Of course, you could skip the playoffs altogether and go right to the finals by winning one of the two $125,000 prize packages that are available. The $125k package includes the aforementioned benefits of the hotel stay and spending money, but lucky winners are also placed directly in the Premier League Final V. No matter what prize package you win, you’ll get to put your poker skills on display in front of the camera.

Players can win these prize packages from February 6th to March 18th, and here is a look at some of the various qualifiers:

Daily Premier League Poker Freeroll – Top 25 players win a seat for the Premier League Poker Sub Qualifier Speed Rebuy.

$2 Daily Premier League Poker Sub Qualifier Speed Rebuy – One Premier League Poker Satellite Qualifier seat is awarded for every $75 in the prize pool.

$5.50 Daily Premier League Poker Sub Qualifier Speed – One Premier League Poker Satellite Qualifier ticket is given for every $75 in the prize pool.

$75 Daily Premier League Poker Satellite Qualifier – For every $700 in the prize pool, Party Poker will award a Premier League Poker Satellite seat.

$700 Premier League Poker Satellite on Sundays (13:40 ET) – One Premier League Poker playoff package will be given out for every $13,000 in the prize pool; at least one package is guaranteed.

In addition to playing for the Premier League Poker V seats, those who sign up at Party Poker through RakeTheRake can also get up to 50% rakeback and a 100% match deposit bonus up to $500.

If you’re interested in playing in this event, you can either pay the $150 + $12 direct buy-in, or try to win a seat in one of the satellites. Some of the satellites are as cheap at $2.20, which gives lots of players an opportunity to win a $100k seat.

One important thing worth mentioning here is that you can reduce the cost of satellites or direct buy-ins by signing up at Americas Cardroom through RakeTheRake. That’s because RTR players get a 27% rakeback deal at this site along with a 100% match deposit bonus up to $1,000. To illustrate the amount of money you’ll get back, let’s say you pay the $150 + $12 direct buy-in for the $100k Guaranteed; you’d receive $3.24 back ($12 rake x 0.27). Even if you only bought into a $2 + $0.20 satellite, you would still get $0.05 back ($0.20 x 0.27).

Moving past the satellites and $100,000 poker tournament, there are also several exclusive points races happening at ACR for RakeTheRake players. First off, the top 125 points earners from February 10th–12th will share a $10,000 prize pool. There are also two more $10k points races from February 17th–19th and from February 24th–26th. Finally, RTR players can compete for a total of $60,000 from February 1st–29th. The top 275 players will all share in the $60k prize pool, while first place gets $10k of the pool.

Aside from helping you move up the points races and on towards major cash, the Frequent Player Points (FPPs) you earn at ACR can also be used to enter poker tournaments and win cash prizes. So make sure to check out the current ACR promotions to find out what the FPPs can do for you.

Each team member will play one ranking tournament of No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha on the Friday, and whether or not the team makes it to the Sunday final will be determined by the combined result of the four team members. Team members can chose to participate in Saturday’s individual NL TX tournament Tallinn All-In, or simply enjoy anything else that the beautiful city of Estonia has to offer.

Tournament registration is now open, and Poker Icons have arranged a special poker rate at the Reval Park Hotel and Casino for those players who arrange their own travel.

Among the players who bought in were world-famous poker pros such as Alex Kravchenko, Humberto Brenes, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Lex Veldhuis, Liv Boeree, Martin Staszko, Shane “shaniac” Schleger, Vanessa Selbst and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom. Out of this elite group, only Brenes managed to cash (299th place), which just goes to show how difficult these shortstacked turbo events can be.

One player who didn’t seem to have much trouble handling this shortstacked poker tournament was David “Betudontbet” Emmons, who came onto the final poker table with 25,828,771 chips; this was about a third of the chips in play at the nine-player final table. His lead only continued to increase, and by the time play became three-handed, the three players couldn’t settle on a deal because Emmons’ chip lead was so big.

