Paddy Power Poker today announces that its new Summer Cash Dash cash race will kick-off at midnight on Sunday, 7th June.

The poker room’s summer cash race promotion will award over $64,000 in cash and prizes over the course of twelve weeks, with over $5,000 cash on offer each week.

The promotion is open to every Paddy Power Poker player and positions on the leader board will be determined by the amount of hands played, the table stakes and the time players spend on the tables.

“It’s summertime and the living is easy up in Paddy Towers!” said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for Paddy Power Poker. “We’ve been busy getting ourselves in shape for the summer and we think our players will be impressed by what they see; our swimming shorts are fit to burst with all the cash we’ve stuffed in, ready to hand out to our lucky players!”

Paddy Power Poker today Blasts Off for Las Vegas by announcing a WSOP* Mega Satellite with 40 packages guaranteed. The WSOP Blast Off MTT is a $500 + $35 NLH freezeout scheduled for Sunday June 14th. Feeder satellites will run daily from Monday June 1st with buy-ins starting at less than $1.

Each WSOP package is worth $13,000 and is made up of WSOP Main Event entry ($10,000), 7 nights’ accommodation and $1,900 to cover travel and spending money.

“The World Series is just around the corner, so I’ve fuelled up our rocket and set a course for Las Vegas”, said  Communications Manager for Paddy Power Poker. “With over 40 packages up for grabs, our players have a great opportunity to live the poker dream and play in the biggest game in town – it’s time to Blast Off!”

Feeder satellites to the WSOP Blast Off $500 + $35 Mega Satellite can be accessed via the poker software lobby from June 1st; select ‘Scheduled MTT’s’ and then the ‘Satellites’ tab.

The action got started on the very first hand as Peat threw out a $5,100 raise with QJo. They ended up with a 4 way hand and when the board missed everyone, Peat continued to fire and throw another $20,500 at the pot on the turn. Everyone folded except for Laak and when the river came up empty, Peat kept the pressure on and threw another $50,000 into the mix. Laak was sitting on the best hand with A10c and had all but talked himself into a call when he put his money back down and let Peat take down a $100,500 hand.

The next hand was more of the same as Meltzer fired over top of Baxter, who had hit top pair with a weak kicker, for $58,000 and Baxter had to let his hand go. This was almost $200,000 in two hands that was taken down with nothing. You knew the fireworks were going to fly if anyone managed to catch a hand at any point.

Two hands later, Elezra let go of a hand against Minieri that was a great fold. He was sitting on top pair, but picked something up on Minieri that made him fold the hand. Not sure if it was what he saw, but Minieri has a noticeable smirk when he has a stacked hand versus making a play. The same smirk would show up a few hands later.

The first monster of the night went down with another bluff attempt by Peat. He made a horrible pre-flop call of $8,000 with J9d as Brunson was sitting on AA. Brunson led out with a $20,000 on his flopped set and Peat came right over the top on his flush and inside straight draw for a total of $125,000. Brunson made the call and his hand stood up to a double run. $366,000 added to his stack.

The money would not stay there very long though as in the very next hand Brunson would flop bottom pair and a flush draw against Minieri’s top two pair. Minieri got all of his money in and hit a boat on both hands as they ran it twice. The double up was worth $205,500 and got him back to about even on the session.

The night ended with another huge hand that had Baxter, who had been steaming at this point, and Dwan butting heads. Dwan re-raised Baxter with Q9h and Baxter came right back over the top for $31,700 with AKh. Dwan popped the top pair on the flop, but both players checked it down until the river card. Dwan fired $34,300 for value on the river and Baxter looked him up and made another donation on the night. The $134,000 pot managed to get Dwan back most of his money for the session, but the early luck that he was showing reversed for most of the last two sessions.

Both Dwan and Minieri get a lot of action on their pots because it is a rare case that they are not firing pre-flop regardless of their hands when they decide to get involved in a pot. While they have been getting looked up with nothing, the payoffs have been huge when they manage to hit a hand. It will be interesting to see if they manage to get hot during the end of the season or they both go back into the tank.

