Bad Beat Bonus at Winner Poker

Losing With a Great Hand Has Never Been this Good at online poker room Winner Poker.

You’re holding 2 Kings in your hand and catch another on the flop. You push all in and are called not by 1 player, or even 2, but 3 players before the Turn. To your delight another King is dealt. You’re already counting your newly acquired chips when you see that one of the players at the table pulled off a straight flush!

This is the stuff Poker nightmares are made of. At Winner Poker we understand that in poker these things can happen. If this particular nightmare happens to you, you will find it has a happy ending as there will be $250 winging its way to you courtesy of Winner Poker.

The Rules for Bad Beat Bonus

• Only losing hands consisting of 4 Kings or better qualify.
• Both the winning and losing hands are required to include both pocket-cards.
• To receive this bonus, you must send an email to support.poker@winner.com within 48 hours

The Prize Payout

• $250 goes to every qualifying, losing hand

This bonus is only given in Texas Holdem ring tables (non-tournament play).

Worlds Largest Ever Poker Tournament

PokerStars.com will attempt to hold the world’s largest poker tournament on December 4, by bringing more than 150,000 players together to play in an online poker game as part of the PokerStars 10th Anniversary Celebration, the company announced today.

The current world record of 149,196 players was set in 2009 in another PokerStars tournament, which featured a $1 buy-in. It was won by online player ‘oskar69’ from Garbsen in Germany, who scooped the $50,000 first prize.

The latest World Record attempt will start at 12:30 ET on December 4, 2011 and will be a $1 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tourney with a guaranteed prize pool of $250,000. The first prize is a guaranteed $50,000, which is an unusually high return for a $1 buy-in tournament. In addition, PokerStars is offering $10 bounty prizes for players who knock out the participating members of Team PokerStars Pro.

“It’s exciting and unique to be part of a World Record,” said Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, who already holds a personal Guinness World Record for Most Online Poker Tables Played in One Hour (62, with a profit of $23.60). “I’m looking forward to doing it again on December 4. It will be great to see so many players come together to make history once again at the world’s largest poker site.”

PokerStars 10th Anniversary

This World Record tournament attempt is the third promotion in PokerStars’ 10th Anniversary Celebration, which so far includes the $10 Million Sunday Million tournament that has already captured players’ imaginations with its $10 million guaranteed prize pool and $2 million for first place, along with the 10th Anniversary Giveaway that will award 100 dream vacations to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas for free, along with 10,000 cash prizes.

Boyd Gaming Announces Agreement With bwin.party

Boyd Gaming Corporation recently announced that it has entered into an agreement with bwin.party digital entertainment plc, the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company.

Should Congress legalize online poker in the United States, and subject to regulatory approvals, Boyd Gaming would acquire a 10% stake in a new company that would offer online poker to U.S.-based players under bwin.party’s brands, including PartyPoker.

Separately, Boyd Gaming has entered into a 15-year agreement to use bwin.party’s technology platform and associated services to offer online poker to U.S. players under a brand developed by Boyd Gaming, assuming Congress passes enabling legislation.
“We believe that the right approach to offering legal online poker in the United States is through a federal regulatory structure that ensures the games are conducted with the greatest possible integrity and security. Should Congress enact legislation to legalize Internet poker, this agreement will allow us to partner with the world’s most experienced and prestigious online operator to offer a secure, fair and entertaining experience for players in the United States,” said Keith Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer of Boyd Gaming.

bwin.party is licensed in Gibraltar, France and Italy, and currently offers legal online poker in numerous countries. The company has a reputation for developing and implementing industry-leading best practices, including player security, responsible gaming and underage gambling prevention.

“We see online poker as a compelling future growth opportunity for our Company, and this agreement would position Boyd Gaming to quickly become a leader in the online poker market in the United States,” Smith said.

PokerStars approaches 70-billionth Hand

PokerStars is poised to deal its 70-billionth hand over the next ten days, and to celebrate will award more than $750,000 in cash to players who take part in real money ring games from October 29 until the Mega Milestone hand hits.

The promotion will award prizes across 300 regular milestone hands for players dealt into every one-millionth hand from 69,700,000,000 through 69,999,000,000. Finally, the 70-billionth Mega Milestone hand will award one lucky player with a $70,000 prize, in addition to other cash rewards accrued through play at the tables.

The 70-billionth hand cash prize giveaway is the latest in a series of Mega Milestone promotions and is another step on the Road to 100 Billion.

