This year, online poker behemoth PokerStars is celebrating 10 years of the European Poker Tour (EPT) and in the latest edition of “The Bonus Cut”, their 'behind the scenes’ video series, five of the highest profile Team PokerStars Pros talk about how their lives have changed over the past ten years.

Daniel Negreanu, Eugene Katchalov, Jason Mercier, Jonathan Duhamel and Vanessa Selbst reminisce about where they were 10 years ago, and looking back, how they live their lives now.

Yep, they’re all ballin’.

Let the perks of being the champ begin. Ryan Reiss, aka “The Beast”, was featured on ESPN’s College GameDay this morning as a celebrity guest picker. The poker ambassador sat alongside hot dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut and played the part of the loyal homer by selecting #10 Michigan State to upset #2 Ohio State in the Big 10 Championship Game by a score of 30-27.

Get a close up of those curly locks:

By all accounts, a job well done by Riess.

UPDATE:

Movie star turned poker fanatic, Jennifer Tilly is all charged up! Not only did she end the Day 1 of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic with about 60k in chips (almost twice that of boy toy Phil Laak) but we know that her phone was feeling energetic as well. Apparently, the new tables at the Bellagio in Las Vegas are now all equipped with the ability to charge your phone while you play!

Free Wi-Fi at the Fremont Street Experience and now the ability to constantly stay connected at the table? Next thing you know they’ll find a way to show hole cards on TV!

Not interesting enough for you (we don’t blame you)...check out JKilla’s sick selfie:

On to the next one.

Re-entry tournaments have become the new norm on the worldwide MTT scene for the past few years. The effects of which are starting to be seen and felt by the poker economy at large and there are some out there, including the man who helped make it popular, tournament director Matt Savage, that feel like perhaps we opened a Pandora’s box.

Standing with Matt Savage is Chris Moorman, the current #1 ranked online poker player on the planet. He recently took to his new blog to point out that re-entry tournaments are not necessarily the fantastic fad players once thought they were.

In my opinion they are in general bad for the game and are unsustainable long term.

Moorman goes on to talk about the fact that re-entry tournaments give professionals the edge in a similar way that rebuy tournaments did as it becomes an issue of who has the bigger bankroll.

Another important issue with reentry tournaments is that they cater for the pro players and allow them to have an unfair advantage over the recreational players as the pros generally have bigger bankrolls or backers which allow them the luxury of playing the event multiple times if necessary, whereas the recreational player might only have played the event because they won a satellite.

Chris doesn’t mean every tournament, like super high rollers, just the ones where there’s a healthy mix of recreational players taking their shot at a higher buy-in. Of course, re-entry provides higher guarantees, making tournaments more appealing, but overall, Moorman fears for the economic health of the live poker scene.

What I am proposing in these cases is perhaps increasing the buy in amounts in certain events and making them freeeouts instead, which will make it more of a level playing field once again.

am not arguing for reentry tournaments to be abolished in the live poker tournament scene but I think it is essential that they are monitored and don’t keep increasing at the rate they have over the past few years. In the end, if the poker rooms and casinos keep seeing doubled prize pools and rake, what is going to stop them from making every tournament a reentry?

It’s a solid read, so if you’d like to get all of Chris Moorman’s thoughts on the state of re-entry, check out his blog on his website.

Look, F5 isn’t the place to get deep about the new survey conducted by Online Poker Report, which asked 1500 Americans about their stance on regulated online poker. So, if that’s your deal, we encourage you to check out the full breakdown of the stats over at that fine site.

We bring it up because the holidays are coming up and we think that 100% of our readership in the US will have to defend their love of poker at some family outing or perhaps—and this is just an example—explain why they’re ducking out on Christmas eve morning to go play a $125 re-entry at Bay 101 in San Jose.

Now, when that time comes, you have something to point to when you say “actually, MOM, most Americans are NOT opposed to online poker!”—because they’re just not.

In fact, while the study shows that the majority of those who are opposed are “strongly opposed” (29.1%), for the most part people are “neutral” (aka 33.7% of respondents just don’t give a $#!+). Even better, almost 20% of those who responded “strongly supported” the idea.

So, again, the statistically significant survey is pretty pro online poker and if you are an advocate of the game, it’s well worth taking a look at it and sharing it around as OPR did a nice job with it.

