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One of the preeminent poker tournaments in the world will kick-off on Thursday as the World Poker Tour (WPT) invades the Connecticut woods for the Foxwoods World Poker Finals, a staple on the WPT for 10 years now. The World Poker Finals has been part of the WPT since the tour debuted in 2002, and has been the Genesis of many careers, and has seen big names like Howard Lederer, Hoyt Corkins, Nick Schulman, Nenad Medic, Cornel Andrew Cimpan, and Jonathan Little.

The inaugural WPT World Poker Finals in 2002 featured a final table that included future poker stars Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Layne Flack, and Andy Bloch, as well as two other poker pros in Pete Giordano and Ron Rose – Definitely on the short-list for the honor of being the toughest final tables in poker history.

Past winners at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals include:

• 2002 – Howard Lederer
• 2003 – Hoyt Corkins
• 2004 –Tuan Le
• 2005 – Nick Schulman
• 2006 – Nenad Medic
• 2007 – Mike Vela
• 2008 – Jonathan Little
• 2009 – Cornel Andrew Cimpan
• 2010 – Jeff Forrest
• 2011 – ???

The Main Event will once again feature a $10,000 buy-in, and is scheduled to take place over a six-day period. Unlike many other major tournaments, the Foxwoods World Poker Finals will feature only a single starting day, Thursday, October 27, with the final table slated for November 1.

Over the years there have been plenty of thorns in the side of the Full Tilt Poker, from Clonie Gowen to Deliverance Poker, and now that the site has taken on water in the aftermath of Black Friday, the floodgates are completely opened in terms of litigation against the site. One lawsuit in particular will see Full Tilt Poker take on a pair of old adversaries in Greg Omotoy and Lary Kennedy.

Kennedy and Omotoy filed a lawsuit against the site in 2010, claiming the site improperly seized their funds –Full Tilt’s version of the story was that the pair was multi-accounting (a charge the pair admitted to) and employing poker bots (a charge the pair denies), both of which violate the site’s Terms and Conditions. The case filed by the duo against Full Tilt Poker was eventually dismissed.

Now Kennedy and Omotoy have filed a new Class Action lawsuit, which deviates from a number of other Class Action suits filed in the wake of Black Friday, since Kennedy and Omotoy are seeking not only the frozen funds of players at the site, but also claiming the site “misappropriated funds from player accounts and fed it to the defendants,”.

This lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar complaint filed by several high profile poker players including Todd Terry which is seeking some $150 million in restitution for US players. A similar suit was also filed in Canada.

Full Tilt Poker is also facing litigation from a former rival, Cardroom International, which claims that Full Tilt Poker used their ad-buying clout to force networks like ESPN to use Full Tilt Poker’s software for their play-money sites.

After a total of four days of action at the European Poker Tour San Remo (including two starting flight days), Chris McClung has taken the lead with just over 1.2 million chips. The Day 3 starting field of 144 was whittled down to just 64 players, with the top 128 finishers receiving money prizes.

The money bubble finally broke in a hand that pitted eventual leader McClung against Christian Troger. The flop came down 10-7-4 rainbow, with McClung betting 13,000 and Troger raising to 26,000. McClung raised again, forcing Troger to call all-in. McClung showed K-K offsuit while Troger displayed A-7 of spades. A jack and 8 on the turn and river provided no help to either player, knocking out Troger in 129th and ensuring a cash prize for all remaining players.

Joseph Cheong, the Day 2 chip leader, had a roller coaster day, taking bad beats and winning large pots while eliminating William Thorson and ultimately finishing with 833k chips. On the key hand, Cheong completed a straight on the river and Thorson folded without showing a card.

Team PokerStars Pro has done remarkably well in this event so far. Johnny Lodden, John Duthie, Lex Veldhuis and Vanessa Selbst will all return on Day 4, along with PokerStars Team Online Pro Luca Moschitta. Elio Fox, winner of the 2011 WSOPE Main Event, is standing strong as well with 652k chips. Noted pros Alessio Isaia and Daniel Neilson will bring deep stacks of 818k and 853k, respectively, to Day 4 as well.

