OFFICIAL IFP WORLD POKER CHAMPION!!!

IFP World poker champion

The International Federation of Poker(IFP) made history in poker news after launching its first World Championship in history, and the final table, or what they call “The Table” featured some amusing play from the word go. When all was said and done and it was down to two players, it was Raul Mestre the IFP World poker champion from Spain, matched up against Victoria Coren from the United Kingdom for the first place finish and the grand prize. IFP World poker championship was held between November 17-20, 2011 in two iconic locations in the city of London: EDF Energy London Eye & London County Hall.

Starting of IFP World Poker Championship!!

Play went on for 11 hours on Saturday, and it spotlights a starting field of 135 players who were ultimately taken down to only 9 final players, who made up the final table. This final table featured all types of players from across world, and presented 3 women, Sandra Naujoks (Germany), Marsha Waggoner (Australia), and Coren. The 1st place prize for the first IFP World poker Champion was an exciting $250k payday, and would also give them the bragging rights to say that they were the first ever IFP Champion.

Final Table of IFP World Poker Championship!!

The final table action started off with players from various countries including IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre (426k) from Spain, Igor Trafane (369k) from Brazil, Sandra Naujoks (167k) and Tim Reese (44k) from Germany, Takuo Serita (41k) and Kinichi Nakata (29k) from Japan, Victoria Coren (204k) from United Kingdom, Slavko Tomic (44k) came from Serbia, and Waggoner (32k) came from Australia. From those chip stacks begin the last final table, there was a wide range of starting stacks, and two of the bigger stacks were the ones who found themselves alive at the end of the day. Coren was highly combative in the early going, eliminating Kinichi Nakata and Tim Reese from the tournament within the first hour of the start of the tournament. She maintained this aggressive approach as she began to climb up the leaderboard to threaten chip leader and IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre. His heads-up opponent Victoria Coren had a right to argue she had been unlucky not to have gone one step further.

To separate down the last and final table action, all the remaining players was given a prize for their exclusive hard work and efforts by giving them watches from Perrelet Company. Perrelet was the sponsor of the event, and gave them a Perrelet Turbine watch. It’s a nice prize for any of them, particularly due to the fact that it has a value of around US $6500.

The action begin off soon, as Victoria Coren eliminated Kinichi and Tim in just 1st hour of play, and kept flying up the leader board all around the day. The action saw Takuo and Sandra eliminated in 7th and 6th places, respectively. The 2 players who finally made it to heads up play in Victoria and IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre then made 2 big knock outs when Victoria sent Waggoner home in 5th, and IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre sent Tomic home in 4th place. This left three players remaining, with IFP World poker champion Mestre holding 732k chips, Trafane holding 486k chips, and Coren holding 134k chips. Three handed play went on for three hours before the elimination finally came.

The biggest hand came when both Victoria and Igor Trafane got it all in with A-Q, but Victoria has spades. The flop fell with all spades and left Igor debilitate with only 14k in chips. Igor Trafane was then knocked out by IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre on the very next hand, which set up the match between Coren and Mestre.

IFP World poker championship

Here is a look at the final table payouts from the tournament:

1. Raul Mestre (Spain) — $250,000

2. Victoria Coren (UK) — $100,000

3. Igor Trafane (Brazil) — $50,000

4. Slavko Tomic (Serbia) — $25,000

5. Marsha Waggoner (Australia) — $20,000

6. Sandra Naujoks (Germany) — 17500

7. Takuo Serita (Japan) — 15,000

8. Tim Reese (Germany) — 12,500

9. Kinichi Nakata (Japan) — $10,000

IFP World poker champion begun up strong, but Victoria waited for her spots and finally latch on the chip lead from him. The 2 went back and forth for a good while, before Raul pushed all in, with Coren calling. Raul turned over pocket fives and was up against the A-J of Coren. IFP World poker champion Mestre held up though, and held a chip lead of 1.17 million to 180k. Coren put up a good fight to make the comeback, but IFP World poker champion Mestre eventually took it down when he had his A-5 up against the A-3 of Coren. In this poker news of IFP World poker champion Raul Mestre won it all, and took home the $250k prize, while his opponent Coren got a nice consolation prize of $100k.

Long Island, New York poker pro Daniel Santoro won his first World Poker Tour title and claimed $449,910 first-place prize at the WorldPoker Finals at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut which concluded on Tuesday 1st Nov 2011 after an eight hour 200-hand final table. This WPT winning of $449,910 gave a boost to WPT final winner Santoro’s earnings and doubled his life tournament earnings of $260,862.

However, for WPT final winner Santoro winning was not that easy. He had to put a tough fight with his opponents in order to win the WPT title. The final table comprised top professional poker players such as Andy Frankenberger; the WPT Player of the Year, Steven Brackesy; the former chip stack leader and Christian Harder; the renowned professional poker player.

