Most importantly, there are two brand new areas; the RakeTheRake forum and the addition of free poker training, which is on offer to all RakeTheRake players!

But there’s still more! To celebrate our new site we’ve enlisted the help of our poker rooms friends, to bring you three whole months (yes, three!) of totally unique promotions. Each week there will be another very special prize up for grabs; from an all expenses paid trip to the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix to the chance to star in an exclusive televised tournament on The Poker Channel.

But we couldn’t have done any of it without you, the RTR players. Your feedback and insights provided in our player survey last year guided us in the re-development of RakeTheRake.com. So a big thank you to you all.

So was it a fiery argument or shocking scandal that forced both Duke and Hellmuth to leave? Not in the slightest since UB is one of the most reputable poker rooms in the industry, and both players left the company amicably.

Earlier this month, we reported that Hellmuth might be leaving Ultimate Bet and those rumors were confirmed last night. The news broke when Hellmuth sent out a Twitter post that read, “Making a BIG move….leaving UB. Truly lots of great memories, but it’s time to move on…..Mutual decision…..Looking forward to BRIGHT future!”

It’s unclear what Hellmuth’s BRIGHT future includes, but ESPN’s senior poker editor Andrew Feldman speculated by writing the following:

“That said, given Hellmuth’s stature and brand, his most likely fit is either his own site, or him joining forces with the online poker site WSOP.com and becoming the official spokesperson of the brand where his name is found on top of the bracelet leaderboard. Hellmuth has too big of a personality to join a company like Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars and just become part of the team. With his ability to market himself, I’d be shocked to see Hellmuth as a No. 2 to another player on a different site.”

Duke’s decision to leave UB was made because she wants to pursue non-poker opportunities. An excerpt from her final blog post on UB read, “I’ve sincerely enjoyed wearing the UB patch, but it’s time for me to move on. So why am I leaving UB? In a nutshell, personal and professional growth. I’m going to explore and pursue other business opportunities on a full-time basis.”

Duke went on to write, “I have nothing but positive things to say about UB and my experiences with the brand, management, and the incredible people who work hard daily to deliver a terrific online poker experience.” Some of Duke’s non-poker ventures include appearing on the NBC shows 1 vs. 100, Deal or No Deal and Celebrity Apprentice. It’s unclear at this time what she plans to do now that she’s left Ultimate Bet.

What is clear is the end of an era in internet poker. Of course, Ultimate Bet is still in good hands with its young stable of pros including Maria Ho, Brandon Cantu, Joe Sebok, Tiffany Michelle, Eric Baldwin, Bryan Devonshire and Adam Levy. And when you offer some of the highest rakeback in online poker, you don’t need Hellmuth or Duke!

Basically this means that you’ll never have to worry about having enough cash to play poker for at Hollywood.  Their biggest poker tournament of the month is the $200,000 Championchip, and this tourney happens every Sunday.  If one huge tournament on Sunday isn’t enough for you, then you can also enter the $100,000 Sunday Rebuy as well. 

Of course, Sunday isn’t the only day you’ll find huge poker games at Hollywood because they run plenty of other tourneys during the weekdays too.  Some of the holdem poker events you’ll see during the weekdays include $18,000 Nightly Rehab, $16,000 NL Hold’em Shootout, $12,000 NL Hold’em, $12,000 Brazilian Rebuy, $12,000 European Rebuy, and $7,000 NL Hold’em. 

Many of these tournaments run on a daily basis so all you need to do is check the poker software at Hollywood to find the tournament schedule.  Assuming you play in the right tournaments, you might even find a celebrity at your poker table!

In addition to the guaranteed tourneys, there are also plenty of free poker tournaments thus giving people the opportunity to win money without having to risk any cash.  The freerolls are just one of many great online poker deals you’ll find at Hollywood Poker.  Some of the other deals include the Grand Series of Poker, Tournament Mania, and Hollywood Poker Live.  Hollywood Poker Live is an especially exciting promotion because it allows people to win prize packages to huge casino poker events.  San Remo, Croatia, Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, and Ireland are just a few of the places you have a chance to win prize packages to.

Victory Poker, which has around 300 regular players at the cash game poker tables, moved from the Everleaf Network to Cake Poker just recently.  A couple of reasons why Victory made the switch is because they like the online poker deals that Cake offers along with the quality poker software they run too. 

