Qualifiers for Bodog Poker's VIP packages to the WSOP Europe finish this Sunday, Aug. 19, with two Main Event Semifinals being held at 3:05 p.m. EST and 3:05 p.m. GMT. (Bodog Beat Image)
Last chance, final warning. Bodog Poker's qualifiers for the six guaranteed VIP WSOP Europe packages end with two Semifinals being held at 3:05 p.m. EST and 3:05 p.m. GMT this Sunday, but there are still plenty of opportunities to win your way into these tournaments.
For as little as a dollar you can start on your way to the $540 buy-in. So, don't miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of poker history and to do it in true Bodog style. The VIP package consists of not only the £10,000 Main Event buy-in but also round trip airfare on British Airways or Virgin Atlantic (if you're going, this is the way to go), a 10-night stay at a five-star luxury hotel, spending money, a car service to whisk qualifiers around London, spending money, a suit from Savile Row and plenty of Bodog gear.
Here is a full schedule of qualifiers for Saturday and Sunday (all times are US Eastern):Saturday (Tomorrow):
| Euro Main Event Qualifier Euro Main Event Cheap Seat Euro Main Event Qualifier Euro Main Event Quarterfinal Euro Main Event Qualifier Euro Main Event Cheap Seat (rebuy) Euro Main Event Quarterfinal Euro Main Event Qualifier Euro Main Event Quarterfinal (Rebuy) | $5.50 or 300 PTS $2.00 $5.50 or 300 PTS $40.00 $5.50 or 300 PTS $1.00 $40.00 $5.50 or 300 PTS $16.00 | 1:30am 5:30am 11:45am 2:15pm 3:00pm 4:15pm 5:15pm 7:15pm 11:15pm |
Sunday, Aug. 19:
| Euro Main Event Qualifier Euro Main Event Cheap Seat Euro Main Event Semifinal | $5.50 or 300 PTS $2.00 | 1:30am 5:30am |
| Euro Main Event Semifinal Euro Main Event Semifinal | $540.00 $540.00 | 10:05am 3:05pm |
So, start playing now and imagine yourself going up against some of the biggest names in poker and living the Bodog lifestyle.
Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari demonstrate an automated poker heads-up machine at the 2007 World Series of Poker. (Bodog Beat Image)
If you were at the World Series of Poker this year, which we were, then you may have seen a demonstration by Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari of the new automated heads-up poker table. The table was then on display in the hallway outside for regular joes to give it a shot.
Inside the Gaming Life Expo, you may also have seen the full 10-seater electronic poker tables. Each seat with a screen in front and a center screen for the community cards.
Well, with a combination of these two types of machines, the world's first poker room to feature all electronic tables has opened at Four Winds Casino Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan. The room features fifteen PokerPro 10-seat tables and four heads-up tables, all exclusively provided by North Carolina-based software provider PokerTek.
The automated room will offer Limit and No-Limit Texas Hold'em cash games, Limit and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi and Hi-Lo cash games, and single and multi-table tournaments with a variety of buy-ins.
The advantages of the tables are to limit dealer error and supposedly increase the number of hands seen per hour by 50%. Yay, even more chances to bet sucked-out on by some donkey who just thinks that playing poker on a machine is, like, the coolest thing ever.
Ominous ending note: The machines are taking over the world.
The World Poker Tour has signed an agreement with the Chinese government to bring tournament poker to the masses. (Bodog Beat Image)
The World Poker Tour's recent announcement that they will sign an agreement with China to bring tournament poker to the country of 1.3 billion people either shows tremendous foresight or questionable decision-making. Either way, providing poker to a country whose government views gambling on the same level as prostitution and drugs, and outlaws all of them, takes some balls.
In related news, famed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar have also signed agreements with the Chinese government.
The Chinese communist government is notorious for its wavering and often hypocritical take on anything from human rights to blog access. They regularly go through periods of perceived permissiveness only to turn around a few months or years later and crack down again. The same goes for gambling. Gambling is legal and taxed heavily in the Chinese "special economic zone" of Macau, but illegal in all other parts of China. This announcement shows an easing of this ban and a possible change of attitude toward poker in the rest of China, but unless it shows economic merit will that attitude stay this way?
For what it's worth at the moment, the WPT seems to have reached an accord with the China Leisure Sports Administrative Center to provide poker to the Chinese people. There has been no word as to what the stakes will be for the tournaments and if this could be a sticking point for the government. (What could be more of note here is that poker falls under the "sports" administration, even in a communist nation. Could this agreement have gone another step toward defining poker worldwide as more than just a game?)
Add this announcement to the deal WPT Enterprises signed with Macau Cable and MediaCorp (Singapore) to air the first two seasons of the show, and the WPT now has expanded it's reach by almost 2 billion people. Whether or not the decision will come back to bite them, you can't argue with that number.