Poker Night In America has been making big news in the smaller poker markets like Pittsburgh and, more recently, Maryland by bringing their TV shows (and big stars) to new spots for filming.

This past week, their stop at Maryland Live! Casino brought out the local TV camera from local news magazine “The List” where they caught up on the action (and with Nolan Dalla) happening in their backyard.

In full-on rocker chick chic, complete with a Van Halen t-shirt and cut-off sleeves vest, Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree gives a basic break down on how to get better to those new to the poker game.

From limiting the number of hands you play to being aggressive, Boeree rocks some advice for the viewers of FHM on what they need to do if they want to up their on-the-felt game.

Before he was eliminated in 15th place at EPT Vienna, Johnny Lodden was faced with big time decisions in a pivotal hand. Luckily for Lodden, he trusted his gut and raked the pot and right after he did, he stood up to talk about his thought process with PokerNews’ Kristy Arnett.

It wasn’t too long ago that the kids over at *PokerNews used their expensive acting lessons to don the personalities of some of poker’s most notorious stereotypes. Now, the creative minds over at CalvinAyre.com have also come up with a blueprint for laughs with the new “Perfect Poker Table.”

It’s everyone you either currently DO play with or would want to…and yet notice how you are still stuck 400 bucks? This fun, and great-looking we might add, poster accompanies an article that details out the reads and moves of each of these recreational players.

Read: The Perfect Poker Table

When you play poker, you’re supposed to watch your opponents carefully; to pick up tells and betting patterns, or simply to understand at what level the other players are playing the game. But, it’s also rather fun to watch the other players, simply to view the endless stupidity so many recreational poker players love to show off. And, no matter where I go, it seems like the same players are always there. They may look different, and they may dress different, but they play the same, making reads much easier.

If you find yourself identifying as one of the OTHER people at the table, then it’s time to take a look at your own table image, ya?

Kristy Arnett and Team PokerNews tracked down some of the professional poker players left in Hofburg Palace at EPT Vienna to have them face the music of their very first Tweet. For their 8th anniversary, Twitter released a tool to allow people to view their very first time talking in 140 characters or less and PokerNews got busy checking out some of their favorites.

Watch as Dan “Jungleman” Cates, Griffin Benger and PokerNews’ own Sarah Grant try to explain what they first twote. Then Kristy pulls up a few from poker’s popular kids like Phil Laak, Jason Mercier and, of course, Dan Bilzerian...which is exactly what you think it will be like.

Read: Twitter Time Machine: Which Poker Personality Had the Best First Tweet?

Click here to discover the first tweet of anyone you want!

'Merica, 'Merica, 'Merica – oy! oy! oy!

Who is that masked man? That’s right it’s poker ambassador Salty Joe Hachem all dressed up as Marvel’s Captain America. We don’t know exactly what he’s doing in this pic but here’s the top 5 guesses floating around the office:

5. Defecting from Australia and applying to become an American citizen in time for the WSOP.
4. Waiting in line for 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ a full week early.
3. Helping Thor find his long blonde locks.
2. Preparing for battle with arch-villian Sheldon Adelson.
1. Showing Yang and Gold how this is done, son.

Got a better caption? Let us know (we’ll add it).

This may be one of the best Raw Deal’s yet.

Ladies man and snazzy dresser Tony “Bond18” Dunst reveals some of the secrets to being a superior short stack ninja through the play of EPT Monte Carlo victor and World Poker Tour Champion Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania.

Maybe it’s the hard charging music underscoring the lesson or perhaps it’s Dunst’s cadence when talking about watching Mohsin “walk the tightrope”, but this is a very enjoyable pure poker video from the WPT Grand Prix de Paris that you will probably (and should) watch more than once.

Bonus: Here’s a random excerpt from the very same episode.

Watch as James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton call all the high-rolling action from EPT London as Daniel Negreanu, Sam Trickett, Mike “Timex” McDonald, Bill Perkins, John Juanda and Dan Shak battle it out in the £50,000 buy-in event.

Miss episode 1? Watch it right here.

In the latest episode of Strip Magic poker champ Antonio Esfandiari entertains the audience with a little one-handed push up action. Back in 2009, he bet $100 he could do more push ups than Ryan Szigeti and Phil Laak caught the whole thing on tape.

Can Antonio out-muscle the big biceps of Szigeti? Watch and find out.

