The past year has really seen Bodog Poker push their “Recreational Player Model,” which involves doing everything possible to recruit and protect recreational grinders from the pros. And signing Tatjana Pasalic has gone a long way towards solidifying the recruiting efforts since her beauty and camera-friendly personality interest new players.

Bodog Poker must share the same sentiments because they signed the Croatian babe to yet another one-year sponsorship deal. The 27-year-old was quite excited over her re-signing, and she tweeted the following:

Very proud and happy to announce that I have renewed my @Bodog and @calvinayre.com contract. Bring on the party and more poker videos!

She also commented on the re-signing by saying, “The WSOP is around the corner and I can confirm I will definitely be on that plane. I love working with Bodog and they seem to like me – here’s to another great year.”

As for Pasalic’s career, she entered the the poker world at 19 when she began doing reporting work for Party Poker. Pasalic also got more involved with WPT Europe and the TV show “Face the Pro,” which truly solidified her as one of the premier poker reporters.

Aside from having poker beauty Tatjana Pasalic on their pro roster, Bodog recently added Asia’s Jay Tan to their team. Unlike Pasalic, Tan isn’t a reporter, but strictly a player instead. Besides her $63,899 in live tournament winnings, Jay Tan was mainly signed because Bodog was looking for an Asian beauty to help them gain a foothold in the Far East. Evelyn Ng ($377,191 in winnings), who’s also of Asian decent, has helped with this effort quite a bit as well.

One thing that’s quite common throughout the online poker world is freeroll hunters. These are the players who rarely spend any of their own money on tournament buy-ins and get especially excited about exclusive freerolls. The logic behind freeroll hunting is that you can win cash and eventually play real money poker games later.

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Seemingly, there’s no problem with freeroll hunter logic because it’s a risk-free way to make money. However, the reality of the situation is that there are costs behind incessantly playing freerolls, and here’s a further look at the real cost of playing freeroll poker tournaments.

Time is Money

If your sole purpose for playing poker is to have fun, then freeroll hunting is perfectly fine. However, many recreational players eventually dream of making consistent profits in real money poker tournaments. And it’s pretty difficult to ever do this when you’re always playing freerolls.

The reason why is because freerolls are really tough to cash in because the field sizes are usually massive. For example, if there’s an open $200 freeroll, you might see 2,000-3,000 players in the field, which makes it extremely difficult to make money. Furthermore, you’ll waste a lot of time trying to cash in ridiculously large events.

Mixing in Real Money Tournaments

Seeing as how you’ll often be dealing with unusually large field sizes in freerolls, it’s important to mix in some real money tournaments when you have the chance. This is especially important for those who have aspirations of making some consistent money with poker tournaments later on.

If you’re worried about money, start with a small deposit and work your way up the ladder. With some hard work included in the equation, you’ll be successful in both real money tourneys and freerolls.

For quite some time, people were waiting on US President Barrack Obama to make a statement on same sex marriage. And this past week, Obama came out and said that he’s in support of gay marriage, which has caused quite a controversy throughout America.

High stakes poker pro Barry Greenstein took this opportunity to imply that Obama also silently supports online poker – but he has yet to really take a stand on this measure during his time in office. Greenstein tweeted the following about the matter:

@barrackobama admitted he thinks gays should have equal rights. Will he also admit poker players need their personal freedom?

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Assuming Greenstein is correct about his thoughts on Obama, this is a valid question. However, some people feel like he’s going too far by equating the online poker issue to gay rights. Gaming attorney Stuart Hoegner was one of these people as he said the following:

My problem is with the implication that the two rights are somehow equivalent. I support both rights, but they aren’t the same, nor are they equivalent. One is a fundamental issue of civil rights and human dignity. Online poker is an economic right and a personal freedom that, while important, does not and should not be accorded the same level of urgency as a state law discriminating on the basis of someone’s sexual orientation. I like to play Internet poker and I think I should be allowed to play online, but I would never say that my right to attend an online cardroom is as imperative as someone’s right to state recognition of and respect for one of their closest and most intimate relationships.

Hoegner finished by saying that he believes Barry Greenstein is a pretty intelligent guy, and he thinks the poker pro merely made a quick comment without fully thinking it through. Whatever the case may be, it would be nice if Barrack Obama does finally make a statement about US online poker at some point.

Obviously nobody wants to be shortstacked in a poker tournament. After all, it’s the bigger stacks who aren’t constantly fearing for their tourney life, and they can bully other players around more easily. But if you play enough poker tournaments, you’re going to be in a lot of short stack situations – especially in turbos. However, there is some silver lining in being shortstacked in turbos, and it comes through fold equity.

