Phil Laak Leads after Premier League Opening Heats

The PartyPoker Premier League is underway in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it’s Phil Laak who has been dominating the opening exchanges out in the ‘city of sin’.

Eleven of the world’s best players are at the M Casino in Vegas to fight it out for the Premier League IV title and the $1.5 million in prize money on offer.

Laak has had a great opening two heats. After winning both Heat 1 and Heat 2 he is sitting pretty at the top of the league with a maximum 32 points. David Benyamine leads the chasing pack on 24 points, whilst Tony G is struggling at this early stage with just 2 points.

David Benyamine Joins the Las Vegas Premier League Party

The big names just keep on coming in regards to the next Party Poker Premier League. Perhaps the lure of Las Vegas is attracting some but surely the $1.5 million prize pool is pricking up the ears of all the “big hitters”.

Today, David Benyamine and been revealed as the next player to join the Premier League IV. Benyamine Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Phil Hellmuth, JC Tran, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Roland de Wolfe, Luke Schwartz and, as we announced last week, Tony G.

Each player (12 in total) is putting up $100,000 to buy in and Party Poker are adding $300,000 to the prize pool.

Tony G Joins Team Party Poker

Party Poker appear to be on a “big name” recruitment drive right now. Following the addition of Kara Scott to Team Party Poker, the online poker giants have now signed up Aussie bad boy Tony G to their ranks.

Tony G, real name Antanas Guoga, joins Team Party Poker effective immediately as a site spokesman. Guoga’s own online poker room, Tony G Poker, has been snapped up by Party Gaming PLC as part of the deal. Players at Tony G Poker will be moved across to the Noble Poker platform which is also owned by Party Gaming.

EPT Deauville: Robert Cezarescu Leads after Day 1a

The PokerStars European Poker Tour has arrived in Deauville for the first stop on the 2010 tour. Local French players are out in force in the hunt for the Deauville crown making up a total of 339 runners for Day 1a. Another 300+ strong field is expected for Day 1b, which starts later today, as the action heats up in France.

Robert Cezarescu ended Day 1a as the chip leader with over 200,000 chips. Katja Thater and Mike “Timex” McDonald are still in contention, though, along with dozens of French players who are hot on Cezareacu’s heels.

Day 1b looks set to be an exciting affair with the likes of Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Dario Minieri, Greg Raymer and Victoria Coren all set to do battle across the felt.

Aussie Millions 2010: Annette Obrestad wins Event 4

Betfair Poker’s pro’ Annette Obrestad has won the fourth event at the 2010 Aussie Millions bagging a $40,000 first place prize in the process.

Annette, who began the final day in third place behind leaders Oliver Gill and Con Angelakis, made short work of her opponents in this Pot Limit Omaha event. Despite displaying good form on several occasions this was her first victory in a live poker event since his historic 2007 World Series of Poker Europe win.

Annette hit the social networking site Twitter shortly after her win and announced; “Yayyyyy i won!!!!” to all her followers.

Timoshenko joins JC Tran in Premier League Line-up

Yevgeniy Timoshenko is to join JC Tran in the pro line-up to make his PartyPoker Premier League debut. Timoshenko has taken the poker world by storm in recent years by winning the big WPT Championship Main Event at the Bellagio, taking down the 2008 Asian Poker Tour Macau title and the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event. Timoshenko was born in Kharkov, Ukraine but moved to Washington State when he was 10 years old. In the last couple of years he has established his reputation as a fearsome online and offline player.

Timoshenko said: “It is fantastic to be invited and I’m very happy to be competing in this tournament against the world’s best!”

Blonde Poker Kicked off iPoker Network due to “Winning Players”

Blonde Poker, one of Europe’s most popular poker forums and websites, has been given written notice by iPoker to leave their network. The skin, which has one of the smaller player groups on iPoker, has been given three months to leave the network by iPoker.

Tony “Tikay” Kendall was damning of the decision by iPoker chiefs. Tikay, one of the founder members and shareholders of the website, said; “On Friday, BlondePoker Web Ltd received in writing 3 months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker. The document was a complex one – 15 pages long, full of equations & algorithms, but the gist of it was that, on aggregate, the blonde players are winning players.”

WSOP 2009: David Bach wins $50,000 H.O.R.S.E

The marathon H.O.R.S.E event at the WSOP came to a conclusion yesterday with American David Bach taking the honours and a $1,276,806 pay day.

Bach was in contention throughout the closing stages of the tournament and he eventually overcame fellow US player John Hanson, heads up, to take the bracelet that many consider to be the truest test of any poker players abilities.

WPT adds Cincinatti Stop to Tour

The World Poker Tour (WPT) has recently added European and African stops to their famous poker tour. Now WPT Enterprises are to return to the United States with a new stop on the tour in Cincinatti.

The Hollywood Casino Hotel Lawrenceburg, formerly known as the Argosy Casino Hotel Lawrenceburg, is to host the event which will feature a $10,000 buy in main event which will be filmed for Fox Sports Net.