It is mostly seen that online poker scandals are focused in the US. However, down in the Southern Hemisphere, Australian players have been fighting with a law since 2001 where the Interactive Gambling Act made it illegal for companies to offer real money internet gambling in Australia. Australia now echoes the U.S. with the ineffectiveness of their ban. Many online poker and gambling sites continue to provide their services to millions of players with little or no sanction or regulation.

A report by the Australian Productivity Commission (PC) has recommended that online gambling be legalized, regulated, and taxed. Although the report also focuses on the dangers of video poker saying that these machines account for 80% of gambling issues in Australia.

The PC is afraid of Australian citizens being harmed by an unregulated industry. “In its unregulated form, online gaming is available 24 hours a day, allows credit betting, [and] has no intrinsic restrictions on bet size,” the PC claim in their report. “The Australian Government should repeal the Interactive Gambling Act, and in consultation with state and territory governments, should initiate a process for the managed liberalization of online gaming.”

Before the final report the PC will consult the government which is however under no obligation to accept their recommendations. Along with these activities the Canberra Times quotes anti-gambling activist Reverend Tim Costello on online gambling. ”You can lose your home without leaving your home, liberalizing that I think is really worrying.”

The debate over this issue looks set to rage on. Although it is practically certain that new gambling regulations will be brought in to curb Australia’s problem gambling crisis, whether or not online gambling and poker will be included remains to be seen. Certainly, the potential for fully legal online poker in Australia is moving closer to a reality.

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News | No Comments » October 28th, 2009

Full Tilt poker has always been up to great poker activity, be it games, bonuses or gaming features. This time Full Tilt poker have included two brand new features in their latest software update that are sure to be a hit with new and current poker players.

Among the new features offered by the famous poker group is the service that gives players the opportunity to reduce the variance in all-in situations by running the board twice. This means that providing both players consent, all of the remaining community cards can be dealt twice, with the winner of each of the two outcomes locking up half of the pot.

It should also be noted however that this feature is limited to cash games and has gained popularity since featuring in a number of televised poker shows such as NBC’s Poker After Dark and GSN’s High Stakes Poker, where players regularly run the board up to four times.

Apart from this great feature the other addition to Full Tilt’s latest software package is the online debut of their brand new Cashout Tournaments. In these cash out tournaments the players are given a greater degree of leniency by being allowed to cash out some or all of their chips before the tournament ends, which helps the players protect their chip lead or reduce their losses depending on how the game is going and how confident they are of winning.

Besides this fabulous new change of gaming, the Full Tilt poker site continues to run their ongoing ‘Win a Piece of Ivey’ promotion. In this fantastic promotion players can battle it out to win a 5% stake of whatever poker legend Phil Ivey wins at this year’s World Series final table. So when it comes to Full Tilt, usa online poker seems to get better and better.

Click here to try Full Tilt’s new software features!

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker Articles, Poker News | No Comments » October 24th, 2009

This time the mega world poker finals are to take place in Connecticut on the 19th of October. This grand event is hosted at the nation’s largest casino, the beautiful Foxwoods Hotel and Resort. The World Poker Finals denote one of the largest events in the World Poker Tour and thus are truly thrilling. The dedicated poker fans will have an action packed event as will also be treated to not only the WPT, but also the showdown during November Nine.

So basically from 19th of October there will be over twenty days of poker tournaments being held in Foxwoods. Being a mega event, with the world watching the players compete The World Poker Tour is truly one of the largest series of poker in the world. During the series, many professionals and amateurs will undoubtedly meet in Connecticut to gather around the tables for enjoyment, competition and money. The tournaments will be featuring various buy-ins, ranging from $300 dollar shoot-outs to the $10,000 dollar main event.

Among some of the events in this tournament are the senior’s tournaments, ladies tournaments, mixed games and normal events that make up a fabulous poker treat. Apart from that the structures, buy-ins, and starting chips have already been listed through Foxwoods’ website, helping players to see exactly what fun they are getting into. Just like most of the World Poker Tour, this should be a televised event and this time with Foxwoods the event should already be very popular.

The Main Event of the series will not set to start until November Fifth. The Texas Hold ‘em WPT World Championship will require a $10,000 dollar buy-in. Since this is expensive, many of the Most Trusted USA Online Poker Rooms are offering satellites and steps to allow players cheaper entry to these tournaments.

