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New UK Online Poker Series from SkyPoker.com

Following a very successful year in the live poker area, online poker room Sky Poker, has revealed details of a new virtual tournament series. 

The new UK Online Poker Series (UKOPS) is set to feature over £140,000 in guaranteed prize pools and is due to get underway on October, 31^st. 

The tournament will comprise of eight events which will take place over one week and culminate in a £40,000 guaranteed main event on November, 6^th.

The first UK Online Poker Series which takes place on October 31^st will be a £110 buy-in bounty hunter event that will commence at 8 pm and offer a £20,000 guaranteed prize pool as well as 4,000 starting chips and twelve-minute blinds.   Each player that players knock out will entitle them to claim 75% of the bounty while the remainder 25% will be added to their own heads.

The direct buy-ins to the UKOPS events range from £50 to £500 and will generate some of the hugest prize pools ever seen on Sky Poker.

There will also be a £55 buy-in-pot-limit Omahacontest taking place on November 1^st commencing at 8 pm with a similar format and re-buys that are available immediately and offering a £10,000 prize pool.

Wednesday, November 2^nd will see the third event of UKOPS with a £110 buy-in no-limit hold’em double stack competition with 8,000 starting chips, twelve-minute blinds and offering a prize pool of £10,000.

A £25,000 guaranteed £530 buy-in no-limit hold’em high-roller event featuring 10,000 starting chips and 15-minute blinds is the fourth event which will take place on November 3^rd. 

On November 4, a £55 buy-in no-limit hold’em re-buy competition will take place with a total prize fund of at least £15,000 and unlimited re-buys.

November 5^th will see a £22 buy-in £10,000 guaranteed no-limit hold’em turbo competition take place while on November, 6^th, the Sunday main event for UKOPS will take place from 7 pm at SkyPoker.com at a cost of £220 for the 8,000 starting chips and 15-minute blinds.

Team SkyPoker.com players will be playing throughout the UKPS series.

Many Big PKR Winners at British Poker Awards 2011

PKR, theUK’s leading online virtual poker site applauded the winners of the British Poker Awards and particularly praised the community of online British players in the game today.

New and seasoned poker pros from all over the world congregate at the British Poker Awards (BPA) which is hosted every year in order to show their appreciation for the year’s best card players.  The free online poker games at PKR offer great incentives with huge bonuses such as tickets to major live tournaments which include the World Series of Poker inLas Vegas.

The biggestUKaccolade of the night – “Player of the Year” was claimed by a young professional Brit by the name of Jake Cody whose table aggression and skill contributed to him also winning “Best Tournament Player” for 2011.  Cody is very passionate about the game and this can be seen in his play style which he often takes to the virtual tables such as those at PKR.

Before adding to his long list of honors by winning a World Series of Poker bracelet at the heads-up event in June this year, Cody enjoyed a very successful online year.

Home grown players such as Cody have always been supported by PKR and the site has a huge community of Brits who regularly play together in satellite tournaments, cash games as well as “grand prix” events.

A spokesperson for PKR commented “We want to congratulate Jake who thoroughly deserved to win his awards.  Young, unique players like him are what make the game immortal and the next young star could be playing on our online tables right now. We are inviting everybody to play for free on PKR and be in with a chance to go to the big live tournaments.”

Chris Moorman, who also hails from theUK, won the award for “Best Online Player” 

Paddy Power Poker Launches Irish Winter Festival Mega Satellite

Paddy Power Poker recently announced full details of the Irish Winter Festival 20 Packages Guaranteed mega Satellite which is due to take place on PaddyPowerPoker.com at 20:00 on Sunday 9^th October, 2011.  The online poker room has revealed that the buy-in for this online NLH Freezeout tournament has been set at €200 + €15 and that each of the 20 packages that are up for grabs are worth €1,800 which is made up of an Irish Winter Festival 2011 Main Event seat (worth €1,100) as well as four night’s accommodation in the Burlington Hotel together with all travel expenses.

The Paddy Power Poker.com Irish Winter Festival 2011 is due to be held from Friday 28^th to Monday 31^st October, 2011 at The Burlington Hotel inDublin.

