The young Brit beats fellow Brits Sam Trickett and Teddy Sheringham to take the €470,000 1st prize.

Young British player Toby Lewis has scored the biggest win of his career by triumphing over the record-breaking 384-strong field for a payday of €467,835; a sum that dwarfs his previous largest cash for €25,000 after a seventh place finish at IPT Venice.

He came to the final table as chip leader ahead of UK tournament rising star Sam Trickett and football legend Teddy Sheringham. The three Brits had the vast majority of the chips in play and it was almost a lock to have a British champion.

Sheringham could do no better than fifth place after he ran his K-Q into Q-J on a K-9-T-9 board. His efforts were rewarded with €93,121; almost double his previous largest cash (£40,000 in the WSOPE for 14th place) and a hearty round of applause.

Sam Trickett could not take his first international victory due to some appalling luck at the final table. Seven out of eight times that he was all-in he was either slightly or hugely ahead of his opponent. He lost each and every one, finishing in fourth place when his JJ was outdrawn by QJ.

Eventually Toby Lewis and Martin Jacobson faced off heads-up with the former at a 2-1 chip deficit. The chip lead was hotly contested but soon Lewis made a set against two pair to end the tournament and take home by far his largest poker payday.

The full final table payouts were as follows:

• 1.Toby Lewis, UK, €467,836
• 2.Martin Jacobson, Sweden, €297,985
• 3.Jason Lee, USA, €186,241
• 4.Sam Trickett, UK, €139,681
• 5.Teddy Sheringham, UK, €93,121
• 6.Frederik Jensen, Denmark, €74,496
• 7.Rob Hollink, Netherlands, €55,872
• 8.Sergio Coutinho, Portugal, €37,248

Details of the full story at Bluff Europe - Toby Lewis leads British conquest of EPT Vilamoura.

Durrrr Challenge 2 has begun

We mentioned the rumour last week that the latest Durrrr Challenge was about to start between Tom Dwan and Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates. The opening session was played over the weekend and saw Durrrr jump into an early $127k lead but when play resumed later in the day it was the challenger who was dominating.

After an opening day in which 5,862 hands were played Jungleman12 opened up a lead of almost $520k over Tom Dwan.

About Daniel “jungleman12” Cates

Daniel is a 20-year-old University of Maryland economics major Daniel “jungleman12” Cates, and he officially accepted the “durrrr” Challenge, putting $500,000 in escrow with Phil Ivey and signing on as Dwan’s second opponent.

The Game

The two agreed to play $200/$400 no-limit hold’em across a minimum of four tables with the option of increasing to six tables should they feel like pushing it hard. The “run it twice” option will be used throughout the 50,000 hands and if either player’s stack fall below 75 big blinds, he must reload to a full starting stack.

Session Summary

With those rules in place, the cards went in the air at 12:35 a.m. EDT early Friday Morning and after almost 12 hours of play, Cates finished a 5,829 hand session with a sweet $518,191 profit.

Stay upto date with all the Latest Poker News at LTDPoker.com, and at the high stakes tables of Full Tilt Poker.

The full story can be found at LTDPoker.com - Durrrr Challenge 2 begins

Stani Scoops First Leg of EPT Season 7 and Prevents Arnaud Mattern from Achieving Double EPT Status.

The PokerStars European Poker Tour Tallinn was the first stop of season 7, this is the first time an EPT event has been held in the Baltic States. Tallin is the capital of Estonia with a population of 410,000.

A field of 420 players ensured it broke the existing record for the biggest poker event ever to be held in Estonia., and Team Pokerstars Pro Luca Pagano set a record of his own with 15 EPT cashes including his finish in this €4,250 buy-in main event for $10,240.

Last but not least was something many poker fans were holding their breath over would Team PokerStars Pro member Arnaud Mattern become the first ever double EPT champion?

Unfortunately the answer soon became apparent when Norwegian Kevin “KevBoyStar” Stani took over the chip lead from the Frenchman at the final table, and never looked back. The 27-year-old PokerStars qualifier received €400,000 for first place, and a seat to the EPT Grand Final next year. Mattern had to settle for third place and €160,000.

