World Series of Poker

$50 Beginners Freeroll for players who signed up within the last 90 days. Please note: Only 4 Beginners Freerolls can be played within a 7 day period. Buy-in: 0.00. Fee: 0.00.

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$100 Beginners Freeroll for players who signed up within the last 90 days. Please note: Only 4 Beginners Freerolls can be played within a 7 day period. Buy-in: 0.00. Fee: 0.00.

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[I Heart Gambling Online]

Despite being at an almost seven to one chip disadvantage to one of the best poker tournament players in the world during heads-up play at the final table of the WPT World Championship, David Chiu was able to battle his way back and beat out Gus Hansen for the $3,389,140 first-place prize.

Hansen entered the final table as the chip leader and dominated play, eliminating all of the other final tablists, Cory Carroll, Tommy Le, Jeff King and John Roveto. However, when it came to the last two players, Chiu was able to slowly chip away at Hansen's lead. He doubled up early on and then finally took the chip lead and ended the heads-up match after 55 hands, denying Hansen his record fourth WPT title.

While the comeback seemed statistically impossible (Hansen held over 80% of the chips in play), to a player like Chiu it was definitely not improbable. Chiu has been playing poker for over two decades with his first WSOP cash coming in 1981. He has racked up an amazing 36 more WSOP cashes since that one, including four WSOP bracelets (1996 $2,000 Limit Hold'em, 1998 $3,000 Limit Hold'em, 2000 $5,000 Seven-Card Stud and 2005 $5,000 Omaha Hi/Lo), and eight WPT cashes. However, this is by far the largest payday of his career, as it would be for most anyone. He lifetime poker tournaments earnings now sit at almost $6 million.

Here are the full final table payouts:

1. David Chiu - $3,389,140
2. Gus Hansen - $1,714,800
3. John Roveto - $923,355
4. Cory Carroll - $593,645
5. Tommy Le - $395,725
6. Jeff King - $263,815

With the conclusion of the 2008 WPT World Championship, Season VI of the World Poker Tour is officially in the books. Poker fans will not have to wait long for more WPT action though as Season VII kicks off in just about a month in Barcelona for the WPT Spanish Championship and then not long after that comes the Bellagio Cup IV in Vegas during the 2008 WSOP.

If you want a shot at becoming the next WPT Poker-Made Millionaire, then head over to Bodog Poker and check out the WPT online poker qualifiers and your chance to win a $12,000 prize package.

- Bodog Beat

[I Heart Gambling Online]

Online poker players got tremendous value for their buy-in last night when 675 players showed up to play in Bodog's Sunday $100,000 Guaranteed online poker tournament. The always generous overlay provided by Bodog exceeded $30,000 and that value was capitalized on by "Daman04," who took home the $25,000 first-place prize.

"Daman04″ was just one of the many new faces at the final table of this event as it was the first trip there for all of the participants except "muckanut," who finished seventh back in March. Of course, just getting to the final table was no easy feat as quite a few noted online poker players and Bodog regulars came out to play for one of the biggest prizes in online poker. Out in the field were Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Smith "nevertilt22″ Collins. Matt "thatsNice" Larsh, Jon "PearlJammer" Turner, "daisyxoxo," Garret "GBecks" Beckman, Bodog Poker Open Main Event winner Shawn "phatcat" Luman and many, many others.

Anyway, here are the full final table placings and payouts:

1. Daman04 - $25,000
2. Body Man D - $14,300
3. e4 - $9,200
4. I GOAT FU - $6,900
5. whoznxt - $5,500
6. SlotsLover - $4,500
7. muckanut - $3,500
8. goodvibe - $2,500
9. The Destroyer - $1,600

Bodog Poker's $100k Guaranteed online poker tourney is one of more than 80 tournaments that Bodog hosts every day that payout a guaranteed $5 million in prize money each month. Check the Bodog Poker Tournament Schedule today to find out when you can get in on the next big online poker tournament, and get set to win your share of $5 million.

Charles Simmons regularly contributes poker news to the Bodog Beat.

