Rake Brain letting players play the tournament for free

Currently, RakeBrain.com is offering their players an opportunity to partake in the 2011 WSOP Main event absolutely free of charge. There are three seats in total on offer, and the lucky winners of each of these seats will have their airfare to the event, and their accommodation during the event itself, covered for them by RakeBrain.com

So, how do players take advantage of this fantastic offer? First, those who are not currently an existing member of RakeBrain.com must sign up and register with the site between now and May 31 2011. Then, to enter the competition, players must use their RakeBrain.com account to rake $1 minimum before May 31 2011.

For each dollar raked, players will receive one ticket. Players will also receive a ticket for registering with the WSOP Main Event giveaway promotion.

On June 1 each of these tickets will be entered into a draw; the players who are lucky enough to be drawn will be granted sears in freeroll Full Tilt Poker Event.

This event will take place on June 5, and its top six players will progress to the final stage of the competition.

At the final stage, these six players will play against six RakeBrain House players. The three players who finish the highest will receive the free WSOP Main Event seats, thus enabling them to compete in this amazing high profile tournament.

World Poker Tour

The playing field of this year’s $10k World Poker Tour Hollywood Poker Open in Lawrenceburg, Indiana is (97) considerably smaller than that of last year (143).

However, in among the competition’s diminished playing field sits Erik Seidel: the current all-time money winner leader and member of the poker Hall of Fame. And with the 97 playing field know reduced to 9, the experienced and legendary Seidel has put himself in an excellent position to take first place and collect the $273,664 prize money.

The event, which commenced on Saturday, is currently led by Steve Barshak with a stack of 601,000. William Reynolds, the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure High Roller victor, currently sits in second place with a 541,000 stack. Seidel trails Reynolds marginally with a stack of 526,000; the former eight WSOP bracelets and former WPT title-holder is clearly still very much in contention.  

From 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, all 9 competitors will play until a T.V. table playing field of six remains. Then, on Wednesday, the winner of the World Poker Tour Hollywood Poker Open will be decided.

The sponsorship deal marks a significant coup for Bet-at-Home, for the ATP Hamburg Championship is one of the most highly regarded and well-attend events on the tour.

Indeed, the tournament’s high prize money — in this year’s tournament over €1,000,000 is there for the taking — often attracts a high quality player-field. Consequently, this elite player field attracts a large number of spectators.

This year’s Hamburg ATP event will commence on 18 July 2011 at Rothenbaum clay courts. Its final will take place on July 24 at the huge 13,200 capacity Rothenbaum centre-court (the largest centre court in Germany).

In total, the tournament will see 48 players — including Thomaz Bellucc, Andrey Golubev, Nicolas Almagro, Jurgen Melzer — compete for the men’s singles title, while the doubles title will be contested by a 16-strong playing field.

Thanks to developments in software made by International Game Technology (IGT), an online casino games and systems industry leader, this classic, straightforward and enjoyable game can now be played on smartphones and other mobile touch-screen operated devices. These include the Apple iPad and iPhone and also many Android devices.

IGT’s software allows player’s to bet as little as £0.25 and as much as £50 on each hand. Upon winning a hand, players are given the opportunity to play the new “Double-Up Gamble” feature. Here, the player may select “collect,” “black” or “red.” Making the correct selection will both double player’s winnings and offer another opportunity to play. 

IGT are extremely pleased with their product. The company’s Vice-President, Alex Kelly, believes the Jacks or Better smartphone product will “add significant value” to the “mobile portfolio” of any online casino operator.

Paddy Power Casino is one online operator who has added Jacks or Better to their stable of games. At Paddy Power currently, a Royal Flush in Jacks or Better pays out £4,000, while any two pairs equals double pay.

Jonathan Duhamel

Jonathan Duhamel made his first ever visit to the Chinese gambling capital Macau this week.

The 2010 World Series Poker Main Event champion travelled to Macau to compete in Day 1C of the Macau Millions at the Casino Grand Lisboa. Duhamel competed alongside 182 other players, and the young champion from Canada received a great deal of attention from the local Macau entrants.

Indeed, the manager of PokerStars Macau Marketing, Fred Leung, said that within just “10 seconds” of Duhamel’s arrival at his table in the PokerStars Macau poker room, local players were greeting and asking to be photographed with the Canadian poker star.

One lucky player even collected a signed Jonathon Duhamel PokerStars Macau jacket after beating the WSP champ in a coin toss (the jacket was bounty which had been previously placed on Duhamel’s head).

The Macau Millions is an event which guarantees HKD $1,500,000, and its organisers are hoping to make the event the first tournament in Asia to surpass 1,000 competitors. So far, 412 players have registered to play, and the tournament looks on track to surpass 2010’s record of 741 entrants.

Thursday will see the HKD €2,200 Day 1D event commence. The event will finish on April 10.

World Poker Tour

Next month’s World Poker Tour World Championship series at the Las Vegas Bellagio resort will run concurrently with another WPT hosted tournament at the same Bellagio resort: a Super High Roller Event with a recorded breaking $100,000 buy-in.

The WPT Championship runs from May 14-20, and the Super High Roller Event has been scheduled for May 18-19 with the aim of attracting the big name-high rollers who are already in town for the WPT Championship.