Ultimately, it was Christian Harder who emerged as the runner up after a ferocious heads-up battle against WPT final winner Santoro, which went on for several hours.

Final Table Battle as played by WPT final winner Santoro

The final table saw an epic poker game where WPT final winner Santoro played very well and had the poker gods on his side when he really needed them. Santoro arrived at the final table third in chips 1,163,000, to sit behind chip leader Steven Brackesy (1,807,000) and Christian Harder (1,293,000).

Norwegian Eli Berg, who had started the final table in sixth place on 496,000 chips, was eliminated on the third hand of the day. Incredibly, just 10 hands later, another New Yorker, Andy Frankenberger, was out in fifth place after moving all-in following Harder’s re-raise. That pot gave Christian Harder the chip lead. The day’s initial chip leader Brackesy and Santoro got embroiled in a pre-flop raising battled that eliminated Brackesy in fourth place.

Brackesy was followed by Bob Carbone whose luck ran out soon after he moved all in while facing Santoro and he finished at third place. After knocking out Carbone in 3rd place with pocket aces vs. pocket 10s, Santoro entered heads-up with a 4-1 chip leader Christian Harder. Santoro had to survive a tough battle with Harder that saw the lead go back and forth a few times before WPT final winner Santoro finally prevailed to claim the $449,910 first prize.

Here’s how the final table shook down:

1. Daniel Santoro – $449,910
2. Christian Harder – $248,962
3. Bob Carbone – $166,271
4. Steven Brackesy – $129,816
5. Andy Frankenberger – $99,585
6. Eli Berg – $83,580

A 23 year old poker pro, WPT final winner Santoro has made inroads into both online poker and in live poker tournaments and had earned big winnings. Apart from poker, Santoro also invests his money in stock market and enjoys sports and playing music.

We persist to get closer and closer to Legalized and Regulated Online Poker in the United States. I belief that this Legislation is very much required. In fact for non-poker players Legislation has enough of advantages and should be reinforced.

Online Poker Legislation

Although it continues harder and harder to play Online Poker in the United States, other countries have moved much speedy in passing Legislation. Countries across world are able to enjoy the freedom of playing Poker from the amenities and coziness of their own homes in a regulated and legal market. We don’t have that freedom in the United States. While you can still play Online Poker from the United States, it is far from safe and legal as we all learned on Black Friday. The lists of sites that still acquire United States players extend to get smaller. Few of the Poker sites that are still accepting US players have been forced to block players from particular states because of the state laws that exist there.

With the current Debt Crisis facing the United States, legalizing and regulating Online Poker could bring a much desired new revenue stream. It’s guesstimated that regulating Online Poker could bring in $42 Billion in new revenue to Federal Budget over the course of decade. Probably it may also give states with increased revenue streams. With US citizens still playing Online Poker in regardless of the Department of Justice’s recent clampdowns, rather those revenue streams stay in the United States, rather than a foreign country.

United States are in one of the poor economic extent of time since the great depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs. The suppression on Online Poker on Black Friday only added to the numerous Americans that are jobless. Thousands of Americans made their living playing Poker professionally. Thousands more Americans were employed by Poker Affiliates, Poker News Sites, Poker Coaching/Training Sites, and web design sites. Many of these players are incompetent to make the same living in the current United States Online Poker climate. The reason being sites still receiving US players have diminutive player pools and they do not offer same high stakes as the sites seized on Black Friday. Legislation is the only way that can give US citizens their jobs back, but it would also bring the offshore Poker Sites onto American soil which would generate chiliad of jobs enclosed with: Customer Service Positions, Marketing jobs, Technology Positions, Computer Programming and Networking Positions, etc.

Online Poker Legislation

Some may verbal disputes that legalizing Online Poker would open the door for problem Gamblers and minor Gamblers. Literally, the conflicting would happen under government regulation. Recently, we believe on these offshore Poker sites to police problem gamblers and adolescent gamblers. Can we authentically rely that these offshore sites have the great interest of these individuals in mind? Well present offshore sites cannot probably catch all the problem gamblers and minor gamblers even if that was their objective. Excellent federal legislation would set up different detection techniques to check.

United States have eternally been on top if we talk about freedom. Now it’s a day to get back to that and give United States Online Poker players the independence to play in a safe, legal and regulated Poker world. At present there are enormous bills to Legalize and Regulate Online Poker at the state level and there is also a Federal Bill.

WSOP Poker News: WSOP Circuit has been a slow death for years, the decline in participation due to lack of television coverage and competition with other newer poker tournaments and the different poker news. Now, the management of the World Series of Poker has responded to the modernization of the circuit with a series of modifications to make it more attractive to players of all levels and bankroll.

