ats poker blog

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is back for 2009 - and you could be there! The event takes place January 5-10 and includes a $10,000 Main Event, a $25,000 High-Rollers tournament and other side events.

Now part of the hugely successful PokerStars European Poker Tour, the PCA is held every year at the ultra-luxurious Atlantis Resort and Casino, located in the beautiful surroundings of the Bahamas. It’s the perfect place to relax before taking your shot at becoming the new PCA Champion - and winning one of the biggest prize pools in the world!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

PokerStars Million Dollar Men Freeroll Tournaments

PokerStars Million Dollar Men!

It was one of the biggest live tournament fields of all time, with 6,844 poker players gathered from around the world, all competing for life changing amounts of money. The action was intense, the days were long, and the eliminations were brutal. And in the end there were just nine players left - all guaranteed to walk away with at least $900,670 in prize money.
Introducing the PokerStars Million Dollar Men!

There are six PokerStars players at the Final Table, and you can follow them on the road to the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table this November. We’ll be supporting them every step of the way, as they take their shot at becoming the new WSOP Main Event World Champion, and the winner of the $9,119,517 first place prize money!

The Final Table takes place in Las Vegas, November 9-10.

Latest News
Poker Stars is celebrating the success of the Million Dollar Men with a range of exclusive online tournaments that give you the chance to play poker against all six members and take home huge cash prizes. You could even find yourself winning a share of their WSOP Main Event winnings!

The Million Dollar Men Freerolls

Between September 27 and October 17, we´re running daily freeroll tournaments that give you a shot at winning a seat in our Million Dollar Men Main Event. Make it there and you´ll get to face-off against all six members and play for a prize pool that includes $100,000 in first place prize money. See The Million Dollar Men Freerolls page for more information.
Win a Share in the Million Dollar Men

Finish in the top 100 in any of the individual "Win a Share" tournaments and you´ll walk away with cash and a share of the money that your chosen Million Dollar Men player wins at the World Series of Poker Main Event! Visit the Win a share in the Million Dollar Men page for more details.

Play with the Million Dollar Men
Enter our "Outlast the Million Dollar Men" tournament for just $5.50 and you could find yourself winning a share of $25,000 in added prizes, for lasting longer than our six star players. We are also running special VIP 1-table tournaments, with bounty cash available for busting out the Million Dollar Men. Go to the Play with the Million Dollar Men page to find out more.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Poker Playing Cards as a Crime Fighting Tool

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Cold Case Cards

How do you solve a murder that happened years ago with absolutely no leads?

Corrections officials in the state of New York have begun handing out "cold case" playing cards to prisoners to use in the hopes that someone, somewhere knows something about the case. By providing poker playing cards with all of the facts of each case, the hope is that the prisoners will discuss the cases and provide more details and leads for the police to follow. Each playing card has a different cold case file listed with the details of the crime. The prison officials are hoping that someone who has been incarcerated will step up with more information pertaining to the case.

This playing card method of solving old crimes began in Florida state prisons and they say the program is a success. The program in Florida has resulted in eight arrests and one conviction since it began. This ground breaking idea was started by the Lyalls whose daughter has been missing for over 10 years with no breaks in the case. Using donations raised by the Center for Hope charity, the Lyalls have now sent over 7,000 decks of these poker cards to New York's local jails.

Most prisoners say that they like the idea themselves and believe the cards may have some merit. Most jails have a high turn over rate and the number of criminals processed through these facilities are staggering. The more people that read the cards, the more likely someone, somewhere will have some information that was not known prior.

This program is gaining in popularity and the hope is that many more states will supply their prisoners with these decks of playing cards in the future. This is an innovative idea with some merit, and the thought that even one old case can be solved through these poker cards is enough to give the program a chance to succeed. The response has been promising with over 40 to 50 calls coming in per month.

The only negative feedback has been from a small number of prisoners who find these poker playing cards "disturbing" but over all, they have gained wide acceptance throughout the prisons of Florida where the program was initially developed.

The Lyalls know that the work, at times painful, is important. They are convinced that some of the cases will be solved.

"The strength I find is the fact this is a missing part of my life, and I need to find my daughter, and this is our job now. If you have no other job for the rest of your life your job is to find that child that is missing," Mary Lyall said.

