So far there are 11 events scheduled, but there is a chance of more being added at a later date. As in previous years the buy-ins for the World Poker Tour start as low as $3,500 and increase all the way to $10,300; though the special World Championship still commands a $25,500 entry fee.

“World Poker Tour is committed to extending its global reach. Not only will Season XI feature new stops in the US and abroad, but World Poker Tour is also widely expanding our Regional and national Series to deliver the WPT experience to as many players and fans as possible,” said the WPT CEO Steve Heller.

Season XI kicks off in Europe with the inaugural WPR Merit Cyprus Classic. This $4,000+$4,00 buy-in event runs between August 4-9 and will be played as a re-entry, meaning anyone who busts out during Day 1a can re-enter for a further $4,400 on Day 1b. This format has proved extremely popular in the United States and in various UK venues also.

After Cyprus the tour heads back to the US for WPT Parx Open Poker Classic and the Legends of Poker before back-to-back European stops in September when the tour heads first to the Aviation Club for WPT Grand Prix de Paris and WPT Malta. The fact they have scheduled Day 1a of WPT Malta to be one day immediately after WPT Grand Prix de Paris has certainly raised some eyebrows in the poker community.

Along with the aforementioned stops the classic events such as the Borgata Poker Open and Five Diamond World Poker Classic are still on the calendar as is WPT Prague which became the best attended European WPT when it attracted 571 players at the Kings Casino.

All in all it looks like a very exciting schedule and one that should be well received by those playing in the Main Events.

News on May 17th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

In total eight monks, members of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, were filmed by a ninth monk sitting on the floor drinking, smoking and playing poker. The footage from the camera was somehow leaked to a South Korean media outlet, who then broadcast the video to the nation.

According to a former chief priest of the monk order, more than one billion won, that is $865,000, exchanged hands during the 13-hour poker session; news that has hit the 15 million followers of the Jogye order hard. Not only is gambling an illegal activity outside of the confines of casinos in South Korea but it is also extremely likely that the money being gambled came from the kind donations of the order’s followers.

The president of the Jogye order, Ja-seung, apologised for the action of the eight poker playing monks in an official statement. “We deeply apologize for the behavior of several monks in our order. The monks who have caused public concern are currently being investigated and will be punished according to Buddhist regulations as soon as the truth is verified by the prosecution.”

Since the scandal broke details of other behaviour not generally associated with Buddhist minks has been alleged including respected monks regularly drinking and gambling and one apparently paying for sex in a “room salon” south of the country’s capital, Seoul. The man who is alleged to have paid for the services of a prostitute, Seong-ho, was kicked out of the order during 2011 due to a number of accounts of “bad behaviour” that included violence and continually spreading baseless rumours

News on May 16th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

The Big One For OneDrop is the brainchild of multi-billionaire Guy Laliberte and the organisers of the WSOP. As mentioned, the tournament costs a staggering $1,000,000 to enter but $111,111 of each buy-in goes directly to the OneDrop charity, a charity that specialises in providing fresh water to those who do noto have a clean water supply.

Despite the astronomical buy-in the event has almost sold out! Entries are strictly capped at 48 and at time of writing there were 40 confirmed players who had each wired the required money to participate in this historic event; the last two players to sign-up being Britain’s Sam Trickett and Andrew “good2cu” Robl.

Trickett recently parted company with his sponsor, Titan Poker, and has revealed that he will be sporting the patches of Matchbook when he takes his seat in The Big One. Matchbook are a betting exchange that one of Trickett’s close friends, the former WSOP Europe champion, James Bord is heavily involved in. Bord himself is not listed to play but he is believed to have a significant percentage of any winnings Trickett helps himself to and with an estimated first place prize of $15,000,000 that could turn out to be a huge sum of money for Bord.

