1. Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza

The Venetian was one of the first properties to begin hosting a summer tournament series that coincided with the big show over at the Rio. The room has one of the best reputations in the business, making the Venetian a popular place to play all summer long. The fields at the DSE tend to be pretty tough, possibly even tougher than the fields at the WSOP in some events. They’re heavily attended by the online contingent, and even most of the amateurs who play there tend to have at least some notion of how to handle themselves at a poker table.

This summer’s DSE schedule has a tournament at noon every day between May 24th and July 15th, including five two-day no-limit tournaments; 30 afternoon events, including bounty tournaments and Omaha events; and nightly $200 second-chance tourneys. The buy-ins for most of the noon and afternoon tournaments run anywhere between $400 and $1,100, with a few events ranging between $2,500 and $5,000 and one $10,000 High Roller tournament. With deep starting stacks and good structures, the Venetian’s series is one a lot of players swear by.

The full Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza schedule can be found here.

2. Caesars Palace Mega Stack Series

Do you like to play poker tournaments with lots of chips? With, dare to say, a “mega stack”? Then Caesars Palace’s tournament series was made for you.

The daily noon Mega Stack Series tournaments won’t win any prizes for variety since they’re all no-limit hold’em, but the daily 4pm tournaments feature heads-up, shorthanded, and turbo no-limit formats in addition to the occasional pot-limit Omaha event. No matter the start time, none of the 92 tournaments on the schedule at Caesars from May 25th to July 17th gives players any less than 15,000 chips to start on the 50/100 blind level; most have 20,000-chip starting stacks, and some even players as much as 30,000 chips. The buy-ins are more affordable than some of the other series, too, mostly ranging from $130 to $350 with a few $560 tournaments also in the mix.

For players who want to play in the WSOP Main Event but can’t afford its $10K buy-in, the Mega Stack Championship is a solid alternative. For $1,080 you get 30,000 chips, one-hour blind levels, and your choice of three starting days. The tournament also features re-entry until the 6th level each day – something you won’t find at the WSOP ME – so a bad beat doesn’t have to mean the end of your chance at big money.

View the full Mega Stack Series schedule here.

3. Wynn Summer Classic

If Goldilocks were looking to play a tournament in Vegas, there’s a pretty good chance she’d head to the Wynn for its Summer Classic; everything about it seems to hit that “just right” sweet spot between all the others.

It features 30 tournaments – not too much, not too little – running from early June to early July. Most of the tournaments are no-limit hold’em affairs, but there are also limit hold’em and various Omaha tournaments on the schedule. On the spectrum of average buy-ins around Las Vegas, the Wynn Summer Classic falls right in the middle with lots of $340 events, a smattering of $550 and $1,070 events, and a $2,600 championship event. Most of its tournaments have 40-minute levels, while the championship’s are 90 minutes long. And for most events the chip stacks, while deep, aren’t quite “mega”.

The full Wynn Summer Classic schedule is available here.

4. Bellagio Cup VIII

“This isn’t just poker. It’s poker at Bellagio.”

So goes the Mad Men-like tagline for the latest summer tournament series at one of the most iconic poker rooms in Las Vegas. Even when you strip away its sales-pitchiness, there’s something to be said for playing in a setting as gorgeous as the Fontana Room. And when you play at Bellagio, you’ll almost assured to be playing against tough competition (the occasional whale notwithstanding) that can afford big buy-ins; nightly $40 tourneys these ain’t.

If you’re looking for a slate of different poker variants, the Bellagio Cup won’t be for you; all 27 of its tournaments are no-limit hold’em. What it might lack in variety, though, the Bellagio makes up for with the rake; at just 10 percent for the lower buy-ins and less than 7 percent on the high-dollar tourneys, it’s lower on average than anywhere else in Vegas. And if you manage to survive long enough to play at night, you’ll get quite a background show when the fountain show begins outside.

You can view the Bellagio Cup VIII schedule here.

5. 6th Annual Binion’s Classic

The birthplace of tournament poker hasn’t played host to the WSOP since 2004, but that doesn’t mean there’s no action there during the summer. As its name suggests, this series is entering its sixth year, and the schedule continues to evolve. The games on offer for the events include stud, stud hi-lo, HORSE, pot-limit Omaha, limit and pot-limit Omaha hi-lo, and shorthanded no-limit hold’em tournaments featured alongside the old standby of full-ring no-limit hold’em. It’s more variety than you’re likely to find in just about any offline tournament series outside the WSOP.

There are 45 tournaments on schedule at this year’s series; the vast majority of them feature buy-ins of $150 or $200, though there are a handful of $500 events and one with a $1,000 price tag. Perhaps not so unexpectedly for a series with mostly low buy-ins, the levels are a bit shorter than in some of the others – mostly 35 minutes, with some at 45 minutes and only the top-dollar events getting 60 minutes – and you’ll only get a full starting stack in most events if you pay an extra (though small) “bonus buy.” The good news is that the competition isn’t quite as stiff downtown as it is at some of the Strip properties, though most players will still find winning a tournament at Binion’s a challenge.

You can check out the full schedule for the Binion’s Classic here.

To properly pimp their mobile app in the UK, Stars has tapped Transport Media to launch a four-week outdoor advertising campaign along the Southern Railway network. The campaign is built along a “pray for a delay” theme, although, as most UK train travelers will attest, prayer is rarely required to achieve that result. Transport Media suggested train passengers synched up nicely with Stars’ target audience, in that frequent rail users are twice as likely to own a smartphone and that 64% of tablet owners use the devices while commuting.

