Poker sites and players team up for Haiti
January 17, 2010
After the terrible events in Haiti this week, I was glad to see some of the main poker sites doing their bit to try and offer financial assistance.
Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Cake have generously announced that they will match all donations made via their sites and I can say from experience that making donations via the Pokerstars site is extremely simple, you just do a normal fund transfer with the recipient name of ‘haiti fund’. I believe that there are also dummy tournaments which don’t actually run, they simply use the funds as a donation. Full Tilt are using the same methods and Cake have three dummy tournaments available, for amounts of $5, $25 & $100.
All donations are being given to the American Red Cross and I would urge all poker players to make a donation of whatever their standard tournament entry fee would be. Be it, $2 or $215. Please don’t believe that this will lead to the site turning off your doomswitch however. After my donation I just got two outered!! So much for karma.
Channing almost takes down monthly million
January 15, 2010
With his ‘Black Belt Poker‘ online poker/training site on the ipoker network, Neil Channing took part in the network’s online ‘monthly million’ this week. Playing with many of his site’s players, horses and posters, Neil almost took it down but eventually settled for the $104,000 second place spot.
Known more for his live results that online, it shows that Neil must be a very versatile and capable player to be able to adjust his game from the high stakes live cash action with hard nosed grinders at the Vic, through to the multi table hyper-aggressive online tournament players on the ipoker network.
Over the years I personally have have found Neil’s blog most interesting and highly amusing but I’m most impressed with the way in which he appears to be a player who is genuinely committed to fronting his site and interacting with his members in a way that many of poker’s big names seem too busy or self-important to do. I remember once, sending him a PM on The Hendon Mob Forum about placing a bet on Carlos Barrerra from Stoke playing in the GUKPT main final. What struck me was the way he immediately replied, with odds and methods of placing the bet, even offering to meet me at the event with cash if I wanted! It’s little things like this that show someone as a genuine character and someone whose results I always look out for.
Congratualtions to Neil on his win and his approach to the game; a true UK poker star in my eyes.
Although i don;t use B;ack
Catch the PCA high roller event tonight on PCE
January 14, 2010
Although I’m not a huge fan of the Poker Channel Europe and rarely watch it, some of you might be interested to know that they’re showing the final of the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure high roller event from 9pm tonight and coverage will run for eight hours (or longer if required).
Although there won’t be any UK players present at the final table, it still looks to be an interesting line up with some players who will be looking to make a name for themselves this year. Many people regard the high roller event as tougher than the main PCA event due to the generally ‘pro heavy’, albeit much smaller field. This theory doesn’t seem to have been borne out with most of the final table being relatively unknown and spread from a variety of nations worldwide; but maybe we’ll see the beginning of a future star if you tune in tonight!
Good luck to all involved
Even more value at Dusk Till Dawn
January 13, 2010
Is it just me or does everything you hear about dusk till dawn just make it seem better than it already is? Maybe I’m bias, but I think that whilst it’s around UK poker players should appreciate what a truly great poker venue they have at their disposal.
Anyway, I was looking at the DTD site earlier just to catch up on dates for next months Super 50 & 20/20 games when I came upon their latest added value news here: http://www.dusktilldawnpoker.com/newsitem.php?id=698.
Basically, the winner of the excellent £40+£6 deepstack on a Wednesday gets an entry to the next £300+36, 80k guarantee comp AND a seat to the 150+18 20k guarantee comp!! That’s an added £504 value to the winner. If the guarantee on the comp is 2,500, and first prize was say 875 that means they’ve added another 58% to the first prize spot, or another 9 times your buy-in!! From DTD’s POV they’ve added another 20% on top of the prizepool in addition to the guarantee!!
Not only this, but the winner of the £25+£6 comp on the same night gets a buy in to BOTH days of the £100+£12 20k guarantee 20/20 comp for additional value of £224 to the first payout spot. I just think it’s amazing value.
At times I can’t believe how great the place is. Sorry if this sounds like an advert, it really isn’t; I just love the way the place works for us UK poker players as customers and pray that long may it continue.
Win A Trip To Vegas With Black Belt And Bluff Europe!
January 12, 2010
Black Belt Poker, the poker site which tries to offer more than your average card room has come up with another appealing offer for there clientele. The Black Belt Boot camp which is scheduled to run May 8th-9th 2010 11am-7pm will not only offer the chance to learn from top notch pro’s such as Nik Persuad and Neil Channing but also the chance to win $7,200 worth of giveaways including two Vegas packages that will include buy-in to a WSOP $1,500 event, flights and accommodation in a tournament where all the attendees will get the chance to test there newly acquired knowledge!