The 12-stop schedule for the season 2010-11 WSOP Circuit will see the standard buy-ins, textures and disbursements at each stop on the circuit. This includes a $ 1,500 buy-in main event at every stop of the circuit, down $ 5.000 for the level of recent years, and $ 10,000 in the year of the circuit is open. But four stops on the schedule – Horseshoe Hammond outside Chicago, Harrah’s Atlantic City, Harrah Rincon outside San Diego, and Harrah’s New Orleans – will sport a $ 10,000 buy-in regional championships will each receive two hours of coverage on ESPN.

Players in each event WSOP Circuit gold ring will receive points toward a new cumulative points system similar to the WSOP player of the year the points system. The first 36 players in the standings at the end of the season of the circuit will receive an invitation to play in a WSOP Circuit Championship $ 1,000,000 National at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Other players who will receive invitations to play in the case includes any player who accumulates the most points on each circuit during the off season, each circuit stop Main Event champion, and every player who makes the final table in one of four Regional Championships $ 10,000. The tournament winner will receive a National Championship World Series of Poker gold bracelet.

“We found the WSOP Circuit events needed breathe of fresh air, and we believe we have responded to steroids,” said Ty Stewart, director of the WSOP. “The new model is just the WSOP is all about; to give poker players of all bankrolls the opportunity to compete for fame, fortune and respect that comes only WSOP bracelet and a nationwide TV audience.”

World Series Poker Circuit season starts Aug. 19 at the Horseshoe Council Bluffs in Iowa, a stop sign, which had previously suffered from state laws to prevent the use of conference centers, poker tournaments, and being planned for the dead Iowa harsh winter.

A sign that welcomes motorists and pedestrians, and how to make their way to the air inlet says, “the core business has shifted.” And ‘maybe poker room resort’s most true, that took a large part of Las Vegas’ high-stakes cash games open all year and a half ago. Over the years, when players are tired bankrolls the highest of the tournament grind the Rio during the World Series of Poker, they made a point to compete in the biggest cash games – the Bellagio.

It is no longer so simple, so Aria hosts as pegs nosebleeds many games as his own sister MGM Resorts International. “Wow make a difference,” popular Poker Pro Daniel Negreanu has posted on his Twitter account earlier this summer. “Never before have I never remember more than a place to see if there is a match.”

Adam Altwies, manager of the poker room, reported that Aria kept playing in the city with more than six times a week before the World Series began. He said Ivey Hall station, a coffee table-high stakes, regularly ran a mixed game of poker variations with a maximum of $ 1000 – $ 2000 blinds.

A typical buy-in for a game that high would be at least $100,000.

Bellagio still has plenty of pricey action, but its highest tables are usually no-limit hold’ em exclusively. Aria has become the home of the mixed games, a favorite of most veteran poker pros. “All the big names are coming to play here,” said Jean Robert-Bellande, a poker pro and ambassador of Aria’s poker room, earlier this summer. “A lot of people follow Daniel Negreanu on Twitter and he keeps talking about playing at Aria. We’ve had games with Doyle Brunson, Chau Giang, Abe Mosseri, Johnny Chan — all the biggest names in the industry.”

One of the hot topics among regulars at both Bellagio and Aria is which room is better. Walk up to a random high stakes cash player and they’re bound to have an opinion on the matter. Even before Bellande became officially associated with Aria, he pledged his allegiance to the room. Negreanu, on the other hand, seemed to anoint Bellagio as the best all-around experience for players in a recent blog post.

“They’re both good,” said poker pro David Williams. “I’ve been treated well at both, but I don’t have a reason to pick one or the other. For me, it’s wherever the good game is at. They have the high mixed games (at Aria), so this is where I come.”

The property’s staffs don’t look at it like the players, according to Altwies. He was, in fact, an employee of the Bellagio poker room before he moved over to Aria. “We don’t see it as a competition,” Altwies said. “It’s just one of those things where we knew there could be a lot of high limits in town. We knew both places could sustain the business we’re getting.”

The presence of stars like Brunson and Chan has, in turn, helped the rest of Aria’s poker room become busier. Around the time the big mixed game began running regularly, Aria decided to add 14 more poker tables across from the room.

They are used primarily for low stakes cash games and daily tournaments. Altwies wasn’t sure if he’d keep them after the World Series of Poker ended, but said now he believed the amount of business would demand it.

“You have a standard room poker and online poker You are the target,” said Altwies. “I think what we have is a goal. If you are a novice player somewhere in the Midwest, to see these guys on TV, you really want to shoot from near the public environment.”

Brunson & Williams has recently come out of the series of World Poker Main Event. Negreanu and Bellande still alive. Bellande Day 2B will play in Tuesday as Negreanu was increased to three days scheduled for Thursday. Even if they follow the footsteps of others at the World Series of Poker, it should not be difficult to track them down – head for the new center of action. “This is the poker room Ferrari,” said Bellande. “This is what we have here. You can not beat it.”