If you’ve been looking closely you may have noticed that the new wave of legalized online poker sites has created more than just action: They have also been creating jobs.

As the industry returns to the United States at a rapid pace, online operators like Ultimate Poker (UP) will be looking for new employees that understand poker and have a specific skill set to help race to the top.

Online poker pro turned online poker industry professional Terrence Chan points out in a recent UP blog post that not everyone who put in the hours on the virtual felt made it rich before Black Friday hit, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t learn something valuable. Both former professionals and poker enthusiasts alike have an opportunity to bring their passion and skills to the marketplace.

The good news, if you’re one of these people, is that your experience playing hours of online poker, participating in forums, and generally being involved in the poker industry, makes you a valuable asset to online poker sites, including Ultimate Poker. At Ultimate Poker, we employ dozens of poker players in customer service, game room operations, product management, marketing and technology – all the way from entry level to senior executive.

In short, there may be a place in this re-emerging industry if you are willing to bring your poker acumen and merge it with some business savvy, there could be a big payday, of a different sort, on the horizon.

According to NewsOn6, a pair of poker entrepreneurs were stung by an undercover police officer yesterday when they attempted to run an illegal poker tournament in Tulsa’s aptly named Undercurrent Club.

Pete Manzanares and Julie Jones advertised a bar-league style tournament, a free affair, which is perfectly legal but then, as the tournament wore on, required people to pay for chips.

Money in a poker game? Call for backup!

The man and woman were booked on complaints of gambling, the bar owner faces the possibility of losing his liquor license and police even say that the 45 people who were playing in the game could face arrest.

The community then rallied around the efforts in the Facebook comments section:

Another example of cops with to much time on they’re hands!

way to go TPD making Tulsa so much safer…meanwhile real crimes with real victims are occurring.

Can’t believe they sent an undercover officer to bust a poker game. What a waste of time and resources. They really need to get there priorities in order.

Thanks for wasting tax payer money and limited police resources, TPD! We’re SO glad that you increased your arrest rate without any benefit whatsoever to the community. Bravo!

The couple was booked in the county jail and bailed out for $1k each a few hours later.

Sick of the seedy interiors of old school Vegas casinos? Now, thanks to a new deal between internet provider LV.net and the city of Las Vegas, visitors to the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas have access free Wi-Fi making it so you can get your gamble on, and more, in the fresh and clean Las Vegas outdoors.

Pair that with the recently legalized online poker sites of WSOP.com and Ultimate Poker and you can grind online on while sitting on bench, eating a street pretzel or watching people zip line overhead. The speed isn’t anything special thus far (1 Mbps) and the radius is only a mile but the city has plans to expand both within the year.

Free Wi-Fi: would that make you book your stay downtown??

According to our big brother 'fuse, scientists have made a breaking discovery into gambling addiction: You can reduce the effects of problem gambling behavior by injecting the sufferer with a medical shot. They tested this on – naturally – lab-created degenerate rats.

How do you give a rat a problem gambling condition? Scientists developed a slot machine-like device that pays out sugar pellets with levers that the rats could pull. Rats apparently “exhibited some typical problem gambling behavior” (martingaling it up, we assume). These symptoms could be reduced with an injection that blocked the release of dopamine D4 receptors.

The Dan Bilzerian publicity blitzkrieg took yet another step yesterday as “Beardo” posted a photo of a guy who got Dan, wieldng a gun and a grin, tattooed on his left calf with the word “BLITZED” underneath.

In case you missed it – Bilzerian recently showed photographic evidence of his alleged $10.8 million dollar cash game score.

It’s not often your holding the nuts and a ton of cash to back it up.

Here’s the story of 23-year old Darren Bernard Williams who, last year, in the middle of a cash game, decided to add some extra chips to his stack…mid-hand. That’s obviously a big no-no and he was caught by the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem security team and hauled down to the security interview room.

The kid pleaded with his captors for leniency, begging for a break and even offered security $185 in $5 chips. Unswayed by the generous offer, they rang him up and released him: Charges were filed this week including 4 counts of gaming fraud and theft by deception.

In liu of posting his $15k bail, Williams finds himself sitting in a Northampton County Prison cell.

