Tony G takes down Moscow MillionsTony G

Tony G takes down Moscow Millions

Tony G. took down the first prize at Moscow Millions on Sunday and immediately donated the entire first place prize money to a Moscow orphanage. The Moscow Millions tournament was beset by problems including Russian licensing issues and the loss of the main sponsor. Despite that the tournament boasted a prize pool in excess of half a million dollars and was a resounding success.

Tony G (Antanas Gouga)arrived late due to a minor medical issue and then lost a large portion of his stack early before making an impressive comeback that pushed him into the chiplead when the final table was seated. Tony is often associated with the "Bad Boy" image; like Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, John-Robert Bellande and others; but in Tony's case it is clearly part of his game only. The image works well at the poker table but is just strategy.

I have worked for Tony, including daily coverage of his play at the 2006 WSOP, I can tell you that he is not only a great interview; he also would gave me tips on other hands and incidents at tables around him. It was always a pleasure to work for and with Tony. This is the second big prize win that Tony was donated this year; he did the same with his first place cash in Singapore earlier. completely class act for a 'bad boy'.

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Poker Forum Invitation

Just another quick reminder that you are all invited to join us in a new Poker Forum, just follow the link and join the conversation.

There is a forum for New Players and one for Advanced Questions. We have a Hold'em Forum, a Omaha Forum and one for All the Other Games too.

We even have a Forum for Tournament questions and another for Online Poker discussion.

There is a forum for Poker on TV and one for questions and commments about the Poker Tours (WSOP, WPT etc.)

Wanna know what is going on in Parliament or Congress that affects your favorite game? Check out the Poker and Politics section. And, of course, we had to have a Bad Beat Forum, you gotta have somewhere to tell that story.

Perhaps the best place to start is in our most popular forum: Poker News & Poker Noize.

Everyone is welcome, the conversation is going on right now.

Las Vegas
Holy crap. I just tried calling the Imperial Palace for my room reservations and had some problems so I just chose the 800 number on the bottom of the web site.Whoops - thats the 24 hour hot line for gamblers with problems.
All Africa Poker Tournament

The winner of the All Africa Poker Tournament wins a Million Rand and a seat in the World Series of Poker main event. Last year that title and that WSOP seat went to Raymond Rahme and he went on to place 3rd at the WSOP and add $3 Million US to his poker bankroll.

Raymond did not repeat his win at the AAPT this past week, he did place in the money and win 80,000 Rand. The new All Africa Champion is Greg Ronaldson, who at 24 years of age has ambitions next year to repeat or better the outstanding performance at the 2007 World Series of Poker of previous champion Rahme.

The All Africa event has held at Piggs Peak Casino in Swaziland; billed as the richest poker tournament on the Africa continent, this year three WSOP seats were awarded. Second place finisher, Michael Simoes will also be traveling to Las Vegas next summer, as will third place winner Daniel Callighan. The rest of the televised final table included Peter Kortleve, Jaco Mouton, Jaco Storm, Clyde Sham, Barry Shum, Hennie Appel and Andre Clark.

There is one more chance to win the All Africa title and participate in the 2008 WSOP, as the 12th edition of the tournament will be taking place February 28 to March 2, 2008 at Piggs Peak Casino.

How Does the World View Poker Players from the USA

Several poker sites in the EU and around the world have commenting recently about the lack of US poker players on international websites. Since the UIGEA passed the US Congress over a year ago the number of poker players in the United States with access to international online poker sites has dropped and continues to fall.

The fact is that the US market still makes up a large majority of players but that number is dropping while numbers in our countries continue to rise. While it would seem a balance has been reached with players in and out of the market. The non-US sites note that players from the United States tend to have more disposable income to invest in the game and they have more consistent access to the internet.

The regulations to stop poker deposits from being made are currently being semi-enforced in the US makes the market going forward unclear. If these regulations are legislatively sustained and poker players in the US find it more difficult to make deposits, such problems will affect poker player's bankrolls worldwide. The global pool of poker dollars has been diminished by the US Federal Laws and do not seem to be recovering with new sources in other countries.

Indeed some localities are pressing laws similar to those proposed in the United States. If you live in any country or provence considering such restrictive legislation; learn this lesson from the US poker players: Speak up early and continue to make your displeasure with any poker restrictive legislation. It is easier to stop a law then it is to change it once it gets on the record.

