Arena Of Poker

The 2008 Irish Open is getting a lot of press, and well they might, due to the excitement to be had at this long running poker festival. The longest running pro level major poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker, the Irish Open, will be played in Dublin around Easter of 2008, and online poker rooms like CelebPoker are offering players a chance to win seats. The Irish Open 2008 now has a guaranteed €3,000,000 prize pool, which is up by €1,000,000 over last year…

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Mansion Poker has recently announced that their players will be able to look forward to $11 million guaranteed prize pool next month – and every month there after. The new monthly prize schedule has a host of guaranteed events that total up to the $11 million. This menas that the weekly prize schedule is up around $2.5 million and more in guarantees, with the last week of each month pushed up to a $3 million collective prize pool, thanks to the Grand Tournament’s half million guarantee alone…

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The European Poker Tour added a new event in its fourth season, and the first ever EPT Prague tournament has recently come to a conclusion. The event, which brought in 555 players to take a shot at the title, was finished when Arnaud Mattern from France won the final hand and picked up his 708,600 Euro prize. Mattern held the lead at the beginning of the final table action and managed to use that to his advantage…

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The latest thing when it comes to dealers in the world of poker is to not have them. PokerTek is the company that is making this happen with no-dealer machines that provide a live poker experience that is much like you would expect, just without dealers - and cards and chips. Everything is virtual, including in their Heads-Up version (branded as Heads-Up Challenge World Series of Poker)…

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Luke Cahill credits his alertness as a key factor in winning the European Championship of Online Poker’s $1,000,000 Guaranteed Prize Main Event. The event, put on by Titan Poker, drew 992 players in the $1000+$60 Texas Holdem No Limit tourney, capping the ECOOP events that boasted over $2,500,000 in total prizes. In an admission that may drive a lot of players on tilt Cahill explained that he was a live cash game player exclusively before this win…

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The Sydney event on the Asian Pacific Poker Tour has come and gone, and one physical education teacher is now a million dollars richer. Penrith’s Grant Levy paid a $6,000 buy in to play in the event and turned it into a $1 million first prize. For three days Levy fight it out in order to beat 561 other players…

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Many poker rooms and poker events will announce a guaranteed prize pool, sometimes as much as a million dollars. This money is split among the winners according to the payout schedule, but rarely is a million dollars paid out to a single player. That, however, is to be the case at the 2008 Aruba Poker Classic…

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The New York Times recently touted the educational benefits of poker. If this was an isolated incident, one would chalk it up to a simple opinion written in a paper that can no longer report the date without having to print a retraction for sloppy research. The Times article was just one of a number of opinions that are yammering on about the academic applications of the game.

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The final table is nearly set at the World Poker Tour 5 Diamond Doyle Brunson World Poker Classic Championship, but players like Gus Hansen and Huck Seed could not hold on. Other big pros, however, did manage to make it to the final 18, such as David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Erick Lindgren and favorite Daniel Negreanu. The Canadian poker pro started the day with a chip lead in the two million range, well ahead of the rest of the pack…

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Having a plan in poker is of tantamount importance, but sticking to that plan isn’t always the wisest decision. Many things can change at a poker table. Players can do something completely unexpected. The cards can fall in strange ways. A plan is a good thing, but blindly following it is a bad thing.

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A flush is a wonderful thing, not as good as unexpectedly finding Rachel Welch in your bed wearing nothing but a cheesecake and a pair of forks, but a flush is still pretty good. Usually most people are not lucky enough to find a pair of hearts in their hand after the deal, and another three showing up on the flop, so in most cases a flush has to be built with the same sort of loving care that Burger King builds a Whopper.

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That isn’t too soon to get ready for the premier poker event of the year, and WSOP owners Harah’s have just released the 2008 WSOP schedule. There are a number of interesting facts to point out about this schedule and some of the changes they have made, so read on.

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Finland’s Thomas Wahlroos had no cool nickname like his pal Jani Sointula, who had been given the name “Hellraiser” on the tourney circuit. But he didn’t need a cool nickname to play against Jani, who he had faced on and off for five years across the poker table.

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If you are a poker fan and you don’t know who Erica Schoenberg is, chances are you live in a remote cave - or quite possibly in Arkansas. Just before playing a tournament at the Bellagio, Erica kindly took the time to talk to us and share some of her insights about life, poker, meathead, and how calling somebody a donkey can bite you somewhere painful later on down the line.

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When you are playing poker at lower levels (either online or live), the players tend to be either really cheap, inexperienced hobbyists, or fish fresh out of the caviar. Usually these players can be pushed around by more experienced players. Let’s face it, either they are so hyper-aggressive they may as well have a bomb duct taped to their chests or they display the sort of timid nature that is more befitting a chipmunk, or maybe a vegan.

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When you get a name like Hellraiser there is probably a good reason. The man in question was sitting with three other players at a table in the well known Aviation Club in Paris, and while his size and poker face might be a little intimidating, he was quiet and gentle as a lamb, putting the lie to the nickname.

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Controlling the pace is what you want to do at the poker table. If you learn the game of poker, it’s likely you’ve heard this many times. The player who controls the the pace controls the game. They decide how the game plays. They decide how the money goes around. They decide who will win and who will lose.

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There was $765,000 in the prize pool, and two men were left fighting for nearly half of it. Josh Arieh, a pro poker player from Atlanta, Georgia, and Andy Philachack, hailing from Garland, Texas, were the last of 160 players who paid $5000 each to play in the 2007-2008 World Series of Poker Circuit event in New Orleans, officially called the Winter Bayou Poker Challenge.

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Despite cold and rainy weather the poker players came out of the woodwork to take part in the World Series of Poker Atlantic City Circuit Championship. Last year there were 237 players, so this year’s turn out of 244 was an upswing, with a total prize pool of $1,195,600. Last year’s champion Rick Rossetti rubbed shoulders with the likes of TV talk show host Montel Williams, while players with less well known names did their best to outshine them with their poker skills…

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