Peter Vilandos won the second WSOP gold bracelet of his poker career the other day, when he came out on top of a $1,500 No Limit Holdem tournament, Event #24 of the 2009 World Series of Poker.

With 2,506 players entering, it brought the total prize pool to $3.5 million, with the top 270 finishers cashing in. Pete’s take was the largest, of course, at $607,256. By the end of the first day of this three-day competition, the field already had been winnowed down to below that amount.

Vilandos’ won his first WSOP bracelet in the 1995 World Series of Poker, $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem event.

Runner-up and recipient of the $372,855 second prize was Andy Seth (the same Andy Seth who won the $130,000 top prize in the 2009 World Poker Challenge in Reno this March), and the $248,855 third prize went to Michael Greco.

Who will be inducted this year in the esteemed Poker Hall of Fame? That’s very much up to you, apparently. You see, the WSOP, the organization that runs the Poker Hall of Fame (yes, the same WSOP that runs the World Series of Poker) has opened up to the public the ability to nominate those people they think should be so honored.

That wasn’t the case when the existing 37 members were inducted, the most recent being last year’s two honoress, Dewey Tomko (twice runner-up in the WSOP Main Event) and Henry Orenstein (the guy who holds the patent for the Hole Card Cam that made televised poker so popular).

This year we all get to vote for nominees. Of course it won’t be us who picks the final inductees, but the WSOP folks who do will be picking from a selection of nominees that we helped select. Two to three people will be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame this year. Pubic voting is open through July 2 and at the 2009 WSOP Main Event the top ten nominees will be revealed.

When a poker site runs a Guaranteed Tournament, the money in that guaranteed prize pool is typically expected to come from the buy-ins of the players entering the competition. But when not enough entrants sign up for a tournament, the poker site doesn’t have enough buy-in money to cover the entire guaranteed prize pool amount, and so has to fork up the difference from their own coffers. This is called an “overlay”, and it’s what Full Tilt Poker had to face multiple times during its FTOPS XII.

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series 12 has just ended and the players, of course, are happy as ever. The FullTilt Poker operators? Not so much. Just look at the main event, for one…

The FTOPS XII main event had a scant 4,581 players paying the $500 + $35, bringing the prize pool to about $2.3 million. Only problem is, the guarantee was $2.5 million, so Full Tilt had to cover the remaining $200,000 from their “profits”. With only $160,000 raked in from the $35 entry fees, Full Tilt took an over $40,000 loss on this event.

Well that was fast! Jamie Gold, winner of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, had barely gotten his feet wet as the latest Aced Poker celebrity endorser and already the sponsorship deal between the two is kaput. Gold had only just signed with Aced Poker in February, making him one of the site’s top two poker stars, alongside Jennifer Leigh (aka “Jennicide”).

This merging between one of poker’s biggest names as the growing Merge Network came just in time for Gold to host a special Oscar Party and charity fundraiser sponsored by Aced Poker to benefit Children Uniting Nations. That was the last time Gold was seen in public representing Aced Poker, and apparently will be the last.

At the heart of the battle is Gold’s publicity agent, Lisa Wheeler, who – depending on reports – either elicited the breakup or merely got stuck in the middle of it. Either way, it appears association with the name Jamie Gold is up for grabs again, and ACED Poker forges on, building its player base with or without him.

Aced Poker has once again introduced a new way to gamble at the online poker table.  Always innovative and never imitated, Aced Poker is proud to introduce its new Flipament and Blitzkrieg Sit N Go Tournaments.

Flipaments are Heads up Sit n Go’s were each player goes all-in preflop on the first hand until a winner takes it down. Aced is running these at as little as $3.10 and up to $105.

Blitzkrieg’s are 6 handed Sit N Go’s were everyone goes all in until a winner takes all.  No skill, all gamble.

As always, I want to know what you think!  Let me know your thoughts on both additions at Aced Poker.  These tournaments are truely a gamblers dream!

As the first ever running of PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker came to an end, and all 42 names on the winners list are announced (that’s 14 events with 3 stakes levels for each event), there was one more winner yet to be named, and it turned out to be Brett Richey (aka “get crunk”).

What event did he win? None of them, actually.

But what Brett Richey did accomplish to deserve the free seat in the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) main event, a prize package that includes a free seat in the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and another prize package including a free seat in the European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final Main Event was come out on top of the SCOOP Leaderboard.

Though Richey didn’t win first place in any of the SCOOP events, he did appear in 5 final tables, and accrued about $95,000 in winnings for doing so. Richey also gets a Player of the Series trophy to commemorate his accomplishment by.

There’s a new addition to Team Ultimate Bet (currently headlined by Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth), and it’s Matt Graham, a World Series of Poker (WSOP) winner. Graham’s WSOP bracelet (and the $278,000 prize that came along with it) was earned in a grueling heads-up match against Jean-Robert Bellande (among other accomplishments a former contestant on Survivor: China). Graham also won $320,000 in a $5,000 event at Doyle Brunson’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

The man who, when he plays online, goes by the name mattg1983 wasn’t the only name to be added to UltimateBet’s ranks. Also signed on board were:

• Tiffany Michelle – took 17th and $334,000 in the 2008 WSOP Main Event (the “last woman standing”)
• Tracy Scala – season one winner of the Best Damn Poker Show
• James “P0KERPR033” Campbell – a true up-and-coming online poker pro
• Adam “Roothlus” Levy – won 5th place and $255,000 in the WPT Fiesta al Lago
• “Hollywood” Dave Stann – a blackjack whiz who made a good showing on the Best Damn Poker Show
• Michael Binger – career winnings of $5 in WSOP events (though no bracelets yet)

These welcome additions to Team Ultimate Bet also serve sister site Absolute Poker, of course.