World Poker fans have been waiting for the announcement of the World Poker Tour for quite some time now and their wait is now over. The World Poker Tour announced the schedule for Season X. There will be eleven very exciting events that fans should look forward to, and these events will all happen before the year ends. In the eleven events, six are international and the remaining five tournaments will be held in the United States.

The six international countries that would serve as the venues of the World Poker tournaments are Slovenia, Paris, Malta, Amneville, Marrakech, and Prague. While those that will happen in the U.S. will feature World Poker Tournament staples like the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, and the newest U.S. stop, the Orange Park Kennel Club in Jacksonville, Florida.

April 15 was a very big day for a lot of people in the U.S., especially those who love playing online poker. Their whole world came crashing down but they really do not have to stay like this for a long time since everything turned out better that they have expected just last June 24.

Texas Representative Joe Barton just presented a bill that would create a licensing program for interstate online poker at the Federal level. There is an opportunity for each state, though, to opt out of the said program.

The name of the bill is Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection, and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2011. This bill actually has full support in Washington. And a number has also agreed to co-sponsor the said bill like Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo), Ron Paul (R-Texas), Peter King (R-N.Y.), Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), Barney Frank (D-Mass), John Conyers (D-Mich), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), John Campbell (R-Calif), and Shelley Berkley (D-Nev). And the Poker Players Association has, of course, given their support to all the efforts of Representative Barton.

As presented by Aria Hotel and Resort, the race for Bluff player of the year is really heating up especially since the 2011 World Series of Poker is now in the second half of the schedule. Eugene Katchalov is still the leader, even though he has not cashed a tournament yet since the 13th of June.

Ali Eslami slipped two spots just last week and out of the top five, but he just made a march back to the top. To surpass Katchalov, Eslami had a chance to move to the lead when he made his second World Series of Poker final table of the year, and he needs to be at least on the second spot. Ali Eslami was eliminated in 8th place which made him second and behind Katchalov, with only 96.21.

Jason Mercier, though, is the biggest mover recently and really making everything very interesting. He scored his second win this year in the $5,000 pot limit Omaha Six-Max event. And he also earned 272 points which gives him the seventh spot and he also got his second career bracelet.

Thirty bracelets were already awarded in the 2011 World Series of Poker, but the Bluff Streak 2 Seven contest just became more interesting, especially for one participant. All of these happened when Phil Hellmuth was defeated by Eric Rodawig in the $10,000 Stud Hi-Lo Eight or Better Championship.

After making four consecutive correct selections, PsychJJ went straight to the top of the leader board. PsychJJ’s selections of Jason Somerville, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Daniel Idema and Rodawig, this allowed him to move past three players with streaks of three.

Chartsandgraphs is also a contender with an active streak of three after correctly choosing Idema and Sam Stein. There are two other players with active streaks of three, kch7902 and Hotsexybeast. Five players, so far, have made streaks of three which earned each of them the first prize which is a one-year subscription to Bluff Magazine.

The race to get a seat in the pokerAGA.com Mediterranean Millions is still anybody’s game.

The Bluff Player of the year rankings have already undergone major changes just within the first week of the World Series of Poker, which is sponsored by Aria Hotel and Resort. In Event 5, the $1,500 seven card stud which featured three of the players who are in the top ten at the final table as Kachalov defeated Isaia earning his first bracelet. Eugene Katchalov’s win pushed Galen Hall and Erik Seidel aside in the top positions. Now, Katchalov is on top while Isaia moved to number six and Eslami in number 8.

Bari leads the other four newcomers after winning Event 4, and this made him land on the 4th spot. There are a lot of major changes in the standings this time and people are expecting some more changes as the games progress. Some players are coming as a surprise and people are really enjoying all of these and expecting more surprises to come.

Just last April the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City has suffered two heavy blows from two high-stakes gamblers and as reported by the Associated Press they have lost more than $11 Million.

A gambler from Pennsylvania, Don Johnson, beat the casino for $5.8 million playing blackjack last April. And after this amazing game by Mr. Johnson, just last week the Tropicana Casino and Resort, again, saw another high-stakes player who won more than $5 million. This winner was playing blackjack, craps and also mini-baccarat, according to the Associated Press. And he was betting as much as $100,000.

In 2010, Carl Icahn, a billionaire investor, saved the Tropicana Casino and Resort and bought the property out of bankruptcy. What he did was he allowed high-stakes bettors to take on the casino at some table games, for him this is a way to make up for all the past losses of the casino.

This is said to be the biggest Omaha Hi-Lo tournament ever in the history of the World Series of Poker, with an overall count of 925 entrants. And after three days of exciting games, Francesco “Cheech” Barbaro of Chicago bagged the title, and of course the $262,283. This is also Francesco’s first bracelet.

Francesco, 37 years old, joined the tournament during the last day as the chip leader. He did not actually have a very good start, but his stack was never really in any kind of jeopardy. But with skills and some luck, this former bartender dominated the whole game, especially when there were only five players remaining.

He took over the tournament from the regular Matt Waxman, who is in third place and a favorite, and after a few hands later he also took care of Kostas Kalathakis. And to everybody’s amazement, this is actually Francesco’s very first World Series of Poker event.

Last Saturday night at the very famous Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the poker genius Eugene Katchalov got his very first World Series of Poker bracelet. Most people expected it actually. Eugene Katchalov won event no.2 just after he outlasted a very tough field of 357.

Katchalov actually bagged the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure just last January, which was a very good way to start the year. It was a super high roller event for a huge $1.5 million. He did not stop here, since he followed this up with a second in the PCA, which was a no-limit hold’em turbo six-max high roller for a six-figure score. And after this amazing wins, Katchalov who is a New Yorker, finished second in the North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun no-limit hold’em high roller bounty shootout. This happened just two months ago. This poker wonder has already an estimated lifetime earnings to almost $7 million, he reached this amount because of his WSOP win of $123,000.