November 30 2011, Josh Bell
Take to the felt in the $10,000 PokerStars PokerNews League before it’s too late!
The top three places on the $10,000 PokerStars PokerNews League leaderboard have started to tighten up as the last three weeks are closing in.
“Kanabal18″ is still out in front after an impressive few weeks but the consistent form of ”AJEI” has seen him skyrocket up the leaderboard to sit only a few points behind first place.
Last week’s league event was taken down by ”AJEI” and he received 21 points for taking down the $3+0.30 turbo event. ”AJEI” also received the lion’s share of a free added prize pool.
$10,000 PokerNews League Leaderboard
| 1st | kanabal18 | 64 |
| 2nd | AJEI | 52 |
| 3rd | teteko07 | 44 |
| 4th | GioPN | 38 |
| 5th | plstrider | 32 |
| 6th | srtft | 32 |
| 7th | Adrian_Ac | 31 |
| 8th | plamax14 | 30 |
| 9th | pokermbe | 28 |
| 10th | RogerdelPK | 28 |
It may seem like it is too late to catch “Kanabal18,” but his 64 points came after taking part in just three league events, and with three more events remaining in the league, it’s definitely possible for you to make your dream a reality.
Weekly $10,000 PokerNews League Tournaments
| 10: Dec. 14 at 2100 EDT (0200 GMT) – $3+$0.3 NL Heads-Up ($100 added) |
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Team PokerStars Pros To Play In Your Leagues!
If you don’t already have enough reason to participate in the league, how about the fact that a number of Team PokerStars Pros will be taking to the felt in your league!
Not only will you be able to sit side-by-side with some of poker’s most recognizable names, you also stand the chance of claiming their $200 bounty and the bragging rights of sending a Team PokerStars Pro to the rail!
Below is a list of the Team PokerStars Pros who are lined up to take to the felt and in which league they will be playing in.
| PokerNews.com | December 21 | Vicky Coren |
| Western European | December 21 | Fatima Moreira de Melo |
| Nordics | December 21 | Theo Jorgensen |
| Central Europe | December 21 | Richard Toth |
| Iberian | December 18 | Ana Marquez |
| Eastern European | December 21 | Maxim Lykov |
| Baltics | December 21 | Marcin Horecki |
For your chance to play with one of the Team PokerStars Pros, download PokerStars through PokerNews and get involved in the amazing value leagues!
Players receive one point for participating in a league event, and the top 10 players receive the most points. See below for a breakdown of how league points are awarded.
League Point Payout Structure
| Place | League Points |
| 1st | 20 |
| 2nd | 16 |
| 3rd | 14 |
| 4th | 12 |
| 5th | 10 |
| 6th | 8 |
| 7th | 6 |
| 8th | 4 |
| 9th | 2 |
| 10th | 1 |
Follow the leaderboard standings!
There are only three events left, but it is definitely not too late to start playing and this is mostly due to the wild card tournament.
The wild card tournaments gives players the opportunity to earn double points. This mean if you choose your wild card tournament wisely, then you could earn 42 points and make your way to the top of the league leaderboard in no time.
If you post some good results over the next couple of events, then you could be one of the top 27 players who will qualify for the PokerNews League Final.
The League Final will take place on Dec. 21 at 2100 EST (0200 GMT) and the top 18 finishers in that event will earn a share of the huge $10,000 league prize pool.
$10,000 League Final Payout Structures
| *Place | Prize |
| 1 | 30% |
| 2 | 20% |
| 3 | 11.9% |
| 4 | 8% |
| 5 | 6.5% |
| 6 | 5% |
| 7 | 3.5% |
| 8 | 2.6% |
| 9 | 1.7% |
| 10 | 1.2% |
| 11 | 1.2% |
| 12 | 1.2% |
| 13 | 1.2% |
| 14 | 1.2% |
| 15 | 1.2% |
| 16 | 1.2% |
| 17 | 1.2% |
| 18 | 1.2% |
The best thing about the $10,000 PokerStars PokerNews League is that it is open to players from all regions! All players need is a password which will be released on PokerNews 48 hours prior to each event.
In addition to the $10,000 PokerStars PokerNews League, there are also seven region-specific leagues which will also award huge cash to players thanks to PokerStars and PokerNews. The leagues are locked to players with accounts from the given region.
Players from these region-specific leagues also have the ability to take part in $10,000 PokerStars PokerNews League and the Australasian League, which is also open to all players.
Iberian League: The league features a $4,000 prize pool and is locked to players with accounts based in Portugal and Spain.
Western European League: The league features a $9,000 prize pool and is locked to players with accounts based in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Austria and the Netherlands.
Central European League: The league features a $9,000 prize pool and is locked to players with accounts based in Solvenia, Balkans, Czech Republic and Hungary.
