Poker Features

The Irish Open is the second oldest poker tournament in the world (the first being the WSOP) and as anyone who's been to the Open can tell you - it's probably the best tournament in the world for atmosphere. But equally the tournament is as steeped in history as the WSOP main event is. The 2007 Irish Open Main Event was officially the largest poker tournament in Europe, attracting 708 player who competed for a prize pool of €2.3 Million, but it had much humbler beginnings.

Bookmaker and card player, Terry Rogers, started the Irish Open after stumbling across the World Series of Poker on a trip to Las Vegas in the late 1970's. Assisted by his friend, but one time bookmaking competitor, Liam Flood they went about setting up a texas hold'em poker tournament to take place on Good Friday - traditionally when the good folks were going to church, and the bad were trying to find an open pub! 36 men and women gathered in the upstairs of a small bookmaker's office in inner city Dublin, thus the Irish Open was born. The year was 1980. Despite a few years in 1990's when Terry was looking after his sick mother, Liam would sit down with friends, old and new, and play cards. Terry passed on. But his legend and legacy didn't.

This year the hype has come sooner however as Paddy Power Poker have an added extra included for their qualifiers. paddypowerpoker.com today launches its biggest ever Irish Open promotion, the €100,000 Sole Survivor. All paddypowerpoker.com qualifiers to the Irish Open 2009 will be eligible for participation, and the player that becomes the ‘Sole Survivor’ by outlasting all other paddypowerpoker.com qualifiers in the tournament will win a €100,000 package.

"We always try to offer our own qualifiers something special for outlasting their peers; and this year certainly won’t disappoint" said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for paddypowerpoker.com. "The €100,000 package will be in addition to whatever prize money they win at the event, so it will be a real windfall for whichever qualifier stays in the game long enough to become our Sole Survivor!"

Qualifiers are scheduled on paddypowerpoker.com from October 26th, with an expanded schedule being introduced in early November.

The 2009 Irish Open is set to break all records & through Paddy Power Pokers Sole Survivor promotion there is going to be even more excitement in the coming months!

Poker magazine Bluff Europe recently named Europe's top five poker destinations, and London topped the bill as the place to be for lovers of all things poker. With the explosion of the game over the past couple of years, it's no surprise that there's a multitude of venues to get your daily fix of cash games and poker tournaments. Every effort is made to ensure that the tournament details are correct before publication on site.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the biggest festival of poker in the world. Coveted Gold bracelets are awarded to players who win any event. To win even one of these Gold bracelets is a fantastic achievement, ane one which is becoming increasingly harder thanks to larger fields. There are over 60 events in the WSOP 2008 including events in Texas Hold'em Limit, Omaha Pot Limit, 7-Card-Stud Hi/Lo, Pot Limit, No Limit, and other types of poker such as Razz and Lowball The festival culminates, as ever, with the $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em Main Event. Could it be you this year?

Within this section you will find information on this year's schedule, latest news, history and the best WSOP 2009 packages.

Learning and improving your poker game should never stop. The top pros think about their game constantly improve their strategies to remain on top.

If you're looking to improve your game there used to be only three options available: play more & analyse, read books, get a coach (v. hard to do back in the day). Poker books are a great source of information and something like Super System comes in handy as a doorstop too. The problem with poker books are that most 'date' very quickly. Thanks to online games, poker changes very rapidly. A strategy that may work now probably won't necessarily work in 6 months time; this is due online players discussing and sharing strategies much more than live players ever would. As a result all players become more knowledgeable and the games move on in complexity. So how can you keep ahead of the game? The most popular way of staying ahead/keep up to date with trends is signing up to any of the numerous poker training sites.

Training sites give the user access to a range of online videos, and forums in which to discuss strategy with other subscribers. Most of the videos take the form of watching a pro playing an online game where they will commentate on why they make certain moves and play a certain way. Most of the videos are only around 10 minutes long, which is an ideal length for the instructor to get across the key point to the viewer, where neither party loses concentration. All good online poker training sites will produce new content every week, from a variety of players in their 'stable'. Some of the training sites contain a library of hundreds of videos for your perusal. Most site have a joining fee and a monthly subscription, but if you are serious about the game they're well worth considering. Here are our reviews of the best online poker training sites available to you.