Online poker community has been turmoil in recent days, the rumor that the Full Tilt Poker, the message was to make a straight American player. After the events of Black Friday, the U.S. players have had the account at Full Tilt Poker is stopped, and is used is not able to take the sample. Full Tilt Poker with the end of this past Monday, I’m sorry, no exact date was given.

Full Tilt Poker spokesman for a number of places in the game of poker’s most popular message boards society. In the message, a spokesman announced that there was no “timetable” for the U.S. players finally paid. The spokesman continued that “there was nothing better than the priority of U.S. players to get rewarded.”

Full Tilt Poker promise of hard Herculean task to return the goods to U.S. players comes as consolation to the large number of American players are still waiting to get paid, especially if we consider that Full Tilt Poker has really had nothing new to say about the question since this debacle started back on 15 April. Adding to the disappointment American player is the fact that PokerStars has begun treatment for the withdrawal of U.S. players within two weeks of Black Friday.

It was reported last week in the eGaming Review that representatives of Ray Bitar, co-founder of Full Tilt Poker and one of the men named in the indictments of Black Friday, have been seeking investors for an injection of as much as $150 million in cash so that the company will be able to repay its US players. The US Department of Justice reportedly unfroze an account at the Bank of Ireland belonging to Full Tilt Poker that could release more than a third of the money that Full Tilt Poker owes. Full Tilt Poker owes its US players between $100 million and $150 million.

Full Tilt Poker has been a problem with payment processors, and property in the accounts in the past. It was not hard, as they would normally pay their own money to customers, when they had solved the problem of payment. Now, have not been able to do so, because the simple truth, that their bank accounts were held. Therefore, the Full Tilt Poker is now an investor.

It’s good to see your family members to be with you when you decide to go for an event like WSOP, but it would even better if you have your family playing at the WSOP. You don’t know how it feels then Hinkle brother’s are here to explain it.

Hinkle Brothers Grant & Blair who made good news during the 2008 WSOP by winning bracelets each, now it’s the youngest brother out of four Hinkle brother “Manson” who is making the news with his debut at the age of 21.

There is lots of expectation from the young lad as he hails from a well poker educated family. And how can’t it be when two of your elder brothers are WSOP bracelet winners.

When asked about his expectation this is what he had to say “I have high expectations, well not high, but I feel like I’m better than the field, at least in this (event), but realistically you’re going to have run real good to go deep or anything,”.

Mason Hinkle was inspired to play poker after seeing his elder brothers winning WSOP bracelet in 2008. That’s when he took up playing poker online in order to improve his poker skills. He made a fair amount of winning playing at FullTilt. His online poker skills caught his elder brother’s attention, after which they were extremely satisfied with Masons poker skills.

Grant says “Mason’s probably got the most potential. “He’s young and pretty smart too. We didn’t really teach him that much. He picked a lot of it up on his own.”

Now the only brother missing from this poker circuit was Taylor Hinkle who is 23 and is yet to make his debut in WSOP. Well lot depends on Mason.

Some might be surprised to hear that a group of 50 people had been playing a game of poker in one of Male’s restaurants. However, there is no reason to be surprised because it was played in the open and not in secret; the only person not aware of it was the restaurant’s owner.

“I thought they were sitting around here every day, playing cards for fun. Some customers complained about them and I asked them not to play cards in the restaurant. They asked me to give them about a week to stop because they have currently started a competition. When I finally looked into what was going on I found out that they were playing poker,” the owner, who demanded anonymity, said.

Playing any kind of card games is now banned at the restaurant.

Rumours of poker being played at houses and several other public places are common in Male. Unconfirmed reports also say that some people have been arrested for playing poker.

A police spokesperson said today that the police are investigating public complaints related to the promotion of such games and the like, despite it not being labelled exactly as poker.

Despite no Maldivian taken into custody for playing poker, Haveeru understands that the police recently sought an arrest warrant to apprehend a group of expatriate workers for playing poker.

A café owner from Male reported seeing groups of people playing poker in his café even now.

“It starts as just having fun. A group of 3-4 people will start playing with a single deck of cards. One day a person lost and he had to pay a lot of money. There was an argument about it,” the owner said.

Some people who talked to Haveeru on the grounds of anonymity said rumours are circulating that poker is being played regularly in some houses and some well-known businessmen are involved in playing poker.

The owner of the restaurant where the game of poker allegedly took place said banning card games in the restaurant was not well received by the youth.

“But we cannot allow such an activity to continue here. Some of them do not come here anymore. They go somewhere else to play,” the owner said.

Despite the fact that playing poker is not directly illegal under the law, former Attorney General (AG) Husnu Suood said people who play poker are punishable under Article 88 of the Penal Code as poker is prohibited under Islamic Shari’ah law.

According to a ruling issued earlier by the High Court, a person found guilty of committing a deed, which is against the Islamic Shari’ah law, will be punished despite not being punishable by law, he added.

