Tiger Woods is rich enough to refuse $75 Million Paddy Power Poker Sponsorship

Golfer Tiger Woods turned down a $75 million sponsorship offer from the online sports book, casino, and poker site Paddy Power. Paddy Power approached the 14-time major champion with an offer it thought Woods couldn’t refuse. TMZ recounted, “Tiger Woods just blew off a $75 million endorsement offer from an Irish gambling company – and that is how you know you’re rich.” The offer was reportedly for five years, but Woods snobbed the lucrative proposition despite its long-term potential. The news comes one day after five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman became the official celebrity endorser of the Cake Poker Network site Only Poker. Despite being dumped on the first round of negotiations, Paddy Power will apparently return to the bargaining table with another offer, according to TMZ. Paddy Power is a member of the massive iPoker Network, which is the fourth largest worldwide according to the traffic ranking site PokerScout.com. The network does not accept members from the United States.

Despite not accepting action from the populated North American nation, Paddy Power Poker could have used Woods’ recognition around the world to attract customers to its site. Woods has won golf tournaments across Europe, Asia, and Australia in addition to his domination on the links in North America. He’s arguably the most recognizable name in the world of golf.”

 Woods spoke to the media in mid-February about the incident and may return to golf. The Masters, which Woods has won four times, will kick off from Augusta National Golf Course outside of Atlanta on April 6th. He last took down the high-profile tournament in 2005.

Paddy Power Poker has a bevy of promotions taking place, including Cashpoint, whose format is similar to PartyPoker’s Gladiator. Paddy Power Poker players who rack up 100 points for 10 days or more during the month of March are eligible to win cash prizes. The site will take a player’s 10 highest earning point days during the month and match $1 for every 20 points earned on the lowest day. The minimum payout is $5 and players can also qualify for a $2,000 Cashpoint freeroll.

 

Other sites on the massive iPoker Network include bet365, CelebPoker, Chili Poker, Mansion Poker, Noble Poker, Sun Poker, Titan Poker, and William Hill. The publicly traded company Playtech owns and operates the network. Playtech is traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “PTEC.”

 

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EPT Berlin: Armed Robbery Suspends Play

The 2010 PokerStars.net EPT Berlin came to an abrupt halt in the action around 2:30 p.m. local time on Saturday when a group of armed men raided the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin where the tournament is being held. The men were after money and no one was seriously injured in the incident.

People soon noticed that two masked men were fighting with security guards at the opposite end of the hallway. One of the men broke free and began running down the hallway toward the media members with what looked like some sort of weapon in his hand. He was wearing a black winter jacket and a black ski mask. Members of the media ran back to the media room where the group barricaded themselves and stayed until things calmed down.

 

On the other end of the hallway, next to where the men and security were wrestling near the tournament ballroom, mass hysteria ensued. Sam Chartier recalled Johannes Strassmann bursting through the doors back into the room leap frogging chairs and tables and yelling in German. Although Chartier said he couldn't understand what Strassmann was saying because of the language barrier, he noticed that everyone that did understand him was panicking. Tables were flipped so people could hunker behind them while chips flew all over the floor. Players, staff and media in the ballroom took cover and then began frantically making their way to the back corner of the room to an exit.

 

After about 15 minutes of mayhem in the tournament area, things began to settle down while the tournament room itself looked as though a tornado had whipped through it. Hundreds of players, staff and media were scattered in the lobby of the hotel and outside on the streets awaiting confirmation that things were safe. A few people had some minor bumps and bruises from the stampede that tried to exit the room, but no one was seriously injured.

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Carlos “El Matador” Mortensen

Carlos “El Matador” Mortensen has won almost $6 million on the World Poker Tour and dominated the early days of the tour before vanishing into relative obscurity. Over the past three years, Carlos has been quietly grinding out the hours in the poker wilderness, occasionally venturing into the spotlight for a brief cameo before fading into the background again. However, the man who once commanded centre stage in all the major tournaments around the world is back and riding high as he currently tops the chip counts at the WPT LA Poker Classic. A win would earn the Spaniard his third WPT title but the run down to the final won’t be easy as there are some quality players left in the field including Johnny Chan, Annie Duke and online player, Mark “newwhizzle” Newhouse. Indeed, Newhouse is currently poised in second place to clinch his second WPT title. The young player has already undergone a massive swing in fortunes losing his entire bankroll of over $1.5 million in 2007, only to bounce back in recent times with a win in the Pokerstars Sunday Million for $245K. A win here would put him firmly back in the game and allow another major tournament threat back onto the high stakes circuit.
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Poker Players Dream Job

Poker players will be excited to hear that top online poker room Poker Stars if offering their players a chance to become a pro poker player for one year. Poker Stars is offering a poker playing job on the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour for one year.
Poker Stars has stared the Dream Job Australia this month and players can play their choice of the stops on the ANZPT. The player will be sponsored by PokerStars on the tour and this offering is worth $100,000. $40,000 will be applied to tournament entry fees and a monthly salary of $5,000 will be given to the winning player.
Beginning on March 1st, daily free rolls will take place and run from Saturday through Thursday. The tournaments will continue until the 25th. On Fridays the site will be hosting weekly finals. The top eighteen players from the finals will earn a seat to the grand final which will take place on Saturday march 27th.
The grand final will determine the top ten finalists. The finalists of the Dream Job Australia competition will have to take a quiz of their knowledge of the game of poker. they will also be introduced to the Team Poker Stars Australia in Sydney during a tour stop. The players will then spend the next six weeks trying to get support from the poker community to earn votes. The top ten players can blog, tweet and post on facebook to earn votes.
Poker Stars members will then be voting on the winner of the Dream Job Australia contest. Players can vote for their favorite finalist and dedicated tournaments will be held for each finalist. Registration numbers count as a vote so the player who has the most registrations will win the twelve month Poker Stars contract
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World Poker Tour Los Angeles Poker Classic Day 2

