Online Poker Press

While the list of deserving poker pros without a WSOP bracelet is long, before this afternoon French pro Fabrice Soulier was right at the top.

After a decade of playing poker and $2.68 million in live tournament earnings Soulier’s poker resume did not include a win at the World Series of Poker.

That changed in a big way today in Las Vegas when he defeated Shawn Buchanan heads-up to win this year’s $10,000 HORSE Championship.

Soulier pocketed $609,130 for the win.

“I feel great,” Soulier told PokerListings.com moments after the win.

“This is the best day of my poker career by far,” he said.

While this victory doesn’t represent Soulier’s biggest cash, that was a $700k score last year for third at the Partouche Poker Tour main event, it’s certainly the most emotionally important.

“I’m very emotional as a player and it’s very demanding for me and I have to work to control my emotions maybe more than other players,” he said.

“That’s a key for me and in this tournament I think I did a pretty good job.”

Soulier began playing poker more than ten years ago, while working as a director in French television.

Juggling an increasingly successful poker hobby with TV projects like Une Gars, une Fille Soulier eventually made the decision to devote himself full time to playing cards.

Not including today’s win, Soulier had cashed at the WSOP 17 times, including four final tables.

Despite having the reputation as a solid player Soulier had been going through a rough patch so far this summer.

He told us he had bricked 19 WSOP events in a row before this victory.

Entering the heads-up match with an almost seven to one chip lead, the pressure was squarely on Soulier’s shoulders.

“I slept very badly,” he said with a laugh.

Soulier points to the immense support he’s received in the poker community, particularly from French players, when explaining his ability to keep it together and close the door on Shawn Buchanan.

“It’s great to have all this support and I want to thank everyone for that,” he said.

For all the action from Las Vegas keep an eye on our 2011 WSOP Live Coverage section, brought to you by Party Poker.

Vancouver may not have a Stanley Cup but thanks to Dan Idema the city is home to another WSOP bracelet winner.

Just two days after the local Canucks hockey team lost the Stanley Cup Finals and the city spun out into a violent riot, Idema finished off three days of hard-fought poker with a $378k victory in the $10k Limit Championship at the 2011 WSOP.

It was a slightly bittersweet victory for Idema who had hoped to see his favorite team bring home the hardware in addition to his own personal victory. 

“Yeah it was a little bit of redemption I guess,” he said. “It’s really tough. Obviousl

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Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Jason Somerville highlighted a thrilling Day 15 at the 2011 WSOP.

After a week of lesser-known winners, Grospellier and Somerville were a welcome addition to the winner’s podium on Day 15 of the WSOP.

Thanks to a delayed final table, it was one of the busiest days yet at the 2011 WSOP with a total of seven events running.

Here’s the rundown on all the action that occurred on Day 15:

Event 18 $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Day 4 

Event 18, which drew 3,157 players, was never supposed to go four days but a marathon session last night went too long to finish.

Six players returned to play down to a winner today with 25-year-old Foster Hays leading everyone in chips.

Indeed Hays eventually parlayed his chip lead into his first WSOP bracelet and $735k. Casey Kelt

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Coming on the heels of Black Friday and tough economic times worldwide, many people expected attendance at this year’s WSOP to plummet.

So far, those people have been proved wrong.

We’re 11 events into the 2011 WSOP and attendance has increased 2.6 percent from last year. This includes numbers from the Heads-Up Championship, which drew 128 entrants, exactly half of last year’s 256.

Out of the 11 events, this year’s Heads-Up Championship was the only event with an increased buy-in, up to $25,000 from $10,000 in 2010.

So despite hosting only half the entrants, this year’s $851,192 first prize was the largest ever awarded in a heads-up tournament. 

If you don’t include the Heads-Up Championship, attendance at this year’s WSOP has increased by 3.9 percent so far. The event that

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For the last few weeks we’ve been rolling out our WSOP Best Bets series, shining the spotlight on players from whom we expect big things at the 2011 World Series of Poker.

High-stakes online poker pro Thorsten Schafer was included in our German edition, and just one week into the World Series he’s cashed in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em World Championship.

The event attracted 249 of the world’s best high-stakes tournament pros and boasted a total prize pool of over $2.3 million.

Many players put great importance on getting results early in the World Series of Poker but Schafer disagrees, indicating a confidence in his game that isn’t built on small cashes.

“Honestly I don’t care about early results,” he told PokerListings.com moments after busting in 17^th place, good for $25,348.

“I know there’s a lot of variance in these events and I know that if you play your A-game, and you’re playing well, results will follow,” he continued.

As a high-stakes cash game regular online, Schafer has learned that the most critical thing in poker is to always play your best, regardless of short term results.

Schafer began his poker journey close to five years ago with a small deposit of $50. Since then he’s clawed

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It’s been two days since Phil Ivey released his controversial statement about Tiltware and fellow poker pros are starting to weigh in and pick sides.

In his statement Ivey took Tiltware LLC, Full Tilt Poker‘s software company, to task for its inactivity and indecision in returning player funds post-Black Friday.

Ivey went so far as to say he’s skipping the entire 2011 WSOP because U.S. pla

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Federal attorneys in Maryland have seized ten more internet gaming domains and charged three individuals with illegal gambling and money laundering.

The indictments were announced yesterday by U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein and representatives from the Internal Revenue Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations.

Named in the indictments are two internet gambling businesses, as well as three individuals. The first indictment charges British Columbia, Canada business ThrillX Systems, Ltd and its principles Darren Wright and David Parchomchuk.

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One day after Patrik Antonius won $900k on Full Tilt, he came crashing down by losing $353k.

Antonius fired off 664 hands of $3,000/$6,000 Omaha Hi-Lo and ran into some serious opposition from fellow Team Full Tilt member Gus Hansen.

Although O Fortuna PLS and Esvedra stopped by for several hands, the real action was between Hansen and Antonius.

Omaha Hi-Lo is widely considered Hansen’s best game and he certainly showed why last night.

The Great Dane ended up finishing his session up $200k while Antonius finally called it quits when he hit -$353k.

Thanks to last night’s action, Hansen is once again the biggest overall online winner in 2011 with $2.9 million in profit.

Meanwhile it was still a fantastic week for Antonius with $740,000 in profit. Bot

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Huge money was on the line this week in one of the biggest Sundays the world of online poker has ever seen.

While he didn’t get the top prize, Luke “Bdbeatslayer” Vrabel drove away from the Sunday Million in a Lamborghini Gallardo with the title and $671,093.81.

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The World Poker Tour will be hosting a $100,000 Super High Roller Event during the upcoming WPT World Championship series at Bellagio in Las Vegas.

The tournament will run May 18-19 with a $100,000 buy-in, the largest in WPT History, and will be filmed for broadcast on FSN.

With the biggest names in the game already competing at Bellagio for the WPT World Championship May 14-20, organizers believe the event is sure to attract premier players and generate a massive prize pool.

Hall of famer Erik Seidel is among those already confirmed to play.

He became live tournament poker’s all-time leading money winner earlier this year finishing third in a $100k buy-in event at the Aussie Millions before winning the series’ $250k buy-in, the LA Poker Classic’s $25k High Roller and the NBC National Heads-Up Championship.

“Hosting a hundred thousand dollar buy-in event within the WPT World Championship series means the world’s elite players have a chance to show their mettle as they battle for one of the year’s most coveted titles and one of the highest buy-in titles, all within a single week,” said WPT CEO Steve Heller.