Interestingly enough, the reasons for Victory Poker’s move to the Cake Network is why online poker players choose them too.  And when you factor in the 33% rakeback deals that Cake Poker sites offer, it’s no wonder why this network is getting bigger.

Those who already play poker at Victory are probably wondering when they’ll be able to take advantage of the aforementioned 33% rakeback offers.  Seeing as how most of the Cake poker rooms offer this deal, it shouldn’t be long.

Some of the incredible deals offered at Cake Poker itself include Monday Night Football, Match & Win (collect Gold Cards for $30,000 in monthly prizes), Freeroll into Millions, Gold Chip Tournaments (get into tourneys free with Gold Chips), and $200,000 Sundays.

The $200,000 Sundays poker tournament is particularly interesting since players will have the opportunity to enter this huge tourney through a variety of ways.  People can win their way into the tournament via free poker tourneys or they can play in the less crowded cash satellites.  If you’re going to be playing poker hands all weekend, you can also enter the $100,000 Guaranteed on Saturday.  There are also plenty of other big guaranteed poker tournaments that run every day at Cake Poker.

Following the devastating quake several poker rooms instigated fundraisers promising such features as matching any donation made by poker playing customers. This way, poker players could give to the cause knowing that their donation would be met unconditionally. Players give, the gaming rooms match, simple as that. The figures that piled up were jackpot worthy indeed, Full Tilt Poker received approximately $264,000 donations from players, which when matched rose to an awesome $528,000 in donations to the earthquake victims. Poker Stars also received approximately $475,000 from players and a match of $475,000 from the poker room bringing the take-away pot to an impressive $950,000.

This jackpot was one that players and sponsors alike could both feel happy about handing over. Nobody likes feeling like they’ve lost everything, but there is a big difference between losing everything at the table and really losing everything. The success of these donations programs really looks well upon the gaming crowd and gaming establishments. It’s good to know that when people are really in need, even those holding the best hands are willing to fold and hand over the pot to those who need it the most.

The 172-page bill amendment put forward by the Massachusetts House Speaker, Robert DeLeo, calls for the sections that criminalize online poker and all other forms of Internet gambling to be struck from the bill. Where, before, any wager or bet given or received by any telecommunication device such as cell phones, Internet or telephone was punishable by two years behind bars and a $25,000 fine. With such a hefty threat looming over one’s head, it makes life pre-Internet and pre-temptation seem far more appealing, especially for those already apprehended on charges of online gambling. With the odds stacked against poker playing fans in the United States, it would seem that the news of House Bill 4591 has come as a breath of fresh air and provides a Mecca for online poker enthusiasts who wish to pursue their passion legally.

For those who support the great American pastime a big hand is deserving to State Representative Brian Dempsey who proposed the amendment in the first place and the 25,000-plus members of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) who stepped forward as a single force to push it through the various stages of approval. This mass support was lobbied through emails that were sent out calling all brothers and sisters of online poker playing and gambling to arms over the issue of banning the activity from the state. Panic-stricken, an army of over 25,000 poker-playing enthusiasts inundated their local attorneys and lawmakers with phone calls and emails.

While the Massachusetts State Senate has yet to approve the bill, PPA Kentucky State Director Rich Muny is confident that the bill will enjoy an easy passage. House Bill 4591 seems to have enough support behind it to bypass any veto by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who opposes the bill on the grounds that it also calls for the expansion of slot machines, which do not contribute to job creation. This claim didn’t hold firm as the PPA move adamantly forward with their next project involving House Bill 4069. Proposed by State Representative Brian Wallace, this bill calls for the game of poker to be recognized as a game of skill, effectively putting it in a different category to other casino games, which are ones of chance. This could spell a far more promising future for the legalization of online poker gaming and its entire associated industry.

In the meantime, the House Bills are reaping the heat as dedicated opponents appeal for a counter movement. One such opponent, Ruth Balser, openly reduced the debate to a choice between heaven and hell, life and death and housed or homeless. It remains for the rest of the Massachusetts inhabitants, and possibly in the future, the United States, to deliver their verdict on the matter.

For countries with legal online poker rooms, sign up for rakeback where customers, not the pot, are priority.