Stars is also conducting a ‘where have you done it’ online contest in which mobile app users are invited to take a photo of themselves playing PokerStars Mobile in unusual or exotic settings, then upload said photo to Twitter with the hashtag #playpokerhere. The best pic wins a free iPad 2, but you best hurry up getting to the top of Mt. Everest because the contest closes May 30. Oh, and you can forget that shot of you playing the app while restrained in a leather harness as a double-d dominatrix flogs you with a riding crop – PokerStars won’t accept images involving sex or violence. CalvinAyre.com, however, will accept whatever your twisted little brains can concoct.

By comparison, this year’s PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) was the most successful in its history. In terms of participants, Stars attracted 526,154 entries from 156 countries, smashing the previous high of 461,936 set in 2010, and the $65.3m prize pool beat 2010’s $64.2m. Nick Grippo won the $10k ‘high’ buy-in main event, earning $798k for overcoming 516 competitors. Due to a three-way deal, Canadian player “sp00led” and Polish player “sosickPL” each earned $718k for placing second and third respectively. Oh yeah, and some young punk named Shaun Deeb won an unprecedented fourth SCOOP 2012 event (and his fifth overall) by taking the $2k HORSE title. Dude, quit bogarting my tourney…

Turning back to the live poker tourney scene, Justin Truesdell won the final main event of the World Series of Poker Circuit’s current season at Harrah’s New Orleans. Truesdell outlasted 693 competitors (the largest-ever field for this WSOP-C stop) to earn $204k and his second gold ring (the first being at Harrah’s Tunica in 2009). Andrew Nguyen was the last to fall at Truesdell’s hands, taking $126k for second place. Truesdell will now compete for the WSOP National Championship in Vegas beginning July 6.

Also staging its last event pre-WSOP was the Heartland Poker Tour, which saw 377 players take the field for the main event at the Majestic Star Casinos in Gary, Indiana. Daniel Acevedo emerged triumphant, earning $133k for relegating James Chestnut to second place and $75k. Next up for the HPT is its first ever visit to Albuquerque, New Mexico on July 20 at the Route 66 Casino.

In Europe, Pablo Rojas won the Estrellas Poker Tour Ibiza main event, outlasting 268 competitors to earn just under €41k. Because of an ill-advised deal made when the final table got down to three players, Rojas earned less than second-place finisher Amaury Legait (€50k) and barely more than third place finisher Daniel Ericson (€40k). The Estrellas shifts to San Sebastian on July 26.

Ben Dobson took the France Poker Series Amneville main event, earning €70k for outperforming a 317-strong field. It took three hours for Dobson to dispatch runner-up Guillaume Roiron, who earned €44k for second. Germany’s impressively named Johannes Meyer Zu Wendischoff earned €30k for finishing third.

Richard Evans took the United Kingdom and Ireland Poker Tour main event in Dublin, earning €75k after striking a three-way deal with his remaining two opponents. Regardless how you add it up, Evans got a handsome return on the €45 he reportedly invested in an online qualifier. Stephen McGrath and Seamus Birt took second and third, but their deal ensured that each took home €60k.

Finally, the World Series of Poker has designated Guy Laliberté’s clean-water-for-developing-nations NGO One Drop as an official WSOP charity. It probably didn’t hurt that the $1m buy-in mega-high-roller Big One For One Drop has garnered no shortage of publicity for the WSOP.

The recent 2012 Asian Poker Tour Philippines saw the very first staging of a super high rollers event in the Philippines with the Manila Millions. The event, which was won by Allan Le, featured a field of 25-30 poker pros who all forked over a staggering HKD 1m ($129,000) buy-in to play in the tournament, a number that’s significantly higher than the $10,000 buy-in for most main events.

The ever radiant Tatjana Pasalic caught up with a number of poker pros to ask them this very important question: given the state of the economy right now, are you more or less likely to play in a super high rollers event?

Not too many fish

On the flip side of the question, some pros weren’t all that scared of the bad economy, saying that it doesn’t affect they’re playing habits, particularly when it comes to signing up for a high-rollers event. Scott Seiver says that personally, the economy hasn’t really affected him in any way and and so he doesn’t see it as a reason to skip on the super high rollers. “I really enjoy super high rollers and I’m going to keep playing them,” he explains. A number of other pros apparently share in Seiver’s sentiments.

For Galen Hall, the convenience of playing super high rollers – usually those that start on a weekend with a 3-day run – is more convenient for him than playing in any main events. “I really can’t miss six consecutive days of school and they often start on weekdays,” he said. “High rollers and super high rollers usually start on weekends and last for only 3 days, so when I do miss a day of school, it’s usually because I’m in the final table, which is a pretty good trade-off.”

Yevgeniy Timoshenko makes his decision to play on super high rollers based on his mood and how much preparation he makes before signing up. “It depends on the field and my mood,” he tells Tatjana. “I have to make sure I feel good, that I get rest the night before, and that I didn’t drink the night before.”

With the feedback that we received, it appears that wit a few exceptions, most of the poker pros aren’t all that concerned about the slow economy. Where there’s a chance to make serious money, they would do so without having to worry about it.

Two months is a long time for things to go wrong, though, and for every big winner at the Series there are plenty of players who aren’t doing well at all. When you’re on that end of the spectrum all the pluses start to look minuses. The tournaments can become a money pit if you play for volume without a score, and the 24-hour availability of high-stakes cash games can become a siren’s song for players on a bad run in the lower-stakes games and looking for a quick fix. And if you find yourself continuously snatching defeat from the jaws of victory while pursuing that aforementioned easy money.

If you don’t do something to see the light, a bad run can turn into a nightmare. If you find yourself seeing only the dark side of the WSOP – or if you want to preempt seeing it – consider these tips.

1. Don’t chase your losses

If things aren’t going your way, chances are you’ll think about stepping up the stakes to make up for your losses. This is a bad idea.

