The European Poker Tour (EPT) will soon arrive at London.  It runs from 29th Sept until 6th October 2011, and takes place at Hilton Metropole Hotel (with the occasional side event taking place at The Vic).  You can qualify or register to play via Pokerstars.

This is the 8th season of the EPT and you can expect a very well run London series.

Here is the schedule of events at the EPT London:

Thurs Sept 29th
12:00 1 Hilton NL Holdem - Day 1 £1,000 + £100
14:00 2 Vic NL Holdem - Single Rebuy - Super Sat to Main Event £500 + £50
15:00 3 Hilton 5 Card PLO - 8 or Better £500 + £50
18:00 4 Hilton NL Holdem - Super Satellite to Main Event £1,000 + £70
20:00 5 Hilton NL Holdem - Turbo £300 + £30
Fri Sept 30th
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 1A £5,000 + £250
13:00 1 Hilton NL Holdem - Final Day £1,000 + £100
13:00 3 Hilton 5 Card PLO - 8 or Better (second day if necessary) £500 + £50
14:00 7 Vic NL Holdem - Single Rebuy - Super Sat to Main Event £500 + £50
19:00 8 Hilton NLHE/PLO Turbo - Bounty £500 + £500 + £50
Sat Oct 1st
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 1B £5,000 + £250
14:00 9 Vic NL Holdem - Single Rebuy - Super Sat to £2,000 NL (Event 12) £200 + £20
19:00 10 Hilton NL Holdem Turbo - Bounty £1,000 + £1,000 + £100
Sun Oct 2nd
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 2 £5,000 + £250
14:00 11 Vic NL - Holdem - Women’s Event £500 + £50
18:00 12 Hilton NL Holdem - Day 1 £2,000 + £150
20:00 13 Hilton NL Holdem Turbo - Win the Button! £300 + £30
Mon October 3rd
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 3 - TV £5,000 + £250
12:00 14 Hilton NL Holem Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Day 1 £5,000 + £250
14:00 15 Hilton European 8 Game Championships - Day 1 £2,000 + £150
14:00 16 Vic NL Holdem - Single Rebuy - Super Sat to £20,000 High Roller (Event 19) £1,000 + £70
15:00 12 Hilton NL Holdem - Final Day (3rd day if necessary) £2,000 + £150
18:00 17 Hilton NL Holdem - Day 1 £1,000 + £100
20:00 18 Hilton NL Holdem Turbo - Bounty £300 + £100 + £30
Tues October 4th
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 4 - TV £5,000 + £250
12:00 19 Hilton NL Holdem High Roller - “8 Max” - Day 1 £20,000 + £500
12:00 20 Hilton NL Holdem Turbo £1,000 + £100
13:00 12 Hilton NL Holdem - 3rd day if necessary £2,000 + £150
13:00 14 Hilton NL Holdem Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Final Day £5,000 + £250
13:00 15 Hilton European 8 Game Championships - Final Day £2,000 + £150
14:00 21 Vic PLO - Single Rebuy - Super Sat to £2,000 PLO (Event 24) £200 + £20
15:00 17 Hilton NL Holdem - Final Day £1,000 + £100
18:00 22 Hilton NLHE/PLO - Day 1 £1,000 + £100
20:00 23 Hilton NL Holdem Turbo - Rivers (each player receives own River card) £300 + £30
Weds October 5th
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT Day 5 - TV £5,000 + £250
12:00 19 Hilton NL Holdem High Roller - “8 Max” - Day 2 £20,000 + £500
12:00 24 Hilton PLO - Day 1 £2,000 + £150
12:00 25 Hilton NL Holdem Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Day 1 £1,000 + £100
13:00 22 Hilton NLHE/PLO - Final Day £1,000 + £100
16:00 26 Hilton NL Holdem - Day 1 £1,000 + £100
20:00 27 Hilton NL Holdem - Hyper Turbo (10K Stack / 10 Min Levels) £100 + £20
Thurs October 6th
12:00 6 Hilton MAIN EVENT - Final Table - TV £5,000 + £250
12:00 19 Hilton NL Holdem High Roller - “8 Max” - Final Day £20,000 + £500
12:00 24 Hilton PLO Final Day £2,000 + £150
12:00 25 Hilton NL Holdem Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Final Day £1,000 + £100
12:00 26 Hilton NL Holdem Holdem - Final Day £1,000 + £100
12:00 28 Hilton EPT Country of the Year Freeroll - Ireland Invitation
13:00 29 Hilton NL Holdem PokerStars SNE Invitational Invitation
14:00 30 Hilton NL Holdem High Roller - Turbo - “6 Max” £10,000 + £300
16:00 31 Hilton UKIPT Super Turbo - £25,000 GTD - 30K Stack / 15 min Levels £300 + £30

The largest online gambling company in the world that is stock exchange listed has just been created.  Party Gaming (owners of Party Poker) and Bwin have merged.  The new company is called bwin.party Digital Entertainment.    They are traded under the code BPTY on the London Stock Exchange.

There will be joint CEOs.  Norbert Teufelberger from bwin and Jim Ryan from Party Gaming.   Poker will be provided via the Party Poker brand (with bwin Poker players coming over to Party Poker).  This will leapfrog them over the iPoker network into being the 3rd largest online poker site.   Other synergies are expected such as bwin’s Sportsbook being expanded out across the whole new company.

Most importantly from a poker perspective it increases the number of players on Party Poker thus increasing the amount of action and the size of tournament prizepools. If you are interested in checking out the new busier Party Poker then visit Party Poker Review

Full Tilt recently introduced a new reward system called Black Card.  It is essentially orientated towards higher volume players, offering them a string of benefits for playing at Full Tilt.

