Online Gambling News and Promotions

Online poker players have been given the opportunity to hunt down and knock out the members of Team Titan, the professional poker team of Titan Poker in a series of bounty tournaments culminating in Heads Up clashes with the team during the month of November.

Team Titan is a 6-member professional team led by Sorel Mizzi, one of the most well-known online poker players. The other team members are Sam Trickett, Marvin Rettenmaier, Jonas Klausen, Yann Brosolo, Florian Desgouttes, and Joel Benzinou.

Eliminating any of the Team Titan members from one of the weekly Team Titan Bounty tournaments will bring the skilled poker player a $100 Bounty prize and some serious respect. The tournaments are staged exclusively at Titanpoker.com and carry a $5 + $1 buy-in. Titan Poker contributes an additional $500 to each of the bounty tournaments to increase the excitement.

The top players in each bounty tournament, as well as those who have successfully knocked out Team Titan members, advance to the Team Titan HU Qualifier tournament on November 1. The top five players at that exclusive tournament will each go heads-up against one of five Team Titan members for a chance to win additional prizes.

Team Titan members recently enjoyed huge successes at the 2010 World Series of Poker* in Las Vegas, cashing out in at a number of the events. Sam Trickett finished in second place in the $5,000 NL Hold’em Event #17, for a prize of $505,725. In addition, Trickett had 5 other cash outs, for a grand total of $693,827. Sorel Mizzi finished in the money in Events #21 and #26, pocketing just over $37,000. Marvin Rettenmaier from Germany cashed out in four events, taking home more than $88,000. Jonas Klausen from Denmark won $8,735 in Event #51, while Yann Brosolo from France cashed out in Events #51 and #56 for over $12,000 in prizes.

Team Titan is sponsored by Titan Poker, the leading online poker room in Europe and the official sponsor of Europe’s most exclusive live poker series, the ECPokerTour.

Huge cash prizes are available through the end of August to online poker players at TitanPoker, the leading poker room in Europe.

Titan Poker has launched its multi-feature Summer Jackpot promotion, giving players additional rewards and jackpot prizes for their regular poker gaming activity. The Summer Jackpot promotion combines weekly and monthly races, a nightly Titan Double jackpot tournament series, and an ongoing $50,000 Fort Knox progressive jackpot sit ‘n’ go tournament promotion.

The Summer Jackpot races rank players based on their daily point totals from playing at cash tables and tournaments. The top 50 players with the best average daily ranking score for the entire month will share a cut of the $20,000 between them. A weekly prize pool of $5,000 is up for grabs to players who finish in the top 10 daily rank for 4 consecutive weekdays. Prizes not claimed will be reserved in a Super Side Pot that will reward players whose daily ranking puts them in the top 10 positions at least seven times over a four-week period.

All poker players have an equal chance of winning their share of the weekly and monthly prizes, as well as the side pot jackpots available.

The Titan Double tournaments take place every night, giving online poker players the opportunity to compete for tournament prize money and for a share of extra cash from a progressive jackpot, which keeps growing until someone wins the huge prize. To participate in the Titan Double promotion, players must register for both tournaments of a Titan Double series, which start at five-minute intervals.

Players who win six consecutive $50 + $9 Fort Knox – Jackpot Sit ‘N’ Go tournaments will take home not only the regular tournament prizes, but also win a huge jackpot, starting at $50,000. The Fort Knox Jackpot is progressive, and grows bigger each week until someone claims it. Players have won Fort Knox Jackpot prizes of over $150,000.

On the 15th of July 2010 Ongame network (Betsson Poker) has released a new rake redistribution model called Essence. The target of Essence is to give the Ongame network’s poker operators a long-term growth, increased revenues and a healthy network economy and that way benefit players.

What is Essence?

The main difference between the old model and the Essence model of valuing players is that a player’s style of play is now taken into account. Using the new model, rake is calculated based on pot contribution and the player’s historical performance. The problem with calculating a player’s value with the old valuation is that winning players are valued too highly, while players who lose money are valued too low.

In Essence each player is assigned a coefficient, based on the past 90 days’ performance in terms of the monetary end result. The coefficient is transformed and normalized to reflect the relative skill gap between the players in the hand. Until they have played 500 hands, players are assigned the default coefficient.

Each player is assigned an amount of rake based upon their coefficient in relation to the opposition’s coefficients and the amount of money they contributed to the pot.

If all players at a table have the same skill level, then the rake would be distributed in the same way as before Essence.

Essence will only affect cash game rake. Tournament rake will still be collected as previously; the house-fee set on tournament buy-ins.

Loyalty program/Player points – Players will see the difference between the old and new setup in the way they accumulate player points in the loyalty programs, players will receive more or less points than before depending on their style of play.

Fully integrated real time solution – Since the model is a change in the core rake algorithm it will be fully integrated with all systems cascading the player re-evaluation throughout the value chain in a transparent way.

