High Stakes Poker Season 7 Premieres Saturday

Date: Fri, Feb 25, 2011

High Stakes Poker season 7 premieres Saturday at 8 PM on GSN with new host Norm McDonald and no FTP pros.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

Don't miss any poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

ITA Poker Network Tables List

Date: Thu, Feb 24, 2011

We offer our players a room on the ITA Poker Network that has both the ITA and the "regular" Everleaf tables. For the convenience of our customers who prefer to limit their play to the softer ITA tables we provide the below table. It lists some of the commonest ITA and Everleaf table names at stakes from 50 to 400 NL. Note that all dollar tables are Everleaf tables.

	ITA	Everleaf
400NL	Montreal, Grotte
200NL	Mombassa, Tonga, Texas, Monaco, Libreville, Voronezh	Barwani, Greater Willington, Mariestad, Kettering, Berlin
100NL	Dublin, Iraq, Netherlanda, Tulana, Baku, Turkey, Kovania	Mahoba, Naples, Burntwood, Turin
50NL	Wroclaw, Jixi, Niamey, Valencian, TimorLeste, Kenya, Egypt	Udhampur, Radfontein, Otley, Grimsby, Motala, Valencia, Riga, Vienna

For those of you unfamiliar with the Everleaf Platform it consists of three networks:

• ITA is the largest traffic pool, with soft games and mostly Italian players. A few skins have both ITA and Everleaf games.
• U-Poker is the smallest traffic pool but it's one of the softest poker networks in the world. It also has mostly Italian players but its games are entirely segregated.
• What's commonly known as the Everleaf Network is the most well-known of the three but its games aren't as soft as the others (though still softer than most major rooms). If you see an Everleaf room on a rakeback site it will be one of these.

If you're interested in signing up for our ITA room with 30% rakeback fill out this signup form. Make sure that it says Rakeback30 in the Special Bonus Code field on the second signup page. If it doesn't, you can insert it, return though the link, or delete cookies and return through the link if necessary. After you've signed up your nickname so that we can verify you've been tracked correctly. If you're looking for a VIP or subaffiliate deal you can also .

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

DoylesRoom Responsible for 138% Growth of Yatahay Network

Date: Thu, Feb 24, 2011

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

Bodog to Phase Out Poker Info Scraping Sites, Continuing War Against Sharks

Date: Mon, Feb 21, 2011

· Bodog Europe CEO Patrik Selin said they are against hand histories, HUDs, rakeback, and "Nobody who is playing poker for fun visits these sites, or, probably even knows they exist. They primarily exist to serve the needs of the professional players."

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

World Poker Tour and WSOP Europe Premiere

Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2011

Season 9 of the World Poker Tour premieres on Sunday the 13th at 8 PM on Fox Sports Net. FSN is a collection of affiliates so airtimes may vary: check a programming guide for times in your area.

The 2010 WSOP Europe will air in two 2-hour blocks from 10 PM to midnight on the next two Sundays on ESPN2.

Poker After Dark is running a $150,000 cash game.

This week's newsbites:

• Doyle's Room is planning a cash game on a national network.
• Steven Ruddock gave us 10 Reasons Why The PokerStars Big Game Will Save Televised Poker and new he feels that week 10 was the best televised poker since the 2003 WSOP.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

New Jersey Regulates Online Poker

Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011

New Jersey's legislature passed a law (PDF) regulating online poker, and most other major forms of online gambling except sportsbetting, by a veto-proof margin. Under the law Atlantic City casinos will be allowed to host online gambling sites within the city limits and take bets from New Jersey residents 21 years or older. The tax rate on the sites will be 23% of gross revenue. A serious concern is that New Jersey online poker sites might not have adequate traffic when dividing the state's population of 8.7 million between competing local and overseas sites. Opening accounts and cashing out also look more complex than at current sites, requiring an application and form respectively. A few other notable points in the bill: big losers will be sent statements of their losses; and cashouts must be sent within three days.

The law prohibits neither gambling on sites hosted outside New Jersey nor providing such services (although New Jersey could misrepresent the letter of the law to impede overseas sites in the manner the federal government has done). The law defines internet wagering as taking place where the servers are located in Atlantic City, which is a significant legal boon to overseas sites since they argue that no gambling is taking place in the United States when people play on their sites.