To add insult to injury, when security released him they told him not to drive his car home as Williams had a suspended license. Despite the warning, he hopped in his sled and drove away anyway—so in addition to the gaming fraud charges, he now faces a count of driving with a suspended license.

Lesson being: try to have the biggest stack at the table when you flop full, ok?

PokerStars recently announced that Rafael Nadal isn’t going to be the only high-profile sport star at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague charity event. Former Brazilian footballer and team PokerStars SportStar Ronaldo is planning on serving up Nadal on the felt—as is former Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko.

“Ronaldo has always been a hero of mine and I’m looking forward to taking him on at the poker table,” Nadal rightly gushes.

In addition, former Dutch field hockey champion Fatima Moreira De Melo and Italian World Cup alpine skier Alberto Tomba will also be sitting in the star-studded field.

Looking for info on EPT Prague? Look no further than right here.

Luong-Huu Bui took a serious bad beat. The “one time poker player” is being held in a UK jail without bail for allegedly fronting an “industrial-scale cannabis growing operation.” Police, following a lead regarding a grow house, seized £50,000 which belonged to Bui. Officials seems to believe it’s drug money while Bui claims he won it on the circuit.

According to The Hendon Mob, Bui did indeed hit a large score of over $230k, but that was back in Nov. 2010. Nevertheless Bui’s lawyer, Kevin Magill, is running with it.

Defence counsel Kevin Magill told the court: “He had previously been a poker player playing on the professional poker circuit.
“He wasn’t betting online, he was betting at live poker games and went to a number of tournaments.”
“He would say he’s well known on the circuit,” Mr Magill added.

Unfortunately for Bui, the judge was not as convinced. Seeing him as a flight risk his bail was denied as the explanation of the cash “does not seem to have been checked out.”

Check the Belfast Telegraph for the full story.

Just kidding. We love the guys over at P5s and wish them all the best in their new venture—a new advice and strategy forum, expanding one of the world’s largest communities of online tournament players with a dedicated area to discuss all forms of poker strategy.

We have been hard at work creating this forum, which we hope will become ground zero for dialogue about poker hands, lines, and strategies.

One interesting feature is the ability to upvote posts, cannily called “raise” in P5’s new parlance:

The new Poker Advice and Strategy Forum allows members to up-vote posts. If you see a response you like, click “Raise” to up-vote it. Replies are color-coded depending on how many Raises they’ve gotten, helping those reading the thread find the most highly rated replies swiftly. The darker the green background on a post, the more Raises it has received. You can Raise as many posts in a thread as you deem worthy.

You’ll see a brand new Poker Advice Leaderboard in the upper left of any Poker Advice and Strategy thread. The Leaderboard displays the names of members whose posts have been Raised the most in the last 30 days.

It will be interesting to see how the community takes to the new forum; check it out for yourself.

Some of the best moves Bluff Magazine has made in the past year or so have been the hiring and pairing of Thomas Keeling (aka poker song parody prince SrslySirius) and poker’s minister of information Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath).

The duo team up to produce the trivia-filled video series “Stump The Kevmath“ and this time Kevin takes on the host of the World Poker Tour and WPT Alpha8 anchor, Lynn Gilmartin.

Will Mathers be able to keep his wits about him whilst being near the charming Gilmartin? Can either one of these two get an answer right? Could you? It’s a Mathers meltdown you should check out.

Just in case you were a non-believer in Dan Bilzerian's story about winning over $10 million dollars at the poker table, he just posted this to his testosterone laden Instagram account.

It was just a few months ago that everyone was talking about the fact that Phil Ivey, the general consensus holder of the title “world’s best poker player,” was embarking on a 'no booze bet’ for an undisclosed amount of time. Ivey, known for loving a good glass of vino, apparently pushed that bet, opting to enjoy some libations as the holiday approached.

Welcome to the Alpha release of F5 Poker. Sure, we’ve still got some housekeeping to do and some additional features to add, but you can poke around if you want. You can jump on social media stuff if that’s your style or log into the chat on the right (it won’t post to your feeds).

Otherwise, we hope you keep coming back. There’s (re)fresh content added all the time.

Questions, feedback, things you like – email us F5 -at – pokerfuse.com

Canadian card room, Playground Poker Club, the host of the recent World Poker Tour Montreal stop, showed off a little of the technology that goes behind providing you with watchable televised poker. Check out this cool shot of the underside of the WPT Montreal Final Table, complete with hole cams and RFID cards.

