The week so far has been a lot of planning and preparation for the WSOP main event. We’re gearing up for Phil’s big entrance to the main event, which will be nothing less than spectacular, I’ll promise you that. Just keep in mind that when the emperor enters Rome, everyone knows it and is waiting. That’s all I can really say.
On the web site and poker client, we are preparing for the June 21st 50-Package guaranteed event, which will add to the 115 players we’ve already qualified to the World Series of Poker. We actually have a player who is qualified a total of 4 times. FOUR TIMES! Leave some for the rest of us already. No really, congratulations to you.
After June 21st we’ll be switching our focus to the Aruba Poker Classic, the ultimate island poker tournament. We have already started qualifying players through STEPS but will be adding a ton of other qualifiers in the upcoming weeks. AND, we will be offering another $10M bonus to players for the continuation of the 10th Anniversary celebration. Stay tuned for details on that.
Additionally on the UB site, we have the Daily Highlights page up and running. This page is a quick snapshot of the best tournaments and promotions we have to offer that day. You can navigate up to a week in advance to schedule your busy poker schedule. This way, you don’t have to sift through the endless tourney schedule to figure out when the good events are happening.
Can you believe we are almost in April? What the hell is happening with 2009?
I think the Earth might be speeding up because years seem like months now days, or maybe I am just getting old. Anyways, April means just 1 thing for the poker community: WSOP IS AROUND THE CORNER!!
We have already qualified over 40 players to the WSOP Main Event and our staff is very excited of all the plans we have for this year’s events.
The big question at UB definitely is: Will Phil be able win his 12th bracelet? We are definitely counting on it. If he achieves it, well his legend status will be more than confirmed and will give him a 2 bracelet advantage over Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. As the WSOP gets older, it’s quite clear that it will be hard for someone to ever tie him.
Enough about Phil…. Remember that UB is offering a $10.000.000 prize to any player that agrees to wear our gear and wins the Main Event. That’s right, not only the player will receive a prize ranging between $7m – $10m, but UB is offering and additional $10.000.000 for the player representing UB that ends up with the Main Event Bracelet.
We are looking forward for you to join us in Vegas, so remember that you can always try out our Steps to WSOP and also our $530 Sunday Satellite to WSOP to which you can qualify through our daily $10+1 rebuy qualifiers.
We invite you to visit our promo page @ http://www.casinowebcam.com/promotions/blackjack.htm to find out about our exiting promotions.
April is just a few days away and that means our popular $200.000 rake race is about to finish. The leaderboard updates every hour, so check your standing today… You could end up winning up to $15.000 and registered in a $20.000 Freeroll.
Good luck and see you at the tables!!
From rock stars, WSOP and the hottest game of the year in Aruba!!!
As you may have noticed, some weeks ago CEREUS launched Step tourneys!! Steps is an easy way to win huge land events/online tourney packages through a quick an exciting sit n go structure. Pretty much for just $0.10 you can end up sitting at the most prestigious tourney, the WSOP Main Event July 3rd, 2009.
Not only that, $0.10 can end up giving you huge profits!! The first 10 players winning a WSOP package all the way from step 1 will win a 100% free $8500 package to Aruba 2009! But it doesn’t ends there… We at marketing believe that UB management have CEREUSLY lost it… it seems that any player who signs up with UB, agress to wear our gear and achieves to win the WSOP 2009 main event will take home $10.000.000 in addition to the Main Event’s prize pool. Details for this promo will be available soon, but its already confirmed.
In addition to the millions of $ UB is throwing out the window, he have a special tourney featuring UB’s own Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke plus an amazing line up of rockstars!! So check it out, on March 11th 20 players will be joining Vinnie Paul (Pantera), Scott Ian (Anthrax), Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains), Slash (Guns n’ Roses/Velvet Revolver) and Kirk Hammett in a 27 seat sng with a $10.0000 prizepool… check details at http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-promotion/scott-ian-home-game
So, make sure to check out our step tourneys, because some major prizes await some lucky UB players.
