coming weeks which should provide some excellent entertainment for the railbirds at Full Tilt Poker.

We talked about him back in August, but it's time to revisit Samuel McMaster Jr, who made an agreement with a New Mexico judge to repay the $444,000 life savings he swindled from 20 elderly people while acting as an investment expert. The deal captured the imagination of the online poker community when McMaster used black voodoo or something to to convince New Mexico District Court Judge Ross Sanchez, that he was a poker pro and should be given the chance to repay his victims by plying his trade on the green felts. This was, of course, because the former insurance agent had been very thoroughly disbarred from the securities industry.

The judge agreed to allow McMaster’s six months grace to play poker and repay $7,500 a month or otherwise face up to 12 years in jail. At that time, an announcement was made which stated: “The judge has conditionally accepted the plea and disposition agreement and will accept or reject the plea agreement in November after reading the pre sentence report.”

According to the court documents, McMaster was continuing his deception when he made the deal, trying to bluff Judge Sanchez into the deal. He's now being tested for gambling addiction after he recently announced: "I have never been nor will ever be a professional poker player."

McMaster’s claim to be a poker pro originally raised plenty of eyebrows among poker fans and players, as a quick glance at his live tournament results showed he had earned just $30,181 since 2003. Since his probationary period began, McMaster has succeeded in earning just $1461 for a 13th place finish at a $300 Venetian Deep Stack event this month.

Mac poker players can ring in the holiday season a little earlier this year. On Wednesday, Carbon Poker will unveil a fully downloadable Mac client. In addition to Carbon Poker, the Mac software will debut across the USA-friendly Merge Gaming Network.

The Mac client has been being beta tested to this point and will now be available for public consumption tomorrow night. Interested players can download the Mac version from Carbon Poker’s website or from other skins of the Merge Gaming Network. There are only a handful of sites that offer fully functional Mac clients, including Full Tilt and PokerStars. Other sites like PartyPoker and Bodog offer web-based clients that have major limitations. However, they still allow Mac users to play online poker.

Atil Singh, Head of Acquisition at Carbon Poker, told Poker News Daily on the eve of the Mac client’s launch, “Having the ability to offer potential customers a Mac version of our software is quite significant. Numerous studies have shown that Apple’s market share in the U.S. has grown to over 10% in 2010 and will continue to grow rapidly moving forward. Our affiliates can now target an unsaturated market of potential Carbon Poker players. There has never been a better time to be Mac-friendly.”

Singh added that Mac players will be impressed with the features of the new Carbon Poker client that will be rolled out on Wednesday: “Beta testing on the new client has gone very well and some of the new features have been especially popular. Tournament lobbies now open in a separate window, full screen mode has been optimized for smoother play, and improvements have been made to the software’s performance on smaller computers and netbooks.”

To this point, Mac users have had to hunt down a program like Parallels or Boot Camp in order to load Windows-based software on their computers. Now, Mac players can download the Merge Gaming software right onto their machines, most likely leading to an increase in player counts. The rollout of the Mac software is scheduled for 7:00pm ET on Wednesday.







In December, Carbon Poker is holding a $50,000 Grand Prix, which awards cash prizes to players who rack up VIP Points on its felts. The top 500 spots will pay out and a minimum prize of $10 is up for grabs. A total of $50,000 in cash will be dished out during the December promotion, with a top prize of $3,000.

Carbon Poker and the Merge Gaming Network happily accept players from the United States.

For the 2011 version of Poker Caribbean Adventure (PCA), there's a very interesting news in the organization of this tournament. Besides the usual poker festival that make this circuit as famous as those of the North American Poker Tour, the Latin American Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour, this new edition of next year will bring a new ingredient in its program. For the ten days of competition in the Bahamas, a compulsory fishing competition will be part of the tournament. The organizers of the Poker Caribbean Adventure program with the festivities of January 7 to 16, 2011 the same number of tournaments as of January 2010. The change will be effected by cons in the quality of events offered to players who can choose between a wide range of buy-in from $ 300 to $ 100,000.