Milestone hand prizes

For regular milestone hands, every player dealt into the hand will be awarded a base prize of $50, plus $50 for every VPP they earned in the preceding 50 hands. (VPP stands for VIP Player Points, and they are earned by every player who participates in real money games on PokerStars. For a detailed explanation of how they are earned, check out the PokerStars VIP Club web page.)

For the Mega Milestone, the calculation is the same, but multiplied by TEN! The winner of the hand also has their prize doubled and will receive an additional prize of $70,000. With more money awarded for earning more VPPs, it pays to play more hands in the run up to a milestone hand in order to maximise the potential prize.

Hand counter

In order for players to see when the next milestone hand is due to hit, there is a “Number of hands dealt” counter at PokerStars.com – click here for the current real-time total. The first milestone hand is estimated to hit on October 29, and the winning will continue for up to seven days until the Mega Milestone strikes.

In the 65-billionth hand, which occurred back in July, New Zealand player “yllams” pocketed the top prize of $68,420 while playing at a $0.10/$0.25 six-max cash table. The total prize money given away across the promotion was $770,588.88, with more than 1,600 PokerStars players receiving cash bonuses.

Sunday Major Results

It was another big weekend for the online world, as the Sunday Majors awarded players with millions of dollars in prizes. The $215 Sunday Warm-Up, which got under way at 11.00 ET, saw 3,395 players take to the virtual tables in a bid to win a share of the $679,000 prize pool.

This week’s winner was bigdogpckt5s, from Canada, who earned $83,000 as his share of a three-way chop at the final table. TTycho from Netherlands and 4betUr3bet from Austria came second and third for $82,063.50 and $77,000 respectively.

Meanwhile, a few hours later at 14.30 ET, the richest weekly tournament – the $215 Sunday Million – got under way with 6,585 players and a total prize pool of $1,317,000. That meant the first prize just eclipsed $200,000, but in the end a chop was done heads-up between Spyver from the United Kingdom and GoldenOne306 from Canada. It was the UK player who emerged the victor though, pocketing the adjusted first prize of $190,459.14.

Pokerfest – PartyPoker.com’s inaugural online tournament festival starts Sunday

The countdown is on for the arrival of PartyPoker.com’s inaugural online poker festival – Pokerfest. With 47 events in a range of game types, the festival starts THIS SUNDAY 23rd October – 6th November guaranteeing $3,000,000. Qualifiers starting from $1 are online now!

A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: “ We kick off on Sunday with four no limit hold’em events with guarantees of $300k, $2k, $20k and $150k – these cater for players on all levels with the $2k requiring a points buy-in only. The no limit re-buy tournaments start Monday, with the Pot Limit Omaha dominating Tuesday – the fixed limit hold’em tournaments start on Thursday.”

Pokerfest will feature at least three events EVERY DAY covering a variety of buy-ins and game types. Below is just some highlights of what is on offer:

• Event #47 – $1,000,000 guaranteed main event – $640 buy-in (qualify from $1)
• Event #23 – $350,000 guaranteed – $215 buy-in (qualify from $2.50)
• Event #46 – $50,000 guaranteed – $33 buy-in
• Event #2 – $2,000 prizepool – 20 Points buy-in

Qualify from as little as $1
PartyPoker.com want everyone to be a part of Pokerfest so they have developed a number of fantastic qualifying routes so players can qualify for a fraction of the main buy-in. There is also a wide range of extra promotions and side events – click on the tabs on the site to check out the $100k leaderboards and get the scoop on how to qualify for a fraction of the buy-in. The grand finale of Pokerfest is the $1,000,000 guaranteed main event taking place at 13.30ET on Sunday 6th November.

Variety of buy-ins and game types
Pokerfest will feature three events every day covering a variety of buy-ins for the following game types:
• No Limit Hold ‘em
• No Limit Hold ‘em + Rebuy(s)
• No Limit Hold ‘em, 6 max table, deep stack Fixed Limit Hold ‘em
• Pot Limit Omaha
• Pot Limit Omaha + Rebuy(s)

EPT London and EPT Highroller Results

The PokerStars European Poker Tour was in London last week for its annual ‘Festival of Poker’, which took place at the London Hilton Metropole on Edgware Road.