Why Essence?

The maximum rake extracted over any period of time equals the losses of the losing players.

Industry mistake – all players have been valued in the same way on game activity no matter if they are winning money from other players or contributing money to the system by losing.

Each dollar won or lost by players has a financial value
There is a gap between current and real valuation of players
The gap has existed in the industry since day one
All players will be profitable even if value change
No negative coefficients

World Cup Promotions Include 100% Rakebok, Cheaters, Wags, and Greek Bailout Specials

Paddy Power Poker today announces its suite of World Cup promotions sure to keep poker players and football fans glued to their monitors while watching the World Cup this June.

Headlining the fixture list is the 100% Rakebok promotion where Paddy Power Poker will give players all of their rake and fees generated during matches back to them in the form of bonus dollars.

Kicking off at the same time are the World Cup Specials which include :-

Cheaters Never Prosper – A series of $5+50c tournaments during France matches where Paddy Power Online Poker is adding $100 to the prizepool and refunding all buy ins if France lose.

The Greek Bailout – A series of $3+30c tournaments during Greece matches where we will bail out players who lose their chips with a free rebuy

Playing Away From Home – While the cat’s away, the mice will play… poker! A series of $5+50c bounty tournaments featuring the England players wags (wives and girlfriends) as bounties.

The promotions run from June 11th through July 11th, ensuring that Paddy Power Poker is going to be the best place to spend your World Cup.

“In honour of the World Cup we’ve decided to move from Money Back Specials to Money-bok specials. We’re sure our players are going to love it as much as a stick of biltong at a braai on a hot Summer’s day” said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for paddypowerpoker.com. “We’re making sure that the poker is going to be as exciting as the football”

Bodog Poker has already qualified 30+ players for the 2010 World Series of Poker* and this Sunday, June 13 at 4:35pm ET, another 10 guaranteed world series main event seats will be up for grabs in Bodog Poker‘s final 2010 WSOP* qualifier of the season. Don’t miss out on this last chance opportunity to qualify for the world series main event with Bodog Poker. Big overlays are expected and will give players great value for their buy-in buck.

Bodog Poker’s final 2010 World Series of Poker* qualifier, starting Sunday, June 13 at 4:35pm ET, is a big one, with 10 guaranteed main event seats on the line. Players can choose from a number of different methods to enter the tournament, including buying in directly for $470+$30. Alternatively, players can earn a seat in the tournament by winning a mid-range main event semi-final (starting as low as $25+$2.50) or by entering any number of Bodog Poker’s daily cheap seat qualifiers (starting at as little as $1+$0) and working their way up to Sunday’s 10 guaranteed seats online poker tournament. Players can also work there ways into the tournament by playing any last chance qualifiers leading up to the final guaranteed seats tournament of the season. The buy-ins are low, the action is fast, and the payoffs are big.

“Like most poker players that qualify for the 2010 World Series of Poker* with Bodog, this will be my first trip to the main event as a member of Team Bodog,” says Bodog Poker Pro Amanda Musumeci. “I can’t wait to represent Bodog Poker at the biggest poker event in the world, and getting to share that experience with 40+ other players that qualified through Bodog Poker is going to be something to remember for sure!”

As a special bonus for followers of @Bodog on Twitter, Bodog Poker will be running a world series edition of Bodog Twitter Trivia, where instead of awarding the usual $150+$12 Sunday $100,000 Guaranteed buy-in Bodog Poker will be giving away three separate $470+$30 tickets to Sunday’s 10 guaranteed seats tournament. Running Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (June 9, 10 and 11 respectively), @Bodog will tweet a world series focused trivia question each day, followers can then direct message their answer along with Bodog account number, username or email address to @Bodog. Entries for each day will be accepted up until 11:59pm ET and each winner will be selected, at random, then contacted and announced via Twitter. That’s three separate chances to win a $470+$30 buy-in, and the opportunity to win one of 10 world series main event seats, free!

Paddy Power Poker today announces the Win The Shirt Off Paddy’s Back promotion, a series of daily tournaments to run during June and July. Each of the $3 + 30c No Limit Holdem freezeouts will feature $100 added to the prizepool by paddypowerpoker.com, while the player who finishes in first place each day will win the football shirt of their choice.

The promotion runs from June 1st through July 15th, to include the build up to the World Cup, the competition itself and its aftermath, a time during which the demand for football clothing soars.

“We’ve all got a team to support during the World Cup, whether it’s our country of birth or an adopted one”, said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for paddypowerpoker.com. “With the Win The Shirt Off Paddy’s Back promo, our players will have 45 chances to snag their favourite jersey, and since we’re adding cash to each tournament there’s a whole lot to play for even if they don’t manage to finish in top spot!”

This year’s biggest international soccer event is sweeping the globe with sporting fervor, and the enterprising online gambling company Crazy Poker has jumped on the bandwagon of this season’s global football phenomenon to bring the spirit of the game to its virtual poker tables with an innovative new “soccer ball” table felt watermark design.

