Dan Cates is back on top of the poker world once again after an outstanding year. And Cates’ 2014 profits have given him an even more prominent position in online poker history….PokerStars is back with their latest big tournament series, the 2015 Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP). And this event will be offering $15 million along with plenty of other highlights….With several big WSOP cashes, billionaire investor David Einhorn knows plenty about poker. Find out what advice he has to offer both poker players and investors in this edition of the Weekly Flop.

Dan Cates Dominates Online Poker World in 2014

Five years ago, Dan ‘Jungleman12′ Cates began the rise that saw him go from a little-known grinder to an online poker champion with $5 million in profits. Well, despite the fact that poker has gotten even tougher, the profits haven’t stopped rolling in for Cates. In fact, he’s coming off another unbelievable year where he earned more money than anybody in online poker.

$3.43 million to be exact, which was quite a bit more than the second-biggest earner from 2014, ‘punting-peddler,’ who collected $2.57 million. Cates made $2.73 million of his money through Full Tilt Poker and another $700k on PokerStars. Thanks to another great year, Cates now has $11.43 million in lifetime winnings.

Jungleman’s big 2014 helped him move past some other legends on the all-time online poker winnings list, including Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond and Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang. According to HighStakesDB, Cates now sits third overall on the list behind Phil ‘Polarizing’ Ivey ($14.17m) and Patrik ‘FinddaGrind’ Antonius ($17.11m). Assuming he keeps playing well, Jungleman could definitely move past Ivey this year.

2015 TCOOP Offering Big Money Once Again

Are you a lover of fast-paced poker tournaments? Then you’ll be pleased to know that PokerStars’ TCOOP is returning from January 22nd to February 2nd, 2015. This edition will feature 50 turbo tournaments and a combined $15 million, and you can see the highlights below:

• Jan. 23 TCOOP 01 – $27 Six-Max NLHE (Rebuys), $500k GTD
• Jan. 23 TCOOP 03 – $215 NLHE (Progressive, Super KO), $800k GTD
• Jan. 25 TCOOP 09 – $215 Turbo NLHE [Zoom, Rebuys), $400k GTD
• Feb. 2 TCOOP 46 – $215 NLHE (Ultra Deep), $500k GTD
• Feb. 2 TCOOP 47 – $2,100 NLHE (High Roller), $1.25m GTD
• Feb. 2 TCOOP Main Event – $700 NLHE, $2m GTD

With all the money involved in 2015 TCOOP, you can bet that plenty of both recreational players and pros will be involved. Speaking of the latter, Team PokerStars Online member Mickey Petersen is very excited about the event. “I love how most of the events won’t take more than a couple of hours to complete and they are perfect to play on a tablet,” Petersen said. “Turbo tournaments require a different set of skills compared to other tournament series and provide constant action.”

David Einhorn discusses “Solving the Puzzle” in Poker

Despite being a billionaire hedge-fund manager and president of Greenlight Capital, David Einhorn still finds time to play poker. So he made for an interesting guest during a recent podcast of ThinkingPoker.net.

When asked how he treats both investing and poker, Einhorn said that he approaches them like “solving a puzzle.” To solve the poker puzzle, he considers what his opponents are thinking and the range of possible cards. Regarding the stock market, Einhorn asks what the agenda of the company is and the psychology behind those who own the stock. Put it all together, and that’s how he solves the puzzle. But while Einhorn has similar approaches to poker and investing, he cautions that the latter is “more multidimensional” than poker.

Nevertheless, he also understands just how tough the game can be, which is why he discussed getting poker coaching from top players like Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald and Andy Frankenberger. And the results have certainly been good since Einhorn finished 18th in the 2006 WSOP Main Event ($660k), 3rd in the 2012 WSOP Big One for One Drop ($4.35m) and 173rd in the 2014 WSOP ME ($44.7k). Not bad for a game in which Einhorn considers his relaxation from managing a giant hedge fund.

The post Weekly Flop: Cates Number One, TCOOP offering $15m, Einhorn weighs in on Poker appeared first on Rakeback News.

Times have definitely been better for poker legends Gus Hansen and TJ Cloutier. Neither has experienced much success on the felt after carving out highly successful careers on the live tournament circuit. Hansen has more recently fallen out of grace after losing his Full Tilt Poker sponsorship and dropping millions through online poker. As for Cloutier, poor money management over the past several years has seen him struggle to cobble together a bankroll. But these two players have recently resurfaced in the headlines after being involved in a couple of big stories.

Hansen invests millions into bridge software

As you may or may not know, Gus Hansen is a pretty avid bridge player. In fact, he once teamed up with a partner (Tom Hanlon) to win the 2010 Copenhagen Bridge Invitational. Given that the Great Dane has a pretty heavy connection to the bridge world, he recently decided to invest millions into Bridge+Dealer, a product is designed to help speed up bridge tournaments and assist in the dealing.

Perhaps the most interesting element of this story is that Hansen has invested millions into the product. Considering his online poker losses over the last few years, many have questioned if the three-time WPT champion is nearly broke. But if he’s able to dump a fortune into a bridge investment, perhaps he’s doing just fine on the financial side of things.

Cloutier takes second in record-breaking WSOPC tournament

With six WSOP bracelets and over $10.2 million in tournament winnings, TJ Cloutier is certainly one of the more successful poker players in history. However, an affinity for high stakes craps has seen Cloutier fall on hard times. But perhaps he’ll have a bit more money to play around with after doing well at the WSOP Circuit Choctaw stop.

Cloutier was among the 4,035 entrants to participate in a $365 buy-in re-entry tournament. And he made a fantastic run through this event, finishing runner-up to Ray Henson. The latter ended up with a $197,588 prize while Cloutier collected $122,040. It’s hard to say what kind of backing he had for this tournament and how much of the payout he’ll get to keep. But hopefully Cloutier will have enough to play in the 2015 WSOP after skipping the event last year.

The post Gus Hansen, TJ Cloutier Resurface in the Headlines appeared first on Rakeback News.

It used to be that when one thought of high stakes poker games, Patrik Antonius was one of the first players who came to mind. After all, the Finnish pro was not only a regular on High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark, but he also played in the ‘Big Game’ at Bobby’s Room and dominated the online tables too.

Well, the latter is still true since Antonius added another $1.6 million to his online poker profits last year. However, he’s had a lot of trouble getting anywhere near the biggest live cash games. So what gives? Are other players jealous of Antonius’ model-like looks? Let’s look at what the 34-year-old told PokerNews’ Sarah Herring about the matter below.

“Private” Games

According to Antonius, the biggest change in the high stakes scene these days is that the games have “changed to more private games.” He added, “A lot of casinos, they’re allowing players to have private games where if there’s a seat open, you can’t just go and take the seat and play. This has been the trend for all over the world now.”

Antonius contends that he can still find a good game and play for a while. However, somebody will eventually grab the “players you want to play with” and go play somewhere private. The former Full Tilt pro also said that this isn’t such a good thing for he and other pros who don’t have the greatest connections to the games.

