Online Poker News

Although he made his name and a living playing online poker, Brian Hastings has just won the WPT Regional Summer Splash Event, after overcoming a field of 391 players over four days to capture the title, and the $213,877 first place prize. The US pro has had to change his approach recently after the plug was pulled on online poker in the States back in April. Consequently, Hastings has been weighing up his options with a possible move to Canada seeming more likely on the horizon.

He is reported as saying on his blog that: “Despite my newfound liking of live poker, I really don’t like Vegas and just can’t imagine spending any more time there than the WSOP and a few shorter trips. I think my earn potential is still highest online unless I can get into some really good and big live games regularly, and as that seems somewhat unlikely, I’m leaning toward a short term move to Canada (at least until it gets too cold).”

There is more competition and new challenges coming to Europe in the form of the Poker Pros Network (PPN), which has become the latest site to move to a European internet domain to comply with the crackdown on sites offering online poker to US players.  The site also stated that it would be leaving the Cake Network in the near future and establishing its own proprietary software platform, a move expected to take place sometime in early autumn.

The PPN will stop accepting new customers based in the United States from August 31st, although players who have registered accounts prior to that date will still be able to play on the site. PPN pros are accessible at all levels anyone can challenger a team pro to a heads up game for amounts from $2 to $2,000.  PPN team professionals include Kevin Vandersmissen, the 2010 Belgian Player of the Year, Matias Gabrenja, Stefan Mattsson, Neil Stewart and James Worth.

At last we know the final November nine for the 2011 WSOP main event and many of are wondering what we will do during the three and a half month layoff.

With the troubles that the usual sponsorship have been having in the United States, there was a distinct lack of online poker sponsors names on the clothing of the final group of players last night.  But one online poker room in particular was on display: 888poker.com.  888Poker already has not one, but two players wearing its logo at the Main Event final table.

The first one seen on television was Anton Makievskyi, who got a lot of camera time during ESPN’s Day 8 telecast.  The other 888poker representative is the lone Englander still remaining, Samuel Holden.  A quiet player, the 22-year-old was the epitome of calm, cool, and collected on Tuesday.  Nothing seemed to rattle him.  And while he wasn’t splashing around chips like a couple of his competitors, when he did commit chips to the pot, he made great reads, making sure his bets counted.

As sure as another day will dawn, more players are exiting from the WSOP main event and the number of tables has now diminished. Phil Collins of Las Vegas picked up 3.5 million in chips during the first two hours of play on Sunday and 72 players were eliminated from the no-limit Texas Hold ‘em tournament after six hours, as the finalists pushed into six-figure payout territory. Phil is a26-year-old poker professional who used to play online before federal indictments shut down the top poker websites to Americans. He took the chip lead Sunday at the World Series of Poker main event, and then added to his stack by taking out last year’s third-place finisher.

Collins has been playing aggressively and his boldness certainly seems to be paying dividends as he eliminated player after player and moved past the 10 million in chips. “I’ve been playing the best poker of my life, and playing this tournament exactly how I want to play it,” he remarked and it his strategy of not playing big pots in situations where he has marginal hands is paying off for now at least. We shall be keeping an eye on his progress.

Yet again the question of whether the game of poker is a game of skill or luck has been raised again and has been at the centre of arguments over the legalisation of online poker in many jurisdictions, including the United States. A new paper has attempted to answer that vexed question and the author Steven Levitt has come to the same conclusion that poker players themselves have: that poker is indeed an enterprise governed more by skill than chance.

Using data from the 57 tournaments of the 2010 World Series of Poker, it was found that those skilled players made a 30% return on their investment during the series, while the remaining group suffered an overall 15% loss. Also using other sports as models Levitt came to very similar conclusions, for example considering where skilled players finished in tournaments when compared to unskilled players, he found that a skilled player was approximately 54.9% likely to finish ahead of an unskilled player.