The 2007 EPT French Poker Open has been cancelled. According to the CEO of the European Poker Tour, John Duthie:

The European Poker Tour (EPT) regrets to announce that the 2007 French Open poker tournament due to be held at Casino Barrière de Deauville from 20-24th February, 2007, has been cancelled. This is as a direct result of last-minute intervention by the French authorities making it impossible for the Lucien Barrière group to run a poker tournament on their premises in Deauville. We sincerely apologise to all players due to attend the event, but unfortunately these circumstances were beyond our control. We are considering the feasibility of appealing against this decision to the highest authority and will advise of any developments.

All of the other events are running as previously scheduled though. The next event, The EPT German Open, will be held in Dortmund, Germany between March 8-11, followed shortly thereafter by the EPT Polish Open in Warsaw between March 14-17, 2007.

The season will culminate with the Monte Carlo Grand Final at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, beginning on March 28, 2007.

The $10,000 buy-in WPT Main Event at the Gold Strike World Poker Open (not to be confused with the Winter Poker Open which is also currently running) is well underway, and according to the live coverage provided by Bluff Magazine, they will be playing down to 18 players today. It's unbelievable how many big names are still in the race - top nine chip leaders are as follows:

Thang (Kido) Pham 580,000
Victor Ramdin 570,000
Hoyt Corkins 450,000
Gavin Smith 320,000
JC Tran 305,000
John Racener 240,000
Matt Russell 140,000
Amir Vahedi 88,000
Mark Seif 88,000

Last year, Scotty Nguyen won the championship event in this tournament, claiming $969,421. The second place finisher was none other than Michael Mizrachi, helping solidify his Player of the Year standings early on in the year.

For more on the live action in this tournament, go check out BluffMagazine.com.

Ultimate Bet was one of the few sites that still ran $0.01/$0.02 Limit Hold'em games, but I am told that they have recently done away with them. Apparently the lowest stakes available now in Limit is $0.02/$0.04.

Now I realize that this doesn't affect anyone who plays above those levels, but considering everything that has happened in regards to online gaming over the past 6 months, I would think that the sites would be offering more of a selection to their players rather than doing away with certain games or limits.

I personally know a handful of players who play the lowest (real money) limits possible. They aren't looking to make a living off the games, they play them purely for the enjoyment of it with minimal risk. I suppose the sites are looking at it with the perspective that they will earn more rake on the higher games, so if they stop offering the micro-limits the players will simply adjust. I'm not so sure they will.

Just to name a few, the lowest limits PokerStars offers in fixed-limit Hold'em is $0.02/$0.04, and Full Tilt Poker only goes as low as $0.25/$0.50.

I ran across this article at CardPlayer.com and found it highly disturbing. Though we don't often quote entire articles, I do believe this one warrants it:

Department of Justice Wants Information about Poker Site's IPOs

The United States Department of Justice has expanded its war against online gambling across the Atlantic Ocean to the marbled floors of some of the world's largest financial institutions that have offices in Britain.

The Times of London reported Sunday that subpoenas have been issued against at least 16 banks to hand over information concerning their dealings with several online poker sites. It seems the DoJ is targeting online sites that trade their stock publicly on the London Stock Exchange. Online poker companies that floated on the LSE include PartyGaming, 888 Holdings, and Empire Online.

The subpoenas were issued by the Southern District Court of New York, which is the same district that's bringing a case of money laundering against two former NETELLER founders.

According to the London Times, the subpoenas were issued only days after President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into law in October, and were recently reissued.

A representative of the court would only say he could neither confirm or deny the reports.

A few of the banks targeted are HSBC, Dresdner Kleinwort, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. The subpoenas asked for communication documents such as emails and telephone records concerning the online poker sites.

The original article can be found via the link below.

Source: CardPlayer.com

I'd like to state for the record that NyQuil / NeoCitran and poker do not mix. Seriously, don't try it at home. I've been down with a bout of the flu over the past week which eliminated any hopes and dreams I had of reaching Iron Man status at Full Tilt for the month of January. In fact, I haven't opened a single poker client the entire time (less 3 or 4 SNG's that I completely tanked in) which was probably a very wise decision. The best I can hope for at this point is Silver Status in January, so I'll be working on Iron again once February begins.

