Poker News

As the World Series of Poker gets closer and closer, other events are starting to fall out of sight and out of mind. Well Canadian Poker is poking its head out one more time with one of the most prestigious events of the season as the Canadian Open Heads-up Event gets underway this week.

This is one of those events that even the common man can understand and relate to. It is not often that we can afford or play in an event that has 90 minute levels or lasts for days on end, but getting handed 10,000 chips and having 20 minutes levels is something that we can all relate to. The turbo format is accompanied with a best two out of three series that is sure to be filled with a ton of action.

If you think the big boys of poker are going to sit this one out with the WSOP less than two weeks away, you are crazy. They would not think of missing the opportunity to lay their claim as the best heads-up player heading into the series. The main event of the Canadian Open Poker Championship will see the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Helmuth and Huck Seed sitting down at the felt in an effort to gain some heads-up glory.

It is not often that you will see a heads-up event as the final showpiece of any tour event, but that is what makes this one so special. You are going to have Kid Poker defending his turf as you can only imagine the embarrassment he would feel if someone like Phil Hellmuth walks out of his country with the heads-up trophy hoisted on his shoulders.

The four day event will finish up on Sunday, May17th with the final match. The defending champion is Huck Seed who took home a cool $100,897 last year. With the beating Negreanu has taken on the last couple of episodes of High Limit Poker, it is safe to assume that he will go after this championship with even more vigor than usual. Updates will be posted as soon as they are available. Now shuffle up and deal!

PokerStars is already a prominent name in live poker as they are already involved with the EPT, but they have just made another huge move in live tournaments by also teaming up with the WPT as the official television sponsor for season 7 during international tournaments.

With Full Tilt already having the rights to the shows that broadcast in the United States, adding this tournament to their stable seems like a logical move. With a firm grip on the EPT, LAPT and APPT, PokerStars is now the premier sponsor of televised poker. Not that they needed any help, but this will have their logo and name in the house of every poker player on the planet.

More importantly for the site, it will also allow them to promote the success of their ever growing stable of poker player talent. While Full Tilt and the other major sites have seemed to back off a little bit in big name pro sponsorship, PokerStars continues to snag up just about every big name that becomes available. You have to imagine that every site on the planet was making a stab for Kid Poker. When he ended up signing with PokerStars, it had to be considered the biggest coup of the year in online poker.

The added exposure of course will mean more signups and more revenue for the giant of online poker. With legislation in place to lift the ban and get online poker legalized, this is going to be money well spent for PokerStars. The other sites stand back and wonder why they are so far behind, but this is a perfect example of why PokerStars is downloaded on everyone’s computer.

The company forces you to notice them and their players and associates themselves with anything and everything poker that they can. This sponsorship will more than likely mean a lot more satellites to all of their featured tournaments and the micro players will be coming out of the woodwork to make a $50 deposit and take their shot at poker glory. The other sites better get in gear before any law changes take effect or the only thing they are going to see will be a pair of PokerStars boots kicking up dust.