To be sure, playing above your everyday level isn’t always bad; if you’re in full control of your faculties and playing your A-game, taking a shot can actually be a very good thing. But players in a WSOP funk are rarely in full control of their faculties. They tend to practice poor table selection, they become overly aggressive in bad spots, they stay at the tables too long trying to get even – in short, they become exactly the kind of player that winners take advantage of at the tables. That’s exactly what you don’t want to do if you’re playing higher stakes. There might be an occasional big fish at those tables, but there’s also a full complement of sharks looking to make a meal of that big fish. If you show up in the wrong mindset, they’re likely to turn you into an appetizer – or if you’re really in poor shape, perhaps the main course.

If you have to play through your bad streak, the better option here is to step down in stakes. The players are almost certainly worse, which means your decisions should be much easier than normal. If you’re a tournament player, consider giving satellites a go for a few days.

2. Play somewhere else

One of the beauties of playing poker in Las Vegas is the sheer amount of options you have available to you. Just because you came out for the WSOP doesn’t mean you have to play there all the time.

There are usually several tournament series running around town – events at the Bellagio and the Venetian are on the high end of the scale, while the smaller series that run at downtown casinos and some of the more touristy Strip properties sit on the other end. The money in most of these – at least outside of the Bellagio Cup and the Deep Stack Extravaganza – isn’t anywhere near as good as it as at the WSOP. But then again, neither is the competition. That means the games are at least a level of magnitude easier, and your chances of turning your bad summer around with a win should improve accordingly.

If you’re mostly playing the cash games, you can certainly find softer games all over Vegas. The Strip in particular, with its overflow of schlubby tourists and other amateurs who have seen the game on TV but never tried it in a real life casino, is home to some of the best fish dinners in the entire poker world.

3. Look out for your health

A lot of poker players have a hard enough time taking care of themselves when there’s always a game to be had and they’re doing well. But when you’re in Vegas for a long period of time and you’re losing, looking after your own health can become even more difficult. Focusing on your losses can lead you to neglect proper meals and the rest your body needs, and the easy availability of alcohol and drugs in Vegas means it’s easy to get lost in a depressive spiral if you’re prone to that sort of thing.

If you’re committed to looking out for your health, a lot of the time you could spend wallowing in the despair of losing can instead be spent pulling yourself out of it with exercise. Most of the hotel-casinos in Vegas have a gym, and even if they charge for it’s a lot less costly than a night of drinking or chasing your losses at the table. If you’d rather get your exercise outside, the mornings are a good time to get in a round of golf or a match of tennis before the heat becomes too excruciating to bear. And matching up a healthy diet with that exercise can help you to maintain high energy levels throughout the long days at the WSOP. Chances are you’ll find yourself focusing better, and that might just make the difference between a loss and a win.

4. Make friends (or take them with you)

A stay for the duration of the WSOP is almost always easier if you don’t have to do it alone. It’s common for groups of players to go in on a house for the entire WSOP, and it’s easy to see why. Having someone around to talk to while you’re at the WSOP can be extremely valuable. Talking strategy with others can help you see any obvious holes in your game that you’re overlooking due to tunnel vision. A little moral support – or a kick in the ass, if that’s what you need – isn’t hard to come by when you’re surrounded by people who understand your plight.

If you’re going it alone at the WSOP…don’t. Make a point of finding someone you can talk to. Whether it’s at the tables, or in one of the Rio’s many dining areas, you’ll find yourself surrounded by all sorts of people who have a lot in common with you. Poker players are a gregarious lot in general, so it shouldn’t be too hard to strike up a conversation. Even if you don’t make a friend for life, the human interaction (without money on the line) can do you a lot of good when you’re in a rut.

5. GTFO

Any poker room can be a poisonous environment when you’re unable to put yourself in the right frame of mind. But a poker room with no limits that runs 24 hours a day – well, that’s just dangerous if you’re incapable of self-control. When nothing is working for you at the WSOP, the cure is to get the fuck out of the Rio. Studies have shown that, even though they often feel the need to continue butting their heads against the wall until they achieve their goals through brute force, time away from a task is actually highly valuable for problem-solvers. Since poker is nothing if not one problem to solve after another, this applies to you.

If things aren’t going well for you at the WSOP, go do something else – anything else. There are all sorts of activities within your reach when you’re in Las Vegas. Go see the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam. Catch a summer blockbuster movie at the Palms’ theatre with some of your friends who have busted out or aren’t playing on a given day. Lounge by the pool for an afternoon. It doesn’t particularly matter what the activity is, so long as it allows you to relax and take your mind off the game. When you come back the results you want may not necessarily follow – variance respects no one, after all – but you’ll almost certainly make better decisions.

Moving to the live poker scene, the World Poker Tour has released the first half of its Season XI schedule. Gone from the fall schedule are stops in Barcelona, Amneville and the Foxwoods WPT Finals. New for 2012 are stops at the Parx Casino in Philadelphia and Copenhagen. Morocco remains on the WPT itinerary, but will shift from Marrakech to Mazagan. The full sked looks as follows: Merit Grand Casino, Cyprus (Aug. 4-9); Parx Casino, Bensalem, PA (Aug. 10-15); Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in California (Aug. 24-29); Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France (Sept. 10-15); Casino de Portomaso, Malta (Sept. 16-20); the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City (Sept. 16-21); the Bestbet Fall Series in Jacksonville, Florida (Nov. 9-13); Casino Copenhagen (Nov. 12-17); Mazagan Casino, Morocco (Nov. 26-Dec. 1); Corinthia Hotel, Prague (Dec. 3-9) and the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas (Dec. 17-22).

Poker pro Michael Mizrachi has re-upped as promotional partner of the Breeders’ Cup. Organizers hope Mizrachi will continue to raise awareness of the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge and Celebrity Poker Invitational among his deep-pocketed poker brethren. Mizrachi said the partnership with the horseracing outfit “has been amazing” and to watch his social media feeds for updates.