What is Fold Equity?

The simple definition of fold equity is the value you get from situations where your raise could make somebody fold. For example, if you knew that an opponent held pocket 9′s and you had A-K(o) preflop, your equity in the hand is 44.16%. However, if you raise when the opponent and you both have a stack of 10bb, it’s possible that you could force a fold. Assuming there was even a 25% chance of the opponent folding, your equity in the hand now becomes 69.16%, which is much more advantageous.

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Why Fold Equity becomes Important in Turbos

The reason why we bring up turbos is that a lot of players are going to be shortstacked throughout the event. Some turbos start players off with as few as 10bb, which only gets worse as blind levels increase. That said, your short stack will have a lot of fold equity in plenty of situations.

Even if you’ve only got 5bb left, there are going to be other players who are in similar trouble and – more importantly – scared to call with marginal hands. Taking this into account, you’ll be able to steal a lot of small pots and blinds in late position. Going further, realizing that you’ve got excellent fold equity helps out a lot with not being scared to steal when the situation looks favorable (opponents, table position).

Since Black Friday, Merge Gaming has gained a significant amount of player traffic. In fact, they’re now the eighth largest online poker entity in the world according to PokerScout. However, this traffic looks to drop quite a bit when you consider that one of their largest skins – Lock Poker – has now announced that they’re leaving the Merge Gaming network.

As if this news isn’t big enough, Lock will also purchase Cake Poker in order to bolster their traffic. Cake is currently the 22nd biggest poker entity, which should help Lock transition into their independency.

Jennifer Larson, who is Lock Poker’s CEO, talked about the big moves by saying, “We are very excited at the prospect of driving the product, marketing and overall vision of the network. It is a dream come true.” She went on to say, “Merge was a great stepping stone for us but we have outgrown them. We really need to forge our own path to continued success. The only way to do this is to stay true to our of core philosophy: partnering with our players.”

While there could be a myriad of reasons why Lock decided to leave their former network, the chief reason probably lies with the fact that Merge Gaming canceled LockOPS. This was a 33-tournament, $2 million guaranteed event, and Merge called it off in late April.

So one big question now is where this will leave Merge Gaming since they’ve lost Lock Poker. Obviously they won’t be as big as before, but they do have a number of other quality skins such as Carbon Poker, which is the flagship site on this network. It’s also worth mentioning that Merge is one of the few places that still accepts US players, which is another help to them.

One situation that we’ve been closely following over the past few days involves a devastating cyber attack that the TwoPlusTwo forums suffered on April 26th, 2012. We already wrote extensively about the TwoPlusTwo hacked story, but the basic jest of it is that some creep got into the poker site’s database, then was able to view account information of various players.

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Since that time, TwoPlusTwo has shut down their site and begun working with a security team in an effort to remedy the major problem. Unfortunately, it’s been a much slower than expected process because users won’t be able to access the site for at least another week. The front page of the website says so with the following message:

Today’s conservative target date for the forums to come back is May 12th. The 2+2 Magazine is delayed but still coming to you soon.

This is certainly quite a bit different from what the poker forum expected right after the attack when they stated, “At this point in time we anticipate forum downtime to be within 4-6 days.” Since this message, which was released on April 27th, forum users have practically been going through withdrawal because many players worldwide were regulars on the site. We at AintLuck also enjoy checking the news/gossip section of the site because many breaking stories are often printed here right away.

In any case, we hope that the site is able to fix their securities issues soon and prevent any more hackers from doing damage in the future. Seeing as how 2p2 is one of the largest entities in the poker world, there’s a very good chance that they’ll be able to fix the problems quite adequately.

Since winning the 2005 WSOP Ladies Hold’em event along with $158,335, Jennifer Tilly has remained one of the most popular figures in the poker industry. She’s appeared on several poker TV shows, and has earned $699,793 in live poker tournaments.

Lately though, the poker babe has vowed to get back into acting more while cutting her time on the felt. But you wouldn’t be able to tell this from the amount of attention that she’s been getting in the mainstream media. In fact, her transition back into full-time acting has a lot of gossip sites and magazines focusing on Tilly’s poker abilities.

New York Magazine is the latest major media outlet to focus on The Bride of Chucky’s poker career since they spent “210 minutes” with her. The piece started by discussing how Jennifer Tilly got into poker because her dad was heavily into the game. He then introduced his daughter to a poker video game that got her hooked.

