PocketFives member cswami picked up his largest career cash by placing 2nd in the Full Tilt Poker FTOPS Main Event for $413,229 over the weekend; outlasting more than 4,700 opponents in the $600+40 NLHE Multi-Entry tournament. Ti0 of the Russian Federation finished 3rd for $253,932 while Geraldo22 of the United Kingdom bowed out in 5th for $140,120. Imper1um cashed for $97,226 in 6th place and ...

Longtime PocketFives member 1SickDisease (pictured), better known in the real world as Kevin Eyster, came away with a victory on Wednesday in the 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. PocketFivers have logged wins every single day FTOPS XXI has run, and Wednesday's haul included Eyster's victory in a $322 Pot Limit Omaha High Heads-Up tournament for $17,000. A field of 235 players turned ...

When we saw that a poker player from Jamaica won the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up in late November, we jumped at the opportunity for an interview. This author can't recall the last time we interviewed someone from the Caribbean nation, if ever, so we're happy to introduce yard_warrior. The Jamaican's victory was worth $93,000 following a heads-up deal with PokerStars member Asul after the two ...

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured) has denied any knowledge of alleged bribes intended to enlist the Nevada Senator to get the Federal Trade Commission to cancel an investigation into Utah businessman Jeremy Johnson’s practices.

“I just felt like variance is not wanted I want to experience.” Those were the words of Romāns RovoDice Voitovs (pictured), a Latvian player who was part of a five-way chop of the PokerStars Sunday Million last month for $122,000. One of his chopping partners was Casey bigdogpckt5s Jarzabek, who chopped the tournament in back-to-back weeks. There were over 7,300 entrants and nearly $1.5 ...

There's a new sheriff in town, at least for this week. When the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings were recalculated on Wednesday, a new #1 player emerged, Belarus' Legenden, who rose two spots from #3 to #1. He was previously as high as #2 worldwide in the Rankings late last year and is the first top-ranked player we've ever had from Belarus.

French authorities raided the apartment of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Wednesday, seeking evidence of wrongdoing when she awarded French businessman Bernard Tapie (pictured) hundreds of millions of Euros in 2008. You'll recall that Tapie was linked to an unsuccessful purchase of Full Tilt Poker and is the President of the upcoming International ...

It seems like just a matter of time before a Brazilian sits on top of the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings. The country now sports fourth ranked PocketFiver, pessagno (pictured), who was up three spots on the week to his highest position ever. He calls Sao Paulo home and could become the first Brazilian ever to claim the top spot at PocketFives.

Zynga, the world’s preeminent social gaming developer, launched its first real money online gambling sites on Wednesday. ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino went live for players in the United Kingdom using the bwin.party software platform. You can discuss the news in this forum thread.

It might have been a smaller poker tournament, but the second event of World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific still awarded a coveted bracelet. Its recipient was longtime PocketFives Jim Mr_BigQueso Collopy (pictured), who outlasted a field of 172 players in an AUD $1,650 Pot Limit Omaha tournament to scoop AUD $69,000.

Despite the launch of ZyngaPlusPoker, run by the social gaming goliath Zynga, traffic on the PartyPoker Network actually fell 7% week-over-week according to PokerScout. An update published by PokerScout on Monday explained, "The launch of ZyngaPlusPoker in the U.K. does not seem to have helped PartyPoker's liquidity. Despite the fact that ZyngaPlus and Party share a common player pool, traffic ...

The March 31 running of the iPoker $200,000 Guaranteed, which is played out on sites like WinnerPoker, attracted a field of nearly 1,000 players. The $215 No Limit Hold'em tournament featured an overlay, which worked to the benefit of Mexico's Eric rappy300 Rappaport (pictured), who finished in first place for $34,000. He is a U.S. transplant who sat down with us to talk about this marquee ...

