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Schedule Released for Season XV of World Poker Tour
2016-05-20The World Poker Tour has released a schedule for Season XV that will feature 20 Main Tour events as well as a reprisal of the Tournament of Champions to end the season. The prestigious tour will also be introducing a new way of qualifying for its renowned events, the World Poker Tour Passport.
The WPT featured 21 main festivals and awarded prizes of over $50 million last season. Although the WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic and the WPT Vienna have been removed from the schedule, it has added a new stop with the WPT Caribbean scheduled to take place at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic in November 2016.
According to Angelica Hael, Vice President of Global Tour Management for WPT, Hard Rock is one of the most globally recognizable brands and is tantamount with delivering a first-class experience. Hael went on to say that they are extremely proud to partner with Hard Rock and partypoker to host partypoker WPT Caribbean and to add this tropical destination to the Season XV WPT Main Tour schedule.
WPT and partypoker have also partnered to launch the WPT Passport which provide players endeavoring to qualify into WPT Main Tour events via online qualifiers with more flexibility. The online poker room will host WPT Passport super satellites every day, feeding into a $530 WPT Passport satellite with at least package worth $5,000 guaranteed. Winners will be given up to 12 months to decide which WPT Main Tour they would like to use the package for.
Adam Pliska, President and Chief Executive Officer of the WPT revealed that in Season XIV, its casino partners and 12,000 entrants generated over $50 million in combined prize pools. Pliska added that following the tremendous response from members of the WPT Champions Club, they are thrilled to announce the return of the WPT Tournament of Champions in Season XV, and launch new initiatives such as the partypoker WPT Passport as they continue to enhance the WPT experience for professionals as well as casual players around the world.
Screening of this Year’s Super High Roller Poker Contest
2016-05-15Following an extremely successful debut last year, the Super High Roller Poker Tournament will be returning to the Aria Resort and Casino at the end of this month and according to a press review, all 49 seats were officially sold out a couple of months ago.
Clint Stinchcomb, Chief Executive Officer of Poker Central, which will be streaming and broadcasting the event, revealed that the speed at which this exciting event sold out is evidence of the popularity of the Super High Roller Bowl and of Poker itself. He added that with some of the most famous and exciting players already locked in, the Super High Roller Bowl is going to be riveting to watch.
Among the players confirmed for this year’s event are last year’s champion player Brian Rast, Daniel Negreunu, Jason Mercier, all-time bracelet leader Phil Hellmuth and $1 Million One Drop winners Antonio Esfandiari and Dan Colman.
According to Sean McCormack, ARIA Director of Poker Operations, he has never seen a high-stakes tournament sell out three months in advance. He added that it is unprecedented and that they also have a significant waiting list.
The 49 talented high rollers have each contributed an amount of $300,000 in rake-free prize money while sponsors have added an additional amount of $300,000.
The Super High Roller Bowl is scheduled to commence on Sunday, 29th May, 2016, which is shortly before the World Series of Poker commences, and will take place over four days.
The event is bound to attract a huge audience with $15 million in guaranteed prizes and the 49 players who have contributed $300,000 apiece to compete against each other.
Although Poker Central will be screening this great event, the CBS Sports Network has indicated that it will also be devoting 30 hours of televised screen time to the contest.
The CBS screening schedule is as follows – (EST times)
- Sunday, May 29: 7 pm – 3 am
• Monday, May 30: 8 pm – 3 am
• Tuesday, May 31: 8 pm – 3 am
• Wednesday, June 1: 7 pm – 3 am
New Jersey Releases Names of Online Poker Service Providers
2013-11-08Following months of speculation, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has at last released a list of the names of ancillary casino service industry enterprises and internet gaming related vendor registrants that have met preliminary approval for an iGaming license in the state.
The Division of Gaming Enforcement named a total of 12 ancillary service industry enterprises and 42 vendor registrants in a document which read ”Pursuant to section N.J.S.A. 5:12-92a(3) of the New Jersey Casino Control Act, Ancillary Casino Service Industry Enterprise’s (“CSIE”) are those enterprises that provide goods or services ancillary to gaming activity. ”
The names of the 12 casino service industry enterprises are as follows –
Aristotle International, Certegy Check Services, Cognitive Box Consulting, DBI Staffing, GeoComply, Locaid, Player Verify, Poker Venture, PokerTrip Enterprises, Secured Trading, US Casino Marketing and XYVerify.
