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Poker News Round-up: Week #12The big news of the week is that Neteller is set to return the $55 million that was seized from customers earlier in the year as part of the crackdown against online gambling in the US. Although it may yet take several months before customers have their money made available to them, a conclusive agreement has been signed with the US Attorney’s Office that will see all funds returned to their rightful owners. One player who will be particularly thankful that he is getting funds returned to him in a different way is Greg Raymer, after a close shave on Pokerstars this week. His account was hacked by someone who apparently simply spent enough time trying to guess the password until he got lucky. It seems the hacker didn’t however show as much ingenuity when it came to trying to relieve the former world champion of his balance. Railbirds became suspicious and contacted Pokerstars security when during several high stakes heads up games, 99% of the money would go in pre-flop, only for the Fossilman to subsequently fold. Raymer was found to be at the driving range whilst this was taking place and the hacker’s account was quickly locked before any money could be withdrawn. Afterwards, Raymer admitted that his password was not as strong as it could have been, although would neither confirm nor deny if it was Rumpelstiltskin. The start of the 2007 World Series Of Poker is just a couple of months away and as thoughts begin to focus on this year’s event, the latest news is that the tournament structures have been revamped. All 55 events will now begin with starting stacks equal to twice the value of the buy in i.e. a $10,000 event would start with 20,000 in chips per player. Blind levels have also been altered to allow for the new chip counts, although the two most significant events – the $10,000 no limit hold’em and the $50,000 HORSE tournaments have been affected in different ways. In the main event, for the most part the blinds are simply double the amounts of last year although as the tournament progresses some of the levels have been cut, making for a slightly more aggressive structure than before. The HORSE event starts off with higher blinds relative to stacks than last year, but slows to the point where by level 21 there is actually more play than in 2006 in order to allow those who have progressed that far some room to manoeuvre. This year’s WSOP will be the first since the Tournament Directors Association updated their rules earlier this year, and the new regulations were given their first run out at a major tournament at the recent WPT Shooting Stars event at Bay 101 in California. Tournament director Matt Savage was happy that the new rules had been applied without complication at the event, which saw Ted Forrest add another win to an already extensive list of victories. It is a measure of how far poker has progressed in recent years that despite winning five WSOP bracelets, the $1.1 million first prize here was by far the biggest tournament win of his career. The most recent leg of the European tour was again dominated by Scandinavians at the EPT event in Warsaw. 14 of the 24 paid places in the main event were swept up by Scandinavian players including winner Peter Willers Jepsen from Denmark. First prize was around $415,000 although Peter managed to top that up by also backing himself to win the event with a very generous bookmaker who was offering 500/1 on him. This almost brings the European tour to a conclusion as we now have just the grand final to look forward to in Monte Carlo starting on March 28th. As ever, full details will be brought to you right here along with whatever other offerings the poker world entertains us with.
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