Dan and Danielle are back in another episode of Me vs U and this time they’ve invited a couple local Las Vegas poker personalities to sit in on the fun.

Jason Somerville and former PokerNews hostess (and future UP pro?) Kristy Arnett join the pair in a “battle of the sexes” episode where we get to watch the poker pros play typical family night style games. Taboo, Pictionary and charades are the challenges. To the winners the glory, to the losers a buffet of embarrassment.

Not that it’s not amusing, but it’s perhaps a little uninspiring.

Calvin Ayre reporter, the charming Tatjana Pasalic, denied to film in the hallways of the Rio during the World Series of Poker waits outside in the heat to ask poker players who they think should get nominated for the Poker Hall of Fame. We think this video may be one big level…

It starts out standard enough – poker pros theoretically nominating other pros for the Hall like Antonio Esfandiari, John Duthie and Daniel Negreanu.

Then Kevin Stammen walks into camera and nominates Daniel Alaei after which the video shows a long montage of Daniel Negreanu over Stammen talking about Alaei.

Then Tatjana talks with professional poker player “Brandon Stevens” who nominated Phil Ivey. Of course, this could be a Brandon Stevens. But it’s certainly not well known poker pro Brandon Steven, the participant in the One Drop. If this particular person named Brandon Stevens is a poker pro, it looks like he’s currently sitting with $415 total earnings according to the GPI.

(We totally acknowledge we could be wrong here.)

The finally poker pro David Tuthill doesn’t quite seem genuine in his offering up of the aforementioned Kevin Stammen.

Or maybe he is and we’re the ones who just got leveled.

Picking your spots is important to being a profitable poker player. This looks like a pretty good spot.

Plenty of people have questioned how fringe poker personality Dan Bilzerian has earned the money to live his legendary lavish lifestyle. Perhaps this is a clue.

Still employed Ultimate Poker pro Jason Somerville has had a nice summer but it’s time to get back to work. Back to the grind. Back to running it up.

Who knew that there were going to be “seasons” of JCarver's hit poker web show? Apparently there are and the second one starts this Sunday, August 31… with a slight change. This time around, #RunItUP is being hosted exclusively on the Ultimate Poker website. Which we speculate means – no more watching on YouTube.

Of course, we expect that at their new web address you will see some of the same shenanigans: conversation about topics both on and off the virtual felt, in-studio guests and tons of poker strategy. But it looks as though UP is going to be sweetening the pot a little with contests to win tickets to the UFC, attend meet ups and entry into live tournaments.

So if you’ve never seen the show before, you can binge watch Season One, or just jump in this Sunday.

Read: Run It UP Season 2: Exclusively On Ultimate Poker

If you don’t follow and interact with Daniel Negreanu on Twitter, you might just be missing out on your chance to get paid!

It seems that Daniel woke up on Wednesday in an extremely generous mood and after hearing people’s reply to his question, favorited 10 tweets and then here’s what he did next…

Yep. Just random rewards for some of his active fan base. Of course, there’s no guarantee he’ll do this again in the near future but if you want to even possibly have a chance, you’d probably better click that “Follow” button on his Twitter page.

More Daniel: Daniel Negreanu’s Futuristic Geek Chic Mancave

Challenges by both Jason Koon and Randy Lew online poker mastermind Phil Galfond pulls himself from his multi-tabling haze to snap call the popular ALS Ice Bucket challenge in fine fashion.

James and Joe talk you though another produced episode of the the PokerStars EPT 2014 PCA. The money bubble has burst but, as you’ll see, there’s still a lot of poker filled heartbreak left in this tournament.

The stars are shining at the feature table too as Vanessa, Antonio and Ole all jockey for position in hopes to get the $1.8M first place prize. So, throw on some headphones and pretend to be deep in thought at work as you enjoy some highlight filled poker.

Miss Episode 3? We got you.

It’s all come down to this. The final episode of Season 7 of the partypoker Premiere League and while just about everyone knows who wins this thing, it’s a fun watch to see how it’s done and the banter that ensues.

Poker pros Jeff Gross and Sorel Mizzi go heads up for the hour to determine who will take home the Premiere League trophy. Brian Rast, Phil Laak and Jesse May sit in the broadcast booth and call the action and the charming Kara Scott reports from the rail here in the grand finale.

Looking for more Premiere League? Here’s the previous episode: partypoker Premiere League 7 – Episode 21

Check out the view from Paul Volpe seat at the Venet..erm…at the Borgata. Volpe is playing a little live poker and sharing some time with his pal, new Full Tilt Poker Black Card Pro, Mark Herm.