Online poker site Americas Cardroom has announced it will reduce by half the required contribution by mid-stakes players to the site’s bad beat jackpot. Site spokesman Michael Harris claims the move was the result of mid-stakes players complaining that the contribution “had too big an effect on their win rates.”

According to iGaming Post, a “timetable for paying back players has been reached” after recent court hearings in the US between FTP, PokerStars, and the DOJ culminated in the agreement to finally return the money from all the players with existing funds on the two online poker sites.

Although FTP and PokerStars have yet to make any announcements regarding this matter, iGaming Post is also reporting that an announcement is expected to take place in the last week of May.

The official date of payment has yet to be finalized as all the parties involved tackle the logistics of repaying a a client list that includes US and International players. For their part, PokerStars, as reported by iGaming Post, is confident that an agreement will happen “in the next ten days”, one that should get the easy approval of the United States DOJ.

We’ve heard so many rumors and roundabout whispers regarding this issue and it’s easy to be skeptical until a concrete announcement is made. But if you’re a glass-half-full kind-of-guy with some money tied up on these two sites, this report is definitely music to your ears.

It’s high time that this issue moves forward to a place where scorned players can finally get their hands on their money again.

So if you’re keeping a close eye on the whole proceedings surrounding the FTP-PokerStars deal, you need to be on your p’s and q’s come the last of week of May to see what this major announcement is going to be about.

Another iPoker resident, Titan Poker, announced last week that it would stop accepting new deposits from Spanish players ahead of that country’s market liberalization (scheduled to take place on June 1). A company rep has since told Poker Affiliate Solutions (PAS) that the decision was a forerunner to the company’s intention to seek an online gaming license from Spanish regulators. Titan also addressed its recent decision to shed its two-man poker pro roster via a note on its homepage, which stated Titan was “pursuing a new branding strategy which moves away from focusing on a pro team and emphasizes our appeal to mainstream and recreational poker players.”

Recreational players appear to be the last thing on the minds of the braintrust at the Cake Poker Network. PAS reported that Cake would increase its rakeback rate from 33% to 36% effective June 1. The rise will apply to all Cake players, new or old. The rate change is presumably the “exciting announcement” Cake promised when Lock Poker revealed it was acquiring “selected assets” of Cake with the intention of rebranding it as Revolution Gaming.

Now that PokerStars’ Zoom Poker has officially removed its beta training wheels, StanJames is the latest company to announce a Rush Poker clone. Blaze Poker doesn’t appear to offer any revolutionary improvements to the fast-paced cash game concept pioneered by Full Tilt Poker in 2010, other than to remove one more synonym for ‘quick’ from the trademark thesaurus. In related news, Betsafe has become the latest outfit to sign up for Relax Gaming’s Fast Poker product. A tweet sent out by Relax on Tuesday suggested Fast Poker had added a Heads Up option to its high speed offering, but PokerFuse claims the feature (which actually would be something new in this field) isn’t actually available yet. You know, a common piece of advice doctors offer premature ejaculators is to try to Relax.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan is a man that certainly needs no introduction. As one of the finest and most feared poker players in the world, Dwan, 25, has become the face of the young poker generation, an online legend that has won and lost millions, played in the richest cash games in the world, and has earned the respect of just about everyone in the poker community.

Recently, Dwan made his first stop in Manila to compete in the 2012 APT Philippines Manila Millions Event. In that event, considered as the biggest in APT history, Dwan was joined in the felt by a number of other poker heavyweights, including Phil Ivey, Elton Tsang, Johnny Chan. Unfortunately for “durrrr”, his time on the table was short-lived after busting out second in the entire field.

In between hitting the tables at the 2012 APT Philippines, Dwan sat down with the eternally gorgeous Tatjana Pasalic of CalvinAyre.com to talk about a slew of important subjects, including his experience in Manila, the rise of the Asian poker market, the future of a pro poker league, and his thoughts on the state of Full Tilt Poker, the very site that gave birth to the “durrrr” legend.

As somebody that has been forced to leave behind online poker, Dwan has become a fixture on the poker road, having made frequent trips to Macau to play with some of the best Asian players in the world. It’s through these trips that Dwan has come to appreciate the rise of poker in Asia, something that he’s looking to be a part of.

“Definitely the amount and stakes in Asia are growing, where the amount and stakes in the US and Europe, if anything, are declining, maybe staying the same in some places.” Dwan said.

“In Asia stakes are getting bigger everyday and more people are playing everyday.”

Despite having made good money on live games all over the world, Dwan is still an online poker player at heart and the aftermath of Black Friday hasn’t been easy for him, forcing him to go out on the road to play poker a lot more than he’d prefer.

“I’m ready for some online play again,” Dwan said with an exasperated smile.

Dwan also said that the traveling for games can become a little too taxing and is something that isn’t a problem when playing online poker. He also talked about how its easier to play online because of the ease of access involved and the fact that you can sit on any table you want without having to wait too long for somebody to stand up.

“With live, it matters more trying to get into games whereas in online, you can enter any game by just clicking sit,” he said.

Tatjana also broached to Dwan the subject of Epic Poker, a series of poker events that had a pro league feel to it and carried a stringent requirement of being available only to onlyto poker players who have met certain qualification criteria for multi-million dollar lifetime earnings, multiple wins and/or cashes at high level tournaments. After three events, the people behind Epic Poker, Federated Sports + Gaming, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Despite the short-lived state of Epic Poker, the concept of a professional poker league is something that Dwan is optimistic will happen, if not now, then sometime in the future.

“The overall premise is something that 30 years from now, will almost definitely be happening,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if its going to be this iteration that’s called Epic Poker, but the premise of a pro league with money added is something people would like to see.”

As with any conversation that involves somebody that was previously involved with Full Tilt Poker, Pasalic asked what he learned from the FTP debacle.