Salvatore Deluca is the chip leader with 431,000, two Team PokerStars Pros are the ones stealing the spotlight. Daniel Negreanu ended the day in third position overall, with 316,500 and Vanessa Rousso finished the day in sixth with 221,000. Two hands in particular boosted Negreanu to a power spot. According to Negreanu's blog, the first saw him get tricky and raise it up in early position with .
He got called by two players and then they all saw a flop, turning Negreau's hand into a possible monster. Negreanu led out for 3,500, getting a fold from one opponent, and the player in the big blind raised it up about 6,000 more. Negreanu then bumped the action up even more, raising it another 15,000 before his opponent immediately announced he was all-in.
Negreanu called, and his opponent rolled over the , which was in the lead at the time. The four on the turn, however, was good to Negreanu, as was the on the river Negreanu scalped another player with the board reading and about 50,000 in the pot, and fired another 40,000. His opponent, Benjamin Zamani made the call only to see Negreanu show him for quads.
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World Poker Tour

Day 1 of the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic main event got underway Friday afternoon, and although he is second to last in chips after the day, Gavin Smith was the day's biggest winner. Smith, along with Joe Sebok and Jeff Madsen had a prop bet riding on how the three finished.
The first player eliminated would have to get tattoos of the faces of the other two while the second player to bust would only need to get a tattoo of the face of the last man standing. Sebok was the first to go when his pocket aces were cracked during the third level. It was Madsen, who was still riding high after his win at Borgata earlier this month, who busted next. There were a few buy-out discussions, meaning Sebok and Madsen could pay their way out of the tattoos, but it seems as if both are ready to go though with the shenanigans. A very happy Smith mentioned on his Twitter page that he got cold-decked during the final level of play and will start tomorrow with only 4,350 chips. As for the tournament itself, it was Masa Kagawa and Mark Seif who finished the day one and two respectively, both with over 120,000.
They will lead the 463 remaining players into Saturday's day two. With a total field of 745 players, the LA Poker Classic will be paying 72 spots, with first place paying 1,788,001, and second place paying $1,002,710. With a majority of the poker community on the West Coast for the month-long series at the Commerce Casino, another slew of notables made the quick trip from Las Vegas following the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Venetian. Some of the bigger names who made it through day one were Shawn Buchanan, David Singer, Marco Johnson, Robert Mizrachi, Kimmy Fricke,Paul Wasicka and Team PokerStars Pros Darus Suharto and Vanessa Rousso. Joining Sebok and Madsen on the rail Friday were last year's LA Poker Classic winner Cornel Andrew Cimpan, Team PokerStars Pro Peter Eastgate, Andy Bloch, Scott Seiver and Jonathan LIttle.
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Merge Gaming will grow 6x by August

will be one of the world’s top 10 poker sites by early 2011. The company recently attracted Sportsbook.com-owner Jazette Enterprises to move its Sportsbook.com, PlayersOnly.com and Superbook.com brands to the Merge Gaming network from the Cake network. Liquidity will grow four-fold as a result of the deal, Taylor said, with further growth via new clients attracted to the network by its increased liquidity.
Taylor told EGRmagazine.com: “We aim to be among the top 10 poker sites in the world this time next year. Sportsbook.com and the other Jazette brands will give us a huge liquidity boost and we are confident that in combination with our leading software this will attract further clients to the network that will enable that growth to snowball.” Other poker brands on the Merge Gaming poker network including Aced, Bluff Room, Carbon Poker, Poker Nordica and Iron Duke; with PokerFantasy having joined the network last month. All this is going to be true? Speaking figures like Anthony Taylor doesn't make you one of the the top 10 automatically.
Having the liquidity to back up your plans means something for sure but is not the exclusive tool to be successful in online poker business.
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Full Tilt players raided by FBI

FBI agents turning up in Washington state, raiding homes and interviewing FTP players. Is the US government preparing the first use of the UIGEA by persecuting prosecuting the world’s second largest online gambling operator? Reports on the popular twoplustwo poker forum say that small-time players have received unannounced visits from FBI agents inquiring as to their transactions with Full Tilt.
The agents are saying that they are not looking to prosecute the players, but rather to gather information on Full Tilt, indicating the building of a federal case against the online poker operator. While the forum's reasoning based on the facts is purely speculative, the situation seems to lead to certain logical conclusions.
The setting of the investigation in Washington is a key, as the state is one of very few with a law against online poker. Courts have found that the UIGEA only penalizes violators of existing gambling laws, which means that online gambling operators accepting Washington residents would fall under the prohibition's purview. Further, Washington allows prosecution against patrons of Internet gaming as a felony, a legal leverage that may help investigators coerce cooperation from reluctant gamblers. Courts investigating Internet gambling operations in other jurisdictions have had trouble persuading participants to testify. The UIGEA is set to begin implementation on June 1st, unless
Congress acts before then to change or repeal the law. Barney Frank is leading an effort to regulate online gambling before the implementation date for the UIGEA comes to pass. However, if the US does implement the online gambling ban, a prosecution of Full Tilt could prove disastrous to the poker company. Even though the violations may be specific to Washington and that state's law, the Department of Justice could use that opening to create such financial and legal trouble as to force Full Tilt out of the US gaming market.
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