Read: Mark 'dipthrong’ Herm Earns Full Tilt Black Card Sponsorship with FTOPS Leaderboard Win [PokerNews]

While it’s clear with his new 4-month sponsorship that Herm needs no lessons in the NLHE department. Volpe plans on sharing a 2-7 trick or two with the Tournament Poker Edge podcast host.

More Volpe: Paul Volpe Denies Daniel In $10K 2-7 Win, Claims First WSOP Bracelet

If there’s a singular theme that surrounds the decor of Daniel Negreanu's Las Vegas pad it’s “fun”.

PokerStars takes you inside the home of their biggest superstar to see what it looks like when you are straight livin’ large as a poker baller.

Video games with beer inside, trophy rooms, putting greens and a revolving 80+ inch big screen are some of the highlights of a house that Negreanu describes as “Austin Powers Meets Pee-Wee Herman”. It’s a giant nerd (not used derogatorily) mancave.

It’s awesome.

Want a pool? It’s got a pool. Want to play pool? It’s got that too. There’s even a Game Of Thrones themed poker table and you know we here at F5 love the Games of Thrones.

So if you want something like this all you have to do is become poker’s All-Time Money Leader, rack up a handful of bracelets and nab the top sponsorship with the #1 online poker company. Easy game.

Listen up rageaholic and chronic worriers – Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree has some helpful tips to keep you in check when you start to see red on or off the felt. Check out this quick interview with The Iron Maiden herself about what she recommends when tilt rears it’s ugly head.

Not a reader? We get it. After the jump is a massive infographic with a ton of tilt reducing advice. But be forewarned super fans of real life Boeree, the vector based version of the poker princess is not exactly flattering and may induce the very tilt it’s hoping to ward off.

For those on the West, Andoni Larrabe may look like a bit of a mystery man. Shrouded in his hoodie as the young Spainard made his way to the most prestigious final table of the year, there hasn’t been too much coverage on the youngest member of the November Nine.

But at EPT Barcelona, Larrabe finds himself to be a bit of a celebrity. As PokerNews's Remko finds out, Larrabe is getting the star treatment from his countrymen and, while he initially thought it would be annoying, Larrabe kinda likes it. Even the crazy amount of media.

He’s all smiles as he thinks about the upcoming final table, but he has yet to actually do anything to prepare for it. In fact, he doesn’t know much about the other 8 members just yet and for those that are in attendance at EPT – Larrabe is just keeping his distance. Once the EPT is complete though he’s planning on getting to work, getting a few more reps in online and even going to EPT London.

In addition to the made-to-tv poker action and banter Poker Night In America rolls the cameras to show you how they get ready to roll the camera. It’s a behind the scenes look at everything the production crew needs to do before the first cards are dealt.

Looking for more PNIA? Check out episode 6 right here.

Everyone has poker advice for you. Why you should bet, how much you should bet, when you should bet and most importantly what you did wrong once everyone knows what everyone has. Giving and receiving advice part of being a poker player.

Just because though it can be tough to separate the good advice from the bad doesn’t mean we should not be open to some words of wisdom when presented with the opportunity.

Poker author and strategist Ed Miller writes a column for Card Player and in this one he’s going to give you the honest truth on whether you are running bad or playing bad. Everyone goes through downswings but sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s the poker gods or your god awful decisions.

My short answer is that it’s both — it’s always both. Whenever things go so bad for so long that you are asking yourself this question, you have certainly run bad. But I don’t know a single person who can run so bad for so long and not start playing worse. I think it’s not humanly possible to get crushed day after day and still play your A plus game every time out.

When you find that you are getting demoralized day in and day out Miller says it’s time to define your strategy and take a cold hard look at it.

When you’re running bad, it’s time to revisit your strategy. What are you trying to accomplish? What mistakes are your opponents making? How does your strategy take advantage of those errors? And does your strategy present weaknesses that your opponents are taking advantage of?

Is Ed providing sound advice? We don’t know…this is F5poker not Tournament Poker Edge…but we did find this to be an interesting read that you are likely, if you are open to it, get a little something from.

Check it: Are You Running Bad Or Playing Bad?

On just about every stop of the EPT, PokerStars asks their most vicious customers to put EPT color commentator Joe Stapleton to the test in a series of challenges. In Barcelona, the viewing audience asked to see Stapes literally “sell sand at the beach.”

Empowered with a decent concept, Joe has to find a few suckers to believe that his brand of sand is worth paying money for. The country of Spain shows that they in fact know the concept of supply and demand.

So, how is Stapes going to finally beat the heat and win this challenge? It’s definitely worth a watch.

