They have just released an “exclusive” look (exclusive in that everyone is welcome to watch) at the recently-purchased facilities on the Isle of Man. Not only are they showing off their sick server farm, but also their philosophy of poker being a universal game for everyone from recreational players to professionals and “everyone in between” (including any potential regulators, like in the USA, you know).

Enjoy PokerStars programming: PokerStars EPT 2014 PCA Main Event – Episode 1

The WSOP Main Event has been skewing the all-time money list for decades now. It was the first poker tournament to award a $1,000,000 first prize back in 1991, foreshadowing the poker-boom trend toward seven-figure winners, and in the mid-2000s it was the first ever to award $2.5 million, $5 million, $7.5 million, and $12 million to a single player. Then came the wave of high-roller tournaments in the 2010s, giving players on a roll like Erik Seidel was in 2011 the chance to cash for an unprecedented $6.5 million in a single year. But no one tournament has thrown off the all-time money list quite as severely as the $1,000,000 Big One For One Drop.

While not a revolutionary opinion, it’s an interesting read. Most people that follow poker closely know that the rise of the high roller led to the demise of the actual gravity of the ATML, but Kirk doesn’t stop there. He wants to shine a light on those legends, like Chip Reese and T.J. Cloutier, that are steadily getting pushed down the list to make sure their greatness is not being diminished by the Jaime Gold one-hit-wonders. Check it out.

Read: Dealers Choice: Poker’s All-Time Money List Has Lost Its Meaning

Check out another one of Calvin Ayre’s filtered photograph presentations of this humble family man who consistently crushes at the table.

More Tran: JC Tran Puts Family First, Just Says No To Staking

Check out this article that shines a light on 8 things that content marketers (and actually, a lot of other professions) can learn from the process oriented thinking of professional poker players.

From time to time a backed player earns a seat to another tournament, travel expenses or a trophy with a high dollar value (like a bracelet). How much of that bonus belongs to the backer?

When the bonus is taken from the prize pool itself, I see this as a 100% clear case where the backer should be entitled to the same percentage of any future winnings. Otherwise it would actually mean they were paying a hefty premium for backing them in the first place.

The instance where it was an added value package provided by the event sponsor, there is more room for debate.

So if you are a backer or looking to get backed you need to get your percentages in order before the transfer of cash and Barry takes a look at all the angles.

Read: Should staked players give backers a cut of bonuses?

All August long, you accumulate these iRPs (iReward Points) and, as they compound, BorgataPoker hands back the cash. True grinders, if you climb the ladder to the top, will get bonuses of $4480 in cash, and $20 in tournament tickets.

Getting to the top isn’t easy money, it won’t happen in a single day. But that’s why it’s called a “grind” and if you have both talent and time to put in the volume, you can get there.

Brand new? Then there’s even more stuff to grab.

Get some new deposit freeroll love. Have an account and want a bonus? Of course they have that too.

In this Op-ed over at India’s Economic Times, Colman’s words ring true to the author of an article that ponders the difference between the consummate pro and the drunk gambler when sitting at the table. Is there really a difference between them? Honor in being a student of the game? Furthermore, is poker a losing life proposition – even if you are a winner?

I didn’t feel elated after my score, though. “We pride ourselves on studying the game, cracking the math, all that other shit,” I said to J as we drove away, “but in the end this is what it comes down to. Sitting in a dark room waiting for a drunk builder to give his money away. Where is the nobility in this?” J replied, “Yeah, we’re like drug dealers exploiting people’s addictions.”

We spend lots of time talking about the fat cash and fun times of poker as a part-recreation, part-sport for most and a profession for a select few. Here’s the other side to that viewpoint, check it out and see what you think.

Read: Poker has a corrosive impact on the lives of even the winners

My bet was to get from 287lbs to 245lbs by Nov 1. I have 20 more lbs to go. #brokeandhungry

Provided that he makes it by November 1st, Bellande stands to gain about $1660 for every pound he loses. That’s easily more than enough money to make it worth hiring a personal trainer to make sure that you do so. But he better act fast, he has another 20 lbs. to go and just under 3 months to get there.

More classic JRB: Jean-Robert Bellande Arrested In Las Vegas

Making it well past the profit mark; Daniel “Jungleman” Cates ($698,967), Alexander “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn ($657,070), Mikael “punting-peddler” Thuritz ($303,420) and Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau ($298,091) all had a massive online day.

Hell, the action was so good even online poker’s largest loser Gus Hansen ($287,329) booked a big win.

Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau’s victory means he is still 2014’s biggest online poker winner with a profit of $2,072,307. That figure is just pipping Dan “jungleman12” Cates to the mark.

But if there are all these winners, someone has to be losing.