Only a few lucky players will win the grand prize, but anyone is can enter this to put down the cash and have a shot at fame and fortune packed with glory, and recognition amongst other poker players and fans alike.

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News, WPT | No Comments » October 23rd, 2009

Among the finest groups in the online poker industry is the Calida Gaming. Unlike most online poker groups, the Calida Gaming is unique in the sense that it offers player oriented services. William Hill poker has long been entertaining poker players with excellent online games. William Hill Poker is now offering a great welcome bonus to all new players, to ensure that players commence their online journey with a fabulous start.

To start off with the benefits of William Hill, on the opening of an account at the casino players will receive a 100% deposit bonus up to £400, which sounds like a worthwhile opportunity for getting into some gaming. Along with this there’s so much on offer with William Hill Poker, whether you are a pro at online poker or a novice it is all there for you! There are fantastic tournaments coming up for players to participate in, namely; the Monthly Millions, Monday Night Omaha, Autumn WindFall, Oktoberfest and many more. Along with these tournaments there is some thrilling Texas Hold’em action waiting for players, exclusively with William Hill. There is thus a wide variety of events happening with a diverse line up of poker games which make them even more interesting.

With all these action packed games, great services, fantastic bonuses, great tournament action and much more, there’s no better way of playing online poker. William Hill makes poker players enjoy their online poker gaming to the fullest.

As ever Calida Gaming are here to ensure that players get the very best out of their poker game. With the groups experience and expertise they are the only name players will ever need. Calida Gaming stands for unsurpassable service and support in every game that it offers to players.

Calida Gaming is a renowned online group and prides itself in serving the poker players. Their Board of Directors have over 25 years of direct experience in the Gambling Industry and have maintained a reputation for quality gaming. Calida Gaming offers a pure poker gaming environment and is one of the finest spots to wager money.

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News | No Comments » October 22nd, 2009

WPT Foxwoods has been winning the hearts of poker players in various cities. First, they brought the classic challenge to Vegas then later to Aruba for the ultimate conquest in paradise.

Now, the WPT Foxwoods is moving to Connecticut to spread the magic of online poker gaming in its finest form. Ultimate Bet is bringing its magnificent battle to WPT Foxwoods from November 5th through 10th and the WPT is making it easy for the entire UltimateBet.com community to group together for five days of poker camaraderie in Connecticut.

WPT Foxwoods Super Sunday Satellites

The WPT Foxwoods is featuring a Super Satellite on every Sunday at 8:30pm ET with a buy-in of $500 plus 30. This Satellite has a prize winning amount of at least one $12,000 WPT Foxwoods prize package that includes the $10,000 buy-in and $2,000 for travel and accommodations is guaranteed.

The daily Satellites will last from October 4th to November 1st and will have a buy-in from just $3 or 750 Ultimate Points. This prize for this is that the player win’s his spot in one of the Sunday Super Satellites. Read more!

The WPT also has a few STEP Tourneys with a buy-in of just 10 cents and a prize of conquering all 10 STEPS for a $12,000 WPT Foxwoods prize package. Then there is the Sidestep to Foxwoods featuring again a buy-in from just 10 cents and a chance to score a spot in the Sunday Super Satellite.

Like most tournaments these Satellites have massive prizes with players who win a WPT Foxwoods Super Satellite will receive $12,000 cash. The ones who win multiple entries will be awarded $12,000 for each subsequent entry. There are no formalities meant to be attained as players do not need to provide transfer details before giving their prize to another player and all winners will receive $12,000 cash.

Play now at Ultimate Bet for your chance to Win $12,000!

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News, Poker Tournaments, WPT | No Comments » October 21st, 2009

The mega event, namely the World Poker Tour Fox woods Poker Finals is about to shower its magic on the players as it is beginning soon. In due course online poker room Absolute Poker is offering a number of ways for players to earn a nice package all the way to the main event. This time there is a number of money minting options for the players. They can participate in steps tournaments, qualifiers and satellites to hopefully earn a $12,000 prize package to the Fox woods Main Event.

These thrilling prize packages that are being offered by Absolute Poker began just a few weeks ago and players have until November 1st to try and earn their package. Players can compete in the weekly WPT Foxwoods Super Satellites every Sunday at 8:30 PM ET up until the 1st for only $500 plus $30. In addition to this, one $12,000 package is a guarantee each week.

