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Chan Poker Announces Closure and Move to Merge Network

Chan Poker is officially closing their virtual doors on August 21st. The move was announced last night in an email from the Chan Poker team. The reasons for the closure were not made clear, but it has been made clear that Chan Poker will be moving to the Merge Network, and will be merging with the Aced.com brand. It is not going to be a transparent merger though, as the Chan Poker brand is done for good, and all player accounts will be closed on August 21st. Any players who wish to continue playing there will have to make a new account at Aced.com.

Chan has also announced that all player withdrawals will be processed up until the closing day. Withdrawal limits have also been increased, so players with large amounts of money in their accounts can get it all off before their accounts are closed. Once August 21st comes, all accounts will automatically be closed, and players won’t have to take any further action.

The new room, Aced.com, will be open to US players, and as mentioned before, will be a part of the Merge Gaming network. Other sites on this network include Carbon Poker and Walker Poker. There are over 3,000 players online at the Merge network at any one time.

A lot of speculation has come about as to why Chan Poker decided to make this move, and we have a few ideas. First of all, Johnny Chan may have wanted to avoid any legal hassles in the USA whatsoever. If Chan Poker was looking to start accepting USA players, they would have been forced to remove Johnny from their brand, or he wouldn’t have been able to go in the USA anymore. Also, Chan was struggling on their previous network, and maybe was just looking to switch things up.

If you’re looking for more info on this topic, make sure to check out the full press release regarding the Chan Poker moves.

AOL Will Again Award Six Seats to the WSOP

America Online has announced that they will be awarding six main seats to the World Series of Poker this year via free roll tournaments.  This will be the third consecutive year AOL is giving out these seats.  The tournaments to win the seats are being played through AOL’s Games.com service.  There are daily qualifying tournaments and at the end of each week the winners of the qualifying events for the week will compete on Sunday in a winner-take-all tournament.  The tournaments began on May 4 and will continue through June 15, so there is a winner each week.  The winners will receive a free main seat to the WSOP (worth $10,000) as well as free travel accommodation’s to the event in Las Vegas, as long as you are within the US.  You must be at least 21 years of age to play for your chance to win.

For many, this is the opportunity of a life time - to win a $10,000 ticket to the WSOP to play with all the professionals.  The six winners will be given the chance to show the professionals what they’ve got and even see if they can bet them.   Not only that, but they will be given the chance to walk away with millions.  In 2006, everyone at the final table walked away with over a million dollars.

Greg Mills, Director of AOL games said that on games.com, free-play poker is one of the most popular games.  He said he is also thrilled to be giving players a chance to win “a  poker players dream come true. “  There is still time to play those free rolls, so you could still win the “poker players dream.”

WSOP 2008 Main Event Final Table Delay

In the past years the WSOP Main Event has become the most popular poker event in the world. Thousands of players enter the $10,000 buy-in event, hoping to take a 7 figure pay day by winning it all. Also, the event is televised which brings tons of publicity to the game, because ESPN really markets it aggressively.

Last year over 6,000 players entered, creating a prize pool of nearly $60 million dollars. The winner, Jerry Yang, took over $8 million in prize money. This year should have at least as many entrants, and ESPN is changing things up to bring even more drama and publicity to the televised event.

Play will begin just like normal on July 3rd. The players will continue playing until there are only 9 players remaining. Now, at this time, unlike in years past, play will halt. There will be a three month delay before the final table is televised live on ESPN. The reasoning behind this is that ESPN will really be able to build up drama and publicity for the event, so it should get much better TV ratings then in years past. However, this kind of sucks for the final table players because they will have a three month wait which will be very stressful and it will seem like forever.

One advantage the players will have, however, is that if they aren’t signed with an online poker site yet, they will receive huge offers to wear internet poker sites’ hats, shirts, and other gear. We’re literally talking millions of dollars here just in endorsements to wear the gear. That is definitely worth three months in my eyes.

BodogPoker Takes Bets on Preakness

As many of you know BodogPoker.com is a huge online poker room, especially in the USA market. What most people don’t know however, is that Bodog actually does much more than just run an online poker room. While on their site recently I saw tabs for Bodog Casino, Bodog Sports, and Bodog Racebook. Wondering what these were, I clicked on them to check them out. What I found was pretty cool.

Besides just poker, you can also play in a virtual online casino, place bets on every major sports game, and place bets on all of the major horse races all across the world. Plus, you can do all of this from one account, so you don’t have to have accounts for the four different methods of gambling. This is a great method for poker players who also like to do a little gambling on the side, because you don’t have to go and download another program at a different site - you can do it right from Bodog.