I was hoping to play in the MATH and the WWdN this week (especially since Hoy is now keeping a leaderboard with the Monday night results) but had to put the kibosh on that plan as well. Damn flu - miss a week, miss a lot. However, I'll be relearning the game easing back into the online poker world tonight by playing in the Mookie, though it wouldn't surprise me if I donk out in spectacular fashion early on. If you are looking for easy money, come see me. I'll also state for the record that it is highly doubtful I'll be making an appearance at any blogger tables afterwards, but once my system has returned to "normal" I'll be back, and hopefully in fine form.

Details for the Mook tonight are as follows:

What: The Mookie - Ride That Donkey
Where: Full Tilt Poker
Time: 10pm EST
Cost: $10 + $1
Password: vegas1

And don't forget, there is a second chance tournament at 11:30pm EST, which will be turbo PLO. Yes you read that right: Turbo PLO. Oy. Over/under on the total duration of that game?

In what seems like a never-ending stream of live poker tournaments running simultaneously, The European Poker Tour kicks off their EPT Copenhagen Scandinavian Open today in Denmark at Casino Copenhagen. This event will be covered live by the official PokerStars Blog, so we will be checking their site for updates.

Apparently Team PokerStars members Isabel Mercier, Katja Thater, Bertrand Grospellier, Tom McEvoy and Luca Pagano will be in attendance.

Random fact of the day: according to the EPT website a jacket is required at the Casino Copenhagen - no sports wear is allowed. Can you honestly picture the average poker player in anything BUT sportswear? I'm wondering if they are making an exception for the event, especially since a huge number of the entrants have qualified via PokerStars. If not, it would be refreshing seeing a room full of players not covered in poker logos.

Either way, the event will run between January 17-20th, and has completely sold out.

Just in case there currently aren't enough live tournaments for you to keep track of, I'll toss one more in your direction. The 2007 Winter Poker Open begins today, January 17th, at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. There are 13 events total, with a $10,000 buy-in Championship Event that will be broadcast by the World Poker Tour.

If you recall, last year the Main Event at this tournament was won by none other than Michael Mizrachi, with John D'Agostino placing second and Erick Lindgren finishing in third. This was just one short week after Mizrachi placed second at the 2006 Gold Strike World Poker Open, losing out to Scotty Nguyen. That was one helluva week in poker.

Full event schedule for the 2007 Winter Poker Open is as follows:

January 17 - $500 NLHE
January 18 - $750 NLHE
January 19 - $1000 NLHE
January 20 - $1500 NLHE
January 21 - $260 Ladies NLHE
January 21 - $500 Limit Hold'em
January 22 - $2500 NLHE
January 23 - $500 NLHE
January 24 - $5000 NLHE
January 26 through 30 - $10,000 WPT NLHE Championship Event
January 27 - $1000 NLHE
January 28 - $750 NLHE
January 29 - $500 NLHE

Yesterday I mentioned that Michael Mizrachi won the 2006 Card Player Player of the Year award, and as I was checking out their website I noticed that they made a few changes in the scoring criteria for the 2007 season. Some of this is new, some of it isn't, but according to their website, tournaments that qualify for this year's POY points must meet the following criteria:

- Overall tournament prize pool must meet or exceed $750,000
- Single events must have a prize pool that meets or exceeds $250,000
- 60 player minimum
- Buy-in must be at least $300
- Invitationals must have at least 60 players and a prize pool of $500,000
- International events must have min. 60 players and prize pool must meet or exceed $1,500,000
- Online tourneys must have a prize pool of more than $5,000,000 and player must release their real name to accumulate points

Full details on the criteria, as well as how they are calculating points for the 2007 season, can be found at their website via the "read" link below.

With all the hype surrounding the PCA and the Aussie Millions, it seems the 2007 World Series of Poker circuit event in Tunica has been slightly neglected. Let's attempt to rectify that, shall we? Fortunately for us, Bluff Magazine has been on location and are providing live updates as the main event progresses. Here is a look at the final table finishers in the preliminary matches, and who is at the Main Event:

Event 1 - $500 NLHE
694 entrants, $336,590 total prize pool

1. Ron Brown $94,245
2. Eric Abate $48,806
3. Chris Back $26,927
4. Ty Wilson $23,561
5. Norman Contreras $20,195
6. Gary Link $16,830
7. Perry Ryan $13,464
8. Marvin Britt $10,098
9. Peter Kwong Shing Au $6,732

Event 2 - $1000 NLHE
181 entrants, $175,570 total prize pool

1. Terry Hill $56,884
2. Robert Meier $29,847
3. Jim Lindsay $17,567
4. Blake Hall $14,046
5. George Austin $10,534
6. Jimmy Smith $8,779
7. Ty Rundquist $7,023
8. John Martin $5,267
9. Charles Pate $3,511

