Poker News

The second day of the 2008 World Series of Poker is now in the books. This day saw Event #1 $10K buy-in PLHE played down to the final table as well as Day 1A of event #2 played down to 224 players, this event is a $1500 buy-in event which shattered the previous record for most WSOP entrants in a non-Main Event. To find out how many entered who made the Event 1’s final table read this May 31, 2008 WSOP Recap.

The World Poker Tour has filed paperwork with the Security and Exchanges Commission that its deal with the Game Show Network has been amended. This amended looks like nothing more than the WPT buying more time to try and get its show back on GSN next season. At this time it does not look promising and we’ll find out by June 7, 2008 if the show has been cancelled or not, Full Details

Evidence has lingered on popular poker forums for many months which suggested and proved beyond any reasonable doubt that insider cheating had occurred at online poker site Ultimate Bet. Today the owners of Ultimate Bet issued a long overdue and heavily anticipated press release which admitted cheating had occurred and explained how it had been perpetrated. While this press release has only been out for an hour or so; many players who have followed this story closely have already spoken out to question potential inconstancies with this story. Read Full Details

Yesterday afternoon online poker site Ultimate Bet announced they’ve added Cliff Josephy, better known online as JohnnyBax, to their line up of sponsored poker professionals. In a long thread on 2+2 hundreds of players have expressed their views about the JohnnyBax / Ultimate Bet alliance and so far the general consensus is that most players are concerned, shocked, outraged or appalled at Bax’s decision to align himself with a company strongly suspected of insider cheating which also has proven to employ unethical business practices. Click here to read the 2+2 thread.

Most online poker rooms have plenty of methods in place for their players to qualify to the Main Event. What’s unique about the World Poker Exchange offer is that players have a chance to freeroll to the WSOP* using poker points they’ve earned while also earning 80% weekly rakeback. I mean seriously, how often do sites that give most of player’s paid rake back to them also managed to also offer $12,500 Main Event Packages? Read full details on this WPX promotion.

Shannon Elizabeth is no stranger to endorsements from poker sites as she’s appeared at tournaments in the past wearing logos of and representing sites Full Tilt, Mansion, Bodog Poker and most recently DoylesRoom.com. It was announced this past weekend that the celebrity side of Team Brunson will include Shannon Elizabeth, Pamela Anderson, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Nicky Hilton and Kevin Connolly during this summer’s World Series of Poker.

The Full Tilt $25K buy-in heads up championship is now in the books. David Singer knocked off Brian Hastings in the semi finals and whitelime in the finals to take down $560,000 in first place prize money as well as the title and bragging rights. For more details on how the finals played out, read our full report.

Bodog Poker has decided not to let Full Tilt Poker have all the fun. Today they announced details of their own Mini-SOP series and this one is quite impressive as it covers only the 25 Holdem events all at a buy in 1% of their Vegas tournament counterparts and a Tournament Leader Board (“TLB”) will be used throughout. The top finishers in this TLB will get a chance to play in the 27 player tournament of champions which will award 3 seats to the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. If you’re a tournament player this article is a must read (Full Details Here).

Ladbrokes Poker expects to deal their 1 billionth hand during the month of June. To celebrate this milestone they’ll be offering all players who earn 50 or more poker points that day an entry into a $300,000 WSOP freeroll. For full details visit the Ladbrokes Poker website.

Full Tilt Poker recently announced their plans for a Mini-WSOP* (MSOP) designed for players without the bankroll of time to travel to Las Vegas to play the 2008 World Series of Poker. This event will mirror that of the live Las Vegas tournament series with the only difference being this event is played online and each tournament has a buy-in 1/100th the size of its live counterpart. Winners of each event will receive a Full Tilt championship watch (shown left). The event will run online at Full Tilt Poker from May 30th to July 5th.