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With 2012 now upon us we are starting to see a number of European countries crack-down on unlicensed online poker providers, with France following in the footsteps of their neighbor to the west Belgium. Countries are now calling for ISP providers to block all unlicensed online gaming sites in the country.

The French decree comes from the state website Legifrance.gouv.fr and calls for all French ISPs to block residents of France from playing at any online gambling sites not licensed by the Autorité de Régulation Des Jeux en Ligne (ARJEL).

While the law itself has been on the books since France legalized online poker in 2010, the new decree is meant to ramp up the enforcement and put an end to unlicensed providers. Poker players are drawn to some of the unlicensed sites for a number of different reasons: Since the unlicensed sites do not pay taxes or an initial licensing fee to ARJEL rake can be lower at these sites, but more importantly unlicensed sites are able to offer French players access to a global player base, not simply other French residents.

Belgium, which recently licensed three online poker rooms of their own, is another country calling on ISPs to block unlicensed sites, and the pending Spanish regulations (set to go into effect at the end of June after a 6-month delay) would ask ISPs to do the same.

All that said, the big question will be whether or not the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) decide to enforce these laws, which have been criticized in some circles as violating EU laws.

After managing to hold of Rafi Amit for the title of the ‘Biggest Winner in Online Poker for 2011’, Ilari “Ilari_Fin” Sahamies apparently has set his sights on even more high-stakes action as he told the poker site pokernyhederne.com that he has been eying the growing high-stakes action on the Entraction Poker Network with interest.

Sahamies was the biggest winner on PokerStars during 2011, taking in nearly $2.2 million in profits from the site (playing as Ziigmund, Sahamies lost roughly $700k on Full Tilt poker before the site was shutdown in late June) a huge turnaround from the atrocious 210 campaign he suffered that had him questioning his poker skills and nearly quitting the game!

Even 2011 started off very slowly for the Finnish star, as he was not only down $700k on Full Tilt Poker, but a further $870k on PokerStars by the end of July before turning it all around with a $3 million heater from August to December on PokerStars.

Sahamies was not the largest winner overall, that title went to Gus Hansen who was up nearly $4 million at Full Tilt poker before the site went dark on June 29^th (so who knows how much of, if any, of his money Hansen and the other Full Tilt Poker players will ever see).

Since the Full Tilt poker numbers are suspect from a value standpoint, here is a look at the 10 biggest winners during 2011 from PokerStars:

1. Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies — $2,183,832
2. Rafi “refaelamit” Amit — $2,105,597
3. Viktor “Isildur1” Blom — $1,472,695
4. Jens “Jeans89” Kyllönen — $1,377,019
5. Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane — $1,197,672
6. Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser — $1,191,110
7. 1Ill1Ill1ill — $1,160,769
8. Andreas “skjervoy” Torbergsen — $1,132,635
9. L0ve2playU — $1,092,399
10. Benny “Toweliestar” Spindler — $1,070,907

In one of the closest Player of the Year races in recent memory, Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov was able to outpace Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier for the 2011 BLUFF Magazine Player of the Year Award by a margin of less than 18 points.

Katchalov’s 2011 tournament campaign started with a big win at the 2011 PCA, where Katchalov captured the $100k Super-High-Roller title (and about $1.5 million in prize-money) after defeating Daniel Negreanu for the title.  From there Katchalov went on to win his first WSOP bracelet, final table a second WSOP tournament, final table the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event, and finish 3^rd at the EPT Barcelona Main Event. In the process Eugene also surpassed the $7 million mark in career tournament earnings, good enough for 36^th place on the all-time money list according to thehendonmob.com.

Here is a look at the final standings for the 2011 BLUFF Magazine Player of the Year Award:

1. Eugene Katchalov – 1,089.28
2. Bertrand Grospellier – 1,071.67
3. Ben Lamb – 988.10
4. Matt Waxman – 968.20
5. Steve O’Dwyer – 964.77
6. Sam Trickett – 938.32
7. Marvin Rettenmaier – 935.14
8. Chris Moorman – 925.88
9. Elio Fox –  920.45
10. Pius Heinz – 892.75

For a look at the complete BLUFF Magazine leader-board you can visit www.bluffmagazine.com

BLUFF Magazine created their Player of the Year formula back in 2005, when Phil Ivey became the first recipient of the award, since then BLUFF POY Award winners have included Chad Brown (2006), Bill Edler (2007), John Phan (2008), Jason Mercier (2009), and Sorel Mizzi (2010).

The accolades seem to keep coming to Ben Lamb in 2011. The 2011 World Series of Poker Player of the Year can now add the title of 2011 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year to his impressive resume, after hanging on to the #1 spot and surviving a late push by several other poker players including the UK’s Chris Moorman who finished in second-place on the Card Player POY leader-board.

Lamb’s rise to tournament prominence was due to his remarkable 2011 WSOP run that may very well go down as the best WSOP in the history of the game. In addition to picking up his first WSOP bracelet in 2011, Lamb cashed four other times at the WSOP, with his worst showing being a 12^th place finish in the $10k 6-Max NLHE Championship. Of course the highlight of Lamb’s WSOP was his run in the Main Event, which saw him fizzle out in 3^rd place.

Lamb can now join Daniel Negreanu as the only player to win both the WSOP and Card Player POY awards in the same year (John Phan managed to capture the Card Player and Bluff POY awards in the same year in 2008).

Here is a look at the final standings for the 2011 Card Player Magazine POY award:

1. Ben Lamb — 6,036 points
2. Chris Moorman — 5,875 points
3. Oleksii Kovalchuk — 5,494 points
4. Marvin Rettenmaier — 5,056 points
5. Sam Stein — 4,505 points
6. Jason Mercier — 4,396 points
7. Elio Fox — 4,320 points
8. Galen Hall — 4,284 points
9. Eugene Katchalov — 4,258 points
10. Steve O’Dwyer — 4,174 points

You can view the complete leader-board at www.cardplayer.com

The man synonymous with the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) has decided not to renew his contract as a Team PokerStars Pro according to a post he made on the 2+2 forum. The first hint of the split between PokerStars and EPT founder John Duthie came from 2+2 Moderator “KevMath” who posted, “I’ve heard from a source close to John Duthie, one of the main people behind the creation of the European Poker Tour, that he is no longer part of Team PokerStars.”

EPT founder John Duthie later posted in the thread to clear up any misconceptions after a number of people started guessing at the reason Duthie’s image no longer appeared on the Team PokerStars Pro page. With people believing a nuber of different “levels” being presented in the thread, Duthie made a short post explaining that he simply didn’t renew his contract with the site (a decision that seems to have been Duthie’s based on his post).

“Hey Guys….I’m afraid this decision had nothing to do with the VPP situation or the ‘Sit-Out’; it was quite simply that I didn’t want to renew my contract which expired 31st December. There was also no Tweet to this effect. All very self-centred to be honest,”

Duthie sold an undisclosed percentage of the EPT to PokerStars several years ago, and has remained the EPT CEO since. It’s unclear at this time if Duthie parting ways with Team PokerStars Pro will have any impact on his position with the PokerStars EPT.

In addition to his pre-poker career as an award-winning director and producer, Duthie has also earned $2.7 million at the poker tables according to thehendonmob.com’s tournament database, most notably winning the £1 million first-place-prize at the Poker Million in 2000.