Many of the athletes competing in the 2010 Olympics have many hobbies on the side while training to be the best at their sport, and J.R. Celski is no exception.  Celski, a nineteen year-old poker player, took home the bronze in the short track speed skating event today in Vancouver, Canada.

LONDON, UK—9 November 2009—Sky Poker kicked off its six-leg live tour in Manchester on Saturday with a hotly contested tournament that saw David “David36″ Bryan, beat 149 players to walk away with the first prize of £4000.

Some people play poker exclusively online, without going anywhere near a live game. Others like to mix it up and play poker live and on the internet. Despite the huge popularity of online poker, there are still some poker players who avoid online poker and instead prefer the green felt to the click of the mouse. These people are missing out on the huge opportunities offered by online poker. Here are some of the reasons why online poker is better than live poker:

Action 24/7

The number one reason why online poker is better live poker is because there’s always a game to be found. Sure, some times of day are busier than others- such as evenings and weekends. But it doesn’t matter what time of day, there’s people playing poker online 24/7. Possibly the most annoying aspect of live poker is waiting around for a game to start. Of course this is assuming they even have enough people wanting to play poker. While with online poker, you might not be able to always jump straight into the game of your choice, there’s never much waiting around.

Comfort of Home

Not only are there an abundance of poker games waiting for you, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home. There are no travel costs, no worries about how you’re going to get home, or getting stuck in traffic. There’s no need to bother getting dressed up either. Heck, you can even play poker naked if you like. Doing this at a live poker game would get you locked up. Let’s not forget, you also save money on food and drink, as the fridge is never far away when you’re playing online poker.

Online Poker is Cheaper

Online poker doesn’t just save you money on travel, food and drink. The poker itself is also much cheaper, which is particularly beneficial if you’re just starting out learning how to play poker, and don’t want to spend too much. If you go to a casino or card room you might find many cash games below $1/$2. The rake at live poker venues is also much higher than at online poker sites. Plus if you win a hand playing poker online there’s no obligation to tip the dealer – you can’t anyway!

Play More Poker Hands

The most noticeable difference between online poker and live poker is the hands per hour ratio. When you play poker online there’s no waiting around for the dealer to shuffle the cards, potential miss-deals, working out the pot, and the players are generally much quicker to act – to name just a few things. You get to see so many more hands per hour playing online poker, which means more opportunities, more decisions, and less boredom.

Multi-Tabling

Many online poker players like to play on multiple tables at the same time. Just playing one table at a time means you get to see more hands per hour than in live poker, but if you’re playing on multiple tables then obviously this becomes an even bigger factor. Playing multiple tables also reduces the variance, and you can play at much lower limits – thereby spreading the risk. If you are playing poker in a live venue, let’s say a $1/$2 NL game, you’d probably want to sit down with about $200 – which is at risk on any given hand. You could spread this same $200 across multiple tables, at lower stakes, when you play online.

Tracking Your Game

It’s always nice to know if you’re winning, losing, or breaking even at poker. Sure, you can keep notes on how much you’re spending when you play live poker. I used to keep a spreadsheet to track my income and expenses from live poker games. But sometimes it’s easy to forget how much was spent, particularly with re-buy events. Of course, this is just basic tracking. When you play poker online you can get instant hand histories, and access to a huge wealth of data. It goes far beyond just saying if you’re a profitable player or not. You can find leaks in your game and plug the holes. By analysing your play you can improve your skills as a poker player.

Bonuses and Promotions

Online poker is a fiercely competitive industry, and with so many poker sites looking to attract customers, there are a multitude of bonuses and promotions on offer. Casinos like to offer promotions to their patrons, but when it comes to poker they care much less. Poker rooms don’t make much money for casinos, so they don’t really bother trying too hard. However online poker sites are only too eager to offer bonuses and promotions, be it 100% signup bonuses for new poker players, or re-load bonuses for existing players. They really want you to play poker at their site, which is something you can and should take advantage of.

Conclusion

I think the advantages of online poker that have been outlined so far, are fairly comprehensive. Of course playing poker in a live environment has its advantages too – such as the social interaction, and being able to see players’ reactions. The purpose of this article is not to knock live poker, but to give valid reasons for why online poker is superior in so many ways. It’s fair to say this has been achieved. Good luck at the tables!

So, it happened a few days ago.  The last woman was eliminated from this years event.  *Gasp* *Shock!* *Horror!*

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but I’m not really sure why it’s a huge deal?  When women make up a whopping 3% of the field, outlining how women do at a tourney like this is fairly silly in my mind.  It’s like breaking it down by race, orcountry or any other arbitrary measure.  And I’ve never seen “last Italian eliminated from WSOP today! And just to round out my news articles, the biggest cash an Italian has ever made at the WSOP Is 140,333 in 2003″.   It’s an archaic thing to write about. 

There are some amazing female poker players out there, and here is a list of female WSOP bracelet winners over the years….