To get Black Card access you need to earn an average of 500 player points (FTPs) over a 100 day period (ie 50,000 points over 100 days).  In cash games 10 points get awarded to the table per dollar rake (divided evenly amongst dealt in players).  In tournaments 10 points get awared per dollar buy-in fee.  So earning 500 points is pretty easy, especially for cash players.

The main benefits to Black Card status are a dedicated Black Card store, special tournaments, double the normal player points, and a dedicated support team (being allocated your own Full Tilt rep).  At the Black Card store, notably you can cash in player points directly for cash bonuses, as well as a wide range of electronics, and luxury goods.

Some of the cash bonus you can get using your player points are:

$5000 in cash for 1,100,000 points
$2000 in cash for 460,000 points
$1000 in cash for 240,000 points
$500 in cash for 125,000 points
$250 in cash for 65,000 points
$100 in cash for 28,500 points
$50 in cash for 15,000 points

If you are a regular player the points sure mount up very quickly so it’s nice just to be able to convert them to cash if you dont actually want to buy physical store items with them.

The Black Card status is fairly flexible once obtained.  Even if you drop below the 500 FTPs you will be given 50 days for you get the average back up. 

If you are an even more high volume player and average 1500 FTPs a day you will get 3 times the points.  And if you are a real sicko and average 3000 FTPs a day, you will get 4 times the points.

If you are interested in taking advantage of these rewards and also Full Tilt rakeback then sign-up to Full Tilt and get a $600 bonus plus rakeback

Different poker sites have different methods for calculating your personal rake contribution and thus different methods of calculating rakeback.

The 2 main broad methods are Dealt Rake and Contributed Rake. 

Dealt Rake is where you only need to have been dealt cards to be seen as contributing to the rake.  For example: if 6 players are dealt cards at the table and that hand ends up raking 60 cents then each player’s rake contribution is 10 cents, regardless of who the main players involved in the hand were.

Contributed Rake is usually done via 1 or 3 methods.  First method is where you need to actually be in the hand at showdown.  Second Method is where you need to actually be in the hand at the rake contributing point.  Third method is where you need to have contributed chips to the pot.

Let’s look at the 3 Contributed Rake variations in more detail.  If a player needs to be in the hand at showdown it means that many hands that charge a rake will not have that rake allocated to a player, as not all hands reach a showdown.  So in situations where an opponent folds (after the rake-charged point of the hand) and there is therefore no showdown then no rake contribution is allocated and therefore no rakeback is earned.   This being despite the fact that rake was indeed charged.

Slightly fairier is the second of the Contributed Rake variations in which your exact rake contribution is calculated even without showdown.  In this method, as a general rule of thumb, players who are not involved post-flop are not a rake contibutor.   So people paying blinds or antes but then folding pre-flop (for example) are not calcualted as having contributed any rake, but the players still involved in the hand after the rake contributing point are.

And finally the most straight-forward of the Contributed Rake variations (and the most common) is the direct pot percentage variation.  To give a simplified example: if a pot is won by PlayerA of $100 and that money came from $25 PlayerA, $25 PlayerB, $25 PlayerC, and $25 PlayerD, then a rake of $3 would be allocated as 75 cents per player (a quarter each).  So that 75 cents was your rake contribution and you will get your percentage rakeback based on that.

The Dealt Rake method is by far away the best for the majority of people getting rakeback, as the best players playing 6-max upwards tend to play a lower percentage of hands than the bad players.  If you are a heads-up player it doesnt really matter because you tend to contribute 50% of the rake each no matter which method it is.

Quite a lot of rakeback orientated players have got a litte annoyed with Full Tilt Poker, as they have recently switched from Dealt Rake to Contributed.  This has left many of them with big drops in their rakeback.

Some alternative sites which use the much better Dealt Rake method are Doyles Room Rakeback and Cake Poker Rakeback

This interesting hand cropped up a couple of days ago on Full Tilt

durrrr on button $200 (SB)
harrington $400 (BB)
durrrr raises to 1K, harrington calls.
harrington checks flop of 9s Td Qs,  durrrr checks behind.
harrington bet 2140 on the turn card of 3d, durrrr flat calls.
harrington bets 4400 (into 6280) on the river card of 9h, durrrr flats.

In summary: 9 T Q 3 9 Board
durrrr flatted river bet with Q9xx
harrington25 shows TT2K to win

harrington25 seems a little annoyed that durrrr just called with the boat.  The boat however was the 3rd nuts and this was Omaha we should state.  I assume the line of check, bet, bet 70% of pot, looks like he connected and is value betting.  Anyway here is the chat that followed the hand:

harrington25: nice just call on riv
harrington25: i would have raised if i were u
durrrr: to bluff?
durrrr: didnt think ud fold
harrington25: value
durrrr: rly?
durrrr: << sarcasm
durrrr: obv
harrington25: idk man something is werid
harrington25: wierd
harrington25: idk how in the world u just call that river
durrrr: lol
durrrr: i hav a video setup to see ur cards obv
durrrr: most likely explanation
harrington25: obv not but im gonna show that hand to few ppl
harrington25: urin david etc
harrington25: see wht they say
durrrr: lol ok
harrington25: i mean ur very good but not that good to just call that river
durrrr: i guess not
durrrr: damn
durrrr: =(
harrington25: seriously
harrington25: can u explain ur reasoning for the acll
harrington25: the way the hand played out
durrrr: i jus click buttons buddy
durrrr: i thought thts y u play me

This area of Bounty Hunter Poker is dedicated to poker news, with a little poker thoughts and philosophy thrown in for good measure.  I hope you find it informative

 Regards, Bounty Hunter Poker