Joe Cada Wins $45,000

Joe Cada, who won a seat at the final table at the World Series of Poker Texas Hold-em Main Event to be played in Las Vegas on Nov. 7, took second place in a $150-rebuy online tournament through Full Tilt Poker on Sunday, winning $45,000.

“I planned on taking a little break from poker, but I always play on Sunday,” Cada said. “I had to play and just so happened to have won a little bit of money.”

Cada arrived back home in Shelby Township from Las Vegas on Friday to a festive gathering of family and friends. Cada has been in Las Vegas for the last four months playing in the World Series of Poker, a 57-event series of poker tournaments. He netted $28,214 placing in two small events and won a life-changing $1,263,602 for making the final table at the Main Event. The “November Nine” are playing for a first-place prize of $8,546,435.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook — mostly with numbers I don’t even recognize,” he said of being back in Michigan.

Cada said he’ll continue to play online every Sunday and is scheduled to play in a couple large poker tournaments before the Main Event final table in November. He said he plans on playing at the Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, Calif., on Aug. 22-26 as part of the World Poker Tour, and will play in an another event in Barcelona, Spain, in September.

PokerStars Passport

PokerStars Passport is event package that gives you the chance to live the life of a globe-trotting poker player, traveling around the world to represent PokerStars at the biggest events where you can play big money poker.

You can use the passport to travel to Barcelona, Moscow, Monte Carlo, Sydney, Macau and many more. Or how about taking a trip to Paradise Island in The Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure? Up to you. Hotel accommodation and money for expenses is included for every event you decide to go to.

You can win a PokerStars Passport by scoring big on the Yearly Tournament Leader Board or by taking part in the Annual PokerStars Passport promotion.

No More Poker In Russia

Poker players in Russia are in mourning after their government removed the “sport” designation from the game.

The move means that most poker clubs in Russia will have to close and leaves the status of the European Poker Tour stop in Moscow in question. Poker, and gaming halls offering any form of poker, are now under the designation of gambling.

“We have made a change in the Russian list of sports, approved by the order of the Russian Physical Training and Sport Committee on January 1, 2004. We have stricken poker off the list,” said Vitaly Mutko, Russian Youth, Sport and Tourism Minister.

The Russian Gambling Bill, signed in November 2006, forced the closure of gaming halls that did not meet certain regulations including square footage and financial liquidity. Those restrictions make it unlikely that any of the poker clubs which have popped up in Russia’s poker boom of the last 18 months will be able to survive.

“We are in mourning,” said Dmitry Lesnoi, founder of the Russian Federation of Sport Poker, the group largely responsible for the government’s original decision. It was Lesnoi’s work that paved the way for the creation of the PokerStars-backed Russian Poker Tour and the upcoming EPT event.

The EPT event in Moscow is planned to begin August 17 and run through August 23. The removal of poker as a sport will also make it more difficult for international players to acquire the necessary visas to travel to Russia to play in the event.

Russians have seen an increased presence at the top of international events over the past two years beginning with Alex Kravchenko’s final table appearance at the 2007 World Series of Poker. In 2008 Ivan Demidov made the final table of both WSOP Main Events in Las Vegas and London and just weeks ago Vitaly Lunkin won a bracelet in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament.

No Record For Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker tried to set a new record for the largest online tournament this weekend. Unfortunately, its attempts were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it managed to rack up 50,000 players, 15,000 short of PokerStars record of 65,000.

Why PokerStars managed to attract so many players? PokerStars offered a very similar tournament for a fraction of the cost, not to mention it clearly has a larger player pool than Full Tilt Poker. Also, Full Tilt Poker put a cap on their tournament at 50,000. Now if you are trying to break records, why would you put a cap?

On any note, online poker players really are the one breaking records here. Lucky winners are walking away with giant prizes. Full Tilt Poker tournament had a prize pool of $500K, while PokerStars tournament offered up a total prize pool of $130K. The winner of the Full Tilt Poker “The Record Breaker” tournament will walk away with $45,000.00, risking only $5.00.

This will only be a beginning to the battle of the who can create the larger tournament, as speculations see Full Tilt Poker trying this once again, but with a much smaller buy-in. The great thing about these type of battles, the online players are the ones benefiting the most.

World’s Largest Poker Tournament From Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker will try to break the official Guinness World Record(TM) for Largest Online Poker Tournament by attracting more than 35,000 players to the table on July 19th at 15:05ET.