The camp will be held at the Victoria Casino London with every attendee guaranteed one-on-one time with a hand picked Black Belt Poker mentor in addition to the two days of world class tuition, training, analysis, interactive learning sessions and master classes that are scheduled. Boot camp laces are capped at 30 so hurry, if the £600* asking fee is a little steep then never fear, as seats can be purchased through the Black Belt Poker shop using points accrued by playing on the site.
If you wish to join Black Belt Poker please used the UKPI affiliate link here; UKPI BBP LINK
* Places can be reserved by sending a cheque for £600 to Black Belt Poker Limited, The Rotunda, 42/3 Gloucester Crescent, London, NW1 7DL
RIP Amir
January 12, 2010
Like most of the poker world, we were saddened to see the loss of one of the genuine poker ‘characters’ in Mr Amir Vahedi last week.
If you can’t quite place Vahedi, he’s the Iranian fella with the big cigar that made the 2003 WSOP ME table entertaining to watch. Interestingly Vahedi also won a bracelet that year in one of the side events and went on to win many others in recent times, with reported career earnings of over $3 million.
Vahedi served in the Iranian army before settling in the United States as a political refugee. He’d playing the US circuit for over a decade and was one of the most well known and much loved pro’s out there. Many of the Poker World’s biggest names have been paying their repsects to Amir in the last few days, be it on their twitter pages, blogs or press releases after it was announced at the weekend that Vahedi had passed away on January 8th to a Diabetes related condition.
In a time when poker seems to be lacking genuinely entertaining characters it’s a shame that one of the real good guys has left us, but we’re sure that there’s quite a cash game goin on up there now; and that Chip, Stu and all the rest will be glad of Amir’s presence. Our condolences to the Vahedi family as poker mourns a well loved figure.
Poker Room’s On Alert as UK Government Looking For Dough!
January 10, 2010
Its has been revealed in a leaked report from the Department of Culture Media and Sport that the UK government will be looking to target online gaming providers who target UK residents. The report which is a response to a government wide search for way’s to increase money from taxation revenues for the UK’s cash strapped treasury was leaked to gaming industry paper ‘Coinslot’.
The system under consideration would require offshore gaming companies including online poker rooms to be licensed in the UK and failure to so would result in the company being prohibited from marketing their services to a UK audience.
In other UK news it’s been revealed that the UKIP or UK independence party are the only political party committed to overturning the ban on smoking in public places (including casino’s!) as we approach the 2010 general election.
Online Qualifiers for European Master’s Gran Canaria
January 8, 2010
The next stop on the Masters of Poker tour is sunny Gran Canaria which if like me you’ve been arse deep in snow for the last five day’s, well then the thought of jetting of to the Canary islands for the €1,000+€100 buy-in main event that takes place from Jan. 28 to 31 is bloody appealing. In fact even the knowledge that Poker legend Dave ”Devilfish” Ulliott will be in attendance isn’t enough to put the dampeners on that!
Qualifiers are running online at the moment on all sites on the Entraction network and start from as little as €2. It’s also possible to buy in directly from any of the networks cashiers and players are encouraged to pick up there seat as soon as possible as the 260seater event is very much expected to sell out.
There are 32 cash and VIP point satellite qualifiers running each day into the weekly finals.
Tuesday 20:40 (CET) – €100 buy in with five €2,000 packages guaranteed
Thursday 20:40 (CET) – €100 buy in with five €2,000 packages guaranteed
Sunday 20:40 (CET) – €200 buy in with eight €2,000 packages guaranteed
Dave Ulliot when asked about his EMOP participation has this too say “I’ve heard a lot of good things about EMOP “and I’m really looking forward to playing in Gran Canaria as part of Team Devilfish*. What could be better than a poker party in the sun in the middle of winter!”
* Team Devilfish is gang of marauding middle aged men who travel the European poker tour dancing like your Dad and trying to chat up women young enough to be there daughters whilst wearing crowded house T-Shirts in the mistaken belief this will make them look ‘cool’.
UK Poker player tops early chip count in PCA
January 7, 2010
With the field anticipated to break all sorts of non-US field size records after a day 1A entrance of 669 players, UK player and Pokerstars qualifier, Wayne Bentley, is head and shoulders above the rest of the field with a stack size of 329,500 chips from his starting stack of 30,000, a chip lead of over six figures to his nearest competitor!