Lady Gaga is a constant struggle to overcome a cloud of exhaustion “hanging over” during their grueling touring schedule.

Poker Face hit a producer has been touring non-stop for the past 18 months shows Monster’s Ball and the beginning of 2010, has raised fears for his health, canceling a series of concerts, and fatigue. Gaga for her constant fatigue is a serious problem, but decided to continue his work routine punished because of his fans.

In an interview with Sir Elton John for V magazine, she says, “At a certain point exhaustion becomes a state of being, and mentally I have to be strong and overcome it. It’s like a cloud, a fog really that hovers over me. But in a way I will never ever escape it. Art is my whole life.

“Monsters (NSAIDs) are my medicine. They will heal me, physically and emotionally, every night at exhibitions.

Both poker sites Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are falling. What you probably know was caused by the U.S. Department of Justice to close, but why Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker store and not of AP and UB (both which are managed by the same “Cereus” by company).

What is even more extraordinary that, despite the conclusion of areas, the charming away of many of their bank accounts company ‘and true poker site pop-ups, connotation you cannot sit down for real money, you can in fact play money? When you click on a place to play your pop-up saying it cannot play if they are placed in the United States, when you click OK sits on your desktop.

There have been rumors that Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker are the same conversations with the Department of Justice for their areas of return, but why do so as regards the others, and why do they continue to play U.S.? Will they go in this direction for U.S. players to continue playing and just open a confiscate non-domain?

When the poker software seem to be out-of-the-way for new players, unless the programs were by now players, computers, new customers in the world should not be able to use the poker site.

Infosys & Mobile Streams have united together to bring more new & trendy mobile apps in the the market including mobile casino games. Infosys will contribute its expertise within India while Mobile Streams will help its new partner with a move into Latin America.

Two giants in the mobile apps industry, Infosys and Mobile Stream, united their forces to share their existing technologies and application base to focus on developing software for niche markets including mobile casino games. Reciprocal distribution deals and licensing will help both companies build on each other’s expertise.

Mobile Streams’s popular mobile app marketplace, Appitalism, is already the home of multiple Smartphone applications including mobile casinos, and will become the future distribution point of new products created by the joint venture.

Infosys in turn will put Mobile Stream’s apps into its Flypp game apps marketplace and make them available to its Indian and Asian partners. Both companies see synergy and new global opportunities in the collaboration deal with Mobile Stream’s successes in Latin America and Infosys’ extensive presence in India.

R&D of new applications and technologies is expected to develop rapidly and generate higher revenue for both of them. Both companies will use each other’s expertise and experience to come up with a whole range of new applications and mobile casino games. Also the rapidly growing mobile casino market is expected to get particular attention. Original mobile casino software games for both the iPhone and iPad 2 as well as 3D casino games for the Android 3 Honeycomb O.S. are currently in the stage of designing.

Last Friday, there was a declaration of an upcoming broadcast was out. It was regarding Full Tilt Poker’s high-stakes poker tour. The poker community was numb waiting for the broadcast which came on Monday, March 14 at 13:00 EST.

Full Tilt Poker has announced the Onyx Cup Series. Onyx Cup Series is a tournament series having buy-ins from $100,000 to $300,000 estimating $30 million prize collection throughout the series. There will be 5 beginning events, closing in a $250,000 buy-in Grand Finale that will make out $1 million added to the prize collection.

The top three finishers in each event will earn points toward the Onyx Cup leaderboard. At the end of the Grand Finale, the person with the most points at the top of the leaderboard will earn the title of Onyx Cup Champion, and will be presented with the Onyx Cup, get a luxury sports car, and be acknowledged as “the player that conquered poker’s elite.”

Onyx Cup events will take place in the United States, Europe, and Asia and will be broadcast in 20 different languages across 40 countries. Qualifiers will begin on March 15 on Full Tilt Poker.

The announcement of the Onyx Cup came in the form of a video, hosted by Ali Nejad. He was joined by Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, and Tom Dwan to discuss the new event.

“It’s not just about the money in this event,” Ivey said. “It’s more about playing with the caliber of players that we’re going to be up against. You know, playing against the best players, and a lot of these guys here at the table are my friends and we’re friendly but we’re also super competitive against each other. There’s going to be a lot of pride that comes along with winning this event.”

When asked whether the event was a surprise to them or only just a matter of time with the way buy-ins have been increasing, Seidel said, “I do think it’s a natural progression because there’s so much money around and people are playing for such high stakes that it was inevitable. I think Full Tilt Poker was the only online organization that could pull this off because they have all the best players in the world.”

Onyx Cup Series will be there in Las Vegas dated May 11 and will mark a multitude of poker’s elite, including FT team members such as Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, John Juanda, and many other.

Four days after the British Columbia Privacy Commissioner has given a cautious thumb for security in the province of online gaming portal, announced BC Lottery Corp. (BCLC), a partnership that extends some of its offerings beyond provincial borders for the first time.

