Online Poker Press

Online poker room UltimateBet recently announced a new Mac version. The poker room’s software, which up to this point was not for Mac users, now offers a version that will be compatible with the latest Mac operating system, Snow Leopard. This means that Mac and PC users will have the full functionality of the UltimateBet poker room, including making deposits and withdraws and playing in cash games and tournament games. Players will also get the opportunity, during special events, to play with Team UltimateBet players such as the legendary Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth.

The winner of the latest Asia Pacific Poker Tour is Dermot Blain. Irish poker Dermot Blain was the final survivor, fighting off all comers and heads up opponent Mike Kim to take home the biggest prize of the biggest prize pool in Asian poker history. Blain won more than $1 million Hong Kong dollars out of the $16 million Hong Kong Dollars total prize pool. Possibly the biggest winner in terms of return on investment, however, was Swedish pro Pontus Kers, who won $114 464 after only paying $20 via an online poker satellite at PokerStars.

Johnny Chan followed up his seventh-place finish in the 2008 APPT Macau high roller event with a second-place finish this year.The PokerStars APPT Macau Summer Festival of Poker wrapped up at the Grand Lisboa this weekend with the culmination of both the main and high roller events.

After qualifying through a live satellite at the Grand Lisboa’s PokerStars Macau Poker Room, Ireland’s Dermot Blain booked the win in the main event, besting a final table that included 2009 WSOP Main Event Day 1b chip leader Brandon Demes.

Blain, 25, who recently left his job as a sales manager to play poker full time, took home approximately $538,700 for the win Sunday, marking the largest prize ever paid out in a poker tournament on Asian soil.

A total of 429 players from 46 countries created a more than $2 million prize pool for the main event, beating the previous record of $1.6 million set at last year’s APPT Macau main event.

The APPT Macau High Roller event also finished Sunday with Switzerland’s Vladimir Geshkenbein taking the $266,735 first-place prize.

Geshkenbein actually beat the legendary Johnny Chan heads-up, who managed to best his seventh-place finish in the very same event last year, coming second for $154,426.

The entire PokerStars.net APPT Macau Summer Festival of Poker actually featured 38 events with nearly 3,000 players and a total prize pool of $3,596,341.

“It’s a wonderful experience to see the always-hospitable people of Macau and watch the sport of poker continue to grow,” Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem said.

“It’s truly amazing how passionate the local players at PokerStars Macau are about poker and it’s abundantly obvious by not only the number of participants from Macau, Hong Kong and China, but also the great results they are having in all the events.

“I’m looking forward to coming back to the Grand Lisboa next year.”

The next stop on the APPT will be in Auckland, New Zealand from October 14-18.

Online poker room PKR now offers PayPal. PKR is the room that launched with plenty of attention, thanks to their 3D poker software that gives players a video game style experience. They recently hit a milestone when they signed up the 3 millionth player, and now have even more reasons to entice player to join, including the addition of PayPal as a payment option. PayPal used to be a big online poker processor but dropped when things became tough in the US. They now will work with poker rooms that do not accept US players.

Online poker software developer Microgaming has announced they will be dropping some of their online poker skins. While reports state that the Microgaming network still has plenty of traffic, it appears the company is taking some steps to restructure their organization during these tough economic times. They will be liquidating some of hteir poker skins in an effort to circle the wagons, conserve capital, and ride out the economy until times are better. At this point Microgaming may change management styles once more, if the economy were to be robust enough and the attitude towards online poker healthy enough.

1. Adrien Allain (FR) HK$3,035,000
2. Inwook Choi (Korea) HK$1,660,000
3. JC Tran (USA) HK$910,510
4. David Steicke (Hong Kong) HK$708,300
5. Chris Chau (Hong Kong) HK$506,000
6. Michael Woo (Hong Kong) HK$404,800
7. Christer Hallberg (Sweden) HK$303,600
8. Winfred Yu (Hong Kong) HK$202,400
9. Casey Kastle (Slovenia) HK$131,500

23-year-old Adrien Allain from Rennes, France, is the 2009 Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival Main Event Champion! He scooped HK$3,035,000 – a fantastic return on his investment of US$5 through an online satellite on PKR!

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Action junky martonas was back on Full Tilt last night challenging the world’s best high-stakes players but, surprisingly, they were playing Pot-Limit Omaha.

After a week of epic No-Limit Hold’em sessions, martonas took his action to the PLO tables to play heads-up against Phil Galfond, Patrik Antonius and Di Dang.

Even with martonas winning two pots worth $417k and $233k, Galfond came out of the session with a profit of $250k.

The $417k pot came as a result of a set-over-set situation. Galfond had a four-card wheel draw to go with the one remaining three but bricked the turn and the river.

Martonas managed to win around $200k from Dang, mostly thanks to one $223k pot.

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Every poker player knows that the world’s largest online poker room is PokerStars , but did you know they also offer some of the very best promotions too? Well they do, and one prime example is their $2,000 Cash FreeRoll Series where players can earn tickets to all five events that are held every month! That is $10,000 in cash up for grabs each month that you could win!

This spectacular FreeRoll Series is only offered to PokerWorks readers by special arrangement with PokerStars – that means YOU can get in on the cash give-away! And qualifying is easy, just Download PokerStars here on PokerWorks, sign up for a new account and make a minimum deposit of at least $10. A Read full

The PokerStars European Poker Tour got underway with its first event. The EPT Kiev, Ukraine, kicked off with 129 players. This event, which replaced the Moscow event originally scheduled to start EPT Season Six, ran through day 1A successfully. PokerStars player Luca Pagano was eliminated along with plenty of other players. Two players who sit at the top of the chip count at the end of the day are from the Ukraine, keeping the possibility of a Ukrainian player winning the event alive. All in all 93 players survived the first day.

When Ante Up for Africa was launched by actor Don Cheadle and poker pro Annie Duke in 2007, it quickly became one of the most respected and visible charity organizations in the poker community. In only three years, more than $2.5 million has been raised to aid groups that help refugees worldwide, specifically in Darfur, and $600,000 of that was the most recent amount raised in the first half of 2009.

From its inception, the purpose of Ante Up for Africa has been to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and utilize the generosity of the poker community to raise funds to help three charities that use their resources to provide aid to refugees and promote peace in the region. Read full