37 Invites to 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship

NBC has sent out 17 more invites to join the 20 already invited to the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship that begins Feb 28th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The tournament is a $20,000 buy-in invitation only event that runs a bracket style system (like NCAA basketball tournament) and will be contested over a span of three days. The overall winner will claim $500,000 and the heads up title that proves they bested one of the most difficult fields of professional poker players assembled into one tournament.

So far, first time invites are 2007 Bluff magazine’s Player of the Year, Bill Edler, Card Player magazine’s Player of the Year, David “The Dragon” Pham and Kenny Tran who had great runs at the WSOPE Event and the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. WSOP Main Event.

The 37 invitees so far are: (these players have received invites but none have yet to be confirmed)

Doyle Brunson
Shannon Elizabeth
Annie Duke
Johnny Chan
Chris Ferguson
Antonio Esfandiari
Jamie Gold
Ted Forrest
Jennifer Harman
Barry Greenstein
Howard Lederer
Phil Ivey
Jonathan Little
Erick Lindgren
Scotty Nguyen
Mike Matusow
Brian Townsend
Gavin Smith
Jerry Yang
Paul Wasicka
Chad Brown
David Benyamine
Freddy Deeb
Todd Brunson
Eli Elezra
Bill Edler
John Juanda
Clonie Gowen
Daniel Negreanu
Phil Laak
Greg Raymer
David Pham
Erik Seidel
Kenny Tran
David Williams
Vanessa Rousso
Shawn Sheikhan

Some notable guys missing from this list include: Phil Gordon, Sammy Farha, Chris Moneymaker.

There are 24 more invites that should be sent by the end of the month. The final three spots will go to players from online and Caesars Palace qualifiers.

Cheating Scandal Investigation at Absolute Poker Coming to an End

When Absolute Poker conducted an internal investigation, it found that an employee had breached the security system to play unfairly on the site for a period of 40 days.

PokerListings article

A while back a user account at Absolute Poker cheated other players by being able to see the other players hole cards. It was determined that this user account was from within Absolute. So someone was using this account to swindle other players. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission checked into this and reviewed hand histories from this player. The investigation is done and the commission will be issuing a ruling soon.

Major search engines settle with DoJ over Gambling Advertising

Article from Pokernews.com

Online Portals Settle with DOJ over Gambling Ads
December 20, 2007
Amy Calistri

In 2004, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google stopped running advertisements for online casinos under pressure from the US Department of Justice, but apparently that didn't go far enough to quell the DOJ's ire. Yesterday the DOJ announced that the three search engine companies had agreed to pay a total of $31.5 million to settle allegations that they "aided and abetted" illegal gambling under their former ad policies. Under the terms of their settlements, the companies neither admit nor contest any charges.

Microsoft has agreed to pay a total of $21 million, $4.5 million of which is a direct forfeiture to the government. The International Center for Missing and Exploited Children will receive $7.5 million from Microsoft, and the remaining $9 million will go to a public-service advertising campaign aimed at college-level or younger people, with the message that online-gambling enterprises are illegal. Yahoo will forfeit $3 million to Uncle Sam and contribute $4.5 million to the public service ads. Google's share of the settlement is $3 million.

These settlements are not the first time media companies have settled with the US relative to online gambling advertising. In 2003, the Disney Channel forfeited millions of advertising dollars associated with dot-com online gambling companies. In 2006, The Sporting News agreed to a $7.2 million settlement with the DOJ relative to their print, web, and radio gambling advertisements.

The recent deal with the three internet companies was announced by Catherine Hanaway, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Hanaway is fast becoming the Department of Justice's poster girl in its battle against online gambling. Hanaway represented the DOJ during last month's House Judiciary Hearing on Online Gambling. It was also Hanaway's office that settled a civil case against BetOnSports last year whereby the company agreed to stop accepting bets from US residents.

Card Player launching a new poker room - Spade Club

It looks like Card Player is finally getting into the online poker market. They appear to be a few years late. Although, they have a new concept. Pay $19.99 a month to join and play in as many freerolls as you can to win $100,000 prize money. I'm not sure if this will work considering if you don't play $20 in tournaments a month, it won't be worth it. It's tough enough to get people to play at your poker room, how are you going to make them pay $20 a month and play?