Donna Ward was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1991 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud
Jennifer Tilly won a World Series of Poker bracelet (and $158,625) in the Ladies’ No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em event,
Linda Ryke-Drucker was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1987 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.
Maria Stern won the 1997 World Series of Poker $1,500 Seven-Card Stud event
Phyllis Kessler was a World Series of Poker champion in the 2003 $1,000 Ladies – Hold’em and Limit 7 Card Stud.
Rose Pifer was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1985 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.
Christina Pie was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1999 $1,000 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.

Annette Obrestad (born September 18, 1988) is a Norwegian poker player. Obrestad is the youngest person to ever win a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and in 2007 was considered to be one of the best online multi-table tournament players in the world. ^[1]..

Linda Johnson World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in 1997 in the $1,500 seven-card razz event.
Susan J. Isaacs finished tenth in the $10,000 no limit hold’em main event in 1998. (and won back to back bracelets for the ladies 7 card stud events)
Jennifer C. Harman

Annie Duke won a bracelet in the 2004 World Series of Poker $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Event and was the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, where she earned the Winner-Take-All prize of $2,000,000



So there you have it…some great female poker players…i think that list speaks for itself!

Image by love not fear via Flickr

There are all sorts of reports coming out that a former royal protection officer (who incidentally is accused of a £3 million betting and property scam) is saying that colleagues played poker and traded porn while working at Buckingham. 

First of all, i think it’s hilarious that the headline is “POKER PLAYED AT BUCKINGHAM!” and not “Guards traded porn at Buckingham!”   That aside, i wonder what kind of games they would get up to.  And if this guy is cheating his colleagues out of £3 million, do you think he’d be in on that game?  Something smells fishy here. 

Honestly i don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t do something personal during downtime at work.  And someone running a poker game is, in my opinion, similar to euchre or any other card game.  Honestly, if you want to be outraged at something, be angry at the porn.  Porn at work is a definite no no…..but poker at work?  I’d be in on that during my lunch break. The game would likely be more for fun than for money, but you could probably get some really sweet variations or play some games you’ve never played before (crazy pineapple, 7 card murder, razz…)

You can read the “Outrageous!” story here….

Recently the political system in the UK has been going through a crisis of confidence.  This has been driven by insane spending by members of parliament, including ministers using their expense accounts to refurbish a private residence, pay off their mortgage and other items that regular expense account definately do not cover.

It seems that in a bid to recoup some of the excess the government is rolling out a new taxation system for poker that could jeopardize many poker rooms all across the UK.  In the old system a poker room would have to pay VAT, or essentially 15% on earnings from poker.  This left room for a modest profit for the casino.  The new system is based on a sliding scale of charges.  The minimum being 15% and it goes to a maximum of 50%.  That means that the more money taken in by a given casino in a poker room, the more they have to pay in taxes for that room.  The tax doesn’t take into consideration operating costs so clubs that fall into the top bracket have to pay 50 percent of their poker revenues in taxes, then pay all their staff, rent and running costs out of the remaining 50 percent.

It is being speculated that because the cost of going to a “legal” poker room could go up (in fees to help reduce the impact of the high tax), and the fact that police are lax is clamping down on illegal poker venues, players will start to choose the illegal venue option first.  It avoids the high cost and seems fairly low risk.

The laughable par about all this is that the Junior Minister at the treasure that is responsible for the legislation was not fully aware of the way player to player poker operates, and now that things are moving on the legislation, is unable to inform his superiors about his mistake.  

Martin Ramskill, General Manager of the Grosvenor Victoria casino commented on the situation by saying, “The government appears to have misunderstood the effect of its actions as it said it wanted the budget to be tax neutral. By taking away the VAT rate and introducing normal gaming duty to poker rooms, it could mean that charges might now need to be raised to try and cover the extra costs. This may well have the effect of driving poker players to illegal card rooms that don’t pay taxes and may even create a demand for such venues, which runs counter to its stated aim of keeping criminality out of gaming.”

I realize American poker isn’t top priority for British players, however i think this is worth mentioning because of the motivation behind the actions.  In the states, online poker is outlawed.  So, they cannot usecredit cards, paypal, or any other method to get money online.  They have to wire money to the casino, and the, in turn, get their winnings wired back to the states.  Because of the way things are set up, these winnings are not taxed, and neither is the online casino.

Recently Federal prosecutors have frozen tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to online poker players.  I don’t know what that means for that money, weather or not it’s confiscated, or if over a long period of time it will be returned to them.  However, it appears that a new law proposed by Congressman Barney Frank would legalize and tax the online poker world in the USA.  This is problematic as it sets a president.  If the US proposes to tax online poker the same way they tax lottery winnings (28%, and it would also be counted toward income tax, so you would lose more than half of the winnings after the tax man is done with you), and other countries start to take the same steps, we could see a drastic change in the way online poker works.