Read more breaking poker news and get the top online poker bonus offers available.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

PokerStars Latest News and Poker Bonus Promotions

PokerStars Latest News and Promotions

3645 players took to the virtual felt Sunday afternoon for the $750,000 guaranteed prize pool in the Sunday Warm-Up. The top 540 players picked up at least $375 each, but the real money was at the top of the pyramid, with a guaranteed $101,250.00 for first place. After eight hours of tough poker, the final table was set when allofit29 picked up the unfortunate title of final table bubble boy. His A-7 hit an Ace on the turn to crack chip leader TribunCaesar’s pocket Kings, but the fourth spade on the river sent the check mark back to TribunCaesar, and busted allofit29 in 10th place ($4,500).The final nine wasted no time getting in on the action, with willcutyou moving all in preflop on the first hand of the final table. He got no callers, but a few hands later LoboTommi got it all in preflop with pocket Queens to Djelly’s pocket jacks. On a board of 9c-Ad-10h-3s, LoboTommi was poised for a double up, but the brutal Jd on the river gave Djelly a set and LoboTommi $6,750 for 9th place.
Overpairs continued to fall as willcutyou busted in 8th place ($9,750) when his pocket Kings couldn’t hold against Bajasen’s Ad-10s. A ten on the flop and another on the turn left willcutyou looking for two outs on the river. The 3c wasn’t one of them, and his evening was over.
+ to the EV! picked a tough time to make a move when he moved all in over the top of big stack Djelly’s preflop raise. Djelly insta-called with pocket aces, and EV! was left looking for help with his J-10. The flop made things interesting, as it came down Kh-2d-Jh, but the better hand eventually held up as the rest of the board came down 3s-4h and + to the EV! picked up $15,750 for 7th place.
Short stacks caiimeron and wasylaa both moved in with pocket pairs and found action from chip leader Djelly in a monster three-way all in pot. Djelly’s Ah-Qd was a coin flip against caiimeron’s pocket jacks and wasylaa’s pocket eights, and when the flop came down 7c-5s-Ac, it looked like the field would thin quickly. The 8s on the turn gave wasylaa new life, and the 5c on the river meant that only one player went to the rail in the hand, caiimeron in 6th place ($23,250).
Still pretty short-stacked, wasylaa wasted no time moving all his chips into the middle with Qd-10c from the button. TribunCaesar re-raised all in to isolate with his pocket Kings, and the flop of Jh-As-4d gave wasylaa outs to the straight. No King on the turn or river meant that wasylaa was done in 5th place ($30,750) and TribunCaesar was challenging Djelly for the chip lead.
After a lengthy period of four-handed play, Bajasen became the next to fall when he busted in 4th place ($38,625). TribunCaesar raised preflop with Kh-Qd, and Bajasen moved all in over the top with As-9s. The board ran out 8h-Kd-6c-Ks-8c, and TribunCaesar made kings full to bust Bajasen and tighten his hold on the 2nd-place chip stack.
Short stack cpfz55555 came into the final table with one of the smallest stacks, and dodged bullets and doubled up all the way to 3rd place and a $48,750 payday. Even with the smallest stack, it took a gutshot to send him packing, as he got it all in with As-Qh against monster chip leader Djelly’s Kh-9h. The flop came down 2s-Qd-10h, and quicker than you could say “he needs a jack,” the Jh came on the turn. The 7c provided no suck-resuck action, and cpfz55555’s masterful display of short-stack poker came to an end.
Djelly took a huge chip lead into heads-up play, and extended his lead in the early going over TribunCaesar. Finally, after a dozen or so hands of back-and-forth, all the money went in preflop. TribunCaesar moved all in with Js-7s, and Djelly called with As-10c. The flop of 5d-Qd-4d was no help to either player, but the 10d was the perfect turn card for Djelly, as TribunCaesar was left looking for three outs on the river. The Qh wasn’t one of them, and TribunCaesar was busted in 2nd place for $71,250.
After nearly ten hours of tournament and almost two hours of final table, Djelly claimed the win and the $101,250 top prize! Congratulations to all our final table finishers and the 540 players who cashed in the Sunday Warm-Up!

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Saturday, October 18, 2008

Poker Lessons for beginners

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In Depth Review of Full Tilt Poker