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

No Bad Beats Poker: Get Your Money Back If You Take A Bad Beat At This Online Poker Room

Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011

No Bad Beats Poker is a new room on the Everleaf platform where you get your money back if you suffer a bad beat in "No Bad Beats" tournaments or ring games. To get your money back at least one player must be all in by the turn; if the favorite has a winning probability of at least the Bad Beat Cutoff Percentage (see graphic below) but loses he'll get his money back. After the player taking the bad beat gets his money back rake is taken from the remaining pot awarded to the player with the best hand.

No Bad Beats tables and tournaments are clearly targeted at fish: good players realize that to take a bad beat you must get your money in with the best hand, which is profitable in the long run. My initial thoughts on strategy, though, are that the tables should encourage more tight-aggressive (better) play: there will be less value in passively drawing, and more value in getting all in with strong hands early.

NoBadBeatsPoker.com also has the regular International Everleaf tables but not the more profitable ITA and UPN tables. The room is open now in its beta-testing phase with a freeroll scheduled for January 16 and the grand opening for the 30th.

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

Poker After Dark Schedule

Date: Mon, Jan 3, 2011

Poker After Dark airs at 2:05 AM Tuesday through Saturday (late night Monday through Friday) with a weekly recap show at 1 AM Sunday (late night Saturday) on NBC.

January 3, 100K-buyin tourney: John Juanda, Erick Lindgren, Phil Galfond, Huck Seed, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey

February 7, 150K-buyin cash game part 1: David Peat, Howard Lederer, Phil Laak, Greg Mueller, Olivier Busquet, Eli Elezra

February 14, 150K-buyin cash game part 2 (same lineup): Howard Lederer, Olivier Busquet, Greg Mueller, Phil Laak, David Peat, Eli Elezra

April 4, 50K-buyin tourney: Andrew Lichtenberger, Eric Baldwin, Melanie Weisner, Doyle Brunson, Annette Obrestad, Tom Dwan

April 11, 100K-buyin PLO part 1: Brandon Adams, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Brian Hastings, Phil Galfond

April 18, 100K-buyin PLO part 2: Brian Hastings, Jared Bleznick, Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius

June 20, 100K-buyin cash game part 1: Mike Matusow, Jean-Robert Bellande, Peter Jetten, Brandon Adams, Chris Ferguson, Michael Mizrachi

June 27, 100K-buyin cash game part 2: Brandon Adams, Peter Jetten, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matsuow, Jean-Robert Bellande

September 5, 100K-buyin cash game part 1: Annette Obrestad, Huck Seed, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Andy Bloch, Justin Smith

September 12, 100K-buyin cash game part 2 (same lineup): Andy Bloch, Annette Obrestad, Justin Smith, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Huck Seed

September 19, 20K-buyin tourney: Mike Dappen, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson, Erica Schoenberg, Jennifer Harman

November 21, 200K-buyin cash game part 1: David Peat, Eli Elezra, David Oppenheim, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan

November 28, 200K-buyin cash game part 2 (same lineup): Tom Dwan, David Peat, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, David Oppenheim, Eli Elezra

You can find and lineups for rerun weeks and player biographies on NBC's web site. You can also watch Poker After Dark on NBC's web site.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

eWalletXpress Accounts Still Frozen, Reportedly Leaving US Market

Date: Tue, Dec 21, 2010

Many eWalletXpress customers are stuck in the same situation, having a balance in your eWalletXpress account when deposits/withdrawals were cutoff. Some media outlets had reported that customers with a balance stuck in their eWalletXpress accounts could email payouts@ewalletxpress.com and request their funds be transferred to their checking account once “the technical issues are resolved.” This is recommended for all readers with frozen accounts, but I must warn customers are not currently receiving responses.

An article published by CasinoAdvisor.com says eWalletXpress has put out statements to clarify the situation. They said EWX will no longer work within the American market, and will only be supporting Canada, the country they are located in. They also stated that EWX has sent the following notice in emails to their vendors, “We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to continue service at this time due to a Federal warrant issued to seize our funds.” When contacting their support for details or logging into the website, the only information given is “they are experiencing technical issues, and there is no timeline for a resolution.”

We wished we had better and more concrete news on the situation, but this is the most current information available at this time. All players are hoping that the situation plays out like the Neteller seizures of 2007, that were eventually released back to players after several months.

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

High Stakes Poker Season 7 Tapes Wednesday Without FTP Pros

Date: Mon, Dec 13, 2010

High Stakes Poker season 7 tapes from December 15-17 at a new venue, the Bellagio.