Poker Trip Enterprises (AllVegasPoker.com and PokerAtlas.com) is owned by Jon Friedberg who is a World Series of Online Poker bracelet winner and leading industry man who is also licensed as a marketing affiliate inNevada. Poker Trip was the first marketing affiliate to have been given approval in theNevadamarket.
The names of the internet gaming related vendor registrants are as follows –
Acculink, Alexander Schneider USA, BlueSheep, Cable Design Services, Clickatell, Counting House Services, DDB Worldwide Communications, Digital Envoy, Duo Security, Ecomaccess, EmailVision UK, First Data Merchant Services, Forte Payment Systems, I2C, Initial Rewards USA, Innovative Systems, Interactive Communications Intl., ITC Financial Licenses, Itex, Jumio, Kalixa USA, Maxmind, Mazooma, MMGP, Money Network, NBX Merchant Services, Neustar, PayNearMe MT, Paysafecard.com, Radbit Computers, Sightline Interactive, Silverprop Systems, Skrill USA, Softcat, SRC Security Research & Consulting, Thomson Reuters Prof. UK, Trustnet, USA, Vantiv Payment Systems, Virgin Enterprises, We!, WorldPay and Zycko.
Atlantic City casinos which have been granted approval by the Division of Gaming Enforcement to offer online casino and poker games, will be given an opportunity to launch a trial run of their services with their partner software providers on Thursday, 21st November, 2013. The Division of Gaming Enforcement will allow those who prove to meet all the requirements set by them to go live on Tuesday, 26th November, 2013.
Sky Poker UK Poker Championships Announced
2013-11-03Independent online poker room, Sky Poker is thrilled to announce that it will be hosting an all new UK Poker Championship in February, 2014 at one of Europe’s most popular poker venues, Dusk Till Dawn at theNottinghamsuper club.
The Championship Event with its guaranteed £500.000 prize pool will be the highlight of the seven day festival.
The Sky Poker UK Poker Championship is scheduled to take place at the leading Dusk Till Dawn venue.
Two Day 1 flights are included in the £1,000 + £100 event on Wednesday, 19th and Thursday, 20th February, 2014, while the champion will be crowned on Sunday, 23rd February, 2013. Sky Sports will be broadcasting this great event.
An exciting side event schedule includes PLO, six-max, heads up and roller tournaments as well as a slew of live Main Event qualifiers.
The finale to the seven day long Sky Poker UK Poker Festival which kicks off on Monday, 17th February, 2014, will be the UK Poker Championship Event which will include a High Roller event and a two day Pot Limit Omaha tournament. A Las Vegas Holiday Package which is valued at $15,000 will be awarded to the winner of a UK Poker Festival leader board.
Richard Milner, the Head of Sky Poker, revealed that everyone at Sky Poker is extremely excited about the UK Poker Championships. Milner added that the event will be biggest live event that they have ever had and that it comes hot on the heels of another successful season of the Sky Poker Tour, which ended in their Grand Finale, which also took place at Dusk Till Dawn. Milner also said that the event comes at a time when there are several other exciting developments to their poker product and promotions at skypoker.com and that they are absolutely delighted to be working with Rob and his great team at Dusk Till Dawn on this event. He added that they have had numerous excellent events there in the past and that this event will be even bigger and better.
Amaya Gaming to Provide Poker Platform and Casino Content for Golden Nugget’s Online Gaming Portals
2013-10-25Amaya Gaming Group Inc., one of the leading entertainment solution providers for the regulated gaming industry, entered into an agreement with the Golden Nugget in terms of which Amaya will provide technology, including a poker platform and casino content and poker services for the online gaming brands of Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino. Amaya will assist in the running of the back-end of goldennuggetpoker.com and goldennuggetcasino.com, which will serve as the brands.
The agreement is subject to all regulatory approvals and applicable licensing.
Four Golden Nugget Hotels and Casinos betweenNew Jersey,NevadaandMississippiare operated by Golden Nugget. Its fifth location will be a site inLake Charles,Louisiana.
Online poker is already underway inNevadaand will launch inNew Jerseynext month.
Golden Nugget has an online poker license inNevadaand just recently received one inNew Jersey.
Thomas Winter, the Vice President Online Gaming of Landry’s, Inc., revealed that it is their intention to be a preferred early stage operator of real money online gaming as regulation progresses in the United States, initially in New Jersey and Nevada. Winter added that, in order to thrive in this market, it is necessary for them to deliver a best-in-class online and mobile player experience. Winter also said that Amaya provides online casino games and a poker platform that has proved to deliver exactly what they require and that through this partnership they will be in a position to supply outstanding and secure online entertainment which will be supported by the strong brand of their land-based casinos.
