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Records are made to be broken, and PokerStars players do just that with astounding regularity. Eighteen months ago, PokerStars celebrated its tenth anniversary and the surrounding festivities included its fourth World Record tournament, where 200,000 players played for a $250,000 prize pool. But after Thursday's bombastic 100 Billionth Hand celebration (don't think about how big 100 billion is, it will either trigger an existential crisis or make your head explode) did you really think we weren't gonna take the opportunity to smash that record again? By game time, a capacity crowd of 225,000 players had gathered, officially breaking the record for the largest poker tournament ever played. Their $1 buyins contributed $225,000 to the $300,000 guaranteed prize pool, PokerStars kicking in a $75k overlay to sweeten the pot even further. 60,000 players earned a share of it with first place set to earn $25,000. After only an hour of play, the crowd thinned to 28,000 and another hour later only 2,595 remained. Hour three saw the field reduced to 190, and with five minutes left before the fourth break, the final table bubble hit and play went hand for hand. With the blinds up to 3M/6M with a 750k ante, chip leader Mr.SlavaPro opened for a min-raise to 12 million. With 3.75 milllion of his remaining 4.1 million already committed in the small blind, MattDooms called all-in and Ravic77 folded his big blind. MattDooms' [5h][Ts] was already drawing thin against Mr.SlavaPro's [Kd][Kc], but went completely dead on the [Kh][Ks][5c] flop. Mr.SlavaPro raked in the 19 million pot with quad kings and sent us to the final table, while MattDooms exited in eleventh place. Final table chip counts Blinds: 3,000,000/6,000,000, ante 750,000 Seat 1: johnnykara75 (17,560,748 in chips) Seat 2: SOY PATO355 (14,065,727 in chips) Seat 3: Evgeniy33377 (3,729,288 in chips) Seat 4: Mr.SlavaPro (87,268,525 in chips) Seat 5: KARI#9 (64,386,794 in chips) Seat 6: Ravic77 (17,422,024 in chips) Seat 7: jpstef06 (13,712,929 in chips) Seat 8: 1star09 (52,884,148 in chips) Seat 9: Tormenter85 (34,974,394 in chips) Seat 10: jmmetra (31,495,423 in chips) johnnykara75 doubles with aces, Evgeniy33377 eliminated in tenth It took 11 minutes and only 20 hands to distribute the $73,000 in remaining prize money. The jumps were huge and the stacks extremely shallow, the chip average only 6.25 big blinds as the final table began. On Hand #1, jmmetra picked up [9h][9c] and moved all-in for 30.7 million on the button, only to have johnnykara75 wake up with [Ac][Ah] in the small blind. Johnnykara75's aces held and he doubled to 47.1 million, leaving jmmetra on only 14.5 million (2.5 bb). However, jmmetra's situation wasn't quite as dire as Evgeniy33377's. On Hand #2, Evgeniy33377 was all-in for 1.97 million in the big blind while SOY PATO355 had 4 of his remaining 7.3 million committed in the small blind. Johnnykara75 limped in for 8 million on the button, SOY PATO355 called all-in and the cards went on their backs. SOY PATO355 [Qc][9h] Evgeniy33377 [3c][3h] johnnykara75 [Td][4h] SOY PATO355 snagged the lead on the [As][9s][6c] flop and held onto it, the turn and river falling the [Jc] and the [Ac] to send Evgeniy33377 to the rail in tenth place ($1,000). Ravic77 out in ninth, jmmetra exits eighth Evgeniy33377's elimination left jpstef06 as the table short stack. On Hand #3, jpstef06 moved all-in for 11 million from UTG+1 and KARI#9 called the 3 million balance from the big blind. Jpstef06's [As][Qh] held up aganist [6c][7h] and he doubled to 35 million, only to move all-in from UTG on the next deal. Ravic77 called all-in for 5.67 million more with [Qs][Js] in the big blind, but did not improve against jpstef06's [7s][7c]. For ninth place, Ravic77 took home $1,500. With only one more hand to go before he'd be committed in the 8 million big blind, jmmetra pulled the trigger with [Qc][Td] and moved all-in for 9.9 million from UTG+1. 1star09 called with

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By Debbie Burkhead On April 30 Ultimate Poker launched the first regulated real money poker site in Nevada. I was thrilled to be able to sit on the couch and play poker again, feeling secure that my money was safe because the site is regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission. With that said, I started playing the following day, but I was somewhat disappointed in the software after playing on more sophisticated sites prior to Black Friday. Even though the site had some areas that needed improvement, it was still nice to be able to play from the comfort of my home. After a few days of playing, I called my contact at Ultimate Poker and voiced my concerns. The Ultimate Poker Team was more than cordial and agreed to answer the following questions. Q: Did Ultimate Poker launch a strip down version just to be the first legal, real-money poker site in the country? read more

