Professional poker player Barry Greenstein discusses gives his latest trip report via an audio blog. Barry starts off the audio blog explaining how Chris Ferguson and himself were ambushed in an interview by FoxNews. He was being asked profound questions like, “Can someone lose their house playing online poker?” He goes on talking about who is involved with working with the lobbyist and all the poker players that is currently in Washington, D.C.

Greenstien gives props to the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) in regards to being “organized” thats one of the first good things about the PPA that we have heard in a while. Anyways, at the very end of the audio blog Barry says, that he believes that online poker will be legalized and no restrictions will be put on players and can deposit with normal methods. This is solid progress on the issues with the USA government and online poker. Listen for yourself by visiting Pokerroad.com

Poker Players Alliance Invades Washington, D.C. : The PPA is finally doing something useful, they are making some new strides to fight against the UIGEA (the thing that banned online poker in the USA). Throughout this week the PPA will be hosting a series of policy conferences which will engage in ctizens lobbying with members of congress in D.C. Several big name players are expected to attend including, Howard Lederer, Chad Brown Victor Ramind and Poker Babe Vanessa Rousso. For more complete information please visit PokerNews.com

Unibet CEO is Arrested: Dutch authorities have arrested Petter Nylander from his home on this past Monday. He was sent to France where he is currently being detained. The European Union is pissed and demanding answers. For more information please visit Gambling911. Speaking about the French read our French Guy Backs Down article.

Calvin Ayre Continues to Call on Scott Lewis: A few days ago Calvin Ayre offered to fight Scott Lewis of 1st Technology LLC for $1 Million, (the guy who took his domain, bodog.com) and Scott looks like he will turn down this match. Calvin is now calling him a chicken… anyways, makes for a good read, check out Calvin’s Blog here

WCOOP Main Event Tournament Winnings Confiscated: Mark Teltscher is about as dumb as Bryan Micon, his “sister” apparently signed up to PokerStars under the name “TheV0id” days before the Main Event and played in the $2600 tournament. Mark Teltscher His sister ended up winning the event, however, PokerStars deemed that Mark and his sister have violated Terms of Agreements and the funds to be confiscated. For Mark’s brillant reactions and comments please visit Poker-King

Well since there was mention of a Frenchy in this post why not show a hot chick with a French name. Gillian LeBrun is absolutely money! Visit Maxim to see all the pictures of this babe.

Everyone seems to be getting sick of the no limit freeze out Texas Hold’em tournaments, this is why you see so many new weird tournaments that just put a spin on hold’em. The newest one is the inaugural PokerBowl, which will start in Las Vegas.

This format will have 25 6-player teams that will compete for the USPL National League Title and a $1 million prize. Sounds dumb already eh? Well it gets better… There will be 5 teams in each tournament, the last person standing will advance to the final along with the rest of his team.

One would have to think the collusion level will be high, but apparently they will be referring the players so collusion won’t be an issue. Players are allowed to chip dump but not allowed to make signals to their team mates.

There are several big players already committed to the event. Attention starved boyfriends Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari are down along with Scott Fischman, Mike Matusow, thought you had quad kings Jennifer Tilly, Paul Wasicka, Poker Babe Vanessa Rousso, Doyle Bruson, Todd Brunson, Greg Raymer, Gavin Griffin and many other big name players.

The tournament is running from Oct 20th to the 23rd in Las Vegas. Fox Sports will be broadcasting the event in 7 one hour episodes. Tom Schneider will provide commentary and the episodes start January 26th 2008.

Poker Pro Richard Lee finished 6th in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, which earned him $2.8 million. Nearly two weeks after the tournament Lee’s house was raided in San Antonio, Texas and his $2.8 million was confiscated.

Lee and his two cronies were arrested for running an illegal gambling and sportsbook operation from Lee’s house. If they were convicted they would have to pay a hefty fine and may also receive jail time.

Lee and his partners were running a larger then suspected operation. His house and operation was being investigated for several months as it was processing millions of dollars in bets and wagers. There was also an online gambling site set up to make it appear that the operation was being operated offshore.

