There were 401 players in total, which made for a £200,500 prize pool that paid out the last 56 players. So when it came down to the final table action, which as you would expect, was dominated by UK players, the final duel found none of them left, only Mantas Puidokas of Lithuania and the eventual winner Nick Abou Risk the Canadian. Risk ultimately won the poker tournament and took home £50,000 to go with his trophy, as well as a seat into the UKIPT Grand Final, which is also known as the EPT London that is coming up on September 29th 2010.

Mickey Peterson quickly made his mark on the Top 100 Worldwide Rankings beginning in 2009. His 3rd place showing in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up was good for $69,350 in June ‘09 and he also placed 2nd in the Titan Poker $250k Guaranteed for $30,000 a month earlier.

RPM Poker pro Brent Roberts was the first FTOPS jersey winner, taking down the $216 No Limit Hold’em Event for $164,358. Roberts, who has more than $1.2 million in online tournament winnings and close to $1 million in live earnings, came out the best of a field of 4,591 players and a tough final table that included Sam Grafton. The series, which began in 2006 and has run between two and four times per year, will offer a total of 34 tournaments through August 15th with more than $19 million in guaranteed prize money.

The strong upturn comes at the perfect time for online poker, as the industry has been in a gradual decline for most of this year. The recent upswing is in spite of the on-going WSOP, suggesting that sustained growth may be returning. With the back-to-school increase in poker traffic and events like PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker coming up, things are starting to look promising for the industry once again.

Gary Kostiuk, a 49-year-old optometrist from Grande Prairie, Alberta, finished 85th to win $79,806. Kostiuk, who won a $350 satellite in a home game with a group of 44 friends to get into the Main Event, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago and now gets around in a wheelchair. His son Ryan is quoted as saying “this might be his last year to be able to make it out here. This is special.” Six years ago, Ryan convinced his father to take up online poker. Two months later, Ryan had a $7,000 score in an online tournament, and both father and son were hooked. Gary’s run finally ended when his pocket 10s fell to an opponent’s pocket king. All you really needed to see was his son lean down to give him a giant bear hug in his wheelchair before rolling him out the door.

A video has been produced by World Series of Poker Academy, licensed poker school of the WSOP. The instructional video is part of an online poker school being launched this week by the World Series of Poker Academy on its website, enrolment comes with a fee.

Bansi was the first Brit to win with the 2010 WSOP $1,500 No Limit Hold’em worth $515k. To date, Bansi has won two WSOP bracelets, has eight cashes, and more than $1.4 million in WSOP earnings. James Dempsey followed suit winning the 2010 WSOP $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em worth $197K. Richard Ashby joined the British spotlight with his 2010 WSOP win in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud worth a $140K win. , Ashby has nabbed one WSOP bracelet, 11 cashes, and more than $604K in WSOP earnings. Mike Ellis has had a modestly successful stint so far in the World Series of Poker and stole a win in the 2010 WSOP $1,500 No Limit Hold ’em event earning him the coveted gold bracelet and $581K.

However dark horse of the tourney, Steve Jelinek took the gold bracelet and pocketed a quarter million dollars as well. Jelinek has won one WSOP bracelets, with four cashes, and close to $300K in WSOP earnings since 2005. There is more to come!

These bots are commonly used to launch attacks that swamp Web sites and servers with so much traffic that they can’t keep up with requests and either becomes painfully slow or crash until the attack can be stopped or mitigated. However, one an end point is infected with a bot, that bot can be often used to download other types of attack software, or do other things on the system: which is apparently what these attackers chose to do with their poker cheats.

Using real cards means that players can be offered players more functions like you would find in a “live” game of poker including a “cut function”, the deployment of “burn cards”, a real scramble and the ability to audit entire deck arrays. For a fee, players can choose to have an audit completed if they question the results of any game dealt with this system. It looks as though things are changing in the world of online poker.

Heading into the WSOP, which begins this week, Obrestad has been honing her skills online. On Sunday, Obrestad won the PokerStars Sunday 500, and in the process, took home $87,000 that will be used for some of her buy-ins at the WSOP. Will she beat Phil Ivey who made the longest run through the Main Event of any pro player, landing at the final table. Ivey fell short of winning the top prize, however, and will be back again this year to try and rewrite history.