October 28 2011, Brett Collson

Depending on who you ask, the Philadelphia Eagles have either been running poorly or performing horrendously on the football field this season. Eagles Pro Bowlers Asante Samuel and DeSean Jackson are set to showcase the opposite at the poker table next month, and we’ll give you all the details in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It

The World Poker Tour Foxwoods World Poker Finals kicked off Thursday with its $10,000 buy-in Main Event. Get all the details from Day 1 in our daily recap.

How was the high-stakes action at the PokerStars tables this week? Read the Online Railbird Report to find out the week’s biggest winners and losers.

Sunday is almost here and that means football. Find out which teams are good, bad and ugly this week in the latest Pigskin Diaries.

Poker Royalty’s Brian Balsbaugh is one of the most influential figures in the poker industry. Read about what Balsbaugh had to say about Donald Trump and the future of online poker in the latest edition of The Insiders.

Miss anything this week? Kristy Arnett and Laura Cornelius get you caught up on the latest news, views and gossip in the PokerNews Weekly.

*Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated

Poker Not Protected by First Amendment

A defunct poker club in Wallkill, N.Y., received some unfortunate news from the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. The court rejected arguments that the poker club’s activities were protected under the First Amendment, and agreed with a lower court ruling that the poker club’s lawsuit against the town of Wallkill should be dismissed.

The AK Tournament Play club alleged that by interfering with their Texas hold’em tournaments, the town of Wallkill violated their first amendment right to “Freedom of Association.”

It claimed that the town unsuccessfully tried to condemn a portion of the commercial space it occupied in 2007 and engaged in additional “threatening and coercive conduct.” The club, which at one point had 130 members, discontinued its activities after its membership dwindled following the town’s legal action.

“Even assuming arguendo that there might be some circumstances under which a poker club’s activities could involve sufficiently expressive or political content to merit protection under the First Amendment, plaintiff’s conclusory and vague complaint fails to set out facts from which a court could draw that conclusion here,” the appellate court found, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

More on this story can be found at the Wall Street Journal.

Play Poker with the NFL’s “Dream Team”

Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel is offering fans a chance to play poker with him in a charity poker tournament on Tuesday, Nov. 15. The event will be held at the Whisper nightclub in Philadelphia and proceeds will benefit the Bring It Home Single Moms Foundation.

Samuel will join Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, tight end Brent Celek and longsnapper Jon Dorenbos at the event, which will run from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. NBA players Udonis Haslem and Keyon Dooling will also participate in the charity tournament. Tickets range from $100 to the elite level of $1,000, which will guarantee you a seat at the table with a professional athlete.

Samuel, a two-time Super Bowl champ, founded the Bring It Home Single Moms Foundation this year. In May, he made a $25,000 donation to the Habitat for Humanity office in Miami and did some of the physical labor on a new home for a single mother with two children. Samuel created the foundation as a tribute to his mother, who raised him as a single mother in Miami.

Read more on the charity tournament at the event’s Facebook page.

CEREUS Network Proposes Plan to Reimburse Players

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission released a statement Thursday saying that the CEREUS Network has proposed a plan to the U.S. Department of Justice to allow the reimbursement of all of players from Absolute Poker and UB. Blanca Games, which acquired the CEREUS Network in August 2010, has purportedly been in “close and regular discussions” with the KGC about a solution to facilitate the payments, a process that’s been ongoing since Black Friday

The CEREUS Network has been virtually silent since it came to an alleged agreement with the Department of Justice on May 10. However, with a deadline of Oct. 31 to respond to the amended civil complaint filed last month, it was only a matter of time before we heard from the embattled company.

Read the full release at the KGC’s website.

Support Cerebral Palsy at the All-In for CP Charity Event

The Fourth Annual All-In for CP charity tournament will take place on Dec. 9, 2011, at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The event, which attracts many top poker pros and several celebrities, will raise funds to ease the lives of those with cerebral palsy.

The All-In for CP will feature a buy-in of $540 with unlimited rebuys for the first 90 minutes. Among the celebrities and poker pros expected to attend are Sam Simon, Jennifer Tilly, Shannon Elizabeth, Montel Williams, and Mekhi Phifer. Antonio Esfandiari, Dan Fleyshman, Dennis Phillips, Phil Laak, and Barry Greenstein.

Get more on this story at PokerNews.com.

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September 30 2011, Brett Collson

Another day, another huge Full Tilt Poker development. One day after having its license revoked by the Alderney Gaming Control Commission (AGCC), FTP released a statement announcing an acquisition agreement with a French investment group. Meanwhile, Betfair admitted to hiding identity fraud from its customers, PokerStars revealed the schedule for the PCA, and more.

In Case You Missed It

There were huge headlines all week long and we’re afraid you may have missed something. Catch up on all things Full Tilt Poker and get your tournament results in the PokerNews Weekly.

On Friday, Full Tilt Poker announced it had come to an acquisition agreement with the Bernard Tapie Group. Read the press release and find out more about the key players behind the acquisition.