Missing TV poker

Another topic that Antonius discussed was how he misses playing on the famed TV poker shows. “The most I miss is the high stakes TV shows, High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark,” Antonius said. “I mean I would love to play for big money and be involved in some big hands. And so, they just need to get this going, find sponsors, come on let’s get a game. I mean people wanna play, there’s a lot of people who are playing for big money.”
The Finn added that high stakes action hasn’t dried up around the world. Instead, the games have just gone to different places and many of these international players would be interested in playing on TV shows.

What’s Antonius up to now?

In addition to discussing the current high stakes scene, Antonius also talked about what he’s been doing lately. He hasn’t been playing as much poker due to everything that we discussed before in the nosebleeds. That said, he’s been dedicating a lot more time to his family and playing sports in the absence of quality cash games.
Given everything that Antonius covered, it’s pretty clear that he may never play the same high stakes volume that he did in the mid and late-2000s. However, it would be great to see a reputable poker TV show on again that features Antonius.

The post Patrik Antonius on why he can’t get into High Stakes Poker Games appeared first on Rakeback News.

While many poker pros feed their Twitter followers a steady stream of barely interesting tournament hands and pictures of what they ate for dinner, Doyle Brunson gets right down to the bare bones, tweeting his highly conservative views on politics, religion and sexuality – the three no-no’s of workplace banter.

The good thing for Brunson is that he doesn’t work a 9-to-5, which gives him the freedom to tweet whatever he wants. Of course, this also means that the Texas Dolly is usually good for stirring up some controversy 4-5 times a year. And here are five of the most-memorable incidents to arise from his unabashed Twitter usage.

1. Bruce Jenner’s Gender Change
Based on everything that audiences have seen from nine seasons of Keeping up with the Kardashians, Bruce Jenner’s decision to become a woman is pretty mild in comparison. However, it certainly ruffled Brunson’s feathers since the former Texas track champ used to idolize the gold-medalist Jenner. No more, though, since Doyle tweeted this zinger, “He may still be some peoples hero, but not me.” Brunson’s view not only gained some poker headlines, but also made front-page news at TMZ.

2. Making Black Friday hurt even Worse
Black Friday was a pretty solemn moment for many poker players since it marked the end of their ability to play on the world’s biggest poker sites. And Brunson made the grave mistake of trying to add humor to the situation by tweeting, “Now maybe we will see if these online ‘superstars’ can play real poker. Ante up suckers!” Needless to say, most players didn’t find this funny and they voiced their displeasure at Brunson’s ill-timed humor through forums.

3. Annette’s Time of the Month
To be fair, Annette Obrestad did go a long ways towards stirring up Brunson in this case when, through a 2010 interview, she said that she’d rather play a “table full of Doyle Brunsons” than online pros. Doyle brought the hammer down by tweeting, “Must be a bad tme [sic] of the month for Annette whats her name. By the way, I’m at Bobby’s Room almost every day if she really wants to play.” Brunson later apologized for the insensitive comment, citing that he’d simply been “peeved” at the time.

4. Suggesting Obama belongs behind Bars
2010 proved an eventful year for Doyle’s Twitter account since he again plunged into controversy with a tweet about U.S. President Barack Obama. He joked, “The Democrats say ‘give Obama time.’ Us Repubicans [sic] agree, 25 to life seems appropriate!” As mentioned in the intro, politics is one of those subjects that can be a powder keg in discussions. And this instance was no different since he got plenty of responses, with the general consensus being that Obama couldn’t be expected to turn things around so quickly.

5. Making Everybody Mad
Brunson opened the lid on this controversy with the following lesbian joke, “World’s shortest books: ‘To all the men we have loved before, ‘by Ellen de Generes and Rosie O’Donnell.” This gave Doyle some helpers in his mischief as over a dozen tweets came in with other short book titles, which he promptly retweeted. Some of his favorites included ‘Beauty tips’ by Vanessa Selbst, ‘How to Stay Sober’ by Gavin Smith, ‘Paying Taxes for Dummies’ by Michael Mizrachi and ‘My success as a poker pro,’ by Jaime Gold. Brunson eventually stopped while tweeting that his “sides were hurting from all the laughing,” but we can be sure that those whom he poked fun at didn’t share in the laughfest.

The post Top 5 Doyle Brunson Controversial Twitter Moments appeared first on Rakeback News.

One of the greatest and most-reprehensible mysteries in online poker right now involves the story of Lock Poker. Once one of the largest US-friendly poker sites in America, they’ve devolved into a complete disaster and haven’t processed cashout requests for over a year now.

Somehow Lock Poker continues to operate and take players money without answering numerous questions that have spawned on major poker forums. So what’s the deal here? Luckily, somebody has finally spoken up and given details on this site and whether or not players can ever expect to see their money. And, no, you’re probably not going to like the answer.

Disgruntled employee spills all on Lock

Shane Bridges, who ran affiliate marketing and social media for Lock Poker, was often active on forums before the site decided to stop honoring withdrawals. And given that he’s owed back-pay and not happy about it, Bridges spoke with PokerFuse on what went wrong.

First off, he believes that, when considering 12 months’ with no cashouts happening, players aren’t going to get their money back. This is a terrible thing indeed since TwoPlusTwo users have estimated that players are owed anywhere between $3 million and $15 million.

As for the major reason why Lock spiraled into this player-owing mess of a company, Bridges believes it has to do with the owner’s excessive spending and terrible marketing moves. Addressing the former, Jen Larson, CEO of Lock Poker, dumped money into $500 bottles of wine at every meal, first-class flights and five-star hotels. No expense was spared, even if it came from player funds.

Regarding the marketing, Bridges believes that spending big on low-margin campaigns didn’t do the site any favors – especially considering the shrinking online poker market and US government seizures on payment processors.

Why didn’t Bridges and sponsored players step forth?

Bridges claims that he kept his mouth shut about the situation because he thought that Larson might be able to right the ship. However, by the summer of 2013, he’d given up all hope of her pulling “a rabbit out of a hat” and giving players back their money. Sponsored players who stuck around for a while also thought that Larson could change things around and not only make good on player cashout requests, but also the sponsored pros’ balances.

But we now know that there’s basically a 0% chance of this ever happening. The best thing the poker community can hope for is that prospective players will spend two minutes googling Lock and stop depositing here.

The post Former Lock Poker rep Explains Site’s Downfall appeared first on Rakeback News.

Victoria Coren Mitchell may have stepped away from her PokerStars sponsorship deal due to the latter’s new casino focus. But that certainly doesn’t mean the two-time EPT champion is done with poker. This may be especially true after she recently won three honors at the British Poker Awards.

First off, Coren Mitchell picked up the award for Best Social Media, followed by another accolade for the Poker Personality of the Year. Her most-prestigious award was given out last – Performance of the Year. It’s little surprise that Coren Mitchell picked up the Performance of the Year honor since she won the 2014 EPT Sanremo tourney (€476,100) while becoming the first player to earn two EPT titles.

Who else won awards?