Event 3 - $500 NLHE
540 entrants, $261,900 total prize pool

1. Corey Sanders $75,939
2. David Nunez $40,071
3. Parker Binion $20,952
4. Mark Lucas $18,333
5. Nick Andricopulos $15,714
6. Julio Fernandez $13,095
7. Mitch Sporleder $10,476
8. Kevin Elwood $7,857
9. Daniel Gilpen $5,238

Event 4 - $500 Omaha 8
214 entrants, $103,790 total prize pool

1. Greg Jamison $33,212
2. John Bouin $18,267
3. Thomas Witherspoon $9,341
4. Jason Stern $7,265
5. Reuben Nixon $6,227
6. Sean Patrick McMahon $5,190
7. Ted Brooks $4,152
8. Suzanne Matzura $3,114
9. Nathan Wiesner $2,076

Event 5 - NLHE
176 entrants, $256,080 total prize pool

1. David Robbins $82,971
2. Jeff Burns $43,534
3. James Mankowski $25,608
4. Kenneth Blanton $20,486
5. Charlie Potter $15,365
6. Paul Nichols $12,804
7. James English $10,243
8. Tony Cason $7,682
9. Lance Popp $5,122

Event 6 - NLHE 6-handed
235 entrants, $227,950 total prize pool

1. Hal Cromwell $71,360
2. Mark Miley $39,891
3. Chester Gwin $23,934
4. Hewitt Poland $17,096
5. Bob Allen $14,132
6. Mary Jones $11,169

Event 7 - $1000 HORSE
112 entrants, $108,640 total prize pool

1. Michael Conti $35,307
2. Andy Alina $19,555
3. Yuebin Guo $11,950
4. David Bach $8,691
5. Bobby Moon $7,062
6. JJ Joseph $5,432
7. Brian McKain $4,346
8. Damon Ramirez $3,259
9. Peter Moore $1,956

Event 8 - $500 NLHE
750 entrants, $363,750 total prize pool

1. Donaldson Brown $98,184
2. Lyde Wagers $51,471
3. Dale Poynter $29,100
4. John Bradley $25,463
5. Jim Johnson $21,825
6. Peter Martin $18,188
7. Scott Bell $14,550
8. John Marinca $10,913
9. Quang Tieu $7,275

Event 9 - $200 Ladies NLHE

1. Erin Elwood $27,060
2. Alani Delrios $14,524
3. Sally White $7,217
4. Kelley Reynolds $6,315
5. Noui Phrathep $5,413
6. Ruth Chodwiewicz $4,511
7. Donna Cobb $3,608
8. Kimberly Kirby $2,706
9. Cindy Burks $1,804

The $5000 Main Event began yesterday, and according to Bluff Magazine there are 377 entrants competing for a total prize pool of $1,870,450. Top 36 spots pay, and the winner will collect $563,402.

A large number of professional players were in attendance, including: Barry Greenstein, Tom Schneider, Ralph Perry, Nam Le, Eric Froehlich, Michael Mizrachi, Stan Weiss, John Spadavecchia, Devilfish, Vinny Vinh, Men Nguyen, and Vanessa Russo, just to name a few.

For live coverage of the main event, you can check out Bluff Magazine via the "read: link below.

Card Player has anounced the final standings in their 2006 Player of the Year race, and if you have been paying attention at all since ...umm.... February of last year, then it should come as no surprise that Michael Mizrachi took down the win. The full list is quite impressive though, and the top 25 26 finishers, their POY points, and tournament earnings for the past year are as follows: (Yes, I changed it to 26 so I could include Joe Sebok. Haven't I been saying for years now that he is the one to watch out for? I love being right.)

1. Michael Mizrachi 5,989 / $2,329,121
2. Nam Le 5,215 / $2,161,554
3. J.C. Tran 5,170 / $1,152,880
4. Shannon Shorr 4,926 / $1,496,866
5. Jeff Madsen 4,568 / $1,558,622
6. David Daneshgar 4,392 / $1,066,717
7. John Hoang 4,177 / $691,214
8. Roland De Wolfe 3,977 / $1,937,259
9. Joseph Hachem 3,840 / $2,541,352
10. Gioi Luong 3,788 / $623,703
11. Phil Hellmuth Jr. 3,755 / $1,260,815
12. David Pham 3,712 / $764,983
13. Alex Jacob 3,568 / $1,686,041
14. Steve Wong 3,472 / $1,128,788
15. Allen Cunningham 3,344 / $4,493,509
16. Erick Lindgren 3,286 / $1,012,085
17. Ralph Perry 3,266 / $944,601
18. Joe Tehan 3,236 / $1,607,456
19. Joe Pelton 3,200 / $1,874,195
20. David Williams 3,152 / $984,572
21. William Chen 3,146 / $833,672
22. Daniel Negreanu 3,070 / $1,552,083
23. Anthony Reategui 3,025 / $720,199
24. Cliff Josephy 3,013 / $999,827
25. Nenad Medic 2,940 / $2,069,391
26. Joe Sebok 2,835 / $833,522

