The promotion started Tuesday with the first of the Main Event Semifinal tournaments, which are scheduled to take place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays each week. Bodog Poker is guaranteeing at least three $12,000 Main Event prize packages a week through the Semifinal tournaments.
The prize package includes the $10,000 buy-in to the Main Event, $2,000 for travel expenses, loads of Team Bodog gear and the chance to experience Las Vegas in Bodog style.
There are also seats up for grabs through Bodog Poker's weekly Player's Choice tournaments.
The poker site is expecting to add even more Main Event Semifinal tournaments to the schedule during the coming months, building up to a total of more than 120 Bodog players who will get a shot at millions of dollars in the WSOP Main Event.
Players looking to secure their spot in the Main Event at Bodog Poker can do so for as little as $1 or 100 points. Qualifiers are running daily, and all qualifiers lead to the three weekly Main Event Semifinal tournaments.
The Semifinals are scheduled for:
- Tuesdays at 7:15 p.m.
- Thursdays at 9:15 p.m.
- Saturdays at 3:15 p.m.
(All times are EST.)
The buy-in for the Semifinal events is $250+$20.
The 2008 World Series of Poker kicks off at the end of May at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and the Main Event is scheduled for July 3-15.
Visit Bodog Poker for more information and to get in on the poker fun.
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FTOPS VII: Pros picking up the pace
Event 2
First up for the day was the Pot-Limit Omaha Knockout event hosted by Ben Roberts. Proving that Omaha is fast growing in popularity as well, 1,183 poker players anted up for the event boosting the $100,000 guaranteed prize pool up to $236,600.
The event paid out to 136 places, and this time several familiar names made it into the cash. Scott Fischman was the highest placing pro, busting out in 12th place for a $2,011.10 win. Steve Zolotow, Aaron Bartley and Andy Bloch also cashed.
Claiming the top spot, however, was urbestm8 for a $52,052 win.
The top 10 players were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | urbestm8 | $52,052 |
| 2nd | KudelyKQ | $33,124 |
| 3rd | SKILLET79 | $23,955.75 |
| 4th | Fbonacci | $19,223.75 |
| 5th | Sigi Stockinger | $14,503.58 |
| 6th | handsy05 | $10,647 |
| 7th | mi2GOb4islEp | $6,861.40 |
| 8th | APINCHBETTER | $4,968.60 |
| 9th | euro930 | $3,549 |
| 10th | Plz_Stop_Lookin | $2,011.10 |
Event 3
Later on Thursday Andy Bloch hosted the $500+$35 H.O.R.S.E. event for the multi-game poker players out there, or those just looking to give it a try. By the time the cards were being dealt, 623 players were in the game and there was a $311,500 prize pool on the line.
After cashing in the Pot-Limit Omaha game earlier, Bloch didn't have as much luck in his own event. He didn't make the cash, but Farzad Bonyadi made it all the way to 15th for some money, and Bill Edler made it to the 25th spot for some cash.
With 64 places getting paid, the coveted first-place spot went to WCJOKER. For the win, he takes home $72,236.85.
The top 10 players were:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | WCJOKER | $72,236.85 |
| 2nd | DontBluffMePLZZ | $47,503.75 |
| 3rd | Ram33 | $33,019 |
| 4th | FLOPSUCKER | $21,182 |
| 5th | BlackJackLeak | $13,083 |
| 6th | Jens Voertmann | $9,033.50 |
| 7th | madmaddog | $6,853 |
| 8th | MerkMerkMerk | $4,672.50 |
| 9th | SpaceDaze | $3,270.75 |
| 10th | peanut2006 | $4,370.75 |
Next up in the Full Tilt Poker series, which is promising $10 million in guaranteed prize pools, is the $200+$16 Pot Limit Hold'em event hosted by Gus Hansen and the $200+$16 Limit Hold'em six-max hosted by Clonie Gowen.
Hansen's event has a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool and started at 2 p.m. (EST). Gowen's event has a $150,000 guaranteed prize pool and starts at 9 p.m. (EST).
