In a sign that it might be moving closer to real money online poker in Nevada, Ultimate Poker tabbed tournament poker’s all-time leading money winner, Antonio Esfandiari (pictured), as its Brand Ambassador on Tuesday.

To close out last week, Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond (pictured) made history. How' He became just the third person ever to record more than $10 million in tracked high-stakes winnings on Full Tilt Poker, according to HighStakesDB. Galfond joined Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius in that superlative and piled up nearly $800,000 in winnings last Thursday alone.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) halted the ability of Bitcoin users to make transactions between a popular e-wallet and the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange. The DHS Seizure Warrant calls for the forfeiture of a Dwolla e-wallet account held by a subsidiary of the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange, resulting in the suspension of transactions between the two companies.

Recently, the MiniFTOPS Main Event played out on the virtual felts of Full Tilt Poker. The tournament drew 13,000 entrants and $1 million was paid out. Over $140,000 in prize money separated first place from ninth, and taking second when all was said and done was André galatrixo Pereira (pictured), who calls Portugal home. He was the biggest winner among members of PocketFives that weekend.

Weland tlt17 Holroyd of the United Kingdom placed 3rd in the PokerStars Sunday Million weekly flagship event over the weekend for $122,595. With that score, he could very easily work his way back into the Top 500 worldwide rankings. Fellow member pokergrinder6 finished 4th in that tournament for $82,384.

Nearly 10,000 entries were turned in for two Multi-Entry events held on Sunday as part of the ongoing Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. Perhaps not surprisingly, members of PocketFives claimed both titles, completing a clean sweep of all five FTOPS XXI tournaments held over the weekend. Canada's DrewAce34, who lives in New Westminster, British Columbia, blasted through the field of a $129 ...

Just over a week ago, the Ongame Network $100,000 Guaranteed, a $250 No Limit Hold'em tournament, generated a field of 730 players and paid out over $138,000 in total cash. Leading the way was Belgium's Yeshaya (pictured), who pulled in $25,000 and plays under the screen name china_white1 on that network. His real name is Yeshaya Kramer, whom we hunted down for a feature article here on ...

One of the highlights of 2012 was Greg Merson winning his second bracelet in the World Series of Poker Main Event. The lone dual bracelet winner of 2012, Merson also captured the WSOP's Player of the Year title and banked $8.5 million following a marathon three-handed session. Merson's story is inspiring and PocketFives caught up with him to recap the year that was and look forward to 2013.

Yes, this is a title of an article on PocketFives that will describe the life of Faraz The-Toilet Jaka (pictured) after the 2013 National Heads-Up Poker Championship and Aussie Millions. You can read on to see where he's headed for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, but in the meantime, he is gearing up for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in Las Vegas that will air on NBC in March. ...

This weekend, DraftKings will host what it claims is the largest daily fantasy hockey tournament ever held, the Light the Lamp Classic. The one-day tournament guarantees $25,000 and its champ will walk off with $5,000. The entry isn't as much as you'd think, $109, and an overlay is likely. Among those entering this weekend is longtime PocketFives member Mike goleafsgoeh Leah (pictured), who at ...

When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill legalizing online gambling in the Garden State this week, poker players celebrated. Perhaps more relieved that intrastate gaming is on the way were the Atlantic City casinos, which have been struggling in recent years, especially as customers have been opting to play at venues in neighboring states. While it will still be quite some time ...

Paul Berende (pictured), better known as padjes on PocketFives, recently chopped a PokerStars TCOOP event heads-up and booked a $100,000 payday. He is from the Netherlands, was camped out in the Bahamas for the PCA, and then made his way to Brazil on a last-second whim, where he proceeded to chop a TCOOP tournament. The $109 Cubed TCOOP event brought out a field of nearly 3,700 players and ...