Paddy Power Poker.com is running daily feeder tournaments to the Irish Winter Festival 20 Package Guaranteed satellite.

IRISH WINTER FESTIVAL 2011 MEGA SATELLITE:

     DATE        :        Sunday 9^th October 2011–09–30

      TIME         :        20:00

      BUY IN      :         €200 + €15

      PRIZE       :          20 Irish Winter Festival Packages GTD

Those players who succeed in qualifying for the Irish Winter Festival 2011 on Paddy Power Poker, either via this satellite or any other, will gain eligibility to the €20,000 Sole Survivor promotion.  In order to win an additional €20,000 package, players are required to outlast all other Paddy Power Poker qualifiers in the Irish Winter Festival 2011 main event.

The Communication Manager at Paddy Power Poker.com stated that “We want to see you all at the Irish Winter Festival this October bank holiday weekend.  The mega satellite is always a popular one with our regulars as it gives people a great chance to get there for a fraction of the price.”  He added “Everyone knows by now that there is more to the Irish Winter Festival than just poker and for those of you who like to be entertained in the evenings we have plenty for you this year including the return of the infamous “flip for a drink” promotion and possibly even a Beer Pong tournament with some great prizes up for grabs”.

Full Tilt Poker Accused of Running a Ponzi scheme

Dublinbased, Full Tilt Poker, has had a new court complaint lodged against it by one of the leading white collar crime prosecutors in theUS, Preet Bharara.

Bharara was involved in the prosecution of Bernie Madoff and Raj Rajaratnam and lodged the complaint against Full Tilt Poker in a US court claiming that the company had been operating a Ponzi scheme Dublin based online poker site, Full Tilt Poker, led by Howard Lederer and Ray Bitar and that Full Tilt Poker has been milking its own players’ money in order to benefit these two founders of the company.

The Manhattan Attorney also claimed that Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company but was, in fact, a global Ponzi scheme and added “Not only did the firm orchestrate a massive fraud against the United States banking system, as previously alleged, but Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars”.

Bharara stated that the scheme was discovered after the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation took action against Full Tilt Poker as well as against Absolute Poker and Poker Stars earlier this year.

The Attorney also said “Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company.

Despite the fact that Full Tilt only has $60 million in its accounts it would appear as though it owes is players close to $400 million and that they continued to take their players’ money even after the Federal Investigation Bureau began moving in, knowing full well that they would have no way of paying the money back to their players.

It is also claimed that Full Tilt’s executives drew an amount of $444 million from the company with Lederer and Bitar each pocketing $41 million.

There are currently thousands ofUKpoker players waiting for Full Tilt Poker to pay them out money that is owed to them.

Party Poker launches “The Accelerator” Promotion

Party Poker has announced the launch of its newest promotion, The Accelerator, which is will be running throughout this month at the casino giving players an opportunity to earn freeroll entries as well as cash.

Players wishing to participate in this awesome promotion at the online poker room are required to earn Party Points by playing at real money poker tables throughout this month and complete each level of the race.

During the period of the promotion, players have a chance to win up to $10,000 in cash and $57,000 in big-money freeroll entries.

The more a player plays, the more his or her stash of prizes will grow and they will be given the perfect chance to grab as many prizes as they possibly can as well as put themselves in line to enter the freerolls which offers massive money prizes.

Although there are a total of 25 levels that have to be completed in order to earn the entire $10K in cash and $57K in freeroll entries, players can commence earning prizes the minute they complete the 1^st level.  Players are required to earn 5 Party Points in order to complete the 1^st level for which the prize is entry into a $2K freeroll tournament.   Players need only earn 200 Party Points during this month in order to earn entry into all of the freerolls with prize pools totaling $57K.

The Accelerator Freeroll Tournaments are due to run from October 3^rd to October 7^th, 2011.  These Freerolls have a maximum capacity of 25,000 players each and registration will close as soon as this amount is registered.