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by Sue Hammett Back in March, PokerStars was honoured to be invited by Cancer Research UK to take part in its second Citizen Science Project 'GameJam'. PokerStars employees joined the charity's world-leading scientists and technology gurus from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google to help design and develop a mobile game that would aid cancer research. The GameJam event was a sort of hackathon that brought scientists and the tech community together, with the goal to come up with a mobile game application to help process hundreds of thousands of pieces of gene data in a fun and engaging way. It is hoped the game will be played by anyone, from anywhere in the world and in the process help towards accelerating cures for cancer. The finished application will allow the public to play an enjoyable game and simultaneously identify common changes in genes caused by a gain or loss of chromosomes. This will significantly reduce the time it would usually take lab workers to investigate the data. Two of our developers, Eric Hibbs and Ravid Rosental, offered to give up their weekend to work in teams alongside scientists from Cancer Research UK and colleagues from other leading tech companies. Eric, who features in the GameJam video documenting the event said: "The event was amazing. I've always had a passion for making video games. Having the chance to exercise my passion with a gifted co-worker for a great cause was a fantastic opportunity. I hope that I get the chance to take part in a similar event again, and I'm grateful that PokerStars was willing to send me on such a great adventure." Play to beat cancer As a technology company we are very proud to see that our highly skilled workforce can have a real positive social impact through this exciting project. We look forward to seeing the result of everyone's combined hard work and effort and continuing our involvement with this potentially life changing project. Sue Hammett is the Head of Corporate Giving for The Rational Group.

During SCOOP 2013, there were four separate tournament leader boards: Low, Medium, High and Overall. An error was identified in the initial calculation of points awarded from High stakes tournaments with small fields, which affected the results of the High and Overall leader boards. The advertised rules required that leader board points should only have been awarded when a player cashed. However, that rule failed to be enforced during the initial calculation of leader board points, and thus some players who played in certain high buy-in events were mistakenly credited with points they were not eligible to receive. PokerStars regrets the error and has taken steps to solve this instance, and to prevent it reoccurring. As a result of this error, 'GeorgeDanzer' received extra points, and was mistakenly ranked in first place on the Overall TLB. After correcting the calculations, the actual winner of the Overall TLB is 'AceQuad' of Mexico. PokerStars has now corrected the leader board and contacted the two affected players: 'GeorgeDanzer' and 'AceQuad'. The Overall leader board prizes of the SCOOP Trophy and the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT10 Grand Final Package will be awarded to 'AceQuad'. In addition, this error caused a re-ranking of some players who would have received prizes on the 2013 SCOOP High leader board. Specifically the following players have moved down from top 10 positions to non-prize awarded positions: 'blanconegro', 'ninototoroko', and 'ImDaNuts'. The following players have moved up into top 10 positions for the SCOOP High leader board and will now receive $1,050 WCOOP tickets for their efforts: 'ana marquez', 'AceQuad', and 'el_batong'. Overall, ten events were affected by this calculation error. There were 51 players who were awarded points they did not earn according to the official posted rules. The leader board has been re-calculated with the corrected formula. The correction has only changed the prizes for the eight players listed above. The ten affected events were the High versions of SCOOP 4, 6, 11, 12, 16, 27, 28, 30, 37, and 38. Because these events attract smaller fields, players were awarded points for highly ranked finishes, despite not cashing in the events. PokerStars has corrected the points calculation process to avoid this error repeating in the future. We apologise to the affected players for this error. Players with any queries about this can email scoop@pokerstars.com Michael Josem is the Head of Public Relations for PokerStars. He formerly served as a Senior Manager in the Security and Game Integrity teams for PokerStars.