Sarah Grant takes to the floor of EPT Vienna in a “human interest” story of sorts asking poker pros if they had to live without one of either music or television – which one would they fold?

Poker pros Jonathan Duhamel, Jeff Rossiter, Jan Heitmann, Mike McDonald, Henrique Pinho and dreamboat Marc-Andre Ladouceur all chime in on which one they could do without.

Which one would you give up if you had to?

Want to take another look at the sights and sounds of the host city of the current European Poker Tour stop? PokerNews ships Kristy Arnett, Chad Holloway and a cameraman out on a free segway tour of the city of Vienna.

While we get to see some of the architecture and get a little flair for the city – this video is comprised mostly of Arnett’s fascination with her hi-tech ride and the cameraman’s fascination with Arnett.

That said, there’s some cool shots in here that make it worth 2 minutes of your time.

Woman’s Chess Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade is one of the chess game’s more notable names. While she may have spent the bulk of her youth mastering how to protect her king, nowadays she’s talking about getting aggressive with aces. She’s the PokerStars Mind Sport Ambassador and it’s her job to portray poker in a similar light as that of her native game chess – one of skill.

“The biggest similarity that chess players can often translate to poker is the approach of always trying to play the best move – not just get lucky and win,” Shahade said. “That’s a very useful mentality that you need in order to get better at poker.”

In this article publish on St. Louis Public Radio, the chess world fears losing one of their own high profile players to the sexy world of rounders. But as Shahade is quick to point out, it need be not one or the other that people can enjoy but with both games finding a common ground on “making the best moves possible”, poker and chess are more like cousins than enemies.

Bonus: Shahade recently gave a TED talk of her own:

News of Full Tilt Poker's new tournaments spread fast through the poker community. The new Flipout Tournaments provide a luck based way for players with no time to find out if they are going to make the money or not…pretty much right away.

Read: Full Tilt Poker Is Flipping Out Over Their New MTTs

While in Vienna tagging along with their big brother PokerStars at EPT Vienna, Full Tilt decided to give players a preview of the Flipout frenzy by offering a live freeroll. Fast paced and over in a flash, players were treated to taste of the new online craze. Check it out.

Easily one of the best poker media outlets of the past decade has been that of Wicked Chops Poker. Insider knowledge, a sharp wit and a keen eye for the 'photographic arts’ has kept WCP a go to website for when you want insight.

The so-called “Entities Who Compromise Wicked Chops Poker” are entering their 10th year in business and while WCP isn’t cranking out the same amount of content that they always have, when they do it’s usually must-read material.

So when Steve and the guys unveil their list of 10 Things They’ve Learned In 10 Years the poker industry would best take note (we sure have). For that matter, it’s a pretty great read for the avid fan as well. So don’t do work – check out both parts right now.

Wicked Chops Poker At Nine Years – Part 1 (The Intro)

Wicked Chops Poker At Nine Year – Part II (10 Things List)

Sometimes, rants come out of nowhere.

Like this latest one from freelance poker writer Lee Davy that takes the annual Bluff Power 20, a list of the most powerful industry insiders as compiled by Bluff Magazine from a select group of 60 members of the poker industry, out behind the woodshed for a verbal beatdown…20 days after it was revealed.

It’s not like the Power 20 is still lingering in the minds of most, as, from where we sit, in the fast paced poker industry news grows stale by the hour much less the day. But before the topic is laid to rest, Davy takes it on himself to resurrect it – if only to punish it. You see, Davy seems pretty pissed that 'Merica has, once again, dominated the list.

Yes the country that is so self important that it creates sporting events with the word ‘world’ in the title and then doesn’t invite any teams from any other country absolutely dominates the rankings.

He has focused the majority of his ire on the fact that Bluff and their voters didn’t include Alex Dreyfus – the man who purchased and popularized the Global Poker Index as well as took over and updated the premiere poker results tracking rankings The Hendon Mob.

Is it because he’s not from the US? Is it because he’s the head of the biggest threat to Bluff’s own player ranking system? Or simply he was snubbed by voters? Davy points to the fact that the GPI was published in the “LA Times” (it’s really in the USA Today, not the LA Times) as proof of power.

It’s no coincidence that the GPI rankings were squeezed into the sports pages alongside the NBA, NHL and NFL leagues in the Los Angeles Times during my recent visit.