In the middle and later stages of tournaments, there are often times when you're forced to make a pretty big commitment on a relatively weak holding. These are uncomfortable spots because you never want to risk a large percentage of your chips with a mediocre hand. Things get even more difficult when you're playing from the blinds and out of position.For example, say you're playing late in a tournament. The blinds are $500 and $1,000, and there's a $100 ante. You're in the small blind with $18,000. It's folded around to the button, an aggressive player who raises frequently in late position. He has $30,000 in his stack and he raises to $3,500. You look at your cards and see Ad-9s.You know that A-9 isn't a great hand, but you can't ignore it in this situation. First off, given your opponent's history, he may very well be raising with a hand that is far worse than yours. In fact, in this spot, he could very well have two rags. Another consideration is that there are a lot of chips in play. Between the blinds, antes, and your opponent's raise, you stand to pick up over $5,000 in chips if you can take down this pot, which would be a nice addition to your short stack.So, you're probably going to want to play this hand. But what's the best action?At first, it might seem that calling is a reasonable course, as it would keep you from getting overly committed on this marginal hand. But calling has some pretty big downsides. With a hand like A-9, you're usually not going to like the flop very much. In fact, you'll fail to make as much as a pair about two-thirds of the time. If you do flop a pair of 9s, how are you going to proceed if the flop also has an over card? Even on an Ace-high flop, you'll have a tough time knowing if your hand is good.What's more, if you miss the flop completely, you leave yourself vulnerable to being outplayed. It's going to be very hard to bet if the flop contains three cards that don't help your hand. If you check, your opponent will likely make a continuation bet, and you'll be hard-pressed to continue, even though Ace-high might be good.In spots like this, your best move is to press an edge while you have it - before the flop. Re-raise all-in pre-flop. Your opponent probably won't have a hand that he can call with and, if he does, you'll have plenty of outs. You still have about a 25% chance against AK, for example. Not good, but not dead.The important thing to keep in mind is that, in the later stages of a tournament, you don't want to make many decisions after the flop when you have a medium-strength hand like Ace-middle kicker or middle pocket pair, and you're playing out of position. Put your chips in while you think you have the best of it, and hope for the best. If you let these marginal but good situations pass you by, you might regret it later when your stack has been whittled down even further.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Kentucky courts rule to seize online gambling URLs

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Interesting development with the state of Kentucky banning online gambling. In case you have not heard of this new state strategy, the state of Kentucky courts have ruled that online wagering poker room and casinos must block access to residents of their state by November 17th or the state will confiscate their url. Many of the biggest online gambling URLs in the world were targeted by the state for forfeiture. These URLs included fulltiltpoker.com, pokerstars.com, ultimatebet.com and doylesroom.com.

Here is what the judge ordered in regards to the 141 Domain Names on the states list for confiscation:

The defendants will have 30 days (from October 16th, 2008) to install geographic blocks that prevent access by residents of Kentucky. They will then have to prove to the Court that the blocks are "operational"and working properly by blocking access. Once the Court has been satisfied that residents of Kentucky can no longer access the site, the URL will be "relieved" from the effects of the Seizure Order. Kentucky will then serve written notice to the domain name registrar of the URL that has gained compliance that the Seizure Order has been withdrawn. The final hearing for the forfeiture is set for November 17th, 2008.

Most of the websites that own domains listed in the Seizure Order have indicated that they are going to ignore the court ruling. Pokerstars.com, for instance, have their domain with a foreign registrar and their registrar publicly stated that they are going to ignore the ruling. Other online wagering websites have their domains with registrars such as Godaddy.comwho has indicated that they will comply with the Court's ruling. Sites such as Ultimatebet.com and Doylesroom.com will be seized on November 17th unless those two companies can show that they have indeed been able to successfully blocked the residents of the state of Kentucky.

It is unknown what actions website hosts such as Network Solutions will take at this point. This all sounds simple, all these sites have to do is to demonstrate to the court that they have blocked access to residents of Kentucky and go on their way with regular business. The problem arises with the owners of the domains who will have to establish to the court somehow that they have blocked all access to residents of the state of Kentucky. Most of these website owners do not step foot within the United States for fear of being arrested, so this will be a problem. Furthermore, many other states will probably do the same now that the ruling was upheld. The news of this ruling will spread throughout the mainstream media because it is an issue that will possibly end up influencing many different online and land based industries. Some of the companies involved (Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker) will simply ignore the Kentucky court's ruling. Some of the companies will be forced to set up alternative domain names (with foreign registrars) and redirect traffic to the new domains. By redirecting a URL, the original domain is hidden within a new URL. How will these company executives or lawyers be able to show up in court to prove that they have blocked the residents of Kentucky from accessing their domain without facing immediate arrest in the first place? This is a major disappointing ruling for the online poker community, but I am sure that the legal documents are already being written up to appeal this decision. The problem is that the appeal process takes a lot of time. So, in the meantime, the residents of Kentucky can no longer play at most online poker rooms or online casinos.

Once again the judge stated that this measure is necessary to protect the residents of their state. They further state that online poker is strictly a game of luck, and that the hand you have is the only determining factor in whether you win or lose. Now any serious poker player knows that this simply is not true. It amazes me that the state feels the need to protect its citizens from these websites, yet an exemption allows for state run horse racing and lotteries to continue online. It seems that as long as the state has an economic interest in the wagering, it is fine for their citizens to wager online.

I can see this spreading quickly through the states now. I will keep you posted to any developments.