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For just ONE HOUR we're giving away the rare Rainbow Dice collectible in Zynga Poker! Click anywhere below to get it before it goes away! SHARE this post to let your friends know!Click HERE for Rainbow Dice!apps.facebook.comZynga Poker--the world's largest Texas HoldEm Poker game with over 35 million players. Get FREE chips every day that you play!

Webster University freshman GM Wesley So captured the Calgary International by 2 points with 1 round to go. He also won the Calgary Blitz with a perfect 9-0 score!Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

Looking for a whale when you get into an online poker game? Whales are generally known as being a wealthy fish that bleeds chips on bad calls and never found a poker hand they could throw away. Since whales are few and far between, we want to...

2013 SPICE Cup Open Sponsored by Webster University and the Susan Polgar Foundation St. Louis, MissouriOctober 15-19, 2013 GM/IM norm opportunity - Minimum rating (FIDE) 2100 Limited to first 50 entries 4 IM/GM norms were earned last year: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com PRIZES: $11,000 guaranteed $4,000-$2,000-$1,500-$1,000-$500U/2400 FIDE $500-$250-$125U/2300 FIDE $500-$250-$125top female $250 October 2013 rating will be used Limited FREE hotel accommodation (double occupancy) at the Crown Plaza available to foreign GMs. ENTRY FEES: Free to all GMs, IMs, WGMs and all FIDE rated players over 2300 (must complete all 9 rounds), if registered by September 30, 2013. $50 later or on site. $100 to others if received by September 30, 2013. $150 later or on site. VENUE: Crown Plaza Clayton Hotel 7750 Carondelet Ave, St Louis, MO 63105 (FREE shuttle from the Lambert–St. Louis International Airport) $109/night, FREE Breakfast/Internet Send entries to Webster University - SPICE 470 E. Lockwood Ave St. Louis, MO 63119 Questions or registration for titled players: Email: spice@webster.edu or call 314-246-8075Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

With registration now closed, all told 146 runners paid the $25k to create a $3.5m prize pool and $1.1m up top for the winner. As expected poker's A-list came out in force with Esfandiari, poker's all-time leading money winner, and Cody, the newest PokerStars pro, making their mark on the leaderboard. Esfandiari won a huge flip at the end of the day against Ryan "g0lfa" D'Angelo to bag up 536,100 and sit in third overall behind WPT bestbet champ Mike Linster (744,000) and poker "hobbyist" Dan Shakpoker "hobbyist" Dan Shak (617,300). Cody finished the day in sixth with 453,500 and took home the distinction of the ClubWPT Player of the Day. Steven "Zugwat" Silverman (513,200), recent winner of the EPT Grand Final High Roller, and WPT Spring Championship winner Amir Babakhani (491,000) round out the top six. Jaka, Hellmuth, Negreanu in Chase Pack While the recently completed EPT Grand Final final table was considered one of the toughest ever the WPT Championship is shaping up to be more of the same. Another strong finish shaping up for Cody.   Of the remaining 66 no less than 24 are former WPT champions, many of whom earned their seat with a win this season. Chino Rheem, Will Failla, Rocco Palumbo, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Marvin Rettenmaier, Matt Salsberg and Daniel Negreanu are just a few of the past winners still alive. Among the non-winners, tough outs like Faraz Jaka (385,300) and Phil Hellmuth (307,000) are stacked and in position to make a run. The top 10 and chip counts heading into Day 3: 1. Mike Linster 744,000 2. Dan Shak 617,300 3. Antonio Esfandiari 536,100 4. Steven Silverman 513,200 5. Amir Babakhani 491,000 6. Jake Cody 453,500 7. Richard Harrock 399,600 8. Chino Rheem 396,500 9. Rocco Palumbo 395,200 10. Will Failla 386,000 Among the notables to hit the rail today for good included Phil Ivey, Mohsin Charania, Galen Hall, Dominik Nitsche and Nick Schulman. For a full recap of Day 1 and Day 2 action, check the WPT Live Updates. Play picks up again tomorrow at 12 noon local time.Visit www.pokerlistings.com