Of course, the final 64 didn’t have room for every big-name pro poker player. Kyle Johnson, Steve O’Dwyer, Taylor Paur and Toby Lewis were among those who headed to the cash cage before they would’ve liked.

Although the pace of play has varied considerably over the course of EPT San Remo, it’s possible that a final table could be decided on Day 4.

Although this past Sunday at PokerStars wasn’t quite as big as the Double Vision Sunday of last week (in which the Sunday Million and Sunday Warm-Up were played twice), several players managed to end the day with six-figure scores, and prize money guarantees were busted across the board as usual.

The biggest win of the day went to unidentified U.K. online poker player Spyver, who took down over $190k in the Sunday Million after striking a deal with runner-up GoldenOne306. The latter player received $158k, while third-place finisher agovque69 earned $105k. It took 10 hours to reach the final table. A total of 6,585 runners generated a prize pool worth over $1.3 million.

The Sunday Warm-Up also had its $500k guarantee busted when 3,395 players paid buy-ins of $215 each. Noted poker pro Casey Jarzabek entered the final table as the chip leader and struggled until five-handed play began. He ended up striking a three-handed deal and winning the tournament, earning $83k in the process. Runners-up TTycho and 4betUr3bet received $82k and $77k, respectively.

The Sunday Storm had a slight raise in attendance this week, drawing 32,106 players to pay buy-ins of $11. Simultanka1 got the biggest piece of the $321k prize pool, taking down nearly $26k after striking a heads-up deal with VINIVINT. The latter player received just under $22k.

The biggest buy-in tournament of the week was the Sunday 500, in which 712 entrants generated a $356k prize pool by paying $530 each. Dean Price won the tournament outright without a deal, earning $64k. Runner-up Alexander Petersen took down $46k for his impressive finish.

There are now three different outlets ranking tournament poker players, the Global Poker Index, Card Player Magazine, and BLUFF Magazine, each of which uses their own criteria, and each tracks players over a different period of time. Two of these outlets, Card Player Magazine and BLUFF Magazine, award Player of the Year awards, while the Global Poker Index looks at players over a three-year period in order to determine their precise rankings at any point in time.

So without any further delay, here is a look at the current standings for the GPI, BLUFF, and Card Player (accurate as of 10/24/2011):

Global Poker Index

1. Erik Seidel — 2586.96 points
2. Eugene Katchalov — 2495.42 points
3. Bertrand Grospellier — 2477.27 points
4. Jason Mercier — 2390.62 points
5. Sorel Mizzi — 2344.31 points
6. Fabrice Soulier — 2257.90 points
7. Thomas Marchese — 2058.11 points
8. Juha Helppi — 2031.39 points
9. Shawn Buchanan — 2006.75 points
10. Scott Seiver — 2003.33 points

www.globalpokerindex.com

Card Player Magazine

1. Chris Moorman — 5,875 points
2. Sam Stein — 4,505 points
3. Marvin Rettenmaier — 4,442 points
4. Elio Fox — 4,320 points
5. Galen Hall — 4,284 points
6. Eugene Katchalov — 4,048 points
7. Matthew Waxman — 4,005 points
8. Erik Seidel — 3,966 points
9. Maxim Lykov — 3,876 points
10. Alessio Isaia — 3,828 points

www.cardplayer.com

BLUFF Magazine

1. Eugene Katchalov — 1,077.38 points
2. Matthew Waxman — 968.20 points
3. Bertrand Grospellier — 966.48 points
4. Marvin Rettenmaier –  926.05 points
5. Chris Moorman — 879.98 points
6. Elio Fox — 877.25 points
7. Stephen O’Dwyer — 841.32 points
8. Erik Seidel –  833.29 points
9. Samuel Stein — 822.57 points
10. Maxim Lykov — 820.56 points

www.bluffmagazine.com