Tile Tequilla

Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chevy Chase, Madonna, Steve Davis, Nick Leeson, (Sir) Clive Sinclair, Tobey Maguire, Teddy Sheringham, Pamela Anderson, Tile Tequilla, George Clooney, Jimmy White, Heather Graham, Edward Norton, James Woods… the list goes on. Celebs play poker, and hey why not? They’ve got just as much right to enjoy the greatest game on the planet as anyone else, also when you sit down at your screen and play some poker online when you’re playing against Mdamon72 you might JUST be playing against Jason Bourne himself.

The beautiful people of Hollywood and TV-land have plenty of time and plenty of money to while away at Poker (and those actors should be able to bluff with the best of them) they do have a big advantage over us ordinary Joes given special treatment, I doubt they have much trouble getting casino credit either, they sit and play in separate private rooms (to avoid the eyes of the hoi polloi) but sometimes they even go as far as to slum it with the “real” people.

Actors like Matt (Rounders) Damon, George (Oceans 11,12 & 13) Clooney and James (Casino) Woods have a vested interest in learning the game and playing poker, seeing them at the tables is really good PR for their films. Matt Damon played a young poker dude who takes a bad beat going all in against an older pro, and tries to get out of the life. To help promote the film Miramax Studios entered both Damon and co-star Edward Norton in the WSOP Main Event $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold’em in 1998. Early on Damon was sitting on pocket kings but was knocked out (after going all in) by former world champion and poker legend Doyle Brunson who held pocket Aces. Despite (or maybe because of) Damon kept coming back for more, is now a regular entrant in the annual World Series of Poker,  and is considered an excellent poker player. In fact his skills (and his celebrity) are such that there were rumours that he was offered a million endorsements from online gaming giant Nine.com.

Back in the film, Damon’s character takes money out of a poker book called “Super System”, which was written by no other than Doyle Brunson, and it’s a book that his character often quotes from, e.g. “The trick to no limit is to put a man to a decision for all his chips” and “Texas Hold ‘em is the Cadillac of poker games.”

Damon also starred in the a gamblers’ favourite Oceans 11 all about the gang of plucky con men who literally break the bank (vault) at a Vegas casino (we can all dream that dream) his co-stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt were both rumoured to have invested millions of $ in a Las Vegas Complex, I’m sure that makes sound financial sense but they must also love having their own private casino floor to hold their own private poker nights.

The man most often mentioned in connection with Matt Damon; Ben Affleck having had a go at being a leading man, and now carving out a very respectable career as a writer / director (Gone Baby Gone and The Town) but if Hollywood ever stopped employing him he can make a very respectable living as a poker shark Affleck won $356,000 at the California State Poker Championship in 2004 and a $10,000 seat in the 2005 World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship.

That’s just the boys you can’t talk about Celebs playing poker without mentioning Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly is now more interested in poker than acting. Back in June of 2005, she won her first celebrity World Series of Poker bracelet and $8,625 in the Ladies’ No-Limit Hold’em event. Ms Tilly has also won the World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament and competed in Poker Royale, Poker Superstars, and Celebrity Poker Showdown. She’s clearly a Poker babe of the highest order and proves that just because someone is a celeb doesn’t mean they can’t rake a pot like the best of them.

Montesino Casino

The Montesino Casino is hosting the first World Poker Tour (WPT) Vienna event this weekend, starting today, Friday 25th March and will run until 30th March.

The Main Event has €3,500 buy-in and will be televised from after the two starting days. Players will begin with 30,000 in chips and the Blinds at 50-100 with 60-minute levels and a 15-minute break after every two levels. The final table will take place on March 29.

The WPT Vienna is also holding a €10,000 High Roller event which will play out 28th to 30th March.

From Vienna, the WPT heads Easy across the Old World, 500km to be exact, to set up camp in Bratislava, Slovakia. The the Golden Vegas casino will be the host for the WPT Bratislava, the Main Event will feature a €2,500 + 220 buy-in and run from 30th March 30 to 3 April.

Zynga Poker

The hacker who went through Facebook’s instantiation of Zynga Poker‘s software to cyber-steal 400 billion virtual poker chips and later sell them on ebay and through a number of social networks has been given a jail sentence of two years by a British court.

Ashley Mitchell saw his chance and went for it in 2009, hacking into Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker application on Facebook and giving himself 400 billion virtual poker chips. Numerous Facebook accounts were used to store the chips which he then sold on eBay to Zynga poker players for a total of £53,000, or $85,870 at the time.