After I found the Bodog Racebook, I decided to check out what tracks they took bets on. When I clicked on the link, there was a big promotion for the upcoming Preakness, so I decided to try it out. After logging into my poker account, I was able to use funds right from my poker account to place my bet on Big Brown at the Preakness. Although the odds were only 1:2, I placed $500 on him, and it ended up working out for me as he won the race Saturday. He really looks like a Triple Crown threat - all that stands in his way is the upcoming Belmont race.

Bad Beats Are Not Always so Bad

Everyone hates bad beats, so most casinos and online poker sights have a bad beat jackpot.  The money for the bad beat pot is taken out of every pot that has a rake of 25 cents or more.  This jackpot is very rare to win, so it us usually a very large jackpot.

If you’re ever holding quad eights, you can expect to win the hand, because you’re probably going to.   However, this did not turn out to be the case for DENDAKOTA when he or she was playing at Absolute Poker held quad eights.  DENDAKOTA was beaten, and even though he or she may have lost the hand, DENDAKOTA still turned out to be a big winner, winning $46,908 of the bad beat jackpot!

The player who wins the bad beat jackpot really only gets 32.5% of the jackpot because of how the jackpot is split up.  Of the initial jackpot, 25% it taken off the top to go into the new jackpot, and the house gets 10% as well.  That only leaves 65% of the initial jackpot, and the loser of the hand only gets 50% of that.  Regardless of what percentage the player gets, DENDAKOTA still made a lot of money for a bad beat.

Don’t expect to win the bad beat jackpot with any bad beat however.  At Absolute Poker, in order to win the jackpot the player must have at least quad eights and be beaten and both you and the person who beat you must play both of their holecards.

Poker Stars Pros Featured in New Movie “Deal”

PokerStars has landed even more media exposure for themselves, as many of their major pros are going to be featured in the new poker movie, Deal. Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer, and Chris Moneymaker all make appearances in the movie, mostly at the end of the film when the new pro tries his luck in one of the biggest games in the world.

The plot of Deal is that an ex-gambler trains a young hot shot about the ways of winning big at the poker tables. Burt Reynolds, who plays Tommy Vinson in the movie, quit poker 20 years ago in order to save his family from falling apart. However, when he witnesses Alex play poker, he realizes that he can regain his poker dreams without even gambling by teaching Alex the poker game, and staking him into the biggest tournaments and cash games in the world. Everything is going great, until a Vegas call girl ruins everything…

Michelle (Shannon Elizabeth) is paid by Tommy to give Alex some company, and the two end up falling for each other, or so Alex thinks. Once he discovers that Michelle is just a call girl, who was paid by Tommy, Alex cuts off all ties with Tommy and begins to prepare alone for his shot at the WPT. However, their paths cross again, as Tommy makes a comeback to the poker game so he can play in the WPT with Alex.

The movie promises to be a hit within the poker community, and PokerStars should reap some benefit because all of their sponsored players are in it. To learn more about PokerStars, check out this Poker Stars Download page.

PPA Eclipses One Million Members

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA for short) has finally reached one of its major goals; having over 1,000,000 members enrolled. At the time of this publication there are a total of 1,000,045 total members, and they are sure to see a surge now because of all the publicity they are receiving from hitting this mark.

For those of you who don’t know, the PPA is a banding together of poker players and poker advocates that are seeking change from the USA Government in regard to their stance on gambling. People can join for free at their website, but donations are encouraged because the PPA uses the donated money to lobby for legal change.

The main topic the PPA is fighting is the UIGEA bill, which is a bill that took a harsh swing against USA poker players by shutting down their methods of depositing at poker sites. Although there are currently work-arounds, it is still much harder for a person to play Internet poker in the USA then it was pre-UIGEA. The PPA feels this is a violation of our freedoms, and wants to change the laws.

Also, in anticipation of the upcoming presidential election, the PPA has formed a voter registration drive called “If you play, have a say.” Their goal for this committee is to recruit 100,000 new voters who play poker, and educate them on the UIGEA and what actions they can take to help everyone out. If you plan on attending the 2008 WSOP, make sure to keep your eyes out for the voter registration booths that the PPA will have there.

PokerStars Announces Battle of the Planets

PokerStars is running a unique promotion this year that will pay out over $3 million to the top sit and go players on the site. The promotion is called Battle of the Planets, and is only for sit and go players. What it is is a sit and go tournament leader board that ranks the top sit and go players each month. Plus, they break it down by having a different planet for different levels of buy-ins, so even low limit players can take part in this promotion.