PlayNow.com BCLC and Loto-Québec’sEspacejeux. Portals Commission announced on Friday they have teamed up to help British Columbia and Quebec to play poker online against others.

It provides British Columbians access to a bilingual platform with eight varieties of poker.

Espacejeux became the second site of the government-regulated online gambling in the month of December last year – after the launch of Play Now BC last June.
The partners promoted the new partnership with a February 20 tournament with $100,000 in prize money yesterday.

The Quebec and B.C. lottery corporations are basing the revenue-sharing formula for poker earnings on each jurisdictions gaming volume.

Also last week, B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a final report on a July 15, 2010, incident in which Play Now was shut down after BCLC discovered that hackers could gain access to customers’ private information.

The incident occurred on the same day as the site’s launch.

The commissioner identified a number of areas where the online site’s security was inadequate.

The investigation determined that the case was a breach of security, and elsewhere on the site improved.

Denham, however, recommends a number of different ways, BCLC to improve the security of the site.

In fiscal 2011, the budget released last week, reported total revenue of the Government of BC from the site was down 4.7% from projections in Budget 2010-thanks to reduce the consumption of lottery and casino.

Budget, BCLC is expected to moderate growth of 3.4% annual revenue gambling – many of them, “said BCLC, the background is the ongoing development of play now.

Saturday Night Live veteran Norm MacDonald is the new host of the seventh season of High Stakes Poker and the player lineup for the first full on February 26 was also published.

Commenting on the new season had ended and difficult to achieve, to the press release on GSN, the cable network that airs the show. Most of the information was that Gabe Kaplan is out, because the show host and comedian Norm MacDonald is the new host.

MacDonald rose to fame as a member of the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in the 1990s, primarily as the host of the “Weekend Update” segment. He’s had leading roles in TV shows and appeared in several films since his SNL run ended in 1998. MacDonald is a poker player himself, and has played in the World Series of Poker and many celebrity tournaments.

The hiring of MacDonald appears to point to the fact that HSP is heading in a different direction creatively. Kaplan’s poker knowledge and his ability to analyze a hand is likely far superior to MacDonald’s. But MacDonald will bring an edge and humor that Kaplan lacked, and he may appeal to a broader audience.

Kara Scott will remain as the co-host, providing behind-the-scenes analysis and player interviews.

The other big news is that the full player lineup for the upcoming season has been announced. Here it is:
Mike Baxter
Eric Boneta
Doyle Brunson
Johnny Chan
Robert Croak
Jon Duhamel
Antonio Esfandiari
Phil Galfond
Bill Klein
Phil Laak
Jason Mercier
Julian Movsesian
Daniel Negreanu
David Peat
Bill Perkins
Andrew Robl
Phil Ruffin
Vanessa Selbst
Bob Voulgaris

Not surprisingly, the show, which is sponsored by Poker Stars, is heavy on PS pros like Negreanu, Mercier and Selbst. The lineup confirms that Full Tilt players will not appear on the show, as had been rumored in earlier reports. The relationship between PokerStars and HSP is likely the reason players like Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Phil Ivey and Antonius will not be included in the show. Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom is now a PokerStars pro, but he was not yet signed when the season of HSP was filmed last year at Bellagio.

Other celebrity lineup including 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel, top online gambling pro Phil “OMClayAiken” Galfond and Doyle Brunson, who makes his seventh appearance of HSP.

Press said that the show contained a minimum buy-in is $ 200,000 and up to $ 500K, $ 400 – $ 800 $ 100 ante and blinds.

PSH new season will premiere on Saturday, February 26 and will air on Saturdays at 20 am and 11 pm NSG.

GSN also announced HSP will be distributed in 3D in the channel of DIRECTV, n3D spring.

Due to popularity of this game in casino, many forms of this game have come into existence i.e. online poker, video poker and many more. This would increase the interest of the players to play their favorite game called as poker.

Among all these online poker is very popular. It is because the players need not to go to casinos for enjoying this game as they can enjoy it sitting at their homes through internet. Online poker is famous due to many advantages which it provides to the players. Let’s go through it:

Choice of location: This is one of the most important advantages of playing online poker. The players are not supposed to visit local casinos for playing this game. If they are having computer with internet connection they can enjoy playing this game at location of their own choice.

This saves both time and money of the players as there is no need to travel in search of casino. Casinos are having a variety of games of poker with them. It may happen that the casino available to you may not have the game of poker of your choice. But there’s no need to worry when you are ready for playing online poker. What you need to do is just to get connected online and you will find a variety of games of poker. You can play the one you like the most.

Co-creator of the animated series the longest running in television history (The Simpsons), Sam Simon, claiming a player high-stakes poker has lost more than $ 4 million due to a hidden camera cheating that was secretly installed in his house.