Okay, so Coren Mitchell wasn’t the only person who won anything at the British Poker Awards. Simon Deadman collected some prestigious hardware for being the Breakout Player of the Year and he also captured the Best Live Tournament Player honor. While Deadman didn’t win any major tourneys, he did earn $1.1 million in live tournament cashes along with six runner-up finishes at Las Vegas’ Hollywood Poker Open.
Jake Cody also joined in the winning since he picked up the Best Blogger award, while Chris Moorman collected the Best Online Player and Players Player hardware. Moorman passed the $10 million mark in online tournament winnings in 2013, and didn’t slow down last year after inching closer to $12 million.

Canada’s Daniel Negreanu even got a passportinto the winner’s circle because he was named the Best International Player. 2014 was one of the best years of Negreanu’s career since he earned $10.28 million in live tourneys, including a second-place finish in the 2014 Big One for One Drop ($8.29m).

Full List of British Poker Awards

Best Social Media – Victoria Coren Mitchell
Performance of the Year – Victoria Coren Mitchell
Poker Personality of the Year – Victoria Coren Mitchell
Breakout Player of the Year – Simon Deadman
Best Live Tournament Player – Simon Deadman
Best International Player – Daniel Negreanu
Best Online Player and Players Player – Chris Moorman
Best Blogger – Jake Cody
Best TD- Toby Stone
Best Tournament – WPT500
Best Training Site – Run It Once
Best Live Cardroom – Dusk Till Dawn
Best Poker League – Red Tooth Poker
Best Contribution to Growing and Promoting Poker – Rob Yong

The post Victoria Coren Mitchell dominates British Poker Awards with 3 Honors appeared first on Rakeback News.

On March 21st, the Borgata Hotel Spa & Casino is set to offer a real-money free-throw shooting contest. Are they the first to think of gambling on a physical skill contest? Well, only if you discount the millions of playground basketball games that have been played for money over the years. But the Borgata is definitely the first U.S. casino to offer gambling on a physical competition.

The way it’ll work is that players pay a $20 buy-in to enter the free-throw tournament. Those who can nail the most free throws in 90 seconds will advance to the 16-player bracket. From here, competitors will aim for the final four spots, where a collective $10,000 is paid out, with $5k going to first place.

Obviously this is a really exciting and innovative idea with regard to casinos. And seeing as how New Jersey gaming regulators gave the okay, we can likely expect other casinos to emulate such physical skill games. But all of this got me thinking about something else: how about adding some physical skill to poker?

A fun twist to a popular game

Before you roll your eyes while dismissing this as a complete novelty article, just know that I’m not suggesting poker be transformed into some sideshow act, where players run through a mirror-filled fun house while juggling after every orbit. However, it wouldn’t hurt to occasionally offer a poker tournament where some form of physicality enters the equation.

As alluded to before, the key would be accomplishing this feat without turning poker into a circus act. After all, a big reason why people play poker in the first place is because it’s a thinking game with no physical effort involved.

One suggestion would be to piggyback on the Borgata’s idea and add a free-throw shooting element into the equation. For example, you play the poker tourney as normal, but you’d also be required to shoot three rounds of free throws too. Depending upon how many shots you made in each round, a certain amount of chips would be added to your poker tournament stack.

Who would this appeal to?

really no limit to the amount of contests/sports you could add into the mix. Of course, it would be smart to keep it at the most-popular/manageable ones to draw in the largest crowds. This means no wind sprints, vertical leap contests or mixed martial arts combined with poker tournaments. Not everybody likes going home with a black eye or laboring to breathe at a poker event.

But the point is that adding some kind of physical contest like free throws would certainly interest a new crowd of recreational players. Of course, we’re a long ways off from this happening because, first, we still need to see how the Borgata’s free-throw tournament goes. Assuming this becomes a bigger thing in Atlantic City, then poker might definitely want to consider incorporating physical skill into a limited number of events.

The post What if Poker added Physical Skill Contests? appeared first on Rakeback News.

For a celebutante who’s mostly famous for the women he’s dated, Rick Salomon has some pretty impressive accomplishments in the poker world. And can we now add dominating billionaire Andy Beal to the tune of $40 million to this list of accomplishments?

Yes…at least if we’re to believe the war of words between Salomon and his ex-wife, Pam Anderson. The former “Baywatch” star claims that her husband made $40 million in 2014 alone, all courtesy of heads-up poker games against Beal.

The two are currently locked in a heated battle over how their separation will go. Salomon filed for an annulment in Nevada, while Anderson wants a divorce in California so that she gets half of the alleged $40m in poker winnings.

There’s more to this TMZ report because Anderson claims that Salomon is saying he lives in Nevada to avoid paying a 13% California state tax on the poker profits. If he can prove residence in the Silver State, he wouldn’t have to pay state income tax. Assuming it can’t be proven, then Salomon will be forking over $5.2 million (13%) of his poker fortune.

Anderson supports her claims by stating that she bought a $4 million home in Nevada so Salomon could fake residence there. Additionally, she would use his credit card to make purchases in Nevada to further support the facade.

More on Salomon’s poker career

As alluded to before, Salomon is well known for dating a long line of celebrity women, including Paris Hilton, Shannon Doherty and Anderson. He’s also produced television shows and movies in the past, which further boosts his Hollywood profile.

But unlike guys like Nelly, Ray Romano and Rafa Nadal, Salomon has actually managed to gain some respect from fellow poker players with his skills. Aside from his untold winnings against celebrities, the 47-year-old has tallied nine live tournament cashes and earned $3,087,077. His most-impressive finish was fourth place in the 2014 Big One for One Drop ($2.8m), and he also won a 2006 Bellagio Cup II event ($125,715).

More on Beal’s poker career

Having made a fortune in the banking industry and boasting a net worth of $7.6 billion, Andy Beal can afford to play at stakes most of us other players can’t even dream of. And he’s never been afraid to splash his cash on the felt, which has led to some very famous poker stories.

First off, Beal took on several famous pros from 2001-04 in $100k/$200k Limit Hold’em games. As chronicled in Michael Craig’s book, “The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time,” Beal won the largest poker hand of all time at $11.7 million.

He returned to the Bellagio to play again in 2006, this time against a group of pros known as “The Corporation.” After several sessions, Beal went up $13.3 million on The Corporation. However, Phil Ivey stepped in and saved the poker pros by beating Beal out of $16.6 million in $50k/$100k Limit Hold’em. More recently, Beal played against Todd Brunson (one of The Corporation members) and lost $5 million in January 2015.

The post Did Salomon crush Andy Beal for $40m? appeared first on Rakeback News.

PokerStars recently made a couple new additions to their pro roster, signing former gamer Liliya ‘Liay5′ Novikova and model Yuiko Matsukawa to deals. There’s one obvious similarity between these two new members of Team PokerStars since they’re both young, attractive females. But beyond this, Novikova and Matsukawa are quite different from each other. That said, let’s discuss both signings more in depth along with what each one brings to the table.

Liliya ‘Liay5′ Novikova: A dream come true

Like dozens of other famous poker players, Novikova comes from the gaming world, where she was a pro “Defense of the Ancients” player. But the Moscow native eventually found online poker and changed pursuits, dedicating a large amount of time to mastering sit and go’s.