The £5,250 Main Event boasted a prize pool of £3,351,350 and a first prize of £750,000, which went to German player Benny Spindler. The young pro had already enjoyed several deep runs in EPT events before his victory last week, and had also come third at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2009. Spindler led for much of the event and eventually defeated American player Steve O’Dwyer heads-up. The runner-up spot paid £465,000.

Spanish Team PokerStars Pro Juan Manuel Pastor finished fourth for a career-best performance worth £200,000. Other Team PokerStars Pros in the money included Salvatore Bonavena in 29th place, Humberto Brenes in 32nd, Ana Marquez in 42nd and Sebastian Ruthenberg in 76th.

Across the entire EPT8 London festival, there was a total of 3,199 player buy-ins and a total prize pool of £7,642,921.

EPT London High Roller

While the Main Event was in the closing stages at EPT London, the High Rollers also played down to a winner, the field of 75 each paying £20,000 to buy-in.

After three days’ play German pro Philipp Gruissem scored a remarkable double, winning the High Roller event and a first prize of £450,200 just a few weeks after winning the High Roller event at EPT Barcelona. He defeated Igor Kurganov heads-up, who took home £318,330 for second place.

888.com Members Celebrate Record $356M September Payouts

888.com, one of the world’s most popular online gaming destinations, announces news of record September winners and payouts in 888′s online casino. 43,006 members won a total of $356M this September in 888casino, making it the highest number of winning players on record and the highest payout amount since 2008.

Itai Pazner, Senior VP, Head of B2C Division of 888.com, said: “888casino’s September $356M payout and the record beating number of winners is really exciting news. Such results show our players the real life-changing potential of 888.com’s games. We are happy to live up to our motto, “It can happen any minute!” and take delight in congratulating all our September winners on their good fortune.”

CalShark.com Launch Raises the Stakes for Online Poker

CalShark.com, a new, free-play online poker site run by California’s legal gaming experts, officially launched this week, offering poker players around the world a state-of-the-art online experience that brings the thrill of live games to their personal computers for free.

CalShark.com is operated by the California Online Poker Association (COPA), a California organization consisting of 60 California tribal governments and California card clubs that lawfully operate more than 65% of the poker tables in California. The web site is powered by Playtech (AIM – PTEC) and will be supported by Sciplay, a joint venture between Scientific Games (NASDAQ – SGMS), a world leader in delivering gaming products and services, and Playtech, an acclaimed global developer of leading online gaming software and technology.

CalShark.com will provide players with the closest experience to live table action on the Internet with an added social networking emphasis. The site offers poker games for experienced poker players looking to hone their skills as well as for new players who want to learn the game. CalShark.com will be 100% free and will not accept player deposits. CalShark.com features:

• Omaha & Texas hold ‘em
• Ring games, tournaments and Sit and Gos
• Virtual goods earned with free chips
• Easy gaming interface

“CalShark.com has features that most other online poker sites do not have including a no download/flash version to play on,” said Pierre Wuu, Director of Online Operations at COPA. “Our system allows the players to stay engaged, earn chips and be extremely interactive with other players and friends.”

CalShark.com players have an exciting opportunity to move up in levels based upon how much they play. The game also allows the users to invite friends and add new friends. This will allow an easy transition when the Facebook application is launched in the near future.

Players will be able to compete through their Web browser, or they can opt to download the free CalShark.com desktop application. Both methods of play feature sharp graphics depicting realistic table settings, card motions and all the sights and sounds associated with live poker play, bringing the game to life for players. The Web site and game will both also feature a Spanish language option.

Pratik Ghatge wins EPT London $2k Side Event

British player Pratik Ghatge has won the EPT London £2k side event for £71,100 after cutting a deal with runner-up Joni Nenonen from Finland and third-placed Daniel Smith from Canada. This is by far Ghatge’s biggest live result; his previous best cash was £9k for taking down a £300 event in the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour last year. Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel came sixth for £17,200 while the current EPT London Main Event champion David Vamplew came 20th for £4,740.

The £2k attracted 189 players overall. Others to cash include Dutch pro Govert Metaal (who came fifth at the PCA $25k High Roller this year for $240,470), PCA finalist and NAPT Venetian runner-up Sam Stein, Canadian Michael Watson (3rd in the EPT London High Roller for £241,000 in Season 5) and German pro Fabian Quoss (5th in last season’s EPT London High Roller for £107,000). 20 places were paid. Canadian Alex Wice, the overnight chip leader, failed to make the money.