For the particular case of a buy-in of $ 2,300, it should be noted that the $ 400 will be reserved for the fishing contest, the $ 900 for the poker tournament and the remaining $ 1,000 for the general classification i.e fishing and poker combined. Two High Roller tournaments will be also in the schedule of the PCA 2011 with a No Limit Hold'em of $ 100,000 buy-in and the famous $ 25,000 No Limit Hold'em. Namely, the entry fee to the Main Event is set at $ 10,000. With the same amount, participants will be eligible to play at a $ 10,000 6 Max. Similarly, tournaments like the $ 5,000 6 Max, NHL, Head's Up and Shootout will be offered as well as a multitude of bounty tournaments and at lower buy-in from $ 150 to $ 2,000 as the Pot Limit Omaha, Pot Limit Omaha High Low, 8 Games, Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Hold'em and Badugi.

Man that is some serious cashes.

In case you forgot companies like Shodown Couture, Poker Brat, Poker-Dude and I'm All In Wear existed and wanted to make sure that people you played poker with knew you took the game much, much more seriously than they do, yet another company that thinks players should wear something more appropriate to the table than a sports jersey or a hood has emerged. RISE, founded by Noah Heller, claims to offer more choice for poker players and fill a whole in the industry.

In a press release, Heller said: "We believe it’s time to bring a serious lifestyle clothing line to poker..We’re a worldwide community that’s millions strong, and ferociously devoted to poker. Where are the jacket, shirts, hoodies, and hats that were made for us? We want to bring to poker a brand that embraces the competitive, risk-seeking lifestyle of the game and those who play it, much like the way Burton does for snowboarding and Hurley and Quiksilver for surfing."

Frankly, the clothes are a cut above most of the ones I've seen people wearing, with minimal patterns, little additions like a visor shape in the hood and iPod/iPhone wiring paths and the fabrics are stated to be breathable, which is nice for long sessions at the tables.

Two men were buried yesterday in the aftermath of a horrifying story from South Florida involving a poker game and a fake deputy. The incident occurred at around 2:30 on Thanksgiving morning in Tampa, Florida, where five friends had gathered to play a game of poker on the porch of a friend's house. Brothers Juan (28) and Sergio (22) Guitron joined their cousins Ramon Galan and Richard Cantu and two other friends, Gonzalo Guevara were chatting while waiting for Daniel Beltran to return so they could continue their game. A man wearing a black t-shirt that read "Sheriff" on it stepped out and demanded that the five face down on the ground before questioning about a person they'd never heard of.

It was at this moment that Beltran rounded the corner and the armed man opened fire, shooting each of the five men on the floor before escaping. The other men survived the assault, but the Guitron brothers were not so lucky. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is now searching as a matter of "top priority" for a man described as white with short bushy hair and aged between 30 and 40.

No motive has been uncovered in the murders so far, with those that know the family saying that the Guitron brothers were "good guys" and there was no real reason for the attack as far as they know.

Update:
An arrest was made this morning. Accused killer Michael Keetley said that he had been conducting his own investigation on a shooting that happened to him during a robbery in his ice cream truck last January, which led him to the six men that Thursday morning. He is currently being held without bail.

Play online poker at Bodog.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev, has begun to circulate a bill that would legalize online poker. If passed, the Internet Poker Act of 2010 would regulate online poker and provide much needed revenue with federal and state taxes.

As its currently written, the bill would only apply to existing casinos, horse tracks and slot-machine makers. Off-shore online poker sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, would have to wait at least two years before they were allowed to re-enter the market. Those two sites account for the majority of online poker action in the United States.

Several Las Vegas casino companies have already voiced their support for the bill, including Rob Meyne, vice president of corporate communications for Boyd Gaming.

“We definitely support federal licensing, regulation and taxation of Internet gaming with revenues shared by both state and federal governments,” he said.

Of course, Meyne also feels that individual states should have the right to opt out and lose their share of tax revenue as a result.

Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Resorts International, echoed a similar sentiment, saying that online poker should be legalized, regulated and taxed.

