Yesterday I mentioned that Michael Mizrachi won the 2006 Card Player Player of the Year award, and as I was checking out their website I noticed that they made a few changes in the scoring criteria for the 2007 season. Some of this is new, some of it isn't, but according to their website, tournaments that qualify for this year's POY points must meet the following criteria:

- Overall tournament prize pool must meet or exceed $750,000
- Single events must have a prize pool that meets or exceeds $250,000
- 60 player minimum
- Buy-in must be at least $300
- Invitationals must have at least 60 players and a prize pool of $500,000
- International events must have min. 60 players and prize pool must meet or exceed $1,500,000
- Online tourneys must have a prize pool of more than $5,000,000 and player must release their real name to accumulate points

Full details on the criteria, as well as how they are calculating points for the 2007 season, can be found at their website via the "read" link below.

I was kind of shocked to see that the next Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) is starting again so soon, didn't it just finish? However, satellites are already running and the first event begins on February 9th.

Schedule of games is as follows: (Complete list is not yet up on their website or poker client, games on February 12 and 15th are apparently TBA)

February 9 - DS (deep stacks) NLHE - $216 buy-in
February 10 - DS HORSE - $216 buy-in
February 11 - DS NLHE - $216 buy-in
February 12 - Not yet listed
February 13 - DS 6-handed NLHE - $216 buy-in
February 14 - DS Limit O8 - $216 buy-in
February 15 - Not yet listed
February 16 - DS PLHE - $216 buy-in
February 17 - DS HA (12 minute blinds alternating between Hold'em and Omaha) - $322 buy-in
February 18 - Main Event - NLHE with T5000 starting stacks - $535 buy-in

We'll update on this more once they have made the official announement.

This Sunday, Doyle's Room will be running their Grand Finals Tournament where they will be awarding prize packages (valued at $5000 each) for the First Annual Super System Poker Camp. The excursion will be held in Montana May 19-23rd of this year.

Providing instruction at the camp will be Doyle himself along with Todd Brunson, Mike Caro, and Jennifer Harman, all co-authors of Super System 2.

If you are interested in winning one of the packages, the tournament begins at 5:30pm ET on Sunday, January 7th, and the entry fee is $50. If you don't win your way in but still want to attend, the cost is $4000. Attendance is restricted to 200 people.

For more details on the camp, you can visit their official website via the "read" link below.

As Wil mentioned a little while ago, NBC will be premiering their latest creation 'Poker After Dark' hosted by Shana Hiatt tomorrow, January 1st, and will run a new episode each night Monday - Friday between the hours of 2-3am, plus Saturday nights between 1-2am. For those of you who are not satisfied to simply sit at home and watch, Full Tilt Poker is currently running a promotion where you can win a seat on the show and play against some of your favorite players.

Sit 'n Go tournaments will be running around the clock beginning January 2nd, and the top two finishers in each one will move on to a weekly Round 2 tourney. The top 9 finishers from each weekly tournament will qualify for a tournament held on April 30th, where the grand prize will be a free seat on the show. For more info on how to qualify, you can check out the Full Tilt info page via the 'read' link below.

CardPlayer.com has opened the polls for the Reader's Choice portion of the 2006 Player of the Year Awards.

You can vote at their website in the following three categories:

Most entertaining player of 2006
Favorite tournament poker player from 2006
Favorite poker television show from 2006

To vote you must add your comments to the appropriate thread in their forums, and explain why you think that player/show should be the winner. After skimming through it appears that Daniel Negreanu has the majority of the votes as Most Entertaining Player so far, though some people definitely have their own opinions: (copied verbatim from the forum)

How can it NOT be ERIC MOLINA????
He chucked the ALL IN chip at that jerk Gold, He called a guy with a good chip stack BLIND. He ended that guys chances of winning the event without even looking at HIS CARDS. He got a penalty. He bluffed all his money in a horrible spot.
That kid is awesome. If he works out some we might see him punch a guy. He might steal an old guys chips when that guy isnt looking. He could throw the all in chip at a dealer after a bad beat.
Matusow is just annoying, he always says how good he is yet he is really low on money, he sucks at the WPT, where better players like grinder and DN do very well.
Hellmuths act is pathetic, he says hes gonna stop being the poker brat, and lose the shades, but he is ON CONTRACT TO ALWAYS WEAR THE SHADES when he is on tv. Thats lame. He isnt so entertaining hosting celebrity poker.
Could you imagine molina hosting that? That guy should be picked up by full tilt.
Plus he gives validity to the theory that all Nova students are ******.
Vote Eric Molina

Alrighty. Moving on.