Ray Bitar also made headlines on Friday. We learned that the Full Tilt Poker CEO had filed a claim against the U.S. Department of Justice’s forfeiture allegations.

Sunday is almost here and that means football. Find out which NFL trends you can trust in the latest Pigskin Diaries.

The high-stakes cash games at PokerStars are still going strong after the conclusion of the World Championship of Online Poker. The Online Railbird Report fills you in on this week’s biggest winners and losers.

Betfair Reveals Data Hack After 18 Months of Silence

Online gambling giant Betfair admitted Friday that it failed to notify customers that their personal details had been stolen by cyber hackers 18 months ago.

The criminals, believed to be from Cambodia, reportedly stole 3.15 million account usernames with encrypted security questions, 2.9 million usernames with one or more addresses and 89,744 account usernames with bank account details, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Betfair said it was able to recover the information without harm to customers and that its security measures made the information unusable for fraud. The Daily Telegraph reports that the theft wasn’t detected until a computer server malfunctioned in May 2010, leading to the discovery that “at least nine servers [had] been compromised in the UK and two in Malta.”

Read more about the Betfair scandal at the Daily Telegraph.

PokerStars Announces 2012 PCA Schedule

The official tournament schedule for the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure was released on Thursday. The flagship series of the PokerStars live circuit is set to take place in the Bahamas from Jan. 5 through 14, with the Main Event running from Jan. 7 through 13.

As usual, PokerStars has put together a schedule that offers something for every type of player. Forty-one events are scheduled during the 10-day festival, including a $5,000 8-Game Championship, a $2,100 Battleship event, and even a Dealer Button Choice tournament. The $100,000 Super Higher Roller and $25,000 Higher Roller events will be back, too, to the delight of top pros in the game.

“I’ve never missed the PCA and never will,” said Team PokerStars member Daniel Negreanu, who finished second in last year’s $100,000 Super High Roller Event to fellow PokerStars pro Eugene Katchalov. “It’s grown each year and has become a must-play poker festival for every serious poker player. It’s not just about the Main Event, because there is a full schedule of events for both high- and low-rollers. There isn’t a better way to start off your 2012 than heading out to the PCA.”

A full complement of satellite qualifiers to the series are now running at PokerStars.com.

Visit the PCA website for an extensive look at the schedule.

New Bling at the EPT

European Poker Tour champs will be donning some new bracelets in Season 8. On Thursday, Global Poker Tours Limited announced a new partnership deal with luxury jeweler Shamballa Jewels, making the company the Official Bracelet Sponsor of EPT Main Events.

The new sponsorship deal will see Shamballa Jewels provide EPT Main Event bracelets, each one valued at an estimated “10,200 retail value, plus one EPT Grand Final bracelet valued at “25,000, for the winners of the events. The new-look bracelets have black engraved ceramic balls, three 18k white gold balls, and one 10mm diamond pavé made on an 18k rose gold ball.

The first Shamballa Jewels bracelet will be awarded at EPT London, which kicked off on Friday at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel. The first two event winners of Season 8 in Tallinn (Ronny Kaiser) and Barcelona (Martin Schleich) will also receive their customized jewelry at a later EPT venue.

“The EPT is delighted to welcome on board Shamballa Jewels as the Official Bracelet Sponsor of the tour for a second time,” said EPT President Edgar Stuchly. “The tour continues to go from strength to strength, attracting highly-renowned companies as sponsorship partners, highlighting the broad appeal of the European Poker Tour to companies outside the poker sphere.”

Have a look at the new bling at the PokerStarsBlog.

Festa al Lago Classic Kicks Off at Bellagio

The Festa al Lago Classic at Bellagio got under way on Thursday with the first of 16 tournaments on the schedule. The series, which is no longer a part of the World Poker Tour, runs through Oct. 14 and concludes with a $5,000 Main Event starting on Oct. 11.

The Main Event buy-in has been reduced from $10,000 and tournament officials are expecting a bigger turnout as a result. Last year, Randal Flowers bested a field of 335 players to win his second WPT title along with a top prize of $831,500.

This year’s Festa al Lago Classic features 15 no-limit hold’em events plus a $500 Omaha eight-or-better Event on Oct. 3.

Visit the Bellagio website for the full schedule.

Calculate the Odds with … Phil Hellmuth?

Phil Hellmuth has always believed in his “reads” more than in the math in poker. So we were a little surprised to discover that the Poker Brat had teamed up with app developer MEDL Mobile to create the Phil Hellmuth Poker Odds Calculator, which was announced this week.

The app calculates the odds of any hand and even allows users to put opposing players on a range of hands. It will then calculate the user’s chances of winning, losing and tying with that particular hand.

“You need to have solid control over your game to win,” said the 11-time WSOP bracelet winner. “If you want that control, you need to make better decisions, and that comes from having the best information you can get!

If nothing else, this should make Hellmuth’s insurance negotiations a lot easier.

The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store.

London, baby!

Team PokerNews is in London for the latest PokerStars European Poker Tour stop. After arriving, Sarah Grant found some time to explore the city – and show us a number of different looks.

Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.