Catch the 30-minute delayed WPT Final Table Live Stream today at 4:30pm EST.

Though she’s the super short stack, swimwear model Lily “I need new shoes” Kiletto has made the final table – 6/6 in chips.

Once the eggnog has dried up and the presents returned, poker players worldwide will be turning their attention to the “City of Angles“ for the poker extravaganza that is the Los Angeles Poker Classic (LAPC). Starting on January 17 and culminating with the World Poker Tour L.A. Classic televised Main Event on March 1, the massive schedule is looking more and more like an early WSOP warm-up every year with no fewer than two events per day spanning well over a month.

So here’s your early reminder to save some money on your travel arrangements by checking out the recently released schedule of the LAPC right here.

4-Time NACSAR Cup Series Champion Jeff Gordon loves to live in the fast lane. Especially when that means playing some “high stakes” poker against World Series of Poker bracelet winner Antonio Esfandiari. Here we see that Antonio’s flush was left in the dust as Gordon “filled up” for a pot worth a couple hundy.

Poker professional Jeff Gross was on hand to snap a shot of the winning hand (fives full) as well as the losing finger.

Look, you can skip this. Don’t watch this month old video – it’s not worth it. It’s good enough to know that leading expert in national and global news, CNN, decided to put “decision making coach and renowned professional poker player” Annie Duke on a panel of “negotiating experts” (which includes Les from “Hardcore Pawn”) to talk about how to fix the US Federal Budget crisis.

The same Annie Duke that shilled for one of the most corrupt online sites in history, UltimateBet. The same Annie Duke that made the media rounds convincing people that the “new UB” was different and promoted that it was safe. The same Annie Duke that started and ultimately bankrupted the Epic Poker League while pocketing nearly $300k in salary for herself. The same professional poker player who hasn’t notched a single recorded cash since 2010 and played only one reported tournament in all of 2011 and it was a charity tournament.

Furthermore, Duke’s press team,or possibly even Duke herself, decided to push through an egocentric press release nearly a month after the silly segment aired.

Annie Duke is who CNN turns to in order to get a poker perspective on the Federal Budget Crisis. She must have said yes when nobody asked.

So, you see, don’t bother watching.

Good news for us superfans of the game of poker. The minds behind the stat-heavy poker portals Global Poker Index, which owns The Hendon Mob, and PocketFives.com have made a deal to share information across sites making it so the separation between “live player” and “online pro” is less distinct than ever.

Now, when you want to see the latest scores and rankings of your favorite player, you’ll get to see both recent live and online results as well as their GPI ranking, giving a more complete picture to the success of your favorite player.

There hardly looks to be a downside to this deal as fans and players get more information and with more info comes a deeper enjoyment of the game. For the complete story, including quotes from all the parties involved, check out the coverage from our sister site pokerfuse.

Ola Amundsgaard, aka regualr high-stakes grinder Odd_Oddsen is planning on sticking it to the man. When he offered an open challenge to any Norwegian politician to try and best him in a heads-up match, he probably never thought he’d get a taker. Now, he’s put up 1 million kronor (€ 124,341) of his own cash and Mr Erlend Wiborg (of the Progressive Party) has the chance to take it from him.

In an effort to show that poker is a game of skill and not predominately luck, Ola is hoping to prove that poker should not be on the list of prohibited games in Norway.

For the record, Wiborg is in agreement with Ola but should he win, he plans on donating the money to charity. The online HU match is set to take place on PokerStars and we’ve got the details of what to expect after the jump.

PokerPT.com lists the the terms of the duel as follows:

• 10,000 hands in Pot Limit Omaha
• Each player starts with 100 buy-ins for blinds 0.50 / 1
• When the smallest stack has only 300 BBs, this table will be closed and will open another table-
• A minimum of two tables simultaneously
• At the end of 10,000 hands, will be declared the winner the player with the most chips
• If a player runs out of chips before 10,000 hands, you lose the challenge
• Will be played at the tables of PokerStars
• Both players will be available to play a minimum of 120 hours between 7 December and May 7
• Both players will be available to play a minimum of 20 hours per month until you complete the 10,000 hands

No in-flight wi-fi? Nothing to watch on the miniature television on the back of the chair? There’s nothing worse than being jammed in the middle seat on a cross-country or international flight and being relegated to watching Dexter (season 8) re-runs.