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.

paddypowerpoker.com today announces the Double Up STT promotion, in which prizes will be awarded to Double Up Single Table Tournament (STT) players. Over $2,500 in cash and tournament tokens will be won over a 2 week period, running from 00.00 on May 11th to 23.59 on May 24th.

Prizes will be awarded to players in two categories (dependant on buy-in, $1 – $20 and $30+) and a points boost will be available to those who play 50 or more games in the counting period.

“We’ve really shook things up with our Double Up STT promo, it’s just about ready to explode”, said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for Paddy Power Poker “It is the most generous STT promotion on the iPoker network and our players will be smiling from ear-to-ear when we start handing out the cash!”

Double Up STTs (also known as Sit’N’Gos) run on Paddy Power Poker 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

While there are plenty of pros that have open challenges available to anyone in online poker, pro or amateur, that wants to put up an amount and play until the money is gone, nobody has been willing to throw out 3:1 odds for $500,000 buy in until now. When Dwan first made the challenge, he could pick and choose from a list of candidates and unfortunately for him, he chose Antonius.

His choice is perfectly understandable. Antonius is fairly new to the scene and has nowhere near the reputation of some of the other people that wanted in, such as Phil Ivey. However, Antonius has an unorthodox game and an uncanny ability to read people. Dwan found this out the hard way.

As of May 4th, they had played about one quarter of the agreed upon 50,000 hands and Antonius is already up almost a half a million dollars. While it is unlikely he can continue to win at that pace, he still stands to make a couple of million off of Dwan. Remember, Dwan has to put up $1.5 million to Patrik’s $500,000 if he loses!

Can the momentum change? Absolutely, but Antonius is a very strong player and I don’t see him giving up this edge without a huge battle. Dwan is going to have to catch him with a monster hand and you can be assured that Antonius will think twice about throwing that kind of money into the pot without being absolutely sure about the outcome.

You can watch the match anytime they are playing on Full Tilt. Watching the head up action is amazing and it will be thrilling to see how this plays out. You can only hope that Dwan’s bravado does not remove him from the poker spotlight that he currently enjoys.

The Wire Act, initially passed in 1961, continues to be the backbone of current legislation that is currently being attempted to get pushed through on both local and federal levels. Representatives against the legislation continue to point at the age of the legislation and the fact that other forms of gaming have been legalized, yet they continue this assault on online poker.

Their argument this is nothing more than a half hearted attempt to grab headlines and sensationalize everything is easy to understand when you look at some of the sites that they have somehow managed to leave off of the list of banned sites. The bulk of them do not even allow US players to wager on them. Why would these poker sites be included and sites like PokerStars and UltimateBet/Absolute be allowed to continue their operations within the state?

As Barney Frank continues to get his legislation prepared for presentation, it will be very interesting to see how things play out. As reported earlier, the internet providers have 3 weeks (less now) to address the situation and if Barney’s legislation receives positive support, it will be very curious to see how Minnesota and the other states that have banned online gaming react. My guess is that this is far from over and over the next few months this will be dominating the poker headlines as much as the WSOP.

As you may recall, this was the law that had the online gaming community running for cover and eventually some very popular rooms, such as Poker, banned US players and had online poker players in panic about their funds. The situation only got worse as eWallets like Neteller also pulled out. The next thing you know online poker site owners are getting yanked out of airports and charged with money laundering! People were literally worried about Big Brother knocking down their door and getting busted just as they clicked on the all in button.

While this bill was initially supposed to be introduced in March, it was pushed back until the Week of May 4. While it is unlikely that the actual version of the bill that Barney Frank (D-MA) is going to introduce will be passed, there is a ton of money being thrown around to ensure that it goes through in some form. This is nothing new as bills are often amended as the process gets completed.

The PPA is on record that they are going to do everything that they can to get his passed into law. Rumor had it that over $4 million was bookmarked for exactly this cause. The lobbyists will be busy next week and here is hoping that they are successful.

The boom in online poker is unbelievable and we can only imagine what it can do to our economy if the bill passes. You would have to think that amount of jobs and revenue that would be generated in US regulated sites would be an incredible boost to an economy that has yet to turn around.

