I live under the thumb of a tyrannical regime. My actions are dictated by the whims of shadowy figures, who move throughout the country, placing their targets under de facto house arrest while they wait for many tortuous hours. Then, just when you we think the danger has past, a doorbell announces their arrival. In other words, I’m having a new oven delivered today and therefore cannot leave my flat. At least the 4 hour delivery estimate I was kindly furnished with gives me plenty of time to scrounge up some exciting news from the Wider World of Poker.

Poker Loses Again

With Thor Hansen’s cancer diagnosis still ringing in our ears, the poker fraternity has been dealt another crushing blow with the news of Nikolay Evdakov’s untimely demise. The Russian pro is most famous for his endeavours at the 2008 World Series, where he set the record for most cashes in a single WSOP by notching up 10 money finishes. It’s a record that stands as a testimony to his legacy. He is survived by his wife and children. [Gipsy Team]

888 Hit the Jackpot 

Time to draw ourselves out of this funk and poker players only know of one way to salve an aching heart: Cash! Online gambling providers 888 have plenty to go around, having announced a 28% uptick in revenue for Q4 2011. The future looks rosy for 888, thanks to their deal with Caesar’s Entertainment. Through subsidiary Dragonfish, they furnish Caesar’s with the official WSOP online poker site. When Nevada finally gives the go ahead to intrastate online poker, chances are 888’s star will continue to rise. [Guardian]

Missives From a Ringer 

Get on a plane to Macau, find the poker table with the most money on it, squint a bit, and you can pretend that it’s 2006 all over again. Poker’s most famous grinders have been gorging themselves on the action in China’s special administrative region for the past few months. Familiar names like Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, and Patrik Antonius have all been playing, but have otherwise kept schtum about the game’s details. Not so Gus Hansen, who has been providing daily blog updates on the highs and lows of his multi-million dollar sessions. Yesterday’s entry indicates that – shock! – Hansen has been playing a few too many loose hands, so you might want to get reading before The Great Dane goes busto. [Gus Hansen]

Popstar Becomes a Poker Star 

Hey Americans. Are you aware of laddish popstar Robbie Williams? Back in 2000-ty something he set off for the colonies, hoping to make his fortune, but after becoming addicted to various naughty substances, arrived back on the mainland to rejoin with former cohorts Take That. Now, for the glorious next stage of his career, Robbie has decided to open an online poker site. I expect it to quickly fade into insignificance, but given that it annoyed someone in our nation’s flagship bigotry newspaper, the venture has definitely proven its worth. [Bluff Europe]

I must now return to my eternal vigil. I’ll be back next week, summoning up more poker news than you can possibly handle. Bring a friend.

Too Soon? PokerStars is proud to announce that this has never happened on any PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

PokerStars may be without a CEO for the time being, as Gabi Campos, who assumed the chief executive position in 2010, reportedly is no longer big boss of the largest real-money online poker site in the world. While it’s not quite clear who told whom to eff off (and Stars has yet to put out a press release insisting all is hunky-dory) … if confirmed, Campos’ ouster/skeedaddling marks the fourth major executive departure at PokerStars since Black Friday.

First to be disappeared (amid some controversy) was veteran EPT Tournament Director Thomas Kremser in May; then last month, EPT founder John Duthie left. And now supposedly Jeffrey Haas, top dog at Global Poker Tours Limited (parent company for PokerStars live events) has been, er … moved on. (Haas’s LinkedIn page lists GPTL as “Past” … and “Director of New Platforms, Mobile & Social Gaming for Pokerstars.com” as current — sounds like “big-money suit demoted to glorified blogger” to me, but hey!)

UPDATE: Interestingly, Campos’ LinkedIn-from-Israel doesn’t list PokerStars as a past or present employer … says he his now working for 888-subsidiary Dragonfish, which we know, of course, in 2010 became an online partner to the WSOP.

What if anything might be behind this extended shakeup on the international live tournament poker scene is hard to say. Read Wendeen Eolis’ report in Poker Player Newspaper here.

Despite Black Friday, PokerStars has maintained its position as the world’s biggest, arguably most important, and possibly most highly regulated and therefore internationally legitimate online poker site. (And they set a Guinness World Record to boot!)

The US Department of Justice, meanwhile, maintains that PokerStars’ success was built on the ill-gotten gains of an illegal enterprise with ties to organized crime … and their founder is still, according to the DOJ, the #1 most wanted online poker criminal.

This autumnal winds of Dorset attempted to blow me out to sea, but I stayed rooted to the shore like defiant bollard. I knew that without their weekly dose of un-American gambling news, Pokerati readers might immediately expire. I couldn’t live with that on my conscience, so I’m back from my holiday with a suitcase full of facts.

