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Doyle Brunson, one of the most respected poker players in the world, endorses the online poker room DoylesRoom.  So players can expect only the best from the online poker room. To stay current and on top of their game, DoylesRoom recently launched a brand new website. The new site has been modernized from the original site and creates a simpler playing experience.

Will Griffiths, the Vice President of Global Marketing for DoylesRoom, commented on the changes stating: “Our new website is cleaner, more accessible, and simply a joy to use for poker players looking to play the greatest game in the world at a site that keeps changing for the better. These customer focused changes are only the beginning of what serious players can expect in the weeks and months ahead at DoylesRoom.”

Many online poker rooms’ home pages are cluttered with information and promotions that seem to create chaos for players simply trying to play a little poker. With the changes DoylesRoom is no longer cluttered and players will find a modern interface that was designed to show new promotions as well as get players competing as quickly as they can.

The look is very clean and very simple. Gone is all the extras and all players are left with is the information they need to play in tournaments, promotions, etc; just the essentials. Promotions can easily be accessed as well as the casino if players would like to play other casino games besides poker.

With the new look the new website is also offering more games and prize guarantees as well as the return of Power Poker and double Turbo Gold Cards are up for grabs this month to celebrate the opening.

TitanPoker’s European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP) IV has come to a close with the Main Event ending just last night. Online players enjoyed a heightened experience as this edition of the ECOOP boasted a guaranteed $4,550,000 in prizes. More events were added and so many players competed that more than half of the events saw an increase in the prize pool guarantee. 

This fact is a bit surprising as the World Series of Poker kicked off not long after the ECOOP IV began. But despite the WSOP the ECOOP IV saw a great turnout and the final event was no exception. The Main Event took place on Day 14 of the series and was a No Limit Hold’em tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $1.5 million. 

Nine hundred and sixty nine players registered for the tournament posting the buy-in of $1,500 plus $80. Players making the final table earned nice pay days, each in at least the five figure range. But it was the top three who would earn six figure pay days.

When three handed play began it was online players PlayingHard2Get, VLs85s and Kaishi competing. The first to go would be PlayingHard2Get who earned a nice $120,000 for third place which left Kaishi and VLs85s to duke it out in heads up play. 

After some time Kaishi would gain the chip lead and it was over from there. VLs85s would be knocked out of the competition and Kaishi would earn the first place prize of $330,000, not bad for a single days work!

TitanPoker Final Results:

Kaishi $330,000

VLs84s $180,000

PlayingHard2Get $120,000

Helstokkjr $90,000

Tmybxx $75,000

Ace2ace234 $60,000

KENYANEZ $45,000

PropagandaPoker6 $30,000

Religioved $21,000

Tom Dwan is not having a very good year. With the start of the year came the “durrrr” challenge and Dwan’s desire to take on many in the online poker world. After facing opponents Dwan was down almost $4 million dollars on Full Tilt. He then battled back and almost turned a profit before he was down millions again. Recently, Dwan faced Ilari “Zigmund” Sahamies at the high stakes PLO tables on Full Tilt and it was not a pretty sight for Dwan.

The PLO tables at Full Tilt Poker the pros were playing on had $500/$1000 stakes and after two days Sahamies had gave Dwan a beat down and took around $1.5 to $2 million in that short period of time. Sahamies was playing so well that at one point he had at least $1 million at one table on FullTilt Poker.

The HighStakesDB website has reported that during a twenty four hour period, Dwan and Sahamies played four hands that handed over pots worth over $300,000 each. Dwan did not win any of these pots which padded Sahamies bank roll very well. 

After some time at the $500/$1000 PLO tables Sahamies told Dwan he wanted to move to the $3,000/$9,000 tables. Dwan said it was too much right now most likely because he was down. But once Dwan took down a good size pot he said they can move over to the $3,000/$9,000 tables. When it was all over, Sahamies held a small win over Dwan of just over $160,000. 

With such an impressive showing against Dwan, Sahamies has the potential to be one of the highest earners that plays on Full Tilt Poker. It will be interesting to see when or if Dwan will be playing Sahamies again.