It all starts the moment you get into your car. For arguments sake, let’s assume that you live about 60 miles from the closest casino. Depending upon the type of car that you have, you are probably going to burn anywhere from 8-12 gallons of gasoline up and back. With a price of about $2/gallon, you just dropped about $20. Current Trip Cost or CTC as we like to call it (-$20).

That trip on the open road is not for free either. Depending where you live, you are going to be facing some tolls as well. You may even have to pay for parking. Give a generous estimate and figure that you cover both of those costs for about $12 total. CTC (-$32).

I can see you squirming in your chair right now as you are starting to see how your little daily jaunt to the local casino is starting to hit a little harder than you thought. But guess what, it’s not over! You know that cute little waitress that you look at and like to be a little extra generous to? Get her social security number because she is killing you! Figure you play a 10 hour session and order a drink about every 45 minutes from her. You probably throw her at least a buck every time she drops off a drink. If you are trying to get her number you throw her a bit more than that! For arguments sake, we will pretend you are a cheapskate and only count the low end of the scale. Regardless, you have just dropped another $15. She isn’t so cute anymore is she? CTC (-$47).

Now let’s take a look at the dealer that is dealing you bad beat after bad beat. Even though he is putting the screws to you, you still have to tip him out when he deals you a winning hand. It kills you to throw that dollar chip his way, but you don’t want the rest of the table looking at you either. On average, a live dealer will throw out about 30 hands an hour. You can reasonably figure on winning at least one hand per turn. That is a minimum of $3 per hour for 10 hours, another $30 down the drain. CTC (-$77).

We won’t count rake, because you would be paying that as well on the internet. However, if you are playing that long, you are going to have to get something to eat. Most poker rooms don’t exactly throw the comps around for poker players, so you are going to have to go to the cafeteria or restaurant. Prices aren’t exactly user friendly in these joints so figure at least $20 for a sandwich and soda. CTC (-$97).

That is almost $100 that you are down before you ever walk into the casino to play a hand. The average person would consider $100 win a great day. However, you get home and for some reason you have the same amount of money that you left with. Or worse, you lose $100 and have $200 less than you left the house with. Talk about taking a kick to the groin!

Now let’s take a quick look at the alternative. You stay home and play from the convenience of your own home on the net. If you don’t like your table, you get up and go to a new one. Keep switching tables in a live game and watch the floor managers reaction. You have no dealer to tip and you are also getting more hands in! Let’s not forget that you can multi-table and offset the natural variance. Everything that you need to eat and drink is already in your fridge and figured into your monthly family budget. That makes it FREE!

Are you ready for the other shoe to drop? One simple word, rakeback. This is the percentage of the money that you contribute to the rake that is returned to you at the end of the month. Now if you break even at the tables with 8 trips to the casino, you are down $800. If you break even at the tables in online poker, you may be getting back $800 in rakeback at the end of the month!

How much more proof do you need that online poker is the answer to your poker recession blues? When your wife tells you that you can’t afford to play, show her this and tell you can’t afford not to play! When everyone asks you your political views on the current economy, you finally have the answer, ONLINE POKER.

The Erskine hospital has provided nursing and medical care for more than 70,000 patients since 1916 and it is hoped that the Paddy Power Charity Poker Open will raise thousands of pounds to help re-build shattered lives.

The prizes on offer include an all expenses paid trip to Dublin for the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Poker Open in 2010, with tournament entry included. Other prizes include a trip for 2 to Las Vegas, VIP packages to the Paddy Power Gold Cup in 2009 at Cheltenham, and VIP packages to the Ayr Gold Cup in September 2009.

Players can book their spot at any one of the four heats by paying for their seat online at: www.paddypowercharityopen.com. Live registration for the heats takes place between 10:00am and 11:30am on the day of the events, with play starting at 12 noon. Entry costs just £12 per person.

Tournament: Paddy Power Charity Poker Open

Where: The Normandy Hotel, Renfrew, Scotland

When: Heat 1 – Saturday, 16th May

Heat 2 – Sunday, 17th May

Heat 3 – Saturday, 23rd May

Heat 4 – Sunday, 24th May

Grand Final – Saturday, 30th May

Paddy Power said “We are delighted to sponsor this tournament and look forward to not only hosting Scotland’s biggest ever poker event but also to raising much needed funds for this incredibly worthwhile organization.”