According to David Baazov, Chief Executive Officer of Amaya Gaming Group, they are extremely thrilled to be the selected partner for Golden Nugget’s venture into the emerging online gaming market in theUnited States. Baazov added that this deal expands their existing partnership with Golden Nugget through the addition of their casino product to Golden Nugget’s poker offering, which is a result of the quality of their offering as well as their strategic partnership with Bally and SHFL.
Bally Technologies owns SHFL (formerly Shuffle Master) and is also a Golden Nugget partner.
Several of the world’s leading gaming operators and casinos are powered by Amaya’s online, mobile and land-based products.
Full Tilt Poker Falls to 6th in Online Poker Player Traffic
2013-10-18Full Tilt Poker will soon be celebrating its first re-launch anniversary and although the online poker room once used to be the second biggest online poker room in the world, it now occupies the sixth rank as far as international traffic to its cash games is concerned.
Shortly before the re-launch of Full Tilt Poker on 6th November, 2012, the online poker room’s new owner, Rational Group predicted that Full Tilt Poker would continue to hold the second rank that it had always held prior to the federal governments crack down on 15th April, 2011.
Poker players currently appear to have had enough of playing at the re-launched online poker room and seem to be taking more interest in what is being offered in the skins on the iPoker Network, Party Poker, 888 Poker as well as event PokerStars Italian sites. These online poker rooms presently occupy the second to the fifth ranks in global player traffic.
It is expected that Full Tilt Poker will launch some new marketing strategies in an endeavor to win back some of its lost traffic.
Meanwhile the iPoker Network’s weekly average cash game traffic exceeds that of 888 Poker by 250 players which has resulted in the iPoker Network firmly establishing itself in the second rank.
Party Poker has been attracting lots of attention from poker players since the recent launch of its upgraded software despite the fact that glitches in its upgraded software caused 8 percent of its players to leave the site. The Party Poker team is trying to ensure that it does not lose any more players because of glitches in the software.
The partial shutdown of US government offices appear to have resulted in idle workers spending their time playing online poker as traffic to US facing online poker rooms have also gone up by 2 percent.
Although there has been a rise of one percent in cash game traffic in the industry, player traffic has gone down 10 percent compared to the same period last year.
Poker Stars Plans To Expand in Atlantic City
2013-10-11Poker Stars, one of the leading online poker sites, does not intend giving up its intention to enter the US gambling market through the right doors and has already entered into a partnership with Atlantic City based Resorts Casino Hotel in terms of which it will provide them with online poker and gambling software for when the industry goes live.
The online poker’s industry leader has now announced that it intends building a $10 million poker room at the Resorts Casino Hotel as part of the internet partnership with the land casino in an attempt to remain a strong competitor inNew Jersey’s live poker arena.
The building of the new poker room is dependant on Poker Stars being granted a gambling license inNew Jerseyas the group is still waiting for approval of its partnership with Resorts Casino Hotel from the gambling authority inNew Jersey.
William J. Pascrell, a spokesman for Poker Stars said that construction of the new poker room would begin immediately upon a license being awarded. Pascrell added that the new poker room would be called the “Poker Stars Poker Room at Resorts”.
The head of corporate communications at Poker Stars’ parent company Rational Group, Eric Hollreiser, confirmed the plans and stated that more details will be provided once the plans are finalized.
The creation of such a large poker room inAtlantic Citywill immediately create a minimum of 50 new jobs and also provide brand awareness between the live and online poker platforms.
Should Poker Stars be awarded the required license it plans to set up its North American headquarters inNew Jerseywhich should result in the employment of approximately 150 people together with 50 people to establish the necessary systems to get the online site up and running immediately upon Poker Stars receiving a license.
Poker Stars’ involvement in the Black Friday indictments could, however, see the online leader being deemed unsuitable for a license, without which the plans for the poker room will not materialize.
Chris “moorman1” Moorman Makes Online Poker History
2013-10-04Chris “moorman1” Moorman, the online poker pro who has been ranked the top online player in the world on 18 occasions is absolutely thrilled to have broken yet another record.
Moorman has finally passed the $10 million milestone in online poker tournament winnings by winning an amount of $9,500 on PartyPoker. Shyam “s_dot111” Srinivasan has been left tailing behind the young Brit with less than $7.5 million in earnings.
