Online poker news
The PokerStars makeover continues. This week, many players on the world’s largest online poker site have received e-mails telling them that their regular heads-up cash game tables will disappear on Friday, replaced with Zoom Poker tables. The e-mail was brief: We are writing to inform you that as of Friday 12th February No Limit Hold’em,… Read more »
GVC Holdings, the company that bought bwin.party – and by extension the partypoker brand – for £1.116 billion (USD $1,697 billion) in September 2015, has announced that it plans to expand partypoker globally. The once-dominant online poker site pre-UIGEA has said that it will re-enter 21 “gray market” countries, or countries where online poker is… Read more »
There have been a lot of Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) in Full Tilt Poker’s checkered history. Yet another one will kick off in a couple weeks when FTOPS XXIX launches the first two of its events on February 21st. Running for three weeks through March 13th, FTOPS XXIX will feature 46 events and… Read more »
PokerStars announced today that it will host a special 10th anniversary edition of its popular Sunday Million tournament on March 20th at 14:30 ET. The ambitious event will have a $10 million guaranteed prize pool (I see what they did there), setting it up to be one of the most lucrative online poker tournaments of… Read more »
Historically, a PokerStars promotion has been something people can get excited about. So when I tell you that PokerStars is running a promo to celebrate the site’s 100 millionth player (including Full Tilt and all country-specific sites), you wouldn’t be crazy to get your hopes up. But don’t. I mean, yes, it is a promotion… Read more »
According to her personal Twitter account and the casino, the inaugural champion of the World Series of Poker Europe, Annette Obrestad, has signed an “ambassador deal” with the Venetian Las Vegas. The deal, of which no details were announced, apparently began this weekend. The mysterious details began to leak out earlier this week when Obrestad… Read more »
Over the weekend, professional poker player Dani “Ansky” Stern posted a statement by him and fellow players Isaac Haxton and Daniel Dvoress on Two Plus Two to relay their thoughts on their meeting with Amaya Gaming and PokerStars representatives at Amaya’s headquarters in Montreal. The meeting was scheduled so that the two sides could discuss… Read more »
In what appears to be an effort to enforce its new, stricter third party software policy, PokerStars has allegedly sent an e-mail to select high stakes cash game players requesting a video recording of their play. A portion of the e-mail was posted on Two Plus Two by moderator “TooCuriousso1” in a thread for high… Read more »
The fifth annual PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) is almost here and as such, PokerStars has announced the full schedule for the year’s first major online tournament series. Like last year, the 2016 TCOOP will 50 events and $15 million in total guaranteed prize pools. The TCOOP is slated for January 21st through… Read more »
Another month, another player boycott of PokerStars. As a follow-up to the December protest of PokerStars’ VIP program changes, another boycott is currently underway. This one is more ambitious, too, slated for the entire first week of January, from the first through the seventh. As before, players are showing their discontent with the adjustments PokerStars… Read more »
It looks like the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission (MSLC) may be taking the “if you can’t be ‘em, join ‘em” stance when it comes to online gaming. In late December, the MSLC issued a Request for Information (RFI), inviting (preferably) qualified companies to submit proposals with ideas for how the Lottery can increase its presence… Read more »
The battle regarding the regulation of online poker in the United States has grinded to a halt. Since three states passed laws regulating the industry in 2013, there has been little to no action since then towards more states joining in the party (2016? Let’s talk that over tomorrow…). Now a small Indian tribe in… Read more »
It has been a long time since we saw any online poker commercials here in the United States. Those of you who have been around poker for at least a decade may remember the awful “bad poker face” PartyPoker commercials (perhaps better known as the “OOOOOOHHHH PARTYPOKER!” ads). And of course, before Black Friday, we… Read more »
An age-old online poker debate/controversy/calm discussion got drudged up recently over on the Two Plus Two message forum when a poster called for PokerStars to respond to alleged rampant datamining going on in the site’s ever-popular Spin & Go tournaments. The general consensus: “Good luck with all of that.” Poster “1v1” began the thread with… Read more »
Phil Ivey may be a Poker Hall of Famer in waiting, but that doesn’t mean he can’t fail miserably at the poker tables. In the online poker world, this year has been one spectacular failure for the ten-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner. According to HighStakesDB.com, Ivey is far and away the biggest internet… Read more »
The use of third-party software in online poker has been the subject of debate ever since such things came into existence. Over the last couple years, many internet poker sites have begun banning third-party software in an effort to appeal more to recreational players, as they are rarely the types of players who use them.… Read more »
I am really good at poker. So are you. We are great, great poker players and it couldn’t be more obvious. But sometimes, when something is wrong with our computers or we’re sick or our witch doctor neighbor puts a hex on us, we have a down day at the virtual poker tables. Once in… Read more »
After a great deal of hype in the media and across the internet, the boycott that was to have shown the online gaming giant Amaya Gaming and its PokerStars brand who had the “force” in the way the game is offered appears to have had no apparent impact, with PokerStars’ overall numbers surging over their… Read more »
In an attempt to take advantage of the three-day PokerStars boycott by high stakes players (and others who join in solidarity), 888poker is implementing some temporary initiatives to make the games more attractive. In a post on Two Plus Two this morning, 888’s official representative laid out the three changes: a) two new daily tournaments,… Read more »
It’s not quite over yet, but we’re close. Another round of payments was made to former Full Tilt Poker customers in the United States last week, more than four and a half years after player funds were frozen – some thought long forgotten – on poker’s Black Friday. This was a somewhat small block of… Read more »
A virtual picket line is forming tonight as customers of PokerStars, primarily high stakes, high volume players, are set to go on strike tonight at midnight. The players are protesting the site’s announced changes to the VIP program that are to be put into place on January 1st, 2016. The initial charge was led by… Read more »
In October, I said about PokerStars’ Anniversary Spin & Go promotion, “So yeah, you’re not going to win the million dollars, or anything in the upper prize tiers, for that matter, but it’s there and you will likely get annoyed when somebody else wins it.” Are you annoyed yet? In the span of about a… Read more »
A British teenager received a minimal punishment for bringing down an online gambling site, though he was also given a stern tongue-lashing from the judge. In early 2014, Max Whitehouse, then 17-years old, initiated a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against a European online gambling site. The Nottingham teen created problems for the UK-facing… Read more »
Last week, PokerStars launched its holiday promotion, the Christmas Festival. Not to be outdone, PokerStars’ little brother, Full Tilt Poker, has launched its own set of promos today, collectively dubbed the “Million Dollar Breakaway.” Millionaries Club Lounge The Millionaires Club Lounge promotion is an achievement-based raffle. As usual, for some reason Full Tilt requires everyone… Read more »
It may be inconceivable to think this, but online poker only began roughly 17 years ago. That first site, Planet Poker, would eventually bring about Paradise Poker and then the “power quartet” that made up the game in the mid-2000s – PartyPoker, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and UltimateBet. Their collapse in 2011 as a result… Read more »