The PokerStars-sponsored show won't have any Full Tilt pros playing. Many of the best poker players in the world, including Phil Ivey, durrrr, and Patrik Antonius, are sponsored by Full Tilt. According to Barry Greenstein "Full Tilt players are invited to play and (producer Mori Eskandani) was disappointed that Full tilt is not letting them because pokerstars is sponsoring the show." He continues: "I talked to Howard Lederer (of Full Tilt Poker) and Mori.... Full Tilt has two major concerns. First is they don't like their players playing when PokerStars is the sponsor of the show.... Secondly, they were unhappy that PokerStars bought the HSP archives. In the early seasons of HSP, the players didn't wear logos, so FTP is concerned that viewers will be able to go to pokerstars.tv and see the FTP players without logos and be confused by their affiliation." Barry does see an upside in it however: "It's generally accepted that Phil (Ivey) and Tom ("durrrr" Dwan) are the two most popular players to watch from the standpoint of tough play. No doubt that they are both extremely good, and an edge they have on other good players is that they are easily rolled for the game and can win the aggression battles. As a result of this, we have had several good professionals decline to play at the last minute because they are intimidated. This shouldn't happen this year and we may even get some recreational players who think they have a chance to win. It may create better action."

This isn't a first: PokerStars pulled their sponsored players from Full Tilt-sponsored Poker After Dark two years ago.Until season 6 High Stakes Poker wasn't sponsored by an online poker room and didn't allow players to wear logos.

High Stakes Poker was almost canceled once, as it's a poor match for GSN's demographics. GSN's management changed, however, and last season ratings were up substantially over the previous season. GSN President David Goldhill said: "I think we’ve made a real commitment to poker. We’ve given it a full night on the network. High Stakes Poker, our original show, has had a terrific season from a ratings and demographic delivery point of view–up in every key demographic we measure. We’re very excited about how well poker has done on the network. However, we recognize that the poker audience is not exactly the same as the GSN audience for our game show programming. I think whereas a previous approach here would have been, “How do we get the GSN audience to more resemble the poker audience?,” our current approach is, rather than change the entire network to fit the profile of the poker audience, we’ve tried to make the rest of the network better at what it does for the audience that loves it, and keep poker somewhat separate."

See all of our High Stakes Poker season 7 articles.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

Lots of New Poker TV: North American Poker Tour, Poker After Dark, Big Game, Million Dollar Challenge

Date: Sun, Dec 12, 2010

The season finale of Million Dollar Challenge airs today on Fox after football. You can also watch it on PokerStars.tv.

The North American Poker Tour airs the next three Sunday nights, the 12th, 19th, and 26th, on ESPN2 at 9 and 10 PM. The first week's airings, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure final table, will reair after next week's new shows, the NAPT Los Angeles.

The final Poker After Dark of 2010 airs this week. Its a tourney featuring Phil Gordon, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, and Annie Duke (preview).

The Big Game airs the last game of season 1 this week. You can also watch it on PokerStars.tv.

Gus Hansen is featured on the Tennis Channel's Celebrity Tennis. Multiple airings include 10:30 Thursday.

This week's newsbites:

• WSOP Main Event final table ratings declined 39% to below pre-November Nine levels.
• Bluff's Readers' Choice Awards are open for voting, with poker TV categories including favorite hostess, announcer, and TV show.
• Ruff Poker opined on how to make the most of it if you make a TV table: play loose hoping to get sponsored/invited to other shows rather than trying to maximize your immediate earnings.
• Lon McEachern described how he got the WSOP gig and does the voiceovers in a brief San Fransisco Chronicle article.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

Short Poker Film "All In"

Date: Sun, Dec 12, 2010

All In is an amateur Filipino production, but I enjoyed it and think it's worth 10 minutes of your time.



Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

WSOP Europe Airs In February

Date: Sat, Dec 11, 2010

The 2010 WSOP Europe will air in two 2-hour blocks on February 13 and 20 on ESPN2. Last year's tournament aired on ESPN2 with ratings declining 25% from the previous year.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post

Free Access To Poker Training Site Videos Through Monday

Date: Thu, Nov 18, 2010

DeucesCracked, regarded by many as the best of the poker training sites, is offering free streaming of all their videos through Monday. If you're unfamiliar with video training sites, player after player will tell you that they're more helpful in improving your game than books. I'd say they're one of the top self-improvement methods, along with discussing hands and perhaps coaching. Any user who signs up for a freely available basic membership will be able to watch any of DeucesCracked's videos during this open house. I recommend you take advantage of the opportunity to test out their community for free.

Don't miss any online poker news: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Read Full Blog Post