Lots of great stuff last week in case you missed it. First up are the tales of two major poker software upgrades that haven’t been going to plans. First Ongame’s P5 platform upgrade that has resulted in a net loss of customers and then Full Tilt’s extended problems after doing a major upgrade.
Next up were rumors that bwin might be in the market to purchase the WPT and some pics from my short holiday down in Pattaya.
Although I didn’t write about it in a post Sunday seemed to be a bigger penis contest between Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars with each competing to hold a tournament that would shatter the previous Guinness World Record of 35,000 players in a single online tournament. Soon after Full Tilt announced that they were going to attempt to knock down the record held by PokerStars, Stars fired back and decided to not only attempt to outdo whatever Full Tilt was planning but they were going to stick it to Tilt and hold their record breaking attempt on the same day. Stars even waived the tournament fee to make their tournament more lucrative. Whoever thinks that the battle at the top of the poker hierarchy isn’t cut-throat needs to think again.
In the end, it seems Tilt may have made a fatal mistake when it decided to cap the number of players at 50,000. Stars capped their tournament at 65,000 players and held on to their record.
Most of the time online poker sites try to stay out of each others way. If Poker Site A is running a promotion the first week of August many other sites will back off from doing anything especially big that week. They might take little pot shots here and there but very seldom do you see a public bitch-slap like this.
On can only speculate whether or not this is the beginning of a feud between Stars and Tilt that might spill over into other areas. What if they begin putting the WCOOP and FTOPS head to head with each other?
Over at Poker Job Search we had a windfall of new jobs listed.
Data Centre Operations Manager – Online Poker
Country Manager – France – Online Poker
Polish Speaking CSR – Online Casino/Poker
Creative Consultant
Belgium Marketing Executive
Dutch Marketing Executive
Swedish Community Manager – Poker
English Community Manager – Poker
Community Manager Team Leader – Poker
Russian Community Manager – Poker
Data Analyst
Product Manager – Security
Over at Rakeback Report we have some new stories up:
Bigger First Deposit Bonus at PKR
Paradise Series of Poker 2009 – £10,000 ADDED
$25K GTD Sniper Hold’em at Absolute Poker
I’ve also started work on a new website called Flop The Nuts Poker which is focused on providing information about live poker events that have online qualifiers.
Some upcoming live events just posted last week include:
Ultimate Bet 2009 Aruba Poker Classic
Ladbrokes Irish Poker Festival – 2nd to 4th October 2009
Asian Poker Tour
Photocred to txd
Related posts:
- The Week That Was July 6 – July 13 A very interesting week. WSOP well into the grind...
- The Week That Was June 29 – July 6 Last week I made some comments about celebrities dropping like...
- The Week That Was July 26 – Aug 2 A busy, busy week here so let’s jump right...
- The Week That Was July 21 – 26 What a wild week. Tons to report here. Bill’s...
- The Week That Was It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas here...
| Site | Rackback | Sign Up Bonus | US |
| Absolute Poker | 30% | 150% up to $500 |  |
| Ultimate Bet | 30% | 111% up to $1100 | |
| Cake Poker | 33% | 110% up to $600 | |
| PKR Poker | 30% | 100% up to $800 | |
| Paradise Poker | 30% | 200% up to €1,000 | |
| Players Only | 33% | 100% up to $650 | |
| Fortune Poker | 30% | 200% up to €1,000 | |
| Betfair | 30% | $1500 | |
| Aced | 30% | 100% up to $500 | |
| Poker Heaven | 30% | 200% up to €1000 | |
| Poker Nordica | 30% | 100% up to $200 | |
| Carbon Poker | 30% | 150% up to $1000 | |
| Red Star Poker | 33% | 110% up to $600 | |
| True Poker | 27% | 100% up to $200 | |
| Action Poker | 35% | 100% up to $2500 | |
| Cellsino Poker | 40% | 500% up to $500 | |
| Minted Poker | 40% | 100% up to $400 | |
| Power Poker | 33% | 110% up to $600 | |
| Interpoker | 30% | 200% up to €1000 | |
| Doyles Room | 33% | 110% up to $600 | |
| Gutshot Poker | 33% | 110% up to $600 | |
| Full Tilt Poker | 27% | 100% up to $600 | |
| Fat Bet Poker | 40% | 1000% up to €500 | |
| NoiQ Poker | 30% | 100% up to €5000 |
| Site | Rake Race | Rake Chase | Freeroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doyle's Room | $35,000 | ||
| Cereus Poker Network* | $7,500 | $10,000 | $10,000** |
| Cake Poker | $60,000 | ||
| Party Poker*** | $50,000 | ||
| Red Star | $23,000 | ||
| Eurobet*** | $21,000 | ||
| Players Only | $16,400 | ||
| Tower Gaming*** | $15,000 | ||
| Full Tilt Poker | $10,000 | ||
| Carbon Poker | $12,000 | ||
| Betfair Poker | $12,000 | ||
| Boss Media Network**** | $5,000 | ||
| Cellsino Poker | $5,000 | ||
| Power Poker | $5,000 | ||
| Poker Nordica | $5,000 | ||
| NoIQ | €1,500 |
* Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet (UB) ** May not be available to all players *** Poker Heaven, Fortune Poker, InterPoker, Paradise Poker
Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
{ 0 comments… add one now }