“There’s a lot of possibilities that could happen that would depend on some things,” Dwan said. “Definitely, I’ll be a lot more careful on any site that I join in the future to make sure they have all the money and that there’s no risk for the players to not get paid.”

So is Dwan ready to rejoin Full Tilt Poker if, somehow, the online poker site comes back?

“Unless they have the money to pay the players, I would never rejoin the site.”

Stars has now convinced two more data diggers to get with the program. Pokerfuse reports that Sharkscope and Official Poker Rankings have agreed to institute a fully opt-in policy regarding the inclusion of Stars player data in their online tournament results. The two sites had been tinkering with opt-in/out functionality on a trial basis, but apparently the verdict finally came in as ‘guilty’. A notice posted to the SharkScopers forum said the company had made “great efforts to collaborate with PokerStars on their 3rd party data collection policy. Unfortunately now the time has come where they are requiring us to completely implement their opt in procedure on their .com network, even for subscribers.”

The Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) launched its eighth season this week on 250 TV stations across America. While Fred Bevill and Chris Hanson will continue to man the broadcast booth, this season marks the addition of Phil Hellmuth to the show as host of the “pro tips” segment. Meanwhile, HPT’s former parent company All In Productions (AIP) has submitted a bid to reclaim its assets from the ashes of the Federated Sports + Gaming (FS+G) bankruptcy. FS+G purchased HPT from AIP in June 2011 for $2.95m, but FS+G has only paid AIP $1m to date (and that was loaned to FS+G in January by Pinnacle Entertainment), leaving $1.9m still owing.

WickedChopsPoker got hold of US Bankruptcy Court in Maryland filings in which AIP submitted a bid of $1.5m to regain control of HPT. The bid would essentially erase FS+G’s outstanding debts to AIP, but AIP’s bid also contains a $100k offer for FS+G’s “good” assets, including the Global Poker Index, the TV production components of FS+G’s mothballed Epic Poker League and FS+G’s contractual relationships with partners like the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The bid was submitted on May 8, at which point began a 30-day countdown for the court to consider the offer. However, a bankruptcy attorney told WickedChops the process will likely drag on as other entities submit their own bids, culminating in an auction and an overdue end to this Epic madness.

In order of their appearance, here’s a look at five events on the 2012 WSOP schedule that are guaranteed to grab the poker world’s attention.

1. Event 12: Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em – $10,000 buy-in

The first event of the 2012 WSOP with a five-figure buy-in, this tournament is guaranteed to draw a field filled with poker’s best. From touring tournaments pros to online heads-up specialists to the occasional hometown champion looking to make his mark, this tournament draws all kinds of poker players. And with the 512-player cap, basically anyone who wants to test their one-on-one skills will have the opportunity.

There isn’t a accepted world championship for high-dollar, heads-up tournaments, at least not in the same way that the WSOP Main Event is accepted as poker’s world championship for NLHE. But this tournament is as close to a heads-up world championship as we’re likely to get. First, there’s the price tag, which doubles the entry cost of most similar tournaments in the world. Second, there’s the strength of the field: all the world’s greatest heads-up players tend to already be on location when the tournament runs. And third, there’s the difficulty of winning the tournament: a player has to win nine matches in order to claim the championship, meaning that a win represents a true accomplishment.

2. Event 45: The Poker Players Championship – $50,000 buy-in

After the early boom years it became apparent that the WSOP Main Event, which had once been too expensive for anyone but the world’s best players to enter, had forever changed. Thanks to satellites all over the world, thousands of players began to turn out every year for their shot at the poker world’s most exalted title. The game’s elite players needed a new venue to face off against each other, so in 2006 the WSOP put together a HORSE tournament – featuring alternating games of hold’em, Omaha hi-lo, Razz, stud, and stud hi-lo – with a $50,000 buy-in. Poker legend Chip Reese won that event after a marathon final table, and since his passing in 2007 the David “Chip” Reese Trophy has been awarded to the event’s winner every year.

The game choice irked some, who said that HORSE wasn’t the best test of skill, especially in the modern era of big-bet games. So in 2010 the format for the event was changed to the current eight-game mix to better reflect the tournament organizers’ intent to test all-around poker skill. The five HORSE games were augmented with no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, and 2-to-7 triple draw, but the Chip Reese Trophy still goes to the winner. Outside of the next event on this list, the Poker Players Championship is without a doubt the best tournament to watch if you want to see truly elite poker players face off against each other.

3. Event 55: The Big One for One Drop – $1,000,000 buy-in

The WSOP has toyed around with high-dollar events for some time now, with the $50K HORSE and Players Championship events and the 40th Anniversary $40K NLHE event. But when Cirque du Soleil founder and amateur poker enthusiast Guy Laliberté suggested upping the ante, the result was a bit more than probably anyone had expected. The largest buy-in in poker history will help to benefit Laliberté’s charity, One Drop, which works to provide clean water in developing countries. One out of every nine dollars in the prize pool will go to the charity.

The $1,000,000 price tag on this unique event means that it is going to draw a much different field than the average WSOP tournament. There will be the usual high-rolling poker pros, of course, but there will also be rich businessmen who can afford to light seven figures’ worth of Federal Reserve Notes on fire just to sit with the world’s greatest poker players. There might also be a satellite winner or two in the field, as the WSOP is holding a mega-satellite with a $25,300 buy-in to award seats.

More than 30 players have already committed to play, and with a 48-player cap we’re likely to know the lineup of players well in advance of the July 1st starting date. That means there will be more than enough time to line up bets with your friends before ESPN begins streaming the event live on a 15-minute delay.

