Poker & CasinoGambling news

Ian Frazer has been at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond Classic this week.  Read on to see how the PartyPoker ambassador has progressed in the first two days at the Bellagio and a curious appearance from a hungover Devilfish!

At the bottom of the post we have another edition of Ian’s video tutorial series.

WPT Bellagio Las Vegas Day 1

(more…)

PartyPoker is sending 27 poker players to the Aussie Millions final event in January 2010. These players were qualified after beating the rest of the field in the final AussieMillions qualifier on Sunday.

We have got in touch with the players to get their thoughts on the qualifier and their expectations for the final event in Australia.  Read carlton_hahn’s interesting warm up to the final qualifier and how kavinda111 made it to the Aussie Millions final event without depositing.

(more…)

One of the great things about playing poker online is the opportunity it presents for the mere mortal to mix it with the great and the good of the poker world.

Over the past month we have been running a series of satellite tournaments offering the chance to win a seat at the Aussie Millions, the most prestigious tournament Down Under and one of the biggest in the world.

Yesterday saw the culmination of the race to win free entry with two Super-Satellite tournaments, one for Australia and New Zealand and one for the rest of the world.  In total twenty-seven people will be making their way to Melbourne in January hoping to emulate PartyPoker.com ambassador Stewart Scott and take home the estimated AUS$2.5m ($2.3m or £1.4m) first prize.

(more…)

Our Australiasian Ambassador Stewart Scott has been playing bounty tournaments at PartyPoker.com for entry to the Aussie Millions.  Here’s Stewart’s update on his progress.

After exchanging bad beat stories for a couple of hours it’s time for some poker action. I play the $50 side event with a $640 Aussie Millions ticket as bounty on my head and also have a longest lasting $50 beer money side bet with Party manager Henrik. Everyone and I mean everyone wants to take me on to get the bounty.

(more…)

Back in Sydney again after a weeklong break back home in Tweed Heads. Had a good poker week and have managed to pick up $40k playing tournaments online. This time my first stop was the Triple M radio breakfast show.

I start to get used to it but it could still me slightly intimidating with these fast talking radio pro’s. Triple M focused on the blokey approach and the running theme was “Are you a real man if you don’t play poker?” My answer to this would probably be no.

I don’t really trust a guy who tells me he have never played poker.  Would you?

(more…)

Welcome to “Things You Don’t Know About the UKIPT!”

In all fairness, there is probably a decent chance you didn’t know the UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) even existed before this past week. That’s when you might have seen the PokerStars Blog’s live coverage of the very first event from Galway, Ireland.

The UKIPT is a bold new experiment in poker tours. It looks just like every other tour you’ve ever heard about. It has live tournament coverage, top players from around the region, and some big money on the line. What’s different is players can get in for a fraction of the big tourney buy-ins you might find on another tour.

Just a few days ago, legendary Irishman Padraig Parkinson won the very first event and €125,000.

So, yes, you might have know all that. But, here are some things you might not know.

Honestly, these were things about the UKIPT that even we didn’t know until about twenty minutes ago when we watched our first episode of “On Tour” with top presenter Nick Wealthall (if that is, indeed, his real name…).

In the episode below, see Wealthall tinkle on the the piano and pull a Guinness from a very special place; a bunch of Irishman playing cards in their local; an interview with Parkinson in his element; a chat with the PokerStars Blog’s own Rick Dacey; a couple of mostly naked men getting massages; and more!

Poker down under is back.

This week, PokerStars announced it will be bringing back the most popular poker tour to ever hit Australasia. The Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT) has just announced the first six events of its Season 2 schedule with stops confirmed in every mainland state of Australia. Even better, organizers expect to add more tournaments to the schedule in the coming months.

Season 2’s first event will kick off in Adelaide, South Australia February 9-14, 2010 at the SKYCITY Adelaide Casino. This will come just one year after PokerStars launched the inaugural season of the ANZPT. Overnight, it became the region’s most popular poker tour. In all, Season 1 saw 1,309 players battle for $2,982,196 in prize money.

For a full look at where Season 2 will take players in the coming year, check out the ANZPT Season 2 schedule.

Season 2 will also bring back the popular ANZPT leaderboard race. In Season 1, Team PokerStars Pro Australia player Tony Hachem put on a consistent and brilliant performance to take down the points championship.The win earned him a seat in every APPT event and the Aussie Million in the coming year. Runner-up Chris Levick won entry into every Season 2 ANZPT tournament. Third place Joel Dodd picked up $10,500 in tournament entries.