That’s the hard work of Dreyfus. The man who is set up to take over the world of poker from a reporting and distribution sense.

Of course, this is not exactly the hard work of Dreyfus as Davy says. The GPI was put in place at the USA Today under Annie Duke’s reign as the head of FS+G. Dreyfus works plenty hard mind you, but the inclusion of the GPI in the USA Today was put into place before Dreyfus’ ascension to the rankings throne.

Despite not knowing which paper the GPI is published and who put it there, Davy’s intent is to draw attention to the man who seems focused on making poker, both online and off, a cohesive unit. If “information is power” then Alex Dreyfus, a man who is all about the accumulation of info, is an argument for inclusion in 2015.

But wait…there’s MORE!

While he’s at it…Davy rails that there’s too few poker players on the Bluff 20 as well.

And why do we only have one player on that list? Aren’t our players powerful? Why isn’t Vanessa Selbst on that list?

He wants answers! No Selbst! No Galfond! No Gruissem! No way! Where are all the players?

With Daniel Negreanu as the only player on the P20 list, does this signify a void between who is controlling the poker industry and those who are participating in it? While perhaps Davy chose some tangentially “cool” names as opposed as to the players who may actually wield the most power (Ivey perhaps) he’s trying to make a point that players are the ones that are identified with, the role models and there should be recognized power in that.

All of this is worth your time. so check out these related links!

Links to the Bluff Magazine Power 20
Read: Lee Davy’s Rant – Too Many Americans, Not Enough Players and No Alex Dreyfus?

It’s no secret that Antonio Esfandiari is good with people. Both on and off the felt, “The Magician” charms all of those he comes in contact with. Now he uses that charm to get a read on both those he plays poker against and those who he performs for. Check out the latest version of Ultimate Poker's online series Strip Magic which follows Antonio as he talks about his first love, magic, and how it helped him become poker’s All-Time Money Leader.

An Australian man, David Desmond Bowen, who was looking to start a home game tournament by going on Facebook and rounding up the troops, narrowly avoided prison this week. Bowen tried to scratch up a no-rake home game MTT where his pals would put up $150 but all the gambling chatter on Facebook caught the attention of the fun police (we mean the actual police in this case) and Bowen was hauled into court.

Bowen pleased guilty to one count of “using a place for conducting gaming” according to the Yahoo! news story as he claimed ignorance to the law that, essentially, states you can’t play poker outside of casinos in his part of town. Bowen supposedly asked an employee of his local casino if this was a-ok and was told as long as he didn’t charge a vig it was all good. Bad advice.

The court didn’t convict Bowen but did place him on two years probation (good behavior).

Team Winamax's own superhero, Gaelle Baumann, catches up with PokerNews on Day 2 of EPT Vienna to talk about her day on the felt but also her future plans for the upcoming summer in Las Vegas.

In a “less is more” strategy Baumann states that she’s ditching the “spray and pray” approach of playing as many smaller $1500 tournaments as possible and will focus on fewer, high buy-in events at the 2014 World Series of Poker.

Poker player. Model. TV host. Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree is a lot of things. In this latest video from PokerNews you’ll also see that she is sometimes just bizarre. She collects animal masks, creates odd selfie videos (as we have demonstrated in the past) and lets fellow poker pro Daniel Negreanu straight up make out with her mum.

Strange indeed.

Sometimes, no matter how big the buy-in and what’s on the line, there’s a player or two that’s just begging to give their chips away. During Day 2 of EPT Vienna newly minted Team PokerStars Online Pro Marc-Andre Ladouceur encountered such a player and he was looking to pick those chips up as best he could.

Here he stops and chats with PokerNews’ Kristy Arnett about his time at the table on Day 2, a big hand where he was able to drag some of the free chips in his direction and some general strategy tips for getting into hands with spewy players.

The media attention to the Instagram account of high stakes poker pro Dan Bilzerian is at a fever pitch. Some might say he’s on his 14th minute. But when popular internet destination Buzzfeed names you the most interesting thing on Instagram, it’s going to draw the attention of the opposition and that’s what happened in this latest article from PolicyMic.

Bilzerian has climbed the ranks of popular poker players through the back door. Not by his overwhelming level of skill or any real results but through racking up big wins against whales and then spending that money on everything from guns to cars and more and sharing it with his legion of adoring fans. That’s exactly what PolicyMic has a problem with.