Turning disappointment into redemption. That's what happened for the champion of tonight's $50,000 guaranteed SCOOP Event #23-L $11+R PLO 6-Max, Turbo tournament. Just last night Serginh0 would climb through 2,653 players during Event #20-M (also a turbo tournament) only to be knocked out on the final table bubble. Tonight after making the final table it looked as though Serginh0 would fall short of victory in third place. But, with some timely jacks finding their way to the board and a lot of aggression, Serginh0 would claim tonight's champion's watch and (thanks to 9,718 rebuys and 3,242 add-ons) $26,838.69 after missing out last night. There's no surprise of seeing Team PokerStars Pro Marcin "goral" Horecki cashing in a lower stakes tournament, after he is the MicroMillions I and III Player of the Series. Now it seems he has his sights on a SCOOP Player of the Series title as well. With under 200 players left tonight Horecki was still in contention but short on chips. With the blinds at 10K/20K he would trade bets with Nessilita until all of his tournament funds and 278,538 chips total sat in the middle. Aces [Js] [As] [3h] [Ad] for Nessilita against Marcin's wrapped ladies [Qh] [Qd] [Ts] [Ks]. The flop was a good one for the Polish Pro but two blank eights later [Kc] [5s] [Jd] [8h] [8s] Horecki would acquire his seventh cash in low buy-ins tournament breaking the tie with iwonthurtyou for second place on leaderboard after a 194th place ($116.14) finish. Despite cashing, Marcin would actually lose ground to the leader, JacktShipper, as the Russian would add a sixth cash of the series after finishing in 110th place ($184.76). Just four hours into the tournament after mahowny777 finished off chris288 in 13th place ($1,103.33) we would be down to the final two tables. Another two minutes and JONAH J (United Kingdom) and 12228056 (Colombia) decided to take a breather on the rail in 11th and 12th place respectively both earning $1,495.74. In what seemed to be hurry to reach the final table, just four more minutes saw DickPrice (Germany) earning $1,935.67 and ratskerops (United Kingdom) bit less $1,495.74 in 9th and 10th place. With the blinds up to 300K/600K Muhartz (Germany) would take kings [3c] [Kc] [Kh] [4d] up against el gum's [Qh] [2h] [Ks] [4c] and watch the river card slide two pair into el gum's hand along with the 3.3 million chip pot. Muhartz would take home $1,935.67 in eighth place starting up hand-for-hand play. Hand-for-hand play would take longer than the last five eliminations combined as the blinds moved up to 500K/1MM G's zee would raise to three million from the small blind as Serginh0 re-raise to nine million effectively setting G's zee all-in to call. Calling for less G's zee did with [2s] [3h] [Kc] [Qc] as Serginh0 flipped up a suited ace [Tc] [7s] [Ac] [Jd]. Both players would hit their club flushes [Td] [9d] [Jc] [5c] [9c] but Serginh0's was the higher as G's zee who earned $1,935.67 in seventh place starting up the final table below: Seat 1: ninototoroko (13331377 in chips) Seat 2: mahowny777 (7104178 in chips) Seat 3: florim (7342176 in chips) Seat 4: Serginh0 (17229118 in chips) Seat 5: el gum (8674743 in chips) Seat 6: labros80 (5593408 in chips) No longer laboring The shortstack labros80 would only have three big blinds after the level moved up to 600K/1.2MM. Holding a decent [Jh] [Kh] [8h] [As] labros80 would raise all-in to 3.59 preflop from the cutoff as Serginh0 made the call out the big blind with [6c] [Ac] [Th] [Td]. labros80's dreams of a double up sparked with two pair by the turn [Qc] [Ah] [Qs] [Ks]. But, the [Tc] river that gave labros80 a straight, gave Serginh0 a full boat ending labros80's tournament in sixth place ($2,991.49). mahowny777 owns Up to the 800K/1.6MM blind level mahowny777 would set ninototoroko all-in with a three-bet preflop. Watch below as this 16.5 million chip hands plays out below: RSS readers please click thro