According to Crazy Poker’s brand manager and spokesperson Trevor Penn, “At CrazyPoker.co.uk we strive to align our market strategy with the latest international events and trends, thus keeping abreast of the current interests and inclinations of our target market. The topic of sport has recently gained massive global popularity and enthusiasm, and we would like to infuse and inject that fervor for the sport of online Poker by amending the design of our virtual poker table surfaces with a sleek and stylish “soccer ball” design. We will also be launching some exciting new promotions and tournaments which will be coinciding with the international soccer event. Without giving too much away, we will be featuring some big reload bonuses, Knockout tourney’s and a Free Roll event whereby players stand the chance to win $2,010.00 in cash –these are sure to appeal to both the ardent soccer and poker fans amongst our players”.

The Crazy poker brand combines the stylistic conventions of classic land-based poker rooms with the ease, accessibility and variety afforded by an online-based application, thus bringing players a virtual avenue whereby they may access various traditional table poker games, such as 5 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud, Omaha Hi-Lo and Texas Hold ‘em Poker, to name a few, which are subcategorized into Fixed Limit, Pot Limit and No Limit games. Crazy Poker offers poker enthusiasts a host of various tournament playing opportunities, such as daily and weekly Rounders, Guaranteed Tournaments, Free Rolls, and various Satellite Tournaments which offer coveted seats to land-based tournament events by means of achieving online wins. Furthermore, Crazy Poker is currently planning promotions and tournaments planned for this time period, at a later date yet to be announced, which will include a substantial reload bonus, a Free Roll tournament whereby $2,010.00 in cash prizes could be won, as well as Knockout tournament –players from all countries are welcome to participate.

Thanks to much hard work behind the scenes, Titan Poker, the leading poker room in Europe, has improved on its already highly regarded software and overall experience of online gaming with the release of their Titan Poker 9.6 software. The new features focus heavily on propelling Titan Poker into a league of its own for functionality and usability.

Of particular interest to online poker players is speed of hands played. Online poker players want more hands in a short space of time. As well as multi-table options, at Titan Poker you will get more hands in per hour, per table, thanks to the upgrading of the Flash poker software. Resizing the tables has also been given a makeover, so those of you with a large or small screen can fit the Titan Poker tables to your exact personal requirements.

In terms of game offerings, the new Titan Poker features the increasingly popular Razz. This exciting variation of poker rewards players for the low hand and is a favourite among many professional poker players, including Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.

If you think you are good enough to mix with the cream of online poker players at the best Poker room in Europe (they said that BEFORE the recent upgrades!) then sign up for an account at Titan Poker today and see what all the fuss is about!

Titanpoker.com, Europe’s leading online poker room, launched the new 9.6 version of their online poker software earlier this week. Members of Titan Poker can expect to find a host of new features and functionalities, such as an updated Flash version (compatible for Mac users), an exciting variation of Stud poker called RAZZ, and five additional languages, including Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese and Romanian. Along with enhanced software the launch unveiled a radically revamped website and a sleek new brand logo.

Other notable developments include the Titan Poker Academy, a comprehensive poker strategy guide which provides valuable insights for both beginner and veteran players on odds calculations, money management, positioning, bluffing and more.
The new Titanpoker.com showcases the World Challenge 2010, an exciting international tournament offering the top five Titan players from around the world a chance to represent their country and a $13,000 prize package for the WSOP* Main Event in Las Vegas.

About Titanpoker.com:
Titanpoker.com is the number one online poker room in Europe and part of the iPoker Network. Titan Poker’s software is developed and maintained by Playtech, a public company and leading gaming software developer. With nearly 30,000 online players at peak hours, Titan Poker guarantees $16,000,000 in monthly prizes, features special sit ‘n’ go tournaments with progressive jackpots as high as $100,000, and awards players with entries to major worldwide poker tournaments. The Titan Poker brand is promoted exclusively by Euro Partners.

* The World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with Titan Poker or its products, services promotions or tournaments.

Round 1 of the World Challenge has just over two weeks to go and players are running out of time to secure enough league points to progress into round 2. The pressure is mounting on players like “Mackerk8”, “OnZiE” and “spridboy” who stand in 22nd position with only 20 players to progress into round 2 from the United Kingdom league. They need league points urgently to survive!

In the Open League there are ten spots into round 2. “DrPils” from the Netherlands has a ten point lead and looks to have that lead wrapped up, but for “thomasM66” of Switzerland and “doom3jbd” of Belgium (who are in 11th and 12th place) they must do well to edge into round 2.

Round 2 begins on March 14th with buy-ins of €10 + €1. Qualifiers will fight to make the finals where the top 200 players will battle to win a $13,000 package to the WSOP* in Las Vegas.

* The World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with Titan Poker or its products, services promotions or tournaments.