Another interesting part of the article discussed where Tilly likes to raise with bad hands sometimes to make herself look like a “crazy loose player.” In addition to looking like a crazy, loose player, the actress also enjoys appearing cute on the felt. She discussed this by saying, “The starlet in me dies hard. I always just want to look cute, so I wear a lot of push-up bras and low-cut tops.”

One more thing worth mentioning in this article is where Tilly referred to herself as the “Dream Crusher.” More specifically, she said, “In poker, when you’re doing well, everybody else is pissed off at you. Nobody loves you when you’re a great poker player. Sometimes in tournaments I think, Oooh, my nickname should be the ‘Dream Crusher.’ I’ll see the young kid who’s taking his college tuition to enter the tournament, and then I knock him out. I feel horrible.”

If you’d like to see the whole article on Tilly, make sure to check out the New York Magazine story on her.

The other night, the world’s most popular poker forum, TwoPlusTwo.com, was the victim of a devastating cyber attack after an anonymous hacker broke into the site’s database. The hacker was able to access email addresses and encrypted passwords, which prompted TwoPlusTwo to shut their site down before any more information was compromised. Part of a message on their site reads as follows:

On April 26th at approximately 11:20 AM pacific time, the Two Plus Two Forums were closed as a result of a hacker who has displayed the ability to access e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords. He also indicated the ability to decrypt passwords.

While it is unclear the extent of data to which he gained access, e-mail addresses and passwords on the Two Plus Two forums should be considered compromised. If you have used your 2+2 password on any other site, you are advised to change it.

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Since their original warning, little has changed at TwoPlusTwo since they’re currently trying to patch up their site and ensure that such an attack is avoided in the future. They issued the following update:

Given that this happened in spite of having applied all current security patches from the companies that provide our forum software, we are in the process of employing additional security experts to ensure that we are in compliance with the highest security measures possible.

At this point in time we anticipate forum downtime to be within 4-6 days.

Since opening in 1997, TwoPlusTwo has remained one of the biggest entities within the poker world. Hundreds of thousands of players visit 2p2 on a regular basis to share news, poker strategy, and various other tidbits. That said, there’s more than a few people who are angry over being deprived of their 2p2 privileges.

What were mere rumors yesterday have become fact today in regards to PokerStars plans to purchase Full Tilt Poker. This is even truer when you consider the fact that the Wall Street Journal has jumped into the fray by reporting on this monumental prospective deal.

Just hours after Groupe Bernard Tapie’s attempts to buy Full Tilt Poker failed, PokerStars apparently jumped into negotiations with the US Department of Justice. As the WSJ wrote, there are no details about how much Stars would pay for their former rival, nor is there any word on what exact assets they’d be receiving. However, even without details, this is a huge potential deal that could move PokerStars closer to an online poker monopoly.

As for speculation on this deal, the WSJ wrote the following:

The deal would include a way for poker players worldwide to retrieve funds they had deposited with Full Tilt Poker, the person said. Around $300 million was credited to poker players and not paid by Full Tilt, about half of that to players based in the U.S.

PokerStars executives have been conducting due diligence at Full Tilt’s Dublin, Ireland, offices for the last few days, according to the person.

Going back to our original thought on PokerStars moving towards a monopoly of the industry, they already command around 40-45% of total online poker traffic. And considering that FTP held around 20% of the online poker market when they were in business, Stars could give their player base a huge boost by purchasing Full Tilt.

Of course, this is all assuming that Stars’ negotiations with the US DOJ go well, and the former FTP players stick around when a deal is completed. After all, many players could just take their bankroll and run considering how long they’ve waiting for the money.

For months now we’ve heard talk about how Groupe Bernard Tapie has been closing in on a deal to buy Full Tilt Poker. But all along, their biggest hurdle to acquiring the disgraced poker site has been the US Department of Justice. And this week, the US DOJ barrier proved to be too much as GBT backed out of their ambitious plan to buy the site.

At the heart of the matter appears to be GBT’s inability to pay back missing player deposits the way that the US DOJ wants. A statement by the French investment firm expanded on the problems with negotiating this deal, and it read:

GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW (rest of the world) player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site.

All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9 percent of ROW players would have been fully repaid on Day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all player – a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.

Both March and April saw GBT make big strides towards completing the Full Tilt Poker deal. Laurent Tapie had moved to Ireland in order to get Pocket Kings up and running again, while the company was hiring news workers as well.

Keeping this in mind, it’s strange to see the Full Tilt deal end like this. Of course, the hundreds of millions that are owed in player deposits certainly make this a difficult deal to finish.