There’s no cricket tournament quite like the Ashes and who doesn’t want to beat England to a pulp every single time? To celebrate the legendary series of cricket, 888.com have launched their own brand of poker to commemorate the mother of all cricket events for Australians.

This will definitely be the first ever Ashes series to be played for poker. The unique event will be televised on Sky Sportsand will be played by English and Australian cricketers, much like the real Ashes. There will be a series of five “Test” matches in the tournament, except, this time the Ashes will be battled on felt rather than grass. The teams will be playing games of No Limits Texas Hold’em Poker.

Former fast bowler Darren Gough will be the captain of the England Ashes Team while the one and only Shane Warne will take up the captain’s mantle for the Australian side. For the hybrid poker-cricket fans, 888 is offering one lucky qualifier a chance to gain a spot on either side to play the Poker Ashes with these cricketers. The 2 lucky winners (one for each side) will get an all-expenses paid trip to play the tournament in the UK in June 2009.

The winner of the Poker Ashes Series 2009 will receive $50,000 USD donated to the charity of their choice, which depending on the winner will be the Shane Warne Foundation (for Australia) or the Professional Cricket Association (for England).

The show will be telecast in Australia on June 7 at 8 p.m. AEST.

There’s no cricket tournament quite like the Ashes and who doesn’t want to beat England to a pulp every single time? To celebrate the legendary series of cricket, 888.com have launched their own brand of poker to commemorate the mother of all cricket events for Australians.

This will definitely be the first ever Ashes series to be played for poker. The unique event will be televised on Sky Sportsand will be played by English and Australian cricketers, much like the real Ashes. There will be a series of five “Test” matches in the tournament, except, this time the Ashes will be battled on felt rather than grass. The teams will be playing games of No Limits Texas Hold’em Poker.

Former fast bowler Darren Gough will be the captain of the England Ashes Team while the one and only Shane Warne will take up the captain’s mantle for the Australian side. For the hybrid poker-cricket fans, 888 is offering one lucky qualifier a chance to gain a spot on either side to play the Poker Ashes with these cricketers. The 2 lucky winners (one for each side) will get an all-expenses paid trip to play the tournament in the UK in June 2009.

The winner of the Poker Ashes Series 2009 will receive $50,000 USD donated to the charity of their choice, which depending on the winner will be the Shane Warne Foundation (for Australia) or the Professional Cricket Association (for England).

The show will be telecast in Australia on June 7 at 8 p.m. AEST.

There’s no cricket tournament quite like the Ashes and who doesn’t want to beat England to a pulp every single time? To celebrate the legendary series of cricket, 888.com have launched their own brand of poker to commemorate the mother of all cricket events for Australians.

This will definitely be the first ever Ashes series to be played for poker. The unique event will be televised on Sky Sportsand will be played by English and Australian cricketers, much like the real Ashes. There will be a series of five “Test” matches in the tournament, except, this time the Ashes will be battled on felt rather than grass. The teams will be playing games of No Limits Texas Hold’em Poker.

Former fast bowler Darren Gough will be the captain of the England Ashes Team while the one and only Shane Warne will take up the captain’s mantle for the Australian side. For the hybrid poker-cricket fans, 888 is offering one lucky qualifier a chance to gain a spot on either side to play the Poker Ashes with these cricketers. The 2 lucky winners (one for each side) will get an all-expenses paid trip to play the tournament in the UK in June 2009.

The winner of the Poker Ashes Series 2009 will receive $50,000 USD donated to the charity of their choice, which depending on the winner will be the Shane Warne Foundation (for Australia) or the Professional Cricket Association (for England).

The show will be telecast in Australia on June 7 at 8 p.m. AEST.

In an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald it can now be confirmed that this “Blacklist” has flagged over 10,000 sites to ban. These range from a wide range of harmful material including but not limited to; child porn, online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites and as bizarre as it sounds it also includes a QLD dentist.

The blacklist that was leaked by Wikileaks.org but that list has since been taken down. Julian Assange from Wikileaks has been reported as saying these secret censorship systems are “invariably corrupt” and referred to the Thailand Cersorship list. This list was made to stop child pornography but ended up being 1200 sites that were criticising the royal family. he also went on to say “History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behaviour.”

The blacklist that ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) has produced will be provided to makers of internet filtering software so parents can install it on their computers.

Stay tuned for more to come on this astonishing development on online gambling in Australia.

It can only be described as a desperate attempt by the Australian Labor Party to earn more revenue, this disastrous decision will be felt b y thousands of people across the country. No longer will Australian gamblers be able to log on and place a bet on sport, play at an online poker site or casino.

This law that is being enforced was originally made to protect Australians from paedophiles and sexually related, illegal material. Here are some of the issues that the ACMA was made to protect:

• depictions of child sexual abuse;
• depictions of bestiality;
• material containing excessive violence or sexual violence;
• material containing detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use;
• real depictions of actual sexual activity;
• depictions of simulated sexual activity which are not subject to a restricted access system

This law has subsequently placed Australian online gamblers in the same category as this filth. It is an outrage to say the least. It has been reported that the ACMA has made a blacklist of potential ‘harmful’ sites. On this list surprisingly were only online poker sites. These included PokerStars, Full Tilt, Pacific Poker, BetFair, PokerNews and many more.

What this means for Australians is that we can no longer play at these online poker sites. Not only that, Australian gambling websites that promote these rooms will be fined $11,000 for each site. This has serious legal and financial implications.