Well, airlines are starting to up their entertainment game and on the menu is both sex and poker. Gizmodo recently took a closer look at some of the future offerings of the airline industries to help you have a more satisfying in-flight experience.

- Casinos.

In a survey of airline gambling history earlier this year, CNN points out that the casino in the air is hardly a new idea. It’s been tried in limited ways for over 30 years. That gambling has been explicitly illegal in United States airspace since 1994 hasn’t stopped imaginative designers from coming up with new concepts for sky casinos.

- Sexy time.

Of course, we can only zone out so much given how uncomfortable those seats are. So why not a little hanky panky? ...Today, Flamingo Air, a Cincinnati based carrier, serves up an hour in the air for you, your partner, a complementary bottle of champagne, and a “very discreet pilot,” all for $425.

- Personalized Entertainment

What the researchers are proposing is that on-demand content on airplanes should work much the way Netflix, Spotify, Xbox One, and Google recommendations work when we’re at our desks or our couches. It’ll be the same entertainment just better tailored to each of us. Less looking around for what you want, more finding it.

Want to see what else Gizmodo thinks will and won’t pass FAA regulations? Check out the entire article here.

It’s part two of the tale of tennis-champion-turned-poker-fiend Rafael Nadal's journey to playing in his first live tournament. In today’s epic session, Nadal and his poker coach, Alfonso, dissect the difficulty of holding Ace King on a missed flop.

Watch as the Team PokerStars SportStar opts not to risk his tournament life, when his buddy, who we’ll call “Drama”, thinks it’s a clear shove!! Talk some sense into him Rafa! Miss part one? We got you – after the jump.

Boutique poker training site Run It Once is celebrating it’s first anniversary and as both a gift and a promotion they are offering an opportunity to watch a free video for a full 24-hours. Since Phil Galfond, generally considered one of the smartest people in poker, is doing the talking it’s worth taking an hour out of your day to watch it and improve your game.

There’s only 2 days left, but today (right now) you can watch Phil Galfond’s High Stakes leak-finding video. So stop working and get at it.

You would think that poker pro and 2-time American Woman’s Chess Champion, Jennifer Shahade has it all. A brilliant mind for strategy games, a growing resume of poker accomplishments and the adoration of fans. But, hey, even someone who seems to have it all figured out is subject to the emotional leak of jealousy.

Being the logic monster she is, she’s written a new article for the PokerStars blog in which she tries to dissect this ugly emotion and give tips on how to deal with it when your friends all seem to be having the success you long for.

Jennifer’s tips include:

1. Emotional swapping.

If something good happens to a friend and your genuine emotion is jealousy, you should probably express happiness and support for them anyway. Some people may dismiss this as “fake;” I call it “being the change you want to see in the world.”

2. Get a life.

Learn a new game or try to make a little money outside of poker. Spend less time following your friends and develop a new skill that sets you apart.

3. Ignore false comparisons.

It’s one thing to indulge in a little internal jealousy, but once you start giving into it in public ways, you are feeding a monster.

4. Jealousy isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

You have a group of friends that is successful enough for you to be jealous of. You’re probably ambitious and passionate and have some clear visions of what you want.

If you’re in the mood for it, check out the entire article to both learn more about the up and coming Shahade and get a little life reflection on the competitive nature of the solo “sport” of poker.

As 2013 comes to a close, poker players everywhere start to assess if they had a good year or a bad year at the tables based upon their gains or losses. Well for Full Tilt Professional Gus Hansen, there’s nothing to say – the Great Dane had one of the worst online years in history. Through December 2013, Hansen finds himself crushed to the tune of over $8.5 million in online poker losses.

According to HighStakesDB, Gustav has been a loser in every game, with the exception of 8-Game Mix. It looks like Hansen hasn’t played much, if any, NLHE in 2013 instead preferring the action in Draw Games and Fixed Limit Omaha H/L.

Hansen’s 2013 losses are so bad that the $8.5m is more than the account with the 2nd most losses in history accumulated throughout it’s existence. His total losses now amount to $15 million dollar lifetime.

