A live poker tournament in Germany was robbed by four heavily armed men who fled with part of the jackpot of the tournament. Saturday at 4:10 pm, four men (some sources speak of six men) wearing black motorcycle helmets invaded the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin, here they held the cashier at gunpoint and threatened visitors and staff with a machette. The men managed to take a yet unknown amount of money from the poker jackpot. Eight people were slightly injured during the robbery, including seven players and spectators of the poker tournament who tried to flee. A security guard of the hotel managed to briefly seize one of the robbers, making him drop a bag of money, but the robber was helped by his buddy’s and they were able to flee. The hotel employee was slightly injured after he managed to grab the robber. The Berlin poker event is part of the EPT (European Poker Tour). The EPT started in August last year and includes 13 events with a finale in Monte Carlo. The jackpot of the tournament stood at € 1 million, according to several sources the robbers managed to take around 200,000 euros (£ 180.000). The robbers were able to escape with the poker online jackpot by fleeing in a busy shopping center, here they were able to get away with a getaway car which was waiting for them. A spokesman for the EPT said that future games of the EPT poker tournament will continue as planned, but with better security.
It was a record-breaking weekend at PokerStars.com, because the online poker operator dealt their forty-billionth poker hand this weekend in a special fourth edition of the Sunday Million tournament with a guaranteed prize-pool of 4 million U.S. dollar. However, the guaranteed 1 million U.S. dollars for winning the special Sunday Million was not the only poker online news this weekend by PokerStars, because the $ 200 buy-in tournament also attracted the largest number of poker players ever. There were 36,169 players present at the online poker tournament of the popular operator. The large number of players has almost doubled the guaranteed prize pool, the total revenue amounted to $ 7,233,800, which meant that the lucky winner of the poker tournament would go home with the huge amount of $ 1,141,510. That lucky player is “RichieRichZH” who defeated “lankeshwar” heads-up at the final table. In total, 5400 players get a share of the prize.
The shortest session of the poker durrrr Challenge until now was this weekend, when Tom “durrrr” Dwan increased his lead on Patrik Antonius with $ 22,000. Dwan spent his Friday evening, all Saturday and a piece Sunday on both the No-Limit Hold ‘em and Pot-Limit Omaha tables at Full Tilt. By the end of the weekend he logged 4411 hands, including the 79 hands in the durrrr Challenge of Saturday. The online poker session itself lasted just 16 minutes and the biggest poker pot on the four tables was worth $ 64,000. There was no explanation as to why the session ended so quickly, but when it ended, Dwan had extended his lead to $ 1,414,551 now with 32,874 of the 50,000 hands played. Because of a loss of $ 164,353 to CardRunners pro jungleman12 on Saturday evening, Dwan’s final weekend profits where just over $ 34,000. Meanwhile, through a series of big poker online winnings at the end of last week, Anthony could take is easy over the weekend, he has played a total of only 102 hands, including the 79 from the durrrr Challenge session, where he lost $ 25,000 in the process.
Poker Pro at CardRunners, Cole South is on fire in the high-stakes online poker games , after last week he destroyed Patrik Antonius and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies for more than 1.1 million U.S. dollars. South’s massive gains began Tuesday with a $ 300 / $ 600 Pot-Limit Omaha, where he sat heads-up against Phil Ivey for 208 hands, in the process he earned $ 152,000. After defeating Ivey, and played a pair of hands against Hansen and the unknown ‘rumprammer’, South Sat heads up against Anthony in the early morning hours. By the end of the match, the struggling South punished the Full Tilt Pro for around $ 350,000, mainly thanks to winning the biggest pot of the race worth $ 307,000. After a break of eight hours, South went back to the $ 300 / $ 600 tables for heads-up play against Sahamies. South struggled from the start of the heads-up match. But almost immediately after a chat between South, Saha Mies Action and Post flop, the cards began to fall in South’s favour. South took four of the biggest pots in the game, the smallest was worth more than $ 380,000. In the biggest pot of the session the money went all-in on the flop with with South holding the nut flush against Sahamies top set. Sahamies was no match against, and South won $ 634,777, the biggest pot of the year so far. At the end of the day, South won more than 1.1 million U.S. dollars, possibly a new personal record. Play Poker online now
Since Brian Hastings destroyed Isildur1’s bankroll in a 42-win buy-in in a heads-up Pot-Limit Omaha, the mysterious high-stakes online poker player from Sweden disappeared. Yesterday he was spotted at Full Tilt Poker and he lost $ 10 with $ 0.25 / $ 0.50 blinds. However, the unknown man said in interviews that he does not have comprehensive bankroll’s on other sites, what further supports the theory that his peak of $ 6,000,000 is won on Full Tilt from as little as five figures. Betfair Poker online is Europe’s response to Full Tilt, with many poker games with $ 25 / $ 50 blinds which run up to $ 250 / $ 500. A new player on Betfair with the alias “Omlphalotus’ used these games in a similar manner as Isildur1 to dominate the opposition. Omlphalotus plays long sessions on multiple tables, like Isildur1. He constantly raised, 3-bets and pressured his opponents in each hand, like Isildur1. He goes straight for the poker pros at Betfair, where he won from pros like Marcelo Marigliano, just like Isildur1.
