Poker Stars has made two changes to its UK & Ireland Poker Tour schedule, both of which should be welcomed by PokerStars players. The first is the addition of a new stop on the UKIPT 2010 schedule, and the second is a reduced buy-in for an existing stop on the tour.

The new stop for the UKIPT is in Edinburgh, Scotland. The 2010 UKIPT Edinburgh will take place August 19 – 22, which is the same time that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival will be taking place. The schedule will include many side events, culminating in a main event with a £500+£50 buy-in.

The reduced buy-in is for the UKIPT Dublin stop in Dublin, Ireland. The UKIPT Dublin main event now only costs €500+€60 to enter. The prize pool remains unchanged at €250,000.

Satellites into these UKIPT main events are running throughout the season at PokerStars, with the current satellites being for the UKIPT Brighton, which takes place on July 15 – 19. The UKIPT Kilarney, meanwhile, just started today June 24 and runs through June 27.

In spite of all the younguns picking up the top World Series of Poker title of Main Event champ year after year lately, it seems senior citizens are getting their poker games on too, as evidenced by this year’s largest player pool ever at a WSOP Seniors event.

The event is the $1,000 Seniors’ No Limit Championship, and for the 2010 WSOP it was event #34. Minimum age to enter is 50. The oldest player registered this year was 92.

The record set in 2008 was 2,218 players. Then in 2009 it was beaten with a 2,707 players, a 22% increase. And this year, the trend continues, with 3,148 players registering for the seniors event, this time a 16% increase over the previous year.

This event this year also broke the record for the largest player field ever to sit down in a single day during a World Series of Poker.

The 16th semi-annual Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS XVI) starts this week, on April 23, and runs through the $3 million guaranteed main event on May 2, giving away in total a guaranteed prize pool of $18 million dollars. (And for those of you counting, that’s $1 million more than it was for FTOPS XV).

Following closely on the heels of FTOPS XVI will be the MiniFTOPS XVI, from May 7 to 16, squeezing itself in there in just enough time to be over and done before the 2010 WSOP starts. The guaranteed total prize pool for the MiniFTOPS XVI is $7 million.

Full Tilt Poker is hosting satellite tournaments that offer free seats into the various FTOPS XVI and MiniFTOPS XVI events as their top prizes, including seats in the $640 buy-in FTOPS XVI Main Event.

Along with these satellites, FullTilt is holding Satellite Challenges, FTOPS Challenges, and Leaderboard Challenges for extra winning opportunities.

Full Tilt Points, as you no doubt already know, are the player rewards points for Full Tilt Poker. And for the one week lasting from Saturday, April 3 through Sunday April 11, Full Tilt Poker is giving players a chance to double up in points and earn a cash bonus of up to $25.

During the Full Tilt Poker Take2 promotion, players at all FullTilt’s regular cash ring game tables can earn double the FTPs by playing on at least two tables at once. Play on two tables at the same time and earn double the FTPs at both. You will also earn double the FTPs during the Take 2 promotional period when you play at any Rush Poker table.

Whichever way you go for double the points, the more you do it, the more of a bonus cash prize you make yourself eligible for. Accumulate a minimum of five Take2 bonus points during any five days of the Take2 promotional period and receive a $5 cash bonus. Do it on all 9 days of the Take2 promotional period and receive an extra $20, making for a total bonus of $25.

UB.com, the leading poker site formerly known as Ultimate Bet Poker, is the latest online poker room holding a promotion in which they’ll be awarding players free entries into the 2010 World Series of Poker main event.

The $12,000 2010 WSOP Main Event prize package not only includes the $10,000 buy-in for the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event but luxury hotel accommodations throughout the event and some spending cash as well.

One of the special treats about the UB.com 2010 WSOP promotion is that players are allowed to win multiple times. That means once you’ve won one $12,000 main event prize package, you are free to keep playing in the promotion and try to win another…and another…and another…and so on. Win as many times as you possibly can and for each extra prize package you win above and beyond your first you’ll receive UB.com tournament dollars in the equivalent amount. Apply those tournament dollars towards entry into other major UB.com online poker tournaments and satellites into other major live land-based poker tournament events.

What’s more, UB.com will be tracking a leader board of all players who win one or more 2010 WSOP Main Event prize packages, awarding a special cash bonus to the 5 players who wins the most prize packages throughout the promotion. These cash prizes range from $750 (for 5th) to $5,000 (for 1st).