PokerStars will run twice nightly freerolls from Monday to Saturday each week in the lead up to the ANZPT Season 2 kick off in February. The top players in the freerolls will get a seat in the weekly Sunday Stage 2 final. The top ten from each Sunday final will then go on to play for a package to ANZPT Adelaide.

For more information on the tour, see AZNPT.com.

Ok.. so obviously they all want to win the main event.. and the $25k high roller if they can squeeze that in as well. But what else are members of Team PokerStars Pro eyeing up on the PCA schedule? It’s not like there’s a shortage of events going on – in fact, there’s more than 50 during the PCA festival, ranging from heads-up to Badugi, High Roller to the 8-game championship, MTT online tournaments to Triple Stud – a veritable smorgasbord of poker entertainment to keep everyone well off the beaches and firmly lodged in the Atlantis poker room.

Perhaps predictably, some of the team have their eyes set on events they’ve already won before – going for that elusive double title – while others are looking forward to the chance to compete live – often for the very first time – in poker variants which mirror their online favourites.

Canadian poker legend Daniel Negreanu is relishing the prospect of the $5k 8-game Championship – a game which rewards those with a broad range of skills. He said: “PokerStars is the home of the 8-game mix, the only poker site to offer it online, and I pride myself on being a well-rounded player.” Who else fancies the 8-game? Well, both Luca Pagano and Greg Raymer for starters.. as Luca admitted: “The skill factor is very high in 8-game and, for pro players, there’s always a lot of excitement around these games.”

For German Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater, the PCA will provide her with a unique chance to sample Badugi and 2-7 Mix in a live setting. She frequently plays the games online and is looking forward to transferring what she’s learned. She won’t be alone; fellow team member and former world champion Greg Raymer is also eyeing up the January 6 event. Greg loves both games and, with neither game that common yet, looks forward to finding inexperienced opponents.

Greg also aims to compete in the $1k triple stud tournament. He said: “Looking back over my entire tournament poker career, I’ve probably done best in stud tournaments. I always enjoy razz and Stud 8 is definitely my favorite form of poker overall.”

Swedish Pro William Thorson will be launching an assault on all the big buy-in Omaha tournaments such as the $5k No Limit, $5k PLO and $2k PLO heads-up while Hevad Khan will be playing the PCA $2k NLHE side event .. why? because he won it last year of course.

The $2k Battleship Multi Tabling Championship is what’s tempting EPT3 Grand Final winner Gavin Griffin. He said: “This is a tournament you won’t find anywhere else and it should be exciting both to watch and play in.”

World champion Joe Cada and EPT4 San Remo winner Jason Mercier have both already chosen their partners for the first ever live PokerStars Tag Team event. Joe is joining forces with his friend Tony Gargano for the $2k event – in which one team member plays Pot Limit Hold’em and the other PLO – while Jason is teaming up with online pro Christian “charder” Harder. Jason said: “This will be the first time anyone has ran a tournament like this and we are both very excited about it.”

But for many of the team, it’s the heads-up which is creating the most excitement. PokerStars has never hosted live heads-up tournaments before but PCA players will have not just a variety of buy-ins to choose from ($5k, $2k and $1k) but both NLHE and PLO as well.

Who’s up for heads-up? Well, Vanessa Rousso (great heads-up track record) is expecting to do well, heads-up mavericks Johnny Lodden and Dario Minieri are definitely on for it and so is EPT3 London winner Vicky Coren .. although Vicky’s motives are not 100% poker-related as she’s worked out that playing Heads-Up means she might also have time for the beach. She said: “said: “Intense one-on-one poker action for a few hours, then an afternoon in the sea; that’s what I call a holiday.”

For more info on the PCA, please visit our special PCA website. Satellites are running right up until December 27th.

Like us, you might be wondering what Joe Cada’s life has been like since he made an improbable comeback at the World Series of Poker final table, won the Main Event, and subsequently joined the elite ranks of Team PokerStars Pro.

Frankly, that should be enough for one year, no?

Cada is making the most of his time right now, apparently. We’ve got advance word we should expect to see him at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in a few weeks. He’s been making the rounds on Letterman, CNN, FOX and the like.

Now, he’s back over in Bristol with our good friends from ESPN’s Inside Deal.

Check out the newest episode of the show below.

And just in case you have forgotten what got Cada this far…here’s what he looked like about five weeks ago.