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After an uproar from their player base Party Poker has put their new rake structure on hold for the time being, and may possibly scrap the idea altogether. Here is a look at what was supposed to take place at the end of the month:

For some players the changes to the Party Poker rake structure and calculation method will be met with cheers, and for other players it will be met with absolute scorn, as the site has made some major changes to not only the way players are credited with having contributed to the rake (switching from the “Dealt” method to the “Weighted” method) but the site has also dropped the stakes eligible for the Maximum rake collection of $5 from $15/$30 down to $3/$6.

The reason the switch from the “dealt” to the “weighted” method matters so much is that Party Poker patrons receive Two Party Points for every $1 in rake they are seen as contributing. Under the “Dealt” method each player at the table would receive credit for the same amount of rake contribution as long as they were dealt into the hand –In a 6-handed game where $3 in rake was collected each player would be credited with $.50 in rake (1 Party Point).

Using the “Weighted” method players are credited by the amount of the pot they have contributed to. So in the same 6-handed game if two players each contributed $30, and another player contributed $10, the rake would be divided amongst these three players only with the two players contributing $30 receiving credit for about $1.25 in rake each and the player contributing $10 credited with about $.50 in rake.

Obviously this means that players who employ a looser strategy will earn more Party Points, while tighter players will see their Party Points decrease under the new method.

For more information on the new rake structure at Party Poker you can visit their website at www.PartyPoker.com

The third official day of action at the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker tournament is now in the books, and poker pro Jeff Vertes has established a decisive lead over the competition. With just over 2.7 million chips, Vertes represents a major challenge for 2nd and 3rd place contenders James Carroll and David Daneshgar, who have amassed 1.9 million and 1.85 million chips, respectively.

Ken Aldridge put on a relatively impressive performance as well, maintaining his 1.5 million chip stacks throughout the day to move from 1st place into a respectable 6th for Day 4.

99 players took to the felt on Day 3, with money from the prize pool set aside for the top 81 finishers. The worst bad beat of the day belonged to Joe Ressler, who was eliminated immediately before the money bubble was broken despite holding A-K suited. Ressler was preceded in elimination by a number of respected pros including Jeff Madsen, Jon Friedberg, Tom Braband, Hafiz Khan and Jason DeWitt.

Plenty of notable talent was knocked out within the money bubble, including Allen Kessler in 28th, J.C. Tran in 39th, Jamie Gold in 67th, Dan O’Brien in 69th and Greg Mueller in 78th.

Also eliminated was former World Poker Tour champion Dwyte Pilgrim, who pushed all-in with A-J offsuit only to be dominated by James Carroll’s Broadway straight.

Aside from Vertes, most of the payers in the top 10 have chip stacks comparable to Carroll and Daneshgar. Places 4 through 10 are comprised of Joshua Pollock, Mike Eskandari, Ken Aldridge, Will Failla, Shawn Buchanan, Owais Ahmed and Adam Aronson, with the smallest chip stack just under 1.1 million.

The remaining competitor pool of 21 will play down to a final table on Day 4. A grand prize of $758k is reserved for the winner.

Another Sunday’s worth of major online poker tournaments went down this past weekend at PokerStars, and three players came away with scores well above $100k. As usual, several of the tournaments ended with deals made among the top finishers. What wasn’t so usual was the fact that, in two of the events, the outright winner didn’t walk away with the largest cash prize.

The PokerStars Sunday Million was the richest tournament of the week, with 100 additional players compared to last week. A total of 6,624 players paid $215 buy-ins to generate a prize pool of $1,324,800. The final three players included Bostero10, LEXER1986 and NhPokah, the latter of whom fought back from a massive chip deficit to secure the outright win. NhPokah’s trip 8′s was enough to knock out Bostero10′s A-4, and heads up play concluded shortly thereafter. NhPokah, LEXER1986 and Bostero10 earned scores of $142k, $152k and $162k, respectively due to a unique three-way deal.

