Bulgaria has fallen out of the USSR influence in the end of 1989. Since then industry of gambling very closely connected with tourism prospers. All the famous poker rooms are situated on the shore of the Black Sea.

There are over 20 casinos for population of 7 millions Bulgarians. If we add up slot machine halls, there is somewhere a hundred gambling houses. It is not the biggest number anywhere but certainly above average.

There is gambling spree in the country since 90s. Cheap life and Black Sea attract tourists. Especially CIS tourists.

Significant key changes in political economical and territorial build-up of the country have happened with the Ukraine during last months. Gambling was also influenced by those reforms. The head of Odessa administration Mikheil Saakashvili plans to legalize casinos on Black Sea shore.

Health care reform, outsourcing of tax custom services, transition of State fiscal service (SFS) under the Ministry of Finance jurisdiction, banking and tax system restructuring – these are just few changes that have been made by the Ukrainian administration to help the system of state functioning work better.

There is a feeling that for very long time someone was holding those initiatives back. And now they are unleashed. Like the old dyke went down and water poured to dry fields.

Authorities don’t think about poker and casinos just yet, however we do know some things about the plans of new Ukrainian leaders. Mikheil Saakashvili is going to apply his experience of gambling houses legalization in Odessa.

First we need to win corruption

Kiev has illegal casinos. In other big cities, including Odessa, they have other undercover gambling houses. Locals, gamblers, local and higher authorities know about this.

No one does nothing about this because law enforcement authorities cover up super profitable industry. Mikheil Saakashvili says it in these very words. The leader of Odessa administration finds corruption as a main problem.  When we win corruption we can legalize casinos.

Ex-president of Georgia has a lot of experience in both spheres. As data of international organization Transparency International says, the level of corruption in Georgia became much lower. The country was considered as one of the most uncorrupted in the world.

Hotel and Casino Golden Palace in Batumi, Georgia

However, experts were talking about some sort of “elite” corruption. Lower and middle levels of power were cleaned, but the top was still rotten.

If we speak about Batumi, approximately in ten years Saakashvili have turned the city into the attractive gambling place for tourists living in the nearby countries. We can’t say that it’s competing with gambling centers of the world, but for some players Batumi has become very attractive.

Odessa cleanup

In the middle of July news about cleanup among government official appeared. Hundreds of them will be fired, some positions will be liquidated. Those cuts are made in many of the political departments of the country.

This is the fight with corruption. One of the methods.

Saakashvili says Odessa need extra investments. Casinos are helpful in this task.

Odessa

Minister of economy and trade of Ukraine Aivaras Abromavicius supports the beginnings of new Ukrainian reforms starter and emphasizes: casinos must not be oriented on local habitats. The main target audience is tourists. This is the reason for gambling houses to be opened at hotels.

In the end of prime minister of the country Arseniy Yatsenyuk was speaking about casino legalization. He offered to give part of the profit to the Ministry of culture.

So that’s what we have. Considering tempo and size of reforms of Ukraine, there is little time left before real changes are made. Reforms about poker are coming as well.

The decision of Kolkata Supreme Court has become the triumph of Indian law and a celebration to all poker amateurs in the country: the police have no more authority to close poker clubs and the game is no longer illegal. The number of people who have just got access to the popular game of cards is approximately 91 million!

We have already written about poker in India and Japan when spoke about indirect factors pointing out that poker boom is coming in these countries. Indian Aditya Agarwal and Japanese Kosei Ichinose became members of Team PokerStars. And the biggest poker room in India Adda52 has created its own team of professional players – Team Spades.

And the situation with live poker in India is quite similar to what happens in the USA. India also has stated and laws in each state differ – in case of poker also.

You’ve been waiting for it, and here it is. World Series Final Table! This year there is too much tragedy in it. Canadian pro Daniel Negreanu took 11^th place in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker for the second time in his life. It’s such a hard thing to handle!

27 people have made it to the final day of summer part of WSOP. Russian Nikita Nikolaev and Ukrainian Dmitri Chop have stopped just outside TOP-50 so we were left to root for those who are somehow familiar to us.

And Daniel Negreanu seems to be the most famous and closest to us.

Overbetting (betting the amount bigger than a pot) is risky, but very effective if done right. Poker betting is a science within the game. On lower limits it could be used much more often: most of the players play “I call, or I fold” strategy.

Here is a little introduction.

One. Don’t overbet if you’re inexperienced. Just don’t. You’ll lose money in the long run.

And two. To value overbet you need to have a good skill of hand reading. The more precise you read opponents supposed ranges, the more effective overbets are. Over bet poker is dangerous to those who are blind.

After the Black Friday when American online poker came to its end, poker TV shows have disappeared from the screens. What’s the point in spending extra money if there are no potential gamblers who can play in poker rooms?