Though I haven't counted, it appears that Negreanu also has the lead in Favorite Tournament Player of 2006. Hellmuth, Ivey, Cunningham, and Hachem have also received a lot of votes, and JC Tran and Matusow have been mentioned repeatedly.

As far as Favorite Poker Television Show - really is there any question? High Stakes Poker has garnered almost every single vote so far.

Last year's winners at the POY Gala were as follows:

Breakthrough Player
Michael Gracz

Best Cash Game Player
Chip Reese

Poker Ambassador
Mike Sexton

Best No-Limit Player
Phil Ivey

Best Heads-up Player
Phil Ivey

Best Mixed Game Player
Chip Reese

Most Underrated Player
Allen Cunningham

Most Feared Player
Phil Ivey

Best Female Player
Jennifer Harman

Most Entertaining Player
Mike "The Mouth" Matusow

People's Choice Award-Best Celebrity Poker Player
Jennifer Tilly

People's Choice Award-Favorite Overall Player
Daniel Negreanu

Lifetime Achievement Award
Doyle Brunson

Card Player of The Year
Men Nguyen

Daniel Negreanu & Full Contact Poker have named their second Poker Protege. Taking the crown from the first Protege Brian Fidler is Anthony Mak, a 23-year old player who, according to Daniel Negreanu, is a play money player and qualified through the .net portion of FCP. Daniel goes on to describe Mak as "a young John Juanda incarnate", an extremely capable player with a very bright future in poker.

As per the FCP website, Mak's prize package includes:
- 4 months of personal instruction with Negreanu
- 4 entries into $10,000 buy-in major tournaments with all expenses paid
- An engraved TAG watch
Plus invites to attend functions with Daniel, entry to the FCP Hall of Fame, etc etc.

Daniel's first Protege, Brian Fidler, placed second in the Lake Tahoe World Series of Poker Circuit Event, taking home $206,800 for his efforts.

(Image: FCP)

Full Tilt Poker has just released word on their latest promotion - win your way to the Dublin All-Star Challenge through satellites or direct buy-in tournaments. Between September 24 and November 5th they will be running bi-weekly qualifiers at 3pm ET for your chance to win an $8,000 prize package which includes tournament buy-in and spending money.

For those that win a seat, the tournament will be held in Dublin between November 17th and 19th and will feature a televised final table.

For more information, you can visit their website via the 'read' link below.

(image: FullTiltPoker.com)

Doyle Brunson never ceases to amaze me. As if he isn't busy enough already, he is now co-hosting the Super System Poker Camp which will be held in Montana next spring, May 18th through May 21st. At the camp, Doyle will be joined by his son Todd Brunson, Mike Caro, Daniel Negreanu, and Jennifer Harman.

The camp is limited to 200 entrants, so if you are interested I suggest signing up as soon as possible. Cost is $4,000, and they require a $500 deposit to guarantee your spot.

Included in the package: (from the website)

• Room, based on double occupancy
• Daily lectures & one-on-one session with the speaker of your choice (subject to availability)
• Televised tourney
• Welcome party
• Farewell cocktail party
• Transportation to and from airport (subject to space and time constraints)
• A Super System poster signed by all the speakers
• A Super System Reality Camp shirt
• Entry into daily tournaments

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Thursday, May 18 Welcome Party
Friday, May 19 Camp Day 1
Saturday, May 20 Camp Day 2
Sunday, May 21 Camp Day 3
Monday, May 22 Camp Day 4
Tuesday, May 23 DoylesRoom Televised Tournament

If you don't want to buy in directly, you can take a shot at winning your ticket at DoylesRoom.com:

1. You can buy-in directly to the $55 + $5.50 buy-in Super System Camp Grand Finals Satellite on Sunday, October 29th, 2006 at 5:30pm EDT (21:30 GMT).
2. Play in the Daily $10 + $1 buy-in Feeders to Super System Camp and win a seat into the Grand Finals Satellite. Feeders will run daily starting this Sunday, Sept. 17th at 9:30 EDT (1:30 GMT).

For more information on the Camp, you can visit the website via the 'read' link below.

(Source & image: SuperSystemPokerCamp.com)

It's been a while since I have updated the various Player of the Year contests, so without further ado, following are the top 25 players in Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year race, followed by the Bluff-ESPN Power Rankings and Bluff Magazine's POY Top 25.

CardPlayer Player of the Year Race
For an explanation of CardPlayer's scoring criteria, click here.

