Online Poker

During the month of March, a significant amount of money was being wagered at different sports books around Las Vegas. While most of the gambling world focused on the March madness, NCAA basketball tournament, some of the biggest online cash games continued to unfold on a daily basis over at Full Tilt Poker. The "durrrr" challenge revved back up after a two-week hiatus while the usual cast of sharks lurked around the $500-$1,000 pot-limit Omaha and $500-$1,000 half pot-limit hold 'em and pot-limit Omaha tables.

While most normal people kicked off 2009 with typical New Year's Resolutions, such as quitting smoking, losing weight, or stop chasing gutshots, Tom "Durrrr" Dwan began January with one of the most daring and risky challenges to date. Durrrr is laying 3-to-1 odds that he can beat anyone in the world heads up over 50,000 hands in either no-limit
hold'em or pot-limit Omaha.

In my first column of 2009, I thought I'd take a break, no matter how abbreviated it might turn out to be, from the scandals of the online poker world. Starting off the New Year with some positive news about an online poker site is a welcome respite, and PokerStars gave me the information with which to do it.

The PokerStars.com Caribbean Adventure (PCA) at Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas becomes a tropical Mecca for poker players every January. The best of the best in the world converge onto tiny Paradise Island to compete in the largest non-WSOP prize pool. Rounders from all over the planet battled it out at the 2009 PCA. A horde of online qualifiers, particularly the premier online poker pros in the world, made up the bulk of the 1,347 player field. An amateur player and student from Canada named Poorya Nazari won the $10,000 buy-in main event championship.

Online player Tom "Durrr" Dwan challenged anyone to play him heads up on Full Tilt Poker. Dwan is so confident that he's laying 3-to-1 odds to anyone taking up his challenge.

In a statement made to Bluff Magazine, Durrr stated:

When Anurag Dikshit, a principal shareholder of PartyGaming Plc, pled guilty in mid-December to charges under the 1961 Wire Act-the first time this Act was applied to any form of Internet gambling beyond sports betting-he angered a lot of former friends, colleagues, and industry competitors, and in the process, may have set a dangerous precedent.

The Iron Man promotion at Full Tilt Poker rewards their frequent players. You have to play nearly every day during a month to qualify for the highest level of Iron Man. While you don't have to play daily to meet the lowest requirement, you still have to dedicate a good amount of time at the tables to qualify. Just the other day, I realized that I had achieved Iron Man status for a fourth consecutive month. My initial reaction was, "Man, I've been playing a lot of online poker!"

This is the second in a three-part series containing highlights of my interview with Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Tokwiro Enterprises, the company that owns Absolute Poker and UltimateBet. Both online poker sites have undergone investigations pertaining to insider cheating, of which the one involving UltimateBet continues with no resolution.

Who says lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place? Yuval "yuvee04" Bronshtein accomplished an impressive feat that might never be matched, when he won two FTOPS events... in the same day. Bronshtein is a young player originally from Dunwoody, GA. He made some waves at the 2007 WSOP when he made a final table and finished third in the $2,000 pot-limit hold'em event. He took home over $100,000 during his first WSOP cash. I took note of him for the first time At the Empire Casino in London during the 2007 WSOP-Europe.

For over two decades, NBC locked up Thursday nights with some of the most critically acclaimed television programs of my generation, such as Cheers, Friends, or Seinfeld. Everyone knew that if it was Thursday, you were watching NBC. Today's equivalent in the online poker realm has to be PokerStars and their dominance of Sunday nights with their popular tournament series including the Sunday Million. If it's a Sunday, then you must be playing on PokerStars.