These days, Novikova specializes in hyper-turbo SNGs and plays a mix of $30, $60 and $100 buy-in events. The 22-year-old has put in enough volume to achieve Supernova status, which caught the eye of PokerStars’ marketing department. Now, the Russian is living out a dream that includes playing the game she loves under a sponsorship deal.
“I would’ve played poker anonymously for the rest of my life, and I could’ve been happy doing it. That didn’t stop me from dreaming, however,” blogged Novikova. “I dreamt of what it would be like to get the call that I was going to become a member of Team Online.”
As a newly minted member of Team PokerStars Online, Novikova will be looking to move up to Supernova Elite status. And she writes that being sponsored will enable her to play more live tournaments in the future too.

Yuiko Matsukawa: Model becomes brand ambassador

Considering that Japan still doesn’t have legal poker – land-based or online – PokerStars is really attacking this market ahead of time. Just a couple months after signing Kosei Ichinose, Stars has tabbed model Yuiko Matsukawa to be a brand ambassador for them.
Matsukawa isn’t much of a poker player, although she did play in the Macau Poker Cup. Her real value comes in the fact that she’s appeared in movies, TV shows, magazines and has done plenty of modeling work. Below you can see a statement from the 24-year-old on her signing:

“I was honored to participate in a major poker event as a PokerStars brand ambassador. In the beginning, I was a bit nervous, but eventually I found myself enjoying the game in a relaxed mood. I really appreciate my fans that cheered me on during the competition. PokerStars provides us the opportunity to play poker on smartphones and tablets, so you can enjoy games everywhere and anytime. I will continue to brush up my skills for the next tournament. Please wish me luck!”

Given that she’s now a PokerStars ambassador, you can expect to see Matsukawa in future live tournaments, PokerStars ads, and involved in their Asian marketing efforts.

The post PokerStars Signs Liliya Novikova and Yuiko Matsukawa appeared first on Rakeback News.

Nothing immediately stands out about Jaime Staples’ online poker career, at least in terms of deserving a sponsorship deal. However, his solid winnings combined with his Twitch following and strong broadcasting skills have landed him a deal with PokerStars…Ralph Mastrantonio, a retired NYPD sergeant, has taken up a second career – running illegal poker games. Mastrantonio was recently busted for his poker ring, and he now faces up to five years in prison…Once a rising star in poker, Alex Jacob is now using his wits to battle contestants on Jeopardy. See how Jacob has performed on Jeopardy in this edition of the Weekly Flop.

Jaime Staples signed by PokerStars on Strength of Twitch Broadcasts

After trying his hand at being a professional golfer, Jaime Staples began playing online poker. And now, five years later, he’s accomplished the dream of many poker pros: getting a sponsorship deal.

At first glance, Staples’ $467k in online tournament winnings don’t stand out from the many other skilled pros who remain unsponsored. However, what truly separates the Canadian from the pack is his Twitch broadcasts, which have attracted thousands of fans. Case in point, 4,800 viewers were on hand to see Staples win a PokerStars Big $109 tournament for $19,422. Not coincidentally, it was after this victory that Stars contacted the 23-year-old about joining them.

What has really helped Staples gain a solid Twitch following is his voice, smooth broadcasting skills and willingness to interact with viewers. And his signing really hammers home the point that PokerStars is looking to Twitch to boost their traffic. Many see this live-streaming service as a natural compliment to online poker since players can follow pros, make comments and pick up tips.

Sgt. Mastrantonio busted after running Booze-filled, Rake-collecting Poker Games
Maybe this story isn’t Molly ‘The Poker Princess’ Bloom running illegal poker games for mega celebrities in New York. But retired NYPD sergeant Ralph Mastrantonio has grabbed his share of headlines after being arrested for running a poker ring in Staten Island. And this was definitely a significant game because it raked thousands of dollars a night, with free booze and Italian food being served to players on the side.

The probe into Mastrantonio’s poker game began in 2011, when Queens prosecutors received a tip that a police detective (Richard Palase) was associating with organized crime figures; this investigation also led to the snaring of Mastrantonio.

Defense lawyer Daniel Bibb finds the assertion that the 55-year-old retiree and Palase were rubbing elbows with the mafia almost laughable. “The closest they got to organized crime was Sammy Gravano’s (Gambino family underboss) niece-in-law.”
Regardless of what Bibb thinks, Mastrantonio is facing some serious federal charges that could put him in prison for up to five years – not exactly ideal for somebody who spent their life busting criminals.

Famed Poker Pro Alex Jacob wins on Jeopardy

It’s been a while since Alex Jacob has been in the poker spotlight. In the mid-2000s, he was considered a rising star after finishing second in the 2006 Foxwoods Poker Classic ($655.5k) and winning the 2006 United States Poker Championship ($878.5k). However, the afro-sporting Jacob would eventually fade away from poker to follow other pursuits.
Apparently, one of these pursuits involves becoming a quiz-show guru, because he recently won on Jeopardy. Jacob dominated the episode he won right from the beginning and further built his lead after risking everything ($8.6k) on a Daily Double and correctly answering the question.

TwoPlusTwo users applauded this risky move because Jacob had good knowledge of the category that his Daily Double appeared in. In contrast, some players wait until Final Jeopardy to make a big move, which can be tricky because they have no control over what category the question will come from. So while Jacob may not play a lot of poker any more, his knowledge of taking a good +EV risk certainly came into play here.

The post Weekly Flop: Jaime Staples Twitch Star, NYPD Sergeant busted for Poker, Alex Jacob Jeopardy appeared first on Rakeback News.

What happens when you finally realize the dream of hitting a big score and becoming a poker pro, only to have your money frozen by a bank? Find out as we discuss the horrifying story of ‘RuiDeck’….Four elite poker pros are testing their skills against the ultimate poker bot in a challenge that’s being televised at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Casino. Find out who has the upper hand at the moment…Spin & Gos may have been highly criticized by pro players for their obvious recreational angle. But you can’t argue with the amount of millionaires that are being created, including another guy who won $1 million in just six minutes.

German Bank freezes Poker Player’s €40k – Crushes a Dream

A Sicilian man living in Dresden, Germany thought that he’d achieved an incredible dream after finishing third and earning $59,480 (€54,700) in the PokerStars MicroMillions Main Event. Unfortunately, he’s now living a nightmare instead after a German bank froze his €40,000 transaction.

This is especially disheartening when considering that the guy quit his waiter job and was hoping that the €40k would be his online poker bankroll. Initially, it seemed like the bank was merely ensuring that the funds weren’t involved with moeny laundering. But after weeks of waiting, RuiDeck finally learned that his money had been confiscated due to illegal gambling.

This is truly an incredible dream turned into a nightmare since the man, who only had $11 in his PokerStars account, used 10 FPPs to satellite into the MicroMillions Main Event. And he describes his third-place finish as an “incredible joy,” and one that he celebrated with friends and family back in Sicily.

But now, despite a letter from PokerStars to the bank, explaining that the transaction is legitimate, it looks like the money could be the government’s. RuiDeck has vowed to fight this matter in court, but considering that Germany also took €63,490 from an online blackjack player back in January, this will be a tough legal battle.

