Robbie Strazynski

Until new details emerge, this will be the last installment of Cardplayer Lifestyle’s poker blog coverage of the U.S. online poker crisis. This poker blog entry will look at what the big news means in terms of PokerStars’ and Full Tilt Poker’s broader business ventures and interests.

Taking a look at PokerStars’ new .eu homepage, there honestly doesn’t seem to be too much of a difference from their old .com webpage. All words and Web content aside, the most intriguing part of this, to this poker blogger anyhow, are the faces of the company. With PokerStars stacked with poker’s top pros, one must wonder if past WSOP Champions like Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Cada, and other notable names like Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier will remain in the company stable and continue promoting online poker in the United States.

To allay the fears of the world’s online poker players, let’s begin by saying that Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker will most definitely not disappear from the online poker landscape. While player volume will decrease at all 3 sites, to help compensate and offset the losses, each site will likely market harder to promote more poker play from their European and Asian player databases.

As reported in yesterday’s poker blog, the FBI and U.S. Justice Department issued indictments to the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker. This blog entry will address some of the fallout of the government’s actions.

Millions of online poker players in the United States awoke to a harsh new reality yesterday, as they found themselves unable to log in and play poker for real money online. Poker players attempting to visit PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, or Absolute Poker got the shock of their lives as they saw that the FBI and U.S. Justice Department assumed control of the popular online poker sites’ domain names, claiming that the sites illegally accepted wagers in violation of U.S. law.

What do Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Erik Seidel, and President Barack Obama all have in common? They will all be playing in a special poker tournament on Air Force One today. Obama, an admitted poker fan, invited the top 5 all-time WSOP bracelet winners to join him for some 6-handed action on a flight from Las Vegas to Atlantic City this afternoon.

Inflation seems to be everywhere these days – and the poker world is no exception. Full Tilt Poker has raised the stakes yet again by announcing the creation of the ONYX Cup poker tournament series. The series is comprised of 6 no-limit hold ’em tournaments each with a buy-in of at least $100,000 that will take place all over the world with the goal of recognizing the world’s best poker player.

In a stunning development, The World Series of Poker Europe has announced that it will be moving from London to Cannes, France, until 2014. Does this mean that for the next 3 years, poker’s top pros will be hearing things like “Big Blind S’il Vous Plaît” and “French only at the table sir”?

I thought that after more than half a decade of involvement in the poker industry and after tens of thousands of poker hands played live and online that I’d seen it all. Boy was I ever wrong! I recently came across an advertisement in CardPlayer magazine for something called the Poker Cube.

Readers of Daniel Negreanu’s poker blog know that he always sets himself goals for the year. His first goal for 2011 was to win $1 million. Incredibly, just a couple weeks into the New Year, Negreanu can already cross that off his list! While he didn’t win the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, second place was good enough to win Negreanu $1 million and catapult him into the all-time lead for money won in poker tournaments (around $14 million), ahead of FullTilt pro Phil Ivey.

That’s right. After more than 12 years “away from the felt” Matt Damon (as Mike McDermott) will ante up again in “Rounders 2” and try to win some serious “stacks of high society”!

Proving that her recent North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Mohegan Sun $750,000 win wasn’t a fluke, Vanessa Selbst scored big again at the €8,500 buy-in main event of the Partouche Poker Tour. This prestigious win in a field of 764 players is Selbst’s biggest success to date, carrying a €1.3 million payday.