It’s not necessarily the tax that is problematic, it’s the motivation for outlawing gambling in the first place.  The government saw a hugerevenue machine that was not generating any income for them.  So instead of working with the online casino’s to make it work for the US, they took a “moralhigh ground ” stance, and outright made it illegal.  Now, 2 years later, they are systematically quashing the more serious players by freezing their money, and bringing poker back to the states, with no real incentive to actually play.  When you are being taxed up the wazoo (yeah, i said wazoo), poker becomes a -e/v game.

And just think….if the British government needs a cash infusion, they just may follow the example the US has set.

This past weekend many records were shattered for online poker in general and for Pokerstars.com.  The biggest record of all was Pokerstars set a new record for most people playing in an online poker tournament when their $500k guaranteed tournament reached its capacity of 35,000 people!  A player under the alias stan34powa went on to win the tournament and the $30,000 that was guaranteed for first place.  Not bad for an $11 investment!  This record will go down in the Guinness Book Of Records but you can guarantee that Pokerstars will do their best to shatter it again in no time!

The next big record that was shattered at Pokerstars was the most people ever online at a single poker site.  At approximately 3:30 PM EST yesterday, Pokerstars had a total of 250,540 people on their site playing poker!  This is twice their daily average and a HUGE accomplishment for the site and online poker in general.  I guess the whole “global recession” isn’t slowing down poker players!

Pokerstars also set some personal records with their big Sunday tournaments.  The Sunday warm-up had its biggest field ever with 5,836 players and a prize pool over $1.1 Million Dollars.  Also, the Sunday Millions tournament guarantee was raised from $1.5 Million to $2.5 Million, but this was shattered again when 16,260 people registered bringing the prize pool up to $3,252,000!  In the end, a player from Sweden under the alias lp_SakiSaki took 1st place and $331,378.80 in cash without a chop at the final table!

If you aren’t playing at Pokerstars.com, then you really don’t know what you are missing!

I can read Dave Ulliott’s mind right now… “If Gordon Ramsay can do it, why can’t I?”

Well Dave, you can’t. And more people are going to watch a “Kitchen Nightmare” show than a poker show. Obviously Dave didn’t get this memo and on the show, attempts to goad, scream, and humiliate 4 poker hopefuls. He bankrolls (supposedly from his own bankroll) them and coaches them through the ranks by starting them at an online poker site.

The show, titled “How to Become a Poker Millionaire” is airing on ITV Wales and will not be seen on US television. The ultimate goal of the show is take the last player standing and send them to the WSOP Main Event next year. It’s a last man standing type show with one player being eliminated weekly.

Dave stated, “Poker players won’t have seen anything like this before. It was a real boot camp for the participants and I took no prisoners. There’s laughter and tears, good poker and bad poker, and viewers will get to learn many of the tricks of the high-stakes poker trade which took me years and a lot of money to learn.”

Never seen anything like this before? Dave, we hope we never see anything like it again!

Sky Poker has announced that they will be launching 2 new shows: “Stacked Up” and “Sky Poker Unlimited“.

Stacked Up – Will be a poker show focused entirely on cash game play.  Players will be divided in teams of 3 which will have Professional Players, Sky Poker presenters, and novice players.  The teams who show the largest increase in their bankroll will be declared the winners.  The first shows will be hosted by Tony ‘Tikay’ Kendall and Norman Pace but soon after some of the current hosts from Sky Poker will take over.  The show will be aired every Tuesday at 8.00 pm GMT on Sky Poker Channel 846.

Sky Poker Unlimited -This show will be an all around show for the virtual tables at Sky Poker.  The presenters will visit cash games, multi-table tournaments and even sit n go’s to analyze the players’ play.  The show will be hosted by many of the current Sky Poker personalities and feature all the best tournaments on Sky Poker, including The Open, Velocity and The Five 0.

With all Sky Poker shows, you can play on TV through their Website SkyPoker.com.  If you don’t already have an account visit our Sky Poker Promotional Code page for details on how to get 500 Sky Points FREE!

Poker Bonus Toplist

1

Full Tilt Poker

$600

9.0

Review

2

Hollywood Poker

$600

9.0

Review

3

Full Tilt Poker

$600

9.0

Review

4

Full Tilt Poker

$600

9.0

Review

5

Full Tilt Poker

$600

9.0

Review

Finding a good online poker site to play on can be very difficult as there are so many different sites, each with different things to offer. For example, some players may find the best site to be the one with the most traffic, while others may define the best as the one with the most bad players. No matter what you consider to be the best, our goal here is to find the best poker site for YOU, the player.

Below are 3 of very popular poker sites, especially in the UK. Each we consider to be the best for different reasons, which are briefly explained beside the site's logo and name.

Why should you trust us? That is a difficult question, but I can guarantee you will most likely have heard of any poker site listed here. This site is run by poker players that have been playing online for over 5 years. In this time we have been able to try out many sites and we will do our best to explain what we like and don't like about them in our reviews.

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