Bentley doubled up early thanks to an aces versus kings confrontation and continued to run well, having won a big race and made other big hands such as flopping a set of eights against Bill Edler’s Kings to take his competitors 100k stack.
There are plenty of big names following Bentley in the early chip counts, last year’s winner, Poorya Nazari being one of them. Let’s hope that Wayne’s form continues into the later stages and that he is joined by some other Brits after the completion of day 1B. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for a hotly anticipated year for UK poker on the worldwide stage.
Win Your Way To The Irish Open For $10!
January 6, 2010
Popular online poker room paddypowerpoker.com have announced that they will be running a series of $10 rebuy Irish Open Super Sat’s every Monday evening starting at 8pm UK time. The tournaments will start Monday, January 11th and winner swill move on to the Super Satellite stage which will guaranteed at least one Irish Open 2010 ticket.
Additionally any player qualifying through the $10 rebuys will also be entered in the €100,000 Sole survivor promotion which awards prizes to the last paddypowerpoker.com qualifies in the field.
The Irish open is one of the highlights of the European poker tour and this year returns to the magnificent Burlington Hotel in Dublin which will accommodate in the region of 750 players in the grand hotel ballroom and produces a special atmosphere for the duration which this year will be from Friday 2nd – Monday 5th April 2010.
I was at the Burlington the last time this event was played there and it really is a special event with a fantastic atmosphere with, players, dealers, and media mostly under the one roof. Wow, I can’t believe it I just wrote a whole article about the Irish open with using the word craic once, oh fuck I just used it. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Irish Open $10 Rebuy Super Satellites:
• January 11th @ 8pm
• January 18th @ 8pm
• January 25th @ 8pm
• February 1st @ 8pm
LeatherAss, But Heart of Gold
January 2, 2010
Online poker professional Dusty ‘LeatherAss’ Schmidt has again proven there’s more to the online poker scene than a bunch of blokes trying to make a few quid.
Dusty who is a renowned twoplustwo poster and has written a book about poker available here, spent 30 hours, most of it out doors in the cold playing on a laptop to raise money for ‘Transition Projects’, an agency that helps homeless people seeking housing.
Dusty won a little under $21,000, which will provide rent, supplies and furnishings for three homeless people. The full story can be read here; UKPI would like to congratulate Dusty on this marvellous gesture, because playing outside in Portland, Oregon this time of year much have frozen his bollocks off.
Is Isildur1 Set to Become A G Man?
January 1, 2010
Tony ‘G’ has revealed in his latest blog posting that not only does he know for 100% certainty who the near mythical ‘Isilidur’ account belongs to, but he is also now close to securing a staking deal with the online phenom who is widely believed to be Swedish player Viktor Blom.
Tony ‘G’ Guoga who disregarding his success at the poker table is independently wealthy from his many successful business ventures including the www.pokernews.com website has been known for staking players for some time, and even started a staking site www.Chipmeup.com not so long ago.
Tong says about Islidur1, “I have had a few conversations over the phone with him and I really love the kid. He is like me 15 years ago. I just wish I had as much talent as he does. He can play the world’s best on eight tables and he only learned PLO about eight months ago. Anyway, it is likely I will stake him in some big cash games in the future, this is what I do after all. I like to give people a chance in life to do well.”
Tony also mentions that Isilidur1 will not be pursuing a compliant against the alleged transgressions of the full tilt terms and conditions by the three card runners pro’s who have posted that they combined hand histories for use by Brian Hastings in the last bankroll crushing high stakes match played against the Isilidur1 account that resulted in a 4 million dollar loss.
Tony said; “I can see how people attacked Full Tilt Poker on 2+2 – calling for lawsuits, etc., but this is not what Isildur1 really wants. He wants to enjoy his life and move on. This is what he needs to do. He is a brilliant player and with a little bit of hard work, he will build back up to a multimillion roll.”
Moorman fourth in OPOY rankings
December 27, 2009
After our recent report on Chris ‘Moorman1′ Moorman’s recent continued run of form, it appears that Cardplayer have recognised this UK star’s achievements and currently have him in fourth place in their Online Player Of the Year rankings.
After a great year which saw the young Brit taken on as the fourth member of DoylesRooms’s ten stable pros, his reported on-line wins of $955,781 this year have seen him rocket up the on-line rankings and rightfully take his place amongst the online elite players.
His earnings have come from a mixture of numerous first place and final tables in various top end MTT’s and we just hope that this outstanding player can take the step from online to live next year and further enhance the strengthening reputation of UK poker in the major live events overseas.