Hi everybody! Taking the cue from the interesting video that recently appeared on PokerNews Italia in which three major heads up players suggest some starting points to reflect upon this speciality, I also wish to analyze the theory of heads up tournaments to express my personal view. Among poker tournaments, excluding the shoot-outs, the heads-up tournaments are the only ones to be characterized by a structure at sealed off compartments: each segment has a own life, starting and finishing in the lapse of few hands but not leading to an increase in stack in sight of future moves or in the attempt to dominate the table thanks to the quantity of chips. Once the turn is over, everything always starts from the beginning once again with a new opponent who probably we have never seen before. The key to heads-up play is the ability to understand the style and the psychology of our opponent. Starting from the premise that we do not know our opponent and that the tournament has a structure that allows for playing, a number of 25/30 hands to start with should be enough to understand more or less the kind of opponent that we are facing. The aim is to understand the main features and to take advantage of the weak points of the opponent. However, there is something even more important that has to be done. While we are trying to understand who is sitting in front of us, the same "analysis" will be carried out on us! Therefore, we need to change our game constantly. We should try to give little opportunity of reading to our opponent by alternating pre-flop action, starting hands, and game on board too. Never be repetitive and foreseeable in heads up! Aggressiveness is fundamental in a speciality like heads up poker. I too had to work hard to improve my heads up play and it was a long and difficult path. Obviously, it is not possible to wait for a good hand or to be too tight or passive in heads-up. If the opponent is passive, the best way to profit from this leak is to attack frequently. However, should this play become a standard, in the long run the opponent will take our measures and start to counterattack by raising in a bluff or making some hero calls on our bluff attempts. We therefore need to "mix" our image, sometimes by preflop limping (if the opponent is not aggressive, probably he will not raise), sometimes by renouncing the classic c-bet at flop. Once we have confused enough our image, we can start to attack and to bluff again. We cannot wait for a good hand. If the opponent is aggressive instead, we cannot give him much space to act. At the same time, we cannot wait for a good hand. By mixing our plays, we won't let him take control of the situation. If we preflop fold a few trash hands at the beginning, then we can suddenly raise or reraise no matter what we have. With players of this kind, when we are in the big blind we can surely increase the number of hands with which we can call a raise, but every now and then we have to come up with a reraise. Sometimes, I limped preflop with aggressive players, then see their raise and fold the hand. Later on, when I had a good hand, I did the same play, obviously firmly 3-betting on their raise. Very often, this "trick" has allowed me to pick up some big pots. Another often useful play in heads up is the delayed c-bet: though I attacked preflop, I choose to check at the flop, followed by the opponent's check ,and finally I come out betting on "any turn". This play may create confusion for a while and lead the opponent to think that he is facing a slowplay. Try this, but once in a while, and then choose a different play in a similar game situation. To conclude, the heads up is a game based on reading the opponent while hiding oneself. it is a challenge to our opponent's mind and, in the end, this is one of the features that make poker a wonderfully complex game!

Hall of Famer Greenstein, whose last WSOP win came in 2008, held strong to make the final 14 of Event #31 with a solid stack and a chance to make a run at his fourth bracelet. Negreanu meanwhile, off to a fairly slow start ot the 2013 WSOP, made his first big spin-up of the series to bag a second-place stack in the $5k Six-Max. Elsewhere at the Rio David "Gunslinger" Bach took the Day 1 lead in $2,500 Razz and Chris Dombrowski scored his first career bracelet in another No-Limit $1k. Greenstein Chasing Green, Johnson in $1,500 PLO Event #31, $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Split 8-or-Better, cut its field from 129 to just 14 last night with Greenstein making his first deep run of the 2013 WSOP. The three-time bracelet winner and Poker Hall of Fame member bagged up 287,000 for a seventh-place stack overnight. Interestingly another of poker's old guard  - three-time bracelet winner in the 70s, Perry Green - has the chip lead with 491,000. Vegas poker reg Marco "CrazyMarco" Johnson is second with 475,000. Day 1 leader Eric Rodawig managed to survive as well with 212,000. Marco Johnson   The final 14 will return to the Rio at 1 pm to play down for the bracelet and $255,942. The chip counts: 1. Perry Green 491,000 2. Marco Johnson 475,000 3. Loni Harwood 444,000 4. Noomis Jones 439,000 5. David Brooker 423,000 6. Grzegorz Derkowski 293,000 7. Barry Greenstein 287,000 8. Gabriel Blumenthal 258,000 9. Stephen Johnson 222,000 10. Mel Randolph 221,000 11. Eric Rodawig 212,000 12. Joao Simao 181,000 13. Andy Seth 168,000 14. Jarred Graham 129,000 Negreanu Surges to Front in $5k Six-Max Coming into the 2013 WSOP with a ton of momentum, Daniel Negreanu expected some big early results. It hasn't quite worked out that way. We just three in-the-money finishes and a 12th his highest so far Negreanu's been held to just $20k in cashes. Things looking up for DNegs.   Things are looking better in the $5k No-Limit Six-Max event that started yesterday, however, as Negreanu surged to a 168,600 stack, just off Jonathan Little's chip lead. With 128 players left Negreanu still has a long way to go and will have dozens of notables in his way, but the signs are encouraging. Our feature "Follow the Chips" coverage tracked Dan "Jungleman12" Cates and Ryan Eriquezzo, who also ended the day among the leaders. The top in chips entering Day 2: 1. Jonathan Little 179,700 2. Daniel Negreanu 168,600 3. Brian Rast 151,200 4. Justin Smith 149,800 5. Rogen Chhabra 141,500 6. Ryan D'Angelo 135,100 7. Brock Parker 132,000 8. Randy Lew 125,400 9. Marvin Rettenmaier 114,000 10. Dan O'Brien 112,000 Follow our live WSOP coverage from the Rio again starting at 1 pm today. Dombrowski Tops Moore for $1k Title Chris Dombrowski   Another first-time bracelet winner was crowned last night as Chris Dombrowski held off Vegas grinder Matt Moore for the title in Event #30, $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em. A WSOP regular since 2008 and a Heartland Poker Tour champion, Dombrowski picked up his biggest score of $346,332 to virtually double his career earnings. Moore picked up $215,578 for his runner-up finish. The final nine and payouts: 1. Chris Dombrowski $346,332 2. Matthew Moore $215,578 3. Jesse McEuen $149,850 4. Dimitar Yosifov $107,922 5. Carter Myers $78,876 6. Chris Bolek $58,348 7. Matt Seer $43,730 8. Mike Pickett $33,191 9. Jonathan Thompson $25,448 Bach Leads Seed, Matusow in $2,500 Razz Just over 300 players bought in to Event #33, $2,500 Razz, yesterday including defending champ Phil Hellmuth. Gunslinger firing.   Hellmuth couldn't muster up much of his white magic and could only survive the day with 2,800 in chips. Former $50k Player's Championship winner David "Gunslinger" Bach didn't have the same problem, though, and finished Day 1 with the big stack of 51,300. Legendary ga