Players get to earn $3 in cash for earning 300 Party Points during this month with the cash prizes continuing to increase.  A total of 75,000 Party Points must be earned in order to complete the 25 levels of the race.

Party Poker is a leading poker room that often runs promotions that reward every player and players are advised to check out the table on the Party Poker Acceleration promotion page in order to learn all about the prizes and levels of this race.

Party Poker Makes Changes to Rake Structure

Party Poker has made changes to its rake structure and will be using the “weighted contributed” method to calculate raked hands, with immediate effect.  The leading online poker room is moving away from the traditional “dealt method” which was found on the site up until now despite the fact that the change could work against it in the long run.

Players are credited with a raked hand if cards are dealt, whether he or she plays tightly or loosely in the dealt method.  Tight players obviously prefer this method as it enables them to score raked hands by doing nothing further than having their cards dealt.  This method also helps tight players to redeem bonus and promo requirements.

The result of Party Poker moving away from the dealt method will result in players being credited for the part of the rake that they contribute.  This will enable loose, fast players to have the opportunity of earning more that those players who stick to tight playing.

Party Poker has also announced that it will be making changes to the rake structure at the site.  No Limit and Pot Limit poker games will now have the rake levels moved down with the highest rake levels beginning at $3 / $6 instead of the current $15 / $30.  Anything below this level will remain unchanged.

As far as fixed limit games is concerned, every 20c in the pot of micro limit games will rake in one cent …for instance, those games with blinds ranging from $0.02 / $0.04 to $0.05 / $0.10.

Although the above changes could financially benefit Party Poker, there is a good chance that mid to high stake players may be chased away from the site at a critical time when Party Poker should be attempting to attract players who are moving away from troubled sites and looking to play elsewhere.

Birthday PKR Poker Celebrates 5th

The world’s leading 3-D online poker room, PKR Poker, celebrated its fifth birthday on 17^th August, 2011.

Although, many believed that there was no place for another site in the overcrowded industry when this award winning gaming entity started out in 2006 at the peak of the online industry, PKR Poker has proved its worth and succeeded in becoming a major player in the online poker world.

The poker room celebrated five fantastic years in the industry after changing the way that players played poker, thanks to its progressive 3D software that took players by storm.

During the past few years, PKR Poker has been the recipient of a number of awards including eGaming Review “Poker Operator of the Year” in 2010, the International Gaming Awards “Online Poker Operator of the Year” in 2010 as well as in 2011 and also managed to pick up the endorsement of the Sunday Times Tech Track 100, when PKR was cited as the fastest growing software company in the UK in 2010.

A few months ago PKR Poker launched a 2-D “Lite” version of their award winning software.

Simon Prodger, PKR Marketing Director, commented ““It’s been both a challenging and rewarding experience seeing the company go from launch to the position we are in now. I think we’ve made a great product and are lucky enough to have gathered a fantastically loyal and passionate customer base. We never stop looking forward at PKR, and really, this is just the beginning. There is so much more to come.”

PKR Poker rewards its loyal players with a chance to party with Team PKR at major tournaments as well as at small private gatherings around the world which are known as PKR Socials.

Over the past five years Team PKR has managed to bank a WSOP bracelet, an EPT title as well as an APPT title.

Since its inception in 2006, almost 4.5 million players have registered at PKR Poker from 238 different countries.

The Sky Poker Premiership is Back Again

Sky Poker, the popular online poker site, has announced that due to the success of its Sky Premiership promotion last year, it has decided to bring back this promotion and recently launched their 2011 Poker Premiership tournament.  The promotion has been brought back just in time to coincide with the beginning of the soccer season.

In order to participate in this popular promotion, players are required to enter the code “Premiership” into the “redeem promotional code” section of the “my account” link at Sky Poker before midnight on Sunday 21^st August, 2011.  New players to Sky Poker should simply click on the “join now” button in order to register.

The Sky Premiership promotion is a soccer-themed online poker competition that gives customers and other Sky Poker players an opportunity to compete with other teams in order to win some marvelous prizes and free-roll entries thus offering players lots of initiative to enter.

