Scott Clements was chip lead entering the final table and he used this to his advantage by busting Antony Lellouche in ninth place. For his final table early exit, Lellouche won $29,965. Armando Ruiz was eliminated in eighth place for $32,105—a respectable finish for Ruiz who picked up his first cash in a major tournament.

In a confrontation between John Racener and Robert Campbell culminated in Racener’s elimination in seventh place. No tears for Racener as it has proven to be a great WSOP poker year as this is his third cash for the series. Andy Black was busted in sixth place for $42,993 after he raised preflop and was put all in by Robert Campbell. Black had Ad-Ah-4d-3h while Campbell had As-Ac-5s-4h. Campbell got a flush draw with the Qs-&s-9d flop and completed his flush after a 7c hit the turn and a 6s fell on the river.

Alex Kravchenko ran into Scott Clements and was forced to settle for $53,881 for his fifth place finish. Kravencho had 8s-7s-5c-4c versus Clements’ As-9s-7h-5h. The board ran Js-10c-5d-Kd-6c board and Clements scooped up the pot.

Despite entering the final table with the shortest stack, Robert Campbell outlasted opponents to finish in fourth place for $72,121. He was eliminated by Roland de Wolfe who hit a seven-high straight. Scott Clements was then ousted by de Wolfe in third place for $101,063.

With a 4-to-1 chip lead versus Brett Richey, it didn’t take long for de Wolfe to take the tournament. On the last hand, Richey bet after the 10c-8c-4d flop. He was checked-raised by de Wolfe and Richey went all-in. De Wolfe called with two pair holding Ad-Qc-8d-4h. Richey had a wrap straight draw and top pair with Qd-Js-10h-9h. Unfortunately for Richey, the 2s on the turn and Ah on the river didn’t help and he finished in second place with $152,618. De Wolfe won his first WSOP bracelet and a whopping $246,616 for first place.

The 2009 Five-Star World Poker Classic has been underway at the Bellagio for a few days. Poker pro Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little took down the $500 buy-in first event for a payday of $27,470. The FSWPC ends in a couple of weeks with the $25,000 buy-in 2009 WPT Championship, or the 2009 FSWPCWPTC.

Event No. 1 of the Venetian Deep Stack tournament series kicked off today and culminates in the $2,500 championship event on April 23.

The WSOP Academy is holding their Advanced Poker Academy at Caesars Palace starting tomorrow.

Jamie Gold his girlfriend and some other guy won the Dream Team Poker Tournament as Team Aced. Read the action at PokerListings.

Qualify online for the WPT through Bodog Poker and win a $12,000 prize package

It only took 73 hands for the final table to play out. Just seven hands into the game, Jose Tavares was sent home in 6th place with $5,000. The blinds were a staggering 30,000-60,000 with 10,000 ante and Tavares pushed all-in pre-flop with his A-Q with around a million in chips. Unfortunately for him, he was called by Nick Gonzales who held Pocket Rockets.

Ottavio Tassone was the next to go when he lost against WSOP bracelet holder Scott “BigRiskky” Clements. Tassone shoved all-in before the flop with K-J and was countered by a push by Clements with Pocket eights. The board didn’t help Tassone and he ended up in 5th place with $10,000.

Clements victory was short-lived as he was the next to bust out with $15,000. After Tom Hall raised to 200,000 pre-flop, Clements pushed all-in for 1.32 million. Hall called Clements with As-3s. Although Clements was ahead A-9, the flop gave Hall trips with 3-3-2.

The blinds were at 40,000-80,000 with 10,000 ante when Hall busted out in third place. Hall raised pre-flop only to face Deeb who pushed all-in. Hall called with his Q-J while Deeb showed pocket sevens. The flop gave Deeb a set with Q-7-5. Deeb further improved to a full house on the turn and Hall went home with $20,000.

Heads-up play was anticlimactic as it only took one hand for Deeb to eliminate Nick Gonzales. Deeb called Gonzales’ pre-flop shove with his pocket eights. Gonzales tabled A-6. The board played out J-7-3-6-K, giving Deeb his second WPT title and a seat at the WPT Championship at the Bellagio in April. Gonzales went home with $50,000 for his runner-up finish.

PokerStars.tv already boasts numerous clips from several Team PokerStars Pro members, who share their expertise in specific poker hand or poker scenario situations and possible poker strategies.

Now available on the site is an introductory video on the four World Series of Poker bracelet holder and two World Poker Tour Championship titles, Daniel Negreanu, with feature videos on some Team PokerStars Pro members, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer, Bill Chen and Dario Minieri.