For those players who cannot afford the $530 buy-in to the Super Satellite can participate in qualifiers for the Super Satellite that start at just $3 or 750 Absolute Points. Along with this, the players who want to go in for even lesser money can participate in Absolute Poker’s Step tournaments.

The Step tournaments start at just ten cents and players that win STEP 10 will earn a fantastic $12,000 Main event prize package. If some players want they can also make it to STEP 7a and qualify for the Sunday Super Satellites. Read more!

The lucky players who earn the mega $12,000 packages will have the $10,000 buy-in for the main event as well as $2000 which can be used for lodging and expenses.

The 1st day of the Main Event begins at noon on November 5th and the second day will begin on the 6th at Noon. The Main event will continue at Foxwoods until the 10th of November when the Final Table will commence.

Start playing now for your chance to Win a WPT seat!

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News, Poker Tournaments, WPT | No Comments » October 20th, 2009

The Full Tilt poker group is constantly innovating, and this time it has come up with a fabulous new game. It seems like Pot Limit Omaha and HA might be sidelined; this new game has definitely created a buzz. Ever since the 7-Game rotation was introduced on the Full Tilt this summer, the combination of limit and no limit action has gained popularity amongst the high stakes online cash game players.

The Full Tilt Wednesday nights action has proved that 7 Game can generate big wins and losses that go against those of action games like PLO. At a certain point 3 simultaneous games were running with three different $2,000/$4,000 7 Game tables and players like Phil Ivey, Cole cts South, Gus Hansen, Phil OMG Clay Aiken Galfond, Tom durrrr Dwan, Chau Giang and Ilari Ziigmund Sahamies were all getting in on the fun.

Th most happening thing however was the two Phils. While Galfond had a rough time, dropping almost $445,000, but Ivey went on in full action and made a total of $1,160,000 in profit for the day. His seven figure session is one of the biggest wins in online poker cash game history and rivals Iveys guaranteed minimum payout for 9th place in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event which is worth $1,263,602. He lost back $330,000 on the tables on Thursday, but is still up over a million dollars on the week.

Iveys profits were generated at the hands of Galfond as well as Dwan (down $344,000), Giang {down $290,000), David Oppenheim (down $245,000) and Sahamies (down $116,000). Ivey was at a much higher level and was biggest winner of the night, but DINFRU (up $336,000), who is rumored to be Erik Sagstrom, Patrik Antonius (up $104,000) and Richard Ashby (up $71,000) all had great gaming sessions as well.

The game carried on again till Thursday and Ivey was the big loser while Sahamies came out on top, more than making up for Wednesdays losses with a $336,000 win. Currently it seems the 7-Game craze is not going anywhere anytime soon, which means some of the Texas Holdem and Omaha high stakes specialists are going to have to broaden their poker dimensions if they want to get in on the action.

Play poker at Full Tilt Poker. Click here!

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News, Poker Pro Players | No Comments » October 19th, 2009

The huge EPT Tournament has generated winners again. This time an American amateur online poker player has won the Poker London Poker Festival main event and its £850,000 prize after defeating World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion Peter Eastgate heads-up.

The Twenty-three-year-old American Aaron Gustavson qualified for the prestigious tournament through PokerStars.com. The Las Vegas resident also did well at a preliminary event of the Borgata Summer Open to take home $53,592. The £5,300 buy-in EPT London tournament was the largest ever held in the UK and had 730 players from all over the world. Gustavson was one of 149 players that had won their seats on PokerStars.com and plays online under the pseudonym ‘Aguskb’.

“I’m speechless, totally overwhelmed,” said Gustavson. “I don’t think it’s going to hit me for a quite a while. Having this title is amazing; it is a dream come true.”

Among the 104 players to cash in London were WSOP finalist Kevin Schaffel, Darus Suharto, Maria Mayrinck, Arnaud Mattern and former England footballer Teddy Sheringham.

Despite that, the day belonged to Gustavson as he defeated Denmark’s Eastgate after only seven hands and 15 minutes of heads-up play. In addition to this, Eastgate took home £530,000 while third-placed Nikolai Senninger from Germany walked away with £285,000. In fourth, Norwegian Martin Gudvangen won £227,000 followed by British player Dominic Cullen in fifth for £173,000. Also, Rui Milhomens from Portugal finished in sixth for £124,000 while Taipei’s Raymond Wu took away £87,000 for eighth followed by Karim Bennani Smires from France with £50,100.