“There may be any number of technical or language issues with which we might disagree, but on the whole, this effort seems to us to be a comprehensive and appropriate balance between creating jobs and generating badly needed tax revenues for states and providing significant structure and rigor to the licensing and operations of online poker sites,” Feldman said.

Reid is hoping that the bill will pass during the current lame-duck session, which will conclude Dec. 17. Though the bill has received support, it also has its fair share of detractors, most notably Alabama Republican representative Spencer Bachus, who is under the impression that the bill would be taking advantage of the “young, the weak and the vulnerable.”

It's that time of year again, when you gather around the steel pole and air your grievances with the rest of your family and friends and Bodog's decided to make the holiday just that much more special with our Festivus promotion! During that holiday for the rest of us, you'll you get gifts just for playing online and earning points like you normally do!

How does it work? Starting December 18th and running through the 31st, Bodog Poker is hosting seven two-day Festivus miracles where you can get gifts when you earn 100 Bodog points playing online poker with us! Here's a list of the miracles and what you can get!

Festivus Miracle #1: December 18-19 (Saturday and Sunday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, get $10 in cash!

Festivus Miracle #2: December 20-21 (Monday and Tuesday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, get $20 in Bodog Casino chips!

Festivus Miracle #3: December 22-23 (Wednesday and Thursday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, get a chance at entry into a $100,000 tournament!

Festivus Miracle #4: December 24-25 (Friday and Saturday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, get a seat at a $20,000 freeroll!

Festivus Miracle #5: December 26-27 (Sunday and Monday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, Get a free $20 bet at Bodog Sportsbook!

Festivus Miracle #6: December 28-29 (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, Get a ticket to any $5,000 guaranteed poker tournament!

Festivus Miracle #6: December 30-31 (Thursday and Friday)
Earn 100 Bodog Points, Get a free ticket for any $11 Bodog Poker tournament!

We'll remind you again, but if you're not already, now's a great time to start playing poker online and winning at Bodog! Make a deposit now and get up to $1100 with our deposit bonus!

You will need to Opt In to participate in this €20,000 Cash Race, but doing that is a simple matter of visiting the Cash Race page at the Ladbrokes Poker website, following the Opt In link and providing your email address and Customer ID when requested. When you have opted in for this Cash Race you will automatically be opted into future races, so you will only need to opt in once – at least as far as Cash Races are concerned.

There are three Cash Race levels, as follows:

Level 1 – £/€/$0.10/0.20 to 0.20/0.40
Level 2 - £/€/$0.25/0.50 to 0.50/1.00
Level 3 - £/€/$1/2 +

Whichever level you participate in, you will earn points when you play any qualifying real money poker game at that level. Your aim should be to earn as many points as possible, and if you are among the top 20 players (for Level 1) or top 25 players (for Level 2 and Level 3) as far as the number of points earned in concerned then you will win a cash prize.

As you would expect from a Cash Race, the amount of prize money that you will pick up will depend on your finishing position, with the biggest prize of all going to the clear winner in each of the three levels. The top prizes for each level are:

Level 1 - €250
Level 2 - €500
Level 3 - €1,500

Bear in mind the fact that you get to keep whatever profits you make from the poker games themselves and we think this €20,000 Cash Race is well worth taking part in. Visit Ladbrokes Poker to Opt In and good luck!

Poker has been played by presidents and partisans alike for generations. But until now, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have tried to inhibit millions of Americans from participating in the popular game with other players online.

More than 2,000 websites currently offer users the chance to wager real cash in games of skill and chance, including poker, according to the American Gaming Association. But most of them are run by offshore companies, industry experts say.

Now some lawmakers want to allow U.S.-based casino companies to get into the game -- and a cut of the $25 billion-a-year pie -- by quietly pushing for a change in the law before the end of this year.

A draft bill, first reported by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by ABC News, would legalize online poker playing in the U.S., and establish licensing and reporting requirements for companies, as well as safeguards for consumers. It would also generate tax revenue from wagers, for state and federal governments.

Forms of online gambling other than poker would remain prohibited under the bill.