The site has an extensive search function, which allow users to focus in on such topics as specific hand holdings, to better understand situational plays.

“Just enter a hand like ‘Jack-Jack’ or ‘Ace-King’ and you can find out how it’s been played in all sorts of different situations by some of the world’s great and not so great players! It’s a terrific way to learn more about the game,” said Daniel Negraeanu.

The site also includes extensive video reporting from all poker events where PokerStars has a presence, from the PokerStars-sponsored European Poker Tour, Latin American Poker Tour and Asia Pacific Poker Tour to the current 2008 World Series of Poker.

PokerStars is even offering introductory freerolls to the site running through the duration of July’s WSOP Main Event festivities at the Rio on July 14th, though to obtain the password to the freeroll, one must watch a PokerStars.tv video through to its completion, where the password is embedded.

Player profiles and interviews are also available on the site, which each user can personalize according to his own preferences.

“The team working on PokerStars.tv are all poker players. Our goal was simply to build a site that allowed us to see our favourite poker clips at any time - and that’s what PokerStars.tv allows you to do. There are some outstanding poker hands to watch and enjoy. With the excellent video blogs flooding in from the WSOP, there is new material being added every day,” said Conrad Brunner, Head of TV & Digital Production at PokerStars.

Not bad for someone who started playing online poker at the play money tables. Thorson has been playing at PokerStars since 2002 using his screen name “William.” When he started playing with real money, his first deposit was a measly $50. He’s gone a long way considering that he can now afford to shell out $10,000 to join World Series of Poker main events.

Considered by many as the number one player on the Swedish poker scene, Thorson humbly admitted in interviews that despite his many accomplishments, he still considers being chosen for Team PokerStars Pro an honor. “It’s a great team with many of the world’s greatest players and I’m honored to be included in such company. I’m proud to have my skills recognized in this way. It’s a great opportunity for me and I hope to achieve big results,” said Thorson.

The Swede will now represent PokerStars at the 2008 World Series of Poker. He will surely be gunning for a better finish than his already respectable 13th place at the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event. He will be joined by other members of Team Pokerstars Chris Moneymaker, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Bertrand Grospellier, and Humberto Brenes.

“William has had great success, and now as a member of Team PokerStars Pro we believe he’ll raise his game further in the year to come,” enthused Michael Holmberg, Regional Manager for PokerStars.

After picking up his first WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament, Phan came out on top in the not-too-popular $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Low Ball event. Not an easy feat considering the final table was graced with poker stalwarts David Slansky, who was desperately trying to end a 25-year WSOP bracelet drought, Robert Mizrachi and 2007 bracelet winner Ben Ponzio.

The competition got intense as Phan and Gioi Luong started to get on each other’s nerves after an incident where Phan accidentally posted his big blind after the gun. The incident passed after a few heated words but both players erupted again after the dealer discarded the wrong card. For a second it looked as though the players were going to come to blows but cooler heads, or rather the floor, intervened. In any case, Phan got the best of Luong this time as it was he who sent Luong to the rail.

Heads up against Shun Uchida with a slight chip advantage, it took Phan less than an hour to send Uchida packing with $95,795 for a decent second place finish. In the last hand, John exclaimed that his opponent was drawing dead before turning up 76432, the second nuts. “History has been made,” declared Phan as he was receiving his second gold bracelet. It looks like no one is going to call him one of the greatest tournament players without a bracelet anymore.

Bon “John” Phan is a Vietnamese-American professional poker player based in Long Beach, California who is a two time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a two time final tablist of World Poker Tour Championships.

With the biggest poker tournament of the year still left, the WSOP Main Event, there is still plenty of prize money out there waiting to be claimed by Team Bodog members. If you want to don the black and red and head to Vegas to claim some for yourself, then head over to Bodog Poker and check out the WSOP online satellites for your chance to win a $12,000 WSOP VIP Prize package and experience Vegas as only Team Bodog does.

No stranger to the WSOP, Benyamine had to settle for three WSOP final tables and two top 15 finishes in the past. This year, however, is a different story as he dominated a final table full of poker pros to win the $535,687 first place prize. This win edged Benyamine in second place at the 2008 WSOP Player of the Year standings.

Poker aficionados have been calling the 2008 WSOP the “Year of the Pros.” True to form, the final table of Event # 34 was graced with luminaries Mike Matusow, Toto Leonidas, David Chiu and Tony Ma. When the dust cleared, Benyamine found himself with a 3-to-1 chip advantage against Greg Jamison in heads up play.

