FullTilt Poker overtakes Party Poker, Iggy moves on & Online Qualifiers for 2007 Aussie Millions

FullTilt Beats Party Poker ... FullTilt becomes 2nd biggest Site.

FullTilt Poker has over taken Party Poker to become the 2nd largest poker room online. Whilst Party Poker player volume has taken a severe beating after withdrawing from US online poker, FullTilt has continued to accept American online poker players and has reaped the rewards. PokerStars also staying with US players has maintained its dominance and number one position by a wide margin.

Other poker sites are continuing to consolidate and buy out other sites, notably the iPoker / Playtech buyout of the Tribeca Europe operation which will see the migration from Tribeca to the iPoker Network of sites like VC Poker. Playtech boasts this will make the iPoker network the largest NON US focussed poker network in the business. The move is certain to boost player volumes for existing sites on the network like Titan Poker & Noble Poker over the next few months.




Guiness & Poker Blog ... Iggy Moves Home

The single most successful poker blogger - Iggy is to continue his Guiness & Poker Blog famed for uber posts and random thoughts at a new home, having teamed up with the PokerWorks / Pokernews conglomerate he can now be found here - Iggy's Blog.

Which leads me into thoughts about my own very humble blog ...

Scrawnybob's 4kingpoker Ramble ... Iggy wannabe / Iggy I ain't

I started this blog as something of an after thought ... after launching 4kingpoker.com with no clue about setting up an internet poker site or blogging.

One piece of reoccuring blogging advice which I've probably ignored is to personalise your blog or maybe have an alter ego.

I'm pretty sure my personal life is of little or no importance beyond my small part of the universe and I'm not about to recast Scrawnybob as some kind of poker superhero but I should at least make my blog a little more friendly & personal.

OK so here it is - I'm no beer drinking high stakes poker player with masses of wit and wisedom to impart but at least my name isn't Muriel and I don't have 45 cats and an "exciting" photographic collection of teapot cosies as a basis for my blog.

I am Scrawnybob, an average joe poker player from the UK. Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down, but hopefully I'm always learning more about poker. I setup 4kingpoker.com around a year ago having sat on the domains for 18mnths watching the easy money of the poker affiliate boom pass me by until I finally decided to give it a go.

After several attempts at giving the blog a structure, a purpose and an aim I think it's time to give up on having a plan and just chuck anything in which I think might be interesting ... and as I am unlikely to come close to blogging on a daily basis I'm just going try to get something up once a week.

At the end of the day anyone reading this ... read it quick & just get on playing poker - If you find any of my reviews etc useful ... Please sign up to the sites using my links here or at 4kingpoker.com ;-) deposit some cash and get playing online poker.

Back in my corner of the world I spent the weekend down at a nice cottage in Wales with a few surfy types and ended up playing poker with chocolate coins for chips (it was that or jigsaw pieces / crunchy nut cornflakes) ... great fun and I'm sure I could have cleaned them all out if we hadn't all started eating away at our chip stacks ... It's was great to see a full table of new poker virgins enjoying the game for the first time and a great reminder that it's not all about updating bonus offers and keeping track of promotions / dates and all the affiliate stuff.

The Phil Helmuth Corner ... More Ranting, Bitchin & Moaning

This time Annie Duke takes the flack from Phil Helmuth the self appointed "Genius" of Poker.

2007 Aussie Millions ... Online Qualifiers & Satelites

My recommended sites with qualifiers & satelites for the 2007 Aussie Millions - FullTilt Poker, PokerStars, Titan Poker, Poker.com, Mansion Poker & UltimateBet




The Random Non Poker Stuff ... Waste your life with YouTube

You Tube is my new pet waste of time, along with 90% of the rest of the connected world. There is just so much cr*p on there but I still can help watching it ... So I feel obligated to post it up and waste your time too.

$10 Million VC Poker Grand Slam Tournament, Dog's Play Poker & Why I Hate Phil Hellmuth

Dog's Play Poker ... Donkey's dressed in Dog's Clothing

Phil Helmuth Bitching - Again

Personally I bloody strongly dislike Phil Helmuth (I won't say hate because I've never met the bloke). But seriously - World champion poker player or not, 50 WSOP in the money finishes or not & youngest prodigy poker genius or not ...

Phil Helmuth you seriously need to get some damn manners - you are frankly a spoilt brat and when it doesn't go your way a total tw*t.

