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According to a report on PokerFuse.com the Bad Beat Jackpot has been triggered on the Merge Gaming Network after two players met all of the qualifications the site specifies. The Jackpot had grown to eclipse the $1 million mark, making this one of the largest payouts Bad-Beat payouts in poker history.

The players responsible for the Bad-Beat Jackpot were playing in a $1/$2 Limit Holdem Game where one player saw his Quad 7’s cracked by another player’s Quad Queen’s. The loss netted the player with Quad 7’s the bulk of the jackpot money, collecting $335,000, while the winning player in the hand received a six-figure payout of his own, $177,000. Each of the other players dealt cards at the beginning of the hand received a little over $25,000 simply for being in the right place at the right time.

Only 70% of the jackpot goes to the players: Merge Gaming keeps 10% of the total jackpot for “Administration Costs” and the remaining 20% is used to start the new Bad Beat Jackpot.

Here is a look at the stipulations that must be met in order to trigger the Bad Beat Jackpot at the Merge Gaming Network:

• The game must be on a specified “Bad Beat Jackpot” table
• At least four players must be dealt in at the start of the hand
• The hand must go to showdown
• A minimum rake of $.50 must be collected
• The losing hand must be four 7’s or better
• Both the Winner and Loser must use both hole-cards in their hand

Melanie Weisner has been on my “Players to Watch” list for the past few years, and apparently I’m not the only person who thinks Weisner is one of the top up-and-coming talents in the poker world considering she has already been signed as a Red Pro by Full Tilt Poker, and the Texas native is now the newest member of Lock Poker’s Team LockPRO ELITE roster.

Just how big does Lock Poker think Weisner can be in the poker world? Well, she now graces the home page of the Lock Poker site!

Weisner joins a growing contingent of sponsored players at the Merge Gaming Network poker site, including European poker stars like Chris Moorman, Kevin Vandersmissen, Leo Margets, Nicky Evans, Stevie Devlin, and Michael Drummond. Lock Poker also has a large stable of US poker pros like Matt Stout, Eric Lynch, Jason Young, Brett Jungblut, Casey Jarzabek, Greg Tiller, Jared Hubbard, and now Weisner.

In a press release, Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson heaped high praise on the newest member of Team ELITE, “Melanie is a perfect fit for Lock. Passionate, relentless in her dedication to the game and incredibly intelligent… Players like Melanie give us the true insight into the product and player experience that we need to become the best. Partnering with our players is the true path to greatness.”

It seems the feeling is mutual as the press release quoted Melanie as saying, “I am thrilled to join a team of world-class players and talented peers such as Chris Moorman, Matt Stout and Leo Margets… I feel very honoured to be a part of this exciting and growing brand, and look forward to representing Lock around the world.”

Freddy Deeb was a last minute entrant in the inaugural World Series of Poker Circuit Series Main Event at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, California; registering on Day 2 of the tournament and being handed a 20 Big Blind stack of chips, Deeb scratched and clawed his way through Day 2, and squeaked into the final table on Day 3 as the chip-leader!

The long-time high-stakes poker pro can now add a WSOP Circuit Series ring to his long list of career accomplishments which includes the $50k Players Championship in 2007 at the WSOP, the 2005 WPT Ultimate Poker Classic, and the 2010 WPT Paris High-Roller tournament. Deeb also won a bracelet in 1997 at the WSOP and has nine other Top 5 finishes in WSOP tournaments.

The $1,500 buy-in Main Event attracted 549 poker players; a very lofty number considering the slew of poker pros that headed to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), or playing in the inaugural World Poker Tour (WPT) Ireland, and of course those that have been making travel plans for the Aussie Millions.

Here is a look at the final table payouts from the WSOP Circuit Series Bicycle Casino Championship:

1. Freddy Deeb — $171,810
2. Alex Masek — $106,185
3. Leroy Spires — $77,570
4. David Singontiko — $57,505
5. Tong Le — $43,245
6. Brandon Crawford — $32,900
7. Tsung Lu — $25,520
8. Julie Franks — $20,025
9. Vince Cardella — $15,935

Apparently two of the 257 players that participated on Day 1a of the opening tournament of the 2012 Aussie Millions (a  $1,000 buy-in No Limit Holdem event with three starting flights) thought they were playing online, which is the only conclusion I can come to for their attempt to pull the “old switcheroo” on their fellow players and the Aussie Millions staff.

Sometime during a table break, a player who had been eliminated switched places with another player in the tournament who would be unable to participate on Day 2 of the tournament. The scheme has all the hallmarks of an account buy from an online poker site when a less experienced player makes a deep run in a big tournament, only this time around the players were hoping on the large field size and the general upheaval associated with table breaks to hide their ruse.

The scheme was discovered by an alert member of the floor staff and was later verified by the Crown Casino’s security cameras. Both players (who remain unnamed) were eliminated from the tournament and will be looking at a lengthy suspension from the Crown Casino according to Card Player Magazine.

Interestingly, the tournament utilizes a repechage format (which is just another name for a re-entry event where players who have been eliminated on Day 1a can enter again on Day 1b or Day 1c, or players eliminated on Day 1b re-entering on Day 1c) so the eliminated player could have simply taken another shot the next day, assuming they had a spare $1,000 of course!

The Yatahay Poker Network first came to the public’s attention when the popular online poker room Doyles Room joined the small network late in 2010, switching from the far more prominent Cake Poker Network, and received their second round of mainstream attention in the aftermath of Black Friday when the Yatahay Poker Network underwent its own domain seizures by the DOJ in May of 2011.

Now the small US-friendly network has announced that it will be rebranding itself as the Winning Poker Network (which I must say is a much better brand name for a poker network than Yatahay!) and all of the networks skins now feature .eu and .ag domains.

In May it was revealed that the Maryland DOJ had setup a false payment processing company that had been processing Yatahay payments to US banks totaling millions of dollars. It’s unclear how the rebranding of the company will affect any potential charges that have been leveled against the Yatahay Poker Network by the DOJ.

The network also saw another rebranding a few months back when Doyles Room was purchased by Americas Cardroom. Americas Cardroom was one of the original online poker rooms during the heyday of the industry, and with the acquisition of Doyles Room the Americas Cardroom brand is now back after a lengthy hiatus.

The rebranding of poker sites is not exclusive to the Yatahay Network by any means, the Action Poker Network recently changed its name to the Chico Poker Network, Bodog became Bovada.lv in the US, and Victor Chandler recently announced it would be rebranding itself to BetVictor Poker.