I'm going to guess that they'll need at least a year to build up their client base, but they better have deep pockets to last that long. The main goal of these poker rooms is to build that base so you can make money off the rake. They must be banking on their reader base to sign up for this service. I personally don't like it and it'll be interesting to see how this business model will last.


Card Player Launches SpadeClub Beta Today

Full Article Here

BY: BOB PAJICH | bob.pajich@cardplayer.com

Players Can Win Their Share of $20,000 Over the Course of the Beta Period
Screenshot of a SpadeClub tableToday, Card Player is launching a beta version of its new online poker room SpadeClub, which, once out of the beta phase, will be a subscription-based poker community wherein members will play for $100,000 in cash prizes each month.

Sign-up is free during the approximately two-month-long beta phase. During this phase, we invite Card Player readers to sign-up for free, play in any of the weekday and weekend freerolls, and win their share of the $20,000 that will be given away during this period. The only thing we ask the beta players to do is give feedback about the site and the software.

Click here or visit www.SpadeClub.com to sign up.

The freerolls are scheduled to take place each and every day. A $75 daily freeroll runs each weekday at 6 p.m. PT. The winner of each one receives $25, and the top nine entrants get paid.

A $500 freeroll takes place every Saturday at 3 p.m. PT. The winner of this event receives $200, and the top 50 entrants receive money.

And on each Sunday during the beta-testing period, a $1,000 freeroll is scheduled wherein $300 goes to the winner and the top 50 entrants also get paid.

After beta testing is over, membership to SpadeClub costs $19.99 a month. Members will have access to a monthly slate of tournaments where they’ll play for their share of $100,000. SpadeClub is different from a typical online site in that all of the tournaments are freerolls with no cash buy-ins.

Again, visit SpadeClub.com, sign-up, and get in on the ground floor of this exciting new poker site. There’s free money to be won out there, so go and get it.

Don't forget to check out Boogster for great online poker deals and promotions.

PokerStars now supports MAC users!

Mac users can now play at PokerStars!

PokerStars are trying to jump on the increasing MAC user base. They now offer MAC users the opportunity to play at this online poker room. The software is still in the beta test stage, but it is almost fully functional.

To download the new Mac software, simply go to PokerStars.com, click on “Poker Room” and then “Getting Started.”

Make sure to use the Boogster.com link so you get rewarded for it.

Software Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later

Hardware Requirements:

Minimum system configuration
· PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel Mac
· 512MB RAM
· 1024x768 screen resolution or higher
· 60MB free disk space
· 56k dial-up Internet connection

Recommended system configuration
· PowerPC G4 1Ghz or faster, PowerPC G5 or Intel Mac
· 1024MB RAM
· 1024x768 screen resolution or higher
· 100MB free disk space
· 128kbps or faster DSL or Cable Internet connection

The Associated Press: Poker Player Reese Dies at 56

The Associated Press: Poker Player Reese Dies at 56

Chip Reese wasn't see on television a lot but he's regarded as one of the best cash game players by a lot of his poker peers.

Brian Townsend aka sbrugby

Brian Townsend, aka sbrugby (online screen name), is probably one of the best known online poker players. He isn't known by everyone because he doesn't usually play in the WSOP. In my opinion, those games are usually too low limit for him and he's probably a much better no-limit hold'em cash game or omaha player. He was on the third season on High Stakes Poker and I thought he was one of the best players there. He would show up with $1 million in cash, while the rest of the table has $500k or less. He would intimidate the table because he really didn't care about losing money. He made a lot of good bluffs, good tough calls and made good laydowns against top players like Negreanu, Brunson, and Farha.

Here's a good excerpt from an interview on Cardplayer about him:

BT: You know, people always talk about that, and I really haven’t noticed it, yet. I’ve made more money since the Act was passed than before. So, I didn’t really notice that; there are still tons of terrible players playing poker, and I always think there will be. It just kind of draws them in. People have that petrifying fear that, “Oh, the games are drying up, they’re so much tougher.” That’s just not the case, in my opinion.

Full Interview from CardPlayer here