Things are moving fast in the Garden State. It was just last week that online poker got the AOK to proceed full time in New Jersey and now players can get their gamble on from just about anywhere in the state with the help of their iPhone.

New to the iTunes store are two mobile poker apps from both WSOP.com and 888Poker.

In actuality, it’s the same app with different branding, but still this makes it so if you have a signal you have a seat in the game. There are some initial problems, all of which are detailed in the full article by our sister site pokerfuse, but growing pains are to be expected. Just make sure you’ve got your tilt under control.

Broke but living like a millionaire. It’s poker professional Jean-Robert Bellande's motto, it’s how he lives. But as he shared earlier today, JRB isn’t just lighting his own money on fire, he’s also breaking his backers.

A text conversation with one of his anonymous backers shows him getting a stern chastising about not playing his best and suffering a nearly $25k loss.

While most would feel crushed by a $25k loss, we have a feeling that if Bellande could “survive” this bad beat, he’ll be back in action on the felt in no time:

Despite their founder, Calvin Ayre, being the target of a number of high profile raids in the Philippines last month, the Calvin Ayre Foundation is following through on promises to help the citizens of the Philippines most effected by the devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan.

In this short update/promo video the Foundation producers shows the effects of the superstorm, the situation of the Philippine people and, of course, use the opportunity flash their own logo quite a few times. Medicine, food and construction supplies were all made available for the people in this small town thanks to the Calvin Ayre Foundation and hopefully there’s even more assistance to come.

Poker pro (and one of the F5 Thanksgiving Top 10), Vanessa Selbst picked up some tickets from, friend and fellow PokerStars Pro, Jonathan Duhamel to the Habs/Leafs hockey game while in town for the partypoker Premiere League and World Poker Tour Montreal stop last week.

She also, perhaps, picked up aboot one too many beers as she got caught, on camera, nodding off in the middle of the game which was then televised to all of Canada, eh.

Bluff Magazine is holding their annual Reader’s Choice Awards where you, the reader, can make your choice! Bluff picks fourteen categories and you get have your say with online voting available now through January 2nd. Categories and voting info after the jump.

Here’s the categories:

Favorite ON the Felt Moment
Favorite OFF the Felt Moment
Favorite TV Personality
Favorite Podcast
Breakout Performer
Favorite Male Poker Player
Favorite Female Poker Player
Best Final Table
Favorite California Poker Room
Favorite Las Vegas Poker Poker Room
Favorite Florida Poker Room
Favorite Northeast Poker Room
Favorite Online Cash Game Player
Second Best Poker Follow on Twitter (behind @Kevmath)

So you could in theory go right now to Bluff.com and place your vote.
But don’t.

We here at F5 realize that voting when you have choices can be confusing. Who really knows what they like, right? So keep checking back here for the F5 Definitive Guide to the Bluff Magazine Reader’s Choice Awards. We’ll give you a complete rundown on who or what to vote for and why. That way, you can sleep tight at night, knowing you did the right thing.

It was just last week that David Vamplew was {n:david-vamplew-boy-wizard-ukipt-champ-gets-w-24-11featured in his local paper} for his poker prowess and uncanny resemblance to the popular fictitious magic man Harry Potter. Well, it didn’t take him long to show, once again, why some are calling him one of the best players in all of Hogwarts.

Vamplew bested a field of over 2300 runners in Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) Event #20 the $300+20 Re-entry event (with a 600k guarantee) to win, $111,768, the custom avatar and gold jersey.

Happy Birthday to one of the most entertaining guys on the circuit: Will “The Thrill” Failla.

Failla enters Day 2 of WPT Montreal looking to make the money.

Another day another Dan. Dan Bilzerian's assault on popular media continues today as The Daily Dot talks with the bearded one about what’s it’s like to be a lifestyle king of Instagram. From snapping photos of guns and girls to getting his facial hair stroked on national television, people are becoming obsessed with the lifestyle choices of the semi-professional poker player.

Dan’s high stakes lifestyle comes with a price too, as Dan has suffered two heart attacks and a pulmonary embolism before the age of 30.