According to Simon, someone broke into the pro’s house and installed the camera unbeknownst to the online pro.
Simon, who also plays poker, has indicated that the pro in question happens to be one of the biggest nosebleed players out there—someone the poker community knows very well, though he never revealed who this player was. He just explained that the said online poker pro was “losing, and losing, and losing.” Then he realized that someone had gained access to his house and installed the camera above his computer.

“He found a camera stuck in his ceiling, looking at the [computer] screen,” says Simon.
Simon has also told the Las Vegas Review Journal that he too had been a victim of cheating scams that involved online poker. For instance, he explains that two players will be sitting together physically while playing online at the same table, ganging up on unsuspecting victims.

After Simon had been victimized by this scam, PokerStars ran an algorithm test proving he had been scammed, and ultimately Simon got his money back. He no longer plays poker online.

Simon also made comments about the proposed bill by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that will legalize online poker in the US. Simon is weary of it and accuses it of being corrupt.

The bill is in effect a ban on sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt at least one year, allowing only the casino name brands such as MGM and Caesars Palace to run online gaming sites in the United States.

The two poker tables of fortune in the Mathematics Classroom of William Snyder at George Mason High School buzzed as Daniel Fletcher, 17, discussed what to do with his four hearts and two clubs.

Fletcher had been on a tear during the past few meetings of the high school poker club – part of a nascent effort nationwide to take the game from casinos to classrooms, applying card-table concepts to math and logical-reasoning lessons.

As Fletcher’s pile of plastic chips grew last week, he smiled wide. “I don’t know whether math class is helping me with poker, or whether poker is helping me in math class,” he said.

George Mason’s school-sponsored poker club, which was founded in September, has quickly become one of the most popular extracurricular activities at the Falls Church high school. But it also has anti-gambling groups questioning whether it encourages potentially unhealthy habits in children.

For years, the debate over whether poker can be stripped of its stakes – and used to teach probability and statistics – has been waged far from George Mason High, between leading academics and advocacy groups. But with gambling among teenagers a nationally recognized problem, the school-sponsored club represents something of a new frontier in the dispute.

“We know the kids could play outside of school, but when they’re here, we have the opportunity to show them how to play responsibly and to show them how the game relates to their education,” said Mason Principal Tyrone Byrd.

When Byrd approved the club, he made the ground rules clear: Real money could not be used, and the game’s educational relevance must be made explicit. Several weeks ago, the club posted fliers that included cigarette-smoking dogs playing a hand of poker, and Byrd tore them down. “Those are the kinds of connotations we’re trying to stay away from.”

George Mason’s club might be a rarity at the high school level, but some universities have long had classes that sought to deconstruct the game’s “marvelous architecture,” as Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson calls it.

“When you graduate from Harvard Law School, I want you to be a player,” Nesson tells his students, who play in a section outside class. The lesson is about more than basic statistics. It’s about understanding the anatomy of reasoning and human behavior – “about teaching them to contend in a contentious environment.”

Nesson and his students formed the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society at Harvard in 2007. That club has opened chapters at a number of the country’s top universities. Its members hope to drive home a simple point: Poker is a game of skill that, according to its mission statement, “can be used as a powerful teaching tool at all levels of academia and in secondary education.”

But anti-gambling activists say those lessons might not be suited for high school, where teenagers, still unable to gamble legally, are growing up during a boom in high-stakes poker, with celebrity players and easily accessible gaming Web sites.

“We’re playing with fire here. Poker can be a teaching tool, but it can also lead to abuse and addiction,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. “The excitement that a win produces, whether or not it’s for money, can have profound effects on decision-making in a young brain.”

A study from the Annenberg Public Policy Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania released last month found that 15 percent of boys ages 14 to 17 gamble on card games at least once a month.

Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group, has been on the front lines of the battle against youth poker, lobbying against everything from Internet gambling to informal high school card games. The group says adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to developing addictions to gambling.

At George Mason, the club divides the room between two clusters of desks – one poker game for rookies and one for experienced players. Both games are punctuated by fist pumps and exasperated groans – the range of responses to bluffs gone right and wrong.

“The older kids realize that it’s about odds and probability,” Snyder said. “The younger ones just want to win.”

Jay Rodock, a George Mason senior who is the club’s co-founder, is intent on it being something other than a springboard to high-stakes gaming.

He and his friends play for small sums of money outside school, but he’s clear that the poker club is about math, not winnings.

For a few minutes during each meeting, the 17-year-old senior teaches the group of 15 to 20 students about the game’s conceptual underpinnings, jotting fractions on the chalkboard and working through basic arithmetic.

“What’s the ratio of getting an out here?” he asked the group last week, pointing to a few cards he had drawn on the board.

One student responded quickly with the right answer: “11 out of 47.”