Players participating in the Sky Premiership promotion will be assigned to one of eight teams at the poker site, namely the Blues, the Whites, the Reds, the Greens, the Oranges, the Yellows, the Reds, the Purples and lastly, Team Sky.

Every Sunday at 5 pm and Tuesday and Fridays at 7 pm three matches, which are in the format of a poker tournament, will take place between teams giving players an opportunity to win a share of 100 Premiership points.

According to a statement from the online poker room, “With some fantastic prizes at every player’s fingertips including cash prizes for the top six players and free-roll entries for the winners and runners-up, what are you waiting for. On top of this, the winning three teams will be entered into a £1,000 free-roll. Enter now and see what you can win.”

The Sky Premiership promotion is also open to players at Sky Casino and Sky Bingo.

EPT London Schedule announced by Poker Stars

Poker Stars has announced the schedule for its’ European Poker Tour London Festival of Poker that will feature 31 exciting events set to attract the attention of thousands of players across eight days of thrilling live poker action this autumn.

Last week saw the beginning of the London Festival of Poker, which is the third European Poker Tour stop of Season 8, with the event taking place in Tallinn, Estonia.

The online poker site also announced that the London stop will be promoted as the Festival of Poker and will be held at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London from 29^th September to 6^th October.

This promises to be a great event for local players and General Manager of the Casino, Martin Ramskill said “We are all looking forward to another fabulous EPT London in conjunction with the Grosvenor Victoria Casino. As always, we welcome all players to the around-the-clock cash games in the Vic’s poker room. Courtesy cars will run between venues continuously for players’ convenience.”

Poker Stars is giving players an opportunity to win their way into these events by way of online satellites which start with the £5,150 buy in Main Event that commences on 29^th September, 2011.

The poker site is also offering players an opportunity to win their way into these events via online satellites which start with the £5,250 buy in the Main Event.

Last year Poker Stars put up £4.1 million for the main event which attracted 848 players.  A young student from Scotland, David Vamplew, won almost £900K after beating his opponents and reaching the number one spot.

One of the biggest poker tournaments of the year is expected to be the £5,000 + £250 Main Event which takes place from 30th September to 6^th October. 

Liv Boeree, who joined Team Poker Stars Pro a year ago, will also be present at the EPT London Festival of Poker and stated that it is one of the best series of poker tournaments that she has played in.

Iron Man Promotion Launched at Paddy Power

Paddy Power Poker launched a new Iron Man promotion on 1^st August, 2011 which is bound to give online players an extra incentive to play at the site.

Paddy’s Iron Man promotion will run for a full month, ending on 30^th August 2011 and will reward its regular players with prizes that include entry into $2,000 freerolls and up to $4,000 in cash bonuses.  All points that are awarded to players can be redeemed for one of many prizes.

A statement from Paddy Power Poker read “The more days played and the more points earned, the better the reward.  With another great promotion under its belt, Paddy Power Poker is proving to be the value bet for poker players this summer”.

Playtech-powered Paddy Power Poker’s Happy Hours promotion is also running at the moment and competitors are rewarded with double the usual amount of points for taking part at cash tables during scheduled times.

To add to the excitement at Paddy Power Poker, the site is also offering players an opportunity to win an iPad2 tablet computer courtesy of the Green Card promotion at Paddy Power Poker.  This Green Card promotion commenced on 1^st August and will continue for a period of three months.  Any player raking up at least 40,000 points over one calendar month will be automatically awarded with Green Card status.

All FullTiltPoker.com players who hold a Black Card are also eligible to become a Green Card holder at Paddy Power Poker if they email evidence to the site’s customer support team and thereafter maintain a rolling average of 1,300 Paddy Points from the seven-day period after the day that details were sent in.  Players will officially become a Green Card Holder once this has been confirmed.

Green Card Status will enable players to receive a personalized card as well as bespoke protector and hoodie and maintaining this rank will enable them to get a 20% discount at the site’s VIP store, a £50 free wager at Paddy Power Poker, a $50 IWF satellite token as well as entry into a special weekly $1,000 freefoll for every month of the promotion.