The different planets run from Mercury to Jupiter with all sorts of sit and go ranges in between. For example, Earth is for sit and go’s between $10 and $19.99, while Saturn is for sit and go’s from $100 to $299.99. As expected, the higher planet you compete in, the bigger the stakes are. At Jupiter, the maximum level, each orbit winner receives $5000 for the month.

Another way Stars is letting everyone compete is by having two different orbits for each planet level. The first orbit, the low orbit category is for players who log 20 sit and go’s a month, and the high orbit category is for players who play over 100 sit and go’s a month. This allows recreational as well as professional players to both compete.

If you are one of the top finishers throughout the month you’ll be eligible to compete in the $50,000 triple shootout Battle of the Planets. This is a freeroll designed to reward the top players. Check it out today, or head over to this Internet Poker site for more info.

Party Poker Offers Bad Beat Jackpot

Party Poker is now offering the ability to play at bad beat specific tables. Of course, you will only have the opportunity to win the bad beat jackpot if you are at one of these special table. There aren’t too many of these tables compared the amount of total tables offered at Party Poker. However, you should be able to find at least 100 of these tables at most hours. When playing at one of these tables, Party Poker will take $0.50 from the pot of any raked hand and put it into the special bad beat jackpot.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with a bad beat jackpot, it’s a special jackpot that gets funded from every raked hand at these special tables. The jackpot is awarded when you lose with a hand of four of a kind 8’s or better. Of course, if you lose that hand you will probably lose your entire table amount, but that will probably be nothing compared to the size of the bad beat pot.

Whenever a hand qualifies as a bad beat, 70% of the total bad beat pot will be slip up amongst the tables as follows: 50% of that amount will go to the loser of the hand, 25% to the winner, and the remaining 25% will be split up among the rest of the players. The reason that only 70% of the total pot is distributed is because the remaining 30% is distributed as follows: 20% is put back into the pot for the next time and the other 10% is retained from Party Poker as a fee, which seems quite steep to me.

The Party Poker Bad Beat Jackpot is 100% optional. If you are not interested in taking part in this, then simply avoid any of these specific tables. If you haven’t sign up at Party Poker before, then you are eligible for a special $150 first time deposit bonus. Just check out this Party Poker Bonus Code page and you will find all the details for this offer.

Full Tilt Offers 50 Free Main Event Seats

Full Tilt Poker is running an enormous promotion right now.  Over the next few months, they’re giving away FIFTY (50) Main Event seats at the World Series of Poker.  Each seat is worth the $10,000 entry plus extra cash for expenses, travel, and lodging.  This is quite a promotion, and we’ll give you all the details on how to get in on this.

From now until Sunday, June 22nd players can enter as many Main Event Round 1 Sit n Go’s as they want.  These sit and go’s are free for entry, and run all day long.  The winners of those 9 man sit and go’s advance to the Main Event Round 2 Freerolls.  These run four times a day, and the top 2 finishers advance to the weekly Main Event Finals Freeroll.  This tournament is held each week on Sunday at 16:30 ET.

Since there are 4 daily Round 2 tournaments, the Finals Freeroll will have 56 players in each one.  If you reach the Finals freeroll, all you have to do is get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd and you’ll be on your way to Las Vegas because you’ve just earned a completely free WSOP Main Event seat!

There are also a few ways you can speed up your qualifying instead of playing all 3 of the tournaments.  If you make your first deposit at Full Tilt using our Full Tilt Poker Referral Code, you’ll get an entry ticket directly into the Round 2 tournament instead of having to qualify via the sit and go. This entry ticket can also be gained by successfully referring a friend to the Full Tilt site.

Also, you can earn your way right to the finale if you earn 3,000 Full Tilt Points in one week before the Sunday finale starts.  Have fun, and good luck!

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Latest Headlines

• Chan Poker Announces Closure and Move to Merge Network
• AOL Will Again Award Six Seats to the WSOP
• WSOP 2008 Main Event Final Table Delay
• BodogPoker Takes Bets on Preakness
• Bad Beats Are Not Always so Bad
• Free WSOP Seats - Win Your Poker Seat!
• Poker Stars Pros Featured in New Movie “Deal”
• Sportsbook.com Open to US Players and Offers 1K Bonus Promotion
• PPA Eclipses One Million Members
• Pacific Poker Launches New Bonus

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