Chip Reese Remembrance

There will be dozens if not hundreds of articles and blogs commemorating the passing of David "Chip" Reese. I would like to do something a bit different and give you my most recent memory of a truly great poker player.

This past summer during the World Series of Poker, one of my assignments was to follow three or four players during the course of a tournament and write a running blog of their impressions. As you might imagine, lots of pros are eager to do this at the beginning of a tournament but if the day does not go well, they are less interested in talking to someone from the media late in the day as their chipstack shrinks.

One day I was working with Chip, which meant passing by his table a couple of times an hour to watch for a few hands and then catching him at each break and getting his take on the previous two levels of the tournament. Chip, always the professional, gave me great stuff no matter how his tournament was going and he presented the information in near perfect copy. He knew what my job was and he delivered his thoughts on the tournament so that my editing job would be minimal.

Beyond that Chip also knew that both of our jobs could get boring, so after the printable blog material I would turn off the digital recorder and he would tell me about his current table; who were the weak players, who might be on tilt and even how he was going to attack certain players and avoid others. We both knew this was not for immediate internet release. Imagine watching a professional poker player during a tournament and knowing how he intends to play each of the other players at the table and then watching him execute that game plan. Truly a unique experience.

I like Chip Reese, most of people in the poker world do and that is a sentence that need not be placed in the past tense.

PokerStars Sunday Warm-up now $500K Guaranteed

RFID Poker Tables

I recently got to see a beta-version of yet another Poker Table of the Future. I am not talking about the electronic, dealer-less tables; that is another story. What I saw was one company's latest version of the smart RFID recognition table.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. These are widely used in retail and other commercial applications; you have seen those hand held scanners in the grocery store; that's RFID technology. When it comes to poker tables, however, the solution has been elusive. For more on RFID follow this link.

OK, why do we want RFID tables? Well the key is the chips. We measure poker success by pushing little clay chips around the table but...
-they get miscounted
-they get lost
-they changed stacks between hands (cheating)
-they get removed from play and show up on other tables (cheating)
-they disappear during breaks (leprechauns)
-they get miscounted by staff (2006 WSOP two million chip mistake)

Poker Itch
"Luck is nothing but probability taken personally."UnknownIs there anything better than a Thanksgiving break? I think not.A few Guinness-fueled, tangential quick thoughts before getting back to business tomorrow.First off, I live on a 100+ acre horse farm. We have five mailboxes at the end of our very long driveway for the assorted families who live here. Thankfully over time, when I'm
National Poker League Vegas Open Championship

The National Poker League Vegas Open ended last night with Allen Cunningham on top of the poker heap at the Venetian in Las Vegas. December is generally a 'stay at home' month for poker professionals and since most of them live in Las Vegas, a $15,000 buy-in event like the NPL final tends to draw a small but very experienced group of players. Add to that the luxury of playing in the room at the Venetian and you have a unique tournament.

The NPL is a televised event with the NPL promoters cobbling together a network of television stations around the world for their tour. What was to be a three day event turned into a four day tournament when union rules caused the television crews to go off the clock early Thursday morning. Coming back for the final day were three players: David Singer with over a million in chips, Antonio Salorio at close to a half million and Cunningham short-stacked at 252,000.

The chip lead was up and down all day until the dinner break when David and Allen had been heads up for nearly two hours and took a much needed break, only to have the tournament end on the first hand post-supper. Allen caught an ace for a broadway straight and David held the short end of the straight to a 9. Allen takes home $325,000 for the win, with David winning $203,000 for the runner-up spot.

Next the players move across the Las Vegas Strip to continue play in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond Poker Classic at Bellagio.

David Sklansky is Losing His Mind
I'm not sure what's going with Mr. David Sklansky over at 2+2 but he's clearly off his meds or deeply missing his special David Sklansky forum that was closed a while back.Maybe the holidays made him lonely?And while David just posted his THIRD THREAD on Kenny Tran ranking online players versus B&M, which in and of itself is tedious and trollish, I just found this wonderful post concerning
EU Attacks U.S. Online Gambling Legislation
Last year, the government all but closed down the market for online gambling in the U.S., a move that shut down several gaming companies across the globe. The U.S. used to account for approximately half of all Internet gambling revenues, it's unclear what that number is now, a year after restrictions were placed before credit card companies and online payment services. Foreign outlets were also


Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Poker/~3/147246522/search-free-online-poker.php

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