In the final hand, Benyamine raised from the button pre-flop and Jamison countered with an all-in which Benyamine called. Benyamine flopped a set but Jamison flopped the nut straight. It was clearly Benyamine’s night when he hit a full house at the turn giving him the win.

“Short-handed I was just hitting too many cards,” Benyamine enthused after taking down the win. “They had no chance today. I was really motivated and I really tried hard.”

Benyamine was clearly overjoyed with his win. He, however, played it cool by saying that although winning the bracelet was sweet, he really had nothing left to prove. For someone already considered one of the greatest cash game players of all time, this might just be true.

Do you have what it takes to go all the way at the World Series of Poker? To win bracelets in Vegas, be on TV and rake in the millions along with the pros? We’re talking about Poker’s biggest event and it’s happening this summer. Find out when, qualify and be there!

View the 2008 Event Schedule for the World Series in Vegas.

Titan Poker, the largest online poker room on the iPoker Network, stages a $250,000 Guaranteed Prize tournament every Sunday evening. Players from across the globe join the tables at the internationally renowned poker room to compete for their share of the prize money.

On Sunday June 15, Carsten Wolf from Germany finished in first place to take home the top prize of $52,500. Closely behind him, French player Jean Louis Fromenton played throughout the night to claim second place and $27,500 in cash.

Jean said: “I started playing at 20:00 and finished at around 4:00 in the morning - and it was worth every minute of gameplay. I am so happy that I won this fantastic prize! I don’t have a special strategy when it comes to poker, I am very easy going and I just really enjoy playing!”

Players can buy-in directly to the $250,000 Guaranteed for $200 + $15 or they can win their seat at ongoing poker satellite tournaments. The $250,000 Guaranteed is just one of the many guaranteed prize tournaments regularly staged at Titan Poker. In the past few months alone, Titan Poker has doubled the amount of its monthly guaranteed prizes from $8 million to $16 million.

Titan Poker also hosts huge guaranteed prize tournaments, and is set to stage its biggest ever tournament in September with an unprecedented $2.5 million Guaranteed Prize Pool. It also frequently awards its players with seats at the world’s most well-known poker tournaments, such as the Aussie Millions and the European Poker Tour. Titan Poker will send a delegation of players to participate in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas next month and to the Asian Poker Tour in Macau this August.

World Series of Poker Schedule

Who is Patrik Antonius? Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should be aware that he is considered one of the most solid young poker players in the world. He has earned nearly $1.7 million in live poker tournament earnings and has had six top 15 finishes in major poker tournaments upon entering the international poker scene in 2005.

Patrik was crowned Rookie of the Year at the European Poker Awards back in 2005. Patrick finished deep twice in the World Poker Tour in 2004 and cashed in three events at the 2005 World Series of Poker. He also finished third at the European Poker Tour in Barcelona. A month after, he won an EPT event where he took home over 250,000 Euros.
This is Patrik’s third WSOP final table. In 2006, he made it to the final table of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event where he competed against poker legends Doyle Brunson, T.J. Coultier and Team Full Tilt member Phil Ivey. Chip Reese eventually won that tournament.

With Patrik’s inclusion, there are now 14 members of Team Full Tilt. Patrik will join poker luminaries Allen Cunningham, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, Andy Block, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Clonie Gowen.

Play in Full Tilt Poker’s $1,000,000 monthly guarantee tournament for your share of a guaranteed $1M prize pool.

A few years later, Justin Bonomo has not only rebounded but has flourished having made a successful transition from online poker to live poker tournament play. At the age of 19, Justin Bonomo became the youngest-ever player to make a European televised poker table in 2005. Today, at the age of 22, Justin Bonomo has made over a million dollars in live tournaments. He cashed three times at last year’s World Series of Poker and almost won in the World Series of Poker Circuit Caesars Las Vegas Main Event. He also final-tabled four of eight tournaments at the 2006 World Poker Tour Five Diamonds WPT Classic and bubbled out of the televised final table in the main event making over $260,000.

Bonomo’s card sense did not come about by pure chance. At the age of 12, he started playing the card strategy game ‘Magic: The Gathering’ seriously. He played in major tournaments all over the world, competing against other professional Magic players. The prize pools for such tournaments could reach up to $250,000.

He started playing poker at the age of 16 after noticing that some Magic players were taking up the game. He started playing online at Party Poker and soon found himself with $10,000 after an initial deposit of $200. He continued to build his bankroll by joining $200 tournaments.

Recently, online poker site Bodog officially announced the inclusion of Justin Bonomo in Team Bodog. Bonomo will join esteemed members of the poker community David Williams, Evelyn Ng and Jean-Robert Bellande in representing the Bodog brand during major tournaments.