http://2700chess.comChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

By Cecil Rosner Posted: 05/18/2013 1:00 AMTHERE isn't much that happens in the arena of world championship chess that is devoid of controversy, so the battle over this year's title match was predictable.Viswanathan Anand, the reigning world champion and a popular figure in his native India, will meet challenger Magnus Carlsen of Norway in November. At 43, Anand is nearly twice the age of his upstart opponent.Carlsen earned the right to challenge for the world championship by winning a nail-biting Candidates tournament in London. Though he is the top-rated player in the world, Carlsen had to rely on tie-breaks to squeak through the field.Still, the oddsmakers are giving the advantage to the youthful Norwegian, who developed extraordinary chess skills at an early age and has just been getting better and better. Even Anand calls him "the greatest talent I have seen."As the excitement was building for the upcoming match, FIDE (the world chess federation) unveiled a controversial decision. It awarded the tournament to Chennai in India, Anand's home turf.Ever since Iceland hosted the iconic Cold War match between Soviet Boris Spassky and American Bobby Fischer, it's been taken for granted that neutral ground is important in world championship encounters. But FIDE is a highly politicized organization where favours and patronage can often trump common sense.Carlsen wasn't happy with the decision, and he said so. "The lack of transparency, predictability and fairness is unfortunate for chess as a sport and for chess players," he said in a statement. Many feared the worst. After all, Carlsen had dropped out of the previous championship cycle over what he felt was unfairness in the rules.Soon after Carlsen's statement, the mayor of Paris submitted a bid to hold the tournament, offering 2.65 million euros and another 800,000 euros as a contribution to FIDE, a cheeky 10,000 more than the Chennai bid. "Paris is the city where FIDE was born and ever since, chess has been part of our cultural heritage," the mayor said.The Norwegian Chess Federation added its voice by protesting the process. But FIDE was not inclined to budge. Faced with the possibility of a world championship match without the world's top rated player, FIDE called Carlsen's bluff.And faced with the prospect of perpetual political in-fighting preventing him from ever winning the world championship, Carlsen gave in. He agreed to Chennai, and has set about preparing for the match.The tournament will be played Nov. 6-26, and is expected to draw the biggest online crowd in history. Though Anand has despatched Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand in the last five years, he realizes this will be his toughest challenge ever. It's going to be an entertaining match.More here. Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

By Frank 'Boy' PestañoChessmosoThursday, May 16, 2013ALMOST every titled player (GMs, IMs etc.) can be considered chess fanatics as they play and study almost every day and a great number rely on the game as their major source of income.This article is not about them but about famous people who excel in their professions and are world-famous.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.According to hall of famer Bill Wall, William Shakespeare must have been a chess fanatic. There are some hints in Shakespeare’s works that he was a true chess fa--he made reference to the game almost 70 times in his various plays.Shakespeare was already known as an avid chess player during his time. There is a painting entitled the “The Chess players” by famous artist Karel Van Mander around 1600, which shows Ben Jonson and Shakespeare playing chess.Around two decades ago a survey was made by leading historians and scientists on the 100 most influential people. Shakespeare was the only writer honored.Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) is considered by many to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He was one of the founders of Dadaism, surrealism, and cubism.He was so obsessed with chess, he gave up art. His passion for chess was so overwhelming, that on his honeymoon he spent most of the time studying chess problems. After a week of arguments, his enraged bride went downstairs one night and glued all the pieces to the board. Surprisingly, the marriage lasted six months.In a letter, Marcel wrote “My attention is so completely absorbed by chess, I play day and night and nothing interest me more than finding the right move……I like painting less and less.” A friend said of him “, He needs a good game of chess like a baby needs a bottle.”Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution.In the Café de la Regence, for 100 years, there was a table with a plaque saying ‘’Napoleon Bonaparte used to play in this table.” What it did not say was that the greatest military tactician, despite being a chess addict, was a mediocre player. His contemporaries said he was too impatient and too given to impetuous attacks.When he became emperor his opponents became tactful as he was getting a reputation as a bad-tempered loser. He also insisted on the touch move rule but only for his opponents.After Waterloo, he continued to play almost every day in St Helena on his exile.Humphrey Bogart (1899 – 1957) was an American actor and is widely regarded as an icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.He was also probably the strongest chess player of all movie stars . He was obsessed by the game while still very young and during the great depression, when money was hard to come by he made a nice income by hustling up and down Broadway playing chess. Decades later, when he was already a big star, he still hustled chess in Hollywood but for much larger sums. One of his biographers says he rated his friends on their ability to play chess and hold liquor. He was adept at both.Winston Churchill is one of the great-might-have-beens of chess. As a 12-year-old he wrote,” Dear mamma, Do not forget to get the chess for me. I like the board to be red and white….”By the time he was 21 he was beginning to show signs of addiction. But other important matters occupied the great man and he never fulfilled his early promise and only played chess during his spare time. Source: http://www.sunstar.com.phChess Daily News from Susan Polgar