Last weekend, Warsaw's Andrzejeczek (pictured), whose first name is Pawel, chopped the PokerStars Sunday 500 heads-up and walked off with $100,000. He joined PocketFives late last year and is just $5,000 shy of lapping $600,000 in tracked online MTT winnings. He is not a full-time player quite yet, as he works in IT as his Monday-to-Friday job, but we'll see how long the "real world" gig lasts.

On Thursday at 21:00 UK Time, the PocketFives Open will return to 888 Poker. This marks the second straight PocketFives Open that 888 has been kind enough to host, and this time around, over $5,000 in cash and prizes will be added, including $2,500 provided by 888. You can find Thursday's PocketFives Open in the "Restricted" tab of the 888 client. The tournament ID is 46044194 and the password ...

Heading into last week's Full Tilt Sunday Brawl, Colombia's marroca5 was on a major downswing with no end in sight. He told PocketFives that he usually doesn't get discouraged by the swings of poker, but this time was different: "This one was very discouraging because I was on an MTT downswing and, on top of that, I had played cash games and stakes I don't usually play. That combined with some ...

The latest update of the PocketFives Rankings occurred on Wednesday and featured Cal cal42688 Anderson (pictured) reclaiming the top spot worldwide. He relinquished the #1 spot for one week to Belaruis' Legenden, but now finds himself back in the driver's seat. This is actually Anderson's third stint at #1 in 2013, as his previous runs were from September 5 to February 6 (22 weeks) and from ...

After nine years, Fortune Poker, which makes its home on the Boss Media Network, will be closing its doors. March 31, which is Sunday, will be the last chance players will have to compete on its virtual felts. As to why the room will be vacating the market, a message found on Fortune Poker's website claimed, "With many changes in the online gaming industry, it has been a struggle to continue to ...

It was another down week for online poker traffic, as online poker rooms saw 2% fewer cash game players last week than they did the week before according to the traffic monitoring site PokerScout. As usual, PokerStars ruled the roost with a seven-day average of 23,600 cash game players. PartyPoker, the iPoker Network, and Full Tilt Poker followed behind, all with not even one-tenth the players ...

Over the weekend, the first of three episodes of the 2013 National Heads-Up Poker Championship aired on NBC. The action started after the 64-man tournament had been trimmed down to a field of 16 and, in a departure from years past, players introduced themselves to the camera and some even talked a little trash. You'll recall that the tournament was not run in 2012 in the wake of Black Friday.

Ever hear someone say they don’t like Pot Limit Omaha or PLO/8 because there is no way to bluff' If so, you have identified someone you want to be playing against who is missing out on a big part of the game. I play in some of the loosest games you can find with plenty of action and a mass of players who are getting to showdown with a high percentage of hands. Even with that, I find myself ...

Don't look now, but two former #1 players in the PocketFives Rankings have re-entered the top 10. When and if they will climb back to the top spot remains to be seen, but each certainly has the chops to make a run. This week, moorman1 (pictured) rose from #15 worldwide to #8, while p0cket00 climbed from #12 to #5. Half of the top 10 has been ranked #1 at some point during their tenure on ...

There has been plenty of news brewing over the weekend regarding the former owners and decision-makers of Ultimate Bet allegedly conspiring to cover up the cheating at the now defunct online poker room. Consequently, Ultimate Poker, the first regulated real money online poker site in the U.S., and which had ties to a verification service that was linked to Ultimate Bet called Iovation, has taken ...

“Sorry the game wasn’t any good; they just weren’t gambling last night,” a dealer from a game that I go to every once in a while told me after I had come up to play in one of the games that wasn’t as wide open as usual. The game was a $5/$10 round and round game with Hold'em and Omaha. Often, this particular game can be wide open with huge pots hand after hand and money moving around ...

PocketFives members narrowly missed out on a final table sweep of the Full Tilt Poker $500k Guarantee weekly flagship on Sunday; finishing in 8 out of the top 9 spots overall. Longtime member fu_15, currently ranked #70 worldwide with over $3.5 million in career online tournament prizes, outlasted nearly 2,800 opponents to take home $103,452 in a victorious effort. Top 10 ranked online tourney ...

