With 411 players entering this stop on the European Poker Tour, a number of big names have made their way through day and are playing as we speak in Day 2 of this event. Among the current leaders are Marcel Luske, who has almost topped the $100,000 mark, World Series of Poker Europe Champion Annette Obrestad, who has about $65,000 and Daniel Negreanu who holds almost $60,000 in chips. Also still in the hunt is PokerStars team member Katja Thater, and European Pro Thor Hansen. Play has been fast and furious in this second day of action, as 45 players have been eliminated so far today. Play will continue throughout the day, and you can follow all of the action at www.pokernews.com

PokerNews today announced the renewal of their media pact with BLUFF Media for continuing ‘live reporting’ of World Series of Poker events, including this summer’s preeminent poker world get-together, the World Series of Poker at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The agreement also includes continuing coverage of WSOP Circuit events, all in support of BLUFF’s agreement with Harrah’s and the WSOP as its official digital publisher and radio partner. That agreement also includes content for worldseriesofpoker.com and broadband and streaming services in addition to more traditional content.

Under terms of the extended agreement, PokerNews expects to continue to provide exclusive, top-level ‘live’ reporting from the floor of these major events, including live chip counts and player status reports, exclusive video interviews and photos straight from the scene, and hundreds of timely recaps for the latest WSOP events.

According to John Caldwell, PokerNews.com’s Editor-in-Chief, “PokerNews looks forward to continuing to expand and improve upon our coverage of the World Series of Poker. In addition to dedicated ‘live’ bloggers reporting the very latest news live from the tournament floor, our video interviews from WSOP venues across America and in London have been a resounding success. For many of the world’s poker fans it’s one of the very few ways they can actually feel as though they’re a part of the WSOP scene and share in the buzz and excitement that always marks a World Series of Poker event.”

BLUFF Media’s Co-President, Eddy Kleid, also welcomed PokerNews’ continuing presence at WSOP venues. Said Mr. Kleid, “We are excited about continuing our partnership with PokerNews.com and their ongoing commitment to excellence in reporting from WSOP events. Their ingenuity and passion for tournament poker have made them the benchmark for reporting in the industry.”

The PokerNews family of sites now includes 32 different language-specific offerings and is the world’s leading reporter of international poker news. Information on these sites and the latest from any WSOP venue is always available by visiting PokerNews.com or any of the other sites in the PokerNews family.

With 27 players remaining, players can begin to set their sights on the glory of the final table. Coming into today, the chip leader is David Tran who catapulted over the $2 Million mark with pocket Aces in one of the final elimination hands of the evening. Also still in the hunt is Gavin Griffin, Justin Bonomo, Jared Hamby, Nam Le, Lee Watkinson, Erik Seidel and Men “The Master” Nguyen. With all the top tier names, it should make for a very exciting final table.

PokerTek, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEK), the industry pioneer and worldwide leader in automated poker tables and related software, is pleased to announce that the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission has issued a temporary

Manufacturer/Distributor license to PokerTek, Inc. In addition, the IRGC has approved the PokerPro System for field trial, making PokerTek, Inc. the first provider of automated poker for the State of Iowa.

“We’re proud to have received our company license and product approval for field trial,”

said Chris Halligan, PokerTek CEO. “We look forward to beginning our field trial and

introducing the benefits of automated poker to Iowa.”

About PokerTek, Inc.

PokerTekT, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEK), headquartered in Matthews, NC, develops and markets

PokerPro and PokerPro Heads-UpT, automated poker tables and related software applications

developed to increase casino revenue, reduce expenses and attract new players into poker rooms.

PokerTek entered the amusement space by introducing Heads-Up ChallengeT, a heads-up poker

table for bars and restaurants that targets adults who play for amusement only. PokerPro tables

are located in the United States, Canada, Macau, Panama, Germany, Australia, South Africa and

several major cruise lines. For more information, please visit the company’s website at

www.pokertek.com or contact Tracy Egan at 704.849.0860 x106.

With over $500,000 in chips Gavin Griffin will lead the remaining field of 99 players into Day 3 of the Borgata Winter Poker Open. Although play is not yet into the money, players are beginning to feel the pressure, as all the remaining players are still in contention for the $1.4 Million dollar first prize.

WIth $30,000 in starting chips and one of the best structures on the circuit its no suprise that 317 of the 507 entrants survived Day 1. There was one hand that really stood out during the first day of poker action. Nick Schulman on a Ks-5s-5d-4s-2s board, was thrilled to get all of his chips into the center with 5c-5h, that is until his opponent flipped over the As-3s for a runner-runner straight flush. The hand crippled Schulman, and he was eliminated shortly thereafter.

Tales and legends about players and teams that were “destined” to win abound in many sports, and poker is no exception as Thursday saw the conclusion of what may become one of the most storied runs in Borgata Winter Poker Open (WPO) history.

