As if we needed another reason why Club WPT is one of our favorite US-friendly online poker sites, the popular place for subscription poker just increased its monthly tournament prize pool to $125,000. Paid VIP members now have even more chances to play the game they love and win the money they love without putting any additional money down.

For a steady $19.95 per month, Club WPT provides a lot of value for online poker players. Having a consistent subscription means VIP members “never lose a dime playing poker” since the cost of playing was set in stone. A variety of tournaments are available for this low monthly fee, all awarding real cash and prizes. ClubWPT also has up-to-the-minute online poker news, an impressively developed online poker training module, and a competitive assortment of table games and tournaments.

If you’ve been waiting to try Club WPT’s subscription poker, this increased prize pool makes it a great time to try it out for free. Register now for the VIP membership and get two weeks free to try out all this US-friendly poker room has to offer.

Today the organizers of the Latin Series of Poker (to live in infamy as LSOP) announced they will guarantee a prize $500,000 prize pool for the first annual Latin Series of Poker tournament. This Texas Hold’em tournament is scheduled from June 5th to June 10th at the Atlantic City Casino in Lima, Peru. .

In order to entice some of the top online and live poker players, the LSOP is featuring a re-entry methodology and an attractive buy-in; for just $1,500 + $150, poker enthusiasts can get an exceptional return on their investment if they play their cards right.

As the February 3, 2012 LSOP press release noted, “US-poker players have been craving land-base poker tournaments ever since the Aruba Poker Classic ended its run in 2009″ adding that the Punta Cana Poker Classic, now in its third year, is a huge success based on that need.

We’ll continue to keep you updated as more online poker rooms jump on board to host qualifiers and prize packages. In the meantime, keep playing your favorite online game of skill.

Intertops just announced its February promotions, and we couldn’t wait to show them to you.

Have you ever played the Intertops Match & Win game? Its “Heart Edition” for February 2012 will award you with single Gold Card cash prizes–up to $1,000. All you need to do to play is log in, and match the Gold Cards you earned during the month of February to the ones shown on the game board. Match ‘em and win the displayed prize quicker than a cupid’s arrow!

Every other weekday in February look for a Knock-Out Challenge bounty tournament at Intertops Poker. During these Knock-Out Challenge tournaments, you’ll get points for every player you eliminate. Leaderboard winners could win up to $1,000.

Get in on the weekly FPP Race tournaments with individual prize pools of $6,250 during the Intertops $25,000 FPP Race. Action just started on February 1s so there’s plenty of time to dig in and grab your piece of the action.

Don’t forget–there are still two weeks left to qualify for the Super Poker Event of Europe 2012. Super 2012 is gearing up to have 4,000 players compete for the €1.2 million prize pool–shouldn’t you really be one of them?

Let us know your thoughts!

As of January 16th, 2012, Purple Lounge online poker room will no longer be touting Microgaming poker software. The move to Entraction (the online poker software powered by heavy-hitter IGT) was, as the Purple Lounge website puts it, part of its “evolution”.

“Entraction means pure poker with more fish,” claims Purple Lounge, and the game list backs up this description. Telesina, 7-card Stud, and all of your traditional favorites like Texas Hold’em and Omaha are all there already waiting for you. And, since Entraction also heads up the magnetic European Masters of Poker tour, you’ll have an inside scoop on all of the live action games coming down the pike.

It appears that the most current players have to worry about are downloading the new software and picking out a new nickname. Once this is done, account balances remain the same, and the player experience should explode from there.

While Purple Lounge does pick up Danish players in the transition, the migration will also result in a few casualties. Due to certain rules, Entraction does not support players from Russia, Estonia, and Canada. Purple Lounge has promised full customer support for these players as they transition to another poker room (even joking that they would help move them to an Entraction-supported country).

Those online poker players that did make the cut and who download the new software will be handsomely rewarded. The “Stay and Play” promotion will give players a 200% deposit match bonus up to €1,000 on their first deposit into their new Entraction wallet.

If you are one of the players affected by this migration, we would love to hear your first impressions!

As of today, the operation-formerly-known-as-Bodog is now branded as Bovada. What does this mean for the thousands of online poker players loyal to Bodog?

Essentially nothing. Unless you have an “I love Bodog” tattoo. Then it may get complicated.
Otherwise, all of you faithful Bodog US poker players have nothing to worry about and even less to remember. Your accounts will remain entirely the same, the business is still owned by the same group, an the same products and games will still be there. All you need to do is point your browser to a different location: www.bovada.lv

That’s right. The ONLY things that have changed are the name and the website. So update your bookmarks and get back to playing your favorite poker games without missing a hand.

Bodog Poker’s new software creates a new realm of online poker with a whole host of new features, including their revolutionary anonymous online poker tables now featured site-wide. Bodog’s own Jonas Odman emphasizes these measures as necessary to create fair and fun environment for players of all levels. “We’ve shown before that we are not afraid of controversy by changing the way rakeback was viewed and starting to black data mining sites,” says Odman. “These new features now give players a less biased ‘pure poker” experience.”

We know what you are thinking–where’s the glory if no one knows who you are? As most players know, however, having a name in the game means that resourceful poker pros can use poker software (like PokerTableRatings.com and SharkScope) to dig up all kinds of information on how you typically play your hands, giving these pros an encyclopedic knowledge of the statistics behind your every move. Bodog’s anonymous tables make accessing hand histories impossible to collect, thereby leveling the playing field. This no-name-no-gain poker model may just change how the game of poker is played.