After “Didak04” busted out in third, that left Chris “ImDaNuts” Oliver and Emmons left to battle for the title. Oliver was no doubt a formidable opponent since he finished second in the 2012 PCA Main Event ($1.8 million). But experience didn’t mean much since Emmons had an 8-1 chip advantage, and ended the heads-up match on the first hand; Oliver flopped a king to go with his K-7(o) hand, but Betudontbet got an ace on the turn to improve his A-5(o) hand and win the tournament.

With the TCOOP Main Event victory, Emmons now has over $1.65 million in winnings at PokerStars. Here is a look at how the final table fared:

1. David “Betudontbet” Emmons (Mexico) – $382,855.67
2. Chris “ImDaNuts” Oliver (Costa Rica) – $285,310.93
3. Didak04 (Australia) – $201,180.78
4. Gala_Terry (United Kingdom) – $140,216.91
5. mmbittencour (Brazil) – $103,638.59
6. DimaDima13 (Russia) – $79,253.03
7. swissman29 (Luxembourg) – $45,867.48
8. zyxel888 (Russia) – $30,481.93
9. MON3Y$HOT (Australia) – $19,508.44

Whenever players get a card, they simply need to visit their account and scratch it off to reveal the prize. Each prize is a mystery, and potential rewards include Party Points, cash, free poker tournament entries and Card Rush Race Points. As for the Card Rush Race, those who finish from 1st to 2,200th place all have an opportunity to make money.

One more point worth making about the Card Rush promotion is that, if the 1.8 million prizes are given away before February 28th, the promotion will end. This being said, it’s worth getting involved in Card Rush before the rewards are all given out. Now here’s a look at what you can potentially win with each prize:

- Party Points prizes could be 10, 20, 50, 100, 150, 250, 750, 5,000 or 25,000 points.
- Cash prizes could be $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, $50, $250 or $5,000.
- Card Rush freeroll entries could be for the $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, $7,500, $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 tournament.
- Card Rush Race points could be 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20 points.

Here are the starting times and dates for the Card Rush freerolls:

$2,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 2nd at 13:00 ET
$3,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 4th at 13:00 ET
$5,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 3rd at 13:00 ET
$7,500 Card Rush Freeroll – March 5th at 14:30 ET
$10,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 3rd at 14:30 ET
$15,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 2nd at 14:30 ET
$20,000 Card Rush Freeroll – March 4th at 13:00 ET

Here are the cash prizes that will be given out in the Card Rush Race:

1. $9,000
2. $7,000
3. $5,250
4. $4,000
5. $3,500
6. $3,000
7. $2,500
8. $2,000
9. $1,500
10. $1,000
11-18. $800
19-30. $700
31-45. $600
46-60. $500
61-75. $400
76-100. $300
101-125. $200
126-150. $150
151-200. $100
Every 20th spot from places 220 through 2,000 will receive $50 (hot spots)

Feb 29th at 18:30 – €2,500 New Player LeapRoll, entry is free for new players in February.
Feb 29th at 19:00 – €5,000 added by Fortune Poker, €5 + €0.50 buy-in.
Feb 29th at 19:30 – €5,000 LeapRoll, play 250 raked hands in February to enter.

As you can see in the first free poker tournament, all new Fortune Poker signups receive a ticket for the €2,500 New Player LeapRoll. And anybody who signs up through RakeTheRake will also get a 200% match deposit bonus up to €1,000 along with 30% rakeback. The other two events have requirements, but they’re pretty light in comparison to the amount of money that’s available.

Moving to the €10k Valentine’s Lovers Special, this promotion will award a total of €10,000 in hand bonuses on February 14th. Here are the different hand bonuses that will be available to cash game players:

Win a hand with a heart flush – €25
Lose 3 hands with the king and queen of hearts – €25
Win one hand with a straight flush in hearts – €250

Besides these requirements, players must also be on €0.12/€0.25 NL or PL holdem poker tables (and above), or on €0.25/€0.50 limit holdem tables (and above) to win. Additionally, both pocket cards need to be used, hands have to be played to the showdown, and a minimum of four players need to be dealt into qualifying hands. The €10k Valentine’s Lovers Special will run on Feb. 14th until the entire €10,000 prize pool has been paid out.