During the trial, prosecutor Gareth Evans revealed that Mitchell would have earned as much as £184,000, almost $300,000, if he had managed to sell the whole stash. As Zynga Poker players can purchase chips directly from the company, the value of the stolen chips is a cool $12 million if sold at Zynga’s legal prices.

Mitchell was found guilty to four charges of converting criminal property and one count of violating the Computer Misuse Act. Mitchell’s attorney told the court that his client suffered from a gambling addiction during the period that crimes were committed and spent as much as £1,000 per day on gambling sites. Mitchell offered to pay back the money he had made from funds earned selling chips on a similar Facebook play-money application, Gambino Poker.

“People rely on computer systems. Anyone who has managed to get into these systems for their own ends should expect a stiff sentence.” Said Judge Philip Wassail, who added another 7.5 months to the sentence for Mitchell’s crime of hacking local council servers in 2008 in order to modify his personal details.

EPT

The Grand Final of Season 7 of the European Poker Tour (EPT) organised by PokerStars will be played at the Casino Gran Madrid in the Spanish captial for the first time in its brief histsory.

The EPT Grand Final will commence on 7^th May and will run until 12^th May. The five-day festival of poker will feature the €10,000 + €600 Main Event and showcase the the €25,000 High Roller event.

The move from the glamorous, tax-free haven for the super-rich, Monte Carlo, to the Spanish capital, has been explained to the press by EPT chief executive John Duthie: “It is with the greatest pleasure that we are able to announce Casino Gran Madrid as the new venue for the EPT Grand Final. We wanted somewhere new, dynamic and inspiring, and knew that Madrid would tick all the boxes for the travelling poker player, regardless of age or desires. The same familiar team will be running the event and the schedule will, I am sure, provide something for everyone.”

Predictably, or even contractually, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu commented: “I’m excited about the move to Madrid and I’m looking forward to seeing what the capital has to offer. Poker is booming in Spain so you can expect a decent number of local players to attend and ensure a juicy prize pool.”

To leave the directly paid-for poker arena for a moment, Carlos Galbeño, the Mayor of Madrid, Torrelodones, said: “The fact that the Casino Gran Madrid Torrelodones has been chosen to host the Grand Final of the seventh season of the European Poker Tour is great news for the Madrid community. However, it is especially important for our town, because not only will the event have a huge economic impact, it will also allow us to project our city as a prime tourist spot in Europe. I am sure that Torrelodones will rise to the challenge.”

The organisers have estimated that the total profits made from EPT Madrid could be grow to more than 10 million euros; €5 million coming from direct EPT-related expenditure, plus a potential further €5 million to be earned from top-end media exposure such as TV rights and broadcast options.

PokerStars also confirmed the dates for the EPT San Remo. The Italian stop will begin on 27^th April and be played until 3rd May at the Casino San Remo. English professional, Liv Boeree, won last year’s EPT San Remo to waltz home with €1,25 million for out-lasting 1,239 unworthy opponents.

Dusk Till Dawn Poker Tournament

The Dusk Til Dawn Poker Club in Nottinham, England, has raised the number of competitors in tits annual Grand Priz tournament to 1,600 for this year’s event.

The same event held last year attracted 900 players – the maximum capacity at the time – that still holds the record for the largest poker tournament held in the United Kingdom that also had a televised final table with a five-figure first prize. This figure is compared with the European Poker Tour (EPT) London in 2010 that comes a close second with 848 players in the Main Event that saw David Vamplew beat John Juanda to take the title. There is an important difference in that the Dusk Til Dawn Grand Prix has a buy-in of £55, whereas the EPT London has a buy-on £5,000 + £250 and generates a prize pool of £4,112,800 and a first prize of £900,000.

The next Dusk Til Dawn Grand Prix will retain the £55 buy-in but will offer a guaranteed prize pool of £80,000 from the 1,600-player-strong field. The event will get underway on 16 May and will include five equivalents to Day 1. The final table will play out on 22 May. The new structure will mean the first prize will be around the £20,000 mark.

Nowadays, switch on a computer and you can play with almost anyone anywhere from the comfort of your mouse mat and poker schooling comes in large print, easy to read, easy to get hold of books (which arrive at the book store by the truckload), and as book stores are going the way of old poker rooms, most information you want is right at your fingertips (and just a click away). Here for example.