While it’s nice to see someone enjoying life, it’s too bad that his Instagram feed is basically everything that’s wrong with America today.

It’s easy to dismiss his critics as haters, because of course criticizing the objectification of women means you’re just jealous, bro. But on a grander scale, Bilzerian’s “conspicuous consumption” has a sharper sting for many Americans in light of current events. The poker champ embodies the lifestyle of the “contemporary leisure class” — a group whose spending habits serve no purpose but to “to build prestige, a cultural signifier intended to intimidate and impress,” as explained by Daniel Gross.

Of course the article isn’t thrilled with his treatment of women or his massive gun collection either, but the focus of the article cites his lavish lifestyle and accumulation of “things” as a measure of success. Where do you stand? Is Beardo a hero or a multi-millionaire poser?

Check out: This Poker Millionaire’s Lavish Instagram Is What’s Wrong With America

The World Poker Tour Jacksonville bestbet Open concluded on Tuesday with JAX local “Doc” Hirezi outlasting former WPT Champion James Calderaro to take home the $206k+ first place prize and his first WPT Championship.

Hirezi, who was being cheered on by a massive rail, binked a one outer – on the river – to seal the deal.

“You can play poker, you can be lucky but the support sometimes gives you a chance to think even better when you play.” Hirezi said during his winners interview as he gave credit to the Jacksonville locals for helping him get to the WPT promise land.

Here’s the results from the final table, directly from the WPT Live Updates page.

1. Nabil Hirezi – $206,041
2.James Calderaro – $133,764
3. Brian Green – $86,043
4. Peter Le – $63,682
5. Jordan Cristos – $47,802
6. Faraz Jaka – $38,241

[Editor’s note- It’s important to know, before reading this article, since the time of this publication Dewey Tomko has come out and said he knows nothing about this published op-ed. You can read about that right here: Dewey Tomko – Subject of Op-Ed Hoax? ]

Oof.

Perhaps when WSOP bracelet winner Dewey Tomko signed on to be a part of the Online Poker Security movement, along with Bill Byers and James Thackson, he didn’t expect to take the abuse he’s received in the media this week.

Late last week we pushed a post cracking wise (as we are prone to do) about the motives behind Tomko’s Op-ed in the Press of Atlantic City. We surmised that they are really just looking for work.

Read: Poker Hall of Famer Dewey Tomko – Untested Online Poker May Destroy The Game

Well, this post got a discussion started over at Two Plus Two in which both 2p2 head honcho Mason Malmuth and PPA VP Rich “The Engineer” Muny chimed in. Also, photos surfaced showing that Dewey used to be a paid sponsor for pre-Black Friday site Doyle’s Room.

Getting the business on Two Plus Two is one thing but then both Haley Hintze over at Flushdraw and Steve Ruddock on 4Flush both had some rough words for the celebrity endorser of James Thackson’s online security business.

We’ll let Steve Ruddock unload first:

Read: How Dewey Tomko Sold Out the Poker Community

It was one thing when a no-name poker player (Bill Byers) was willing to sign on to James Thackston’s “I can prove collusion is possible in online poker” argument, but it’s another thing entirely for a Poker Hall of Famer and fairly well-respected player Dewey Tomko to sign his name on the dotted line of this abomination masquerading as legitimate research.

This is precisely what Dewey Tomko has done by joining forces with James Thackston. He has given this study some measure of credibility (at least in the eyes of laypeople), which is incredibly sad because Dewey has been around the game long enough to know better.

He goes on and talks about how banning online poker would actually help the cheaters…

An online poker ban would allow unlicensed sites to thrive, and then we could see another cheating scandal like what occurred at Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet. The fear of soft collusion as a reason to call for a ban of online gambling opens the door for real, significant crimes.

Way to look out for your fellow poker players Dewey.

Hintz, as per her style, didn’t bother to pull any punches either.

Read: Dewey Tomko and the Weird Online Poker Flip-Flopping Sellout

This new editorial touches on those credits, but skips over the other side of Dewey Tomko. That’s the Dewey Tomko who for years served as paid spokesman for Doyle’s Room, which was one of those very same “unregulated offshore poker sites” that Tomko now seeks to pillory by way of enhancing his own reputation, and maybe try to get the inside line on a new paid gig, perhaps as a games-integrity consultant.