To get into the $25k Bankroll Booster, you need to play in the daily qualifiers that’ll be running from now until February 25th. There are three qualifiers running every day, and they take place at 13:30, 17:30 and 21:30 (server time). The entry is totally free, and the top 10 finishers in each poker tournament will receive a seat for the $25k freeroll.

Besides playing in the free daily qualifiers, another way you can get into this massive freeroll is by entering the daily VIP Points Earned qualifiers. As the name implies, you must earn a certain amount of VIP Points throughout the day in order to qualify for these freerolls. You track your points in the Player Admin area, and once you’ve earned enough to qualify for a specific satellite, you visit the Carbon Poker lobby and register for that event. Your points start getting tracked at 00:01 of each new day, and here’s a look at each qualifier’s requirements:

00:30 – 100 points
04:30 – 20 points
08:30 – 50 points
12:30 – 100 points
14:30 – 300 points
16:30 – 75 points
18:30 – 15 points
20:30 – 100 points
22:30 – 500 points

To illustrate how the VIP Points Earned requirements work, let’s say you were trying to make the 8:30 qualifier; you would then need to tally 50 VIP Points from 00:01 to 8:29 before being able to register. The nice thing about these qualifiers is that they feature much smaller fields than the free satellites.

As for the specifics of the $25,000 Bankroll Booster Freeroll, the tournament starts on Feb. 26th at 14:00 server time. This is a fairly deepstacked event because players receive 3,000 starting chips, and blind levels go up every 10 minutes. The winner of the freeroll will collect $5,000, which definitely makes this a freeroll worth trying to enter!

Unibet have organised a completely new Leaderboard structure for 2012, with no prize-pool deductions this season, and the top three players at the end of the year winning sponsorship to 2013 Unibet Open Events. While some things are changing, Unibet’s reputation for player hospitality will stay as strong as ever with Welcome Drinks on February 16th at the Cloud 9 bar, and a Players’ Party on the 19th at the Zlaty Storm Club in the old town.

In addition to the main event of a €1,500+150 NLH freezeout with a 20,000 starting stack and 60 minute blind levels, side events will include: daily turbo tournaments, cash games on demand, a €200 Omaha Bounty, a two-day €400 Deepstack event, a Ladies’ event, and the Unibet Team Challenge.

After its success in Riga, Prague will see the return of the Live Blackjack Final – but this year it’ll be even bigger and better, with eighteen players battling it out for a share of the €23,000 prize pool, with €8,000 going to the winner.

Eight online qualifiers will be flying out to participate in Unibet’s first ever Live Betting Final, playing for a share of the €10,000 prize pool, with the winner taking €5,000. Every finalist will also get a Samsung Galaxy tablet computer to use during the Live Betting Final, and will get to keep it no matter where they finish.

In the Poker Million Live Final, six of the winning fifty players of Unibet’s €25,000 rake race won €800 travel packages to compete in a six-handed sit ‘n’ go where the winner will get to draw for a potential €1 million prize!

Don’t despair if you’re not in on the action in Prague; there’s still plenty to play for at Unibet’s online poker room. Check out the $3,500 rake race exclusively at RakeTheRake and also the €6000 of additional promotions and tournaments on offer.

1) Be Selective in the Hands you play – The most important beginners poker tip is to be selective in the hands you play preflop. Sure it’s tempting to play lots of poker hands just to see what will turn up on the flop, but you need to consider all of the money you could be losing when the flop isn’t good. Even when you do hit something on the flop, it can put you in a very difficult situation. For example, if you have As-5h on a flop of Ah-Jd-3s, you’ve got top pair, but the 5h kicker is extremely weak and will be beaten by A-6 or better. Long story short, don’t only think about your hand preflop, but also what situations it will put you in postflop. And remember that folding is one of the best moves in online poker!

