I managed to make the money for a min cash, meaning I got the table time I felt I needed anyhow, so I guess we can call that a small success.

I played Day1A as I tend to do at €550 events, it keeps the expenses down should I bust and means a refreshed start for Day2 should I make that; so it’s win-win.

My table on Day1 had some very good players. Ross Johnson impressed and EPT London second Stephen O’Dwyer seemed decent, although one player stole the show. W

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Apart from the WSOP, the big buy-in live tournament circuit is and always was dominated by two acronyms: WPT and EPT.

In today’s poker infographic we take a closer look at the world’s two biggest traveling poker tours to see which one is truly the greatest.

We’ve got head-to-head comparisons up top and a running timeline as you scroll down the image.

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As Day 3 got underway at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, three players faced the indignity of falling short of the 72 man tournament bubble worth $15,000.

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888 Ladies Bingo has an unusual 75 ball online bingo game coming up at their site called ‘£1,000 Risk-Free Detox’. Now the reason that this game is unlike any normal 75 ball bingo game, is because if you are not lucky enough to win, then they will give you 50% of the money you spent on their bingo cards back as a bingo bonus.

Now we don’t think the title of this promo fits as well as it could because strictly speaking it isn’t risk-free, as you still lose 50% of your wager, but even so it does make a nice change to earn some of your losses back.

This bingo game will be taking place at 9.00pm on Sunday 29th of January at 888 Ladies. The winn

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The new advert carries the same theme and shows the farmer and his wife in the kitchen with three hens on boxes on the table. The wife reveals that she and her husband have been supplying 32Red with fresh bingo numbers for several years as the hens produce large amounts of bingo balls into glass bowls.

The farmer advertises the fact that 32Red Bingo was recently awarded for outstanding player support and promotes the bingo site’s amazing GBP 10 free welcome bonus offer and huge selection of online games.

New players signing up at 32RedBingo are being awarded a GBP 10 bingo bonus for free and a 100% bonus with their initial deposit. 32R

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Just one week from now marks the beginning of one of the years biggest tournaments, the 2012 Aussie Millions. Based at Crown Casino in Melbourne Aussie Millions features not only a prestigious $10,000 buy-in Main Event, but a multitude of compelling side events. Action kicks off on Thursday the 12th, with opening event offering a $1,100 deep stack tournament, with three available flights on separate days.

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Michael Brunker gives a bit of press for UB issues. Image from msnbc.msn.com

One part of what I gave Mike that he couldnt find space for is how much I support Alan Engles and the aggrieved players discovery efforts I can only stress that Id have done something like this myself if I thought I had proper legal standing as a UB player, but I played on UB and AP only for a brief period at smaller stakes, and probably wasnt directly cheated.  Im not sure what they can uncover, but I applaud the effort and will help them where I can.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) announced Tuesday that it was adding a new Main Event to the current Season X schedule, the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.  The $3,500 buy-in tournament is scheduled for February 10th through February 14th.

While the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel is a new venue on the World Poker Tour, this will not be the first time a WPT event has been held there.  The debut WPT event at the casino, the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, was just this past April during Season IX.  Taylor Von Kriegenbergh prevailed in the $10,000 touranment, besting 422 opponents to win over $1.1 million.  The WPT Regional Series was also held at the casino in both November and December.

Unlike many World Poker Tour final tables, the WPT Lucky Hearts final table will not be televised, but it can still be seen via live streaming on the World Poker Tour website.

This new Main Event is now the fourth in WPT Season X in the state of Florida, joining WPT Jacksonville (November 2011), the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown (April 2012), and the second running of WPT Jacksonville (April-May 2012).  Since the state lifted its harsh restrictions on live poker games in 2010, Florida has seen more and more action from tournament organizers and cash game players alike.  While the southeastern United States still has a ways to go to be considered truly poker friendly, players in the region now have a number of viable options.

The World Poker Tour just completed a string of tournaments in December.  Prague was the stop during the first week of the month as 571 players ponied up €3,500 for their shot at the €450,000.  Russias Andrey Pateychuk took it down, using one heck of a run of luck to win his second major title of the year.  Immediately following WPT Prague, James Dempsey won the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, beating 412 opponents and winning $821,612.  Finally, this weekend saw the conclusion of the €3000 + €300 WPT Venice, held at the Casino di Venezia.  Edoardo Alescio made his first live tournament cash a big one, as he won the event and took the first prize of €194,000.

The World Poker Tour is taking a short break for the holidays and will resume on January 5th with WPT Ireland at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin.  The Tour will then head back to Venice in February for the WPT Venice Grand Prix before going back to the States for the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open.

PCA Super-High-Roller

The 2012 PCA began with the $100k buy-in Super-High-Roller event which drew 29 players (down just three players from last years tournament).

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Rules state that ten changes are allowed in a Rugby World Cup year over and above international retirements (Lewis Moody, Jonny Wilkinson, Steve Thompson) and long-term injuries (Andrew Sheridan and Richard Wigglesworth) and Lancaster has used every last one of them.

The England squad will meet for their pre-RBS 6 Nations training camp on Monday, January 23 where no doubt they will all start to get used to each other.

Lancaster said: Lots of players have been putting their hands up and there were some tough calls to make. H

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It may be a cliché, but it certainly seems like the French know how to protest.

As with their international compatriots, French players organized a mass-sitout on January 1 to protest changes to the rake calculation model and VIP system. Although PokerStars.fr players have had success with such demonstrations in the past, this time PS representatives were ready, locking accounts and reducing table limits for players sitting out and blocking action.

But that has not deterred the demonstrators. Over

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In our many years of poker observation we’ve learned never to make flat-out statements about poker skill – and that goes doubly for crossover sports stars like Sergio Garcia.

The Spanish professional golfer is among the 188 players left in the 2012 PCA main event with a stack of 104,500 in chips, though, which is tilting the scales subtly in favor of at least the possibility of Garcia’s poker prowess.

So while it’s unquestionably true Sergio Garcia is good at golf, the most we’ll say is that he be good at poker.

If you want evidence, consider that one year ago Garcia also played in the PCA main event but lasted just a few short levels on his Day 1 heat.

This year he’s managed to advance to Day 3 in the same tournament.

That’s three times as far at least, indicating to us that he’s at least three times as good as he was in 2011.

He hasn’t increased his speed much, according to a few reports from his table, but we’ll give him a pass on that as that’s how he plays golf too.

“Any time you try do something at a high level it’s going to be tough and there are going to be some similarities,” Sergio told us when we spoke to him a year ago.

“There’s a huge mental game in both and it’s important to have mental strength,” he said.

While it is true that Sergio Garcia has no real poker results per se, he did win a televised celebrity event sponsored by PokerStars in Spain.

Check out Garcia here deftly folding A-7 when his opponent had pocket aces. Spanish fluency not man

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