She goes on to cite him as a hustler of epic proportions.

The thing is, if the powers that be understood how much of an inveterate hustler Dewey Tomko was, they’d look six or seven times at his possible motivations for getting involved in this debate… in this way. Tomko is one of the two or three most legendary hustlers the combined poker-and-golf worlds have ever known…

Finally, she alludes to who Tomko may have used to run with back in the day…

One of Tomko’s long-time friends in the industry, and in that world of poker- and sports-hustling? That would be Russ Hamilton, the man who ripped off players of the site he partly owned, UltimateBet, for tens of millions of dollars.

As new legalized sites find their way into the marketplace, security, in all forms, are going to be a consistent issue. Where there is as much money as there is in online poker, there are people looking to fleece it of such. Perhaps even those who claim to want to protect us from that fleecing. Stay tuned!

Perhaps they are just tired of answering questions about geolocation, but Ultimate Poker’s parent company, Ultimate Gaming, pushed out an info-graphic on how they know if you are in a “free state.”

Geolocating, the way Ultimate Poker pinpoints your actual location through the use of your cell phone, IP address and computers MAC address, doesn’t come without it’s problems. You can imagine the frustration of customers who may find themselves in a completely legal place, but still unable to get their gamble on, right? Well, it’s not always the fault of the online site – and Ultimate Gaming wants to educate you on the In’s and Out’s of Geolocatiion!

Check out this pretty poster on what you can do when you make your way to the WSOP to help you find a hand of online poker a little faster. Need more help from UP? Check out their Player Care website.

What do you do to follow up a first place victory in the 2014 PokerStars PCA? You go crush the EPT Deauville High Roller of course! How about after that?

You sit and chill in a Google Hangout sesh with Sarah Grant.

Check out this relaxed play date with rising star Dominik Panka and the PokerNews hostess as they get to know the Polish poker pro and talk about Panka’s new found wealth and popularity due to his early 2014 successes.

Fair warning: It’s a little tough to get all the words due to the spotty quality and the background noise, but it’s short and will likely endear you to the #1 Polish All-Time Money List leader.

In an effort to expand their content outside the poker room and give hostess Kristy Arnett a chance to crack a few jokes, the PokerNews crew takes to the street of Vienna, Austria to show a little of the sights and sounds of the beautiful city hosting the current leg of the European Poker Tour.

Home to world renown psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Arnett channels his penchant for sexual slip-ups as she explores every inch of the city. If you want to get a better feeling for what it’s like to be inside Vienna, get excited and dive into this video.

World Poker Tour's Brittany Bell & Ive Teves stalk the poker floor in the early goings of the WPT Jacksonville best bet Open to ask rando players “What’s the best bet they’ve ever made?”

In what seems to be a fairly straightforward question hoping to provide some levity, almost no one provides an answer of any quality or relevance. From John “Muscles” Gordon's humble brag about making a final table to Jared Jaffee's outright lying – the video fumbles it’s way through a host of people who, rather than answer, simply seem stunned that these charming ladies are talking to them.

Bonus: Bell talks with Tournament Director Jesse Hollander about their Last “Man” Standing for the 21 and UNDER set.

More cool shots of the poker floor from EPT Vienna. Find a good pic? Let us know.

Natalie Hof – the 2014 EPT Vienna Woman’s Event Champ! It has a nice ring to it, but as you can tell from her quick interview with Kristy Arnett she’s less than thrilled about the honor. That could have something to do with the fact it was a €330 buy-in event with only 61runners, but still a €5,325 first place is nothing to scoff at (is it?).

Read: Hof at home in the Hofburg, claims maiden title

See how Hof thinks that it was her destiny to win the event, if not for her river one-outer, then simply because they are playing in Hofburg Palace. She’s hoping that some of that luck will continue during her stay in Vienna.

Bonus: EPT Vienna Party Video

-

Bonus: Sarah Grant does a very similar interview with Hof for PokerStars.

This week inaugural College Poker Tour will open it’s virtual doors and hope that some portion of the 17 million college students in the USA will log-on and play poker for school pride. Presented by All-In Magazine the fee-based, no-cash game will run qualifiers/competitions from March 26-May 26 where players will represent their school and, if they are good enough, can win their way to a live Las Vegas event.

