After a reasonable successful NPOCS over the Christmas period we are bringing you another online series over the summer.

NPOSS I consists of a series of 8 events starting on Monday 2 August 2010 and ending with a main event on Sunday 22 August 2010. The host will be the popular site, Full Tilt Poker.

Here is the full schedule of events:

Event #1 – Mon 2 August 2010 – $10 NL Hold’em Freezeout #173637756
Event #2 – Wed 4 August 2010 – $15 PL Omaha Freezeout #173637917
Event #3 – Thu 5 August 2010 – $5 NL Hold’em Rebuy/Addon #173638155
Event #4 – Sun 8 August 2010 – $20 NL Hold’em 6-Max Freezeout #173638325
Event #5 – Thu 12 August 2010 – $10 NL Hold’em Freezeout #173638503
Event #6 – Sun 15 August 2010 – $30 H.O.R.S.E #173640160
Event #7 – Mon 16 August 2010 – $10 NL Hold’em Heads Up Shootout #173640355
Satellite to Event #8 – Wed 18 August 2010 – $5 Freezeout (1 seat for every $55 in prizepool) #173640895
Event #8 – Sun 22 August 2010 – $50 NL Hold’em Deepstack Freezeout Main Event #173640515

All tournaments start at 20:00 BST/15:00 ET. Tournaments start with 3000 starting chips except for the rebuy tournaments and there will be 5000 chips for the Main Event. More details can be found in the lobby of each tournament.

The password for each tournament will be summer. Tournaments can be found under the Tournament > Private section.

All tournaments will be on Full Tilt Poker so if you don’t already have an account, click here to sign up and receive a $600 Welcome bonus with the referral code NPF.

June has been a really quiet month with a 15% decrease in traffic and we’ve not had this low traffic since June last year. I’m assuming it’s just a mixture of people being away in the summer plus a lot of active members in Vegas.

I’m back from my trip now and have been away for pretty much all of June so have only just caught up with things so sorry if I miss anything in this month’s best of.

Best Threads

• Stake scam – one of the most interesting controversies in the gambling community
• Roscopiko Steps staking – Unique way of being staked
• Donk shove – Hand discussion
• Hand yesterday -  By Stevie Sensation
• If you ran a cardroom…
• cash game situation – interesting thread on shown hand in a cash game at the G.
• Vegas Reflections – Looseman gives his thoughts on his recent trip
• Jokestars and variance can P.O. – you can guess from the title
• Why you shouldn’t play DoNs - cheating scandal
• Phil Laak plays poker for over 79 hours

Achievements

• Roscopiko won the CBMPT Leeds Main Event for £12,000 – updates thread
• teamdobb and jonlundy both cashed in WSOP events
• s2c won a Binnions Poker Classic event in Vegas for $4,950
• mac5910, JuniorBomber, buzz, Nemesis, Full Tilit, K7TAB and card guard kid all had scores in the Newcastle GUKPT Summer Series. Full results here.
• rubes has been crushing the online tourneys with multiple 4 figure scores.
• soap just misses out on WSOP package in top level steps on PokerStars, but still cashes for $3k
• jamasonk 3rd in PokerStars nightly 100k for $10k, another 3rd for $5.2k and 2 other cashes totalling $2800
• Joe Morris won $3k in Full Tilt Superstack
• Emma Fullerton binked 2 tourneys on Full Tilt for just shy of $10k
• More nice scores for DapperDan with a $2.8k win and a $1k cash on PokerStars
• KQ4EVA has been doing well in the 180 seaters with some wins totalling over $10k
• knerrad won a tournament on ipoker for $2k

It is so difficult to keep up with all the achievements and there seems to be more each month. Again, sorry if I miss anything so get it posted in the comments. The majority of people post results in the any big wins or final tables thread on the forum which is the biggest and most viewed thread on the whole forum.

Support NPF by liking us on Facebook and sharing with your friends. There are still hundreds (maybe thousands) of Newcastle poker players who do not know about us so make sure you spread the word and help grow the Newcastle Poker Community.

Remember you can also receive these blog updates in your e-mail inbox by subscribing using the box on the right side of the homepage.

£300 NLH Freezeout Main Event

66 Runners, £19,800 Prize Pool

£200 NLH Freezeout

46 Runners, £9,180 Prize Pool

£150 NLH Freezeout

25 Runners, £3,750 Prize Pool

£100 NLH Bounty Freezeout

25 Runners, £1875 plus £625 in bounties

Sorry for the lack of a best of in April but did not find the time to get one properly done since I was spending a lot of time on the NPF UK Team Challenge.

