Full Tilt is offering a unique poker event which includes No Limit Hold’em heads-up play with Patrik Antonius!  Win a trip to London on September 25^th and see if you have what it takes to beat this high stakes player and win an entry into the 2008 European Series £10,000 Main Event. This amazing prize package also includes a one on one personal poker instruction from Antonius, $5K for travel and expenses, and dinner with Patrik Antonius along with a few of his fellow members at Team Full Tilt.

Want to get into the action?  Three rounds will set you on that path:

Round One kicks it off with 360 player Sit & Go Freerolls 24/7. Winners advance to Round Two.

• Players can also buy directly into Round Two with 100 Full Tilt Points.

Round Two brings Multi-Table Tourneys Wednesday at 10:05p.m (EST) and Saturdays at 8:05p.m. (EST) from August 2^nd - September 6^th.  The top nine winners will then advance to Round Three.

• With 10,000 Full Tilt Points you can buy directly into the next round.

Round Three will settle you in nicely to the final One on One Qualifier for the chance of the exclusive One on One with Patrik Antonius in London.

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The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has been one of the most popular poker tournaments on the planet since it first debuted in 2004.  Besides being set at the world-renown Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, this tournament also is one of the few blockbuster events that allow players 18 and over to participate in.  This usually means that a large portion of the field are young online players and satellite qualifiers from the tournament host, PokerStars.

This year’s official date for the 2009 PCA will be on January 4th, 2009, with many qualifiers already being run on the site for the event.  Last year’s winner, Bertrand “EkY” Gropellier, will be back to defend his title against one of the toughest fields any poker tournament could possibly have.  He’ll also be coming back with a new moniker - Team PokerStars member!

Just as a reminder, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is no longer a WPT event.  However, since it is now a European Poker Tour event, the tourney should be broadcast on EPTLive.com.

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While a lot of analysts believe we’re already in a recession, it hasn’t really slowed up the casino industry in Nevada.

Although recent reports showed casino revenues were down 1.9% in June, 2008, as compared to the same time last year, the industry still found itself on the end of a $12.5 billion dollar upswing.  In fact, casinos in the state have always been one of the strongest staples in struggling economic times.

Combined with world class gaming and entertainment, great restaurants, and an overall family environment as of late, Nevada has been a hotspot for tourists, gamblers, and new residents coming in from out of state.  It is no wonder why these casinos thrive during times where many business go belly up.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of revenues companies like Harrah’s and MGM can conjure up if they’re allowed to delve into the online gambling market.

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The Asian Poker Tour’s next stop will be in Macau later this month, and it is rumored to have quite the solid slate of poker players on the guest list.

Along with tournament veterans like JC Tran and Nam Le, it looks like the Macau field might’ve gotten a little bit tougher with the latest announcement that the Godfather of Poker Doyle Brunson will be making an appearance as well for the $5k Main Event!  Doyle’s high stakes son Todd Brunson will also be in attendance, with APT Philippines winner David Saab also hoping to add yet another Asian Poker Tour title to his resume when he makes the trip over.

“We are proud to have the number one name in poker, Doyle Brunson attending the Asian Poker Tour,” said Matt Savage, tournament director for APT. “Doyle is the one player who has seen it all in the poker industry so it is appropriate that he will be there to witness the next boom - poker in Asia”

Don’t get me wrong though folks, while I’m sure Doyle and Todd love the aura of the tournament scene, Macau is simply one of the newest gambling hot spots around the world - and there is already talk of a huge $130k minimum buy-in cash game supposedly being organized as well to entertain the highest stakes gamblers on the side!

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“We are eagerly anticipating World Series of Poker Europe this year,” said Ty Stewart, World Series of Poker Director of Marketing. “We have enhanced the schedule to provide more variety and game play, greatly broadened the worldwide television exposure and have brought the event under one roof to better the player experience for this prestigious and premiere event.”

Along with those comments came the announcement of where the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe would be officially be held at.  And after several months of speculation, it was revealed the Casino at the Empire would be the  WSOPE’s newest locale.  The casino, which is located in a nice London hotspot, was also used to host a few of last year’s WSOPE festivities.

This year’s World Series will undoubtedly attract some of the best players in the world, all of them looking to take down defending champion and online poker wiz kid Annette ‘annette15′ Obrestrad.

In another surprise announcement, ESPN will also be covering the events live - with most of the coverage being viewable at ESPN360.com.

The first of 4 events will begin on September 19th, so keep your calendars open and ready.  The WSOPE will need proper railing….

