2006 March 19 Poker News, Events and Happenings

OPN has been following the goings-on over at PartyGaming for the last month or so regarding who will fill the role of outgoing CEO Richard Segal. As reported previously, Segal resigned from the online poker and casino company after he could not agree to the company’s request that he move to its headquarters in Gibraltar. While Segal is officially on board until June 1st, it appears as though PartyGaming has already lined up a potential replacement. Mitch Garber will likely fill the large shoes belonging to the CEO of the world’s largest online poker company.

With around three hundred online poker rooms, billions of dollars flowing back and forth in the poker community and the fact that poker ranks behind only football and car racing as the most watched “sport” on cable TV, investors are hot to get in on the poker phenomenon before the money river dries up. Despite its technical illegality in the US, folks like Las Vegas attorneys are feeling pretty good that the government will not take any enforcement action; besides, most US businesses that run poker rooms are actually based off shore, complicating any enforcement matters. Nearly two million players log on to poker rooms every day, and nearly three quarter of them are from the US…

March 19, 2006 — It’s official: Poker has jumped the shark.The once white-hot gambling fad sailed right past ubiquity into sellout-infested waters with a Diet Pepsi commercial currently in rotation featuring professional players Daniel Negreanu, Scott Nguyen and Phil Hellmuth losing to a sweating cola can.”Poker was a real underground trend, but now it has become so commercialized that the game’s lost the gritty flavor that made it attractive,” said Ryan Berger, Euro RSCG’s creative director of

A lot of poker players love to complain about their bad beat experiences, as though no one has ever watched their AA cracked by some smiling fool across the table from you holding 48 suited. But the next time someone even starts to tell you about a bad beat hold up your hand and tell them about the worst bad beat ever…

Most people take cruises to get away from it all, have some fun in the sun, and take in some great entertainment and delectable foods while exploring exotic and tropical locations. For 528 people aboard the MS Westerdam, however, cruising took on a whole other purpose, as they aimed to win a million-dollar poker prize while sailing around the Caribbean. Over the past week, Party Poker, the world’s largest online poker room, held its fifth annual PartyPoker.com Millions tournament, a $10,000 buy-in Limit Texas Hold ‘em event.

Heeeeeeerrrrreeeee’s a new poker room! Okay, maybe he didn’t use a cheesy line, but after thirty years of introducing Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show…

The two biggest poker shows in town, the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker, are both holding big time events in April at the Bellagio casino and Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas. Starting April 5th the Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic kicks off, which will run through April 26th. Just a couple of days later on April 28th the World Series of Poker tour hits the brand spanking new poker room at Caesars Palace…