The Team Challenge was a massive success with plenty of great feedback on the forum and pictures with smiling faces from the weekend. Thanks to all that contributed to making the event what it was. Some reports here, here and here.

Best Threads

• NPF Election – Some NPF members share their politcal views
• In The Beginning Volume 1 Episode 1 – Koyte at his best
• topping up – thoughts on having an add on
• Summer Series Satellite
• New rake at the G – Some intense discussions about the new 10% rake in the G casino. This was later rectified because of this thread
• Poker Stories – Do you listen?
• Tighter Than Tupperware
• NPF Vegas 2010 Crew
• Would a live double up tournament work?
• views please on a hand
• lovely head of hair – video of Azimut multi tabling

Achievements

• The big achievement this month was Gaz Walker who was 8th in the PokerStars.com UKIPT Nottingham for £7,600. Probably had the biggest ever rail online plus quite a few who were railing at DTD. Updates Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Final Table.
• Mark Trett had another big result in the CBMBT Bristol with a 3rd place finish for £9,000. Updates thread.
• Knerrad won a $10 tournament on ipoker for $2.6k and another $1.5k in a $5 rebuy, and $1.4k in another tourney.
• soap was 5th on PokerStars 65k gtd for $6.7k
• dapperdan08 was 3rd in PokerStars 20k gtd for $2.9k
• Omahaha scooped 2 tourneys on PokerStars on the same day for $3.8k, then $1.9k for a 2nd the next day.
• Junior Bomber won a $3 ebuy on FullTilt for $3.3k

Plenty of great results from NPF this month which shows how many strong players there are. If i’ve missed anything out, let me know in the comments.

NPF News

NPF newscaster the card guard kid has been taking some time away from NPF and as such there has not been a lot of news over the past few weeks.We did a comeback news with a review of the NPF team challenge.

NPF News 7 May

The news takes up a lot of our time on a Friday and so we have sort of agreed to make the news more of on an ad hoc basis for the time being.

One more note to close, this post is on auto scheduled as i’m going to be in America from 24 May-25 June so anything at the end of May will not be included here. That also means there may not be many posts on the blog until I get back.

From this week, Newcastle residents and visitors will be able to enjoy a brand new entertainment venue in the city when the existing Grosvenor Casino on St James Boulevard completes it £1.5 million refurbishment to become the G Casino Newcastle.

Creating 20 new jobs in the local area, adding to the 80-strong team already in place, all employees will undergo a rigorous training programme to ensure that all casino members experience the highest standard of service and customer care during their visit.

Boasting a late-night bar, plush 42-seater restaurant and weekly live entertainment, the 25,500 square foot casino offers a fun and friendly contemporary environment for beginners and seasoned gamers alike. With 10 gaming tables, 26 electronic roulette tables and 22 slot machines, members will be treated to all the latest technology. The new venue will also feature a 100-seater poker room and will play host to regular cash poker tournaments.

Lee Naugher, General Manager of the G Casino Newcastle said: “The new venue will be much more than just a casino, it’s a leisure venue with everything you could need for a great night out. Whilst we’ll still be catering for gamers, we now offer an alternative night out for those interested in simply enjoying the restaurant and late night bar or experiencing the fantastic live entertainment on offer. Plus, as we’re based on the outskirts of town, it’s an excuse to get out of the city centre and we have a large free parking area for our members to use when visiting the venue.”

The G Casino Newcastle will also offer the newly launched ‘PlayPoints’ reward scheme, where customers collect points to claim rewards for a range of high-street products, food, drink and gaming chips at the casino. To celebrate the launch of the new venue, G Casino is offering one lucky customer the chance to win a brand new Volkswagen Fox*! Anyone who uses the new G PlayPoints loyalty card in any area of the G Casino Newcastle (including the bar, restaurant, electronic and table gaming) during 7^th May – 28^th May will automatically be entered into the prize draw. The draw will take place at midnight on 28^th May 2010 and the winner will need to be in the casino at the time of the draw.

Find out more about the G Casino Newcastle at www.gcasino.com. You can also keep up to date with the latest G Casino Newcastle news through the official Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/GCasinoNewcastle and Twitter feed www.twitter.com/GNewcastle.

Over 18’s only and photographic ID will be required for all new customers.