The run of consistent success in PokerStars' Spring Championship of Online Poker of Shaun Deeb -- a.k.a. "SCOOPerman" -- continues unabated, and we have yet another report to bring you of such tonight. Event #23-M, the $109+R 6-max. turbo pot-limit Omaha event nearly saw Deeb earn one more SCOOP title, and in fact after making it to heads-up and chopping, he'd walk away from the event with the biggest cash of anyone. But in the end it would be Florian "FA_Morgoth" Langmann denying Deeb the win to claim the victory in this one. As to be expected, the tournament was played at a blistering pace, taking almost exactly four hours to complete. Deeb ended up taking away $63,463.68 for his runner-up finish, while Langmann earned $62,837.82 for the win. There were about 570 players in their seats when the tournament began, but by the time late registration and the re-buy period ended following the first hour there were 1,153 all told who had signed up. Of those just under 1,000 remained, with th'Kick leading all with a stack of just over 60,000. Ultimately players took 2,243 re-buys and 922 add-ons, which built a total prize pool of $431,800, more than four times the event's $100K guarantee. The top 156 finishers made the money, and thanks to the five-minute levels it would only take about 75 minutes more for the cash bubble to burst, with kurakasa, MrCoco, and Deeb sitting atop the counts as the field continued to rapidly shrink. The next stretch saw four different members of Team PokerStars make the money in the event, with Team Pro Chad "ChadBrownPRO" Brown the first of them to hit the rail in 132nd ($669.29), followed not too long thereafter by Team Online member Shane "shaniac" Schleger who was eliminated by HighTimesSwe in 89th ($863.60). Next George "Jorj95" Lind III risked his last chips with [Qs][Jc][9c][4s] versus ihaveAAdream's [Kd][Kc][6c][5c], and when the board came [3h][10c][Qh][3d][9h] Lind was out in 50th place ($1,165.86). That left just Team PokerStars Pro Richard Toth, but soon he was all in with [Ac][10h][9c][4d] versus Aquasces1 who held the nice [Qc][Jc][10s][9s] starting hand. Aquasces1's hand ended nicely, too, as the board came [Js][8c][9d][3h][Kd] to make a straight and knock out Toth in 41st ($1,468.12). Soon they reached the three-hour break with just 34 players remaining, led by opferlamm11 with more than 1.39 million and MrCoco next with just a few chips over 1 million while no one else had more than 775,000. Within 10 minutes they were down to 20 with Shaun Deeb having climbed back up over 1.5 million and into the chip lead. A couple of eliminations later Deeb earned a huge pot while knocking out Fresh_oO_D in 17th ($3,627.12) to near the 3 million-chip mark, at the time nearly twice that of the nearest competitor. Minutes later just 12 remained, with Deeb still on top and way out in front. It took just minutes more for six more eliminations to occur, with ezepoker90 (12th), FattieBat (11th), and opferlamm11 (10th) each earning $5,397.50, then kurakasa (9th), JayP-AA (8th), and culibrk1 (7th) taking away $7,556.50 apiece. Just a little over three-and-a-half hours after the tourney had begun, the final six-handed table was underway. Seat 1: Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb (Mexico) -- 4,535,356 Seat 2: PALblCH (Belarus) -- 1,023,480 Seat 3: papier_mashe (United Kingdom) -- 1,728,353 Seat 4: CMoosepower (Denmark) -- 1,569,455 Seat 5: Florian "FA_Morgoth" Langmann (Austria) -- 3,042,535 Seat 6: Ifold2ndnuts (Netherlands) -- 2,898,821 On the final table's fifth hand, the blinds were 80,000/160,000 when Florian "FA_Morgoth" Langmann raised to 320,000 from the button, Ifold2ndnuts reraised to 1.12 million from the small blind, Langmann reraised all in, and Ifold2ndnuts called with the 1,458,821 remaining. Ifold2ndnuts had [Kc][Kh][Tc][3c] while Langmann had [Qd][Qh][4d][4h]. The board then came [9d][8s][Th][Td][2d], giving FA_Morgoth a flush and knocking Ifold2ndnuts out in sixth. Just