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Sheikhan uninvited from LAPD poker tournament
Shahram ‘Sheiky’ Sheikhan won’t be appearing as planned at an upcoming LAPD charity poker event, according to a story published today by PokerHelper.com. Sheikhan, whose possible deportation from the US due to past charges of sexual misconduct made news a few months ago, has ��...full article
Shahram ‘Sheiky’ Sheikhan won’t be appearing as planned at an upcoming LAPD charity poker event, according to a story published today by PokerHelper.com. Sheikhan, whose possible deportation from the US due to past charges of sexual misconduct made news a few months ago, has been been the subject of renewed media attention recently due to his appearance on Poker After Dark.
Sheikhan’s invitation by the LAPD to play in the event brought criticism from some corners. That criticism apparently resulted in either the LAPD retracting the invite or Sheikhan declining.
The Poker Boom Part 1: Where it all began
When the "poker boom" started, conventional wisdom said it was a fad, a diversion people would abandon when something else new and shiny came along. Six years later, it's clear that poker's appeal was grossly underestimated.
One major indicator of the strength of poker as a North American cultural phenomenon is the prevalence of poker on television. Though its death knell has been rung many times by people inside and outside the game, televised poker is still going strong today.
Sure, plenty of niche programs have come and gone (Celebrity Poker Showdown, anyone?). But that's the nature of the television industry. The fact is, we've reached the point where there are now familiar programs that aren't going anywhere.
NBC has the annual National Heads-Up Invitational and Poker After Dark. ESPN has nonstop reruns of what sometimes feels like the last 412 years of the World Series of Poker. The Travel Channel has the World Poker Tour - until the show jumps ship at the end of the season for GSN, which is already home to High Stakes Poker.
If you'd bet that poker would be so omnipresent back in 2002, chances are that even the poker world's most devoted denizens would have given you pretty long odds.
ESPN had been airing one-hour specials from the WSOP final table on and off since the 1980s, while Fox Sports Net showed Late Night Poker, an import from Britain taped in a studio without an audience.
Those shows didn't have the sense of spectacle and drama that have become ingrained in today's televised poker. In some cases, they also lacked some of the basic on-screen information we take for granted today, such as graphics with the current blinds and pot size.
So how, given where poker was in 2002, did it reach its current heights? The trail goes back to two television shows from 2003.
A little lipstick goes a long way
Talk with World Poker Tour Enterprises CEO Steve Lipscomb, and you might get the impression that he thinks he is to poker what some will tell you Al Gore thinks he is to the Internet: the man who gave it to the world he loves so much.
While Lipscomb may not have invented the game, he did bring several things to the table in 2002 that hadn't previously been in play.
While the WPT wasn't the first poker show to reveal hole cards to its viewers - Late Night Poker got that down before the WPT existed by using cameras under glass plates built into the table - it was was, the first series to use the "lipstick cam," a tiny video camera built into the table in front of a player's seat.
The WPT's lipstick cams gave viewers the drama of watching a player peel his cards back to reveal a hand worth moving all-in on.
#img: mike-sexton-and-vince-van-patten_3346.jpg: left:The WPT's crack commentating team.#
Having information about the hole cards available made it possible to use a play-by-play and color announcer team - in this case, Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten - to give viewers insight into the strategic mind-set of a poker pro.
The presentation was in sharp contrast to poker shows that had come before it, making the WPT stand out to viewers.
They play poker in Costa Rica?
International players had been coming to the WSOP for years, but up until 2002, nobody had organized a tour to bring high-stakes tournaments to them. When the WPT came to town, the seeds of a burgeoning international poker scene were sown.
Though many of its events took place in the United States, the first season of the tour gave American viewers a glimpse of a wide world of poker that many of them had had no idea existed.
They discovered for the first time that players with names like Jose Rosenkrantz were playing poker in steamy Central America, that sunny Caribbean islands made for great gambling destinations, or that there were cruise ships plying international waters while their passengers were check-raising each other.