4. Event 57: No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed – $10,000 buy-in

Few games typify the action of online poker more than shorthanded no-limit hold’em. Where casinos are usually loathe to spread the game because it leaves usable seats at the table open, online rooms have catered to their players and given 6-max games a vibrant life they wouldn’t have had otherwise. The $10,000 NLHE 6-max event, then, serves as sort of a live-game world championship for online poker’s typifying game. It’s a relatively new event for the WSOP – 6-max events have been aorund for several years, but big buy-ins have only been in play since 2010. The first tournament featured a $25,000 buy-in, but that was dropped to $10K for last year and remains there for this year.

It won’t purely draw online players – after all, 6-max tournaments are more common in casinos today than they used to be, and many of the world’s top live cash-game players are used to playing at shorthanded tables. But online players will be heavily represented in the field given the amount of practice at shorthanded poker the online game has given them. The last two final tables have featured several ridiculously accomplished practitioners of the online game, including 2010 winner Dan “djk123” Kelly, 2011 winner Joe “ender555” Ebanks, Chris “moorman1” Moorman, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade, Jason “JCarver” Somerville, Mike “Sowerss” Sowers.

5. Event 61: No-Limit Hold’em World Championship – $10,000 buy-in

There is no doubt: on the mountain of tournament poker, this event is the summit. The Main Event, the original freezeout poker tournament, the same event won three times by Stu Ungar and twice by Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, is the one tournament every poker player in the world aspires to win. Over the last two decades it has grown from an event that attracted a few hundred players and awarded $1 million to the winner to a two-week tournament that draws thousands and pays out life-changing sums of money to its champion. And for the last half of that run, it has become a cultural force as well through seemingly unending reruns on ESPN.

This year’s Main Event will be the fifth consecutive running to feature the “November Nine” format, where the final table is delayed for four months and then shown nearly live on television and the web. The wait will once again be a long one, though this year’s version is actually running in late October, one week earlier than in previous years, due to the US presidential election. The winner of the tournament may not be the most skilled player in the field, or the most naturally talented, or any number of other superlatives, but there’s one guarantee: he’ll be the most envied player in poker for the next year.

Jay Tan is, without question, one of the most beautiful poker pros in the circuit today. But more than her stunning good looks and unyielding charm, Tan’s poker prowess have also turned some heads, none more so than Bodog, who officially made her a member of Team Bodog.

Recently, the newest member of Team Bodog sat down with our very own Tatjana Pasalic, herself a member of Team Bodog, to discuss a wide range of topics, including her entrance into the world of poker, breaking down poker stereotypes, and her involvement with Team Bodog.

Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Jay Tan was in the middle of finishing her masters degree in banking when she decided to focus most of her time in poker. “I used to work really hard studying for my masters in banking, but on the side i was always  playing poker and I kind of just thought that I’m doing better at poker so why not give it a shot,” Tan said.

Despite the success she’s had playing poker, Tan, just like anybody else, had to go through a lot of obstacles to get to where she’s at now. “There were a lot of sacrifices,” she told Pasalic. “Being Asian [and playing poker] is something that’s not widely known yet. There were some culture conflicts there too because my parents were unsure about what poker is so there was a little sacrifice to get them to understand what poker is all about.”

Tan’s slow but steady rise up the poker ladder didn’t go unnoticed by a lot of people, including Team Bodog. Whether it was destiny or a sheer stroke of coincidence, the stars really did come together for both Jay Tan and Bodog.

Ever the humble lady that she is, Tan said that she was just lucky to be chosen as a member of Team Bodog, despite the well-known belief that her skills, more than anything else, was the driving force behind Team Bodog’s decision to sign her up as an ambassador. “One of my friends in the poker community referred me to an agent and by chance, there were looking for somebody to join you,” she told Pasalic.

“So I applied and here we are now!“

It didn’t even take long for Tan to prove that Team Bodog struck gold in its decision to sign her up as its newest member. At the recently concluded 2012 Asian Poker Tour Philippines, Tan scored a third-place finish in the $550 Heads Up Asian Championship event.

And even before the 2012 APT Philippines, Tan has already scored plenty of impressive finishes on her resume, including a fantastic showing at the Macau Poker Cup last February that included a second-place finish in the Red Dragon KO Bounty event and a fifth place finish in the Red Dragon Main Event.

One look at Jay Tan and it’s easy to excuse yourself for being mesmerized by her beauty. But once you sit down on the felt with her, it won’t take long for you to realize that this Asian stunner has the poker skills to back up her charm.

And at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. For all her beauty, Jay Tan plays a mean game of poker, something a lot of other players, be it male or female, should put into their heads before sitting on the same table with her.

Blom built much of his online reputation by taking millions off Tom ‘Durrr’ Dwan, but Dwan hasn’t let it get him down. PokerPortalAsia reports that Dwan won a US $3.8m pot off a Chinese businessman on Tuesday at the Macau Big Game at the StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club. God bless Asian whales…

A little south of Macau, Mat Carlsson has won the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour Perth main event, fending off 309 opponents to earn AU $78k. Anthony Marenko was last to fall at Carlsson’s hands, taking home $49k for his troubles. Anthony Aston earned $27k for his third place finish.

In Europe, Davide Biscardi has earned €200k for taking the Italian Poker Tour San Remo Grand Final main event. From a field of 417, it came down to the native son against France’s Philippe Clerc, but the final hand saw Biscardi’s pair of eights trump Clerc pair of sixes. Clerc settled for €140k while Polish player Jakub Michalak took third and €81k.

Stateside, Christopher Bonn took top honors at the World Series of Poker Circuit stop in Chester, Pennslvania. A field of 321 created a $467k prize pool, of which Bonn claimed $109k along with his first WSOP-C gold ring and a trip to the National Championship in Vegas in July. Ken Silverstein finished second, earning $67k, while Pete Kaemmerlen took third and $49k. The final stop of the current WSOP-C season gets underway May 18 in New Orleans.

