Titan Poker, the largest poker room on the iPoker Network, has sent a delegation of eight talented poker players to the Asian Poker Tour (APT) - Manila. Beginning on May 26th until June 2nd, players will test their poker skills with at least 400 poker players, amateurs and top professionals, from around the world.

By winning an APT Manila Super Satellite tournament at Titan Poker, each of the eight players was subsequently rewarded with a $6,000 prize package to the Asian Poker Tour. In addition to receiving a $2,500 buy-in to the Main Event, $2,600 is also included for flights and spending, along with a seven night accommodation at the Dusit Hotel in Manila, worth $840.

Participants in the Manila tournament will compete for an unprecedented One Million Dollar prize pool, the largest ever offered in Asia.

Winner Frank De Vries, from The Netherlands is very excited for his upcoming trip. He says he is "looking forward to playing in the poker thrilla of Manila."

The popularity of poker in Asia is growing rapidly and APT tournament officials expect a lot of excitement with Manila being the first stop of the 2008 Asian Poker Tour. The tour continues in South Korea, Macau, and Singapore.

Titan Poker regularly rewards its players with huge cash prizes. At the end of this month, the poker room will give away $3,600,000 in its second European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP II). It also frequently awards its players with seats at the world's most well-known poker tournaments. Titan Poker will be sending players to the World Series of Poker 2008 in Las Vegas. Earlier this month, it sponsored the Eurocity Poker Tour Madrid Open - an elite poker tournament open to just 200 players.

Each year, the famous World Series of Poker in Las Vegas has a twist. This year, there will be eight events that require a player buy-in of $10,000, up from two last year. They include the granddaddy of them all, the World Championship No-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament, now simply called the Main Event.

Last year, Jerry Yang, a social worker from California, outlasted more than 6,350 competitors in the Main Event and won $8.25 million.

The other high-stakes buy-ins will be for world championships in games such as heads-up hold 'em, seven-card stud and Omaha. And for the third year there will be a $50,000 HORSE event, featuring five variations of poker, that mainly attracts accomplished pros.

The poker World Series, played at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, is actually a collection of 55 tournaments that culminates with the Texas Hold 'em championship. The World Series is scheduled to run May 30 to July 3, when the Main Event will start for about 13 days.

Some of the cheaper events, expected to draw as many as 3,000 players, include seven $1,500 no-limit hold `em tournaments and qualifying tournaments, called satellites, that cost as little as $330.

Another change this year is the elimination of the outdoor poker tent that Harrah's Entertainment tried last year. The tent was meant to add playing space but was unpopular with players.

Over the past few years, many people have asked if I have played against specific big-name players:

World Series of Poker champions Joseph Hachem, Scotty Nguyen and Chris Ferguson? Been there.

World Poker Tour winners Michael Mizrachi, JC Tran and Erick Lindgren? Done that.

Poker legends T.J. Cloutier, Erik Seidel and John Juanda? Them too.

But the one person I have been asked about more than anyone is Daniel Negreanu, aka Kid Poker. I had not played with him until last December at the 2007 Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event hosted by the Bellagio in Las Vegas. On Day One, the Kid was sitting to my left, giving him position on me for the entire day.

He definitely took advantage of this seat, winning multiple pots throughout the day.

The following hand was an example of his positional play.

Thursday, the Nevada Gaming Commission approved Royal Hold'em to be spread about Casinos in the state. The game was created by New Poker Championships, LLC, of Las Vegas.

Royal Hold'em adheres to limit Texas Hold'em rules, but uses just a 20 card deck. There's just 10's through aces in a Royal Hold'em deck, which limits the total ammount of players at a Royal Hold'em table to six. The game is taylored for the casino floor, rather than a poker room.

On their website, New Poker refers to Royal Hold'em as, "a variant or alternative to provide more options to the gamblers whom are looking for more than just conventional Hold 'em to play. To some, Hold 'em is a boring game of sitting and waiting around for good hands, whereas Royal Hold 'em will provide them with the action and intensity they crave in Texas Hold 'em."

Forum threads indicate that Ultimate Bet offered Royal Hold'em tables as early as 2005, but are no longer available.

Previously, New Poker had "No River" hold'em approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission, which is similar to Crazy Pineapple. Players are dealt three holecards and, as the name implies, there is no 5th street. Unlike the shorthanded Royal Hold'em, "No River" uses a full 52-card deck and 10 players can play.

Before the game shows up at your favorite gaming location, Casinos will have to be licensed to spread Royal Hold'em.

More than one online poker site is tapping into the buzz felt throughout the poker world as the game's biggest names begin to congregate in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. Full Tilt is the latest site to design their own online riff on the occasion, announcing the "Mini Series of Poker," which will include 54 events and run from May 30th through July 5th, 2008.

Each event will offer a buy-in of 1/100th the corresponding buy-in of the WSOP, with the Ladies and Seniors event converted into "open" events for the purposes of the online series (Note that the Full Tilt series is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Harrah's, owners of the World Series of Poker, in any way.) The most expensive buy-in will be $500 + $35 for the June 22nd H.O.R.S.E., event, which carries a $50,000 prize pool guarantee, while the July 5th championship has a $100+9 buy-in and a pre-event guarantee of $250,000.

Both direct buy-ins and satellite entries are available for each of the four events, with satellit buy-ins for as little as $2.20 or 50 Full Tilt points. Players making deep runs in the series' events will also accumulate points on an MSOP leader board, where a $10,000 seat to the 2009 WSOP is up for grabs. Also included as a bonus for the 54 event winners are custom-designed Full Tilt Poker champions watches.

A man went home with over 980.000 euro after a night of poker at the casino of Rotterdam. It is the biggest jackpot ever at a tablegame in the casino of Rotterdam.

The frequent visitor of the casino played Carribean Stud Poker, a more complex variant of the popular card game. In this game, a part of the revenue is put into the jackpot. Because the jackpot doesn't hit frequently, the amount of money in the jackpot can grow very big.

The man, who wants to stay anonymous, hit the jackpot with a royal flush, taking home 986.622,12 euro.

Imagine how much it would help your game if you could consult with poker pro Daniel Negreanu at the drop of a hat. Negreanu just launched Poker VT, his new online poker school, and claims that for a price, you can virtually do just that.


"This is the kind of resource I wish I'd had first starting out," Negreanu says of his latest venture. "It's like we're sitting across the table from each other and I'm your personal coach."

On spec, this site does look quite phenomenal. Players may be hard pressed to find any school, major universities included, that offers up this quality of online instruction on any subject.

Poker VT might end up making you more money than a degree, too. Negreanu - himself a high-school dropout - has nearly $10 million in career tournament earnings.

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