Doug Polk, Other Pros take on Famed Poker Bot

There’s been a debate for years over if bots will ever truly conquer poker and beat the best players. Well, that debate is being argued on the cyber felt now, with Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li and Jason Les all facing off against a bot named ‘Claudico.’
Claudico is actually a new-and-improved version of ‘Tartanian7,’ which took first in the Computer Poker Competition last year. Developed by Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists, this program is believed to be the best ever made for heads-up NLHE. This billing will be heavily tested against the four pros, who will each play 20,000 hands against Claudico, with 750 hands played each day over a 13-day span.

The competition has already started and it’s being streamed through Twitch. At the moment, Claudico is down $50,000 to the professionals, but there’s still a long ways to go. And as anybody who’s played NLHE can attest to, anything can happen in this game.

Russian Player wins $1m in PokerStars Spin & Gos

In recent months, PokerStars has been running a series of Spin & Go promotions where players can win a $1 million jackpot. Several millionaires (before taxes) have already been created through this promo, and in late April, a Russian player named ‘CccpVodka’ joined the party.

What’s truly impressive about this is the short amount of time it took CccpVodka to go from a low-stakes player, to instantly rich. He bought into a $5 Spin & Go, then defeated his two opponents in only 6 minutes to win the $1 million jackpot. The two opponents, ‘partalios’ of Greece and ‘shooLarr’ of Russia, also collected $100,000 each for finishing second and third.

CccpVodka is actually just the 23rd player in history to win $1 million or more in a single online poker score. And there could be more players joining him in this club because the Spin & Gos $1 million jackpot promotion runs until May 24th.

The post Weekly Flop: Waiter’s Poker Money frozen, Polk vs. Bot appeared first on Rakeback News.

It seems that more and more famous poker pros are joining the Twitch craze, with none more famous than Daniel Negreanu. Kid Poker recently began broadcasting on the live-streaming service and, not surprisingly, he’s already developed a healthy following. Unfortunately, many poker players haven’t had an opportunity to see any of Negreanu’s Twitch broadcasts. And if you fall into this category, then let us catch you up to speed on what you’re missing.

1. Negreanu can Definitely play High Stakes

Several years ago, Kid Poker had a disastrous run on “High Stakes Poker,” losing over $2 million during the TV show’s 6-year run. Negreanu has always been one of the best tournament players, but his HSP losses inspired him to work harder in cash games and improve. The results of this improvement were definitely evident on Twitch, as he took on elite online grinders like Ben Sulsky, Niki Jedlicka and Luke Schwartz, and won over $50,000. While short-term winnings aren’t the ultimate determinant of success, it’s clear from the fact that Negreanu wasn’t afraid to play $400/$800 mixed games that he’s a very good player. This topic actually sparked the following funny Twitter debate:

Allen Bari – “NOOOOOO.. I was hoping the day wouldn’t come that someone who has played tens of hours of mixed games like @RealKidPoker would TWITCH”
Negreanu – “@allenbari what do you think I was doing for 10 years when you were a pimple faced child? #CrushingSouls ‘
Bari – “@RealKidPoker I never had pimples, but yes I am sure the games were tough back then.. don’t worry I will continue watching you and promoting.”
Doyle Brunson – “@RealKidPoker I guess @allenbari is getting a commision on his tweets. If he don’t and really means them,he should probably stfu.#education.”
Bari – “@TexDolly your grammar is shit.. #education”

2. Great Stories

With over 20 years of experience in the game, Kid Poker has excellent poker stories to tell along with some interesting views. And he’s already shared hours’ worth of stories and views with his Twitch followers. We won’t get into the dozens of topics that he’s covered, but just for a sample, here are a few interesting ones:
– Negreanu discussed how he didn’t play his greatest on HSP, but he also ran bad too, which caused him to tilt a little.
– Politicians who are aligning with and taking money from anti-online gaming zealot Sheldon Adelson are hurting their careers and tarnishing their reputations in the long run.
– Phil Ivey lost his first edge-sorting case to Crockfords (London); but Negreanu thinks that, given America’s liberal stance on advantage players, Ivey has a better chance to win his $9.6m case against the Borgata.
– Negreanu is really into his health since his parents passed away before they should have because they didn’t take good care of themselves.

3. Negreanu taking a Pee

Not to be weird, but this was weird, Kid Poker actually took his Twitch followers into the bathroom while he relieved himself. Luckily, there was nothing X-rated about this, but it did cause a little stir in the poker community. Liv Boeree, who also recently launched a Twitch channel, was quick to make light of Negreanu’s bathroom episode:
Boeree – “I can’t promise I’ll be peeing while streaming like @RealKidPoker, but hey you never know where the night might take us.”

As you can see, Negreanu definitely has some entertaining stuff going on during his Twitch broadcasts. Boeree does as well, so make sure to watch these two PokerStars Pros and the dozens of other famous players who are on Twitch.

The post 3 Things you missed on Daniel Negreanu’s Twitch Broadcasts appeared first on Rakeback News.

Alex Jacob recently ended the most triumphant run for a poker-pro-turned-game-show-contestant in history. Okay, so maybe it’s not that large of a category, but Jacob’s performance was still extremely impressive, given that he won six Jeopardy! episodes along with $130k. But what other poker players besides Jacob have gone the game-show route? Here’s a look at five who made splashes on famous shows.

1. Jean-Robert Bellande: “Survivor: China” in 2007

Long before he became infamous for bragging about his shaky high stakes poker play and party lifestyle, JRB was slumming it up in the wilderness of China. He frequently clashed with eventual runner-up Courtney Yates, and met his demise when the eventual champion, Todd Herzog, turned on him. But Bellande has arguably become the most-famous alum from Survivor: China, as his decade-old poker career and heavy following of his BrokeLivingJRB Instagram account indicate.

2. Liv Boeree: “Golden Balls” in 2007

Boeree has actually made multiple TV appearances, including her co-hosting duties on the Discovery Channel show “Mind Control Freaks.” But one of her most-memorable TV appearances was the time she put her deception skills to the test on ITV’s Golden Balls. Her opponent chose to “split” the money with Liv, but she tricked him by picking “steal,” thus earning herself £6,500. Anybody who’s followed Boeree’s poker career, which includes a 2010 EPT title, shouldn’t be surprised at the incredible Golden Balls bluff she pulled off.

3. Annie Duke: “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2009 (Season 8)

Most don’t really consider Duke a poker pro these days, but with $4.2 million in winnings and a WSOP bracelet, she certainly used to be one. That said, it’s worth bringing up her run on Celebrity Apprentice, which was explosive to say the least. Duke’s time on the show is characterized by her battles with the late Joan Rivers, who, during an argument with Duke, said, “You’re a poker player, a poker player – that’s beyond white trash!” Rivers got whatever justice she felt that she deserved, taking first place while Duke finished second.

4. Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott: “Celebrity Darts” in 2008

The late Ulliott will always be remembered for his fantastic poker career, funny one-liners and quick wit. But yet one more thing to remember him by is his appearance on ITV’s Celebrity Darts back in the late-2000s. Devilfish’s popularity was easily evident since the crowd cheered for him on every shot. Ulliott and his partner, darts pro Peter Manley, would lose to the championship team of three-time Olympic javelin medalist Steve Backley and James Wade, but his performance was still quite impressive.