Featuring the strongest field of the Borgata Winter Poker Open to date, Wednesday’s Main Event #10 brought a number of the game’s elite players to the Event Center floor and generated a prize pool of $822,500. With players in attendance like World Series of Poker 2006 Main Event Champion Jamie Gold, Layne “Back-to-back” Flack, last year’s September Poker Open champion Roy “The Oracle” Winston, and three-time Poker Open winner Bill Blanda, there was no shortage of excitement on the tournament floor throughout the day.

Despite starting with a field of 329 players, only 22 would survive the day’s action and return Thursday for the tournament’s second day of play. After several hours of play on Thursday, the field was narrowed to the final table, producing what may be the toughest final table of this year’s WPO. Four top-flight pros took to the felt, with local Matt Glanz, Steve “The Wrecking Ball” Fiorentini, Erich “E-Fro” Froelich, and Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen, hoping to win the $238,525 first-place prize.

In the end, Fiorentini lived up to his nickname by demolishing everyone in his path to take the title. Going all-in seven times in a row at one point, Fiorentini hit two hands in which he was considered an underdog, but nailed a three-outer and six-outer to climb to the top of the chip counts. “The Wrecking Ball” wreaked havoc on his opponents throughout the final table action and eventually scored the victory.

Fiorentini showed plenty of emotion throughout the two days and looked a little stunned when the traditional winner’s picture was taken. “This is the greatest moment of my poker life. I felt like I was floating on air when I realized I was going to win,” he said after the victory.
When asked about his uncanny knack for hitting ridiculously low percentage hands and winning the majority of his all-in plays, he responded, “I had to turn it into an all-in fest because I thought the rest of the table would outplay me.”

Although the $2,500 Main Event is now in the record books, plenty of exciting action remains in this year’s WPO, starting with Friday’s $5,000 Main Event #12. Many poker pros have arrived to play in the $5,000 buy-in and the $10,000 World Poker Tour Main Event, so the action should prove interesting for fans.

Go to theborgata.com to follow all of the action on the Official Borgata Poker blog.
On-site registration for all events is available until January 29 at 2 p.m. Special hotel room rates are available to tournament players Sunday through Thursday at $129, Friday at $199 and Saturday at $239. Call 1.866.MYBORGATA for more details. For the complete tournament schedule, blogs and more, visit theborgata.com.

WIth names like Freddy Deeb, Men “The Master” Nguyen and Hoyt Corkins, few people were talking about Brett Faustman winning the World Poker Open in Tunica yesterday. Faustman managed to have the time of a lifetime four handed against some of the games greatest players. With play four-handed, it was like a classic gun fight. Each player took turns with the chip lead, before Freddy Deeb was eliminated by Faustman when Deeb’s 7d-8d could not catch up to Faustman’s Ah-Kh. The next to go was Nguyen who moved all in with Kd-10d and was quickly called by Hoyt Corkin’s Jacks. Going into heads-up play, Faustman held a sizeable chip lead that Corkin’s could just not crack. The final hand saw both players seeing a flop 9h-9c-3c, Faustman bet out at the pot, ad Corkin’s moved all in. Fasutman called and turned over two Quees and was ahead of Corkin’s pocket deuces. The board brought no help for cowboy, and Fasutman won his first WPT event.

Due to the large amount of tournaments around the world this Janaury, the WPT Tunica had a slightly smaller turnout than expected. That did not however stop the pro’s from coming out strong. When play ended yesterday at six players, fans were excited to see quite a cast of characters. Leading the way is fan favorite Freddy Deeb, who is holding about $1.3 million. Also in the mix are the fun to watch Hoyt Corkins, and Men “The Master” Nguyen. Dutch Boyd also made a strong run in this event but finshed just short of the coveted WPT Final Table. Play will resume today at 4PM CST, as the final six will all be fighting for $892,413 first prize.

Annette Obrestad is one of the initial co-developers of PokerManagerT (www.pokermanager.com), and has now decided to increase her ownership in the software that has been extremely well received in the poker and gambling industry. Alpha Innovation AS who owns the software recently did a stock issue, and Annette now owns 5% of the company.

Other owners are EPT winners Peter Willers Jepsen and Bjorn-Erik Glenne, professional investors and the other founders.

Annette Obrestad statement: “I am very happy to have gotten this opportunity since I really love the software myself. It just makes everything so much easier when playing online, and I’m glad so many others feel the same. I felt that I could not wait any longer before I used the option to increase my ownership in PokerManagerT.”

About Annette Obrestad:
Annette Obrestad started her poker career online when she was only fifteen years old using the online screen-name “Annette_15″. She claims she never had to deposit money on any online poker site. Instead she made her initial online bankroll by winning freeroll poker tournaments from which she went on to amass several hundred thousand dollars in winnings. Between September 2006 and February 2007, she won over $500,000, $200,000 and $136 playing online tournaments only. She is ranked among the top 10 players online.

“Annette_15″ finished in 7th place in the World Championship of Online Poker. The entire poker world was extremly curious how she would handle the transaction to playing live poker, but she took the challenge and on September 17, 2007 Obrestad won the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe Main Event the day before her 19th birthday. This world championship had probably the strongest field ever to start in one and same tournament. By winning the one million-pound sterling (US$2.01 million at the time of the event) first prize she edged the record for a single-event payout to a female player, was the first woman winner as well as becoming the youngest winner ever. Annette is the face of Betfair.com.