Legalization of online poker forums has long been sought by the U.S. casino industry which says federal gaming regulations have unfairly handicapped their business in a flourishing online marketplace and left American consumers vulnerable.

"There are no consumer protections, no standards for licensing, no rules on operations," said Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International, who noted internet gambling is widespread across the U.S. despite federal law.

An estimated 15 million Americans play online poker for money through sites run out of foreign countries, according to the Poker Players Alliance.

"We're very strictly regulated. But then in the online space, there are all these unregulated, unlicensed, untaxed groups running internet gaming," Feldman said.

Gary Thompson, spokesman for Caesars Entertainment Corp., the country's largest gaming company, said he could not comment on the bill because of an SEC-mandated "quiet period," but acknowledged the industry has favored a change in the law.

Online gambling in America is estimated to be worth over $5 billion to offshore investors.

It's a huge amount of revenue for those able to run websites from outside the country.

Four years ago legislation was passed that prohibited American Casinos and others involving in the gaming industry from operating online gambling in the US.

Today a push to change the law has been disclosed as draft legislation is planned to be introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The aim of the legislation is to open the industry to allow licensed organizations, casinos and racecourse operators to offer poker and other games through the internet.

Already the line in the sand has been drawn between two distinct camps in the casino debate.

For those pushing for the legalization of online gambling the argument is about the basic freedom of individuals is to spend the money the way they choose.

Yet others stand firmly opposed to making gambling any more accessible that it already is. Online gambling is there in your home, in your office, instantly there, and for those players who have developed or will potentially develop gambling problems the dangers are potentially phenomenal.

Anyone who knows anyone who has been addicted to gambling would be familiar with the destructive nature of the illness. Homes are lost, families destroyed. In a very short period of time and sometimes with no signs the house a family has grown up with is gone, the nest egg, the superannuation, all that security that has been built up by a family can seemingly disappear overnight.

"By 1994, a considerable body of evidence showed that the expansion of legalized gambling destroys individuals, wrecks families, increases crime, and ultimately costs society far more than the government makes," says Bernard P Horn, Is there A Cure For America's Gambling Addition?

It's been estimated that 1.1% of American adults in 1997 were considered to have a gambling problem that was classed as pathological.

The individual stories of how people become seduced by gambling, for company, to avoid boredom or just to pass the day hanging around a place designed to keep you, especially you, entertained are littering the internet.

As the industry gears up to debate the bill to be introduced by Harry Reid we can only hope that equally significant measures are put in place to reduce the harm on those who loose control when gambling.

If you have any comments on this article please email Mary Banfield: [email][email protected][/email]

Every Sunday, Bodog Poker hosts a weekly $100,000 guaranteed tournaments and December 5th was no exception! These massive events take place at 4pm EST on Sundays and feature some of the best online poker action going. POKER_TOKER_ took first place and ended up with an additional $23,600 in their bankroll this week and they were followed by bomber417 ($13,600) and beakers125, who rounded out the top three while earning $9,100. Here's the rest of the final table results: sa na ($7,000); bearbeer ($5,700); woodbine ave ($4,500); NR220 ($3,300); npopa6 ($2,200); TopAce87 ($1,300);

In addition to our show-stopping Sunday events, Bodog hosts its regular weekly tournaments to players, and here's the winners of last week's events!

* November 29 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack FlopmasterJim
* November 30 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack T4eburashka
* December 1 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack OnclePicsou
* December 2 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack maabin
* December 5 $10k Guaranteed Double-Stack Buckwheat29
* December 5 $10k Guaranteed Turbo Double-Stack graytambar

Bodog's guaranteed tournaments mean that there's always a big cash pool. Play poker online at Bodog Poker and get your share!

A lawmaker and a group of California Indian tribes are racing to have the state Legislature consider legalizing Internet poker here before they are preempted by the federal government adopting its own plan.

Sen. Louis Correa (D-Santa Ana) said he introduced Senate Bill 40 on Monday. The measure would allow select tribes and others to run state-sanctioned Internet poker games, with a cut of the action going to state coffers.