Here are the final results and payouts:

• First Kevin Stani (Norway) €400,000
• Second Konstantin Bilyauer (Russia) €250,000
• Third Arnaud Mattern (France) €160,000
• Fourth Dmitry Vitkind (Russia) €120,000
• Fifth Mikko Jaatinen (Finland) €80,000
• Sixth Steven van Zadelhoff (Netherlands) €63,000
• Seventh Nicolo Calia (Italy) €47,000
• Eighth Bassam Elnajjar (Lebanon) €32,000

For your chance of qualifying to a future EPT Event why not download the Free Poker Software at Pokerstars.com.

As we all know by now the Durrrr Challenge featuring Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Patrik Antonius has been running since February 2009, currently 39,436 hands have been played with a staggering total of $342,257,728.50 in bets made. Dwan is currently $2,059,719.50 ahead having won 20,700 hands with an average $ won per Winning hand of $2,952.13.

The last session played was on August 3 with Durrr increasing his lead by $459,961.50 over a 182 hand session, rumours have been circulating that Antonius has paid off the Challenge which clears the decks for the new challenger in Daniel “jungleman12” Cates.

Below is a summary of the chat between durrrr and JungleMan12 on Monday at a Full Tilt Poker table between Dwan and Cates -

durrrr: did u send ivey $$ yet??
jungleman12: not yet ?jungleman12: ill send now ?
jungleman12: how soon is soon??
durrrr: read ur phone... ?
jungleman12: ah i see ?
durrrr: few days at most?
durrrr: did u send yet? ?
jungleman12: yeah ?
jungleman12: sent?
durrrr: then i can start talking &&%%?
durrrr: since we're booked ?
jungleman12: ??
durrrr: and say that its cute u think u'll ever have an edge =) ?
jungleman12: lol ?
jungleman12: you never seemed like the type?
durrrr: never wanna scare off the fish =)?
durrrr: but if they escrow....?
durrrr: haha ok?
durrrr: lmk if u wanna play if not we'll start in a few days ?
durrrr: gl n stuff ?
jungleman12: u2w

It seems that Phil Ivey will be the banker for this challenge acting as escrow agent for both. According to High Stakes poker stats Cates has banked $786K from Dwan in 13,000 hand and is Cates "Best Friend" in terms of money won from Dwan.

We will keep you updated of any developments and make sure to report all the action as it happens on the High Stakes Poker tables of Full Tilt Poker.

The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) returns to the Luton G Casino for a full week's worth of poker action with plenty of side events culminating in the £1,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event, August 12th-15th.

After numerous close finishes at this years World Series of Poker (WSOP) Neil 'Bad Beat' Channing took down his first GUKPT Main Event title and the top prize of £64,050.

A total of 229 players contested the Main even with seats won online, via last minute tickets in Luton super-satellites or direct buy in of £1,000 to take their chances at the felt this weekend.

Ten were left at the start of play on Sunday. The Chip leader Neil Channing had a couple of players close to him – George White, Keith Johnson and Ricky Mackintosh. This was not to last long as the table divided into those with chips and and those without. Victor Ilyukhin had to move early as one of the short stacks and unfortunately for him it was to the rail in 10th place with £4,000 for his troubles.

Two players on the final table were making there fifth GUKPT final table here, but neither of them could get going, Jeff Kimber falling 9th and Joe Grech 8th – both of them running into different opponents' pocket Aces to leave the final more open. Neil Channing was not to be left with a stagnant stack, however, and busted Les Fenton in 7th after flopping a set of Fives. Helping to drive the action was the unmistakeable voice of Adebayo Odetoyinbo, alternately jousting with Channing, badgering his opponents and apologising to the audience. He doubled through Carlo Citrone after Ricky Mackintosh's exit in 6th place, changing the dynamic at the table after being short-stacked all day, and it was Citrone who had to accept 5th and £12,600 for making it this far. Another double for Ade courtesy of George White followed, and despite having picked up pocket Aces no fewer than four times during the final, White busted in 4th place, winning £16,000.

Despite holding the solid chip advantage between them (1.5 million or so apiece), Keith Johnson and Neil Channing found it tough to eliminate Odetoyinbo. He made his way back from just 400k to eventually find himself heads up with the only player remaining who could possibly give his table talk a run for its money. Keith Johnson lost a crucial race with pocket Sevens to Channing's AK, which left him first short, and then shortly out. £28,050 for third place must be some consolation, however. For a glimpse of the final as it played out, complete with in-action pictures, visit blog.grosvenorukpokertour.com for the live blog.

