Nicole Gordon

Absolute Poker has been on a tear as of late, both in expanding their player base as well as their stable of site pros. Every night, over 15,000 players flock to Absolute's wide selection of cash games and tournaments. And if they're lucky, they might just get the chance to test their skills against top professionals and WSOP champions such as Mark Seif, Brandon Cantu, Sean McCabe, Casey Kastle, Lacey Jones and Card Player's 2006 Player of the Year Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi.

Following the history-making WSOP runs of Moneymaker, Raymer and Hachem, it was Team Bodog's Jamie Gold, a previously little-known L.A. tournament regular who broke what many in the poker industry deemed the "Stars Streak;"Poker Stars' once seemingly impenetrable lock on producing WSOP Main Event champions. Decked out in Bodog's signature red and black gear, Gold wrestled that title away nearly four months ago with his superaggressive play and frank table talk at this year's Main Event, vaulting Bodog even further into the media spotlight.

The first night I ever logged on to Ultimate Bet, way back in 2003, I popped open a shorthanded $300-$600 triple draw table and watched as two online unknowns drilled into Phil Hellmuth's bankroll to the tune of $20,000.

Outdrawn again and again off his made eights and nines, Hellmuth went on chip-spewing tilt as he tried to re-raise these young comers out of pots to no avail and went bezerk in the chat box. "Do you know who I am?"

Whenever I catch one of Mansion Poker's slick new TV ads, I'm reminded of that bygone era where poker was an elegant pastime straight out of film noir and James Bond capers, where the men dressed in tuxedos and the women used their wit and beauty to deceive . Though Bond's game was baccarat, his fearless spirit and polished style lives on at Mansion Poker, where the action is plentiful, the games aggressive, and the atmosphere imbued with a touch of class all too often missing in online poker.

We've all read the book. The Bible of poker. The one, the only Super/System. We've watched him win WPT titles and his record-setting tenth WSOP bracelet. We've heard the stories that filter out of the Bellagio's "big game" where he holds court nearly every night of the week and we've all stopped and wondered at some point in our own poker lives what it must have been like to be a shotgun-carrying road gambler in 1950's Texas.

Full Tilt Poker is currently the internet's fastest-growing poker room. When I first signed up for an account back in February 2005, there were perhaps 3000 players at the tables during peak hours. Now, over 25,000 hungry souls try their luck each night. That's a lot of fish in the sea. They have good reason, however, to try and keep swimming- because the games on Full Tilt have never been better.

Full Tilt is the online home to over 40 of the game's top professionals with 52 WSOP bracelets among them.

Moneymaker. Raymer. Hachem. Each a WSOP Main Event champion. Each a multi-millionaire. Each got there by playing on Poker Stars. Though Jamie Gold's WSOP victory may have broken the "Stars Streak" of consecutive Main Event winners, Poker Stars qualifiers made up 18% of this year's record-breaking field of 8,773 players, taking an astounding $6 million in prize money off the final table alone.

Throughout the poker boom, Party Poker has consistently been the internet home for some of poker's fishiest players. Dwarfing other online rooms in terms of sheer size, Party has boasted the internet's largest player base since its inception in 2001, with more than 15,000 ring game and 80,000 tournament players logged in at any given time. With a wide variety of cash game, multi-table tournament, and sit-n-go options, Party has a game for everyone from rank amateurs to high-limit pros.