But a big problem with a lot of poker books and other card manuals is they’re meant to turn somebody from an amateur into poker king by chapter 9, because most books were written by professionals who were playing other professionals. That’s all well and good if you move in pro-circles, but some of us do actually have a day job (at least for the minute). Most of us just don’t get to enjoy that sort of competition, most poker hours are spent going mano-a-jerko with drunken jerks or complete amateurs who don’t know when to fold. Once you find yourself in a mire of poker no-nos, rather than poker pros, a strict ideological approach to the cards game won’t work. You need to pick your fights better or adapt your strategy.

By all means follow the writing of David Sklansky and play your poker accordingly, but sometimes different rules apply to wild card opponents.  A stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and those chaotic savants might just do your bankroll some serious damage. Times change players change and the only way to keep up is to play them at their own game, getting back to basics and reading your opponents skill level is as talent you can’t get from a book.

The theory of bluffing is: act (and bet) like you’ve got a good hand, in the hope of scaring off the other players at the table, what could be simpler?

But immediately the trouble (or should that be fun) starts, bet without conviction (or too little cash) and you’ll stink like the liar that you are, bet too much and you could be called by a player who and is actually sitting on a hand as good as what you’re pretending to have.

Something that is as important whether you’re playing for pennies or high stakes has nothing to do with money. The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but a man’s face can act like a shop window display when you’re playing cards.

A twitch, a blink, a stutter or the tiniest fidget could let your opponent know that you got nothing, and suddenly from being in the driving seat and pushing your chips around like toy cars, they guy over the table lays down a real bet. Now you can either fold, knowing your weak hand can’t take it – or sound off like you’ve got a pair, and push that bet!

But when his chips hit the pot, did you twitch, did you blink, did you fidget – because if you did, he’s going only going to bet more and now you’re in trouble.

Still thousands of dollars have been won on bluffs, so let’s leave the last word to Dragline, “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

Win Mini Cooper at Ladbrokes Poker

Ladbrokes Poker are offering a chance to win to win a brand new Mini Cooper worth a £14,000!

It is very easy to win Mini Cooper, Just Join Ladbrokes Poker, make your first deposit and that is it.

How to participate?

Regardless of whether you are a newbie or a poker pro, it’s a great chance for you to try out online poker at Ladbrokes. For all you new customers out there, all you need to do is deposit a minimum of £5 and you have a chance to win a fabulous Mini Cooper. Just follow these 3 simple steps before 6th March 2010:

Step 1:
DOWNLOAD LADBROKES POKER NOW and follow the on-screen prompts to download and install the poker software.

Step 2:
Once installed, double-click the Ladbrokes Poker icon on your desktop to launch the software. Then click on Register and Real Play to open a new poker account.

Step 3:
Deposit some cash (minimum requirement of £5) and enter your details in the claim form and you’ll go into the draw.

For Existing Customers…

Do not fret all you existing Ladbrokes Poker customers, all you need to do is earn yourself 50 Player Points between 21st February – 6th March and fill in the claim form below and you’re well on the way to winning a funky Mini Cooper… Beep, beep…..

Virgin Poker Room Review

Virgin Poker is the latest venture of the flamboyant British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who owns a chain of industries including the Virgin Galatics which promises to start regular space flight.

Virgin Poker uses Boss Media network and is one of the leading online poker rooms in the UK. Virgin Poker offers a grand selection of ring games and tournaments, but the most sought after are the sit and go tournaments in various stake limits. Also, as is common with everything that has to do with Branson, Virgin Poker too offers some of the grandest promotions with players being pampered with handsome rewards and other huge bounties. There is a lot that players can look forward to as reward after reward begins to unravel as players get more and more deeply involved in the poker games available at Virgin Poker.

A poker school is also available for those who wish to learn the fundamentals of the game. There is extensive information available on the poker site that novices can refer to. Apart from the written matter, there are video tutorials available too that show pros in action, so that beginners can watch how they play and pick up some of the strategies used in poker. Also amateurs can participate in the live poker classes that take place thrice a week. When playing at these classes, beginners are watched over by a pro, who offers tips and advice and points out the mistakes so that the new player can improve on his or her playing strategies. So even if you are just a beginner or have no idea of how to play poker, you can easily learn how to, through this helpful poker school offered by Virgin Poker.

Virgin Poker Bonuses

Virgin Poker offers massive £1000 sign up bonus to new poker players.

Virgin Poker Bonus Code: BPSR

You must enter above code to claim the £1000 sign up bonus.

Tournaments

Virgin Poker offers some of the unique tournaments which are not available in other poker rooms.

