The Nightly Turbo: Team PokerStars Online, Poker Game Gets Violent, and More
The Nightly Turbo is brining you the Team PokerStars Online Pro line-up, news on a poker game turning violent, and more.
In Case You Missed It
Can fantasy football lead to a serious gambling problem? Is Tiger Woods the world's biggest gambler? In the Nightly Turbo, we like to talk mostly poker, but Inside Gaming covers it all. Check out the answers to the two questions in the latest edition of Inside Gaming.
The poker world is pretty wrapped up in the Isildur1/Brian Hastings scandal. Some people think that what Hastings and Co. did was wrong but then there's the other side that will point out that this kind of stuff happens all the time. The latter is the side our latest PokerNews Op-Ed tackles.
Yesterday we brought you the first ever interview with Isildur1. Today we talked to him about playing in the highest stakes online and his views on some of the players in the nosebleeds. The guy is talking, you should probably check it out.
On another high-stakes note, Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Patrik Antonius put another notch in the "durrrr" Challenge yesterday. They played close to 2,000 hands and someone won $225,715 during the session. Who is it? We'll never tell. Check out the "durrrr" Challenge recap to find out.
Violent Poker Game
Yesterday, we told you about a couple of robberies that took place in Texas. No home game got robbed today (that we know of) but someone did get assaulted with a baseball bat over the weekend.
At a poker game in South Central Minnesota, 32-year-old Dave Wojciechowski decided to send a text message. Seemingly harmless right? Not whenJimmy Lee Turner is around apparently. There aren't very many details about how it went down, but we guess the sending of the text irked Turner and that caused him to grab a bat and assault Wojciech - we'll just call him Dave.
Dave was taken to the hospital to treat minor injuries and Turner was arrested and could be charged with second-degree assault, disorderly conduct, and terroristic threats. Hey guys, can't we all just get along? There's no need to club people, it's just a game. Is this why we have security at out PokerNews HQ home games?
Read more about it at MankatoFreePress.com.
CEREUS Points
It's the holiday season and the CEREUS poker network wants to give you a little present. Cereus just released information on its Power Holidays promotion. For the entire 24 hours on December 24 through 26, 31 and January 1, players will earn double UltimatePoints and AbsolutePoints.
This promotion replaces the recently launched Power Hour in which players were earning double points during designated blocks of time throughout the day. So after you've eaten all the candy canes and had all the eggnog you can stomach, at least you'll be able to kick back and play some online poker. And maybe you can start your holiday shopping early with all those extra points you'll get.
Sign up for an AbsolutePoker account or a UB account today.
Poker2Nite
A quick reminder since we haven't reminded you to watch a poker-related show in quite some time, Poker2Nite airs tonight. Eric Baldwin is a guest on the show tonight. You should watch it. Now on to the story.
This is for all the Europeans out there. Poker2Nite will be airing on the Poker Channel Europe every week for the remainder of the season. Last week was the first time the show aired on the channel. With this launch, viewership of the show is now available to over 18 million cable and satellite homes across Europe.
If you're in Europe, you can catch the show on the Poker Channel Europe on Wednesday nights at 22:00 CET or Thursdays and Saturdays at 16:00 CET. If you're in the U.S., the show airs Wednesday nights on FSN. If you're in a place with no TV, but somehow you have the Internet, you can watch the shows online at Poker2Nite.com.
Are you following us on Twitter yet? If you aren't, you should be. If you are, thank you. Become a friend on Facebook, too, while you're at it.
Time for Awards
Awards season in Hollywood doesn't start until January, but we're not Hollywood, and that's why the poker industry likes to give out Player of the Year honors at - well - the end of the year.
We told you yesterday that UB.com's newest team pro, Eric Baldwin, capped his amazing year with the Card Player POY title. Baldwin made 17 final tables and won four titles.
Over at Bluff Magazine, Jason Mercier is taking the POY honors with Baldwin only a little over 200 points behind him. Mercier's live tournament winnings for this year exceed the $1.3 million mark.
There are all kinds of formulas and math that go into deciding POY points and we don't feel like getting into it. So congratulations to both guys. You both have had amazing years and the titles are well deserved.
Team PokerStars Online
For the last two months, PokerStars has been on a search. What kind of search you ask? A search for some of the brightest online poker players to comprise Team PokerStars Online. Rather than slowroll us all like the Brunson 10, PokerStars inaugurated 23 new members all at once. These 23 were pretty lucky to be picked because 2000 applications were submitted - or - they're just that good.
Drumroll please. And the winners are:
1. Andres "lobojiji" Alisievicz
2. Jorge "JorgeArias" Arias
3. Boumaaza "Chiren80" Bachir
4. Anders "Donald" Berg
5. Alvaro "VARICO" Blanco
6. Thomas "Boku87" Boekhoff
7. Diego "vgreen22" Brunelli
8. André "acoimbra" Coimbra
9. Mathew "chipstar1" Didlick
10. Ta-Chih "socutiesf" Geeng
11. Andrew "Kid Nebraska" Goetsch
12. Martha "marene" Gonzalez
13. Keiran "K_Man2307" Harris
14. Steve "stevesbets" Jacobs
15. Randy "nanonoko" Lew
16. Karlo "elmagopr" Lopez
17. Alexey "LuckyGump" Makarov
18. Kristian "CharismA3" Martin
19. Grzegorz "DaWarsaw" Mikielewicz
20. Nichoel "NicP" Peppe
21. Grayson "spacegravy" Physioc
22. Sebastien "Seb86" Sabic
23. Amanda "ROXY24" Thomas
The new PokerStars Team Online represents 18 countries and the members play a full range of games and stakes, meaning you could have the chance to take on a Team PokerStars Pro in whenever and in whatever game you choose. Plans are to add more members to the Team throughout 2010.
Want to play with the Pros? Sign up for a PokerStars account today.
