The Chinese New Year celebrations are complete and the Year of the Dragon appropriately launches the 2012 Asia Player of the Year race with the Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon series which takes place from February 18-26 hosted by PokerStars Macau at Casino Grand Lisboa. The 15th installment of Asia's...more

PokerStars Macau has announced that the 2012 edition of the Macau Millions has been postponed indefinitely. "Our current agreement to operate PokerStars Macau events and tournaments at Casino Grand Lisboa will expire in March." said Danny McDonagh in a statement. "As a result, the Macau Millions will be postponed for...more

After a successful run across Central and Eastern Europe last year, the Eureka Poker Tour is coming back for another season. Today PokerStars announced Eureka will return April 9-14 at the Golden Sun Casino in Zagreb, Croatia for a €1,000+100 main event. It's been just a year since the tour...more

The Latin American Poker Tour is an exciting circuit already. There is passion on nearly every flop. There are very few places in the world where one can witness such poker insanity on such a professional level. After nearly four full seasons of running around the region, it seemed impossible...more

Oh, it looked like the APPT's fifth season had come to an end. The year 2011 drew to a close, Shaq Lin won the Asia Player of the Year Award, and the APPT schedule had no more dates listed for its fifth season. Oh, yes, it looked like it had...more

The Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event has come to a close and we've crowned a new champion with PokerStars Team Online member Randy "nanonoko" Lew proving that he can adapt his game from the virtual world onto the live felt with a stunning breakthough victory this evening. Wind...more

Randy "nanonoko" Lew Wins APPT Macau Main Event! Congratulations to Randy "nanonoko" Lew who displayed the maturity and composure of a veteran to navigate his way through a record APPT field and a super-stacked final table to capture the APPT Macau Main Event crown. Despite having an online record that...more

10:10pm: Level up That's the end of that level, and we'll be starting the new level on a new page. 9:50pm: Rossiter recovers Jimmy Pan and Jeff Rossiter have tangled with the Aussie gaining the ascendency and regaining some lost momentum. Pan raised the button to 200,000 before Rossiter three-bet...more

5:25pm: Ten-minute break The level has come to an end and the players are taking a break. We'll be back in ten minutes with coverage to continue on a new page. 5:20pm: Nordstrom finds a lucky lady Daniel Nordstrom has doubled up through Fabian Spielmann after spiking a set on...more

When we started out this afternoon we knew we were in for a long day. The equation was always a difficult one to compute. Take 96 hopefuls, squeeze them into 70 cash winners then divide them into a final table of nine by the end of the day. Unfortunately algebra...more

1:10am: Bang, bang! Our day is done! Simultaneous eliminations on two tables has seen both Shane Dye and Victor Wei eliminated as it has been announced that our extended day has now been brought to a close with 15 players remaining. First it was Dye who fell when he...more

--BW 4:15pm: Unlucky treys for Tomita "Unlucky hand," said Tetsuro Tomita with a smile after being eliminated from the tournament in rather devastating fashion. The unlucky hand in question was pocket threes as Tomita will be having nightmares tonight about the treys. First he flopped a full house on...more

Ninety-six players remain in the APPT Macau Season 5 main event. Play resumes at 12:10pm local time in what is expected to be a long day of play. The table and seat draw for Day 3 is listed below. Table Seat Player Chips 1 1 Michael Finstein 151300 1 2...more

Those who saw it stood with mouths agape. Those who heard about it said, "What?" It seemed more than simply unlikely. It seemed downright silly. Nonetheless, it's true. As the remaining APPT Macau main event players go to bed tonight in advance of tomorrow's Day 3, they're all behind a...more

8:00pm: Seet leads headed to Day 3 As players finish bagging and tagging, it looks pretty clear Nathaniel Seet holds the chip lead with 774,500. Also included among the finishers are Team PokerStars Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero (257,400) and Team Online's Randy Lew (145,000). Approximately 100 players remain in...more

5:37pm: Break time Players are now on break. 5:10pm: The big stacks start to emerge With Nathaniel Seet and David Steicke currently running away with the tournament chip lead, a couple of other big stacks are starting to emerge. Champion jockey Shane Dye is currently up to 250,000 in...more

It's safe to say that Macau can lay claim to be the hottest poker destination in the world right now. It's a big call, but the numbers don't lie as once again PokerStars Macau have defied the worldwide poker trends to post another record-setting field. The cash games have always...more