Based on the performances of the fearless, young and improving stars such as Moorman and the Hit Squad, the next decade looks like UK poker may well be in for some cracking results; let’s hope that these fellas do us proud and we wish them all the best.
Have a good new year everyone!!!
Merry Christmas All
December 25, 2009
I would just like to take this opportunity to wish all ukpokerinfo’ers in fact everyone, a Very Merry Christmas. May all your dreams and wishes be fulfilled and that you degenerates can have at least one day off from poker.
Please spend time with all your family and friends, your poker buddiez will all be around on Boxing Day, in fact stop reading this straight away and give your Loved ones a hug!
If you are in the unfortunate position of not having anyone around you, you have my sympathies and here is a virtual hug ******** xXxHUGSxXx*********
There is somewhere to go if you are lonely or a degenerate poker player, don’t celebrate Christmas or bored after your Xmas dinner.
Bearwood will be hosting a deepstack freezeout at 6pm on Christmas day, and everyone is welcome, I believe it will be a £30 affair No Limit Hold’em.
Best Wishes and Take Care All
The Team
Wadey Wins “The Monte Carlo”
December 25, 2009
Local Guy Waheed Ashraf aka Wadey took down the £250,000 guaranteed tournament at Dusk Till Dawn at the weekend ( a competition that followed the structure of the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo). From what looked like a potential disaster for the premier poker club in the UK as the online overlay was higher than the last Grandslam at £35,000, it turned out to be a great success as 300 people eventually took to the beize to wage war.
Names included; Jeff Kimber, Paul Foltyn, Dave Colclough, Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz, Lucy Rokach, Jeff Buffenbarger, Stuart Rutter, Ian Woodley, Nik Persaud, Surinder Sunar, James Dempsey, Karl Mahrenholz and a whole host of GUKPT winners.
It looked like the victor was going to be between Wadey and The Mad Turk when four out, but a deal was done which reflected the chip counts and left them £18,000 to play for and the title. 3 hands later the two titans clashed and all the money went in pre flop. Wadey had AK and Yucel had a pair of queens, the flop came Ace, Ace, King to the delight of the supporters, nippers and % takers of Wadey as he took out “The Mad One”.
2nd Place went to the Canadian Paul Ratchford who had dominated the chip counts from the second level of day 1 as they carved the remaining £18k up after eliminating Ash Miah. Ratchford entered by winning an online league and came over for a holiday with his girlfriend …….. happy days!
1 Waheed Ashraf £93,113
2 Paul Ratchford £54,435
3 Ashique Miah £32,661
4 Yucel Eminoglu £22,920
5 Stephen Eames £17,190
6 Dean Pearson £12,893
7 Chris Saleh £10,028
8 Malcolm Muskett £7,163
9 Craig Mccorkell £5,730
10 David Burn £4,011
11 Jan Bjoersland £4,011
12 Derek Lawless £4,011
13 Yiannis Liperis £4,011
14 Toby Lewis £2,865
15 Neil Blatchly £2,865
16 Timothy Flanders £2,865
17 Paul Bowser £2,865
18 Gregory Hunt £2,865
19 Ben Vinson £1,500
20 Ewan Bekir £1,500
21 Steve Jelinek £1,500
22 Robert Soszka £1,500
23 Fraser Macintyre £1,500
24 Mitchell Johnson £1,500
25 Adam Collins £1,500
26 Daniel Morgan £1,500
27 Chris Sly £1,500
PokerStars Online Team Announced
December 24, 2009
Yesterday, PokerStars.Com the world’s largest online poker room announced the twenty men and three women who will make up the ‘online Team PokerStars Pro group’. It is believed over 2,000 applied to be included in the new group which is rumored to be a response to the ever growing list of Full Tilt Poker’s ‘Red Pro’s and the list includes some of the internets tops players.
Names you might already know include the controversial heads-up specialist Steve ‘Stevebets’ Jacobs who defeated Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier in the final of the 2008 WCOOP $25,000 heads-up event. Anders “Donald” Berg is another well known internet player and is also a fixture on the EPT, also included is Germany’s Thomas “Boku87″ Boekhoff who leaped to internet poker fame by turning $100 into $10,000 to win a prop bet and has recently turned his attention to running $500 upto $100,000.