Heads up play lasted mere minutes, with the same hand which busted Johnson taking down Odetoyinbo (who won £43,500). Channing, with more big slicks than BP was the last player standing, and that gave him the GUKPT Luton 2010 title, the trophy, the seat in the Champion of Champions event and £64,050. Channing, the face of Black Belt Poker, eschewed the judo suit in which he's previously appeared to play, and has proven with just three Main Events left on the calendar that he could beat his record (2nd in the London leg), building a stack early which carried him right through to the end.

This year's WSOP had the smallest number of big name winners which begs the question - Is the World Series of Poker getting harder

The GSOP Live series of poker tournaments kicks off in Riga in October 2010 and continues with live tournaments in Malta (November) and the RedKings Open in Budapest February 2nd 2011.

Over the next 12 weeks you can win CASH and one of the 75 guaranteed live poker packages on offer at Redkings Poker. With Monthly points races, tournament races, Point per Day, Hands races, qualifiers and Grinding bonuses we have something for everyone.

6 major promotions to choose from all starting 16th August 2010:

GSOP Live Points Race

Play in the GSOP Live points race for a chance to win some of the $10,000 in cash and one of 3 x $3,000 packages to a GSOP Live tournament. In addition 4 other packages will paid to players between positions 4 and 63 in Freeroll tournaments.

GSOP Live Tournament Rounds Race

For Tournament players something very different! Win a share of $5,000 in cash + 2 packages to a GSOP Live tournament. It’s all about how many tournaments you play. There are 4 levels and your leaderboard is decided from the average fee paid.

Point Per Day 8 GSOP Live

Point per Day is back with its 8th edition, the easiest points race to win. This is for all you loyal players who never win from traditional points races. We offer 2 levels; 25 and 50 player points per day to collect 1 race point and to win all you have to do is collect a minimum 10 race points between the 16th August and 12th September.

Point Per Day 8 Hands Race

To add more excitement to the Point per Day 8 we introduce a $3,000 hands race with the winner getting an extra $1,600 seat to a GSOP Live tournament

GSOP Live Qualifiers

Qualify yourself to the GSOP Live tournaments. An extra 50 packages are up for grabs for each tournament, Riga, Malta and Budapest. Qualifiers start from as low as $2+$0.20.

Grinders Bonuses

Grind yourself to the GSOP Live. We offer 3 different Grinders bonuses and you can choose the package for Riga, Malta or Budapest.

Join the action now RedKings Poker.

We are into the 2nd week of August, the WSOP is on hold until the November Nine return on 6th November to Las Vegas to battle it out for the $8,944,138 first prize and the title of WSOP Main Event Champion.

In the online world we have the FTOPS XVII taking place at Full Tilt Poker running through to the FTOPS Main Event on Sunday August 15th. Followed by the WCOOP with $50 million guaranteed at Pokerstars from 5th to 26th September.

The Live Poker Circuit switches its attention to London with the London Poker Festival starting 30th August with the WPT London sponsored by Partypoker.

Following closely on the heals of the biggest annual live poker event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2010 in Las Vegas. Pokerstars have released details of the upcoming World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 2010 with a guaranteed prize pool of $50 million.

The WCOOP 2010 will be held exclusively at Pokerstars.com and will be the biggest online poker tournament ever.

The action will begin on September 5 and will feature a total of 62 events over 23 days featuring all game varients from Texas Holdem, Pot Limit Omaha, Razz, 8-Game, Stud etc...

All winners will receive a WCOOP gold bracklet in addition to the huge first prize money. Event #1 will be a $215 6-Max No Limit Holdem tournament. Following on from the success of the newly introduced Knockout Sit and Gos, the WCOOP will also feature 4 Knockout events which means if you are unfortuate and don't make the money you can earn cash for each player you knockout.

The WCOOP will culminate with a $10,000 8-Game High Roller event with $1,000,000 guaranteed and a $5,000 NL Holdem Main Event with $10,000,000 guaranteed.

WCOOP 2009 Highlights

Last year the WCOOP was played by 43,973 players from 140 countries, the Main Event was won by Yevgeniy 'Jovial Gent' Timoshenko who took home $1.7 million.

Don't worry if you bankroll doesn't support entering all of the tournaments in the WCOOP you can qualify via satellites now at Pokerstars

For a full satellite schedule and updates on this year’s World Championship of Online Poker go to http://www.wcoop.com

Tomorrow sees the start of the Full Tilt Poker hosted FTOPS XVII tournament series as the seventeenth run of the FTOPS begins. The event promises to guarantee a total prize pool of $19,000,000 across 33 events including the $600 Main Event with a $3,000,000 prize pool.