2) Always consider Table Position – Aside from the cards you hold, poker table position is the biggest beginners poker concept that players need to learn right away. The reason why is because the later you act in a hand, the more information you have to go off of when making decisions. The best seat to be in is the dealer (button) spot because they act last in the hand (postflop), while seats to the dealer’s right are also fairly desirable. With late position, you get to see who’s raised and shown strength in their hand, which is a huge advantage. If you’re in early position (seats closest to the dealer’s left), you need a stronger hand to play because you’ve got less information to act on.

3) Watch Opponents’ Betting Patterns – You’ve probably heard that online poker is just as much about knowing opponents as it is about the cards you hold. And the best way to understand an opponent in online poker is by watching their betting patterns. Every player has specific betting tendencies based on the strength of their hand, and you’ll move a lot closer to realizing these tendencies when you watch how they bet from each position. For example, some players will bet big in the dealer’s seat with weak cards because they’re hoping to steal the hand. Others will check/call with strong hands in hopes that somebody will raise them, thus setting up a potential trap. The more attention you pay to detail during games, the better you’ll be at figuring out opponents.

4) Always bet with a Purpose – One of the most common beginners poker mistakes out there is not having a goal when making bets. All of the internet poker bets you make should fall into two main categories: forcing a fold (bluffing), or betting for value (getting an opponent to call). When betting to force a fold, you only want to bet the minimum amount that you think will get the job done; otherwise, you risk losing your chip stack when somebody has a great hand. So don’t just raise all-in when bluffing, but instead, raise just the right amount to where that specific opponent will fold. When betting for value with a good hand, the idea here is to make the maximum wager that you think the opponent is willing to call. Basically, you don’t want to scare the other player(s) out of a hand when you’re ahead.

5) Get a Top Rakeback Deal – If you’re totally new to poker, there’s a good chance that you haven’t hear of online poker rakeback. Even if you have heard of it, you may not be entirely clear on how rakeback works. In any case, to get a rakeback deal you need to sign up through a poker affiliate site because you’re essentially splitting their commission for recruiting you. And if you signed up for a 40% rakeback offer at Minted Poker, you would receive 40% of the money back that you pay in poker rake. Assuming you bought into a $100 + $10(rake) poker tournament, the rake would now be reduced to $6.

Looking at things from a broad perspective, the world of poker strategy is seemingly endless, but if you keep the aforementioned five points in mind, it will help you get off to a good start.

In regards to Williams’ record micro stakes profits, he was quoted as saying, “I guess (people were impressed) because no one was playing as many hands as I was and getting such high win rates. And people just thought it was crazy.” He continued by saying, “At the very lowest stakes, I have the most winnings ever on PokerStars at 2NL and 5NL.”

The micro stakes phenomenon also discussed how he got into poker coaching at DTB by saying, “I’ve been blogging for a long time, and in 2010, I got involved with coaching and now I work with DragTheBar.” Since then, he has been giving other players poker strategy advice, and helping them improve their profits. But it appears as if Williams wanted to reach a wider audience with his teachings, so he recently wrote a book called “Crushing the Microstakes.”

One of the more eccentric tips offered in this book includes making preflop raises of 10 times the big blind or more with excellent poker hands to thin out the postflop field. Also, Williams advocates rarely bluffing because of the tendency for micro stakes players to call, and shoving your stack frequently with the nuts because low stakes players overvalue hands and might call.

“Crushing the Microstakes” is definitely an interesting read for those who are having trouble beating low stakes poker games. After all, many players claim micro stakes games can’t be beaten because they use conventional poker strategy methods that don’t work at low limits. Of course, those who perform the best at this level, like Williams, normally use more extreme methods to exploit recreational players who populate the micro stakes.