And while the anonymous tables and data protection systems may be getting the lion’s share of the attention, there are several other features of Bodog’s new online poker software that will continue to raise the bar for poker player experience. Things like:

• The Rabbit Cam. Now you’ll never have to wonder what your hand would have looked like if all the cards would have been dealt. Be warned, sometimes this information is best left to mystery.
• A more competitive rake
• Improved table and tournament accessibility (as well as new tournament formats), as will as upgraded site speed.
• A new in-client blackjack game.
• Online poker players can now play up to 20 tables at a time.

With this new software upgrade, the online game will play more like a live and physical game where you hardly know your opponents; you’ll play the game (or 20) with your inherent skill set and make plays strictly with the information provided to you during the course of the game.

No telling what implications this may have on legalizing online poker in the United States, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to empower other poker sites to amp up their level of player protection and commitment to site-wide fair play.

A question I would ask our readers is whether or not any of you have ever used poker data mining sites to give you an edge in an online poker game or tournament.  What do you feel are the odds anonymous poker tables will catch on?

For too long, it’s been “illegal” to join together these two souls that were destined to be together. While it was okay to hold some hands in public, there was media and religious scrutiny about what these people do in their own homes, with people from other countries, and the implications it could have on certain tax laws.

This forbidden relationship has been flippantly linked to terrorism, has been declared unnatural, and more than once has been outted as a gateway to moral and social decline.

I’m proud to report that ClubWPT is taking a stand to protect the sanctity of a legal matrimony between two beings equally deserving of happiness and each other: The Poker Player and the Internet.

Ahem.

ClubWPT is a new type of online poker, and it’s unlike any US-Friendly poker room you’ve played in before–and that’s not just because it’s legal in most states. ClubWPT is a subscription-based poker room. Players pay a monthly fee to compete in US-Friendly poker tournaments for cash and prizes; there are no buy-ins, no additional deposits, no risk, and therefore, no gambling. You won’t lose a cent you weren’t happy to part with.

However, just because you aren’t playing with “real” money, doesn’t mean there isn’t real cash and prizes at the end of a tournament. ClubWPT VIP members (those players who subscribe on a monthly or yearly basis) get access to over $100,000 in cash and prizes every month (including seats to WPT Tour Events) in unlimited tournament play.

And you can even play poker online for FREE all the time. Just sign up for the Basic Membership (free) and get access to daily freeroll tournaments with fun prizes and complimentary access to the inside life of the World Poker Tour.

Right now, get the VIP experience of this US-Friendly Poker Site for free for two whole weeks.

Nearly every type of online poker is represented, so you’re sure to find several tournaments that hit a competitive nerve.From $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournaments to the points-based tournaments, there is plenty to get excited about. Read all that ClubWPT has to say about how they are confident this US-Friendly online poker site will give online poker players all the fun without fear of fines, penalties, and social scrutiny.

May you hold hands with pride.

Bad Beats, for example, have never been more socially welcomed, and that’s partially due to the Carbon Poker Bad Beat Jackpot (currently over $190K). If you scored a hand with quad 7′s or better and you lose the hand to someone with quad 8′s or better, you have a shot at that enormous Bad Beat jackpot. And all of the table’s witnesses get a piece of the action, too.

On the other side of the Carbon Poker promotion spectrum is the Royal Flush Bonus, which awards a bonus of 100x the big blind–up to $500–when you snag a Royal Flush with your pocket cards during a real-money Texas Hold’em ring game.

Never played at Carbon Poker? It’s a member of the Merge Gaming Network along with PDC Poker and Walker Poker. Featuring an informative blog, VIP rewards, poker tutorials and a wide selection of online poker tournaments, Carbon Poker welcomes novice and experienced players alike. Players new to Carbon Poker will receive a welcome bonus of up to $600 (a 100% deposit match bonus) and entry into the self-guided New Depositors Cash Chase promotion.

Carbon Poker may surprise your with it’s light-hearted content and serious blogs, but that should just tell you that it’s all about the love of the game.

Accepts all Players

Poker forums around the globe are filled with chatter that confirmed both Absolute Poker and UB Poker have not processed recent withdrawal requests from players residing in the United States, or in any other country.While disappointing, this is the latest in a string of bad business decisions, including the 2007 cheating scandal that stunted its growth.

Nothing yet from PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker regarding their financial future.

Hollywood Poker also announced the addition of three new tournaments, coming soon to an online poker table near you:

• The Hollywood Poker Celebrity Classic: Get $40 for every Celebrity you knock out for just $20 + $2 (with daily sit & go qualifiers).
• The Michael Woods Celebrity Invitational: Get $20 per Celebrity knock-out, earn bounty hunter points, and play for just $10 + $1 every Saturday afternoon.
• Canadian Poker Night: Another knockout tournament, you get $10 for each Celebrity you take down, bounty hunter points, and an easy-on-the-eyes $5 + .$50. Can you think of another way to spend your Tuesday nights?

No dates have been announced yet for the inaugural run of these tournaments, but stay tuned. Hollywood Poker has never been one to rest on its laurels or its poker tables!

Accepts all Players Except US Players