Last year, FTOPS was made up of thirty events making it the largest FTOPS to date. This series of FTOPS tournaments is the largest ever seen at Full Tilt Poker. The first event is a $216 NL event, the same as FTOPS XVI – this opening event last time saw a field of 3,673 with a first prize of $130,000.

New to the series will be the introduction of six Rush Poker tournaments. Rush Poker is Full Tilt’s new signature game, in which players are moved to a different table after each hand is dealt. This way, playing one table can yield a rate of over 200 hands per hour and always keeps your opposition fresh.

If Texas Holdem isn't your preferred poker game you can try your hand at Rush Poker featuring in PLO, PLO8 and Limit Hold ‘em tournaments. The proceedings begin on Wednesday August 4th at 21.00 ET with the $200 + $16 NL event guaranteeing $750,000. Don't miss it!

Keep up to date with all the news from the poker world by following us on Twitter and Facebook

PartyGaming plc and bwin Interactive Entertainment AG owners of PartyPoker and Bwin Poker have confirmed their long anticipated merger. Bwin is set to take a 51.64 per cent holding in the newly expanded business. Talks have been taking place for the last few months and everyone throught the deal was off. However hot on the tails of the latest good news from the US with the approval of the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act signalling a step closer to a regulated US Poker marketplace.

The merger expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2011 subject to various conditions from both sides including at least 75 per cent approval by both sets of shareholders.

Jim Ryan CEO of PartyGaming said "This is a transformational opportunity for both our companies to create the world's largest listed online gaming business, With market-leading positions in poker, sports betting, casino and games (in particular bingo), the Enlarged Group will have a winning formula to exploit the growing online gaming market, supported by a strong balance sheet, significant cashflow generation and a highly experienced management team."

Norbert Teufelberger, Co-Chief Executive Officer of bwin added: "This merger of equals makes great strategic, operational and financial sense. We will be in pole position to capitalise on the wealth of opportunities that will flow from the continued evolution and expansion of the global online gaming industry."

Both PartyGaming and bwin said that the proposed merger represents a transformational opportunity for both companies and their respective shareholders, creating the "world’s largest listed online gaming business" with estimated net gaming revenues of €682m and an EBITDA of €196m in 2009, before including any synergistic benefits as a result of the merger.

The combination of both businesses will create a well-balanced mix of revenues, with the geographic spread and product mix of PartyGaming and bwin highly complementary according to the companies, while the enlarged group will be well positioned to also further develop its B2B offering to international companies and governments.

PartyGaming and bwin believe that the enlarged group should be able to achieve gross pre-tax cost synergies of approximately €42m per year through the removal of duplicated costs, economies of scale in purchasing and cross-fertilisation of best-of-breed practices.

PartyGaming and bwin estimate that the realisation of these synergy benefits will be phased over a two year period following completion of the merger with substantially all synergies expected to be achieved in the first full financial year.

The proposed merger will be effected by bwin being merged into PartyGaming, with PartyGaming taking the form of a European Company or Societas Europaea (SE). On taking the form of an SE, PartyGaming will continue to be domiciled in Gibraltar where the central management and operational headquarters of the enlarged group will also be located.

The board of the enlarged group will be led by Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger who will be co-chief executives, with Martin Weigold as group finance director and Joachim Baca as chief operating officer. A new independent non-executive chairman will also be expected to join the board of the enlarged group upon completion. Excluding the chairman, there will be equal executive and non-executive representation from the current PartyGaming and bwin boards. Current bwin co-CEO Manfred Bodner will become a non-executive director on the board of the enlarged group and will be involved in transition and integration management.

In consideration for their agreement to the proposed merger, bwin shareholders will receive new PartyGaming shares in accordance with the exchange ratio of approximately 12.23 new PartyGaming shares for each bwin share. On completion, the new PartyGaming shares will be admitted to the Official List of the UKLA and to trading on the London Stock Exchange's main market.

Based on the undiluted issued share capital yesterday, PartyGaming shareholders would hold approximately 48.4 per cent while bwin shareholders would hold approximately 51.6 per cent of the issued shares of the parent company of the enlarged group.

If you are interesting in trying the Free Poker Software from either Bwin Poker or Party Poker you can read our reviews and download the software today