# 888’s Third Quarter Upswing

While you Americans were outdoors being adventurous, we Brits carried on our time honoured tradition of ‘staying indoors and being poor’. At least that’s what 888 Holdings Plc credit for the massive boost in revenue they’ve been enjoying recently. The company banked $86 million in the third quarter and grew their userbase to over 10 million. [Reuters]

# Spain say eCOGRA are A-Okay

Spain have opened their doors to fully regulated online gambling, but before you can get your hands on a shiny Spanish license, you need to have your software thoroughly examined by an accredited agency. eCOGRA – whose seals are sported by the likes of Party Poker – have been given the blessing of the local government to carry out these inspections. eCOGRA’s CEO made happy noises at the news, but also took the chance to moan about EU nations being allowed to develop contrasting systems. [eCOGRA]

# MacPhee Takes Aim at the Hendon Mob

Veteran British grinder Barny Boatman kept his upper lip fully stiffened this week after enduring a verbal barrage from American pro Kevin ‘ImaLuckSac’ MacPhee. The fracas took place on Twitter, in the aftermath of the latter’s exit from the EPT San Remo. MacPhee, who is not a qualified physician, branded Boatman a “f*cking r*tard” for eliminating him from the event. In reaction, Boatman took the Hendon Mob forums to present an eloquent defence of his play. [Poker News Report]

It’s not been the most thrilling week in worldwide poker. America has clutched all the big news to its bosom like a greedy news-clutching monster. Even going so far as to steal away reliable Euro headline makers bwin.party. Nevertheless, I shall continue to sift through the bins of the internet, searching out the choicest morsels for your delectation. Until next week…

None of this should come as a shock … after all, we saw this summer that Team WSOP employees were all wearing name tags that clearly identified them as worker-bees for HIE, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, the year-old parent company formed around online poker capo Mitch Garber. Also, we noticed that the wristbands identifying live tournament players clearly were pushing WSOP.COM … it wasn’t just because that’s where they wanted players to go for chip counts!

Anyhow, latest development on that progression … with their 888 partners Dragonfish, Harrah’s is set to launch a new suite of products that includes more real-money offerings for their (fully legal) UK customers and expanded play money options for (someday soon to be legal) Americans and others worldwide.

Read more about it all here.

Warne.

If there’s one place that has more funked up online poker political-legal stuff going on than the US, it’s Australia. And most recently Aussie cricket legend Shane Warne caused an international stir when he used his twitter account — @warne888 — to solicit real-money players for the online poker site he represents … 888.

The tweet that caused the outcry:

All my followers get free 8 dollars poker money by signing up here

It included a link to 888.

That was enough to rile Rev. Tim Costello (one of the most politically powerful holy rollers in Australia) to publicly chastise the superstar because many of his nearly 50,000 twitter followers are kids.

It makes ya think …

a) damn, just imagine how much money retired athletes could make as poker affiliates.
b) only 50k twitter followers? I thought they said he was a huge international superstar … like the Michael Jordan of cricket!

#HesNoJoeSebok

888 — a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange — is currently under investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which is responding to a complaint charging the company of being in breach of the Integrated Gambling Act.

It was no secret that Harrah’s Entertainment planned to enter the online gaming business, especially after hiring former PartyGaming bigwig Mitch Garber as the CEO of its new Interactive Entertainment division in May of this year. But the next big step was announced today.

Gaming Intelligence reported that Harrah’s signed a deal with Dragonfish, a subsidiary of online giant 888, to support Harrah’s entry into the online market with the World Series of Poker and Caesars Casino.

“This is a ground breaking deal for 888 and demonstrates our ability to provide real value to globally renowned, land-based casinos and their leading brands,” said Gigi Levy, Chief Executive Officer of 888.

“We have the structure in place to realise our B2B division’s full potential over the next 18 months and beyond and today’s announcement of our partnership with an industry giant is further vindication of this strategy.”

Mitch Garber, CEO of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, added: “As we develop and roll out our interactive strategy, we have chosen to work with 888, primarily for their world-class technology, scalability, and a strong commitment to compliance, and responsible gaming,” said Mitch Garber, Chief Executive Officer of HIE.

No specific time frame was given for the official launch.

This week we look at Representative Barney Frank’s visit to the World Series of Poker where he inspired the Main Event crowd! Plus we have industry news from 888.com and the iMega Group.

It certainly seems that way … either that or they’re just going through some rocky times that the tough-do-it-my-way billionaire who built the company didn’t want to be part of. [Gambling911]

Reading this story makes a couple things “obvious” to me:

1. The US.gov is serious about the illegality of sports wagering online, as it really is the only thing clear in previous legislation.

2. Online poker sites that accept US players are having a hard time getting new players, because the American market is tapped out, and if you were a newly addicted European, why would you choose any site that runs into potential trouble from US.gov when you can play on super-legit home-continenters such as PartyPoker, Ladbrokes, 888, etc.? The exception to this, of course, are PokerStars (because they’re so damn big and have all the champions) and Full Tilt (because they have all the pros).

3. Pete Sessions’ HR 6663 really is a sensible piece of legislation in that it makes everything clear (even though it may not cow-tow to a few special-special interests): it spells out more clearly than anything else — sports betting on the internet is bad, online poker is fine, and other games need to be decided.

IT’S A MIRACLE: Full Tilt wasn’t exactly a poker powerhouse in 2000, the year Chris Ferguson won the main event.

There are 35 big banners hanging up around the Amazon room — a pretty cool ring-of-honor thing going on — honoring 38 years of main event champions and four players of the year … and I couldn’t help but notice one of them doesn’t belong. [Insert Tom joke here.]

Chris Ferguson, whose banner lords over the 75/150 Omaha-8 game that has been going on all night and through the morning, commemorates his 2000 win over TJ Cloutier. But look a little closer and you’ll see this photo is hardly authentic — it bears a Full Tilt logo … branding op for a company that didn’t exist at that time. All the other banner mugs feature pics from the feat in question.

The real Chris Ferguson, circa 2000.

UPDATE: Actually there are two of them like this … The picture of Dan Harrington supposedly from 1995 shows him fully decked out in 888 and Pacific Poker gear.