- Bodog Beat

[I Heart Gambling Online]

As we dutifully reported on Friday, the poker movie Deal opened and there was a red carpet premier, blah, blah. Well, thanks to the less than stellar reviews that the movie received from every single person with eyes, the move bombed on its opening weekend.

All told, the movie grossed $31,000 in box office receipts over the past three days, an embarrassingly low amount for a movie that featured Burt Reynolds and newly famous again Dancing with the Stars twinkle-toes Shannon Elizabeth.

The movie was also linked to the World Poker Tour as the climax takes place at a fictional WPT championship event, so they can't be happy being part of a disaster. No one expected it to be the next Rounders, but most of us were probably hoping that it would at least be better than Lucky You. It was not. In fact it was worse.

Hey, the silver lining in this cloud is that the movie made more than that Paris Hilton piece of garbage The Hottie and the Nottie. So, that's something.

- Bodog Beat

$50 Beginners Freeroll for players who signed up within the last 90 days. Please note: Only 4 Beginners Freerolls can be played within a 7 day period. Buy-in: 0.00. Fee: 0.00.

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$100 Beginners Freeroll for players who signed up within the last 90 days. Please note: Only 4 Beginners Freerolls can be played within a 7 day period. Buy-in: 0.00. Fee: 0.00.

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Only eligible League players awarded bonuses. Buy-in: 5.00. Fee: 0.50.

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[I Heart Gambling Online]

Announcer: Who needs just a "deep stack" when you can have a "MEGA STACK"!?!?!?!?

Can you not just hear it, kind of like a used car commercial?

Anyway, Caesars Palace has decided to up the ante on the WSOP-peripheral poker tournaments in Las Vegas this summer by going "MEGA."

The new Caesars Palace Mega Stack Series will run from June 1 to July 9 and will feature 43 events over that time frame, culminating in a three-day $1,000 + 60 buy-in. Buy-ins for the preliminary events start at $225 with stacks of at least 5,000 chips and 50-minute levels. Of course, the stacks get more mega-ier as the buy-ins increase.

The series joins an already crowded poker tournament schedule in June and July. Not only do you have the 2008 WSOP running from May 30 to July 18 (these dates are seared into our brains), but there will also be the WPT Bellagio Cup IV, the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza, the second-annual Binion's Poker Classic, The Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget and the 2008 Orleans Open Poker Tournament (OK, that one's not as major). With so much going on, you've got to wonder which tournament will suffer from a lack of entrants (*cough* Orleans *cough*).

Either way, you can get to Vegas this summer as part of Team Bodog and play in the biggest tournament on that list, which is also the richest tournament in the world, the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Online qualifiers for a $12,000 WSOP prize package are going on daily in the Bodog Poker room for as little as $1, so make sure to head over and check out the WSOP online poker qualifiers.

Charles Simmons is a regular writer of poker news for the Beat and is really hoping that the media room at the WSOP this year is not sub-zero.



- Bodog Beat

[I Heart Gambling Online]

It's all Caesars, all the time here at the Beat today.

The penultimate WSOP Circuit event before the 2008 WSOP got underway today at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The event has drawn pretty much the same number of players as it did last year, falling just two lonesome entrants short.

Day 1 of competition is already underway and there are a lot of big names from the live and online poker worlds out in the field as everyone gears up and starts logging more hours at the poker table in preparation for the marathon long World Series of Poker schedule.

At the top of the leaderboard at time of print is Chad "lilholdem954″ Batista followed by Alex Kravchenko, David Singer, Allen Cunningham, Team Bodog poker player Ari "BodogAri" Engel, Chris "*****" Ferguson, Erica Schoenberg, Justin Bonomo, Lee Watkinson and a whole host of others. Already in trouble are Anna Wroblewski, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Gavin Smith and Shannon Shorr, who will be lucky (or possibly just really talented) to make it out of today.

Players have six more levels to play today and will all be after a piece of the $1,670,000 prizepool. Stay tuned to the Beat for more updates from Caesars Palace and the WSOP Circuit event championship event.

Charles Simmons regularly contributes poker news to the Bodog Beat.

- Bodog Beat