Place of High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark has been taken by other TV programs, many of which regularly include online coverage.

It used to be this way earlier: advertisers such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker bought air time for their shows. They’ve taken for 60 minutes, paid a lot and it was worth it. In CIS many recognized poker from these shows and went to register to online poker rooms.

In America the situation was quite similar to that.

Tony is a legend. He is a gambler to the marrow of his bones. 50-year-old American has over 200 ITMs in different tournaments, but he only won three of them. He has been in the money for 70 times at the World Series and 12 times made it to Top-10… And NEVER to TOP-3… It seems that he is resisting his own well deserved long ago victories.

Tony Cousineau is from Florida, USA. He started to play poker late to today’s standards – he was over 30.

Long before that after graduation from college future poker record holder helped his family to manage billiard club. It was noisy, full of cigarette smoke and drunk people – Cousineau didn’t like it, he wasn’t going to do that on his own.

Poker Notepad: Tournaments are fun, but cash is cash

Here is thesis: you can’t earn for a living playing live poker tournaments. At least, in the USA. The statement is made by the person who understands a thing or two about poker. So is it true that poker earings can’t buy you living?

The article about disability of making money for a descent living playing live tournaments in America was published on deadspin.com.

In the beginning author quotes Brian Devonshire:

The big scandal rises around one of participants of heads-up tournament with buy-in of $10,000 at WSOP which takes place in Las Vegas these days. The Moldavian player Valeriu Coca is suspected of cheating by respected players. The investigation is on the way, the results are yet to be sounded.

The story began in Event #10: $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship. Moldavian Valeriu Coca took the 5^th place in it and stayed ahead of such dangerous opponents as Matt Marafioti, Pratyush Buddiga, Aaron Mermelstein, Connor Drinan, and Byron Kaverman.

Coca lost only to 51-year-old American Keith Lehr, future tournament champion.

The winner of the biggest tournament in history of poker will receive “practically nothing” - $638,880. At the same the rake of the event is $1,454,310! And though mathematically there is no problems with that prize structure, situation smells a little fishy.

So we have a new record: 22,374 registration to $565 The Colossus Tournament with prize fund of $11,187,000. 10% of the players ITM.

These are the twits of pro players:

He first knew about poker when he was 19. He won $1,450,396 on Aussie Millions at the age of 22 in 2008. Today he is 29 and he is one of the best online players in the world.

We usually write about offline players. Live poker has its own heroes and “laws”.

But there are players whose abilities and skills are that unique so their specialization doesn’t matter. Alexander “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn is one of them.

The last year was the best in Russian pro’s career. He has earned over 3.3 million according to unofficial sources. He was in top-10 of the most successful regulars.

Upcoming World Series will be full of surprises. There are more than ten changes only in the schedule. And, probably, we’ll see the biggest poker event in history of poker!

WSOP is coming. Famous phrase “Shuffle up and deal” will be pronounced in few days in Rio Casino and 46^th World Series of Poker will begin.

And we can say that this series is revolutionary without it being overstatement.

Let’s not split into hairs. Our aim is to tell you about the most interesting changes and events on WSOP 2015.

Austria is one of the richest countries in the world. Substantial part of countries budget comes from gambling. Particularly from the big numbers of poker clubs. Poker in Austria is unchangeably popular.

When we speak of Vienna or Salzburg we imagine old-fashioned buildings, silent streets and law-obeying citizens…. And those citizens won’t disagree with proposals to gamble.

Austria is a black sheep for European Union for quite a long time. Most of the European countries have negative attitude toward gambling, but Austria looks at this matter differently.

First 24/7 poker TV channel is going to start its work by the end of the year (perhaps, even in autumn). It is going to broadcast from Las Vegas, NV. Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Negreanu are already among the broadcasters. What is going to be aired and does it all make sense?

The idea of full scale first 24/7 poker TV channel seems a little futuristic right now. We got used to watch poker TV shows and big series online reports in Internet. What can be broadcasted whole day long?

Well, that’s the question many people trying to answer. American TV channel Poker Central keeps lots of things in secret, but we can easily guess what’s what.

European Poker Tour now has its own Spaniard champion. 106^th title belongs to 20-year-old Adrian Mateos Dias, winner of WSOPE Europe and rising star of world poker.

We’ve already told you about big guys with endless bankrolls who were participating in €100,000 Super High Roller and €50,000 Super High Roller.  Poker veteran Eric Seidel and young Italian Mustapha Kanit became champions of these events.

Today we’ll tell you about two other main events of EPT Grand Final: €10,600 Main Event and €25,500 High Roller.

We’ll start from the Main Event – there was a lot of interesting stuff.