For this year’s UB.com 2010 WSOP promotion, the site is running Sit and Go satellites and Super Satellites, some of them 25-50 seat-guarantees.

Barney Frank spearheaded the issue in 2009, introducing two new bills into Congress—one, in essence, delaying implementation of the law passed in 2006 that would make it illegal for poker sites to allow U.S. players; the other, setting up regulations for legalizing online poker in the U.S.—but neither one has seen the light of day, no matter how much support it’s garnered (and it’s garnered a lot!)

And today it is not either of Rep. Frank’s online poker bills making headlines, but a new bill crafted by 2 senators: Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Judd Gregg. And in truth, the bill is about a lot more than just legal online poker for U.S. residents.

The Tax Fairness and Simplification Act aims to make it easier for peole to files their taxes. That’s what its main goal is. But the bill is filled with addons including one that permits legal online poker gambling in the U.S. (presumably for the intelligent reason of bringing the state revenues to perhaps cover the costs of the bill).

Whatever the bill’s main or primary aims, we can only hope that the part about legalizing online poker in the U.S. finally gets through.

The 2010 WSOP schedule is out now, and it’s got a few interesting changes in store for players, the first of which is two rooms in the Rio to compete in instead of one. The 51-day schedule of 57 events (at least gold bracelet events) starts May 27 and runs through July 17, with the final table of the main event happening November 6 through 9. As always, ESPN will be televising much of the 2010 WSOP tournaments, including the main event. And as always, most of the good poker sites online are or will soon be running satellites and qualifiers into the 2010 WSOP, including the Main Event.

Other differences notable on the 2010 WSOP schedule from years before include a $10,000 HORSE championship instead of a $50,000 one, the $50,000 event becoming an 8-game mixed event. There will also be a $25,000 six-max event in NL Holdem for high-rolling fans of short-handed play.

Who will be the next Joe Cada?

So now that Congress has pushed back the date that the UIGEA is supposed to go into effect, 6 months from its original Dec. 1 deadline for online poker operators to comply with its restrictions against allowing US players on their sites, Barney Frank and his colleagues on the pro poker side of the argument are pushing ahead with the long and arduous task of convincing the other side that this is a good idea.

Last Thursday, Frank et al held a preliminary hearing on one of the bills in particular, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act (also known as H.R. 2267). Support for its passage seemed overwhelming, with one unfortunate exception.

That came, of course, from the head of the opposition to legal U.S. poker, congressman Spencer Bachus who had the FBI put together a report answer 6 questions pertinent to the subject, including: protections from cheating and collusion, underage gambling, and money laundering. The findings of the study, as reported by the FBI Assistant Director of the Cyber Division, Shawn Henry, lend weight to the anti-poker argument. How much weight? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Online poker players and providers alike can take a big sigh of relief as the start-date for implementing enforcement on the 1006 UIEGA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) that would punish online poker operators severely for allowing U.S. residents to play on their sites. All online gambling companies, online poker at the top of the list, were required to get everything in place to be able to have their systems identify and reject U.S. players attempting to join, and of course kick all existing U.S. customers of theirs off their site, by December 1, 2009.

But because of several bills on Congress’s desk now, waiting for review, including 2 from Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts (one of online poker and online gambling’s biggest and most vocal supporters), the Senate and House have voted to extend the Dec. 1 deadline by 6 months. That means poker sites have more time to prepare their systems for this crackdown, online poker players have more time to enjoy playing on their favorite sites, and most of all, it means that the online poker movement has more time to convince those in power to forget about the UIGEA and make online poker in the U.S. legal.

isildur1 might be the name on everyone’s lips these days, as the unknown players sweeps $6 million off the tables last week (mostly from NL Holdem superstar Tom durrrr Dwan, of the self-named Million Dollar Challenge), but there’s another “old-timer” (comparatively speaking) on everyone’s lips today, and it happens to be another poker pro who lost big to isildur1, that being Patrik Antonius (to the tune of about $1 million).

But Antonius bounced back from that $1 million loss on Full Tilt Poker nicely, taking down the record-breaking largest sized pot in online poker history. And to make the $878,959 pot even sweeter for Antonius, the opponent he won it from was none other than isildur1 himself.

The previously record, appropriately enough, was set by durrrr himself, $723,000 won off Di “Urindanger” Dang in October of 2008.

This time, the game was heads-up Pot Limit Omaha and the table stakes were $500/$1,000. When they sat down at the table, both players started with over $400,000 each.