“It’s been an amazing ride,” said Eastgate. “I made it to second place, which is far more than you hope for going into a final table. Big applause for Aaron who won, he deserved it. I’m pleased I made it to heads-up.”

The next fabulous EPT event takes place in Warsaw from October 20th to 25th and online satellites are currently running Poker Stars com. So let’s see what the next tournament has in store for its participating poker pro players.

Play poker with the pros now at Poker Stars!

Posted by Diana Sterling in EPT, Poker News, Poker Pro Players | No Comments » October 18th, 2009

Many enthusiastic online poker players from all over are seeking their seats at the fifth installment of the famous Titan Poker.com’s popular 14-day, $4.55 Million Guaranteed European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP V). This mega event will begin from the 23rd of November 2009.

The qualifying satellite tournaments for the ECOOP V events are being held daily at Titan Poker. The ECOOP V tournament series comprises a wide variety of poker games, including Texas No Limit Hold’em, Limit Hold’em, 7 Card Stud, Pot Limit Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo. The poker buy-in amounts of the games vary and therefore meet every player’s budget. The series ends with a $1,500,000 Guaranteed Prize Main Event on December 6th.

The first Titan Poker’s first ever ECOOP series was held in December 2007 and it went over 10 days where the players competed for their share of $2,500,000 in cash prizes. In May 2008, the second ECOOP was then held with a grand total of $3,600,000 in guaranteed prizes at the ten nights of tournaments. The next ECOOP went on for fourteen days between November and December 2008 and third ECOOP tournament series distributed more than $4,150,000 in prizes to winning online tournament players. After this ECOOP IV took place in May and June, 2009, with $4,550,000 in guaranteed prizes.

Along with its thrilling online tournaments, Titan Poker regularly awards its players with seats at the world’s most renowned live poker events, including the World Series of Poker, the ECPokertour, the Aussie Millions, the Irish Open, and the Asian Poker Tour.

TitanPoker.com is one of the finest online poker rooms in Europe and part of the iPoker Network. With almost 30,000 online players at the busy hours, Titan Poker guarantees $16,000,000 in monthly prizes, features special sit ‘n’ go tournaments with progressive jackpots as high as $100,000.

Click here to play Poker at Titan Poker!

Posted by Diana Sterling in Poker News, Poker Tournaments | No Comments » October 14th, 2009

The PokerStars EPT London main event was a huge success and played down to the final 24 Monday and it appears that the young crowd was pretty active.Along with older poker players like John Juanda, Jeffrey Lisandro and Chris Ferguson there were also younger ones who did quite well. More PokerStars pros!

“I think they have an edge just because they are so fearless,” said 2007 WSOPE main event champ Annette Obrestad. “They’re used to playing so many tournaments and they really don’t give a shit if they bust. At this stage of a tournament they’re really not scared of four-betting all in with like six-seven. If they have a read on someone they are just going to go with it”

2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner Benny Spindler reached the top of the chip counts as the tournament went on. The 24-year-old from Darmstadt, Germany starting playing online three years ago and believes the style he learned on the Internet is as effective live.

“The young players all come from the Internet and have a much different approach to the game than the older live players,” he explained. “It’s much more aggressive and it seems that it’s much better.

Another player, Seattle’s Vivek Rajkumar, 23, also sits among the leaders here in London, and he says adding another gear to your game is just as important.

“I used to play like that one or two years ago, but people are really too good now,” the Full Tilt pro said. “People know how to play back at over-the-top aggression, so you have to tighten up, especially if you have an aggressive image. More Full Tilt poker pros!

Obrestad, who’s been playing since the age of 15, says she’s matured as a player and is starting to understand that patience in poker is almost as important as aggression.

“I actually started out playing live (very aggressively) and after a while I saw it wasn’t working,” said the Betfair Poker pro. “I was busting with stupid hands and pots I shouldn’t be involved in – stuff that’s just so unnecessary.”You have so much time and the blinds go up so slowly, you can just grind it out; take it easy”.

Obrestad is now starting to reap the benefits of playing tighter with a loose image.

“It’s unbelievable how some people just don’t give me any credit at all,” she said. “To be honest, I would really like to be able to get away with more stuff, but I don’t. I can’t do anything about that. My image is already there, now I just have to take advantage of it.”

Click here to play poker with pros at Poker Stars!

Posted by Diana Sterling in EPT, Poker News, Poker Tournaments | No Comments » October 12th, 2009