Freerolls

New player freeroll that is offered to all new members who have signed up at Virgin Poker in the last 14 days. The freeroll tournament is held every Saturday and offers a cash prize of €1,000. It offers a great opportunity to new poker players to build a bankroll for themselves. Then there are the daily multi-table guaranteed tournaments that take place throughout the day and add up to a whopping €3,000,000 in prize pools every month. The interesting part of these tournaments is that Virgin Poker offers to make up for the difference if the pot does not reach the guaranteed amount. Since there is a series of tournaments available around the clock, these guaranteed tournaments offer the players a good chance to build a huge bankroll.

Also available are micro-guaranteed tournaments that take place every evening and offer a low buy-in of €1.50 + €0.15. The guaranteed pot is of €75. Virgin also offers several daily freerolls with cash prizes of €25 and €100. On the last Tuesday of each month a €10,000 freeroll is held that rewards regular players at Virgin Poker. In order to qualify for this freeroll, you must play a certain number of raked hands in a month.

Headhunter Tournament

Every Sunday, Virgin Poker hosts the Headhunter tournament, which is a €10,000 guaranteed tournament with a buy-in of €30+ €3. The total buy-in is divided as 75% going into the guaranteed prize pool while the remaining 25% is an added value guaranteed prize pool. This bounty is divided equally among the players. The aim of this tournament is to knock out as many players as you can without getting knocked off yourself. For every opponent that you knock out, you receive €7.50. The top 45 players remaining will be awarded the bounty prize. Players can either directly buy-in to the tournament or win a seat through one of the many satellite tournaments that are held throughout the day. It also offers players a selection of tournament locations in Austria, which they can choose according to their wish. The offered prize is €3,000 that the player can use to buy-in to an Austrian tournament of his or her choice. The available locations are Bregenz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Velden, Graz and Baden.

You can also qualify for these tournaments via satellites with buy-ins of €300 + €30 held every four weeks. Besides, there are the daily satellites that run through out the day and have buy-ins of €3 + 30c and €5 + 50c. The winners of these satellites then qualify for the weekly €32 + €3 that are held every Sunday. All the winners of this Sunday satellite are those that qualify for the final €300 + €30 tournament. Players can also qualify for the Irish Poker Open, which is a major live poker event, something that most skilled players look forward to competing at. The event offers over a million euros in prize pool through a €320 buy-in for every €5,000 that goes into the pot. The finals of these tournaments will be held on 31st January, 21st January and 14th March 2010.

Satellite tournaments played at Virgin Poker can also qualify you for the Irish Poker Open. To qualify for this grand event, players can play daily satellite tournaments of €2 + €4 with winners getting to the Weekly Sunday Finals €35 tournament, which further have winners going to the monthly finals. Also offered are V*Roll tournaments that are satellites held every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday with the finals taking place on the last Sunday of each month. This is a special tournament offered for collecting V*Points. So no matter which tournament you play for, you will find them all very rewarding as well as exciting to play for.

Promotions

Virgin Poker offers not one but several interesting promotions, as it knows how to pamper its loyal patrons. To start with, all new players who sign up for an account at Virgin Poker are offered a 200% bonus of up to £1,000 when they make their first deposit. In other words, Virgin Poker will double the amount that you deposit into your account the very first time. In order to avail yourself of this bonus, you need to play real money games. The bonus is released in increments of £10 for every £50 that you generate through raked hands. You are offered 60 days to clear this bonus, so the more ring games and tournaments that you play, the faster you shall be able to accumulate enough V*Points to acquire the bonus sum.

There is a V*Points Race, where the top players are awarded added bonuses of up to €5,000 for collecting the most points by playing real money games regularly throughout the month. A recent inclusion is the MTT Leaderboard reward, where the foremost 100 players can collect up to €20,000 every month by playing in real money tournaments and earning points for every tournament attempted. The programme is valid from January 2010 to June 2010 and at the end of each month the top 5 players will be selected to play a final €10,000 MTT in July. Then there is the 2 Billionth Hand reward where players having played raked hands above 1,970,000,000 will be entitled to a cash reward. The player who reaches the 2 billion mark will get a reward of €25,000 while €25,000 will be distributed among the rest of the players, which will be calculated according to the stake limit. Also these players shall be entitled to a €4,000 freeroll that will be held sometime later.

From February to April 2010, Virgin Poker will offer 6 sit and go tournaments with tournaments taking place at the first week and last week of each month and the total prize pool for these tournaments will amount to €90,000. Also there is a reward for players at the €10 Sit and Go Jackpot tournament where a player accomplishing six consecutive wins will be awarded €10,000 while the following two players will get a consolation prize of €200. The Final Table Return rewards players who win a seat to a live poker event through a satellite tournament. In this promotion, the player who acquires this seat is rewarded with a seat to a live tournament the following year with all expenses met along with travel and accommodation.