The APPT staff has asked us to inform Day 2 players of the APPT Macau main event that there will be a staggered start at the beginning of Day 2. APPT President Danny McDonagh requests that all players seated at tables 1-25 arrive for a 12:10pm start. All players tables...more

9:00pm: Play ends Day 1b has just finished up. Sha Jun of China finished the day with 169,400, good for the Day 1b chip lead and second place overall headed into Day 2. Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang is not far behind with 154,100. We'll be back with a full...more

4:24pm: Break time Players are on a ten-minute break. We'll be closing out this post and moving on to a new one right here. 4:00pm: Solid start for Lykov Russian Team PokerStars Pro Max Lykov has made a solid start in his first APPT appearance, although we did just see...more

Outside the Grand Lisboa casino, the roads merge and verge like scribbles on a page of black paper. It's a fantastic feat of traffic engineering the that ant-streams of cars, trucks, and buses manage to move at all, let alone so quickly that one wonders if it's not all some...more

8:45pm: Day ends, Su leads As we noted just a few minutes ago, Shih Chieh Su looks to have finished the day with the lead We have him on 171,800 as the chips go the in the bags. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 players are finishing up the night....more

4:15pm: Steicke chips up David Steicke doesn't mind the big stage, and he loves nothing more than playing in Macau, so it's no surprise to see him starting to command a healthy stack here at the APPT Macau Main Event. According to his table, Steicke called down a player...more

Stepping off the plane this afternoon, I wasn't sure if jetlag had kicked in or I'd just set my watch in the wrong direction as a dark and sleepy haze set across the skies as I arrived into Macau. Sure this place is sometimes a victim of classic big-city smog,...more

PokerStars Macau, the largest poker room in continental Asia, is pleased to announce its full special events calendar for 2012. The Asia poker season launches with the Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon from February 18-26 and features the HKD $11,000 Red Dragon main event which comes with a HKD...more

Today, PokerStars officially announced that the Season 2 Russian Poker Series (RPS) Grand Final originally planned for December 9-18, 2011 in Kiev has been re-scheduled and will take place in 2012. The event has been postponed following the closure of a number of poker clubs in Ukraine. PokerStars apologies for...more

The Asia Player of the Year (APOY) is the most coveted title in Asia and the ranking system is widely accepted as the measuring stick to determine the best poker players on the Asian poker circuit. The race for the overall title between No. 1 Shaq Lin and No. 2...more

PokerStars Macau at Casino Grand Lisboa hosts the PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) from November 17-27 and the majority of the visitors to the enclave will have their hopes pinned on the HKD $30,000 Main Event which boasts a HKD $6,000,000 guarantee. However, for Taiwanese poker pro Hung Sheng...more

PokerStars официально объявляет о переносе на 2012 год Гранд Финала второго сезона Российской Покерной Серии (RPS), который должен был состояться в Киеве с 9 по 18 декабря 2011 года. Данные меры приняты в связи с ситуацией, возникшей вокруг закрытия ряда покерных клубов в Украине. PokerStars приносит свои извинения и...more

In just a few short weeks, the country of Colombia has taken over the Latin American Poker Tour. For three seasons, the country of Colombia barely registered on the LAPT radar. As of last week, it now holds the record for biggest LAPT tournament in history. Now, with one event...more

A few years from now, when South Americans look back on what they consider the watershed moments for the rise of poker on the continent, someone will invariably point to the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour's Colombian National Poker Championship. It was a smaller buy-in event -- only $1,100...more

Jonathan Monsalves eliminated in 2nd place; Julian Menendez wins 2011 Colombian National Poker Championship! At long last, it came down to another flip for Julian Menendez and Jonathan Monsalves. Menendez limped the button for 150,000; Monsalves shoved all in with A♠5♦ and Menendez called with 4♠4♥. This time around Monsalves...more

10:58pm: Break time The remaining six players are on a fifteen-minute break. When they return, updates will be in a new post. 10:49pm: Rafael Pardo eliminated in 7th place It was inevitable that some of these flips were going to start going the bigger stack's way. Alexis Gomez (pictured below)...more

4:38pm: David Garcia eliminated in 12th place A rare three-way pot developed on Table 1. Victor Forero started things with a raise to 60,000 under the gun. Jonathan Markovitz (cutoff) and David Garcia (big blind) both called. Garcia checked a flop of J♦J♣6♦ and Forero made his continuation bet of...more