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PokerStars recently unveiled its new Sunday Million Guaranteed in the past few days, upping the guarantee from a cool million bucks to $1.5 million!  It wasn’t meant to bring in more players than it already does, but it sure brought on a lot more attention to the tourney than it previously had in the past.

Drawing in an impressive 8,000+ entrants was the simplest part of the tournament.

Getting to the final table isn’t.

Somehow though, after 10+ hours of play, play got down to just 9 players.  Online poker legend Andy McLEOD was steamrolling en route to the chip lead before play began.  He was hoping to parlay that huge stack into a $205k payday and another notch on his poker tournament belt.

However, as play resumed and the chips started flying around, it was McLEOD who would eventually relinquish his chip lead to some rather unknown opponents.  One of these unknowns was a player by the name of ‘Fred_Brink,’ who would end up scooping a lot of big pots late and seem to be catching all the right cards at JUST the right time.

When it came down to crowning a winner, it would be Fred_Brink taking down the event for $200k and change!

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Just weeks after the World Poker Tour announced that it had FINALLY locked up a broadcasting deal with Fox Sports, it has added to its global television portfolio by signing a deal that would allow them to distribute their programming to the 1.1 billion people of India!

WPT Founder Steve Lipscomb signed a contract with Hindi-based Zee Sports this past week, allowing the WPT to start broadcasting in September 2008!

“Zee Sports and WPTE together create a powerful partnership as the most trusted vehicles to introduce poker to India,” said Steve Lipscomb, WPT Founder, President and CEO. “We are delighted to be making history together.”

Poker fans in the region will be able to watch 19 two-hour episodes of the acclaimed poker program, with many of the episodes being available in simulcast on the internet subsidiaries of Zee Sports.

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Bodog Life recently had $24 million in funds seized from US bank accounts according to a story published on Forbes.com.

However, Alwyn Morris, who is the operations director for the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group that runs Bodog out of Canada, refuted the story just hours after its publication.

“(The) seizure of funds from these US payment processors was mischaracterized in this article, which refers to two specific legal cases against US processors,” said a statement released by Morris. “The first of these cases - relating to a seizure of funds from a processor known as JBL Services - happened some time ago and has absolutely nothing to do with the current payment processing challenges being experienced in the US. The constraints being experienced by payment processors in the US are universal in that region and not specific to any particular processor or site.”

It is unclear what will happen from here considering the story just broke.

What is clear is why hundreds of thousands of US players haven’t received their cashouts from Bodog.

Some players have gone more than 40 days without receiving a dime of their cashouts - and the Forbes story might shed some light on it all.

We’ll be reporting on this story as we learn more information about it.  Good luck to all those still looking to receive their cashouts soon and in a very timely way.

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PokerStars, which is the biggest online poker site in the world, has made their tournament prize pools and structures an industry standard to follow.

This week they added to that in a HUGE way.

PokerStars announced they be raising the guaranteed prize pool in their famous Sunday Million from $1 million to $1.5 million dollars!

This is a pretty big incentive for online poker players who haven’t tried out the room, mainly because satellites to this world renown tourney start at just 2 bucks!  So for a small amount of cash, players have the chance to take a shot at a solid prize pool and a 1st place payout that normally is NEVER under $110,000.

It’ll be interesting to see how many seats sell this week for the inaugural Sunday Million MTT - which is when the new prize pool goes into effect.

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Former color commentator and celebrity poker host Tiffany Michelle finally inked a sponsorship deal with controversial poker room Ultimate Bet this past week.

Michelle was the last woman standing in this year’s 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, outlasting over 6,000+ players en route to making it to the final two tables!  Unfortunately her luck would run out while she was making a serious play at the final 9, finishing in a heartbreaking 17th place.

“From Hollywood to Vegas, Tiffany Michelle is a rising star in so many extraordinary ways,” stated Annie Duke, UltimateBet’s Cardroom Consultant. “We’re thrilled to be able to bring such a talented force on board.”

The signing is just one of several HUGE acquisitions that UB has made over the past few weeks.  They’ve picked up a ton of huge online stars, the biggest of course being Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy.

It is clear that the signings represent a time of change and transition for the controversial poker room - and with more and more evidence has popped up regarding the once thought-to-be-isolated Superuser account scandal in recent days - they’re in desperate need of a makeover.  It definitely seems they look to be trying to restore their faith in the online poker community with their signings as of late, but it is unclear they will be out of the woods any time soon.

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