Check out the 2nd to last hand Hellmuth played in the 2006 WSOP ... Seriously rude to an amateur, bitching an moaning like he'd been dealt 3 aces and got cracked - but no he had AK off the other guy had K 10 suited. The guy was close to braining Phil and I think if I'd been sat there I'd have lost it. Hellmuth comes out with his patent "He can't even spell poker" ... You know what Mr Bigshot Poker Champ, you can't spell manners ... Give me Mike the Mouth anyday at least he has a sense of humour.






4kingpoker News ... I've been changing a few things on 4kingpoker.com to try and get it all a bit more newsy and easier to navigate ... Not sure about the colour changes from blue to black yet but it's definately a more interesting read. If anyone is actually out there check it out and give us some feedback.

Random Stakes Poker ... Never bet your house on a hand.

Extreme Strip Roulette, That Jamie Gold Lawsuit & Negreanu makes Hellmuth meltdown on HSP

Extreme Strip Roulette ... Are you a Gambler or a Poker Player ?

That Jamie Gold WSOP Winner Lawsuit ... Every two bit wanabee lawyer & poker blogger seems to have an opinion on the lawsuit which has seen half of Jamie Gold's 2006 WSOP frozen. But I came across an interesting piece in Law School Dropout's Poker Blog which seems to cover the whole thing with alot more credible legal thoughts than I've seen elsewhere.

High Stakes Poker ... Negreanu puts Phil Helmuth into Meltdown



4kingpoker losses ... Still got a few pennies at Full Tilt Poker but basically floundering around having still not recovered from one of my patent "dump my bankroll" sessions. Although today I received a tempting 250% re-load bonus offer from Poker Heaven which I will probably take up and make this my final attempt to beat my demons and beat those juicy cash games ... But we'll see.

Blind Man's Bluff Poker ... The future of Poker & it's NOT Omaha

Hellmuth gets a beating at High Stakes Poker

4kingpoker News ... Playtech / iPoker buys Tribeca Europe for $75m

Playtech (iPoker Network) announced on Monday it had agreed to buy part of rival Tribeca Tables Europe for $75 million. Bringing with it sites currently operating on Tribeca's software platform including VCPoker, PaddyPower, Blue Square & Expekt.


Phil Hellmuth makes quickest All-in move Ever ... Phil Hellmuth who is notoriously bad at winning in cash games made a brief apperance on High Stakes Poker and swiftly blew $150,000 in the space of a few hands.



I'm really getting into watching High Stakes Poker on TV ... Basically it's an ongoing cash game open to the poker pro's who stump up a minimum $100,000 buy-in. Daniel Negreanu has suffered a bit of a beating and not recovered from losing a massive hand against Gus Hanson who made quad 5's against Daniel's Full 6's & 5's .. that's a tough beat which Negreanu handled with true professionalism, unlike Hellmuth who is in danger of blowing up in classic style. It was really entertaining to see Phil Hellmuth's patent high speed all-in call against Barry Greenstein ... Man I love to see Hellmuth suffer.

4kingpoker Losses ... Easy come, easy go at FullTilt Poker for me this week. I managed to burn off $100 of profit in about 10mins and swiftly followed it with most of the rest of it yesterday.

4kingpoker Tournaments ... Next tournies will be at UltimateBet when we get the confirmed times / dates they will be up soon.

 

I played Clonie Gowan at FullTilt Poker & Survived UltimateBet / Absolute Poker Merger Rumours

4kingpoker Losses ... I've been playing a bit at Full Tilt Poker the last couple of days which has been great fun & a bit of profit. The cool thing I have found is that if like me your not a big fan of the cartoon avatars & bright graphics ... you don't have to put up with them ...

Go into the options menu and you can make the site really clean and simple - No avatars & just dark simple background or set for somewhere in between. It's really made a difference, that and the increase in fish playing at the site ... FullTilt is nothing like the hardcore tougher site it used to be ... Play the Pro's & Beat the Fish.

Anyway I'd been sat in at a $0.25/0.50 NL cash table for a while when I noticed that yes I was on a celebrity table ... Clonie Gowan no less who was playing for her favourite charity The National Ovarian Foundation. Phil Ivey was also in the house on the $1/2 tables I think. FullTilt has a great line-up of pro players you can actually play and chat to, I'm not into the celebrity thing but I have to admit it is kind of nice to come away from a table able to say you didn't loose all your chips to a pro ... I'll leave Phil and $1/2 tables for another day.