The finale of the 2013 National Heads-Up Poker Championship aired on Saturday on NBC and stretched for two hours. In a producer's dream, Mike Matusow (pictured) squared off against Phil Hellmuth in a battle of who could yell the loudest (answer: Matusow). The two hugged before the best-of-three finals began and each player received a starting stack of 800,000.

The PocketFives Online Poker Rankings were recalculated on Wednesday. One of the biggest jumps of the week belonged to NeverScaredB, who rose from #22 worldwide to #10, cracking the top 10 for the first time ever. NeverScaredB had a rock solid April that included a win in the PokerStars Big $162 for $21,000. He also took down the same tournament on the second-to-last day of March for $25,000. ...

We're just a few weeks away from the start of the 2013 World Series of Poker, but there is plenty of high-stakes action going on right now. Take Full Tilt Poker, for example, where Ben Sauce1234 Sulsky and Viktor Isildur1 Blom (pictured) have been battling it out in Pot Limit Omaha. In fact, according to HighStakesDB, in a session that stretched from late Wednesday night to the pre-dawn hours of ...

On Wednesday, poker legend Doyle Brunson (pictured) revealed that he doesn't plan to play any tournaments at this year's World Series of Poker. The 10-time bracelet winner and former back-to-back Main Event champion cited Father Time in a Tweet to his nearly 400,000 followers: "Afraid I am finally gonna give in to Father Time and pass on tournament play at WSOP. #toomanyhours." Whether he'll ...

After several months of virtually no communication, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement on Tuesday to United States online poker players who are expecting repayment of their funds from Full Tilt Poker.

According to an e-mail sent from Full Tilt Poker to its former Red Pros that was posted on PokerNews, the site has no plans to expand its Pro team anytime soon and won't assume responsibility for old contracts.

In recent days, 888 Poker played host to a PocketFives Open for players outside of the United States and a handful of other countries. The top prize in the affordable $11 buy-in tournament was $1,100 added, a license to the all-new PokerTracker 4, one month of PocketFives Training, and a piece of PocketFives gear. The package, as eye-catching at it is, went to the U.K.'s Hadley spadley Andrews ...

On January 17, the 2013 PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker, or TCOOP, will kick off. This time around, $15 million is guaranteed across a whopping 50 events, culminating in a $700 No Limit Hold'em Main Event that will guarantee at least $300,000 to its winner and $2 million overall.

The 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series Main Event played out in recent weeks. The tournament attracted 4,766 entries and a prize pool of $2.8 million was up for grabs in one of the largest online poker events held in 2012. Amazingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, members of the PocketFives community came away with seven of the nine final table spots. One of those lucky players was Maxim Mamonov ...

In mid-2006, PocketFivers in the U.S. watched as discussion of internet gambling and online poker took place on Capitol Hill, which included the infamous line, "Click your mouse and lose your house." At the time, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was just months away from being signed into law and the industry would be turned upside down forever. In Poland, according to recent ...

This is a scene right out of "Life of Pi." You look across the virtual poker table and stare down sammy_squid, better known on PocketFives as Sam TheSquid Grafton. Will the Brit ink you right out of the tournament or can you muster up the chops to send him packing' For Michael u shove i call Howard (pictured), Grafton was one of his chopping partners in the final PartyPoker $300,000 Guaranteed ...

At the end of 2012, players in the United States were focused on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV, pictured), who was allegedly set to introduce a bill legalizing online poker, a bill that at the same time outlawed other forms of online gambling. When the smoke cleared, however, no bill was introduced and a bastion developed in opposition to the idea. So where did Reid's online poker ...

The 2013 World Series of Poker schedule was released on Thursday. Sixty-two bracelet events, which is one more than last year, will take place. Capitalizing on the popularity of the game, WSOP officials have added a non-bracelet Open Face Chinese Poker tournament that will come with a buy-in of $5,000.

In a recent running of the weekly PokerStars Sunday Million, longtime PocketFives member Kyle KJulius10 Julius (pictured) came away with a gratuitous $199,000 payday. The $215 buy-in contest was chopped three ways and Julius, who officially finished second, booked the largest payday of the group. It's not every day that you run through a field of nearly 7,500 players, so his landmark showing was ...