That honor was bestowed on one of the sickest. Chun “samrostan” Lei Zhou who amazingly burnt out for nearly $1,150,000 in the single day while playing in 8-Game action, sharing much of his lost wealth with the aforementioned profiteers.

Read: Online Nosebleed Degen “samrostan” Reveals His Identity, Never Quits

With no real live action set to begin this week, there looks to be no slowing down on the nosebleed virtual felts. For all the results from yesterday, check out the standings over at HighStakesDB.

Just to assure those paying the monthly fee that they are going to have something to watch from the 10-time bracelet winner, Ivey took the time to snap a couple pics of what it looks like when he has to grind out time in the Ivey Poker cubicle.

Any specific hands I should review from this years @WSOP (besides the AA vs. AA big hand that played itself out.)

Pull back a little and one can see the zebra striped chair and unused poker table top that clutters up the workspace of the People’s Champ.

More Ivey: Phil Ivey Doesn’t Do Email, Doesn’t Pick Screen Names

It’s a short, happy video which is just the beginning of the introduction to who these 9 dudes are that we’re going to spend over 15 hours watching live on ESPN later this year.

The question is – will the hype work? Can the WSOP, through all their channels and the airing of the edited Main Event, help get you invested in one of these 9 “characters” at the Main Event Final Table?

One semi-naysayer in this instance is Steve Ruddock who recently published an Op-ed about his thoughts on the N9 over on 4Flush.

Read: The November Nine Works; Except When it Doesn’t

Here, Ruddock suggests that while the November 9 has worked, on occasion, in the past that in order for the hype machine to really work – there needs to be something really worthy of the hype.

But the November Nine format itself doesn’t really work if there is nothing to promote, and this year there is really nothing to promote –nor was there very much last year.

If there’s no name to promote, is the hype machine worth firing up? Or is it that because there’s always likely NOT to be someone incredibly well-known the three month layover is a necessity to get people informed enough to tune into the final table?

Either way – Ruddock has an interesting take worth checking out but you can bet that the WSOP is going to be rolling out the backstories, early and often, of this eclectic group of international poker players that consist of the November Nine “Class of ’14”.

Want more info on the November Nine? Check out the full set of F5 Digital Trading Cards!

Jesse May calls the action and Kara Scott add the flavor from the rail.

Looking for more Premiere League? Here’s the previous episode: partypoker Premiere League 7 – Episode 18

Eventually though, according to Amanda, instead of paying her share Shannon just split, while allegedly owing Amanda $5.5K worth of rent, house supplies and smokes. Now, here we are, a couple years later, and Musumeci writes that she has tried to be patient, she never received the money.

I obviously have scammer bells ringing sooo loud n clear in my ears! I pretty much snapped on her at this point and told her to get out of my house. It was Christmas, but I honestly didn’t even care. I told her this run around was absurd and that story makes no sense. I felt like she was playing me for a fool.

Amanda leaves no private conversation private. The blog post has DMs, text messages and just about anything one could want to read in support of Amanda’s side. While there may be two sides to this story, as of now, Kim has opted to keep her side private at this time.

So if you like yourself a little poker drama, you may get a kick out of reading up on the situation that’s currently going down. It’s a matter of private debt going WAY public (as Amanda published her blog, posted it on Two Plus Two, reposted it on Poker Fraud Alert and even on her blogspace on Card Player...it got everywhere.) and there’s a good likelihood that something like this, which looks pretty bad for Shannon and therefore for employer partypoker, could cost someone their job.

Curious? Of course you are…Go head, check it out:

Read (the long post): Scammer(subjective) Alert: BEWARE OF KIM SHANNON

More Amanda: Amanda Musumeci All Business, No Drama At WSOP

Enjoy the preview for “Gutshot Straight” the Vegas poker movie starring one of the guys from C.S.I (George Eads), one of the girls from the new 90210 (AnnaLynne McCord) and the legend himself, Steven Seagal.

The trailer is filled with amazing performances of soon-to-be iconic lines and just about every conceivable cliche. It looks like the movie has been completed for some time, possibly even screened, but is not yet commercially available. But if you want to try and track down a copy, you can always ask the distributor, Archstone Distribution, as they have an online form to fill out to let people see the finished product.

Is this so bad it’s good? So bad it’s bad? Would you actually watch this? You tell us.

(h/t to our pal SrslySirius for the heads up!)

From small stakes (and steaks) to famous names, the popularity of poker is not lost on the so-called center of the universe, New York City. In his article for the New York Post, Kaplan pulls up a chair to some of NYC’s longest running poker home games to see why, even outside of Vegas, poker is still gaining popularity as both a social and competitive recreation for people of all backgrounds.