The New York Post, not exactly the Times mind you, published an article (which originally appeared in an Australian publication) this weekend that has ruffled the feathers of more than a few in the poker community. Entitled 'Inside The Sleazy World of Professional Poker’ the Post tries to shine a light on the “dark game” being played at the professional level.

Unfortunately, it’s not what you’d hope – a juicy tell all of a noted poker player. Instead it’s barely “inside” and hardly revealing. It’s a payday for the author.

Interested? Of course you are.

The anonymous source, he won’t give his real name, talks about hanging out with degenerates and spending 8 hours a day around these undesirables.

It’s a lifestyle that attracts a particular kind of person — the kind who doesn’t mind spending eight hours every night at the casino with some shady characters with disreputable backgrounds.

“A lot of the players have disreputable histories,” he says. “Some of the renowned players just basically scam people for money.”

Anyway, it’s something to consume but not to take too seriously. Fact is, the dark underbelly of poker is what gives it a little of it’s appeal. It’s a “dangerous” game that “everyone can play” – including James Bond, Mike McDermott and yes, even you.

You think that when a poker ambassador with as much clout and respect as Mike Sexton tells his most brutal bad beat story, one that stands out above all the rest in a career spanning over 30 years, that it’s gotta be an amazing bad beat.

Nope.

It’s just another bad beat story. Only this one includes both Doyle Brunson and Stu Unger

Bonus: Just so you don’t feel like you had to listen to a bad beat story we have something worthwhile to add to this post.

Here’s Doyle Brunson getting a pedicure.

You’re welcome.

Terrence Chan has had one of the more interesting post-boom careers going from working at PokerStars to becoming a poker pro, winning multiple SCCOP titles to heading up customer service at Ultimate Gaming. But, as of right now, he’s done with all of that.

He tapped out of his post at Ultimate and has decided to explore what may be next with people who have done something similar: left the life of a poker pro.

Chan has announced a new podcast, which he hopes to be a regular occurrence, he plans on sitting down with players who have been to the mountaintop and decided to move on to something else.

Read: Introducing … Life After Poker, a series of interviews

Check out Terrence’s first conversation he talks with WSOP bracelet winner and former Full Tilt Red Pro Matt 'Hoss TBF’ Hawrilenko about poker and life. The pair talk about “about a wide array of topics ranging from clinical psychology, depression, how to optimize life decisions, performing self-assessments, and what Bill Chen thinks of him now as a poker player.” Enjoy.

PokerStars wants more people to feel the thrill of cashing, even minimally, in a new type of tournament they’ve dubbed their “Double Bubble” tournaments. In traditional modern day poker tournaments one can expect the money bubble to happen right around 10-12%. PokerStars wants to payout a little more than that – they want to pay 50%.

The ever-present Lee Jones took to the PokerStars blog to announce the trial run of a tournament where 50% of the player pool is going to make at least their money back.

As time has progressed, most of us in the business have come to believe that paying out more of the field is better. That is, increasing the number of players who get something back is preferable to putting an extra bonus on top of the already staggering size of the prizes at the top.

So instead of a select few walking away with their coffers filled, half the field will at least break even and then, once that bubble has burst…it’s a traditional race to be part of the, now, top 8% when you begin to make money.

Obviously, these tournaments aren’t going to return massive prizes at the top – if you want to go for the big brass ring, sign up for one of our regular tournaments. But if you want some good fun with nominally a 50% chance of getting your money back, and the chance to still win some nice prizes deep in, maybe Double Bubbles are just the thing for you.

Read: Double Bubble: What if we paid half the field?

PokerStars plans on rolling this out at the 2015 PCA in the live arena to see how it plays out.

Here’s a bizarre article to waste a few minutes on for a Monday.

Virgin poker player Richard Rigney, almost on a whim, decided to plunk down $10k to play in this 2014 World Series of Poker. According to the story that appears in Pennsylvania’s Tribune, Rigney just loves to gamble in general and so he accompanied a buddy to Las Vegas who was playing the WSOP, Rigney just decided to pay his entry fee having never played a hand of poker in his life.

What happens next? Of course this noob goes on a heater (why wouldn’t he?) despite not knowing some of the basic rules. He caught a ton of hands and didn’t say a word, thinking it would his best strategy.

“My plan (for the tournament) was to be stoic and not be emotional,” Rigney says. “I never talked to anyone. I’d sit there and stare. I didn’t say one word.” Many assumed he couldn’t speak English.

Turns out, his rookie mistakes are likely to make the ESPN telecast as the article details a massive hand against Jack Schanbacher where the pot swelled thanks in part to Rigney not knowing what he was doing. In the end, Rigney found himself holding a monster, in a monster pot with the overall chiplead on the line.

