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Doyle Brunson – Captain America
Doyle Brunson, the beloved Godfather of Poker, the Texas Dolly, and the official face of DoylesRoom Poker now just added another moniker to his ever-growing list—Captain. As in Captain Doyle Brunson of Team USA.
Team USA, now captained by the Texas Dolly himself, is one of the competing teams in World Team Poker, in which country is pitted against country for an international title and worldwide bragging rights. A worldwide poker league, World Team Poker features a variety of international teams, each representing a country, with each team composed of 4 poker pros plus one alternate, and of course the captain. Wearing the red, white, and blue at the year’s World Poker League events will be Captain Doyle Brunson of Team USA.
As teams battle it out during regular season league poker tournaments, the Captain has the perogative of substituting out players at any time.
The kickoff event of the 2010 World Poker League season takes place at the Golden Nugget on May 19. The tournament has a $50,000 buy-in and play will shift from Limit to Pot Limit to No Limit Hold’em. At each transition, Captain Doyle can switch out players as he sees fit. That makes Captaining a World Team Poker league game a whole new strategic experience in and of itself.
Meanwhile, on Doyle Brunson’s continuing quest to fill all the slots in his Brunson 10, the hand-selected team of online poker sensations represnting Doyles Room Poker in various major tournaments, online and off, there are currently 6 members and counting, with 4 left out there still to find. Doyle claims he’ll have all ten spots in the Brunson 10 filled by the end of 2010. I wonder if Doyle will recruit sponsored players from some of the other top poker sites online or if he will stick to his closer knit circle of poker playing friends?
CarbonPoker and a 100k Freeroll Tournament
Carbon Poker will be hosting a $100,000 freeroll tournament with the first place winner receiving a guaranteed $20,000 cash. Not too shabby for a freeroll tournament!
Carbon Poker is giving its players all 4 shots at getting in on the $100K Freeroll action:
The first option is through one of CarbonPoker’s five Daily Freeroll Qualifiers running through May 28. These are considered Step 1 Qualifiers that seed the top performing players into a Step 2 Qualifier taking place on Saturday, May 29 in which the top 500 performing players will move on to the $100K Freeroll Main Event.
The second option is to make a cash depsosit before May 29 using bonus code “100MAYPK” and receive, on top of a 100% match/reload bonus up to $500 you also get a free seat in a $100K Depositor Qualifier running May 29 from which the top 500 players will advance to the $100K Freeroll Main Event.
The third option are the $100K Player Qualifiers running til May 29. These are Turbo MTTs with VIP Points as buy-ins (either 500 VIP Points to buy-in directly or 150 VIP Points for each of two consecutive days) running three times daily, capping the player pool at 2,250 and advancing, depending on the qualifier, from 10 – 25 players to the $100K Freeroll Main Event.
Or you can skip all that and go the fourth route which is to simply earn 45,000 VIP Points between April 15 and May 29 to get your $100K Freeroll Main Event seat. The $100K Freeroll Main Event takes place on Sunday, May 30 and there is absolutely no direct buy-in for this event. Just download CarbonPoker.com (it’s on the Merge software which is really good) and create your account, pick one of the four ways to qualify for this event.
This is the biggest of Carbon Poker’s guaranteed tournaments, but far from the only one. CarbonPoker offers an ongoing schedule of multi-table online poker tournaments with a wide range of enticing guaranteed prize pools.
FullTilt’s FTOPS vs PokerStars WCOOP
Full Tilt poker and PokerStars.com battle one another for online tournament players, and arguably these two sites put together the two most popular online poker tournament series during the year, the FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) and the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker). Let’s take a look at these two tournament series compared to one another.
The Full Tilt Poker FTOPS IX
Here are the lean mean details on the Full Tilt Poker FTOPS IX Series
- Starts August 6th
- 24 Events Total
- $15 Million in Prize Pools Guaranteed
- Largest Buy-ins = $2500
- Smallest Buy-In = $120+9 “Knock Out tourney at the end of the series, most events are $200
- Satellites start at $50+5 to events currently, more expected soon.