The Sunday Warm-Up included about half as many players and the same buy-in, creating a prize pool of $632,200. The top five players made a deal payouts as follows:

5. SirMoonMann – $39,470
4. vasil1976197 – $72,533
3. luwis – $49,568
2. Doroshev G – $66,693
1. WATnlos – $60,847

The most expensive tournament of the week at PokerStars was the Sunday 500, which attracted 755 players to pay a buy-in of $530 each to create a $377.5k prize pool. Milana Jones took the top prize of over $68k.

The biggest tournament of the week was the Sunday Storm. With a buy-in of just $11, 31,179 players entered for a shot at the $312k prize pool. No deal was struck at the final table, and DODIK_01 slogged through the extensive competition to earn just over $29k.

In his most recent blog post, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu made a very fitting analogy between the current state of online poker in the United States and the way the U.S.S.R. was portrayed during the Cold War, saying: “For this of you who can, I really suggest moving out of the Unites States of America to a country that will allow you the freedom to play poker in your underwear… During the cold war, the Big, Bad, Communist U.S.S.R.” was seen as an oppressive regime, while the U.S.A. represented freedom. Who woulda thunk, that to enjoy the freedom of playing poker online you’d have to move away from Los Angeles and head to Moscow. That’s just bizarre,”

Negreanu, who finds himself back in his native Canada, living in Toronto, in order to take part in the WCOOP that will be running on PokerStars in early September, the transition back to the world of online poker has been pretty seamless, primarily because the native-born Canadian already possessed a Canadian Passport and simply needed to setup a bank account in order to fund his online account. Negreanu explained his current plans on his blog by saying: “As for my online poker plan, I’m probably just going to jump into whatever games seem the most lively, which at this point looks to be pot limit Omaha… I’m going to stick to the $25/$50 game for now until I get used to playing online again. I’m hoping to play a bit of everything really, just fun to have that option again,”

Negreanu joins a long list of players that have relocated around the globe, including Phil Galfond and Olivier Busquet (both of whom also went to Canada); William Reynolds who found some very nice digs in Costa Rica; and Justin Bonomo who settled on Malta as his new home.

You can read the entire blog post at Negreanu’s Full Contact Poker site

Day 1b of the European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event went down yesterday, and the PokerStars-sponsored live tournament was filled to capacity. A staggering 465 players arrived, all in pursuit of the incredible 850,000 Euro reserved for first place. Including the players from Day 1a, a total of 811 individuals paid buy-ins to generate a prize pool of well over 4 million Euro.

The overall chip leader at present is Guillaume Darcourt of France, who holds 195,300 chips following an impressive performance on Day 1b. The pivotal moment came when Darcourt managed to bluff his opponents with Q-4 on a garbage board, finally stealing the pot on the river. Darcourt’s 35th place finish in this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, not to mention a WPT title and a penchant for big-stack play, lends credence to the notion that he could contend for the EPT Barcelona title.

A number of others have the same thing in mind, with names such as James Mitchell, Matthias De Meulder, Marvin Rettenmaier, Vytautas Milvydas, Leo Fernandez and Eugene Katchalov close behind Darcourt’s chip lead. Katchalov is especially dangerous at 153,100 chips, while Milvydas is even closer with 172,400.

A number of PokerStars Pros also remain in the action, albeit with smaller chip stacks, including Victor Ramdin, Arnaud Mattern, Jason Mercier and Ivan Demidov. Famed tennis pro Boris Becker, who also has a unique sponsorship deal with PokerStars, earned nearly 48,000 chips after a series of battles with Bertrand Grospellier.

Just as many household names were ejected from the field prior to Day 2, including Liv Boeree, Daniel Negreanu, Roberto Romanello, Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom, John Duthie and Chris Moneymaker.

The top 120 finishers will receive a payout, with 8,000 Euro reserved for 120th place and 73,000 Euro set aside as the minimum final table cash.