When the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings were updated last Wednesday, a new face entered the top 10, Poland's dadowiec, who jumped an incredible 19 spots from #29 to #10. His real name is Damian and he has amassed $1.5 million in tracked cashes on PokerStars alone en route to $1.7 million in career online MTT earnings. He had formerly ascended as high as #23 in the Rankings, so he is ...

According to eGaming Review, or EGR, 888 has teamed with a second land-based casino in Nevada. This time, it will buddy up with Treasure Island. EGR explained that Treasure Island, a Las Vegas Strip casino, will "launch its B2C poker brand in the state at the end of June or the beginning of July. Several sources close to the matter told EGR that talks between Treasure Island and the U.K.-listed ...

A petition filed by the American Gaming Association (AGA) in recent days to stop PokerStars' purchase of the Atlantic Club in Atlantic City has been a hot topic of debate in our community. On Monday, PokerStars, the world's largest online poker room, struck back, issuing a memo of its own that called the AGA's petition a "thinly veiled anti-competitive campaign against the entry of a competitor ...

The 2001 movie "Donnie Darko" was a classic, so much so that it ignited the imagination of PocketFives member whereisdonny, who lives in Thailand and recently finished second in the GSOP Grand Slam on the Ongame Network, which includes sites like Betsafe. The mammoth score clocked in at $118,000.

It was quite an epic finish in a $560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em tournament held as part of the Borgata Spring Poker Open on Friday. The two-day event drew 179 players and ended with a showdown between two former #1 players in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings, Ari BodogAri Engel (pictured) and Kevin BeL0WaB0Ve Saul.

Moving up one spot this week in the PocketFives Country Poker Rankings was the lucky nation of Ireland. Boasting a combined PLB score of its top 20 players of 73,308, Ireland has laid claim to five Triple Crowns. We have 826 registered members from the European island nation and also get a considerable number of visitors from Ireland every month. With that in mind, we thought it would be ...

Pool and poker have always gone hand-in-hand, both serving as vehicles for gambling where a skilled player has an advantage and, in the right situation, can be profitable over time. The other night, I watched “The Color of Money,” in which Tom Cruise is an up-and-coming pool player with a lot of talent and Tom Newman is a wizened veteran trying to show him the ropes.

Earlier this month, Jase Regina, known on PocketFives as SSSMforlife (pictured), finished third in the weekly Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl and reeled in $19,000. He calls Toronto home and can be found at #509 worldwide in the PocketFives Online Poker Player Rankings, about 30 spots off his all-time high. He is now headed to Whistler to celebrate his score.

The PocketFives League on HogWild Poker is back in May. This month, we're giving away $500 along with a variety of PocketFives gear, including a hoodie to the League's winner. U.S. players are welcome and there's no cost to play, so it's our way of saying thank you to our American members who have stuck with the game since Black Friday.

Kevin 1SickDisease Eyster (pictured) became the first dual winner of the 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. On Wednesday, he took down Event #25, a $322 Pot Limit Omaha High Heads-Up tournament, and on Saturday he "rushed" to the finish line of Event #33, a $109 No Limit Hold'em Rush Rebuy. The tournament brought out 766 players and Eyster banked $79,000. Check out Full Tilt Poker.

On Sunday, PocketFives member pktsebens took home the title in the kickoff event of the 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, earning a scintillating $187,000. On Monday, the streak continued, as Brazil's Joao Simao, who plays on Full Tilt Poker under the screen name joaosimaobh, won a $216 Pot Limit Omaha High-Low Six-Max event and picked up $23,000. The tournament brought out well over ...

The online social gaming leader Zynga announced on Wednesday that it is taking the first steps toward the possible launch of real money online gambling in the United States. It has filed an application for a Preliminary Finding of Suitability from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, a process estimated to take anywhere from 12 to 18 months to complete.

