Bwin Poker Expands

Bwin Poker is planning to become one of the biggest online gaming operators in Europe. Their most recent act has been to orchestrate the purchase of Gioco Digitale, the most popular online poker site in Italy’s newly deregulated industry. The multi-million euro deal catapults Bwin to the top of the tree in the lucrative Italian market, making them the country’s largest supplier of online poker.

The Austrian firm is reported to have paid somewhere in the region of €115 million for Gioco. Talks have been underway for some time and Bwin has already purchased 56% of the Italian company with €65 million of new shares. The finer details are currently being hammered out, with the deal slated for completion in early October. It is expected that Bwin will pay somewhere in the region of €50 million for the remaining portion of the Italian gaming operator.

PokerStars Porsche

PokerStars is giving an opportunity to its players to win Porsche Cayman S.

Entrance into the tournament for the car is free. PokerStars players just need to make a deposit or reload until October 17th and they will be granted a ticket into the freeroll tournament set to give away the Porsche and other cash prizes. There is no minimum deposit set, but players will need to enter bonus code – WINCAR for a reload, NEWCAR for a first time deposit.

The tournament will take place on October 18th at 13:00, but players will be allowed to get tickets until October 17th, 13:00. Make sure you get yours!

Phil Ivey Won $1.7 Million Last Week

Being a Full Tilt Poker Pro and also considered one of the best poker players in the world could be enough for some people but not for Phil Ivey. He is one of the November nine players that will be in a fierce battle for the WSOP 2009 main event bracelet. His performance at the WSOP this year was outstanding: he cashed five times for a total of $356,994. Two of those cashes also awarded him bracelets, taking his WSOP bracelet count up to seven.

It’s not common to have a busy Friday at the high stakes tables at Full Tilt Poker but this past Friday was a dream day for all the railbirds. Ivey had an impressive session in which he reached a profit of $1.5 million but had some loses and by the time he quit the tables he still had a massive profit that exceed $790K. Adding his profits from Thursday and Friday, Ivey increased his bankroll in $1.7 million this past week.

Carter Phillips Won EPT Barcelona

Twenty-year-old American poker pro Carter Phillips ended the five day PokerStars EPT Barcelona tournament Wednesday as the champion, besting an original entry field of 478 players to collect the trophy, the kudos and the main prize cheque for Euro 850 000.

Carter, who came from North Carolina, said: “The feeling is unreal. The whole tournament it felt like any other tournament to me, even when we got heads up. I think once the river hit the deck, all the emotion came in to me at once and I didn’t even know how to react.”

“It just all hit me at the same time and it’s overwhelming, as you can tell from my reaction,” said Phillips.

PKR Offers Paypal Deposits

Online poker company PKR has recently become one of a handful of large operators in the industry to integrate Paypal as an online payment method.

Paypal’s secure, quick and easy method of transaction is ideal for online gaming site users.

Paypal banned transactions of an egaming nature when it was purchased by Ebay in 2002. However, recently Paypal has re-introduced to egaming sites as an alternative payment method to directly using credit or debit cards.

PKR Offers Paypal

Online poker company PKR has recently become one of few large operators in the industry to integrate Paypal as an online payment method.

Paypal’s secure, quick and easy method of transaction is ideal for online gaming site users.

Paypal banned transactions of an egaming nature when it was purchased by Ebay in 2002. However, recently Paypal has re-introduced to egaming sites as an alternative payment method to directly using credit or debit cards.

Martonas Lost 700K More

Nobody knows who Martonas is, but he or she has been hitting the high stakes online poker tables at Full Tilt Poker again, undeterred by some heavy multi-tabling losses against Tom Dwan and other top Internet players earlier in the week.

This time it was CardRunners pro Brian ‘Stinger’ Hastings who took on the mystery player, living up to his nickname by ending the session $690 000 up at Martonas’s expense in some hair-raising and very aggressive $300/$600 heads-up No-Limit Hold’em.

The session involved no new table records, but plenty of $100 000 pots, two of them well over $200 000, which Hastings took.

Despite his/her recent reverses, Martonas remains in profit of over $1.5 million for the month of August and over $400 000 for the current week alone, which gives some idea of the level of activity this player has generated.

The big winners and losers this week (August 12-18) were: Aaron “aejones” Jones (up $898 000), Cole South (up $538 000 – he’s also up $2.56 million this year to date) and Martonas (up $413 000).

At the losing end of the scale were Patrik Antonius ( down $1.33 million – but up $3.05 million this year to date), Phil Ivey ( down $839 000 on the week) and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies ( down $463 000).

Poker Player Lost And Won €412,781

Online poker player has got a massive reward after losing a hand despite holding four jacks courtesy of the International Poker Network (IPN) and its bad beat jackpot.

Playing under the pseudonym ‘AlkaliEars’, the lucky player received €144,473 of the €412,781 jackpot while the hand’s winner took home €72,236 with the other competitors at the table receiving €24,078 each.

“I was so sure my four jacks would take the pot,” said ‘AlkaliEars’.

“My heart sank when my opponent revealed four kings to beat them. But then I remembered that by losing with such a great hand I had won the bad beat jackpot,” he said.

The IPN is Europe’s largest independent poker network and is operated by GTech G2. The network includes some of the world’s most popular online poker sites such as VirginPoker.com and PokerHeaven.com and regularly hosts guaranteed one million Euro tournaments. It recently celebrated its three millionth player and revealed that its current bad beat jackpot is already over €90,000.

“The bad beat jackpot was created to help ease the frustration of losing even when you’re dealt great cards,” said Mery Blomqvist, Head Of Marketing And Public Relations for GTech G2.

“With a jackpot requirement starting at quad sixes, this has got to be the easiest bad beat jackpot to hit anywhere.”

To qualify for the IPN’s bad beat jackpot, players must be at a designated bad beat table and use both pocket cards in their winning or losing hand. In addition, the losing hand must be four-of-a-kind sixes or better with at least four players in the hand.

New PokerStars Bonus

It is a well-known fact that PokerStars is the king in online tournaments, player base size, and name recognition, but one area players felt they fell short was in the deposit Bonus arena. A 100% up to $50 first deposit Bonus just didn’t seem fit for the online behemoth. Now that has all changed.

PokerStars now offers a 100% up to $600 first deposit Bonus! That’s 12 times as large as the original Bonus! And what about all those players who already made their accounts and first deposits at PokerStars? They haven’t been forgotten. PokerStars is also offering a 50% up to $300 reload Bonus! Players have up to six months to release the bonuses and both bonuses can be claimed by using up to three deposits. All deposits must be made within 60 days of the first eligible deposit for the 100% up to $600 first deposit Bonus, and within 90 days for the 50% up to $300 reload Bonus.

These are the biggest first deposit and reload bonuses ever to be released by PokerStars. The increased bonuses come just in time to help celebrate the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker, which is set to be the largest online poker series in history. The total guaranteed prize pool is set at $40,000,000! Satellites are already underway, including the WCOOP Extreme Satellites where hundreds of WCOOP seats are up for grabs.

There has never been a better time than now to make your account at PokerStars.com.

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.