- Blind Times range from 10 minutes to 30 minute rounds.
Poker Stars WCOOP
Here are the lean mean details on the Poker Stars WCOOP, aka the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker.
- Starts September 5th
- 33 events total
- $30 Million in prize pools guaranteed
- Largest buy in = $25,000, this is a special high roller Heads up Poker tournament with 1.6 mill guaranteed! Sick!
- Also a $10,300 NL hold em main event for the non heads up tourney.
- Smallest buy in = $215
- Satellites start at $2.20
- Satellites also from FPP’s.
- Steps satellite system, win a seat through a series of steps sattelites.
- Winners win a WCOOP Bracelet
- 30 minute blinds across the series
PokerStars WCOOP or FullTilt’s FTOPS?
The choice is really up to you, the debate rages constantly about which is the better place to play online poker, PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker, but in this comparison of the FTOPS vs WCOOP I’m going for PokerStars and the WCOOP. That is even with the recent criticism by online poker players about the new tournament payout structure that PokerStars implemented where they award more money to a larger portion of the field and not as top heavy as a typical poker tournament. Argue that as you may, the fact that I was quickly and easily able to find a ton of cheap PokerStars satellites into the WCOOP and the Full Tilt Poker satellites were $50 bucks, a fourth of the initial buy-in itself which doesn’t seem that great of a satellite to me. It is possible that they just do not yet have any satellites listed in the Full Tilt Poker lobby for the FTOPS series yet, but they should have. One other thing is to make sure you use a valid PokerStars.com marketing code if you are going to sign up so you maximize your bonus.
This Comparison Winner goes to: PokerStars.com
Sites Accepting e checks
Poker Sites Accepting US Players e Checks
If you are a poker player from the USA, you probably know that your deposit options can be somewhat limited. There has been a move to using e checks to play online poker. This is a list of internet poker rooms accepting e check for instant deposit.
- PokerStars.com echecks is probably the quickest way to deposit online other than a credit card (which is limited to only a few credit card poker sites). If you use echeck to deposit at PokerStars you will get a 100% bonus up to $50 by using the bonus code first2008 (valid through Dec 31st, 2008).
- Bodog Poker – If you already have an account at Bodog you can utilize echecks but they are not yet available for brand new players at Bodog. If you are new and wanting to play at Bodog you are going to have to utilize a credit card, cash transfer, or some other options available in the cashier. Current bodog real account holders can utilize echecks for instant deposit online poker.
Poker Stars is also now proud to have their online poker and mac compatible software.
Full Tilt Poker’s Deep Stack NL Holdem
Surfing around FullTiltPoker.com’s lobby the other day I noticed some blind levels that I hadn’t seen before at the no limit texas holdem cash tables.
There were tables offering $0.15 / $0.30 blinds.
The cool thing about these tables is that these are a deep stack buy in table, the max buy-in is $60, or 200 times the big blind. Consider that the normal max buy in for the .25/.50c table is $50, or 100 times the big blind, this deep stack table offers something that the other big poker rooms do not offer right now, and that is smaller staked, deep stack no limit texas holdem cash games.
Full Tilt Poker No Limit Holdem
I have only played at these deep tables in the in the 6 man variety, aka short handed play, although they do offer full 9 man tables.
I’ve only been playing at these deep stack no limit tables for a month or so and so far, so good! Weak players, putting in large sums of money on the flop with way bad hands… This lets you take advantage of weak players who will go way to far with top pair on dangerous flops.
They also offer other stakes of these ‘deep stack’ tables including $0.40/$0.80 deep stack, $0.75/$1.5, and up from there. All of these tables offer 200 x the big blind buy-in’s.
Visit FullTiltPoker.com and Play Now (100% match bonus up to $600).
Full Tilt Poker Referral Code: KICKASSPOKER