We made it. At one point last night, late on Day 2 of the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour's Colombian National Poker Championship, it seemed like we might never make it to Day 3. A generous structure, combined with a surprising lack of big stacks to drive the action,...more

It was one of the most dominant performances we've seen in a tournament in quite some time as Raiden Kan has carried his hot form and big stack all the way to a memorable victory in the Macau Poker Cup Championship Main Event. Yesterday, Kan entered day three of play...more

Raiden Kan wins Macau Poker Cup Championship! In an utterly dominant performance, Raiden Kan has carried his overnight chip lead all the way to victory in the Macau Poker Cup Championship Main Event. It was a superb performance by Kan who steamrolled his way through his opposition, and despite some...more

5:55pm: Ten-minute break 5:45pm: Charles Lam eliminated in 5th place Charles Lam was down to his last 400,000 chips which he moved all in preflop with Q♠J♦ following an open from Victor Chong. Only problem for Lam was that Chong made the call with a dominant K♦Q♥. The Lam picked...more

When I got out of bed this morning, I knew that Day 2 of the 2011 LAPT Colombian National Poker Championship promised to be a very, very long day. It comes with the territory sometimes, and there's not much you can do about it. The long day speaks volumes about...more

1:31am: Two eliminations to end Day 2 Martin Romero put in a strong showing on Day 2, but as the stacks became shallower and shallower he lost most of his leverage. He eventually moved all in with pocket kings but was outdrawn by ace-queen. And on the very last hand...more

3:40pm: Ten-minute break 3:35pm: Seijiro Machi eliminated in 9th place After going for almost two hours, with very few big hands to report, we've just witnessed an absolute corker as Seijiro Machi's aggression has come back to bite him. The hand started with Raiden Kan opening to 35,000 from early...more

11:22pm: Extra! Hand extended into break creates new chip leader There was one hand that played deep into the break. Gilberto Castillo of Colombia opened pre-flop for 22,000. The player two to Castillo's left three-bet to 70,000 before Nicolas Cottin moved all in on the button for more than 300,000....more

4:25pm: Break Players are on their second break of the day. 4:17pm: Sudol knocks out a shorty There is one lone American remaining in the field -- Jason Sudol, an American currently living in Colombia. He's up to 150,000 after racing a short stack pre-flop with his pocket 7s against...more

The record-setting Macau Poker Cup Championship produced a field of 308 entrants to create a massive HK$5,553,856 prize pool. After three days of blood, sweat and a few tears on the felt of the PokerStars Macau Poker Room, our field has been whittled down to a final table of nine....more

It rains a lot in Medellin, Colombia. I'm told that the "rainy season" isn't so much a season as it is 10 months of the year. I guess you could say there's a "dry season", and October isn't it. But the sun broke through the clouds this morning as we...more

We often talk about how poker players in Macau like to push their chips around. Folding is no fun right? Sure, the modern poker game has evolved into an aggressive one, but in Macau there's an undeniable urge to gamble. However when we started the day just five eliminations away...more

Final Table Lineup Seat 1: Seijiro Machi (Japan) - 616,000 Seat 2: "Chester" Seng Yong Lee (Malaysia) (PokerStars Player) - 598,000 Seat 3: Hau Huang Chang (United States) - 466,000 Seat 4: Richard Renyong Hu (China) - 566,000 Seat 5: Hung-sheng "Shaq" Lin (Chinese Taipei) (PokerStars Player) - 614,000 Seat...more

4:20pm: Ten-minute break 4:00pm: Wang washed Victor Chong opened with a raise to 16,000 before Zuo Wang moved all in for a little over 100,000. The table folded back to Chong who quickly called with 9♣9♠ for the best hand against Wang's A♠9♥. With Chong calling out for his hand...more

You see a lot of things on the tournament circuit. Poker, after all, is a game filled with improbability. But there were three improbabilities on Day 1b of the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour's Colombian National Poker Championship that made even a veteran tournament reporter like me take pause....more

12:05am: Day 1b ends; Csome leads What a comeback for Leandro Csome! Down to just 10,000 chips at one point, he came roaring back to claim the overnight chip lead with 149,000. We'll have a full recap of the day's events up on the blog soon. 11:44pm: The field sits...more