And now, a word from our sponsor
The WPT also served as a platform for online poker rooms to advertise their services to what had been up to then a mostly untapped market.
Two events from the WPT's first season were sponsored by online poker rooms UltimateBet and PartyPoker, neither of which was particularly well-known at the time. (It's worth noting that no WPT events today are sponsored by online poker rooms.)
Episodes of the WPT's first season shown in 2003 were regularly drawing 900,000 viewers a night despite the fact that the Travel Channel wasn't available in all areas. The audience would grow even larger on Super Bowl Sunday in 2004, when NBC broadcast the WPT's "Battle of the Champions" episode opposite the FOX network's Super Bowl pre-game show.
Despite the competition, the NBC broadcast drew an estimated 10 million viewers, who watched Ron Rose best five of the tour's first-season champs in a single-table tournament.
It's easy to speculate that the number of WPT viewers signing up for a PartyPoker account after seeing the show was substantial in relation to the number of players already logged in. The influx of new players helped give the site a reputation as home to some of the loosest poker games on the planet, a big factor in boosting the room's traffic over the next few years.
ESPN revisits the WSOP
The WPT wasn't alone in giving the world a new impression of poker in 2003. ESPN chose the same year to expand its annual coverage of the Main Event. Previous ESPN coverage, which had run on and off since 1988, had been limited to the final table and had never lasted more than two episodes.
In 2003, 10 episodes covered the Main Event in its entirety. Instead of only seeing the last stage, viewers were introduced to the entire scope of the tournament. Today's WSOP broadcasts feature preliminary bracelet event final tables in addition to coverage of the Main Event.
Much like the WPT, the new WSOP broadcast featured hole-card cams that gave viewers the information they needed to play armchair quarterback. Also present were the announcing duo of Lon MacEachern and Norman Chad. MacEachern had participated in the 2002 WSOP broadcast, but Chad (and his ex-wife jokes) was new to the show.
The two have since become fixtures of the network's WSOP coverage every year.
I wanna be a Moneymaker too
#img: chris-moneymaker_2401.jpg: left: I am the Moneymaker.#
While the expanded coverage of the WSOP was important to the growth of poker, the lasting impact on the game came from the man who emerged triumphant that year. Chris Moneymaker, an accountant and amateur online poker player from Tennessee, had a story that resonated with the masses.
Not only had he conquered an enormous tournament field of more experienced competition, but he had won his seat in an online satellite at PokerStars.
Moneymaker's improbable triumph over the largest field in WSOP history would prove to be an important catalyst in expanding the game beyond the realm of rounders and veterans.
The image of an amateur player decked out in his mirror shades and baseball cap, pumping two fistfuls of cash in the air, was powerful. It convinced every Average Joe in America that they, too, could pull off bluffs against the likes of Sammy Farha.
What the average person didn't have was the $10,000 to buy a seat at the table. Luckily, the online poker rooms were more than willing to help them find the cash to get in on the game.
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Red Kings to sponsor next Global Gaming event
"For many serious online poker players, their online poker community is a second home," said Michael Golembo, of Red Kings Poker. "A little rivalry between forums really builds community so we're happy to get involved by donating great prizes."
The Red Kings events will include a freeroll on Feb. 16 at 3 p.m. EST, which will dish out $1,000 plus $500 in winning country and forum prizes.
On Feb. 17, the poker site will host a $5+50¢ tournament at 3 p.m. (EST). Red Kings Poker will add $3,000 to the prize pool, plus the site will give out $1,000 in winning country and forum prizes.
"As the premier facilitator of intercontinental and multi-forum events, we are very happy to be working with Red Kings," said Jason Rosenberg, Global Gaming Events owner. "We are excited to see which country will win the competition."
To be eligible for the Red Kings event, players must first have an account at the poker site. Then they must pre-register at GlobalGamingEvents.com by 3 p.m. (EST) on Feb. 13.
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