Here’s the full list of the new Team PokerStars Online Pro’s:
1. Andres Alisievicz — lobojiji
2. Jorge Arias — JorgeArias
3. Boumaaza Bachir — Chiren80
4. Anders Berg — Donald
5. Alvaro Blanco — VARICO
6. Thomas Boekhoff — Boku87
7. Diego Brunelli — vgreen22
8. André Coimbra — acoimbra
9. Mathew Didlick — chipstar1
10. Ta-Chih Geeng — socutiesf
11. Andrew Goetsch — Kid Nebraska
12. Martha Gonzalez — marene
13. Keiran Harris — K_Man2307
14. Steve Jacobs — stevesbets
15. Randy Lew — nanonoko
16. Karlo Lopez — elmagopr
17. Alexey Makarov — LuckyGump
18. Kristian Martin — CharismA3
19. Grzegorz Mikielewicz — DaWarsaw
20. Nichoel Peppe — NicP
21. Grayson Physioc — spacegravy
22. Sebastien Sabic — Seb86
23. Amanda Thomas — ROXY24
Sunday Million FT for Moorman
December 23, 2009
Having been recently signed as a stable pro for the Doyle’s Room poker site, top UK Online poker player, Chris Moorman, had another impressive tournament result this week.
The UK Poker phenomenon final tabled in the Pokerstars Sunday Million having spent a majority of the tournament as the chip leader. As is common for players of Moorman’s style; he wasn’t content to sit on his chips and with the cards not co-operating with his style the FT resulted in Moorman doubling up a few of his competitors before busting out in eighth place for just short of $19k. Not a bad result for most of us mortals but it won’t make a huge impact on his reported career earnings of over $4 million.
It’s great to see this young UK player competing at the very top of the online poker pyramid and we hope that things continue to improve for this talented player.
Boylepoker.com Playing Santa
December 21, 2009
Boylepoker.com have announced today that they will be playing Santa over the holiday season with $6,000 being added to the prize pools of their ‘Daily Festive Freezeout’ tournaments which will run from December 23rd to January 3rd.
There will be two ‘Daily Festive Freezeout’ tournaments running at 7pm and 7.30pm for the duration with $250 added to each, players have a choice of the turbo structured $5 game or a $10 deepstack, so something for everyone (well as long as you like NLHE).
December 23rd will see the running of the Boylepoker.com Christmas Party, this $10 buy-in tournament see’s $1,000 added to the prize pool along with a number of $25 bounties on Boylepoker pros and friends and starts at 8pm.
And last but not least Boylepoker.com will be running a Christmas Charity Freeroll, this tournament will boast a guaranteed prize pool of $5,000 with a further $5,000 to charity. This event takes place at 4 p.m (so you might have to miss the Queens speech) and satellites are running daily starting from as little as 50 VIP.
Allergy to Money
December 18, 2009
For those that have been on another planet, this weekend sees the second leg of Dusk Till Dawn’s Million Pound Guaranteed Grandslam. 3 events that have a combined guarantee of £1mill. If you can cast your mind back about 6 months there was a competition there with a £1090 buy-in and £250,000 guaranteed. This event was widely reported on the internet and the poker press due to two things; The overlay (which was £56k live and £31k in satellites), and the fact the local Nottingham press reported that DTD was going to close due to this.
The rumours were eventually quashed as it is still up and running now.
However, as the second event is due to start there is now a bigger overlay on the satellites. With the satellites alone there is already a £35,000 overlay and then they still need 83 players to walk through the doors tomorrow and pay their £1090 direct (even the weather is against them as people will be dubious about travelling in snow). 120 people have qualified via these satellites meaning only 41 people have paid the full amount, as 6 seats were given away on their Tuesday night re-buy comps
The event itself is fantastic, with the Monte Carlo EPT structure starting with 30,000 chips and a 60 minute clock day 1 , increasing to a 75 minute clock days 2 and 3.
The side events replicate the famous DTD Deepstack weekends with a £300 2 day event starting Saturday and a £150 event on the Sunday.
It just seems to me that at some point, it will be realized that these losses will only result in one thing, but I just hope that never happens!
Omaha Pot Odds On Your iPhone
December 16, 2009
After a previous report on a blind timer for the iphone, it appears that a company called BroadbentApps has released an Omaha odds calculator on the iphone, available at the apps store for $2.99. The app is said to be available for both the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The handy little gadget can calculate the odds in any one hand with up to five players. The app accepts all the known cards and will even assign random holdings for unknown cards. This makes that little trick of using an online calculator when playing online, possible to bring to live play now, but would that be cheating?? I think so.
The app calculates the winning odds for each player in the hand together with details of the final hand they are most likely to make. Although this may be somehwat gimmicky, it’s good to see Broadbent Apps bringing more poker apps to the poker world, follwing their Hold Em odds calculator and blind timer that are already available.