5. JJ Hazan: “Dragon’s Den” in 2009

The UK show Dragon’s Den, which has about a dozen variations, including America’s “Shark Tank,” once featured poker pro JJ Hazan, who was looking for an investment of £65,000. As Hazan explained to the investors, the deal would secure them 40% of his tournament winnings out of the 33 upcoming events he’d be playing. He sweetened the deal by guaranteeing that investors would receive 100% of the first £50k that he won. It was pretty clear from the beginning that the investors both didn’t understand poker staking, and they weren’t interested in the matter. So it’s little surprise that Hazan walked away from the show without a staking deal.

The post 5 Poker Players besides Alex Jacob who were Game Show Contestants appeared first on Rakeback News.

Becoming a PokerStars Supernova Elite is certainly not news – unless you’re like Martijn ‘Quadchrazs’ Ardon and accomplish this feat in just 52 days! The Dutch grinder became the fastest-ever player to reach Supernova Elite status, which involves earning 1 million VPPs at PokerStars in one year. And as you’ll find out, the amazing thing is that Ardon didn’t even originally intend to reach this goal.

As far as the lofty standards that he sets for himself go, Quadchrazs wasn’t happy with his volume last year. “I was kind of lazy in 2014 and decided I wanted to work hard in 2015,” Ardon said. “That kind of spiraled into three really big days at the start of the year. It then became apparent I was first in the leaderboard and I wanted to keep it that way. I looked up the VPP record and decided to go for it, as I felt I was still playing fine.”

What ensued was a daily routine that consisted of playing $100 buy-in sit and go’s most of the day, with each delivering roughly 20 VPPs. Considering the fact that he was averaging over 1,000 SNGs daily, Ardon sometimes earned over 35,000 VPPs in a single day. If not for a stomach flu that forced him to quit playing for a week, Quadchrazs would’ve crushed the record much sooner. Even including the flu-ridden week, he eclipsed Andrew ‘azntracker’ Li’s old record for fastest to a Supernova Elite by 7 days.

Groundhog Day

“I cannot see how this (record) can be beaten,” said Gareth Davies, VIP Program Manager at PokerStars. “It must have been like Groundhog Day!”

To Ardon, Groundhog Day was a good way to describe his insane daily volume. “Yes it was at some point,” he admitted. “Ideally I would have wanted to quit after 40 days or so. The games were really hard at some point in February because PokerStars was doing that ‘ULTIMATE’ promotion, which caused a lot of good players to make a lot of extra hours.”

It’s almost difficult to grasp just how amazing of an accomplishment Quadchrazs achieved by becoming a Supernova Elite in only 52 days. But it becomes even more incredible when you get an idea of his daily schedule during this feat.

“My standard day was getting up at between 12pm and 2pm and getting to sleep between 4am and 6am,” Ardon said. “I would usually do four three-hour sessions a day depending on the action. I played 6-Max hypers mostly – my game of choice for the last few years.
“In February, when the $60 spin and go’s were released, I was forced to play a little more hours and a little more other games as well, like fifty50 sit and go’s and satellite hypers. The spins are very popular but I wasn’t planning on learning an entirely new game while in this chase.”

Ardon has a love for SNGs

Even the most-ardent poker lovers might find their resolve tested by playing over 1,000 SNGs per day. However, Quadchrazs definitely sees the positive in playing these single-table tourneys. “If you think SNGs are boring you miss a lot of important stuff to take into account!” He added that playing a high volume of SNGs is “more like a lot of stress than it is boring.”

The fact that Ardon will already be earning rewards at PokerStars’ highest VIP level certainly has to add to the excitement. Going further, it must be even sweeter when you consider that Ardon got his start playing penny poker in college. As he describes it, “The standard story of a student playing poker to try to make some easy money on the side which spiraled into something more.”
That “more” now includes a prestigious record at PokerStars that should stand for quite some time.

The post Martijn ‘Quadchrazs’ Ardon becomes Supernova Elite in Just 52 Days! appeared first on Rakeback News.

The story of Charlie Carrel seems like one of those online poker success tales that could have only happened prior to 2007. The Brit deposited $15 at PokerStars a few years ago and hasn’t looked back since, spinning his tiny deposit into a bankroll worth over $500,000. And there are three things that immediately stick out about Carrel’s story:

1) He’s only 21 years old.
2) He only had to deposit once.
3) This is 2015 we’re talking about, where even beating average players is tough.

Again, maybe Carrel’s path to success wouldn’t have seemed so impossible when the likes of Jamie Gold and Jerry Yang were binking WSOP Main Event titles. But today, it’s pretty rare that somebody runs up half a million dollars without plenty of hard knocks along the way. So how did ‘Charlie ‘Epiphany77′ do it? Let’s take a look by discussing some of what he told PokerStars in a recent interview.

After quickly immersing himself into poker as a teenager, Carrel made the decision to dedicate his time to the game over everything else. Case in point, shortly after finishing A-levels, he moved from London to his grandmother’s home in Jersey – leaving behind his friends, social life and distractions in the process. “Not to sound arrogant but I was becoming increasingly aware that I was good at poker and that I had a lot of potential and I’d read a lot about players like nanonoko (Randy Lew),” he explained of the decision. “I thought it best to dedicate myself to poker whilst I was still young.”

Rather than feed everybody some B.S. about how he’s a poker natural who crushed his competition with ease, Carrel freely attributes part of his success to running well. And the 21-year-old admits that he might not even have stuck with online poker if he hadn’t done well in the beginning. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t get lucky in the first few times I played online.”

Like any teenager who makes poker their full-time pursuit, Carrel had some very worried parents to deal with. And it actually took a power point presentation to convince his parents that poker is a legitimate career. “My mum and my step-dad had what amounted to an intervention where they said I needed to stop gambling,” he explained. “So, I prepared a big power point presentation and came down with graphs and expected value and showed them my past papers of A-level that I was crushing. They eventually understood the graphs but not straight away.”

Carrel switched from SNGs to cash games

Carrel started out playing low-stakes sit and go’s while still in A-levels. But eventually, he and a friend ran the numbers and figured out that their best chance to make it as poker pros was to switch to cash games. “I absolutely loved cash games as soon as I switched because there was a lot more thinking involved,” Carrel recalled. “That’s the point where my friend stopped playing because he got an apprenticeship, he had to work and he liked computer games. Whereas I was playing 10NL Zoom every night, whilst I was still studying for A-levels.”

Like any great poker player, Carrel learned poker strategy to improve his game – namely joining a small-stakes strategy discussion group and watching free training videos. However, he eventually outgrew these and realized that he was doing better without looking at other players’ strategy. In the end, Carrel claims that the best tool for his improvement has simply been playing lots of hands.

And one can’t argue with the results, which include taking his online poker bankroll up to $520k and winning another $402,051 through live tournaments. Considering Carrel’s youth and dedication, it certainly isn’t hard to see him becoming an even bigger poker star over the coming years.

The post How Charlie Carrel ran his $15 Deposit into a $500k Bankroll appeared first on Rakeback News.