At 8:24 PM here on the Isle of Man on Thursday, June 13th, 2013, PokerStars reached a mind-blowing milestone in our corporate history (and really in the history of poker) - we dealt our one hundred billionth hand of poker. Let me write that number out for you: 100,000,000,000 I won't try to draw any real world parallels, but suffice it to say few of us can wrap our heads around a number like that. But I'm not here to talk about the size of the number; I want to talk about running the 100 billionth hand and how it's a proxy for how we got there in the first place. Annnnd we're there. I had the supreme honor of being the host for that hand. I got to tell the players what was happening, who won what, and so forth. But that was the easy part. Behind the scenes (where I was lucky enough to be), it was like Mission Control at an Apollo rocket launch.* My 30" monitor was covered with windows - three separate chat windows, my "script" for hosting the hand and, of course, the client itself. *That's an exaggeration, obviously. But if all our people had been wearing white shirts, dark ties, and black-rimmed glasses, it might have looked somewhat similar. One of those chat windows was a 20-way IM chat among many of the key staff members. The software developers, the CRM (Customer Relations Management) folks, the poker room management people, the tournaments people, customer support... "250K+ RM" A note from the head of the poker room saying that we have over 250,000 real money players on the site... See, as far as our 407,000 customers on PokerStars at that moment were concerned, it was just another day at the playground. Well, not just another day; it's not every day that we deal our 100 billionth hand of poker and give away a million dollars in half an hour. But our customers expected that our games would run just as smoothly and continuously as they have for almost 12 years now. We had to make sure that the tsunami of poker players didn't cause any glitches. "OLTP-MAIN is creeping up in the monitor" One of our servers is beginning to show a little strain under the record crowds. The database team wants to be sure that the number of transactions doesn't affect the march toward 100 billion and asks the poker room to take down the play money Zoom games. "PM Zoom is killed - last hands being dealt now..." The poker room takes down the play money Zoom games; as soon as the big hand is over, they'll be brought back up. The customer support manager chats that he'll get the message to our support representatives so they can answer the emails ("Hey - where'd our Zoom games go?!?!?"). As the counter on the client spins up, the chat actually slows - things are going according to plan. At 8:24pm the counter in the software client lobby counts down those last few hundreds of thousands of hands and then the message flashes up on the client: The Milestone hand #100,000,000,000 is being dealt at Euryalos XI The Million Dollar Hand The poker world and Twitter explode with the news while, in the meantime, there is "guarded optimism" in the IM chat. "Home stretch..." "Here we go" At the PokerStars office, people crowd around monitors, the CEO whips out his phone to take a picture of the table... And, just as planned, the table pauses. I go to the chat box at Euryalos XI and type (actually copy/paste from the script): Hi all - Welcome all to the final step in the Road to 100 Billion. And we're off. I don't watch the IM chat - I'm too busy chatting at the table - but they had paused dealing at the table, and everybody is watching as the observer count at the table climbs to 20,000; 30,000; 40,000... by the time we actually deal the hand, 67,000 observers are watching a single hand of poker. That is approaching the capacity of Manchester United's Old Trafford. Visualize Old Trafford almost full of poker fans breathlessly watching the turn of a river card. The hand goes off exactly as planned. A low-stakes poker player call

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