Magic Hands Promotion

The Magic Hands promotion offers €25,000 in cash prizes starting February 2010 until this amount is exhausted. This scheme is applicable in No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Texas Holdem in stake limits of 12c/25c and Limit Texas Holdem Poker of 25c/50c stake limits. If you lose a hand with 3 pocket aces, Virgin Poker will offer you €100, but if you win, there is no end to how much you can earn. There is a €10,000 monthly freeroll that is held on the last Tuesday of every month and players who have played at least 1500 raked hands in the last 30 days are eligible for this freeroll. Apart from this, you have the beat the bubble promotion where you can request your buy-in when you bubble in a guaranteed tournament.  

Bad Beat Jackpot

A bad beat jackpot is cash tables of 50c/€1 and higher to players who lose with a 4 of a kind and 6’s or better. 70% of the bad beat jackpot is paid out with 50% given to the losing hand, 25% to the winning hand and the remaining 25% shared among the remaining players, but there must be at least four players at the table. Also there is a daily €25 freeroll that is open to all players, but it is especially great for new players.

Referral Program

An existing members can introduce new players and gets 1,000 V*Points when the referred friend rakes £30 and the new member can also get 1,000 V*Points on another rake of the same amount.

What are V*Points and how can you acquire them?

V*Points are awarded to players as part of the loyalty program when they play cash games, multi-table and single-table tournaments at Virgin Poker. They can, not only earn points at Virgin Poker but at Virgin Casino and Virgin Bingo too. V*Points that the players collect can then be redeemed for wonderful bounties such as Virgin Atlantic flying miles, Virgin Vouchers, cash credits and other gifts.

There are other ways of earning V*Points besides the cash games and tournaments. One such opportunity is the V*Roll Satellite, which takes place every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday where players can earn 25,000 V*Points. However, in order to qualify for the V*Roll you must play 25 raked hands on the day of the tournament and the day before that. Also there is a final monthly V*Roll where players can earn 100,000 V*Points for which the top ten players of each V*Roll Satellite tournament are selected.

With V*Points players can also earn other bounties such as the V*Points Table tournaments. There are three such freeroll tournaments held every month with a cash prize amounting to €3,500. 100 players with the most number of V*Points are entitled to enter these free tournaments. Apart from this the top 50 players in the V*Points Race will share a cash prize of €5,000 each month.

VIP Club

V*Points can bring in a lot of benefits and those who play regularly at Virgin Poker are enrolled for the VIP Club loyalty programme where they can double their points. Every cash game that you play fetches you V*Points and depending on the frequency of the games you play and the points you have collected, you are rewarded handsomely by the Virgin Poker clubs. You can be a part of the Aces Club by earning 2000V*Points in a month. Once you have accomplished this, Virgin Poker will double your points for that month and the following two months.

Kings Club

Similarly, there is the Kings Club, where players who have collected 1000 or more V*Points can be enrolled. Here the points collected will be increased by 50% of the total points earned for that month and the next two months that follow it. However any V*Points earned through promotional tournaments will not be considered for availing the benefits offered by the Virgin VIP Clubs. In order to keep tab of your points, it is advisable to check the V*Table for your latest statistics.

Paddy Power Poker today congratulates Phil ‘flukesfla’ Flavin on his $110,000 Sit’n’Go Jackpot triumph, the biggest jackpot prize ever won by a Paddy Power Poker player.  Phil captured this massive prize by finishing in first place in six consecutive Fort Knox Jackpot Sit’n’Go tournaments, each with a buy-in of $55.

The first tournament was played during the evening of Friday, February 19th, with the sixth finished in the early hours of Saturday morning.  The Fort Knox progressive jackpot starts at $50,000 and gets bigger and bigger each week until it is won.

Phil is a long-time Paddy Power Poker player and well-known on the Irish poker circuit; he recently won an Irish Open 2010 package on Paddy Power Poker and therefore will be competing for the €100,000 Sole Survivor prize at Ireland’s biggest tournament, in addition to playing for the Irish Open title and the estimated €2,500,000 prizepool.

“I’m delighted to have awarded Phil with this massive sum,” said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for Paddy Power Poker.  “Taking down six consecutive Sit’n’Go tournaments is no mean feat, especially when you play all six of them on the trot!  Hopefully we’ll have another few jackpot winners to congratulate in the next few months; the prizes are ready to be awarded!”