But I didn’t know that back then. In fact, I didn’t really know much of anything. I’d been marginally involved in the initial ESPN negotiations with Binion’s Horseshoe back before the 2003 WSOP. However, I don’t know jack shit about business or negotiating finances. I certainly didn’t know anything about the European gaming and television landscape. However, I was asked to be on this call for the simple fact that I was now within the inner-circle at PokerStars, and it was presumed I was one of the pillars of the ESPN-WSOP alliance (I wasn’t).

What if you work your whole life for a seat at the table, but once you get that seat you don’t know how to hold a knife and fork?

While the post doesn’t exactly provide specifics about how the deal went down or who contributed what – it is an interesting read based on Dalla’s own observations and opinions of both Scheinberg, Duthie and his former self.

So, even though you don’t actually hear a lot about the creation of the tour, it’s worth your time to check out.

Read: *A PokerStars Conference Call: The Creation of the European Poker Tour * [Nolan Dalla]

Best gift idea ever thanks @stapes! Yes that is Howard Lederer’s pic on a golf ball lol

Negreanu’s pal, EPT Live's fantastic color commentator Joe Stapleton is always full of hilarious ideas and it looks like this is one that Negrenu loves so much, it actually went into production.

While it’s probably not about the money for Daniel, if he (or you) really wanted to take a golf club to some reminders of the Full Tilt catastrophe, you could have bought old merch for pennies on the dollar at auction this past weekend and taken a golf club to that crap.

Read: Full Tilt Auction – Discount Merch Is Going, Going, Gone

We suppose that in poker, it was. Just about anything pre-Moneymaker is considered ancient lore and so if you like tales of legends, then watch another “storytime with Sexton” as he tells the tale of the first “Tournament of Champions”. It was an event he dreamed up and executed back in the day, with the help of Doyle Brunson, where you couldn’t buy your way but had to be good enough to win your seat.

He ran the ToC for 3 years and never made a dime of it, but it did lead to his role with the WPT.

The poker’s on-camera personality is getting hitched to one of the toughest mixed martial artists to ever step foot in the UFC. This man(iac) got in the Octagon, willingly, with WWE part-monster/other part-monster Brock Lesner...for three rounds…and survived.

He actually lived and did not die….against a guy who has a broad sword tattooed on his chest. Crazy, right?

Well, now Herring (aka the “Texas Crazy Horse”) is going toe-to-toe with Grant in the steel cage that is marriage. In this Main Event though, there’s no being saved by the bell and kicks below the belt are not just legal, but routine. Sure, you get to roll around on the mat on a regular basis, but Herring should be prepared to be submitted time and time again.

Congrats to Sarah and Heath: you may now kiss the bride (just not like this).

http://t.co/AuyjHklUH3 pic.twitter.com/G7YzsZqAM8

— PokerNight.com (@PokerNightTV) January 27, 2014

The first monthly drawing, which takes place tomorrow, is going to gift someone a Sea- Doo Spark + Trailer. Another lucky winner will receive a Beach House Rental and the third and fourth place winners will receive Borgata Luxury Weekend packages. Next month someone will win a trip for two to St. Lucia, someone else will win a hot tub…not a dip in a hot tub…their own hot tub, and then there’s the 75” TV, the Macbook, the…look there’s a ton of stuff. Up to 45 people are going to walk away with a prize tomorrow and another 65 next month.

That’s the monthly drawing, they also have weekly drawings. It feels like they are giving away just a ton of stuff and if you are in New Jersey, it’s pretty easy to try to luckbox your way into a piece of that.

There’s a bunch of ways to collect tickets, some of which require you to do practically nothing like click a button. Then you collect more when you enter tournaments, which is fun…but if it’s not your thing you can still get your name entered.

For all of them though, you do need an account with BorgataPoker.com. If you don’t have one, there’s still time for tomorrow and, of course for the weekly and the September monthly drawing. Here’s some info on that:

Brand new? Get some new deposit freeroll love. Have an account and want a bonus? Of course they have that too.

So if you want in on Sizzlin’ Summer Sweepstakes, fire up that client and click on promotions and OPT IN for automatic entry. Then run good.

You name it, it was up for grabs: coasters, books, DVD’s, dartboards, flex-fit caps, tons of t-shirts, poker chips sets, decks of cards…the whole FTP store.

If it had a FTP logo on it, it was on the Bloch.

So what was the highest yielding lot? They sold 250 FTP dartboards for $14 each bringing in $3,500 and 10 Poker Tables for the same amount.

The least expensive, per unit, was a FTP Cat Stress Toy which went for .02 cents…at 5076 units.

Want to see how much each item sold for? Check out Proxibid’s finished auction site over at J Sugarman.

Props to Hans Kleinsman over at Nederpoker for getting out the calculator and coming up with the total amount sold.

Turns out that some of these photos (maybe all of them) come from a 1953 Hardin Simmons College Yearbook that Andy found on eBay. Another Yearbook, this one from 1952, is also up for grabs. While the one that is on sale wasn’t Doyle’s personal Yearbook, he appears in it and he also signed it for the owner. Sound cool? It can be yours for a mere $400.