Robl has also stated, through Twitter, that he will be playing too. He wrote, “Excited to play poker for big money and help charity by playing the $1,000,000 tournament for @ONEDROPdotorg at the WSOP this summer.” Robl made his fortune in online cash games as a youngster and although he has been out of the limelight of late – mainly due to Black Friday – he is certainly a formidable opponent and none of the other 39 players will relish playing against him; especially for such high stakes.

News on May 14th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

One young man who has been spending a lot of time in Macau of late is Tom Dwan, better-known to the masses as the alias he chose on the now-stricken Full Tilt Poker, “durrrr.” Dwan recently participated in the PartyPoker Premier League in Vienna, Austria but the very minute he busted out of the televised Main Event he headed back to his hotel room, packed his bags and jetted back to Macau. The following hand shows why he was so eager to jump on a flight back to the new poker haven.

Reports are sketchy due to the private nature of the ultra high-stakes games being played but by all accounts Dwan and a number of extremely wealthy businessmen were playing at the StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club where the game had blinds of HKD$10,000/HKD$20,000 (USD $1,300/$2,600). Dwan and a Chinese businessman entered a raising war on an ace-ten-deuce flop with the Chinese businessman holding ace-deuce and Dwan ace-ten. The turn and river bricked out and Dwan scooped what is a reported HKD$30,000,000 or approximately $3,800,000; more than many people will ever earn in their entire lifetimes. Must be nice as the internet kids say!

With pots like this being relatively common and the fact the stakes sometimes play as high as HKD$30,000/HKD$60,000 (USD $3,850/$7,700) it is difficult seeing when and why Dwan will leave these games any time soon. Once the upcoming 2012 World Series of Poker has been completed we will probably see Dwan joined by the likes of Britain’s Sam Trickett, Andrew “good2cu” Robl and arguably the best poker player in the world, Phil Ivey.

News on May 11th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

Blom’s SCOOP got off to an absolute flying start in just the second event on the schedule; the No Limit Hold’em $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament. Blom, along with 8,239 others, paid the $215 entry fee in the “Medium” category creating a prize pool of $1,648,000 and a first place prize of $247,200. it was a first place prize that would be wiring its way to the bank account of Blom because he was the man who won all of the chips in play in the two-day event, defeating RaisingRay91 of Canada heads-up to claim the title.

Then last night Blom was in action again after reaching the second day’s play in the $530 rebuy six-max action hour event. Here he had to contend with online poker superstars such as eisenhower1, Ronny 1-ronnyr3” Kaiser, Jorj95 and Dani “supernova9” Stern and a whole host of others; each of them vying for the $160,000 winner’s prize.

Whilst any of the names mentioned would have been a worthy champion it was Blom who once again walked away with the lion’s share of the spoils, coming from behind to defeat Ruxandescu of Romania heads-up to scoop, pardon the pun, the win.

These two latest wins cap off what has been an extraordinary run of form in tournaments for the man better-known for his high stakes heads-up cash prowess. At the start of the year Blom took down the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PCA for $1,254,000 and has since finished second in the €5,000 heads-up tournament at EPT Deauville, seventh in the €10,000 8-Max High Roller at EPT Berlin and seventh in the very same €10,000 High Roller being played at the EPT Grand Final.

News on May 9th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

In this unique format taking place fortnightly from 29th April, you can play against Poker Channel presenters on Poker Heaven, and then watch the action just days later on The Poker Channel, with the same presenters reviewing the tournament. In addition to €1000 guaranteed in the prizepool, there is also €100 prize to each player who knocks out either of the bounty players, who will be the presenters themselves.

Our Bounty Players include:

* PCE_LAURA: Poker Channel Presenter Laura Cornelius

* PCE_ANNA: Poker Channel Presenter Anna Fowler

* PCE_STEVE: Poker Channel Presenter Steve “Hilly The Fish” Hill

* PCE_TREVOR: Poker Channel Presenter Trevor Harris

The tournament will take place at 19:10 BST and buy-in is just €8+0.80, providing fantastic value. You can however qualify tonight and every night for FREE in the freeroll qualifiers.