It seems poker players took a little time off this past week from the online tournaments as the larger poker rooms saw poor turn outs for their weekly guaranteed events. Absolute Poker is one of the online poker rooms who saw a low turnout, which was bad for them but good for the online players who participated. 

The event saw only one hundred and twenty one players registering to compete in the $1,000 plus $50 buy-in tournament. Only eighteen places were paid so players had to be on their best game to earn a payout. 

Usually the turnouts are quite good and we can report several notable cashes before the final table takes place. However this time only two players deserve mentioning. Steve “STEVOL” Leonard finished in eighteenth place while Nicholas “BLUMESIUSX” Blumenthal came so close to the final table finishing in twelfth place. 

Nine players entered in final table place with the bottom four earning paydays in the thousands. But the top five players earned paydays in the tens of thousands, which is where every poker player would like to be. 

When it came down to heads up play, James “JDAWG217” Navolanic and Michael “MIKEIVEY” Meredith would compete for the top prize of almost $40,000. It would be an interesting matchup and on the final hand Meredith held the chip lead and the cards were in his favor. After both players went all in it was Meredith who was able to come up with the first place win.

AbsolutePoker Final Results:

Michael “MIKEIVEY” Meredith — $39,750 

James “JDAWG217″ Navolanic — $24,000 

COOKIELULU — $17,625 

GOGATORS86 — $14,250 

LHPM65 — $19,875 

ACE10CLUBZ — $9,000 

BEACHRAT1946 — $7,125 

_ADVANCED — $5,250 

DARKHAWK-2000 — $3,750 

Practice at AbsolutePoker.net and play in next week’s event!

Poker pro, Clonie Gowen, has been battling for many months against Full Tilt for breach of contract and other issues. FullTilt has attempted to have the case against them dismissed but this week Gowen found out that the case will not be dismissed and will continue on an active basis.
The legal suit against Full Tilt is for $40 million and the online poker room tried to have it dismissed on grounds of the case being frivolous. FullTilt Poker now has until April 27th to respond to the suit filed against them.
Reports have surfaced at Mediafire about the court’s ruling and the court commented: “Accordingly, Defendant’s Motion [to dismiss the Gowen action] should be denied in its entirety and Defendants should be ordered to immediately file an answer.” So essentially, the court is waiting for Full Tilt to respond to the filing.
The case began last year when Gowen filed the suit claiming breach of contract. Gowen is seeking the high amount of damages because she claims she was offered one percent of ownership of the company for being a representative in 2004. She accepted the offer and became an online poker pro at the poker room. But it was in 2007 that Gowen was excluded from distribution checks sent to Team Full Tilt Poker members. This caused her to file the suit.

For the past few months, Titan Poker has been promoting what would become the largest online poker tournament in the history of the online poker room – a $2.5 million guarantee. The results are finally in, and congratulations go to online poker player “Ragen” for a phenomenal victory worth $525,000.

The $2.5 million GTD at www.TitanPoker.com took place Sunday, March 8th as 1,370 online poker players posted the $1,500+$80 buy-in, or won the require bonus Tokens via satellites qualifier competitions.

Simple mathematics tells us that 1,370 participants, multiplied by $1,500 a piece, generates a total prize pool of $2,055,000 – $445,000 short of the guaranteed $2,500,000. Titan Poker of course forked over the overlay amount, but the multitude of new member registrations and heightened participation levels on the virtual felt certainly afford the online poker room the extra doling of cash.

It was a long, tedious event that went on well into the early hours of Monday morning. It took a total of 13 hours and 28 minutes to conclude the final table and reveal a 1st place winner.

After a hard-fought, but ultimately losing battle from 3rd place finisher “omnyVplaytes”, heads-up action finally ensued between “Ragen” and worthy opponent “gwka”. The two displayed impeccable skills throughout the historic Titan Poker tournament, but in the end, there could only be one 1st place finisher.

That honor went to “Ragen”, whose name will inevitably linger in the history books of the online poker industry as the winner of Titan Poker’s record-breaking online poker tournament. Ragen walked away with the 1st place prize of more than half a million dollars for his sensational efforts.