Chris Ferguson slices carrot's at the Poker table

Anyway I managed to turn about $40 into $200+ yesterday and was doing well this morning until a couple of hands, this one was a real shocker ...

I hit a low flush on the flop and figured I needed to bet big to get the one card chancers away from what was a decent pot - so I'm sat with about $170 at the table and last to act, so I let them bet and then go over the top for all their money (about $60 a piece - damn it if they don't both turn over clubs, so 3 made flushed on the flop and 9 of the clubs in the deck are out ... Unreal.

At the end of today I'm pretty much where I started from yesterday but it's been fun and I have to say FullTilt has grown on me massively.


Who has the most bling at FullTilt - Lederer or Seidel ?

Full List of the Poker Pro's at Full Tilt Poker ... Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowen, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Barny Boatman, Ross Boatman, Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani, Aaron Bartley, Farzad Bonyadi, Alan Boston, Steve Brecher, Richard Brodie, David Chiu, John Cernuto, John D'Agostino, Roland de Wolfe, Layne Flack, Perry Friedman, Rafe Furst, Kristy Gazes, David Grey, Berry Johnston, Alfredo "Toto" Leonidas, Jeff Madsen, Greg Mascio, Robert Mizrachi, Carlos Mortensen, Greg Mueller, David Oppenheim, Stuart Paterson, Ben Roberts, Huckleberry Seed, Keith Sexton, David Singer, Gavin Smith, Mark Vos, Lee Watkinson, Paul Wolfe & Steve Zolotow.

Phil Ivey cloned at FullTilt Poker

4kingpoker Tournaments ... Results from last nights $50 freeroll at Poker.com
which was the 18th game in the tour.

1st ... vladedoty ... 10pts
2nd ... Mariettas ... 9pts
3rd ... TOMAS02 ... 8pts
4th ... EVOFQ450 ... 7pts
5th ... STEINY2004 ... 6pts
6th ... rgchan ... 5pts
7th ... TishMan ... 4pts
8th ... Auburn99 ... 3pts
9th ... mustymusk ... 2pts
10th ... LordDemo5 ... 1pt

Overal leaderboard after 18 games.

1. scrawnybob 61pts (N/A)
2. Tishman 28pts
3. Harry_Lime 22
4. Cro_boy 21pts
5. F A T 20pts
6. adrodysee 19pts
7. Arjonius 18pts
8. Depped 18pts
9. Igotdanuts 16pts
10. rgchan 16pts

The final 2 freerolls will be played at UltimateBet & PKR 3D poker ... dates to follow soon.

4kingpoker News UltimateBet and Absolute Poker merger rumours continue to fly around with announcement expected this week. The resulting poker room would become a bigger player in the market but as yet it is unclear who's software etc would be utilised ... Most likely is using the UltimateBet software and player interface with Absolute Poker's better backroom, marketing and affiliate setup. As a result of the US online gambling bill more mergers and aquistions are likely and there are more rumours including possible talks between Ladbrokes Poker, Party Gaming & 888.com / Pacific Poker ... One thing for sure as a result of the US Bill the poker business is unlikely to look the same in a years time as it does now.

PKR $250 bonus, full review & promo videos - showing chip trips and 3D features

4kingpoker Tournaments ... We have another $50 freeroll game at poker.com on Wednesday 8th Novemeber at 5pm EST, which will be the 18th game in the 4kingpoker freeroll series.

With only 3 games left to play in the current freeroll tour it's still wide open and their is an additional $100 of prizes for the top 3 overall ... the leaderboard looks like this ...

TishMan 24pts

harry lime 22pts

Cro_boy 21pts

FAT 20pts

adrodysee 19pts

ArjonPH / Ajonius 18pts
depped 18pts

thefatvillain 16pts
Igotdanunts1 16pts

ALLTHAT1111 14pts

rgchan 11pts
BDMK 11pts
Bogdanbet 11pts
darkralph 11pts

10pts ... tking888, woods61, truushot, chopper, 2zstrong, four ducks, frankovic22, pokerchamp69, scott145, w00t169, knapping1

9pts ... sexykitten78, ateamcrew, Souldive, Braisco, angelfck, argen, Birdman420, Beeeee, bagheera, PACOBAD4

8pts ... KASScro, FUSION, cantbluffme66, K-OS, digger02, thebull02, el Reyes, jim4488, uzi5mm, Kalan