There haven't been many businesses that Andrew muddywater Wiggins (pictured) hasn't overseen. From CardRunners, a popular poker training site, to DraftDay, a daily fantasy sports site, Wiggins has done it all. He has also been a staple of the PocketFives poker community since our first year in business. DraftDay is holding a $100,000 guaranteed DraftDay Championship Series Main Event on Sunday ...

Three events were held on Saturday as part of the 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. PocketFivers definitely made the most of the $300,000 in guaranteed prize money that was up for grabs, as members of our online poker community brought home all three titles. PocketFivers have now claimed FTOPS championships every day the series has been held and Saturday marked our first clean sweep. ...

The very first PocketFives HogWild League game of 2013 will kick off on Tuesday, January 8. U.S. players are welcome to enter and there's no cost to play. In the past, we have offered up $250 in prizes each month for our HogWild Poker League, but in January, we're upping the ante to $500. Game on. Sign up for HogWild here to be registered for the League automatically.

It's been an epic run for Viktor Isildur1 Blom (pictured), a sponsored pro of Full Tilt Poker, in 2013. He is up over $5 million on Full Tilt since the site's re-launch in November and is quickly closing in on $6 million. While a chunk of the poker world is camped out in the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, whose Main Event concludes on Sunday, Blom stayed behind, racking up ...

Kai kingkai Danilo of Norway led PocketFives members in online tournament action over the weekend by cashing in for an even $125,000 for 2nd place in the PartyPoker $1 Million Guaranteed event (3-way deal). Fourth-ranked Legenden bowed out in 5th place for $46,000. Current #6 ranked Matt ch0ppy Kay (pictured) of Canada took home $121,344 for 3rd place in the PokerStars Sunday Million weekly ...

In the incomplete information game that is poker, it's all too easy to dismiss situations as standard instead of actually thinking about them and finding an edge. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of straightforward situations, but lots of times as players, we take the easy route and excuse a play that we pass off as standard when there was actually enough information available to ...

Recently, the nation of Serbia rejoiced as one of its own, Veljko Cocic (pictured), took down a Triple Crown. We believe he is the first Triple Crown winner that Serbia has produced, which makes for a very special occasion. Cocic took down a $2,100 side bet in the process as well, telling us, “I am active on the biggest Serbian forum and haven't played MTTs the past few months because I have a ...

After what has been a hectic week in the online gambling world with the announcements from both Nevada and New Jersey that the two states will officially enter interstate gambling, one company is attempting to position itself as a social outlet.

On Wednesday, March 20, HogWild Poker will be hosting the first U.S.-friendly PocketFives Open of 2013. We're giving away a brand new iPad worth $499 to the winner of the tournament, which is completely free to play. HogWild Poker is a U.S.-facing, free-play site and longstanding partner of PocketFives. The tournament starts at 9:00pm Eastern Time on Wednesday and Americans are welcome to enter.

The 22nd Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, has raged on in recent days and plenty of PocketFivers have captured jerseys. As it currently stands, PocketFivers have won five of the last six FTOPS XXII tournaments, including Events #28, #29, #30, #31, and #32. Needless to say, it has been a pretty fruitful FTOPS for many members of the PocketFives community.

PocketFives members took the three top spots in the PokerStars $100 Sunday Rebuy as several 2013 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) major events were in still in progress as of Monday afternoon. Amtozza earned $73,329 for his outright victory in the rebuy tournament while cal42688 and stlouis6 collected $53,399 and $40,180 for their respective 2nd and 3rd place efforts.

Caesars Entertainment, the owner of the World Series of Poker, has applied for a license to operate an online gambling site in the state of New Jersey. Caesars is already well established in New Jersey, operating four casinos in Atlantic City: Bally’s Atlantic City, Harrah’s Resort, Showboat Casino Hotel, and the company’s namesake, Caesars Atlantic City. It would come as quite a shock if ...