According to All In, CPT has done their research and have found that universities all over the US have “poker clubs” including Notre Dame Duke, LSU, Michigan, UCLA, MIT, and Purdue some of which have upwards of 150 members.

Much like a community college term paper, the CPT website is lacking a lot of information.

From the looks of it (gleaned from the All In article), individuals pay $50 as a league fee and then play in a bunch of qualifier tournaments (we’ll call this the season). Then, if you produce results you move on to the online CPT National College Poker Championships (the playoffs). Finally, if things go really well for you, the CPT will fly you out to Vegas for the CPT live final table.

All in the name of school pride.

So, is this going to work? Well, they’ve got a catchy trailer (thanks to the “College Dropout” himself, Kanye West), a long term plan and weekly team and individual rankings. They are hoping to make poker a national collegiate sport but will players be ready to drop a “Grant” on a new play money site and can the CPT partner with these on-campus poker clubs?

Organizers and All In are going to give it the old college try.

Avid readers of F5poker have known this forever, but just this week popular mainstream website Buzzfeed published an article naming high-stakes poker pro Dan Bilzerian the “Most Interesting Man On Instagram.”

With a rich history of snapshots of his mansions, his views, his cars, his lovers and, of course, his cash, Buzzfeed strings together a picture of their own – a millionaire Playboy who has it all. Including a soft side.

So if you haven’t gotten your fill of Beardo, check out the extensive photo essay that is *'This Millionaire Playboy Is The Most Interesting Man On Instagram’* over at Buzzfeed.

Check out a few of his most recent pics:

Finally, after 6 months of engraving my jailhouse Heirloom precision 45 is back #1911

Beware of 2lb guard cat @smushball

As previously reported, Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree went to the men’s magazine FHM headquarters for a photo shoot recently and disappointed fanboys everywhere when it was found out that that it wouldn’t be Liv who was stripping down.

Read: Liv Boeree Breaks Hearts, Reveals 'Not Racy’ FHM Photo Shoot

Well the first photo of that session was just tweeted out by Liv and the whole article and photo shoot can be enjoyed in the current issue of FHM.

In addition to Liv’s participation in the magazine, here’s 5 other reasons to pick up this month’s issue.

Notorious nit Allen “Chainsaw” (“Complainsaw”) Kessler has been one of the foremost scrutinizers of big buy-in tournament structures out there. In fact, Kessler, a Team Ivey pro has even been cited as giving his “stamp of approval” to the Mid-Stakes Poker Tour.

Well, when it comes to the World Poker Tour's new habit of turning tournaments from 10/9 handed to 6 handed at 36 players – like they do at Bay 101 – Kessler does NOT approve. Here’s what he recently posted on his Facebook account, much to the chagrin of the World Poker Tour.

Recently there has been a new twist on how the final stages of WPT main events are played out. After playing 9/10 handed for several days, the events are changed to 6 max starting at 36 players.

This format is fine for one event per year (Bay 101), but now has been added to other events including the lapc, and the recent thunder valley event.

This change occurs right as the prize money begins to escalate and completely alters the play up to the final table. In essence, going to 6 max starting shorthanded with only 36 players left, is actually 4-5 handed play for the most part.

Check the updates from the recent event in thunder valley. You’ll notice from 36 down to the final table nearly all the hands dealt are 4 or 5 handed. The upside to this is that the final table rates be deeper due to the fact that 4-5 handed play forces players to defend blinds more often and attempt steals more, thereby forcing the action and bustouts. The downside is that players have played for several days of full ring poker to get to this point, and have to survive huge variance 4-5 handed play in order to make the final table. The deeper final table is offset by high variance short handed play for the final 6 tables.

The system wasn’t broken for the past 12 years and there’s no reason to change the entire dynamics of these main events just because 36 players are left.

For many players in this position, this is their one shot at a wpt title and suddenly the rules have changed dramatically. The extra play at the final table, if any, is offset by forcing 4-5 handed play, in what was a several day 9 handed event, for the final 6 tables. Now, when all the money and prestige is on the line, the event becomes 4-5 handed and a series of huge swing pots until the final table is reached.

The old system was fine. Look at the last borgata event. They played down normally without going 6 handed at 36 and the avg stack at the final table was over 60 big blinds. 9 handed play naturally gets to 6-8 handed play anyway, as the final few tables break down. There’s no reason to increase variance at such a crucial stage by forcing 4-5 handed play.