Editors Note: The casino officially relaunches on Thursday 13 May with a VIP launch party.

The return of the NPF news with card guard kid back as presenter featuring a report of last week’s NPF UK Team Challenge as well as a round of this week’s happenings and an overview of the new G Casino Newcastle.

Nineteen teams from all around the UK hit the newly refurbished G casino Newcastle on 1st and 2nd May for the Newcastle Poker Forum UK Team Challenge 2010.

The event was set to be the best to hit Newcastle after the success of last year and every team that played last year expressed an interest to play again. With the same format of 10 person teams, same structure and points for the top 50 players meant only the best teams would come out on top.

Proceedings kicked off at 1pm with teams mingling in the new bar area and team photos being taken at 1.30pm everything went according to plan. At 2.40pm teams were greeted by music from Craig ‘Mr Entertainment’ Forggo introducing the MC and tournament director for the weekend, Steve ‘the card guard kid ‘Wills.

Each team was introduced by player names followed by 2 pieces of music before seating which made the atmosphere elctric in the G Casino. View the opening ceremony on the newcastlepoker youtube channel.

With a shuffle up and deal just after 3pm, it was not long before we lost the first player of the tournament which was last year’s final tablist and very own NPF member Trevor Routledge with his aces being kracked by kings with a king on the river.

Players were gradually knocked out during day 1 with all the hands being commentated on by MC card guard. It was not clear which teams were in front with a few teams still having atleast half of their team towards the end of the day. With some big pots won at the end of the day Wayne Tinnion of Geordie Poker was the chip leader with a huge 198,900 chip stack.  A very hungover Raise the River team were the first team to exit without scoring any points despite being 2nd last year. View all end of day 1 standings here.

Day 2 saw 31 players return and it was still very close with atleast 10 teams still within a chance of winning but with walkers sensations having 30 points banked and still with 3 players left, they were looking the favourites. With lots of short stacks, day 2 progressed quickly and it was not long before we were closing in on a final table with 5 teams still in with a chance to win but with Ace of Clubs, Monkey Hangers, losing players in the last 20 it was going to be a two horse race between Walkers Sensations and Teamdobbs for the win.

Steve Gibson of Walkers Sensations was the marginal chip leader going into the final table only having to outlast Dave Collins of teamdobbs to take the win for the walkers sensations, see final table standings here. By the start of the final table, the rail was 3 people deep with plenty of noise around the stage area in the G casino. Michael Carr of Monkey Hangers exited in 8th leaving the team standing on 104 points. This meant that Ace of Clubs could nick third place provided they finished 2nd but if Darren Roe from Breakers came 1st they would take third for the team. There was definitely all to play for with 1st place undcided and a three way battle for third the atmosphere was intense.

One of the great potential turn arounds when Steve Gibson exited in 5th place leaving the competition unsecured with Dave Collins needing to win the tournament to nick the team title. However this was not to be with Dave exiting in 4th place when his AQ could not hit against Darren Roe’s 33 and Walkers Sensations were crowned the winners of the NPF UK team Challenge 2010.

The tournament was not over with third place still being played for and of course the individual title up for grabs. Darren Roe of Breakers exited in 3rd meaning Phil Scott secured overall third for his team, Ace of Clubs.

Heads up only lasted 3 hands with Phil having a huge chip lead. Wayne Tinnion of geordie Poker pushed with Q2 only to be called by Phil Scott’s K8 which held proceeded by huge cheers from the Ace of Clubs team on the rail.

Here are the final standings:

Position    Team    Points
1    NPF – Walkers Sensations    127
2    NPF – Teamdobbs    119
3    Ace of Clubs    109
4    Monkey Hangers    104
5    Breakers Poker Club    96
6    NPF – Northern Lights    93
7    Geordie Poker    91
8    KrackedKings (B)    78
9    KrackedKings (A)    78
10    Queens Callahead    74
11    UK Sharks    70
12    A.W.O.P. Teesside    49
13    FISO.co.uk    48
14    NPF – Cubs    45
15    Nelly’s Heroes    44
16    NPF – s2c’s Elite    39
17    Team Furness    25
18    NPF – Team Radgie    9
19    Raise The River    0

You can view all the photos from the weekend in the NPF photo gallery and catch up on the text updates for day 1 and day 2.

Points Standings



You can follow all the updates at www.newcastlepoker.com/live and text updates on the forum.