There has been a ton of demand to have Winamax added to the PocketFives Rankings. Every time someone has asked whether PocketFives plans to add Winamax to our leaderboards, our response was always the same: "We're working on it." Well, we are pleased to say that Winamax has been added to the PocketFives Rankings effective May 1. And, you can boost your PLB score by playing in Sunday's €200,000 ...

In November of last year, Trevor Dinneen (pictured), who is known as allintrev23 on PocketFives, took down the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for $110,000 officially. The cash was worth 628 PLB Points and he outlasted a field of over 3,500 opponents. Last month, he was up to his winning ways once more, this time taking down the $200,000 Guaranteed on the iPoker Network and raking in $33,000. To boot, ...

PocketFives has learned that the ratings for the pre-taped, or packaged, World Series of Poker Main Event on ESPN episodes increased by a sizable 17% in 2012 compared to 2011. The Main Event's packaged shows began airing in August and concluded on October 23.

The tournaments season slows down a little bit during December, but there’s still plenty of action available. This article is provided courtesy of , which lists every major poker tournament series in North America. Check out .

Three days, three wins by PocketFives members in events being held as part of the 21st Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS. The latest person to claim victory was Russia's Mikleler (pictured), who took home $18,000 after a heads-up chop of Event #5, a $216 Pot Limit HA Six-Max tournament that posted a $100,000 prize pool. He chopped two ways with Full Tilt player TheKoalabear, who banked ...

It's back! Following NBC axing the event in October 2011, the National Heads-Up Poker Championship will return in 2013 after a one-year hiatus. On Thursday, Poker Productions, which puts on the event, sent a Tweet out teasing, "Press release soon, but NBC Heads-Up is back - Jan 24-26 at Caesars Palace. Invites going out." Caesars Palace has played host to the event since 2006 and NBC has carried ...

On Thursday, Mike GoLeafsGoEh Leah (pictured) scored his second Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) jersey, this time after coming away with the win in a $322 Razz tournament. The setting was Event #28, in which 245 players turned out to create a prize pool of $73,000, nearly quadruple its $20,000 guarantee. Leah banked $19,000 when all was said and done. Check out Full Tilt Poker for details.

In breaking news, the World Series of Poker Europe will pick up shop and head to Paris in 2013. This year, the event was held in Cannes on the Mediterranean coast. The action will take place from October 11 to 24 at the Casino Barrière Enghien-les-Bains in a glitzy suburb of Paris. The new host casino recently underwent extensive renovations and now features a spa called The Spark.

For decades, gin was the game of choice for players waiting around for a card game to start. It could be played with just a couple of players, as a hand or game doesn’t take that long and is a great filler while waiting on enough players to get the poker game going. A few months back, all the rage about Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) caught my attention. I did a little research on the rules, ...

2013 continues to look like it’s going to be the year of intrastate online poker in the U.S. With the chances of Federal legislation legalizing the game all but dead, the attention of the poker world continues to be on individual states as they race to become the first to market.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal and other sites this week, Yahoo could be planning a takeover of the social games maker Zynga. According to the Journal on Tuesday, "The speculation stems from comments Yahoo's M&A head made last week about working on two 'significant' acquisitions and about six smaller talent 'acquihires,' comments reported by All Things D. That had analysts playing ...

If you were looking for the optimal snowboarding environment, we'd imagine the frozen tundra of Siberia would be near the top of the list. The snowy Russian locale is home to PocketFiver Sergey Kalinovskiy, who is better known as Liveplz on our site. At the beginning of the month, he marched to a second place finish in the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl and raked in $31,000.

Continuing his torrid pace to start 2013, Dan Shak (pictured) won the PartyPoker Premier League VI over the weekend, winning close to a half-million dollars in the process.