With Liv already scoring a 4th place finish in the WCOOP-43-M: 8-Max High Roller for $82,710.80 and a 7th place finish in the WCOOP-30-H: $5,200 NLHE [High Roller], $1M Gtd for $47,733.11, you may want to see what this PokerStars pro has to say.

Arlie Shaban, a Canadian poker streamer and a former Big Brother Canada contestant, recently shocked the Twitch Poker world when he completed his epic marathon challenge of streaming poker live on Twitch for 1000 hours over 125 consecutive days.

The 29-year-old streamer was then soon appointed as an Ambassador for Jason Somerville’s Run It Up. He became the first non-PokerStars pro to join Team Run It Up.

Now, the popular Twitch personality has been tasked with a Herculean challenge by PokerStars.

On Sunday, during his WCOOP stream on Twitch, PokerStars sent him a personal message saying “Hello Arlie, It’s been a long time since your last challenge. How would you feel about a new one? We have something for you. Go to psta.rs/HeyArlie”

Then a letter from someone claiming to be the Poker Gods appeared on the PokerStars Blog addressed to Shaban. The letter tasked him not one or two but 12 challenges titled as the “12 Labours of Arlie” mimicking the “12 Labours of Hercules” from Greek mythology.

The letter cautioned “Some of them will be easy. Some will be difficult. And while some might seem obvious, be warned… some will be so complex you won’t even know where to start.”

The streamer unsurprisingly accepted the challenge and said, “F**** right I wanna do this! Challenge accepted. Bring it on”.

A day later, Shaban received his first Herculean challenge. The Poker Gods challenged him to “Skin the Dutch Lion.” He is further instructed to “Go find the lion. Challenge him. Get him alone and defeat him. Take his skin and put it on.”

Shaban took only a couple of hours to decode the message, as he challenges the Dutch PokerStars Team Pro Lex Veldhuis on Twitter for a heads-up match.

As expected, Dutch poker pro Veldhuis accepted the Shaban’s challenge without showing any fear.

Litigation between poker monolith PokerStars and 2016 World Series of Poker, November Niner Gordon Vayo rumbles on.

Vayo first filed a court order back in May 2018 as he is still waiting for PokerStars to pay out on his 2017 SCOOP winnings of $700,000.

However, PokerStars claim Vayo was in California, United States (rather than in Canada, which is claimed by Vayo) making the winnings ill-gotten-gains—as online poker is still illegal in the state of California.

Thanks to CardPlayer we have found out that a hearing on PokerStars’ motion to dismiss the case will be held on November 6.

There is plenty of “he said/ she said” to wade through but it seems like PokerStars has proof Vayo was not in Canada and was in fact in California.

Apparently the online poker operator ran “geolocation analysis” that proves Vayo logged in more than 50 times from a Californian IP address—which on the surface looks pretty damning.

However, Vayo’s lawyers has called the case a 'sham investigation’ and a 'witch hunt’, so will presumably be disputing the veracity of such evidence.

In an additional twist, PokerStars are hoping to move the case to the Isle of Man, if it gets that far—which Vayo is opposing due to how ensconced igaming is within the fabric of the Isle of Man.

He does have a point.

Thanks to The Ringer we get to go back to 1998 as Bill Simmons and Sean Fennessey revisit Rounders to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

It also seems like creator of Rounders, Brian Koppelman enjoyed the walk down memory lane too.

Listen below.

That’s right… US Women’s Chess Champion turned poker pro, Jen Shahade is sponsored by two online poker companies: PokerStars and Run It Once Poker.

Jen lists herself as a PokerStars Ambassador on her Twitter profile. Plus, she is part of the massive Platinum Pass give away to promote the PokerStars Player Championship, where a $30,000 Platinum Pass package to the Bahamas is being awarded to the person that wins the competition for creating a game that combines aspects of two of her passions, poker and chess.

But she is also listed as a Run It Once Elite Pro on her latest video on Bet Sizing (which is a must-watch for those that take an analytical approach to poker). Now Jen has been making vids for RIO since ealy 2015 as far as we can tell, but with Phil Galfond and crew getting ready to launch a real money online poker room real soon, we are wondering if Jen will eventually have to pick a side.