The exact nature of the GIA has never been fully understood because of the relaxed and broad nature of it. The rules were never enforced and there have been no real problems in being able to gamble online. What we can read though is what the ACMA says in its guidelines:

The IGA makes it an offence to provide, or advertise, certain interactive gambling services. ACMA is responsible for investigating formal complaints made under the IGA in relation to prohibited internet gambling content.

Prohibited internet gambling content is content that can be accessed, or is available for access, by customers of a prohibited internet gambling service.

A prohibited internet gambling service is a gambling service provided in the course of carrying on a business to customers using an internet carriage service, and an individual physically present in Australia is capable of becoming a customer of the service.

If ACMA receives a complaint about prohibited internet gambling content that is hosted in Australia, ACMA will refer the matter to the Australian Federal Police.

If prohibited internet gambling content is hosted outside Australia, ACMA will notify the content to makers of the approved Family Friendly Filters listed in Schedule 1 to the Interactive Gambling Act Industry Code.

We will be keeping a close eye on this and keep you up to date with any further developments. It seems as though we have travelled back to the dark ages and are losing our freedoms. This law is violating Australian’s rights.

Scott finished Day 4 on the top of the leader board and never looked back throughout the final table. There were times when he was challenged for the chip lead but he never surrendered it. When 2005 WSOP Main Event winner and fellow Australian poker player Joe Hachem announced “I think it’s about time an Aussie took home the title, get your acts together!” it must have seemed like a distant hope. Scott played solid poker throughout though and thoroughly deserved his win.

Going into the final table here were the chip stacks:

• Seat 1: Zach Gruneberg – 1,355,000
• Seat 2: Barny Boatman – 349,000
• Seat 3: Elliot Smith – 1,120,000
• Seat 4: Richard Ashby – 658,000
• Seat 5: Stewart Scott – 4,520,000
• Seat 6: Peter Rho – 2,420,000
• Seat 7: Rajkumar Ramakrishnan – 2,050,000
• Seat 8: Sam Capra – 1,161,000

Scott admitted in an interview after the tournament that his nerves did start to get the better of him with about 4 players left. Hands were getting harder and harder to win and there was a lot of money at stake. Congratulations to Australian poker player Stewart Scott for becoming the first Aussie in to win this prestigious tournament.

Here all the final places and earnings of each player:

1. Stewart Scott – $2 million
2. Peter Rho – $1 million
3. Elliott Smith – $700,000
4. Rajkumar Ramakrishnan – $400,000
5. Sam Capra – $300,000
6. Zach Gruneberg – $210,000
7. Richard Ashby – $150,000
8. Barny Boatman – $100,000

Two players split the 100k on offer because the hand was on an Omaha Hi/Lo table. They both received event packages that included entry to the WCOOP and WSOP Main Events. The other three people at the table shared 100k as a consolation.

Even though Full Tilt Poker ran their FTOPS event this month, PokerStars has laregely overshadowed their main rival. PokerStars is going from strength to strength and it looks as if noone can stop them. The team at Poker Shark has also just recognised that their average amount of cash players has soared from about 16k to over 29k in the past six months. Congratulations to PokerStars for yet another remarkable achievement.

Only time will tell how successful the Aussie Millions 2009 will be, but one thing is for certain, the pros love coming down here and the publicity is almost always positive. If another pro like Gus Hansen can win I can only see the media covering the event even moreso, giving the event further coverage.

With all of the major online poker rooms like PokerStars sending players to the Aussie Millions 2009, it’s sure to have a large, quality field. Online poker rooms like Pacific Poker have been targeting Australian poker players specificially, so look out for Aussies wearing the 888 brand.

One of the other factors that we should take into consideration as well is our weakening Australian Dollar. This will allow for travelers to come over here on the cheap, during the Summer as well which is a great holiday time. The Aussie Millions 2009 will also be on at the same time as the Australian Open tennis so there will be plenty of action in Melbourne around this time.

As we eagerly await the arrival of the first event at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, we can only hope that Australian players and the general public represent us well. We need to make our presence felt in the wider poker community to strengthen our product.

Best of luck for everyone going to the Crown Casino for the Aussie Millions 2009!

An unprecedented 8750 players made the money, allowing for many of the players to take something away from the event that lasted for around 9 and a half hours.

PokerStars certainly look to be turning up the heat on their competitors in the online poker market. On the same morning they also held a massive Sunday tournament that had a prize pool of $3.2 million for the $215 buy-in. Things only look to be getting bigger and better over there, as the team keep putting on these displays without a hitch. Perhaps the only disappointing thing about the tourney with 35k entries was that it was capped and was full the night before. Many players missed out which would have made it an even bigger event.

We have been in contact with the team over at PokerStars and they have assured us that in the very near future they will be holding a similar event that won’t be capped so everyone can have a chance at playing. They said that the reasoning behind capping it was because of the way it was structured and they couldn’t change it.

From all reports, it was a great tourney that was well run and enjoyable for all. Here all the final standings of the event:

1. stan34powa – $30,000
2. meiky777 – $20,000
3. rumred14 – $15,000
4. Goldman007 – $10,000
5. Nekochan48 – $7,500
6. gustave44 – $5,000
7. n0ideahh – $3,500
8. alepolice – $2,500
9. ONE_TIMEE – $2,000
10. FuFish – $1,500

Make sure you get your PokerStars marketing code.