Titan Poker $2.5 Million GTD Final Table Results

1st – Ragen ($525,000)
2nd – gwka ($275,000)
3rd – onmyVplates ($200,000)
4th – JTulkaz ($150,000)
5th – NSCutHmo ($125,000)
6th – oiuyuiouoiouiy ($100,000)
7th – OMGKurtNils1 ($75,000)
8th – NPL4me ($50,000)
9th – CaPtainAndCoke ($35,000)

First came the phenomenal win of 10 WSOP Bracelets, then the historic launch of DoylesRoom online poker room. Now, whether you’re a fan of online casino games or the legendary Doyle Brunson himself, the recent launch of his new DoylesCasino is sure to strike a delightful chord with online gaming fans around the world.

DoylesCasino is the newest online casino to hit the Internet, launched on March 7, 2009. Employing the leading, certified software platform from RealTime Gaming (RTG), DoylesCasino provides more than 200 realistically illustrated online casino.com games to choose from, including the exclusive Real Series Slots from RTG.

As is the case with most new online casinos, DoylesCasino is promoting an exceptionally generous Welcome Bonus campaign for new members. First-time depositors can choose from a 200% up to $1,000 ‘Slot Lover’s Special’ Bonus, using DoylesCasino Coupon Code “STARTUP200”, or a regular 110% up to $550 Welcome Bonus with DoylesCasino Coupon Code “110UPFRONT”.

There’s a valuable list of DoylesCasino Coupon Codes that can be used any time, on any deposit, delivering extra reload bonuses to past depositors as well, keeping a player’s bankroll padded at all times.

DoylesCasino is kicking off its lunch with a Blackjack Freeroll Tournament celebration, hosting a week’s worth of $200 Blackjack Freerolls that began last Sunday, and will end this Sunday with a munificent $1,000 Blackjack Freeroll. DoylesCasino boasts that Blackjack Tournaments will be a “way of life” at the online casino, so this is the perfect chance to practice without the risk.

Another notable aspect of DoylesCasino is the multitude of progressive jackpots, which currently total near $5 million ($4,906,858.69 at time of writing).

Doyle Brunson has always been famous for his decades of lucrative Texas Hold’em poker play, magnified by the presence of the fabulously popular DoylesRoom.net online poker room. Perhaps branching out into the online casino industry was an inevitable facet of the legendary Brunson’s design.

In a radio appearance last Wednesday on the Hardcore Poker Show, Mike ‘the Mouth” Matusow did what he does best, verbally berated another poker player. However, this time it wasn’t just a bad beat that enraged Matusow – he was rebuking Russ Hamilton, the key component in the UltimateBet Super-User Cheating Scandal, for essentially stealing massive amounts of cash from him at the online poker room.

On Hardcore Sports Radios’ ‘Hardcore Poker Show’, Mike Matusow declared his outrage at 1994 WSOP Main Event Champion Russ Hamilton. “I know this – the man is 100% guilty. There’s not even 99%, there’s no two ways about it. I know people, I’ve talked to the CEOs of UltimateBet, I’ve seen the evidence and there’s no way I will let this man walk. I don’t care what it takes for him to go to jail.”

Mike Matusow, two-time WSOP Bracelet holder and the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions winner continued his invective explanation. “I want him in jail because of what he’s done to me. This man would call me to play him head-up. I would ship $50,000, $50,000, $50,000. All the money I won when I won the ‘05 World Series Main Event, when I got to the final table and when I won the Tournament of Champions, I gave all to Russ to put on UB while he was playing me head-up and stealing it from me.”

Having pocketed around $2,000,000 for his 2005 WSOP Maina Event 9th place finish and Tournament of Champions title combined, Matusow was not about to let the allegedly ill-gained profits of Russ Hamilton go without a fight.

“The thing about it is I’ve got a couple of issues, of ways around that I think legally, that I can get him put in jail and I’m going to be pursuing it as soon, probably towards the end of the year after my book comes out and after the World Series.”