The promotions team @ UB is constantly baking tons of exciting promos, so make sure to stop by the blog for updates and visit our promo page @ http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-promotion
It’s been a pretty cool month for online poker. My highlights include a few challenges: Gus Hansen’s boxing match against Theo Jorgensen, Tom Dwan’s (aka “durrrr”) challenges the world to a $1.5million prop bet and Patrick Antonious accepted, and UB’s Steps Challenge.
I was pretty busy in 2008 and I did not make time for keeping myself in shape. This year I started boxing training, started back at the gym, and I am just trying to stay active as much as possible. I never liked going to the gym and it’s always been a constant struggle for me. I played ice hockey for most of my life and it was a great way to stay in shape, especially because I actually enjoyed playing. For the past four years, I’ve been living in places where ice hockey is not an option and staying in shape has not been easy. To be perfectly honest, I hate going to the gym, but thankfully I enjoy boxing which has become my new hockey. It’s something I want to keep getting better at, which motivates me to work hard and to keep going to training, whereas with the gym, I usually stop going after a while. But now, even going to the gym to lift weights has more appeal because it is helping me to become better at boxing (At least that’s what I keep telling myself).
I have always been a fan of boxing and recently I have also become a big fan of Mixed Martial Arts. So when I heard about two professional poker players (Gus Hansen and Theo Jorgensen) in a boxing match, I got pretty excited.
I think it was a great publicity stunt and a really fun bet between friends. I am just getting started with my boxing training but I can appreciate the hard work these two guys must have put in to prepare themselves for a 3 round exhibition fight.
The challenge: Hansen placed a handicap on himself in the match. Gus had to pay $35,000 if he lost and Jorgensen $25,000 if he lost.
In the first round I thought the fight was pretty even. Theo came out and landed a few in Gus’s face, which I think tilted Gus a little bit. Gus then came charging back at Theo for the rest of the round, landing a few really good right hands. The two exchanged a lot of punches and I think it was a very close round. However, I think Gus got too excited and was too eager to land a big right hand, which he was able to do a few times, but he also wasted a lot of energy in the process.
In the second round, I think it was a relatively even too, but Theo seemed a lot more calm and retained a lot more energy than Gus. In the third round, I think Theo pulled ahead by staying with his strategy and taking advantage of Gus’s fatigue. Theo continued to land solid jabs and right hands, while Gus came with solid punches when he had the energy.
I think it was a great amateur fight, even though to a lot of people it probably looked like two boys just throwing wild punches. Both fighters impressed me, but Theo was able to stick to a simple strategy of landing effective jabs and right hands without trying to land too many hooks or try anything fancy. He conserved his energy and stayed calm which enabled him to execute his game plan.
Thanks to both fighters for bringing some excitement to the poker world! And congrats to Theo on the victory and the $35K!
The Durrrr Challenge
Tom Dwan “durrrr” has made quite a name for himself in the poker world. At just 22, he has already become a legend through his success at the nosebleed cash games and tournaments.
Recently, Dwan issued the Million Dollar Challenge, open to any member of the poker community except Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. The challenge requires opponents to play Dwan in 50,000 hands of $200/$400 or higher on four tables at a time. If either player drops below 75 big blinds in their stack at any point, they must reload.
At the conclusion of the Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold’em hands, a winner will be crowned. If Dwan is ahead by $1 or more, his opponent must fork over $500,000. If Dwan’s opponent is ahead by $1 or more, he has offered to pay $1.5 million. In each case, the victor will also keep the spoils of the 50,000 hands of play. In addition to the money, the Million Dollar Challenge is about bragging rights.
So far Patrick Antonius, Phil Ivey, and David Benyamine have accepted the challenge.
Patrick Antonius was the first to accept and they are currently at just under 4000 hands and Dwan is currently leading by roughly $150K.
It seems that most people agree that Dwan has an advantage over the world’s top players when playing 4 tables. I’m wondering if it’s enough to justify the 3:1 odds against the best players in the world? Regardless, I think this challenge has created a huge amount of exposure for Dwan. This challenge and his appearance on some big poker televesion this year (including my fav show, GSN’s high stakes poker) , should make 2009 an even bigger year for Dwan than 2008.