7pts ... REJBON, Justa7, poka902, grgam12, ASAKING, midnightprelude, hacksaw, littlegrave3, 1rainbow1, BadIn10tions,

6pts ... rsj1962, Drumgower1, terhulk, middleweb, ubdofllfc, phatazz, junker 2005, 1reicke, StarAngel, Paspoil

5pts ... donvic, Bruner, adatomate, JJuper, Rudyrudeth, jtw1942, MrRounders7 (track), baywater99, napst3r, CA CA DEL TORO, MrsCaper, rodman, cjh88, WEST AUCKLAND, TxJoker, 2tg32468

4pts ... herforthenuts, jackreacher12, ace0vspades, PokerKing1188, drkneenie, dp66, bornesupreme, gti339, GmanIV, TriBal, AngieBlack, rockyviborin, PokerGoddess666, smjkrj

3pts ... Ashley111, Rajkos, TDLorg, Devils Gun, VJ Ceccola, climberboy52, Borny, Lavibore

2pts ... roneill33, 2ztrong, theENDofYOU, Dentelle, nickdeangelo, erikser, neuman357, chiphustlen, mrzola, a28gal, ChipsThe Party, peasandgravy, Robertz

1pt ... Stinger12, BuRner418, Cortina, VegasJp, Billy007, rambejr77, wirralguy, K1ng, DeadMagiK, Merid, Stinkee, Zhentozz, Rooofdog

Current Leaderboard in the 4kingpoker buy-in tour with 3 games to go ...

Harry_Lime 73pts

Katymaty 41pts

DarkRalph 38pts

gonhuntin 33pts

Braisco 32pts

Scrawnybob 24pts

LDJ1s 20pts

Irongirl03 18pts

Donvic 17pts

charterboss 16pts

Terrier01 14pts

10pts ... Remington69, LittleGrave, DomEast, Stinkee

9pts ... IamTishMan, Androdysee, Henry14ro

8pts ... Darkxhand, Davis8815, Bruner86, roneill33, Ray101bass

6pts ... rafaelbryan, lagrangell, agapoker

5pts ... TDLorg, MsRounders

4pts ... Dazzler69, Ovafan, Gatordad

3pts ... Craven115, MauritoJ, Jenbar, Kanyezee

2pts ... Badin10tions, Cidul

1pt ... Ionniec


4kingpoker News ... I'm working through a bit of a re-design on the homepage to make the site updates a bit more visible and try and get the information and navigation more logical.

More Poker.com Private Tournies & WSOP 2006 Final Hand

We have been in the process of moving house over the last weekend and the place is still a bomb site so not had much chance to blog or keep up with the forum. Starting next week I'm going to try and get the blog full of more inteesting content. I have been looking at putting up poker related youtube videos on 4kingpoker and after some early fiddling around I think it's going to be better putting any interesting finds up in the blog rather than on the main site ... so watch this space.


Poker Heaven Bonus & Review

4kingpoker Losses ... Definately had no time to play after a rubbish showing in the last 4kingpoker tournie which I think was the only action I got this week.

Funny hand took me out I got Q9 in middle position and short stacked decided to limp in calling the low blinds ... Flop came down 994 which made me trips but not the best way round anyway with a flush draw on the board I decided to try and keep a lid on the hand and hope to just pick up a few chips to keep me going. Turn comes down a 4 so now sat with a Full House and feeling alot more confident and hoping the other guy would hit the flush and I could double up ... Long story short we end up all-in and he turns over 44 making quads ... shit happens.

And to kick off the Poker Tube - Here is the final hand on the final table of the WSOP 2006 which saw Jamie Gold the Winner of the World Series of Poker 2006.



Gus Hanson & Daniel Negreanu clash on High Stakes Poker.



And now the from the bizzare to the rediculous ... And there was Senator Bill Frist worried about online poker ... hell ban fireworks clearly we're all retards.



4kingpoker Tournaments ... We have a couple more tournies on at Poker.com this Sunday and the following Wednesday

Sunday 5th November 3pm EST - Poker.com $3+0.30 buy-in with $50 added
4kingpoker buy-in tour game 9

Wednesday 8th November 5pm EST - Poker.com $50 FREEROLL
4kingpoker freeroll tour game 18

Added to all the action at Poker.com we have the WEEKLY $250 FREEROLL at Titan Poker which is open to all sign-ups to Titan through 4kingpoker (use BONUS CODE: 4kingpoker).