The WSOP National Championship will be among the events the Nevada Gaming Control Board has okayed for bettors to place wagers on the outcome. Last year, bettors were permitted to wager on the Main Event, but this year you can wager on any player participating in the final day of any event, provided you get your bets in five minutes before play starts.

Following Sam Trickett’s announcement that he and Titan Poker had reached an amicable parting of the ways, comes news that fellow Titan pro Marvin Rettenmaier has also left the fold. Rettenmaier tweeted that Titan “has decided to part ways with its Pro Team. I am very thankful for the opportunities and I had a great time representing them.”

The Big One For One Drop $1m buy-in event has around 40 deep-pocketed players already committed, and Stewart claims it’s “very realistic” that the event will reach its 48-player maximum. The Big One will also lead off ESPN’s WSOP coverage on Tuesday, July 3, followed by the National Championship on Aug. 7. Main event coverage will start Aug. 14, continuing every following Tuesday until the final table plays out ‘almost live’ (with a 15-minute delay) on Oct. 30 – earlier than usual to avoid being overshadowed by the US elections in November.

Last year’s much loathed ‘celebration rule’ will reportedly be loosened a little, but determining exactly how much end zone dancing is appropriate will be left to individual officials on the scene. Players will also be allowed more freedom to verbalize at the tables, so long as they don’t expose their hand, re-open play or cause officials to suspect collusion. Men are not encouraged to take part in the Ladies Event, but WSOP lawyers say there’s no legal restriction against dicks taking part.

WSOP owner Caesars Entertainment has also decided to provide WSOP entrants with credits toward their Total Rewards accounts. Players who sign up for the rewards program will receive credits for taking part in WSOP gold bracelet events, Deepstack tournaments and Mega-Satellites. Said credits can be used at any Caesars property on tourney entry fees, hotel rooms, entertainment, etc. The plan replaces the food vouchers Caesars used to provide, but (like everything else) Stewart claims the switch is actually costing Caesars more money in the short term, which it hopes to realize down the road via consumer loyalty.

Oh yes, you poker-loving friends of ours from India. The APT is coming back for the 2012 APT Asian Series Goa. The week-long event will be held from May 21 to May 27 at the Casino Royale in Goa, India. Last November, the APT held their very first tournament in India to a resounding success, highlighted by India’s very own Sangeeth “Samohh” Mohan’s dramatic victory in the Main Event Final Table, a win that earned him a cool INR 2,346,400 (USD 43,600).

With the success of the 2011 event, the APT is returning only a few months after that event’s staging with plenty of new tournaments, all of which could attract even more local and international professional poker players.

In addition to the INR 50,000-buy-in Main Event, the 2012 APT Series Goa will also include a INR 10,000 Freezeout tournament, a INR 15,000 Head Hunter tournament, a INR 7,000 Hyper Turbo Deep Stack tournament, and last but certainly not least, a INR 150,000 FundooPoker High Rollers event.

In an email exchange with CalvinAyre.com, APT CEO Jeff Mann said that the decision to return to Goa was the result of the successful staging of the 2011 Asian Series Goa last November. “At the outset – given our view that the Indian poker market had huge potential- we had an agreement in place with Casino Royale that should the inaugural event be a success, then moving forward APT would stage two events per year in Goa,” he said.

Mann couldn’t help but be excited about the growing poker market in India, saying that the game is “growing very fast” in the country with a “huge upside” for the game of poker.

It certainly goes without saying that the success of the 2012 Asian Poker Tour Philippines has given the APT tremendous momentum for the second half of the 2012.

“[The] APT has matured to the stage where it now has its own constant momentum,” Mann said.

And if you need any more evidence of the APT’s increasing popularity, look no further than the expected turnout for the 2012 Asian Series in Goa, India later this month.

Neither Lock nor Cake have as yet confirmed the substance of Costigan’s article, but G911 is a prominent affiliate of both companies and Costigan is reportedly close to Lock CEO Jennifer Larson. While it may seem odd to think of a poker room acquiring a network instead of the other way around, Cake has had a rough ride of late, routinely skewered in online poker forums for lengthy payout delays over the past year or more.

And there’s another Cake/Lock connection to consider: among Lock’s current legal team is noted industry scammer Bryce Vincent Geoffrey, who formerly acted in a similar capacity at Cake, where he gained a reputation for alienating Cake’s B2B clients. As for Lock and Merge, the pair recently got into a public squabble over Merge’s decision to cancel the heavily promoted Lock Ops tournament before it could get underway. Merge imposed an end to rakeback programs on its skins shortly after Black Friday, but Costigan claims rakeback will not only be returning to Lock’s new incarnation, but will return with “an even higher percentage rate.” La plus ça change…

In other stateside live poker news, A.P. Phahurat earned $116k for outlasting 257 other players at the 2012 Chad Brown Challenge $2k main event at the Choctaw Resort in Durant, Oklahoma. It’s the biggest cash of the 22-year-old Phahurat’s young career. Seneca Easley, who took the 2011 WSOP-Circuit Rincon title, finished second, earning $72k.

Paddy Power Poker’s Irish Winter Festival 2012 will mark its third go-round at Dublin’s Burlington Hotel starting Oct. 26, with the €1k main event getting underway Oct. 27. The finale of the Partouche Poker Tour’s fifth season will get underway Sept. 3 at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes. This year, the €8,500 Grand Final main event will feature re-entries on Day 1b. There will also be a €25k High Roller and five extra side events.

Last year’s Partouche main event winner, Sam Trickett, has amicably divorced himself from Titan Poker. Trickett spent two years flying Titan’s flag, but the British pro announced the split over his Twitter feed: “Me and Titan have decided to part ways. I have enjoyed representing them and they were an absolute pleasure to work with. Thanks again Titan…”

Just getting hitched are Pokerist.com and actress/singer/Playboy model/reality TV star Carmen Electra. The hard-to-believe-she’s-40 buxom blonde’s face (among other tangible assets) will greet players of the free-play online poker product whether they load the game via Pokerist, Facebook or mobile device. Electra will also appear in the game tutorial and as your not-at-all-distracting dealer.