We recently launched Steps on UltimateBet and we have come up with a promotion to celebrate it. The first 10 players who win all 10 steps (note: you have to start at the .10cent step to qualify) will win a WSOP package (value of $12,000) and an Aruba package (value of $8500)!
I believe this is the best value I have ever seen in a Steps promotion.
I’m thinking about issuing a challenge of my own this year. I’m considering challenging other online poker CEO’s to a boxing or golf proposition bet. If anyone has any ideas for the challenge, comment on this post.
OK so call us sick and twisted or too competitive for our own good, but I’ve got a prop bet going with Annie right now that promises to truly add to the level of degeneracy in my quest to become the best professional gambler i can be. Shortly after UB launched the new Steps sngs, she called me with the challenge to race her to a WSOP 12k main event prize package. But the catch is, we can only buy in at Step One for 10 cents!!!
Yup…first one to make it thru all 10 steps to the WSOP seat wins the bet. But this is hardly just about winning our way thru the ranks — cuz if we bust out at any point in the steps, we have to go all the way back down to step 1 and start comletely from scratch!! Basically there are 4 possible results in every step tourney — win and get a ticket for the next level, get a ticket to repeat the same level, get a ticket to go DOWN a level, or busto!!!
So the secret to winning this prop bet is to accumulate as many of the lower-level tickets as possible before taking a shot at the higher steps. So far i’ve turned 18 step one entries (less than 2 bucks outta my pocket, baby!) into 4 beautiful step 4 tickets. But that definitely won’t be enough to take the shot at the big step 10 nut, so my plan is to pick up 20 or so step 4 tickets before going for the gold!
So far Annie has only made step 3, but has accumulated something like 20 step 2 tickets, so I think i’ve got a slight edge. Doing the math makes me think, on average, a highly skilled player would still need to play something like 1000 step ones in order to win a WSOP seat (only buying in at the first level, never rebuying higher). So if i’m at 4 step 4 tix at 18 step one buy-ins, I’m thinking i’ll blast thru a cool 100 step ones to get to around 20 step 4’s and then take the shot. Still far shy of the 1000 i’d need to play on average, but i’ll take a 10% gamble and see how it goes.
The truly sick thing here is the stakes — being as competitive as Annie and I are, of course its not about some huge amount of money or some kind of sick humiliation. Rather, in these tough economic times, the loser has to take the winner and a guest out for a fabulously lavish dinner at the location of the winner’s choice this summer in Vegas at the WSOP!
Never one to pass up a good months-long struggle against the odds, Annie’s boyfriend Joe (also a good friend of mine) got in on the action to make it a 3-way prop bet and race to the WSOP seat… so if you see myself, Annie, or Joe playing in the lower-level step sngs over the next few months, come say hi & cheer us on….
…Actually, come cheer ME on, but make sure to give them plenty of harassment! I’ve gotta exploit every possible edge at my disposal to win this thing, so everyone’s welcome to join in the fun. Rock on –
As part of our continued commitment to offer you the Ultimate Poker Experience, we’re yet again launching another type of poker tournament. Never before have you had the chance to literally get to the WSOP on as little as $0.10. That’s right, 10 pennies is all it takes to start your quest to crushing the 2009 WSOP. Hence, GO DEEP FOR CHEAP!
How does it work? The STEP Tournament is a type of Sit-n-Go. Each STEP Tournament series consists of 10 STEPS, or 10 individual Sit-n-Go Tournaments. The initial buy-in for the first STEP is $0.10 and as the STEPS advance, the buy-ins increase.
How do you move through the STEPS?
The first two winners of STEP 1 advance to STEP 2 without having to buy in, and so on. This goes on until STEP 10 which eventually results in the winner securing the final land-based tournament package. If you don’t finish first in a STEP, depending on how you finish, you may have the oppourtunity to replay a STEP. That means as long as you finish high enough, you will have the chance to battle it out again, hopefully earning your way to the next STEP.
You can enter a STEP Tournament at any STEP, but you will have to buy in directly with cash. The only way to secure your spot in a STEP Tournament for free is by qualifying to advance from a previous STEP.
In the simplest terms, you can get to the WSOP on a dime.