What happens? Well, lets say he claims that he’ll never play poker again.

Check it out: First-time poker player runs into trouble at Main Event

From the floor of EPT Barcelona, PokerNews' Remko Rinkema nabs a few words with Team PokerStars’ own gold medalist Fatima Moreira de Melo who produces a pretty interesting take on why poker’s growth is slow going with the ladies.

Ladies are too dependent on their men.

Fatima breaks it down: If you were a housewife who had to choose between poker and a new pair of shoes, it’s tough to think that poker is going to win out (“first things first”). While she thinks that poker is the perfect pastime for the stay at home woman, she can see how it would be hard to justify to hard working hubby that she needs cash to lock down that deposit bonus.

While that may or may not be true, Fatima feels like poker could be a way to produce some financial independence for women and she even dishes out some advice for beginning players on what to do when you’re getting started.

Antonio Esfandiari has never been shy about his love of the outdoor desert festival/experience Burning Man and this year he’s corralled a few of his poker pals into hitting the road with him for the shared experience.

Here is the always smiling Jeff Gross along with Jason Koon, John Tabatabai and a blodshot eyes, neon hair dyed Antonio as they hit the road in the RV to engage in the temporary community of Burning Man (which starts today).

If you happen to be going to the Nevada desert and want to part with the pros…go hit them up and tell them we sent you.

Remko Rinkema over at PokerNews has uncovered a number of interesting Ivey Stories but perhaps all previous pale in comparison to the one that EPT Live announcer Joe “Stapes” Stapleton recalled on camera about the night that Ivey, Daniel and he downed 2 bottles of tequila and it ended up with one of them getting slapped in the face…twice and one of them in a wheelchair.

Stapes, a sometimes stand-up, is a fantastic storyteller and you’ll get a sense of what it’s like to, for a night, get to party in the inner circle of a couple of poker’s biggest names. Private clubs, forced drinking, pushing and shoving and creating some major life regrets are all a part of Stapleton’s fantastical tale.

Enjoy!

Officials at Borgata Poker have been celebrating milestone hands all month over at BorgataPoker.com and spreading the wealth to their loyal players who have helped them deal out over 50,000,000 hands. Sure, we’ve all seen PokerStars celebrating billions upon billion of hands dealt, but New Jersey online poker is in its infancy and so reaching the 50M hand mark is pretty cool…and they want to give you some of that rake back in the form of bonuses – both big and small.

Check this out…if you are sitting at a real money table at BorgataPoker.com when a major milestone hand (like 50M, 51M, etc.) gets dealt they’ll divvy up as much as $5K depending on the stakes. Now, in between, you don’t have to wait for 1M hand markers. Every 100 hands AFTER a milestone hand, Borgata is dishing out out an extra $25 up to 10,000 hands.

Read: 50,000,000 Hand Plus Gets Players Bonus Cash

Get it? No…well, check it out. If you are in New Jersey and already digging online poker it’s a pretty easy way to luckbox your way into an extra couple of bucks while grinding like you would anyway.

No account? Not a problem. BorgataPoker is incentivizing you with all sorts of worthwhile promotions like deposit bonuses, newbie freerolls and whatnot so hop to and load up.

PLO is a swingy game and so when online PLO player Bren “YaAaRnY” Lenton took to the Two Plus Two forums to try and line up a prop bet that has him winning 100 buy-ins in 31 days with a minimum of 70K hands…the money poured in against him. Now he’s six figures deep in the biggest prop bet of 2014.

Now, the terms are set and this past weekend it got underway. YaYaRnY has $100K at risk vs. the $200K of his doubters in what has turned from an idea into a massive prop bet. The good guys at Nutblocker have all the details of the sickness as well as a short interview with the guy who’s sole focus in the next month will be to not give it all back.

How tough will this challenge be? Well, when a wizard like Ike Haxton is putting up almost $85K to bet against you, you would have to be a little worried. In fact, Ike not only picked up all the residual action, he’s offered to pick up all the side action against.

Looking for hand updates and general troll talk? Follow along with the Two Plus Two thread (starting on post 447).

Bonus: Chicago Joey provides a talking head preview of the entire bet including speculation as to what could happen, how it can be won and even what could go wrong.

The money bubble at EPT Barcelona proved to be an interesting one and not without a little controversy. As Head of Live Poker Operations for PokerStars Europe Neil Johnson talks with PokerNews about the previously nearly un-encountered situation that arose when no fewer than 5 people when bust on the same hand over 4 different tables…and how to you pay that out when you were hand-for-hand on the stone bubble.