Check out Doyle’s College’s Yearbook on sale.

It looked for a while that Doyle may become a pro baller, as he was being scouted for such, but a knee injury on the job halted his hopes. Instead Doyle began to play poker in the process becoming a 10-time WSOP Champion, one of the most recognized names in poker and an inspiration for chatbox pranksters the world over.

(h/t to Lance Bradley for the eBay info)

It’s an argument that many have made – etiquette at the table makes a big difference when it comes to the enjoyment aspect of the game. It’s a simple concept: If you are a player that enjoys playing with recreational players that you may have an edge over, then don’t be a dick.

Tim won’t name names (we asked) but it’s a message he feels strongly about so he let his feelings be heard.

This is easy to get behind. He’s not spewing some kind of soapbox-preacher, way-to-live-your-life rhetoric. He seemingly just got fed up with some fellow “pros” acting superior at the table making the game unenjoyable and maybe killing his action.

It’s as if someone forgot that how you play poker is of little reflection of who you are in life. Being good at the game doesn’t make you a better person off-the-felt, it doesn’t make your views any more correct, or give you license to be a prick. So, please don’t do it.

(Not that any readers of F5poker would be pricks!)

This past month the young 23-year-old millionaire, who shunned the 2014 World Series of Poker this year because he prefers the Swedish summer, smashed through the nosebleed online Omaha Hi/Lo tables for a profit over $520K bringing his yearly profits, in this specific style, to a mega $1,735,374.

Read: Viktor Blom Cashing In Online As Foes Grind The WSOP

While we can all applaud such a seemingly magical display of profitable poker, the story in the contrasting style of Omaha Hi is not so elegant. The 2012 SCOOP Event 5 Omaha Hi fifth place finisher lost just under $392K playing on the Full Tilt Omaha Hi cash tables leaving his yearly Omaha Hi stats a shady $795,536 on the down side of zero.

Additionally, Blom is also $1.8M+ down playing Triple Draw this year, nursing an online cash game deficit of over $951K for 2014 across all styles so far.

Maybe Blom should stick to Omaha Hi/Lo where he has been a consistent winner.

Check out Blom’s YTD graph over at HighStakesDB.

So far, nary a question has been asked in the thread so either no one gives a care about what Dan Smith thinks or the word hasn’t spread far enough yet. So, if you have question for the guy who has crushed so many souls on his way to four 7-figure scores and $8.5M in lifetime earnings – go register and ask away, you’ve got great odds on getting your Q’s, A’d.

Q&A with Team Ivey pro DAN SMITH: ask yours questions!

Who’s Dan Smith you ask? King Dan Smith – Just A Numbers Nerd Who Likes His Chances or even Somerville, Smith, Marchese and Mercier Run It Up To Over A Million

Is Daniel Negreanu weighing in on the war in Gaza good or bad for poker?

Is the World Poker Tour running a small buy-in tournament at the same time as the WSOP Main Event good or bad for poker?

Is PokerStars coming back to the USA good or bad for poker?

In all of these examples you probably had an opinion. The heroes over at Wicked Chops Poker asked a bunch of their friends who from this year’s November Nine they thought was good, bad or just simply “meh” for the game poker.

Read: Good, Bad, Meh for Poker: 2014 WSOP Edition

But WCP doesn’t just make a list and expect you to figure it out for yourself. They break it down with their biting brand of biting wit, like they do here for chipleader Jorryt van Hoof.

Jorryt van Hoof – We actjually got some real sjupport for van Hoof. While we don’t see an upcjoming “van Hoof Effect” on the horizon, one friend at an operator described him as a “sicko” and someone he even once considered signing.

Sure, his name sounds a little too much of Joran van der Sloot for our liking, but otherwise, he’s fine. Within the so-called pokjer “media” circles he’s got some fans. Pjopele love his online game. But he’s neither here njor there for us, so he’s in “Mjeh” for now.

So give Wicked Chops a little love and see who they and their poker pals see fit to be good, bad and meh for the game.

More: F5Poker Trading Cards – The Entire World Series of Poker November Nine

Ladies and gentleman, a fine example of one of my friends. Amazing to be surrounded by these types, I have my moments of reciprocation as well. Biggest heads up poker winner online in the past five years: @junglemandan

It looks as though the One Drop participant was looking to do a little online grind and picked the Mexican hotspot to pick on some players.

Instead, he found himself a couple miles away from Bay 101 instead.

Props to iGaming for landing this one.

More Jungleman: Jungleman to Isildur – “Pay Your Debts Scumbag”

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Bonus: Watch SrslySirius' Dan Cates inspired video – “Dan”