1 Michael Mizrachi 5,865
2 Nam Le 3,985
3 Phil Hellmuth Jr. 3,755
4 Shannon Shorr 3,692
5 Jeff Madsen 3,680
6 John Hoang 3,672
7 Allen Cunningham 3,344
8 Erick Lindgren 3,286
9 David Williams 3,152
10 William Chen 3,146
11 Anthony Reategui 2,887
12 Kenna James 2,692
13 Ralph Perry 2,546
14 Joe Bartholdi 2,500
15 John Phan 2,419
16 Joe Tehan 2,390
17 Tom Franklin 2,372
18 David Daneshgar 2,370
19 Alex Jacob 2,320
20 Stanley Weiss 2,304
21 Al Barbieri 2,286
22 Joe Brandenburg 2,268
23 Max Pescatori 2,258
24 Alan Goehring 2,224
25 Jamie Gold 2,220



Bluff - ESPN Power Rankings, Top 25
According to Bluff:
Bluff Power Rankings are based on the results of major tournaments over a trailing 24-month period. Qualifying tournaments must have a minimum $5,000 buy-in, at least 100 participants. Bluff Media reserves the right to include high-denomination, high profile events. Tournaments occurring in the trailing 12-month period are given additional weighting. Players must finish in the money to earn points.

Interested in becoming Daniel Negreanu's next Poker Protégé? Full Contact Poker is currently running tournaments and contests for ten qualifying seats to the live finale in December. The ten finalists will play a No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament and the winner will be named as Daniel's next protégé.

One of the ten seats has already been filled, but if you are interested in trying to claim one of the remaining nine you can visit their website for full details on how to go about it.

Also at this time, Full Contact Poker is offering a 100% initial sign-up bonus up to $200, and a 40% redeposit bonus also up to $200 - the redeposit bonus is only applicable today through September 14th.

(image: FCP)

PokerStars is running a new promotion called the Moneymaker Millionaire where you have an opportunity to win a trip to the Bahamas to play in the main event with a $1,000,000 grand prize package.

The following from PokerStars:

From now until December 3rd, 27 PokerStars players will win free trips to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas to play in a live poker tournament with a $1,000,000 Moneymaker Millionaire Grand Prize package including an Aston Martin DB9 Volante*.

In addition to our grand prize winner, there will be more than $1.5 million in additional prizes including cash, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure entries, and Bahamas vacations.

Best of all, the Moneymaker Millionaire is absolutely free to enter. All PokerStars players will receive one free Round 1 entry ticket, and additional entries can be purchased for 10 Frequent Player Points. There is no limit on how many times you can play.

For more information please visit our Moneymaker Millionaire information page or play now by clicking "Events" and then "$2.5M Freeroll" in your PokerStars game lobby.

*The car can be taken as a cash equivalent (price $180,000)

If being on a reality show is your life-long dream (come on, admit it), you may want to check out Bodog.net to see their latest promotion. Calvin Ayre, the CEO and founder of Bodog (pictured right) is set to host a reality show featuring poker and what they call the 'Bodog Lifestyle', and they are taking applications now.

Forty people - ten of which will be celebrities, ten poker pros, and twenty Bodog players will compete in weekly poker tournaments where the winner takes home $50,000 plus a spot at the final table to play for $500,000.

Filming will take place in March at the 'Bodog Compound' in Costa Rica, and the TV show will air over six episodes in April. Other than the poker games, the show will also feature the billion-dollar lifesytle of Ayre and Bodog Music. If you want to take part, you have until February 17th to read the full rules and regulations and fill out an application at Bodog.net.

If you just can't get enough of poker, you may want to check out Card Player's new Fantasy Poker contest. They are waiving the registration fee so you can try it out for free and possibly win one of three prizes: A $500 entry into a weekly tournament at UltimateBet, or one of two entries to their $200 tournament.

If you register for the 'real' contest, you have a shot at winning a seat to the 2006 World Series of Poker and $2000 in spending money.

You can read the full details through the 'read' link below.

Poker pro and author Lou Krieger recently wrote two posts about Andy Beal and his match against The Corporation.

A few days ago, there were rumors that Beal soured on poker and quit the game completely. He supposedly left Las Vegas the other day for good.

Andy even pulled out of the 2006 Heads Up Championship. He was pretty bummed out after losing $5 million in one day to Ted Forrest.

In a post called Has Andy Beal Given Up Poker, Lou suggested that Beal's retirement would be a short one since he only lost a relatively small amount of money considering his massive wealth.