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Yesterday PokerStars announced that it would be ending its sponsorship relationship with 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Joe Hachem. Hachem was “officially” signed soon after his historic win in 2005 and has become one of the most recognizable faces of the site in the years since. Hachem has also proven to be one of the best (if not the best) WSOP Champion in the Internet era of poker.

The parting seems to have been cordial, with Hachem offering up the following statement on the PokerStars blog:

“It’s been a great run with PokerStars and I’m proud of my association with the people and the company… But it’s time for me to pursue other career opportunities and it will be fun to have some down time to spend with my family. I look forward to the future with much excitement and anticipation and will always have fond memories of my time at PokerStars.”

PokerStars Head of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser added:

“Joe has been a terrific endorser for PokerStars over the years, and while we are sad to see him leave the Team we are looking forward to continuing to watch him play… We thank him for all he’s done for our brand and for poker and we wish him all the best at the poker table and in life.”

In addition to his $7.5 million payday for the 2005 Main Event win, Hachem has tallied a number of other achievements in his poker career including a World Poker Tour victory in 2006, two WSOP final tables, a Late Night Poker victory, and a runner-up finish in this year’s Big Event at the Bike. All told Hachem is #9 on the all-time tournament money list with $11,339,302 according to thehendonmob.com.

In 2011 the World Series of Poker Europe moved from London, England to Cannes, France, and it seems the poker world took notice considering the massive surge in attendance. In addition to the more amenable locale of the French Riviera (October in London is not known for its sunshine and beaches after all) there was also the allure of the television cameras with ESPN set to broadcast an unprecedented six hours of coverage from the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe tournament series beginning this weekend.

Beginning at 6PM EDT on Sunday December 18^th, poker fans can watch highlights from the 2011 WSOPE on ESPN 2, beginning with the Caesar’s Cup Tournament, pitting the Phil Hellmuth-led Americas Team against the Bertrand Grospellier-led team from Europe.

After the 1-hour Caesar’s Cup episode the real action begins as ESPN 2 hosts five straight hours of coverage from the 2011 WSOPE Main Event. The familiar voices of Lon McEachern and Norman Chad will be responsible for the play-by-play, of the record-setting tournament that saw 593 entrants cough-up the €10,000 entrant’s fee. The 593 participants created the largest overall prize-pool in French Tournament poker history, as well as the largest first-place prize at $7,836,414 and $1,927,310 respectively.

“We continue to be proud of our deep relationship with ESPN to deliver fresh programming to poker fans,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “As the only European tournament broadcast in the United States, WSOP Europe has become one of the most prestigious events in the world in just a few years time.”

On Thursday Subject: Poker reported that Full Tilt Poker and Groupe Bernard Tapie had taken the next step in completing a deal that would see the Bernard Tapie-led group of investors take the helm of the struggling online poker site. According to Subject: Poker, a source stated that an agreement was in place that would see Full Tilt Poker transfer their assets to GBT (through the US DOJ), after a majority vote by shareholders.

Interestingly, the sources cited are not ruling out current owners (sans the Board of Directors) from having an equity stake in the new Full Tilt Poker under Groupe Bernard Tapie. According to the report:  “Any current owners that are interested in receiving equity in the new company will be required to purchase minimal shares at an agreed-upon price. Such equity will always remain passive, with no managerial control, or voting privileges. The board of directors will not be eligible to participate.”

According to Subject: Poker’s source, Full Tilt poker shareholders passed the plan by more than the 2/3 vote needed, which now moves the potential sale into Phase 2. Full Tilt Poker’s assets will now be forfeited to the Department of Justice who will then sell these assets to Groupe Bernard Tapie for the agreed upon price of $80 million.

According to previous reports, the DOJ will take over the responsibility of repaying US players (estimated to be in the neighborhood of $150 million) while Groupe Bernard Tapie would be responsible for the additional $150 million Full Tilt poker owes to players from the rest of the world.

There has still been no official statement by Full Tilt Poker, Groupe Bernard Tapie, or the US Department of Justice, but it should be noted that Subject: Poker has an extremely high success rate when it comes to Full Tilt Poker news, and their source on these matters seems to be very high up in the food chain.

Over the past few weeks a number of online poker sites have made a major course correction in an attempt to win over causal poker players. The first site to make changes for the benefit of casual players was Bodog, which changed all of its poker tables to Anonymous Tables in an effort to deter data-mining by skilled grinders. The Microgaming Poker Network followed Bodog’s lead and expanded the number of Anonymous Tables they offered, and the Everleaf Poker Network announced their own change in policy by limiting “winning” players’ access to certain tables.

For an idea of what these sites are fighting against take a look at this statistic cited by Minted Poker (a skin on the Everleaf Poker Network) that puts into perspective the type of income inequality the network is dealing with: “Less than 0.004% of the entire player pool [will be affected]…It is this 0.004% of the player pool that accounts for over 50% of the net win on the entire network,” the 0.004% they are speaking of is players earning over €750/week at the poker tables.

Players affected by the “Shark Net”, as Everleaf is calling the new policy, will be met with the following pop-up at certain tables, “You are not allowed to play on this table because your player rating is too high.” Conversely, plow rated players will see the following pop-up should they attempt to sit down at a table not protected by the “Shark Net”, “The rating of the table is higher than yours, do you really want to play on this table?”

Earlier this week Phil Galfond made a lengthy blog post on his BlueFire Poker blog announcing he would be parting with the site in the very near future; later in the day the post was moved to the site’s forums and Galfond’s account password had been changed, denying him access to the site. The news came as quite a shock to BlueFire Poker members who took to the forums looking for answers.

Well, after becoming the obligatory drama-bomb of the day at the 2+2 poker forums, BlueFire Poker promised a statement in the near future. The statement finally came on Wednesday, and needless to say, the explanation (or lack thereof) has done little put out the small fire that Galfond’s departure has caused.

Link to Galfond’s original post

Link to 2+2 thread on the matter (that has reached an absurd 68 pages at this point!)

Here is a look at the BlueFire Poker statement made very early Wednesday morning:

Hello Members,

I am a co-founder of BlueFirePoker and started the site with Phil. A former professional player myself, we started BlueFirePoker with the goal of creating the highest quality training content for players looking to get an edge, and we built a team that has enabled us to make that possible.

We at BlueFirePoker are sad to see Phil leave. It’s been a privilege to work with a player of his caliber—he has contributed a lot to the game and this community. Since his announcement, there has been a lot of conversation in the community about his departure. We would like to clarify some of the confusion.

We want to start by saying we would like to extend our apologies for the miscommunication about moving Phil’s important message to the community. The announcement was moved from the blog section of our website to the forums. We also announced the statement via our Twitter feed, with a link to the announcement, but it still led to some confusion as to where the message had gone.

We are going to continue to seek the top talent in the poker community to create the best videos and content for our subscribers. We have formed a team that enables our subscribers to have access to top-tier coaches— across cash games, SNGs and MTTs. We’ll continue to build on what we’ve created and will have opportunities on the way to improve the BlueFirePoker experience for the thousands of subscribers who use our training resources.

Let us know what you’d like to see and any questions you have. Also, visit http://www.bluefirepoker.com/announcementfaq.htm for additional information.

Thank you for helping us make BlueFirePoker the best poker training resource available.

Billy Murphy