Listen up, U.S. poker players. PocketFives is appreciative of your loyalty over the years, and especially since Black Friday. So, we wanted to make the last U.S.-friendly PocketFives Open of 2012 a big hit. The tournament will take place on Thursday, December 13 at 9:00pm ET on HogWild Poker and we'll be putting up a brand new white Wii U for the winner! Anyone can sign up for the PocketFives ...

In October, about a month before Full Tilt Poker re-launched, the once high-flying online poker room announced that Gus Hansen, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan would be its sponsored pros, combining to form a group called The Professionals. The trio created what became must-see-poker on Full Tilt before Black Friday, competing against each other almost daily in ...

Last month, Brazil's Pablo Brito Silva, or pabritz (pictured) here on PocketFives, came away with a win in the PokerStars Sunday Storm. If you're not familiar with the tournament, it's an $11 buy-in contest that generally attracts around 40,000 players. Yes, 40,000 rabid poker fans turn out for this tournament on a weekly basis, meaning that the top prize typically tops $30,000. It's not for the ...

On Wednesday, PokerStars launched Zoom Poker tournaments. The long awaited fast-fold tournament variant was an instant hit for users on the world's largest online poker room, as many of them sold out at 5,000 players. Tournament buy-ins were largely $1 or €1 and promised high-flying poker action for the price of a McDouble.

The $25,000 High Roller event final table begins at 1:00pm ET on Monday at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. A stacked field of eight players remains, headlined by wildly successful online poker pro Shaun shaundeeb Deeb (pictured), who has 2.53 million in chips, nearly a million more than the second place stack of 1.62 million belonging to Vladimir Troyanovsky.

Austria's mindgamer was the largest winner in online poker tournaments among PocketFives members over the weekend, as he placed 2nd in the PokerStars TCOOP Event #47 ($2,000+100 NLHE High Roller) for $278,130. Veteran member and Top 50 player Nick fu_15 Maimonewas the 7th place finisher in that tournament for $65,700.

One of the loose ends in the almost two-year-old Full Tilt Poker debacle is the fate of Chris Ferguson (pictured), who may be close to settling with the U.S. Government if recent events are any indication. The Government has been granted an extension to respond to Ferguson’s motion to dismiss the civil case against him, a possible indicator that a resolution may be within sight.

We've had a lot of interesting life stories from players we've interviewed for feature articles here on PocketFives. We've talked to farmers, professional footballers, college basketball players, and now we can cross “ice cream salesman” off the list. Say hello to Argentina's Franco Ernesto Spitale (pictured), who is better known as rojostars on PocketFives. He is the proud owner of a Triple ...

"I should have had a9. 2 big mistakes last 2 weeks. def not matt's fault, just the dealers. I'm over it tho! Woot." Those were the words of Paul paulgees81 Volpe (pictured) on Twitter on Friday night after he busted from the World Poker Tour's Bay 101 Shooting Star event in third place for $435,000. As you can tell, a controversial hand ended matters for Volpe, who entered the televised final ...

pasha I986 of Belarus was the largest winner among members in online poker tournaments over the weekend, cashing for $201,403 in the PokerStars Sunday Million weekly flagship event upon finishing in 2nd place officially. Despite his runner-up performance, he was able to secure the largest payout in the tournament due to a heads-up chop. Fellow member jbrown8777 was eliminated in 6th place in the ...

A final table for the ages took place on Sunday in the opening event of the 22nd Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. In the very first Irish Poker FTOPS tournament, Tom hitthehole Middleton came away with the win and banked $60,000. The $256 buy-in tournament featured a stacked field of over 1,500 players and ended with several longstanding, talented members of the online poker community ...

The 19th event of the ongoing Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) took place over the weekend. The $129 No Limit Hold'em Knockout Multi-Entry tournament attracted 4,817 entries, falling short of its $500,000 guarantee. The top 720 players finished in the money, led by British Columbia's Brandon completedonk Barnes, who booked an $85,000 payday. The top seven took home five figures.