In August 2011, Bilzerian flew between Maui and Las Vegas twice in a three-day period to play around-the-clock poker. He forgot to sleep, and then his heart gave out. He landed in the hospital with what he thought was a heart attack, but it turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. It would have been Bilzerian’s third heart attack in five years, and the man was barely 30.

How much of this is true?

Two people have gotten tattoos of Bilzerian’s face—one of them after losing a bet. (The loser got the face of Dan’s brother, Adam, tattooed on his other calf.) Another friend, Bill, took a $550,000 dare and got a “gay rainbow tattoo” on his back (below, right). Bilzerian also notes that he once got a homeless man to “hang around naked at a Hawaiian luau. If you say a price, you gotta do it.”

Well, we know that poker pro Jeff Gross took the “rainbow tattoo” bet and sources have it as hedge fund manager turned amateur high stakes poker player Bill Perkins who paid for it.

How much of Bilzerian’s high flying lifestyle do you think is real and how much are photo-ops? For sure, there’s bound to be more on the horizon. For the full article, check out 'The Dangerous Life Of Instagram’s Playboy King’ over at The Daily Dot.

While many people remember Bryan Devonshire from his PokerRoad days, many were introduced to him during his deep run in the 2011 World Series of Poker. Clad in San Francisco Giants gear, Devonshire ran super deep, finishing in 12th place and walking with a career score of $607k. You gotta be both lucky and good to make it that far, right? Clearly Devo has the chops, but what happens when the good luck that takes you that deep turns on you — in a big way.

In his column for CardPlayer Magazine, Devonshire writes about the downside to variance, dropping down in stakes and that just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Even the best players can find themselves on vicious losing streaks, to which Devo has some recommendations.

Examine your stakes:

The first thing that jumps out at me is that we’re all under-rolled. We take shots too much, consciously or ignorantly, but nonetheless greatly increasing our risk of ruin.

bq.Moving down in stakes will likely correct the deficiency in bankroll most of us already have. If a big loss in one session hurts your bankroll, then you’re playing too big.

Ignore immediate results:

Winning heaps in a year does not a winning player make.

There are hundreds of others who make money that year too. All this means is that they made money playing poker this year, not that they are winning poker players, just like somebody who is a lifetime winner at craps is not a winning craps player.

Have more in life than poker:

I’m neck deep in my fourth and greatest downswing of my decade-long professional career….If I didn’t have other things going on in life, I would be on suicide watch. If poker was all I did, it would be really easy to fall into a deep, dark, depression, figuring everything to be pointless during one of these brutal downswings.

For the full article and the honest extent of Devonshire’s downswing, check out the entire article at CardPlayer.

Oil and water. Fire and ice. Matt Savage and Allen Kessler. Some things are diametrically opposite as laid out by nature. Tournament director Matt Savage does his best to make everything right by the players and current Heartland Poker Tour Player of the Year, Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler is never satisfied.

But for one shining moment, in what would make for an epic holiday card, Savage shows that the love of poker can bring two sides together.

Of course, if you need a reminder of some of the turmoil these two have put each other through, feel free to re-read this recap and op-ed from PokerNews about complaining in poker.

*Full Tilt Poker*recently announced their new YouTube video channel which will feature highlights and full length episodes of FTP branded programming like Poker After Dark, Late Night Poker and The Poker Lounge. That alone is pretty cool, what’s more though is they somehow locked down YouTube.com/poker as their URL. While this may not instantly make it the most popular poker channel, it sure will be easy to find.

Now if only they would make all the videos available for every country.

The ongoing efforts of online poker players to help raise funds for those effected by the devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan have reached new heights. Over $500,000 will be donated by PokerStars as players have come together to donate $250k, with the online giant matching them dollar for dollar.

PokerStars has announced December 4 as an end date for the matching program, so there’s still time for have your donations doubled. You can give to those in need from right inside your PokerStars client.

Ever wonder what poker players do when they win one of the most prestigious prizes in all of poker – a World Series Of Poker bracelet? Do they put it in a safe deposit box, wear the gaudy thing or place it on a mantle? Daniel Negreanu's assistant, Patty, showed everyone what Kid Poker does with his. In what looks to be a kind of trophy room, you can see all 6 of Daniel’s bracelets on display, encased in plastic, right next to his 2004 Cardplayer Player of the Year award for all who enter this hallowed hall to see. What would you do with yours?