Was the year 2006 when the most important poker rooms started to be popular and indeed to have more visibility. 2007 has been for sure the year when everybody got noticed about the poker industry: internet, TV channels, shows, magazines; everybody and everywhere was talking about poker. At that moment poker was about to be more popular than the industry of the online casinos and even more for that time was about to be the biggest game in the entire gambling industry. Year 2008 confirmed the progress of poker worldwide even if new online casinos, bingo rooms and sportsbetting providers were running up very well. What happened exactly in 2009 until now? Well, it seems that online poker has been reached by casino online even if the number of players didn’t decreased; the reality is that the market itself is stalling a bit, due to the global crise first of all but also to the fact that there is no more room at the moment for new poker rooms and not even for new players. Maybe new generations will come in a short while but at the moment we cannot aspect big raises of numbers or big innovations. Once we said that we don’t have to forget that the poker industry is not in bad nick or whatsoever but is just a moment of apparent calm.
David Benyamine and Doyle Brunson are the last two players added to the Party Poker Premier League IV line-up in Las Vegas. The $ 100,000 buy-in event will run from February 12 to February 18 and will feature stars like Roland de Wolfe, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Luke Schwartz, Tony G, Phil Hellmuth, and 2008 winner JC Tran. Ten-times World Series of Poker bracelet winner Brunson said: “I’m happy to have the challenge of playing against all these great players. I know a lot about many of them but, of course, all the young players from the internet are very aggressive good players. It is impossible to make a favorite to win this because every player in this field is capable of winning. I feel I have as good a chance as anyone.” Benyamine was well aware of the quality of the competition and said: “I am delighted to be part of this world class players this year. In 2010, I plan to play many tournaments, and to start with a victory in one of the most prestigious poker online events is now on the top of my list.” The tournament has a total prize pool of $ 1.5 million, with $ 300,000 added by the sponsor.
After months of speculation about the identity of the star co-host at the IGB Affiliate Awards, it’s finally revealed that it is none other than: Phil ‘the Unabomber” Laak. The notorious gambler shot to fame in 2004 by winning the World Poker Tour Championship. He has since dominated many tournaments. This and his recent efforts in the world of online gaming, the launch of UnabomberPoker.com through the Cake Network, makes him the perfect co-host on a night where the best players of online gambling are celebrated. Phil Laak will have a significant audience in the evening, under great impression of his colleagues, but he is perhaps unaware that a few super stars will also be watching, namely the Godfather and the Prince of Poker. Doyle Brunson and Scotty Nguyen, this merry poker playing men have a joint accumulated poker online tournament profits of 22.7 million dollar. The evening event will be held on Thursday, January 28 at the Grange St Paul’s Hotel and will certainly be overwhelmed with the online poker elite.
In an increasingly unstable economic world, it is safe to say that Online Gaming has emerged over the last decade as an industry that thrives in even the most torrid financial conditions. It is not, however, just the allure of an easy way to place a bet that keeps the gamers happy, and more importantly coming back – it is the interactive element of gaming that holds the key to the mass market. With hundreds of casinos competing to be the number one in online gaming, those that offer the complete gaming experience are gaining the most exposure and the most traffic. Live Dealer in Blackjack, online poker, Happy Hours giving more loyalty points to customers, and even video poker leagues have resulted in a shift from the ‘player vs. House’ mould that offline casinos created. The question that remains is obvious; where does online gaming go from here? With casinos opening on a daily basis, things can only get better for the player; a wider variety of games, an increase in rewards programs as a retention strategy and better graphics moving into a 3d world all point towards an even brighter future for an already flourishing industry and its loyal patrons. Now the next step is playing poker online in your own home in a 3d surrounding.
The largest provider of online casino and online poker software, Microgaming has announced that it will stop data-mining on her Online Poker Network, which means that hand history of tables will no longer be stored on the computer of the player. In a written statement Microgaming said: “Third-party software, which analyses hand histories collected by data mining, has over time changed from a useful tool for plugging leaks in a player’s game to more of an exploitative tool. By using third-party software, a player can more efficiently isolate another player’s weaknesses, thus giving the player with the most information on his opponents a greater edge.” The decision to stop data mining on the Poker online Network is part of Microgaming’s overarching network strategy to support operators in attracting and retaining recreational players.