WPT Final Table: Seating & Chip Counts
Level 31: 50,000-100,000, 15,000 ante
Seat 1. Vlad Mezheritsky – 1,390,000 (13 bb)
Seat 2. Jared Jaffee – 6,620,000 (66 bb)
Seat 3. Anthony Maio – 9,500,000 (95 bb)
Seat 4. Anthony Merulla – 3,445,000 (34 bb)
Seat 5. David Paredes – 9,650,000 (96 bb)
Seat 6. Farid Jattin – 6,115,000 (61 bb)

The system wasn’t broken for the past 12 years and there’s no reason to change the entire dynamics of these events just because 36 players are left.

If these events want to continue this format maybe they should rename them wpt mix max main events. 9-10 handed until 36 players, then 4-5 handed until the final table.

I realize a lot of online pros prefer short handed play late, but the wpt is not tailored to online pros. It’s supposed to be an event where on any given day, anyone can win.

Check out the full post and all the comments from respected poker pros right here

The cream of the crop of the UK’s poker scene got together for the 2014 Sky Poker UK Poker Championship this past February when 621 runners chased a £125,000 first place prize at the Dusk Till Dawn Casino.

Now, the televised event is almost out of post production and ready for it’s April Sky Poker debut. Here’s a little promo to get all of the UK poker fans ready for some tournament action.

Think you are good at reading tells? Can you spot a liar at the table? If you think you’ve got a beat on who is bluffing and who is value-shoving then you are going to want to take this quiz recently posted on the New York Times website.

Watch 10 short videos, none of them poker related in this case, and in each the person is answering a question (or questions) posed to them by the University of Chicago for research purposes. Some of these everyday people are telling the truth, some are lying (they were told to)...can you tell which are which?

Take a few moments and see how good your “reading” skills are in this fast, fun quiz.

Take The Test: Can You Spot the Liar?

Our F5poker on-staff live pro correctly guessed..erm…determined 8/10! Can you beat that?

As the WPT Jacksonville bestbet Open heads into the penultimate day, some of the biggest names in poker still remain in the hunt for a final table with 19 players remaining. While not the most recognizable name in the field, perhaps the most interesting is overnight chip leader Jared Jaffee who was the winner of the last WPT event to be held in Jacksonville (Fall Poker Scramble) and the WPT Champion Club member is hoping his luck holds up to will himself to back-to-back JAX titles.

Right behind him though are former WPT Champion Jordan Cristos and James Calderaro as well as one of the biggest names in tournament poker, Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier. Also hoping to double up and find their way to the Final Table Live Stream are notables Faraz Jaka, John Racener and Dan Heimiller.

The $3500 buy-in event saw 258 players enter creating a prizepool of $825,600 and a healthy first place prize of over $206k. The final table will be available to be watched via Live Steam at (around) 12:30pm EST on Tuesday March 25.

Updates and chip counts as they play down to the final 6 are available on the WPT Live Updates page.

Bonus: Check out the WPT Champion’s Club Invite Only Dinner

PokerNews reporter Kristy Arnett takes a moment to get you all caught up on all things EPT Vienna before the start of the Day 1b Live Stream.

Watch as Arnett takes a few moments with Eureka Poker Tour Main Event Winner Zoltan Gal to listen to him search for words in explaining how it feels to win €240,000. Arnett also is tasked with struggling to pronounce the names of those players that sit atop the EPT Vienna Day 1a leaderboard.

Bonus: Arnett and her pal and fellow PokerNews reporter Sarah Grant went out on the town last night where this pic was snapped.

The premiere of the new World Poker Tour Alpha8 Super High Roller tournament TV show was pushed back last week when rain delayed the ability for a bunch of cars to drive in a circle.

Professional poker player turned poker commentator, Olivier Busquet takes a few minutes after level two of EPT Vienna to talk with PokerNews reporter Kristy Arnett about how a live NASCAR race on Fox Sports 1 (FS1) interrupted the poker world’s first look at the new Alpha8 program. Now the show is slated to air on Sunday March 30th on FS1 with no breaks in the schedule moving forward.

Speaking of lag, the pair also commiserate with each other about how hard it is, when flying all over the world to play and cover poker tournaments, to get their sleep schedules on track. The pair, fighting horrible cases of jetlag, talk about way to try and combat that while focusing on the poker tasks at hand.