With the multitude of online poker sites now available to Internet users it’s a breeze to keep sharp and practice your poker skills right from your own home. However, if you’re new to the game you are probably new to online poker as well. Choosing a site can feel as risky as staying in on a full-out bluff of a hand. However, at RakeTheRake.com you can select from a multitude of poker rooms that let you concentrate on improving your game in an ideal online poker atmosphere.

Right on the homepage you will be provided a list of the most popular online poker rakeback offers and promotions. These promotions and offers are popular for good reason and can be a great way to narrow down a good starting point for new players. Furthermore, unlike other rakeback sites, the majority of promotions are exclusive to their players. What does this mean for you? It means no splits between 3 or 4 outside affiliates who you never even considered to be players in the game.

Online poker and rakeback sites can be confusing and hard to see through just like a well-played hand by a seasoned poker player, but at the best rakeback sites this is not the case.

Check out featured promotions and exclusive tournaments, to win not only cash but also expense paid packages to worldwide live poker events.

Casinos won’t give you any of your rake money back. Poker rooms normally take a 5% cut out of every pot and you will normally see it stacked in the center of the poker table near the dealer. Even you are playing just $499 dollars a month in rake, you can receive $1,800 dollars at the end of the year in rakeback if you sign a 30% rakeback deal.

If you play online poker every single day then you should definitely sign up and receive some extra benefits in playing. RakeTheRake services are free and give you free money just for signing up. All you have to do is sign up at one of RakeTheRake affiliated poker rooms and you can start recouping some rake money right away.

RakeTheRake also works with various sites to offer you great promotions to events and tournaments around the world and other prizes. For example a current promotion at 888′s Pacific Poker gives you 8 ways to win 88 packages to the 2010 World Series of Poker. The Pacific packages and awards equate to over $850,000 worth of World Series of Poker* packages which can be won just by signing up and playing in free roll events.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with RakeTheRake or its partners, products, services promotions or tournaments.

Well it’s a good thing those Internet poker rooms didn’t make a hasty decision because High Stakes Poker’s ratings are actually up in Season 6.  In fact, they’ve soared above Season 5 with the target audience of ages 18 to 49 watching a full 27% more!  So all those poker sites that like to advertise their services and rakeback deals can rest easy with the increased success of Season 6. 

The VP of Programming and Development at GSN, David Schiff, actually believes the improved ratings are a result of the participants themselves as he stated, ““We’re very gratified to see this season of High Stakes Poker performing so well among these important demographic groups, and we can attribute it to an especially strong player lineup this season. We have some of the biggest names in poker this season, including more international players, and the viewers are clearly responding to the outstanding game play.”

Some of the players Schiff is talking about include Patrik Antonius, Antonio Esfandiari, Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Eli Elezra, and Daniel Negreanu.

Getting back to the whole announcer switch, fans of the older format are still complaining that the chemistry between A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan is missing from the show.  They don’t think that Kara Scott works as well with Gabe Kaplan in the booth.  However, it’s hard to argue with the switch when the show has attracted a 27% larger share of the target audience they want.

HeadsUp Entertainment chief officer Kelly Kellner expanded on the reasoning behind trying to buy the CPT by saying, “Over the next 12 months, we will manage more than 550 casino-based events in Canada, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and our Poker Super Cruise, which will attract some of the best poker players in North America. As a result of our relationships with the casinos, some of them exclusive, the online poker companies are realizing that our market reach allows them to market their platforms to players in North America.”

So the primary motivation for HeadsUp Entertainment’s expansion is because they want to be one of the most attractive options for Internet poker companies when it comes time to look for advertising.  In fact, Kellner kind of sounds like he hopes to take over the world with his company (at least as far as online poker goes).

This was apparent when he said, “For competitive reasons, the online poker company [the Canadian Poker Tour] wishes to go unnamed at this time. As the online poker market becomes more competitive, our brand name and our market become more and more valuable. As a result of these negotiations, the numbers here can get very large, very quickly.”

The CPT may not be at the stature of the WSOP* or the World Poker Tour yet, but it is a fast rising organization and could definitely help HeadsUp reach more Americans who like to play poker and are looking for poker rooms where they can collect lots of rakeback.  Early estimates suggest that HeadsUp Entertainment could be advertising to around 40 million US players if their purchase of the CPT is successful.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with RakeTheRake or its partners, products, services promotions or tournaments.