Matusow admits that it wasn’t the cash losses at Ultimate Bet Poker that hurt him the most, but the loss of confidence and resulting adjustment in his game play that left the most scars. “It’s not so much what he stole from me, okay – UB gave me a very, very good share back. It’s probably half of what was taken from me. It’s what it did to me mentally. The fact that I was the most feared No Limit poker player in the world up until 2005. I was able to read cards better than any human alive. I could make any move in the world and pick people off at every bluff. And now I have no heart at all.

“Now I play so tight and solid and I’m afraid to pull the trigger because I’m always afraid of getting called because of the fact that every time I made those moves I got called by bottom pair or no pair and all that stuff while I was getting cheated out of all that money,” Matusow’s trademark humility was shining through. “With the mental aspect … it’s basically a lot of what my lawsuit is possibly going to be about.”

Matusow mentioned another high stakes online poker player, Prahlad “Spirit Rock” Friedman, who also got duped during the UltimateBet cheating scandal. Before moving to Full Tilt, Matusow says he and Friedman were on UltimateBet 24/7. “What they did to him was just brutal.”

Finally, Matusow carried on by calling out a few other prominent online poker players who suffered from the UltimateBet cheating scandal. Mike felt they were not nearly vocal enough about their losses, and should make more of an effort to ensure Russ Hamilton is put behind bars for his alleged participatiin in the UltimateBet super-user cheating debacle.

“The thing is most poker players are a bunch of pussies and they’re scared and they don’t want to be involved. See, I’m a big name player that got screwed over. All these other players are no name players and they don’t really care. See you put somebody who’s one of the top three names in poker out there and that changes a lot.”

Carbon Poker, as part of the Merge Gaming Network, has upgraded its Poker Rakeback program to further benefit members of the online poker room with the addition of Tournament Rakeback.

Players on the Merge Gaming Network, which includes CarbonPoker.com, Aced Poker, Reefer Poker, Poker Nordica and more than a dozen others, will now be able to accumulate Rakeback on both scheduled and Sit’n’Go tournament fees.

Rakeback is a popular promotion offered by 3rd party poker portals that allows players to earn a percentage of their contributed rake back into their bankroll. With no evident disadvantages, more and more online poker players are seeking out online poker Rakeback deals to increase their profit margins invariably.

Online poker rooms collect a ‘rake’ from cash game pots in order to fund the operation. Since players compete against each other, the rake and associated tournament fees are the only way for online poker rooms to turn a profit.

Providing a Rakeback program that pays players back a portion of the ring game rake has become a normal offering for some of today’s most popular internet poker rooms, but the addition of tournament fee Rakeback is much more rare, and certainly appreciated by avid online poker tournament players.

The Merge Gaming Network and Carbon Poker have other bold headlines in the past few weeks of online poker news, most notably as the Texas Hold’em Bad Beat Jackpot finally tipped the scales, surpassing the $1 million mark.

Carbon Poker and the Merge Gaming Network aren’t the only ones to initiate such a favorable Rakeback deal of late. The news comes on the heels of UltimateBet’s mirrored campaign. UltimateBet, newly merged onto the CEREUS Network with Absolute Poker, recently announced it would be paying Tournament Rakeback, as well as upping its Wednesday $100k Guarantee to $150k; the buy-in of $1k remains the same.

In a recent press release, it was announced that Titan Poker will be showering its members with $1,000,000 for competing in the ongoing Million Dollar Race. The only requirement to compete in the Million Dollar Race is to play poker online at the internet poker room, Titan Poker.

Members of Titan Poker, the pride and joy of the iPoker Network, can win their share of the $1 million prize pool simply by participating in cash games. The more members play, the higher their chance will be of taking home a slice of the lucrative cash pie.

TitanPoker launched the Million Dollar Race on January 12th. The competition will continue through April of 2009 with a series of races based upon the various aspects – regional standings, VIP standings and overall cash table poker play. All of the top finishers on the Titan Poker Million Dollar Race Leaderboards will share in the prize pool, but there are other ways to win as well.

The Leaderboards contain what TitanPoker.com is calling ‘Hot spots’. By falling into one of these hot spots, even without finishing high enough to rank as a winner, players can claim a significant chunk of change. All prizes will be awarded when the four-month Titan Poker promotion comes to an end in April.