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Event number 19 of the World Championship of Online Poker is officially in the books. Event 19 is the coveted no limit hold’em heads up championship. This event is not for the light hearted and the buy in pretty much guarantees that. Players pony up an incredible $25,000 buy in for this event in hopes of taking home the first prize of over half a million dollars.

Because of the high entry fee and the challenging task of playing no limit hold em heads up, there were only 64 entrants to this king of tournaments. In addition to the $560,000 first place prize, there was over 1.1 million dollars remaining for the other top finishers. In order to win the first prize a player would have to win an astounding six match ups straight, and these are some of the best players in the world.

Both professionals and well known online players competed for their share of the prize pool. In the end it was Steve Jacobs who took down the top prize after defeating Bertrand Grospellier in the championship match. Grospellier, although probably unhappy with the second place finish, certainly will be all similes when he cashes in his smooth $320,000 paycheck.

Third and fourth place finishers “zivziv” and “GavinGriffin” each took home $160,000 while Vanessa Rousso, Victor Ramdin, PAW717 and brianm15 each took home $100,000. Daniel Negreanu and Scott Seiver were just a few of the big names to fall just shy of the money and bust out on the bubble.

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Living breathing human dealers at poker tables may one day be a thing of the past if PokerTek inc. of North Carolina has their way. PokerTek is an innovative company that is making quite a name for themselves in the brick and mortar casino world. PokerTek makes a line of completely automated poker tables.

That’s right, no dealer needed! One problem with real poker rooms and live dealers is that the amount of hands per hour that can be dealt is fairly limited. In addition they require lots of staff and the money made in a poker room is much less compared to other games in the casino. PokerTek hopes to change all that by convincing casinos that their automated poker tables are the way to go.

PokerTek’s digital automated poker tables will drastically increase the number of hands dealt per hour and they can easily be set up to play any kind of game with any betting structure. The company claims they currently have over two hundred automated poker tables in poker rooms and that several poker rooms including Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and Four Winds Casino in Macau have PokerTek’s automated poker tables exclusively.

For more information on PokerTek’s automated tables and the other products that they offer, visit www.pokertek.com. PokerTek recently converted the poker room at French Lick’s resort casino in Indiana to a 100% automated room using their automated tables.

While many pros endorse the products, several traditionalists are nervous that automated tables take away some of the flair and fun to live poker. Time will tell.

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The London Clubs International casino at The Empire is set to host the second annual World Series of Poker Europe. The event begins Friday September 19th and runs through Thursday October 2nd.

Although the World Series of Poker Europe is not yet as big as its American counterpart, the event offers plenty of huge prize pools and prestigious events. Annette Obrestad, last years main event winner, took home a smooth one million dollars when she defeated the field of 362 in the no limit hold em main event.

This years WSOPE will feature four events including a £1,500 no limit hold’em, a £2,500  H.O.R.S.E, a £5,000 pot limit Omaha and finally the £10,000 main event no limit Texas hold’em. The main even starts on Saturday September 27th and is scheduled for six days of action.

The WSOPE is just one of the many international tournaments that Harrah’s hopes to host with the power of its famous World Series name in the coming years. With poker booming rapidly in Europe, its clear why this tournament was such a success in its debut and will most likely continue to be as the tournament grows each year.

Tournament Schedule

• Friday September 19th, 1:00 pm: No Limit Hold’em, £1,500 plus £75, scheduled for four days.
• Monday September 22nd, 2:00 pm: H.O.R.S.E. £2,500 plus £150, scheduled for three days.
• Wednesday September 24th, 3:00 pm: Pot Limit Omaha, £5,000 plus £250, scheduled for three days.
• Saturday September 27th, 1:00 pm: No Limit Hold’em, £10,000 plus £350, scheduled for six days.

Reigning eight gold medal winner Michael Phelps apparently loves poker and even sat down with poker legend Doyle Brunson recently for a chat about poker and life while he was visiting Las Vegas. Despite being probably the best swimmer in the world, Phelps also has a love for the game of poker. Phelps and a few of his friends met with Brunson and some other big poker names on a recent vacation in Las Vegas.

Brunson gave Phelps and his friends copies of Super System and talked poker with them for a few hours. Although there has been no official word of business yet, some suspect that the meeting was to talk about possible endorsement for Doyle’s online poker room, Doyle’s Room. While training recently for the Olympics, Phelps became a regular player at a Canadian casino near Detroit and he also regularly enjoys online play. According to friends and family, Phelps can be found playing online poker for up to ten hours a day and actively seeks to improve his game.

Although nothing is set in stone as of yet, the Olympic swimmer apparently has been talking with Doyle Brunson and other poker rooms about joining forces by regularly playing at their rooms. Phelps has also been invited to compete in several prestigious live poker tournaments over the coming months. Betfair, one of the largest gaming companies in the world, has invited Phelps to the WSOPE and said they would even pony up the ten thousand pound entry fee for the main event.

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Michael Phelps Swimming Legend and Poker Player

American players were blessed with a slight glimmer of hope in the Month of August when it suddenly seemed as though there was an efficient and easy way for them to cash out their winnings at Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt has been plagued with banking problems ever since UGIEA was passed in 2006 and conditions for Americans trying to deposit and cash out of poker rooms worsened.

For most of 2007 and into 2008 the best way for Americans to bank with Full Tilt was Epassporte, a European based payment processor. Epassporte however quite servicing American clients earlier in the year and most players were left either waiting months for paper checks or doing risky site to site transfers to simply get their money off Full Tilt.

Recently Full Tilt debuted a cash out method simply named “cash transfer” in their software client. What players found out is that “cash transfer” was actually the highly popular and accessible money gram wire service that is pretty much available anywhere you go in the world.

Unfortunately despite many stories of success and cash in hand players were soon disappointed when their withdraw requests were denied and suddenly the cash transfer method was no longer available. Full Tilt cited various reasons for the failure but stated that it simply would not be available moving into the future.

Despite problems in the past with long waits for checks among bouncing problems, the forums at twoplustwo.com have a regular Full Tilt checks thread documenting the success (or lack thereof) that American players are experiencing with paper checks from Full Tilt.

Source: 2+2 Forum post