Moorman won the amount of $9,500 in a $215 buy in tournament at Party Poker and the thrilled player said that he is very happy to have made the mark in style with a victory that takes him over the line rather than a bunch of mini cashes. Moorman thanked everyone for their kind messages and support along the way and revealed that it feels wonderful to “finally get there”. He also mentioned how difficult the last $50 million felt and that it is now time to get working on the next 10 million as soon as possible.
What makes Moorman’s accomplishment so exceptional is the fact that he only managed to take home six digit sums in a handful of cases, with the majority of his wins being much smaller.
Although Moorman has only actually won one live tournament in his career he has also managed to win a total of $2,962,569 from live tournaments.
Amongst Moorman’s poker achievements over the years are 15 PocketFives Triple Crowns, 4 World Series of Poker Final Tables, 20 World Series of Poker cashes, being ranked in the top 100 live players in the world on GPI and winner of the British Poker Awards for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Moorman said that he has seen many extremely successful players getting burned out over the years but that he is thankful that he continues to enjoy the game more than ever. Moorman added that he feels truly blessed to be in a position to wake up every day and get to do something that he loves and that the 10 milestone is a testament to his dedication and passion for the game of poker.
Full Tilt Poker’s Micro Turbo Online Poker Series to Commence on October 13
2013-09-27The Micro Turbo Online Poker Series (MTOPS) is scheduled to take place at Full Tilt Poker from 13th October to 27th October, 2013 and will feature 75 events (as well as a Main Event) during these two weeks.
Players who do not have the means to play the high buy-in Full Tilt Online Poker Series events but are still eager to participate in an exciting online poker festival will find that the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series is the ideal solution. Buy-ins can be had for as little as 100 Full Tilt Points while the largest buy-in of the regular events are a mere $5.50.
The Micro Turbo Online Poker Series Main Event costs only $15 to enter and features a huge $500,000 guaranteed prize pool as well as the opportunity to win a $100 bounty by managing to knock out selected Full Tilt Poker Pros which include Viktor Blom, Dermot Blain and Martins Adeniya.
Every one of the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series events will be played according to Full Tilt Poker’s exclusive Multi-Entry Tournament format which gives players an opportunity to enter the same tournament numerous times, thus increasing their chances of making it into the money places. Several events permit four entries per player while the Main Event allows for eight entries per player.
Players are automatically competing in the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series Multi-Entry Challenge throughout the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series giving them an opportunity to win tournament tickets valued at over $1,900. Players can be rewarded with multiple cashes of leader board chips in the same event and the more chips earned by players, the bigger the prize will be at the end of the Micro Turbo Online Poker Series.
One Multi-Entry Challenge Leader board chip will be awarded by cashing twice in a single event, three chips will be awarded by cashing three times in a single event, six chips for cashing four times in a single event, ten chips for cashing five times in a single event and twenty chips will be awarded for cashing six times in a single event.
Every time a player merges three or more stacks in an individual tournament will earn him a $500 cash bonus for each additional merge while two or more merges in different tournaments will award players multiple $75 tournament tickets.
Paf Live with Microgaming Poker Network’s Mac OS Software
2013-09-20Microgaming, the award winning Technology Company whose software has powered one of the world’s most established online poker networks, the Microgaming Poker Network (MPN), has announced that the Aland based Paf operator has recently gone live with the Microgaming Poker Network’s new downloadable Mac OS software.
The new client is compatible with Mac operating systems as it runs in the Adobe Air framework. It also functions in the same manner as the Microgaming Poker Network’s “instant play” client which gives players an opportunity to participate in all Hold’em cash games, Sit ‘n Go’s and scheduled tournaments while at the same time having all the benefits of a downloadable client.
The Head of Poker at Paf, Herbert Paradis, said that they are absolutely thrilled to be the very first Microgaming Poker Network’s operator to go live with the Mac compatible download software. Paradis added that they have been aware of the fact that their players who own Apple devices have been anxiously waiting for a downloadable client for a considerable length of time and that they will be in a position to meet their customers’ needs in a much better way now that they have joined the Microgaming Poker Network.
The Microgaming Poker Network’s new Mac client is one of a suite of software platforms that have been designed by Microgaming in order to cater for all player devices. Included in the Microgaming Poker Network’s platforms are a downloadable PC client, a web based Flash client and a top notch HTML5 client for mobile and table devices.
According to Lydia Melton, the Head of Network Games at Microgaming, operators have been turning Mac users away for years due to the fact that they have not had dedicated software despite the fact that they are an important segment. Melton added that the Microgaming Poker Network is only one of a few networks that offer a Mac specific client and that they are very excited to see the reaction from players.
