Dan Smith looking for a clean sweep in Player of Year races

Since Bluff Magazine started their Player of the Year award back in 2005, only one poker player has managed to win both the Bluff and Cardplayer POY award in the same year, John Phan in 2008. Now there is a third entity in the Player of the Year business, the Global Poker Index (GPI), and in the very first year that three POY trophies will be awarded it looks as if one man will walk away with all three, Dan Smith.

Smith is leading Marvin Rettenmaier in the Bluff race by nearly 200 points (1,288 to 1,090); Smith has a nearly 1,000 point lead over Kyle Julius in the Cardplayer standings (4,625 to 3,752); and leads Julius by over 100 points on the GPI (1,044 to 906).

Massive rake drop in Limit games on the Merge Gaming Network

One way to attract new customers is by charging less for your product or service, and this is precisely what the Merge Gaming Network has done with their announcement that they would be altering their rake structure for low- and mid-stakes Fixed Limit games on the site, resulting in a drop of up to 50% in rake.

The changes to the rake structure adopted by the Merge Gaming Network are identical to the structure used by PokerStars and according to the announcement on 2+2, the changes to the rake put Merge “…in a position to offer some of the best value fixed limit games, in relation to any of our competitors…”

For a look at the new rake structure you can visit Merge’s flagship site Carbon Poker: http://www.carbonpoker.ag/support/FAQ/rake.html

October Nine approaching fast

The 2012 World Series of Poker final table is sneaking up on us this year, with the players set to return to the Rio to play for the biggest prize in poker. The nine remaining players will be back in action on October 28th, and here is how they will stack-up against one another:

* Seat 1: Russell Thomas – 24,800,000

* Seat 2: Jacob Balsiger – 13,115,000

* Seat 3: Jeremy Ausmus – 9,805,000

* Seat 4: Steven Gee – 16,860,000

* Seat 5: Greg Merson – 28,725,000

* Seat 6: Jesse Sylvia – 43,875,000

* Seat 7: Robert Salaburu – 15,155,000

* Seat 8: Andras Koroknai – 29,375,000

* Seat 9: Michael Esposito – 16,260,000

Poker Book wish-list

If you’re looking for the perfect gift for the man who has everything you could do worse than picking-up this poker book: A first edition, first printing, signed, leather-bound, copy of How I Made $1,000,000 Playing Poker by Doyle Brunson (this was the original title of Super System).

My favorite part of the book is the dedication, which dates the book to the late 1970’s, “May the flop be with you, Doyle Brunson”.

So if anyone wants to purchase it for me as a gift you can pick it up for a mere $3,500 (plus $7 for shipping): http://www.biblio.com/books/485482654.html

Tags: Ausmus, Balsiger, Bluff Magazine, Carbonpoker, cardplayer, Clean Sweep, Flagship, Gaming Network, Gpi, John Phan, Kyle Julius, Marvin, October 28th, Poker Player, Rake, Rettenmaier, Russell Thomas, Support Faq, World Series of Poker, World Series of Poker Final Table

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2012 at 7:46 am and is filed under Live Poker News, Online Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.