There’s an assumption by some online poker players that every future pro needs to make deposits, take their lumps, then make more deposits until they get good enough to win. Well, this may be the case for most pros, but there are a select few who’ve become famous and successful players without ever depositing! That said, here’s a look at three accomplished pros who never had to spend a penny on their online poker bankroll.

1. Annette ‘Annette_15′ Obrestad

Perhaps the most-told story involving a famed player who didn’t have to deposit is Annette Obrestad. The Norwegian began her online poker career at the age of 15, so it’s good from a legal standpoint that she never actually deposited. Despite being so young, Obrestad quickly got good at the game and won some freerolls to boost her bankroll. From September 2006 to February 2007, she won over $700k from different online poker sites. Later in ’07, she managed to win the 2007 WSOPE Main Event along with £1,000,000. To date, her combined online and live tournament winnings are worth over $6.8 million, making Obrestad one of the best players ever who started in freerolls.

2. Ben ‘Sauce123′ Sulsky

There are so many interesting aspects to Sulsky’s poker origins that it’s hard to find a starting point. We’ll begin with how he went on a spring break trip to Mexico with his friends, where he poured himself into online poker while on the beach. After taking advantage of no-deposit bonuses that poker sites were offering, and learning lots of strategy during the trip, Sulsky quickly began building his bankroll to a respectable amount. Upon entering high stakes online cash games, ‘Sauce123′ skyrocketed his career PokerStars profits to over $4 million in less than a year. Today, Sulsky is one of the most-feared players in both online PLO and NLHE cash games.

3. Jason ‘JCarver’ Somerville

Like Obrestad, Somerville is another player who started out young and with freerolls too. At age 17, after watching a televised World Poker Tour event, the New York native began playing home games with friends before beginning his online poker career. It took Somerville just a few years before he was crushing online and live tournaments. 2011 saw Somerville win his first WSOP gold bracelet, and the success continues today since he has over $6 million in combined live and online tournaments earnings. What’s more is that Somerville maintains a very strong Twitch following because players love his informative, yet entertaining broadcasting style.

The post 3 Online Poker Pros who Never Deposited appeared first on Rakeback News.

There have been more big stories packed into the last five events than at any other point in the 2015 WSOP. But none trump Phil Hellmuth winning his 14th-career gold bracelet, giving him a dominating four-bracelet lead over any other player in history. That said, let’s discuss Hellmuth’s incredible achievement along with the other great stories from WSOP Events 16-20.

Event #16: Engineer Adrian Buckley wins Millionaire Maker and $1.28m

The $1,500 Millionaire Maker drew a massive 7,275-player field, with everybody hunting for the $1,277,193 payout. And there were even some famous pros in this amateur-heavy event, including Olivier Busquet (3rd, $589,569), Erick Lindgren (7th, $193,675) and Mike Sexton (9th, $115,890), who all made strong runs at the gold bracelet. However, it was a semi-pro named Adrian Buckley who ultimately won the $1.28 million prize, defeating Spain’s Javier Zarco ($791,690) heads up for the victory. Despite earning one of the largest windfalls at the 2015 WSOP, Buckley plans to return to his normal job soon, which involves being an engineer for defense contractor Lockheed-Martin.

Event #17: Phil Hellmuth wins Historic 14th Bracelet
It’s been three years since Phil Hellmuth has won a gold bracelet, which is a lot in his world. However, the Poker Brat once again proved why he’s the greatest player in WSOP history by adding a 14th bracelet in the $10,000 Razz Championship. As always, the Razz Championship featured a stacked field of 103 players, with Mike Leah (4th, $75,964), Stephen Chidwick (7th, $38,447), Brandon Shack-Harris (8th, $31,727) and Shaun Deeb (9th, $26,557) all making the final table. Hellmuth’s last opponent was Mike Gorodinsky ($167,517), who made heads-up play interesting. But the Poker Brat mounted a comeback to collect his 14th-career bracelet along with $271,105.

Event #18: John Gale earns First Bracelet for Brits in $1k Turbo Hold’em

Last year, John Kabbaj was the only British player to collect a gold bracelet at the WSOP. This year, England is already on pace for better results since John Gale has taken down the $1,000 Turbo Hold’em event. It certainly wasn’t easy for the 61-year-old retiree, who fought through a 1,791-player field to win this tournament. However, Gale, who also captured a bracelet in a 2006 WSOP PLHE tournament, played well enough to win his second-career bracelet and $298,290.

Event #19: Matt Elsby wins Six-Handed Limit Hold’em
Matt Elsby, a 38-year-old poker pro from Arizona, topped a 319-player field in this $3,000 Six-Handed Limit Hold’em event to win his first bracelet and $230,799. The final table ran quite long in this tournament, which made the last six players work for the gold bracelet. In the end, Elsby faced France’s Gabriel Nassif heads up, with the latter seeking his first gold bracelet in 31 WSOP cashes. Unfortunately for Nassif, he came up short again ($142,631), allowing Elsby to instead grab the victory.

Event #20: Ben Zamani beats Natasha Barbour to win $1.5k NL Hold’em

Less than a week prior to this $1,500 NL Hold’em tournament, Ben Zamani had finished second place in the Event #14 $1,500 NL Shootout. Many players don’t get a second chance to win a bracelet in the same WSOP – especially so quickly thereafter. But here was Zamani, battling through an 1,844-player field an into a heads-up match with Natasha Barbour. The latter was looking to become the first female winner of the 2015 WSOP, but she never overcame Zamani’s chip advantage and settled for the $284,911 runner-up payout. As for Zamani, he picked up the $460,640 top prize and his first gold bracelet.

The post 2015 WSOP Quick Recaps: Events 16-20 appeared first on Rakeback News.

Face analyzed

If you’re going to ask a poker pro questions, Phil Hellmuth is definitely a good one to provide the answers. So it’s little surprise that Hellmuth got lots of attention during a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session….PokerStars does their best to keep controls on cheating and bots. But a new threat has arisen that allows hackers to see your hole cards….Think your poker face is hard to read? It might not be thanks to new software that can scan your facial expressions and tell what you’re thinking.

Phil Hellmuth opens up on UB, Ménage à Trois, Legal US Poker

The Poker Brat recently did a very interesting AMA session on Reddit, with dozens of questions being hurled his way. As a guy who’s been around the game for almost three decades, Hellmuth definitely had some interesting things to say. Here are his thoughts on just a few questions.

Q: What do you think needs to be done to ignite another “Moneymaker Effect”-style boom of poker interest?

PH: A bigger BOOM is coming when the USA legalizes online poker again! We have witnessed this in Italy, France, and Russia when online poker was actually legalized, and the operators were shocked because they had 10 times as many people play (10X) than was expected.

Q: Have you ever done 2 chicks at the same time?

PH: no, but I’m not complaining cause Ive been happily married for 25 years!

Q: Could you have done more to help recover player’s money on Ultimate Bet?

PH: I was proud to have had a big role in forcing an investigation at UB, which led to $25 million being returned to the players. People said I should have left the site, and that would have been easy to do as I was wanted by Full Tilt. But I saw another pro get haunted for years because the site he repped DID NOT pay the players back. Staying was the right move, and I was happy when the players were paid back.