Just last week Lee entered a no contest plea to charges of keeping a place for illegal gambling. Under Texas law this a misdemeanor, which means that Lee’s $2.5 million will not be returned, which was seized during the raid. However, Lee will now be able to avoid jail time by entering the plea bargain.

After the plea was finalized Richard Lee was asked what his plans include for the future. His response was, “I guess I just got to get out to Las Vegas and win a poker tournament.”

Read our Full Tilt Poker Review

PokerStars player Belragazo, who went out of his way to trash talk , has surrendered to the pressure and has apologized to Greg Raymer. During the World Championship of Online Poker, Belragazo made aggressive statements such as “Kill Him!” and “yes!!!!” when Raymer was eliminated. He actually succeeded in upsetting the Fossilman, as Raymer responded to the taunts with “bel, you’re a jerk, jerks always lose in the end” in the PokerStars chat. However, his once-ballsy demeanor evaporated as the atmosphere of his home country of France seeped into him and resulted in him backing down and apologizing. In a post on the PokerListings forum, he states his apology:

“First of all, I would like to apologize to all of you. I think my behavior was excessive and I did not want to hurt anybody. It was very early in the morning at 8 am and I was extremely tired when the controversy happened about my ‘kill him‘” writes Belragazo.

Contrary to his previous assessments, he claims that he has a lot of respect for the Fossilman as a poker player. He further justifies his comments by degrading himself and admitting that he was shaking in fear like a French soldier: “I did say that I was happy that Greg was out because I felt that I was scared of him and that it made me hesitate to play in situations I would usually win the hands.”

He further states that he became frustrated when Raymer got lucky in a few pots. Rather than apologizing in the chat, he saw fit to wait and post it in a forum for fear of “losing his concentration”. All of this was for naught, however, as he was eliminated, as Frenchman always are.

Related Links: PokerStars Website

On January 25-26, 2008, the World Series of Poker Academy will host a Ladies Only event at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Participants will be given handbooks, shown live hand demonstrations, and have the opportunity to attend in-depth seminars and interactive workshops.

Experts who will be on hand to help guide the ladies will include poker tells expert Joe Navarro, poker instructor Alex “The Insider” Outhred, and WSOP bracelet winner Annie Duke. As only the second event of its kind held by the WSOP Academy, they hope it will surpass the results of its predecessor which produced Sally Anne Boyer, won the Ladies World Championship at the 2007 World Series.

Brandon Rosen of Post Oak Productions (the company that produces the WSOPA) states that he expects more graduates from the Academy to win bracelets in 2008 and chalks up last year’s success to the level of instruction provided by the teaching crew. However, we still refuse to accept that producing the 2007 Women’s World Champion should be considered true success, as it is obviously not a true WSOP event. Women only??? We’ll let one Jose Canseco piss on that picnic, as he no doubt will continue to do.

We sincerely hope he shows up to this Academy event, if for no other reason than it will provide great material to re-write a couple of our previous articles. For you, Jose, or anyone else to enter this event it will cost $1,699 and will be capped at 100 participants.

Related Links: Jose Canseco Enters Womens Only Event

Swedish poker has taken a hit. In what was billed as the European Poker Challenge, six men have been indicted on charges of operating an unlicensed poker tournament. The event had attracted a field of 700 who ponied up the 250 Euro buy in, plus 30 Euro which went to the organizers as fees. For those of you who may be mathematically challenged, that resulted in a prize pool of 175 000 Euro which equals just shy of $250,000 USD.

However, the Swedish authorities had something to say about the awarding of a 50000 Euro first prize, as they raided the joint not long after the first hand had been dealt. Also charged in the incident were the two men who rented out the facility, as providing a venue for illegal gaming is treated the same as operating the gaming under Swedish law.

The highly publicized event being interrupted is just another chapter in the ongoing battle within a Swedish government trying to deal with a game that has swept the nation. The authorities have promised to be more aggressive in regards to dealing with underground poker, which is rampant across the nation. Prosecution declares this as “one of the largest cases of this kind”, and trial has been set in November. All accused have denied the accusations, which carry a maximum prison term of four years behind bars.