Last year's winner, Men Nguyen, finished 42nd in 2006.

Since I read about 200 blogs a day I am so thankful for Bloglines because I don't have to bookmark them all myself or search for each individual page. Yes, I'm lazy. When I come across ones that have video, pictures, or extensive reading though I open them up in a new browser and look at the page in its entirety. One such case recently was The Princess, who posted about Full Tilt Poker's new commercials that are apparently airing during Poker After Dark.

Being Canuck, it is rare that we get the same commercials as my American friends do. That said, I am ashamed to admit that even though I pay for cable every month, I rarely turn on my televsion set so I haven't yet watched the show and have no idea if they are airing the same commercials in Canada or not. Either way, I followed her link to the Full Tilt site and found the commercials highly entertaining, so in case you haven't seem them either, here is the link:

Full Tilt Commercials

Since online satellites have been running for what seems like, well, forever, it is almost hard to believe that the Main Event of the 2007 Aussie Millions is finally underway in Melbourne. Dr. Pauly is in the Land Down Under covering the event for PokerNews.com, and according to him they are now down to the top 80 players who are all in the money. You can see the full list of players via the "read" link below, but a few notable names still in the running are:

Gus Hansen, Keith Sexton, Andrew Black, Patrik Antonius, Kristy Gazes, Ross Boatman, Kirill Gerasimov, and Joe Hachem.

Go check out Pauly's blog and PokerNews.com for videos, news, and info on all the live happenings at this event.

The 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure wrapped yesterday, and according to Brad "Otis" Willis of the Official PokerStars Blog, the title of champion now belongs to 22-year old Ryan Daut. (Wow, does that make me feel old.) Daut outlasted a field of 936 others in the tournament, and for his efforts collected $1,535,255. Now that is a nice payday.

Final table finishers and their prize money were as follows:

1. Ryan Daut $1,535,255
2. Isaac Haxton $861,789
3. Robert Ford $550,980
4. Robert Mizrachi $409,703
5. Jonathan Little $317,873
6. Frank Rusnak $247,234

As always, Otis provided amazing coverage of the tournament, so if you haven't already read it do go check it out via the 'read' link below.

Looks like Mansion Poker has been fronting a whole lot of their own money to meet the guaranteed prize pool of 100k they have set out for their nightly tournaments. The tournament itself is a $100 freezeout, and though I haven't checked it out personally we are told by the folks over at HotPokerBonus.com that Mansion has been paying out an average of more than $47,000 per tournament themselves so far just to make the guarantee. In fact, HPB has a spreadsheet with the number of nightly buy-ins on their site - interesting stuff. Overlay much?

Anyways, I have read various things throughout the blogosphere about this tournament, most recently Lucko's post about a (rare, for him) bad beat at this tourney, but was curious if anyone else has played it and would like to hear your thoughts.

(Thanks, K!)

For those of you wishing for nothing more than to play in the World Poker Tour (and I know you are out there), Doyle's Room will be hosting a tournament on Sunday, January 21, 2007, awarding $11,500 prize packages for the Main Event of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Tournament - to be held in San Jose beginning March 12.

You can either buy-in directly to the qualifier for $105 (with $100 Re-buys up to level four, with $100 add-on at end of level four) or play in the daily $10.50 feeder satellites at 8pm & 10pm ET.

Also, according to Doyle's Room, at the WPT tournament:

This prize-filled WPT tournament has a truly unique feature in which one Bounty with a $5,000 bonus prize is placed at each and every table. Sound familiar? Knock out a celebrity bounty sitting at your table and win $5,000 right there on the spot. Win the whole thing in front of television cameras and win the million dollar first place prize! Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, James Woods, Mimi Rogers, and Jennifer Tilly are some of the notable celebrity bounties scheduled to appear this year.

For more info on the Bay 101 tournament, you can visit their website via the 'read' link below.

(image: Bay101.com)