Spyware Scandal uncovered at PokerStars and Full Tilt

IT security researcher Robert Lipovsky recently discovered that hackers are using spyware that can reveal opponents’ hole cards. Think Russ Hamilton, except more complicated than sitting in the UB office staring at everybody’s hole cards.

This Trojan virus, Win32/Spy.Odlanor, can be installed on a player’s PC when they download unregistered versions of Poker Calculator Pro, Smart Buddy, Poker Office and other programs. When the malware is on a player’s computer and launched, it takes screenshots of their PokerStars or Full Tilt window(s). The hacker can then gather the player’s ID and hole card information, join their table and start victimizing them.

Lipovsky warns that hackers from any country can use this spyware to unfairly win money. But it seems that the largest concentration of hackers are from Eastern Russia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine; most victims live in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

This Program can analyze Your Poker Face Immediately

Much is made about having an expressionless poker face so nobody knows if you’re bluffing or you have the absolute nuts. But if you’re up against the face-reading program from start-up company Emotient, you have no chance to hide what you’re thinking.

Emotient’s software was recently put to test at a McDonald’s, where it monitored customers to see how stressed they were when waiting on lunch. Using emotion detection and sentiment analysis based on facial expressions, the company could tell which people who were okay with waiting for food, and those who were about to blow their lids.

There’s no talk of bringing the Emotient creation to the poker tables to read Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu. But we might expect it in court rooms and retail stores in the near future.

The post Weekly Flop: Hellmuth on Reddit, PokerStars Spyware Scare, Your Poker appeared first on Rakeback News.

Over the years, Daniel Negreanu has shown a willingness to discuss just about anything regarding poker, no matter how sensitive the subject. And this road has recently led Negreanu to covering racial profiling in poker. The discussion began on Kid Poker’s twitter account, when somebody brought up a video that he made a decade ago, where he dressed as his idol Bob Marley (complete with black makeup) for Halloween. Negreanu did not apologize for the video because he didn’t know it was going to offend people, and he doesn’t feel like there’s any racism in him. This has proceeded to his latest blog post entitled “How Racist are You?”, which we’ll discuss the main points of below.

Negreanu Uses Race and Social Stereotypes to Profile Opponents

One of Kid Poker’s biggest points in this blog is how you phrase statements when making judgments based on race. For example, saying, “All black men from Kenya can run faster than all white men from Philly” can be construed as racist, whereas saying, “On average, Kenyan men are faster than white men from Philly at running a marathon” would be based on observation.

The 40-year-old poker pro uses the same logic to profile his poker opponents as soon as they sit down to the table. Here’s one excerpt from the blog where Negreanu discusses his thought process:

“When I sit at a poker table with a player I’ve never seen before, immediately I’m profiling them based on any and all information I can gather about the person. Ideas that I had about what something meant were never absolute, but the process tended to be correct more often than not. My profile of the player would evolve as I learned more about them and how they played, but as a base, my first impression of that person was going to dictate how I viewed their playing style or skill level.”

Here are a few examples of Negreanu putting this idea into action:
– Middle aged white guy wearing a suit and tie – probably not a professional poker player. Likely is a businessman who is going to be a losing player.
– Korean guy playing 80-160 limit hold’em- might be a steamer. Koreans tend to be really passionate people and if he gets stuck he might go on monster tilt and try to bluff at every pot.
– Elderly woman- she is there to enjoy herself and is probably a weak player.
– Young Indian kid in a tournament- probably has a background in math, might even be a spelling bee champ or something.

Is Reading Poker Players like this Ultimately Racist?

Perhaps Negreanu discussing his thoughts on how he includes race/gender when profiling players isn’t the most-politically correct thing in the world. However, it also doesn’t seem like he takes this method of reading people beyond the felt. As Negreanu concludes at the end of his post, limiting people and excluding them from opportunities because of their race or gender definitely isn’t right. However, when it comes to poker, he’s largely found that that using trends and his experience is better than “receiving all new players as blank slates.”

The post Daniel Negreanu Discusses Racial Profiling in Poker appeared first on Rakeback News.

PokerStars will soon make massive changes to its loyalty program in hopes of balancing out rewards between low-stakes and high-volume players. Beginning January 1, 2016, rakeback will eventually be capped at 30% for most PokerStars players, Supernova Elite (highest VIP level) will be eliminated, and Frequent Player Points (FPPs) will be replaced with StarsCoin (worth 25% less).

The 30% rakeback cap is huge because some high-volume players earn upwards of 70% rakeback by reaching Supernova and Supernova Elite status.

Another notable change is that $5/$10 No-Limit and Pot-Limit tables, as well as $10/$20 Fixed-Limit tables, will no longer offer any rewards. PokerStars’ reasoning is that the “high transaction costs and operation costs of monitoring these games” diminishes any incentive to offer rewards to high-stakes players.

“We are introducing these changes to move towards a more balanced long-term poker economy and to return the game back to one that rewards skill via winning at the tables rather than playing primarily for volume,” wrote PokerStars spokesperson Eric Hollreiser.

Not long ago, PokerStars announced that they would be banning certain third-party tracking software to prevent skilled players from taking advantage of recreational players. And the upcoming changes to the loyalty program also reflect Stars’ commitment to recreational players. It certainly seems like these are good long-term moves for the world’s largest online poker site, given that amateurs will be encouraged to play more. But professionals are obviously not happy with the changes, which you can read about below.

Dani ‘Ansky’ Stern hates what PokerStars is doing to VIP Program

One pro who doesn’t appreciate Stars’ new philosophy is Dani ‘Ansky’ Stern. Appearing on Joey Ingram’s popular podcast, Stern takes issue with how PokerStars uses Supernova Elite players to “pump up” their brand, only to take this advertised dream away. He’s also miffed with how PokerStars has essentially reneged on their promise to Supernova Elite players.

“The VIP system is a two-year program,” says Stern. “One of the rewards for achieving Supernova Elite per given year is that you maintain the status for the next year. And this is advertised and written on their site — it’s still written on their site right now! And it’s not true anymore, they’re saying they’re not going to honor it. So they know that players on Stars that made a decision to go for Supernova Elite in 2015 under the assumption that they will be able to maintain Supernova Elite status into 2016, which is part of the value of being Supernova Elite.”

Another problem that Stern has with this deal is that he doesn’t believe PokerStars gave players proper warning before making these changes. In fact, news of the VIP alterations would not have been public knowledge yet if they hadn’t been leaked through a Russian website.

Still waiting on a Response from Daniel Negreanu

Whenever PokerStars makes a big move, many immediately look towards Daniel Negreanu. After all, ‘Kid Poker’ is not only the most-prominent spokesman at Stars, but also an overall ambassador for the game. Negreanu has asked fans to be patient while he crafts a longer response to the VIP program changes. Here’s a look at his latest tweet on the matter:

“Lots of big decisions to digest and I approach each with my integrity at the forefront of where I choose from.”

Odds are that Negreanu will be in support of the changes, given that he works for PokerStars and also believes in doing whatever is necessary to help the game grow. But as Stern’s rant shows, no matter what Negreanu says, high-volume pros aren’t happy

The post PokerStars overhauls VIP Program to improve Ecology – This Pro Hates It appeared first on Rakeback News.