Internet Texas Holdem

PokerStars sure knows how to throw a birthday party! This past month they gave out a myriad of poker bonuses and prizes, and they also hosted a couple record-breaking MTTs. Let’s take a look at these MTTs in a little more detail because the numbers are pretty impressive.

The first of these amazing tournaments was the World Record Tournament. Because PokerStars wanted to break their own world record for the biggest tournament field ever, they decided to host a $1 with a $250k guarantee. To entice everyone to register, they capped the field at $200k which guaranteed at least $50k in overlay.

The tourney only took slightly over 7 hours from start to finish. Once it got down to 3 players, a deal was made so that they could all receive at least $25k. The winner of the event was Sokoluk1991, a player from Russia. He received over $40k for his efforts.

The Sunday Storm, which has an $11 buy-in and a $200k guarantee, is usually the biggest MTT field every week on Pokerstars. To celebrate its anniversary, PokerStars ran a special version of the tournament with a $1 million guarantee. This meant that first place was guaranteed a…

Poker’s popularity continues to grow in the Czech Republic on the heels of Martin Staszko’s second place finish in the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event. 571 players made the trip out for WPT Prague, forced to leave their cake poker download to chase the dream of a WPT title.

EPT Prague followed WPT Prague just a short time after, and it attracted a record breaking field. 722 players paid the €5,300 buy-in, creating a prize pool of €3,501,700. This created a giant first place payout of €720,000.

Many talented players fell short of the final table, including Chris Moorman who finished in 15th for €23,000. Moorman has long been a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the best Euro poker sites. Recently he added finishing 2nd in the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event for €800,000 to his resume.

Nicholas Levi began the final table just shy of the chip lead. However he suffered a crippling blow after getting in the majority of his chips with bottom two pair against David Boyaciyan’s top set. No miracle came for Levi and Boyaciyan vaulted into the top of the chip…

In somewhat surprising news, Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson has given his opinion on online casino gambling, and it’s not a good one. He has publicly stated that he completely opposes online poker. Adelson, the richest casino executive in the world, heads the largest publicly traded company in the casino industry (the Sands). Because of his status in the industry, his opinion has a lot of weight.

This isn’t a formal stance by Adelson, but it is rather interesting considering that he has been a supporter of the Republican Party for quite some time. This includes Arizona Senator Jon Kyl who has been a major opponent of online casinos for USA players for a while. Proof of this is in his support of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006.

A lot of the surprise stems from the fact that Adelson’s personal view is far removed from many others in the casino industry who believe that licensed and regulated online poker should be available in the United States. This is in addition to the fact that earlier in the year, Adelson was said to be in support of online poker at the federal level…

The World Series of Poker Circuit travels all over the United States of America, bringing events to just about every corner of the country. The beauty of these events is that they’re quite accessible since a lot of the main events don’t require a giant bankroll. The recent event at Harveys Lake Tahoe was no exception.

Since they can’t play on a William Hill Poker download, Americans are looking to casinos to fulfill their poker cravings. With two Day 1s, a grand total of 327 players participated at $1,600 a piece, with 181 of them surviving to Day 2. 11 of those players made it to Day 3 to play for the $111,812 grand prize. It took just 30 minutes of play for the remaining players to get down to the final 9, the final table.

Casey McCarrel started the final table in fourth position but doubled Chris Clark up soon after the final table began. Ten minutes later he was gone in 9th place after committing the last of his chips with an overcard and a flush draw against Ron Segni’s top pair.

Segni enjoyed the chip lead early on in the final table until his…

PokerStars has decided to celebrate their 10th birthday with promotions and huge tournaments for their players. They’re going all out in December, turning their biggest Sunday tournaments into even bigger and better events than usual.

A short while back, PokerStars broke the Guinness World Record for the largest number of players in a tournament. This was back when they were one of the biggest US friendly poker sites around, so they had plenty of help from Americans. For their tenth anniversary, though, PokerStars has decided to break the record again, this time without the USA.

On December 4th, they will host a $1 tournament in hopes of attracting 150,000 people. To help attract even higher stakes players, they are offering a $250,000 guarantee and have capped the tourney at 200,000 players. This means that PokerStars will be adding at least $50,000 to the prize pool! That’s some good value.

PokerStars lacks casino features like video poker, but they make up for it by offering the best value tournaments on the Internet today. For example, the Sunday Storm costs $11 to enter every week, but the prize pool is always at least $200,000. On December 11th, PokerStars is having…