Card Player is right chuffed to report that columnist/pro player Bernard Lee is getting his own TV show. The Bernard Lee Poker Show is celebrating its fifth anniversary as a radio broadcast by adding video to the mix. The first episode is set to debut this Monday (7) on Comcast SportsNet New England and Direct TV, and subsequently posted to Lee’s new YouTube channel. The guest list for this and future episodes includes Chris Moneymaker, Denis Phillips and Phil Hellmuth.

1. Doyle Brunson – 78 years old

There is no single figure in the game of poker more universally respected and admired than Doyle Brunson. Known as “Texas Dolly,” Brunson was a road gambler in the 1950s, traveling across Texas and the Southwest to make his living playing in back-room poker games. He was also one of the original gamblers invited to play at the inaugural World Series of Poker in 1970. He has won 10 events, including the Main Event in 1976 and 1977, good for the second most all-time despite having taken an extended break from tournaments during the 1980s and ‘90s when they weren’t in vogue. He wrote a book called How I Made One Million Dollars Playing Poker, which sold for $100 per copy upon its publication in 1978; its name was later changed to Super/System, the poker strategy guide that forever transformed the landscape of professional poker.

During the poker boom years he had his own online room, Doyle’s Room. He was a regular in the highest-stakes games in Las Vegas, and he was a member of The Corporation that took on billionaire banker Andy Beal in a $100,000/$200,000 Limit Hold’em match at Bellagio in 2004. He appeared on television more than 99.99 percent of American septuagenarians thanks to shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker Superstars Invitational. He also continued to win in tournaments, adding a WPT title and two WSOP wins to his $6.1 million resume.

Brunson became the 16th member of the Poker Hall of Fame upon his election in 1988. He is its oldest living member.

2. Berry Johnston – 76 years old

In the high-variance world of poker tournaments, not many players have demonstrated the long-term consistency of Oklahoma’s Berry Johnston. From 1982 to 1985 he was within striking distance of the WSOP Main Event title three times, finishing 3rd (1982), 4th (1984), and 3rd (1985) against top competition. He then won the 1986 WSOP Main Event, taking home $570,000. Though he never again finished any closer to a win in that event than 5th place, he has cashed in it a total of 10 times, more than any players in the tournaments’ history. He has also earned money at least one WSOP event in every year from 1982 to 2010, with multiple cashes in 21 different years. All told Johnston has made the money in 59 WSOP events, tied for 7th place all-time.

Away from the WSOP, where he has won $2 million, Johnston has also been a long-term success in tournaments. He was a consistent presence at final tables in Las Vegas tournament series from the 1980s and ‘90s through the early 2000s, earning another $1.4 million.

Johnston became the 29th member of the Poker Hall of Fame upon his election in 2004.

3. TJ Cloutier – 72 years old

There was a time when Texan TJ Cloutier was the most feared poker player in the world. That fearsome reputation is slightly diminished today, but he remains one of winningest players of all time with $9.9 million in lifetime earnings despite lean years since 2007.

Beginning with a victory in a $2,500 event at the Plaza in Las Vegas in April 1983, the former tight end for the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts and Montreal Alouettes built a reputation as a winner. In the years between 1990 and 2007, Cloutier had six-figure earnings in poker tournaments every single year, a streak that would have extended all the way back to 1985 if he had earned another $25,000 in 1988 and 1989. He has 59 cashes at the WSOP, tying him for 7th all-time with Berry Johnston and Chau Giang.

Cloutier’s place in WSOP history was almost magnified on several different occasions. He twice finished 2nd in the 1985 WSOP Main Event, to Bill Smith in 1985 and to Chris Ferguson in 2000. He also finished 3rd in 1998, when Scotty Nguyen won, and 5th in 1988 when Johnny Chan repeated as champion. He turned his knowledge of final tables into an influential series of strategy guides written with Tom McEvoy, including Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold’em.

Cloutier became the 32nd member of the Poker Hall of Fame upon his election in 2006.

4. Billy Baxter – 72 years old

Georgia’s Billy Baxter might just be the best lowball player in WSOP history. All seven of his gold bracelets have come in lowball events, with five of them coming in No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw – no surprise given the popularity of lowball games in the American South. He’s also just a good big-bet player in general, which has come in handy in the age of No-Limit Hold’em; his total lifetime tournament winnings, mostly from hold’em and lowball draw, total $2.3 million.

Away from the tables, Baxter probably did more for elite poker players than anybody in American history by fighting the government over taxes on his own poker winnings. His case, William E. Baxter, Jr. Vs. The United States, established that pro poker players’ winnings are earned income, which is taxable at a lower rate than unearned gambling income. Baxter also helped one elite player in particular, putting up the $10,000 for former champion Stu Ungar when he won the 1997 WSOP Main Event for a record third time.

Baxter became the 33rd member of the Poker Hall of Fame upon his election in 2006.

5. Dewey Tomko – 65 years old

Not many former kindergarten teachers have finished runner-up at the WSOP Main Event. In fact, there’s only one who’s ever done that – but he’s done it twice.

Florida’s Dewey Tomko already had one WSOP bracelet to his credit when he finished 2nd to the legendary Jack “Treetop” Straus in the 1982 Main Event. By the time he finished 2nd to Carlos Mortensen in the 2001 Main Event, he was a three-time bracelet winner and highly regarded professional player, having been one of its most consistent finishers in tournaments throughout the 1980s and having returned to form just in time for the poker boom. Though his activity has slowed since 2008, Tomko has still won $4.9 million in his tournament career.

Tomko became the 36th member of the Poker Hall of Fame upon his election in 2008.