"People play offshore now. All of that money goes offshore," Correa said. "What we’re trying to do is take a whole exploding industry that is illegal (in California) and make it legal and tax it to fund state services."

He said the legislation is backed by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which operates a casino in San Bernardino County, and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which has a casino in Cabazon.

However, Correa acknowledged that some other tribes have already called him to voice concerns about the proposal, which critics say potentially could let a few tribes run Internet games that would take customers away from brick-and-mortar casinos.

That opposition, and the threat of some Indian tribes to withhold payments to the state from slot machines if Internet poker is allowed, helped derail a similar measure introduced last legislative session by Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood).

Bodog Poker has a unique feature that distinguishes it from other poker rooms, casino games when you bet on sports or to do while your poker then this is the place for you. Bodog Poker offers 110% only by the amount of the limited uses love the game first deposit. There is no maximum bonus amount of payment methods have a maximum deposit limit. Each time you reload your online betting account and receive 10% cash bonus.

The World Poker Tour Five Diamond Classic has been underway at the Bellagio in Las Vegas since Friday evening and it looks like it's going to be one for the ages with Antonio Esfandiari leading the final fifteen players with 2,680.000. 438 players sat down on the afternoon of the third, paying $10,000 for the privilege of competing in one of the most luxurious poker rooms in the world. With a prize pool that's hit the $4.2m mark, it's easy to see why the competition is so fierce at this late stage of the game.

Esfandiari is joined by a staggering group of his fellow pros, including 2010 World Series of Poker main event runner up John Racener, Andrew Robl, Kirk Morrison, Vanessa Rousso, Chris DeMaci, Ted Lawson, and Daniel Fuhs among others. With as many name players as there are playing in this event, there's also some very notable people that have already hit the sidelines, including the tournamen's namesake, Doyle Brunson. His elimination was met with a what one source described as a "spirited round of applause," which seems to be appropriate for a player who has done so much for the game.

During the 2010-2011 NFL season, Bodog Poker and Bodog Sportsbook have been giving poker players and bettors alike a chance to enjoy two of America's biggest passions at the same time in our spectacular Monday Night Football tournaments. The Bodog online poker room hosts a pair of tournaments on Mondays at 8:00PM. Each tournament represents a team that's playing that night and if the team whose tournament you're playing covers their spread, you get a $10 Free Football Bet at our online sportsbook!

Monday's epic matchup featured the heated regional rivals the New York Gets taking on the New England Patrots. A 3.5-point spread that gave the Jets a bit of a nod meant nothing with the quite-thorough 45-3 trouncing that Brady and associated deliveres to the New York team.

Bodog playerScotty15 won the Patriots tournament, and took away $279 for their $10 buy in. In addition to those who beat the bubble getting their share of a $930 prize pool, everyone who played in that tournament got a free $10 football bet at Bodog Sportsbook. Meanwhile, joe161 took the top spot in the Dolphins tourney, earning $159.

As long as there's football, there will be Monday Night Football Tournaments on Bodog Poker. Show your acumen in two fields and score a free bet while you enjoy a great tournament on one of America's favorite online poker sites!

At 4:00 PM this afternoon, the final six players are going to hit the felt in order to determine who's walking away with the first place finish in one of the hottest events on the World Poker Tour circuit. Rousso's husband, Chad Brown (who actually played in the event just days after hip surgery) posted "Congrats to my girl making the final table and she is the chip leader. Back tomorrow at 4pm for the grand finale. My money is on the lady," to the social media site Twitter.

Antonio Esfandiari, who's now in fifth place, led the action as 15 players played down to the final six. Kia Mohajeri, who took second at the Borgata Poker Open, was the final elimination of the evening, earning $97,900. The final table itself is an all-star lineup, sure to keep the audience gathered for the finale entranced:

1. Vanessa Rousso (5,830,000)
2. John Racener (3,235,000)
3. Andrew Robl (3,210,000)
4. Kirk Morrison (2,650,000)
5. Antonio Esfandiari (2,105,000)
6. Ted Lawson (635,000)

The first-place finisher at the Five Diamond World Poker Tour Classic will receive $870,124 for their play.