Eastern European League: The league features a $9,000 prize pool and is locked to players with accounts based in Romania, Bulgaria, the Russian Federation, Poland and Ukraine.
Nordic League: The league features a $4,000 prize pool and is locked to players with accounts based in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Baltic League: The league features a $9,000 prize pool and is locked to players based in Estonia, Israel, Turkey, Lithuania and Latvia.
Australasian League: The league features a $5,000 prize pool and is targeted at players with accounts based in Japan, Korea, China, India and Australia. (This league is also open to everyone.)
If you would like to start playing the league but don’t yet have a PokerStars account, make sure to use the marketing code “POKERNEWS.COM” and the bonus code “STARS600″ when signing up to PokerStars through PokerNews and you could be privy to a huge 100% up to $600 first-deposit bonus
Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.
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November 28 2011, Brett Collson
The long Thanksgiving weekend is behind us, and we hope you (and your credit card) survived the second “Black Friday” of 2011. Plenty happened during the holiday weekend, including a settlement in Tobey Maguire’s Hollywood poker lawsuit, the retirement announcement of Congressman Barney Frank, and a new champion crowned at the World Poker Tour. We’ll cover those stories and more in the Nightly Turbo.
In Case You Missed It
John Stolzmann won the World Poker Tour World Poker Open in 2005 for $1.49 million. What has he been up to since? We caught up with Stolzmann to find out in the latest edition of Where Are They Now.
How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took home the biggest win? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.
Phil Collins is coming off a fifth-place finish at the World Series of Poker Main Event. We asked him about some of his favorite hobbies away from the table in the latest Off The Felt piece.
When did Team PokerStars Pro André Akkari get his big break in poker? Find out that and more in the second part of Seat Open with André Akkari.
Tobey Maguire Settles Hollywood Poker Lawsuit
Earlier this year, Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire was one of 22 people sued for their winnings in a high-stakes Hollywood poker game organized by a criminal Beverly Hills hedge fund manager. On Nov. 22, Maguire reportedly agreed to an $80,000 settlement with a bankruptcy trustee who is trying to recoup more than $30 million in lost funds, the Associated Press reported on Monday.
Maguire was being sued for more than $300,000 for winnings he earned from the invitation-only games organized by businessman Bradley Ruderman, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for running a Ponzi scheme to pay off debts. Ruderman operated a wire-fraud and investment-adviser fraud scheme that lost investors $25 million, and then allegedly lost another $5.2 million in the high-stakes cash games trying to win the money back.
According to the Associated Press, 14 of the 22 people sued have agreed to settlements in their cases. Former High Stakes Poker host Gabe Kaplan also agreed to pay $26,900 after he was sued to try to recoup nearly $63,000 in winnings, according to the AP report. All of the money recouped will be used to repay the victims of Ruderman’s Ponzi scheme.
Read the full Associated Press story at the Washington Post.
Barney Frank To Step Down
On Monday, Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced that he will not return to Congress for a 17th term in 2012. Frank, one of the major political advocates for the legalization of online poker, cited changes to the new congressional map as a major factor in his decision to step down.
“I was planning to run again, and then the congressional redistricting came,” Frank, 71, said at a press conference in his hometown of Newton, Mass.
During his time with the House Financial Services Committee, Frank has introduced several bills pushing for online poker legislation in the U.S. In his most recent venture, Frank served as a sponsor for Congressman John Campbell’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R.1174). The proposed bill was referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security in June, but no action has been taken since.
Frank also recently testified on behalf of Internet poker at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. He has arguably been the biggest driving force behind the legalization of online poker since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006.
Read more about Frank’s retirement announcement at the Wall Street Journal.
Mohamed Ali Houssam Wins WPT Marrakech
Mohamed Ali Houssam bested a field of 246 players to win the “3,000 World Poker Tour event in Marrakech over the weekend. Houssam, playing in his home country of Morocco, entered the final day as the chip leader and emerged as the champion to collect $267,011 and his first WPT title.
The nine-handed final was stacked with well-known pros, including Team PokerStars Pros Jonathan Duhamel, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Arnaud Mattern. Grospellier (eighth place) and Duhamel (seventh place) hit the rail early, and Mattern was eliminated in fourth place when his ace-eight couldn’t improve against the pocket sevens of Maksim Martinov.
Martinov was sent packing in third place after taking a brutal beat to Toufik Ourini, setting up a heads-up match between Houssam and Ourini for the title. The two players began with nearly identical stacks, but Houssam secured the win by flopping a set of eights against Toufik’s top pair on the final hand of the tournament. With the victory, Houssam also received a $25,000 seat into the WPT World Championship at Bellagio in May.
Final Table Payouts
