Former Nº1 tennis player of the world Boris Becker is on his way to become Nº1 in a very different game: poker. “I’ve been training intensely since last year,” Becker told the press and added that he has already signed an important sponsoring contract with one of the most important international online porker tournament organizers.

“What’s fascinating about poker is the psychology of the game: what is the opponent thinking about me and what do I think about him?” the three-time winner of Wimbledon (1985, 1986 and 1989) commented. The German player retired in 1999 and has taken part in exhibition games since then.

Punta del Este, one of the most important tourist destinations in Latin America will be once again the scenery of the prestigious Conrad Poker Tour. The tour starts next March 7th and will have a total of 17 stages that will take place this year and will end with the Big Millionaire Final.

The Poker tournament will be played in two stages between March 7th and 8th. Conrad Casino will contribute with 100,000 dollars to build the start up jackpot and the fee to be part in the tour has been set in 1,500 dollars.

Next 22nd February the Poker.it domain will be sold in an auction in Rome, according to an important Italian newspaper. The event is expected to attract a good number of bidders since it is the first domain an Italian player would enter when looking for a poker site in the country.

Aequiti is the firm in charge of organizing the public sale, which will be held at the offices of Notary Public Igor Genghini, who will supervise the legality of the process. “We have adopted a procedure that allows us to offer a transparent auction, in order to benefit all bidders,” Antonio Vallese, General Manager for Aequiti, explained.

Taking advantage of the interesting platform provided by online communities for the launching and development of different online services, a poker website has recently launched a poker game to be included in the popular community of Facebook.

The poker company made a previous market study in which they found that about 30 million adults play free poker at least 3 hours per week and many more do it sporadically some hours per year.

The announcement of the launching of the Latin American Poker Tour 2008 (LAPT) has raised a big international interest in the last few days. The tourney intends to find the best poker player in Latin America.

Vega Promotional Systems was the chosen enterprise to be in charge of launching the opening season of the tourney that is going to be held in eight Latin American countries during its first stage, specifically Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.

The Women’s World Open poker tournament gathered stars in London. Taking place August 7th to 10th, the event was broadcasted and will be televised in the United Kingdom later this year. Its being characterized as an all-female event raised some controversy.

American trio Jennifer Tilly, Shannon Elizabeth and Liz Lieu were among the 36 players. Tilly is both an Academy Award nominated actress and a WSOP bracelet holder. Also an actress, American Pie’s Shannon Elizabeth made it to the final four in the US NBC’s Heads-Up Championship.

The first WSOP Europe will take place in London from September 6th to 16th. This event will be the first of the circuit to take place outside Las Vegas and will be played in three London casinos.

The European WSOP will consist of three events. The most important one will be the Main Event, with a buy-in of 10,000 pounds. A tournament of six days played in three casinos with a total prize valued in around 7.5 million pound. The winner goes home with a million and a half pounds and a gold bracelet. It'll be the first bracelet to be handled outside US.

The program, which is called Polaris, will play four games of Poker Texas Hold’em. The opponents of the machine will be Phil Laak and Ali Eslami, who are both gamblers positioned in the top places of the high stakes cash poker circuit. The human players will get 5,000 dollars for every match they beat Polaris.

The money earned is not much, in comparison to the prizes players are used to. However, Eslami commented that he had agreed to come to the western Canadian city and compete because of his interest in artificial intelligence.

I-play revealed its videogame catalogue, which will be launched soon. The list of games includes some as popular as “World Pool Championship”, amd other games like “Slingo Quest” and a doctor game called ER Rush. Also, I-play offers a new product, the first mobile series called “Win at Texas Hold Em”, introduced by Daniel Negreanu.

The three-time champion of the World Series of Poker, Daniel Negreanu teaches us through the mobile, with videos, how to find a champion of Texas Hold’em in each user. From the Venetian Hotel & Resort in Las Vegas.

The actor Matt Damon and his colleague and friend Ben Affleck have met at a charity poker event that took place in Las Vegas. ‘Ante up for Africa’ was the name of the event, which aimed to raise money for the victims of the genocide that is currently taking place in Darfur, Sudan.

The event took place at the Rio Hotel. Money raised was transferred to the International Rescue Committee and the Enough Project, both organizations working on providing relief to the region. Refugees have been estimated in two millions.