The Record Breaker tournament was unveiled as the finale to FIVE – a week of events and promotions honoring the fifth birthday of Full Tilt Poker.

Team Full Tilt members and WSOP bracelet winners Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Phil Ivey are planning to participate, offering players the chance to sit down at this historic event with some of the best high stakes and tournament players in the world.

Staging a poker tournament of this size would be really difficult. The current record for the largest “live” poker tournament was set at the 2006 WSOP Main Event with 8,772 players.

The Record Breaker will begin on July 19, 2009 at 15:05 ET. Players can be a part of the world record attempt for US$5 or 1000 Full Tilt Points and compete for a share of a US$250K guaranteed with US$250K added prize pool.

Full Tilt Poker Hand Replayer

Players of Full Tilt Poker can now enjoy newly introduced Hand Replayer. The Hand Replayer is accessible from the top left corner of a Full Tilt Poker table. “Last Hand” link is listed below the icon to acquire additional chips and above the option to “Stand Up” from the table. When clicked, the Hand Replayer will open in a new window and show the last pot completed at the table. Buttons to fast forward, rewind, and pause play are all given, allowing users to move at their own pace when recapping hands. In addition, icons to skip to the beginning or end of a hand are available. In the top right corner of a table, Full Tilt Poker users can flip back and forth between pots they’ve played with ease.

The Hand Replayer also has a link to text hand histories. If user clicks on any hand number will open a new window with the transcript of the hand in it. The lower left corner of the Hand Replayer includes a link to view observer chat from previous hands. The console can be expanded to display every hand played during a session in a list and users can double click on any hand to replay it. Hand numbers shaded in green in the list were won by the user. Hands where the user did not see all of the action are shaded in red and observed hands are highlighted in blue.

PartyPoker Genius Promotion

PartyPoker is squaring the pot of every 50,000th hand played. Also as part of the Genius promotion, which runs for 10 million hands, every millionth hand will receive a massive boost.

The Genius promotion started at 12:00 ET on Monday and will run for a total of 10 million hands. Every 50,000th pot will see its value squared. The minimum pot in a jackpot hand is $100, while the maximum payout is $5,000. For instance, if a 50,000th hand milestone were to occur at a table with a pot of $7, the jackpot would actually pay out $100, not $49, under the Genius promotion. Likewise, if it occurred at a table with a pot of $50, the pot would be boosted to $2,500 (or $50 squared).

Every player involved in a Genius hand will divide the extra payout equally, while the pot’s winner will scoop the original total. The maximum payout in any single hand is $5,000, which equates to about a $71 pot. All cash game tables with $0.10-$0.25 blinds and higher are eligible and include Limit ($0.25-$0.50 minimum), No Limit, and Pot Limit Hold’em along with Pot Limit Omaha and Seven Card Stud.

Also as part of the Genius promotion on PartyPoker, every millionth hand will feature at least a $10,000 prize pool. The ten-millionth hand, which will mark the end to The Genius, comes with at least a $100,000 purse. These sizable bankroll boosts do not apply to heads-up cash game tables on PartyPoker. Players dealt to in a hand will share in its bonus prize and uncalled bets are not counted in the pot’s value. A tracker of the number of Genius pots won and their combined payout is available on PartyPoker’s website.

Face The Ace From NBC And Full Tilt Poker

NBC and Full Tilt Poker will film “Face The Ace”, a new concept for a poker show where players who qualify online get to play heads-up against three Full Tilt pros for a $1,000,000 prize.

ESPN has enjoyed a ratings bonanza over the years with its coverage of the WSOP. The Travel Channel at one time became synonymous with televised poker tournament success through its airings of the high rated World Poker Tour.

Full Tilt Poker was one of several online poker rooms whose funds were seized by the US Attorneys office in the Southern District of New York in early June. A total exceeding $40 million has thus far been froze.

Russian Casinos Will Turn Into Poker Clubs

Russian ban on gambling came in effect yesterday and many Russian operators are considering re-fashioning themselves into poker clubs under a quirk of Russian law that officially recognises poker as a sport rather than a game of chance.

It is unknown for how long the Russian government will allow this legal loophole to exist, but if pursued it could save around 400 000 jobs that operators stated the gambling ban will inflict as a loss on the national economy.

Starting July 1 casinos may only operate in four remote regions of Russia, each of them at least 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from Moscow and some much further.

The gambling law is expected to have the biggest impact on Moscow, which had 524 casinos and gaming halls until the law took effect, and the northern city of Saint Petersburg, which had 109.