About PokerManagerT:
PokerManagerT (www.pokermanager.com) is free to download, and by many poker players considered to be the ultimate poker resource and tool. It has a complete listing of all off and online poker tournaments, the world’s biggest poker video archive, free tools, community, blogs from ordinary and world class players, magazine, poker IM, poker calendar and much more.It has been co-developed by 2 EPT winners and the world’s youngest world champion; Annette Obrestad.

Other PokerManager news:

• PokerManager now lists over 10,000+ daily poker tournaments from all the major networks and recently launched a listing with offline poker tournaments as well. It also shows what online poker rooms have satellites for these. In the period September 2007 to January 2008 PokerManager listed a total of 1,4 million tournaments.
• PokerManager gives the users the possibility to create their own video/audio blogs, in addition to the “old fashion” way of writing it. Some are also using this to produce their own poker school inside the software.
• PokerManager enters an exclusive partnership with Bluff Magazine. They are now the provider of all the poker related news and articles.
• PokerManager now have over 200 000 poker/casino related videos in the play-on-demand archive.

Bart Tischelman took home $415,595 and the Grand Casino Tunica’s WSOP Circuit Event Championship yesterday. Tischelman beat a tough final table that included 2007 WSOP Player of the Year, Tom Schneider and 2007 bracelet winner Ryan Young. Bart’s task became a bit easier after the two braclet winners were eliminated in eighth, and seventh place respectively. This is Tischelman’s first cash in a major tournament, and he sure did make it count. You can recap the final table by watching the replay on www.worldseriesofpoker.com.

1. Bart

Tichelman

$415,595

2. Donald

Nicholson

$229,309

3. Giovanni

Marcacci $126,000

4. John

Devia $100,925

5. Benjamin

Sabrin $75,751

6. Mark

Garner

$63,165

7. Ryan

Young

$ 50,578

8. Tom

Schneider

$ 37,991

9. Jordan

Rich

$ 25,404

Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. today announced the launch of World Series of Poker(R) Radio, the official weekly radio show of the World Series of Poker Presented by Milwaukee’s Best Light.

WSOP Radio is produced by Bluff Media and is available to more than 200 stations of the Sports Byline Radio Network. The broadcasts can be heard every Monday from 8 p.m. Eastern Time to 10 p.m. Eastern.

“World Series of Poker Radio is the latest addition to our broadcasting and new media portfolio and opens up a new way for us to connect with our fans and players,” said WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. “We’re now ‘on the air’ every week with the biggest names in the game, news from the WSOP and insights from top poker analysts.”

Listeners can participate in the show by calling 1-866-925-TALK. Guests will include celebrities, past and present WSOP champions, tournament officials and up and coming players from around the world.

World Series of Poker Radio will be hosted by Nick Geber, a regular commentator on “World Series of Poker Live” and three-year host of Fox Sports World TV’s “Fox Football Friday.” Geber began his broadcasting career at Fox Radio in Los Angeles and has been heard on Sporting News Radio, Sirius Satellite Radio, Sports Byline Radio and the American Forces Radio. He is an avid poker player and regularly plays tournaments and cash games throughout the Los Angeles area.

“I’m very excited to bring poker’s ‘Major League’ to the airwaves,” Geber said. “Now sports radio and poker fans can follow and participate in the action of the World Series of Poker every Monday!”

In addition to http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com and http://www.bluffmagazine.com, World Series of Poker Radio can be heard on American Forces Radio affiliates, http://www.sportsbyline.com, Cable Radio Network (CRN) and a variety of local radio affiliates in major markets nationwide, including:

    KFCD 990 AM, Dallas

    KGOW 1560 AM, Houston

    KELA 1470 AM, Seattle

    KSLG 1380 AM, St. Louis

    WMOH 1450 AM, Cincinnati

    KCXL 1140 AM, Kansas City

    KSHP 1400 AM, Las Vegas

    WSFN 790 AM, Jacksonville

    KASR 92.7 FM, Little Rock

    KPUA 670 AM, Honolulu

    WNKT 107.5 FM, Columbia, S.C.

    WXRB 1350 AM, Savannah

    KSOO 1140 AM, Sioux Falls

    KGNC 710 AM, Amarillo

More stations will be added weekly. World Series of Poker Radio also can be accessed over cell phones using Upsnap beginning January 28.

Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. is the world’s largest provider of branded casino entertainment. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, more than 70 years ago, Harrah’s has grown through development of new properties, expansions and acquisitions, and now owns or manages casinos on four continents. The Company’s properties operate primarily under the Harrah’s(R), Caesars(R) and Horseshoe(R) brand names; Harrah’s also owns the London Clubs International family of casinos. Harrah’s Entertainment is focused on building loyalty and value with its customers through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence and technology leadership. For more information, please visit http://www.harrahs.com.