Russian player Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov created a new record at PokerStars WCOOP 2018 by winning not one not two but four WCOOP titles!! He took down these events within a span of eight days.

The following events he won:

WCOOP-05-M: $109 PLO [6-Max] for $31.8k
WCOOP-11-H: $2100 Razz for $49.5k
WCOOP-20-L: $11 NL 5-Card Draw for $3.2k
WCOOP-25-H: $2100 8-Game for $70.7k

The Russian player now has eight WCOOP titles overall, the most by any player.

Another player from Germany 'nilsef’ set a new record in WCOOP by winning two WCOOP titles in a single day.

He won:

WCOOP-07-H: $1050 NLO8 [6-Max] for $41.8k
WCOOP-10-H: $2100 NLHE [8-Max, Win the Button] for $74.4k

WCOOP has now reached its halfway point with 99 tournaments completed. So far over $42 million has been awarded and over 400k entries have participated.

There is still a week remaining including two Main Events on Sunday with a combined prize pool of $11 million.

OP-Poker who recently became PokerStars’ Power Up Official Ambassadors has released a strategy video on how to play the new power 'Deploy’.

The video also gives us a first look at the PokerStars Power Up hand replayer which is presumably in the works. It is expected that PokerStars will soon release Power Up Hand Replayer on its client.

OP-Poker is a team of Twitch streamers and poker content creators based in Brighton, UK. They launched their website in October last year and is the only active strategy website to offer video training content on Power Up and other PokerStars new variants on their Youtube channel.

PokerStars recently joined forces with them as the official ambassadors and community hosts for Power Up to promote the game.

You can check out the training site here.

It’s an incredible statistic that in 2017 consumers in the UK spent more money on gaming than on music and movies combined – a whopping £66bn.

The migration of iGaming to mobile phones is seen as one of the key drivers for this growth. It’s certainly an interesting space right now and there are a lot of companies jostling for a share of this growing market. Here are a few of the hottest businesses in 2018.

PlayUp

PlayUp is an “Incentivised, Blockchain Enabled, Sports Community and Gambling EcoSystem” used by 400,000 players. The big idea is to use PlayChip as the betting medium – it’s built on the Ethereum blockchain and is a global payments system.

Using the blockchain to facilitate transactions, PlayUp frees up the system to users in 68 countries. The PlayChip is a free token and the plan is to grow a huge user base – players can transfer to Draftstars which is their paid service.

The concept is simple: you can play a variety of sports by picking a fantasy team and playing against other users. The gameplay is industry standard, with the really interesting part being the blockchain piece. PlayUp are busy acquiring some other companies so time will tell if their growth strategy is a winner.

Casumo

This brand is all about user experience, with its online casino designed to give users a great experience. From the slick graphics to effortless gaming and useful customers support, Casumo is getting stronger and stronger every year.

The have a great game selection, with over 800 games and it’s not just quantity – you won’t find a bad game. In particular, there is strength in their range of slot games. They use leading operators for live games and the experience is slick.

They have gamified the casino experience with a playground environment and different trophies and rewards for sticking around. All-in-all a great operator that is going from strength to strength.

SlotsMillion

An interesting addition to the list because of their heavy investment in building a VR casino. There are 40 games and using an Oculus Rift headset or through your PC you can enter the 3D casino.

VR Casinos are sure to be big business and SlotsMillion has a decent attempt at providing an immersive experience, which players are really loving. There is clearly some way to go before VR casinos become mainstream, but the relative success of this early attempt suggests that it’s going to be a really hot space over the next decade.

888 poker

They’ve been around since 2002 and have won quite a few awards for their online gaming operations – it’s not hard to see why.

The whole operation is as smooth as ever, from setting up an account to withdrawing money everything is easy. The layout and gameplay are highly tuned and the number of players second only to PokerStars, so there is always a game going on!

Betfair

The sports betting behemoth created the betting exchange model and continues to dominate the space. With great liquidity in the market it reached a critical mass long ago and with a strong brand and loyal user base it will be hard to unseat as the king.

Betfair has a wide range of sports and markets to bet on and the user experience is great, enhanced by explanations for casual betters and detailed information for more serious punters.

The layout and user experience is excellent. With a huge number of sports and markets to navigate Betfair gives you what you want in only a few clicks and this excellent user experience is what keeps players coming back.