As you’ll see PokerStars invoked the #1 rule for TD’s which is the ability to do whatever they think is in the best interest of the players but concede that in the future there should probably be something more concrete when there’s a wad of cash (as well as a bonus prize) that needs dividing.

One guy who wasn’t super thrilled with how it went down was one of the bubble boys, Randal Flowers, who after being consoled by pal Dan Smith realized he wanted more than he got.

-

Mayhem at #EPT100… Six simultaneous all-ins on the bubble!

There’s nothing funny about the destruction, displacement and cost of this weekend’s 6.0 earthquake in Northern California and as F5poker has ties to the Bay Area we wish those injured and set back a very speedy recovery.

We did find this part of an article posted in SFGate, slightly amusing though. It seems that part of the news in covering what happened when the slow, long rolling quake hit was to mention that people playing poker at a “24-hour casino” actually stopped playing a hand…for about 10 minutes.

At the 24-hour Napa Valley Casino off Highway 29 in American Canyon, the quake interrupted a hand of Texas Hold 'Em.

“I didn’t know what to do,” said Sunshine Hamilton, adding that her “legs were shaking” from the experience. “Everybody ran outside, so I ran outside, too. No one grabbed chips or anything like that.”

They sat outside for about 10 minutes before returning inside to finish the hand.

If you were up playing poker at 3:20am on Sunday morning, it’s likely that only something like a 6.0 magnitude earthquake could pull you away from a game that was either super juicy or that you were stuck in.

Read: Northern California quake: 'It’s a disaster’

Much like how Nacho Barbero broke down the state of poker play in Argentina, former PokerStars sponsored pro talks with PokerNews about the growth of poker in Mexico.

Read: Jose “Nacho” Barbero Team PokerStars Pro No More

From his former employer’s Barcelona event, Guillen declares that poker is on the verge of going “insane” in Mexico…just as soon as the law allows for a major tournament to take place there. While online poker is popular, the live scene is both a little small (represented by a few electronic tables) and a little illegal. Not 100% illegal, mind you, just not 100% legal.

Watch Guillen as he talks about the underground swell of support for poker in his country of Mexico.

There’s been a lot of chatter about how to expand the game of poker and specifically how to bring more women to the table in the male dominated game of poker. Online grinder turned live game participant Elena “The Groupie” Stover has spent a ton of time battling the big boys in every possible poker situation and here she outlines a basic guide, aimed at macho men, on how not to be a disgusting douche and treat a lady at the table the same way you would anyone else.

But it occurred to me that some male poker players may legitimately not know what to do when they find themselves with a woman in their midst, and that might account for some of their more uncouth behaviour. In this article, I’ll offer some tips and tricks on what you should not do when a woman sits down at your table.

Of course, readers of F5poker would never behave in any untowardly manner to members of the opposite sex, but in case you know a player of uncouth behavior – have them check this out.

Read: Girl Talk With The Groupie

More: PokerStars Lets The Groupie Backstage

European Poker Tour participant and probably the most famous Argentinian poker player Jose “Nacho” Barbero seemingly doesn’t hold a grudge about “parting ways” with former sponsorship partner PokerStars. As you can see in this video from PokerNews, here he is, at EPT Barcelona, sans patches, but still ready to play.

Read: Jose “Nacho” Barbero Team PokerStars Pro No More

Remko Rinkema sidesteps any questions about his previous employment status to talk about something with a little more upside – the poker scene in Argentina. According to “Nacho” it’s becoming grande. Of course, Remko wants to know why he can’t name other professional Argentinian players to which Barbero claims you definitely could name them but you just don’t know them. Which seems pretty accurate.

Anyway, hopefully, for “Nacho’s” sake, he can make a ton of in-your-face money and make them wish that they dumped Leo Fernandez instead of him.

(We’ve got nothing against Leo, he’s just the only other Team Pro from Argentina)

On break during EPT Barcelona, PokerNews’ Remko catches up with feature table performer Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi to find out what his secret to success is.

If you think that Grinder is going to just spill his guts because he’s on camera, you’ve got another thing coming. Grinder unload though about his edge when playing on TV and gives a piece of hilarious advice to beginning players – don’t start small. He wants you to jump in to the deep end, where the sharks are, early and often because you’ll only get better by playing with better players.

Check it out.

Everyone may be talking about the political messages worn on the shirts of Daniel Colman and Olivier Busquet at the final table of the EPT Super High Roller final table, but Donnie Peters from PokerNews clearly found someone else who is using his apparel to send a message.

No doubt about it. He’s ALL IN MOTHERF**ER!!*

More: Poker Pals – When Daniel Met Olivier