“So, what would your next move be?” he asked. The group stared at him expectantly. Snyder, the club’s sponsor, who teaches the statistics of blackjack and poker in his International Baccalaureate math class, also kept his eyes on Rodock.

“In this case, you can call, raise or fold. They are all acceptable solutions” said Rodocker. Then he added, with the wisdom of a veteran laconic: “You have your good and have their bad days.”

Nik Persaud came out on top of a 28-player field to win the 2010 World Heads Up Poker Championship. His first place finish earned him a prize of £30,000.

The relatively small field and the £2,000 buy-in kept the prize pool fairly small. However, the tournament did attract a reasonably strong field, thanks to the prestigious nature of the event. Several notable players took part, including JP Kelly, Jeff Kimber, and Victoria Coren.

Persaud is a notable name in English poker circles, and has cashed twice in the World Series of Poker’s Main Event. His latest win brings his lifetime cashes up to nearly $400,000.

In the finals, Persaud was matched up against Leon Louis, another Englishman who has had limited success in local tournaments. On the final hand, Louis was put all in with 55 on a 764 flop, and was slightly ahead of Persaud, who held 98. Persaud won the hand the hard way, as a 7 and 6 hit the turn and river, making the board pair twice; Louis’ pair of fives no longer played, and Persaud’s 9 kicker was enough to pick up the pot.

For second place, Louis earned £15,000. Kimber and Toby Lewis also cashed, each earning £5,500 for losing in the semifinals.

The World Heads-Up Poker Championship has been held each year since 2001, at various locations throughout Europe. Previous winners include Bruno Fitoussi, John Cernuto, Kimber, and Kirill Gerasimov.

While early versions of the tournament has attracted some of the biggest names in the poker world, and also funds the relatively high price, as the tournament declined in recent years, due in part to being overshadowed by NBC National Heads-Up Championship.

World Poker champion Jonathan Duhamel has suggest for those want to follow his path to the poker table: Don’t. In fact, the 23-year-old poker stars with a shy smile the first to advice against glorifying his last $ 8.9 million victory.

“I see myself as an exception ¬ this isn’t for everyone,” he said during a news conference in Montreal on Thursday.

“I don’t recommend anyone does this, to leave school and start playing with high stakes.” By now, Duhamel’s story is well known. The hockey-loving kid from Boucherville, Que., dropped out of university, where he was studying for a finance degree, to pursue poker full time. Passionate for the game, he put in hours a week playing and practicing, eventually winning a spot in the World Poker Championship 2010 finals and then this week, the top prize.

Duhamel puts it down mostly to luck.

“Even the best player won’t win without luck,” he maintained.

The new ambassador for a major gambling website suggested players stick to low stakes and play for pleasure, not cash.

“There’s no reason to play with big amounts of money,” he said. “You can continue playing just for the fun of it and that’s OK.” But anti-gambling advocates worry whether Duhamel’s advice will be enough to check the influence of the game’s marketing juggernaut.

It’s what concerns Nina Littman-Sharp, counselling services manager for the Problem Gambling Institute of Ontario.

In an interview from Toronto, Littman-Sharp tells QMI Agency that televised poker tournaments and the glorification of stars such as Duhamel will encourage lesser talents who risk losing big money.

“Our informal impression is that people are pulled in by this kind of thing and start to think this could be me,” she said.

“A college students who happens to be good at probabilities may do well against friends, they may even do well on poker sites. But that doesn’t mean they will be able to turn professional. Somebody is a shark one day and a fish the next.” As for Duhamel, he admitted he’ll be the big fish his rivals on the poker tournament circuit will try to hook.

World Poker champion Jonathan Duhamel said “Everyone knows me now and will try to take me down.”

Can Gambling makes kid’s superior in math is a big question? Virginia high school started poker club, eager to integrate the game’s popularity in mathematics lessons and logical reasoning.

One student, on a winning streak, told the Washington Post, “I don’t know whether math class is helping me with poker, or whether poker is helping me in math class.”

The club, which spends part of the time analyzing math concepts such as ratios with poker examples, has reportedly become one of the most popular extracurricular activities at school.

At Harvard, the link between straights and flushes has already been endorsed as a teaching tool for probability and reasoning, as well as human behavior. But some anti-gambling experts have raised alarms bells about teaching poker to teenagers who aren’t legally old enough to gamble. And here at home, a new study released this month by the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health suggested that roughly 29,000 Ontario middle-school and high-school students reported signs of problem gambling (such as skipping school to gamble).

According to the study, nearly half of Ontario students said they participated in at least one form of gambling; three per cent, when screened, showed warning signs of a problem. Those numbers should raise alarm bells, psychologists say, because students with an addiction to gambling were found to be 18 time more likely to say they had attempted suicide, 11 times more likely to report being in a gang fight and carrying a handgun, and 20 times more likely to report selling drugs other than marijuana.

So what do you think? Although poker is a great way to teach math concepts should be taught in high school?