Well at least the Swedes have a lot of hot chicks, can’t say the same for the UK however in this link.

The Sunday main event of the WCOOP was highly anticipated and nearly 3,000 players joined in on the action at PokerStars. The total prize pool was just under $7.5 million, which makes this one of the biggest online poker tournaments ever to be played.

The final table began well into Monday and another PokerStars team member made the final table. Vanessa Rousso is not only a BIP Poker Babe, she is also a PokerStars team member. She plays under screen handle as LadyMaverick and was seated in seat 1 when the final table began. PokerStars were banking on Vanessa to win this event as Greg Raymer won the WCOOP Omaha Rebuy tournament a little while back.

Vanessa Rousso played a great game and wound up finishing 3rd taking down nearly $464,000 for 3rd place. TheV0id from the United Kingdom took first place and was paid over $1.2 million. It has also been rumored that 6th place finisher was Josh Arieh who was playing under screen handle ‘nitbuster’.

And of course there is always seems to be some sort of controversy in these big events, like there was with the Greg Raymers’ win. He was disconnected, then came back and gave everyone a foam finger. Any who, posters at 2+2 and pocket5’s are saying that Rousso and poker player/announcer Chad Brown were colluding. Well, we aren’t exactly buying into this one, but it made a good read at 2+2.

The winner of the event ‘TheV0id’ is rumored to be under investigation. One poster at 2+2 said that Mark Teltscher and his ’sister’ were both playing in the tournament under the same IP address. Another poster had something similar to say that Mark Teltscher was playing 5 different accounts and the winnings have already been frozen and there is ongoing investigation. We will bring you more information as this story develops.

Related links: Vanessa Rousso Pics + Bio – PokerStars – Greg Raymer Wins Omaha Rebuy

Betfair poker and casino has announced that its annual revenues increase 30% up to £182 million this past year. The new success has be associated with the re-launch of the poker room, which was originally on the Cryptologic network and the awesome new online casino. As of October 1st Betfair claimed they have over 1 million registered members and 443,300 active players.

Although, there have been some relation to new sign ups and hiring Annette Obrestad, 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event Champ, as a spokes model. Who would of thought players would be more impressed with a site, sponsoring a young prodigy rather then a super model. Other girls that are spokes models for poker sites are: Tina Wallman (Carbon Poker), Joanna Krupa (Former Titan Poker Babe) Tila Tequila (Tila Poker).

Anyways, Annette is a damn good poker player and Betfair is a solid poker room.

Related links: Betfair – Betfair Poker Review – Annette_15

“Bryan Micon and the brilliant con-artist Justin Smith issue is coming to some sort of conclusion. Micon, posted that he received $1.5k from Smith’s business manager, after they met at the Bellagio. Micon has got back $2.5k and $9.5k left to go. According to Smith’s manager there are some final procedures and tying up loose things in Hawaii right now. Micon let us know at Neverwinpoker.com that apparently Justin is guaranteed some baller sized inheritance very soon. Now, we are just left wondering if Micon is going to get his $90k interest he was promised….

If you haven’t read the full story visit Bryan Micon Gets Rolled for $12k

“It’s rumored that the UIGEA poker regulations will be coming out within the next 7 days and according to the Poker Players Alliance, it could come out as early as tomorrow.

The rules have been approved by the US government office, which government office, we don’t have a clue. We are just regurgitating news that we really don’t understand. The new regulations and rules will be published straight to the Federal Register. From there a commencing period will take place and industry experts will be reviewing the new regulations in a 60 to 90 day period. For more please visit CompatiblePoker.com

Tom Schneider has put up a great article on his site Pokerati.com about how, The Poker Industry Continues to Disappointment me. He rants about how bad behavior, poor sportsmanship and people acting like weirdos is tolerated and a crowd-pleaser in the poker industry.

“Norway may ban online poker according to PokerListings.com, Trond Giske, some guy in charge of something in Norway, has made it repeatedly clear that he is against online gambling. Currently, under Norwegian law online gambling is illegal. If Giske put in new legislation it would enforce the existing laws by banning transactions between banks and poker sites. Read more by visit Pokerlistings.com