No deposit is required to play these freerolls which take place nightly at 19:10 BST, and the top five finishers in each freeroll will win entry into the final on the 29th.

You can find out more details of the TV Bounty Tournament and freeroll satellites by clicking here.

Tune in and watch the Poker Channel Bounty Tournament at these times (or look out for it at other times in local listings) and watch it on demand on our videos page

UK Eire (BST)

Thursday 3rd May 11.30pm

Sunday 6th 11pm

Europe (CET)

Thursday 3rd 2200

Saturday 5th 2200

News on April 26th 2012, from Sarah

Click on image to enlarge

News on April 27th 2012, from Sarah

Until around 23:00 UK time on Thursday the above email was displayed whenever anyone attempted to visit the Two Plus Two site via their internet browser but, at time of writing, anyone trying to gain access to Two Plus Two will simply receive an error message telling them the site cannot be found.

As far as we are aware the forums are still under the control of Two Plus Two and they have only been taken offline whilst their IT technicians work to fix the vulnerability in the software that allowed this attack to be successful.

All Two Plus Two members who use the same email and password combination for other sites, something that is not advised at any time, are urged to change their password immediately in case the hacker attempts to access other websites with their new, ill-gotten information.

News on April 27th 2012, from Matthew Pitt

A total of 45 players remain including Team PokerStars Pros Liv Boeree, Daniel Negreanu, Viktor Blom (who won the $100k PCA Super High Roller), David Williams and Max Lykov along with PCA High Roller winner Alex Bilokur

from Russia, EPT London High Roller winner Philipp Gruissem from

Germany, EPT Campione High Roller winner Govert Metaal from Holland and EPT San Remo champion Andrey Pateychuk from Russia. There were a total of 133 entries for the High Roller (including 16 re-entries) creating a total prize pool of €3,325,000; 14 places get paid with €1,080,000 for first.

GENERAL INFO

A total of 37 events have been taking place this week in Le Sporting Casino at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel. The highlights of this season’s EPT Grand Final festival have been the €100,000 Super High Roller (won by American Justin Bonomo for €1,640,000), the €10,000 Main Event – down to final table today, and the €25,000 High Roller (now on Day 2 with 45 players left). More than 160 players won their seat to the Main Event online on PokerStars. The EPT Grand Final is the culmination of a 13-stop season that’s taken us to the Bahamas and all over Europe.

News on April 30th 2012, from Sarah

Last week news spread that the poker and prop bet legend’s health had taken a severe turn for the worst and he had been admitted to a respite care home where he would ultimately see out his last days. Preston’s family confirmed the sad news of his death by releasing a brief statement that read:

“We hope everyone will remember our beloved Amarillo Slim for all the positive things he did for poker and to popularise his favourite game – Texas Hold’em.”

Preston was a very colourful character who was also one of poker’s first World Champions; having won the 1972 World Series of Poker Main Event. He went on to win another three gold bracelets, one in 1974 in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event, 1985 when he won a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and his fourth and final bracelet was won in 1990 when he took down another $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event.

Although a very talented poker player in his day, Preston was renowned for his prop betting skills and the lengths he would go to ensure he won the bet. Legend has it that he practised playing pool with a broom handle for three years before he used his new found skills to take on a champion pool player and relieve him of his money. Other legendary bets include moving road signs so he could make a bets based on time and distance and taking on former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs at high stakes pingpong in a match where Riggs used paddles and Preston cooking skillets!

Many would describe Amarillo Slim as a hustler and rightly so too but it was something he loved doing to bring people down a peg or two. He said in his autobiography, “If there’s anything I’ll argue about, I’ll either bet on it or shut up. And since it’s not very becoming for a cowboy to be arguing, I’ve made a few wagers in my day. But in my humble opinion, I’m no ordinary hustler. You see, neighbour, I never go looking for a sucker. I look for a champion and make a sucker out of him.”

Amarillo Slim, December 31, 1928 – April 29, 2012.

News on April 30th 2012, from Matthew Pitt