F5 Trivia: all 6 bracelets are in front of a framed photo featuring many top poker personalities – can you name what that photo is from? Answer after the jump.

The photo is from the now defunct Venetian show “The Real Deal” – Take a closer look.

William Reynolds was stirring the pot this weekend. First with the drama surrounding Loni Harwood's “borrowing” of online accounts and then, not too long after, by picking a fight with “Bearded” Dan Bilzerian. After Dan claimed to have won $10 million at the tables this weekend, Reynolds decided to Tweet the fact that Dan’s dad filed for bankruptcy, on multiple occasions and Reynolds went so far to say that those stacks of cash in Bilzerian’s Tweets were born of outright fraud on his father’s part.

Blizerian replied as one might anticipate – by offering a free “bitch slap”:

We’ll keep an eye on this one.

There’s a lot about the playboy life of Dan Bilzerian that would be tough to believe. Usually though, he backs it up with pictures posted on his infamous Instagram account (warning: NSFW)

This weekend he let the world know that he was off to Puerto Vallarta right after having won over $10 MILLION at the poker tables. Believe it or not?

Everyone knows that account sharing/buying/borrowing is breaking the Terms and Conditions of just about every online site on the planet, including PokerStars. Well, this weekend PokerStars’ Big Game breakout personality and Ultimate Poker Team U member, William Reynolds put 2013 World Series of Poker phenom Loni Harwood on blast when he tweeted a photo of what looks to be a deleted tweet in which Harwood allegedly admits to “borrowing” an account while in Montreal.

It started when poker player Zachary Donovan shipped a tweet that read: “lol Loni Harwood’s boyfriend just told me that she plays stars/ftp on someone else’s screen name…wp sir”

From the looks of it, when this hit Reynold’s phone, he snap screencapped it. The tweet by Donovan was later deleted by Donovan himself, as was the reply by Harwood. Before they did though, Reynolds seems to have the conversation on lockdown.

While nothing is likely to happen because of this, the outspoken Reynolds decided to let PokerStars know by forwarding pics to them online.

Google Glass, the hi-tech eye wear that is planning on revolutionizing the planet, is currently being shipped out to real people to have real world testing done. Real people like Esquire magazine editor A.J Jacobs who promptly put it to use to cheat at poker.

Well, yes. I did cheat at poker. I’m a terrible poker player, so I needed all the help I could get. And my cousin is a professional poker player in Las Vegas. So, I used him to be my poker coach. And using the Google Glass, he could see my cards and tell me what to do – whether to raise or to fold or to laugh maniacally. And it worked.

Jacobs goes on to say that his cousin could see his cards and then wrote him messages on how to play his hand, which Jacobs could see in his glasses. Not only did it work, Jacobs scammed his buddies out of $200 using the method (which he notes that he gave back).

To see the extent to which Jacobs tested the eyewear, read (or listen) to the story over at NPR.

Professional poker player Eric Riley needs to start making better choices. In a story told by the New York Post, after a recent high stakes score in Atlantic City, Riley was carrying $100k in cash on him as he made his way to JFK airport. Little did Riley suspect that in order to get that cash home, he’d have to foil not one, but two robbery attempts.

Riley had met a “friend” in Atlantic City named “Junior” who would give him a ride to Kennedy airport. But when it came time for Riley to fetch his $100k bag from the trunk, Junior hit the gas and sped off – trunk open – trying to make off with the cash. Riley caught the first cab he could, gave them the classic “follow that car” speech and eventually caught up to Junior a red light. Hopping out of the car, he grabbed his stash bag, leaving the rest of his luggage and his computer as Junior made his getaway.

Thankful to have his money, Riley was then approached by two men claiming to be undercover cops. The so-called cops, offered him a ride back to the terminal, which Riley accepted.

But the men turned out to be a pair of jokers — who put a gun to his chest and demanded he give them the cash, police sources said.

Instead of giving up, the dumbfounded gambler refused, clutched the bag to his chest and made a daring leap from the moving car. He rolled down the highway, getting road rash as his clothes were torn to ribbons.”

Riley, still with the $100k, caught a legit cab and found legit cops to tell his tale to. He arrived at the Borgata with 80k in cash and won the extra $20k during his stay. Perhaps next time he’ll play that wire transfer fee.