Indeed, WPT CEO, Steve Heller, explained that running the two tournaments concomitantly will help create a real challenge and chance for the “world’s elite players” to really “show their mettle.”

The high rollers are sure to step up to the plate and meet this challenge; the $100,000 buy-in is the largest in any WPT event thus far and will certainly attract some of the biggest names in competition at WPT Championship.

In fact, Erik Seidel, who recently became the all-time leading money winner for live tournament poker after putting in some excellent displays at the NMB National Heads-Up, the LA Poker Classic’s $25k High Roller, and the Aussie Million, has already confirmed that he will be taking part in the $100k Super High Roller Event.

iGaming Super Show 2011

From May 24-26 this year, a wide variety of members of the online casino and gambling industry will set up base in the Dublin, Ireland. From online casino operators to regulators, software producers to casino vendors: anyone with their finger on the pulse of the online gambling industry will be in the Irish capital city.

Each of these industry members will all be in town for the same reason: the 2011 iGaming Supershow conference.

The iGaming Supershow has a dual appeal for industry members: it represents an opportunity to network and discuss prospective business opportunities, while simultaneously representing an opportunity to party the Supershow’s numerous happy hour social events.

This winning combination proved hugely successful at the 2010’s conference in Prague, yet the iGaming Supershow is expected to up its game even more in Dublin this year. Indeed, the 2011 event is set to include around 2,500 industry delegates and 150 stands and offer a number of conference streams and speed networking opportunities. Moreover, 2011’s event will host an invite only exclusive VIP conference and a 50^th birthday celebration for the founder of the online gaming brand Bodog, Calvin Ayre.

The event receives excellent degree of support from a number of company’s. The official sponsors of the iGaming Supershow 2011 are DublinBet and their affiliates, yet the event also boast renown industry brands such as Victor Chandler, Betfair, Bwin, and 888.com among its roster of sponsors and partners.

Those who register for the Supershow before May 9 will gain free entry. To register, simply visit the show’s official website and fill out an online registration form.

Roberto Romanello

Roberto Romanello made himself €140,685 richer, and gave himself a great opportunity to earn a poker triple crown, as he emerged victorious from the WPT Title event in Bratislava on Sunday.

Indeed, Romanello won December’s EPT Prague event in December of year. Consequently, with this recent WPT victory in the Slovakian capital under his belt, a World Series Poker victory is now all that is required for the Welshman to achieve a rare triple crown.

The €2,500+€220 WPT Bratislava main event was hosted at the Golden Vegas Casino and saw a 211-strong player field create a €493,155 prize pool.

Alongside Roberto Romanello at the main event’s final table were two German players who had qualified for the event via a PartyPoker online qualifier event — Alexander Jager and Frank Dollinger — and Bodo Sbrzesny, A Team PartyPoker Pro.

Mayu Roca finished runner up to Romanello, taking home €71,000.

The World Poker Tour’s next stop will be the Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where the Hollywood Poker Open will be contested on April 9-13 at the Hollywood Casino.

Poker Stars

Las Vegas and the online poker market — two parties who both strongly advocate the legalization and regulation of online poker in the USA — will have been roused by reports this week that the world renown online Poker site PokerStars and the Las Vegas casino company Wynn Resorts have recently joined forces and are set to work together as a team to lobby for the legalization and regulation of online poker in the United States.

Steve Wynn, the owner of Wynn Resorts Ltd, has been quoted as saying that legalization and regulation for online gaming represents the only truly sensible progressive option. 

Online poker is currently the single most played game in the online game market: a market which takes in approximately $25 billion per year. Of this $25 billion total, 20% is generated by players in the US.

Wynn has argued that legalizing and regulating an industry which generates such large taxable sums as soon as possible would benefit the US hugely at a time when the country’s funds are currently in great need of replenishment. Moreover, Wynn claims a legalized and regulated online poker industry would create a vast amount of new jobs and could therefore play a part in reviving the US from its present economic slump.

PokerStars, Wynn’s new partners, are in complete agreement with Wynn and are also eager to make their plans for a legalized and regulated online poker industry come to fruition.

Currently, there is much optimism among advocates of legalized online poker that this may soon be the case. Indeed, recently moves have been made to reach agreements between online operators and land-based casinos in New Jersey and Nevada. However, although things may currently look promising, it is only after the proposed bills are passed as laws that such optimism will have been seen to have been justified.

These published statistics revealed Italy’s total turnover for January and February of this year to be sizeable €11.6 billion. After the first two months of last year, revenue had reached €10.02 billion. Accordingly, the figures show that in 2011 the Italian online gaming industry has seen a 15.8 percent increase when compared to the previous year.

The AMMS figures also show that Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) have gained a high degree of popularity in Italy and have consequently had a strong influence on the Italian marketplace. Indeed, VLTs, which are essentially computerised slot machines, were only introduced in Italy in February. However, of the total €5.73 billion revenue generated in that month, a massive €719 million can be attributed to VLTs.

Bingo was the next biggest taker behind VLTs with €156 million.

The AMMS statistics once more reveal Italy to be the European leader when it comes to online gambling. And this is understandably so; Italy was the first significantly sized European mainland country to permit regulated private online gambling.

Moreover, Italy looks set to maintain its elite status. Indeed, the Italian marker could also be set to open up even further after the Italian government passed a new online gaming regulation which now permits online casino operators to offer customers the chance to play online poker and other online casino games.