The World Poker Tour has announced plans to return to the UK with its highly successful National series heading to Stratford and Newcastle.

World Poker Tour (WPT) President Adam Pliska once told me that his brand ‘is about you being comfortable enough to jump on the train at anytime.

It was a metaphorical expression used to define the wide variety of buy-ins the WPT offers, and the National part of that train is planned to stop in the UK three times during the first half of 2015.

The WPT, partypoker and the Aspers Casino chain have partnered up to bring UK poker players, of all shapes and sizes, three lovely little treats. The first event will be held in Aspers Westfield Stratford City Feb 12-15 with the star attraction being a £600 Accumulator style Main Event carrying a £100,000 guarantee.

Last year, top UK pro Laurence Houghton broke his live tournament duck by capturing the title, in this event, after beating Arvin Ravindram, in heads-up action. Riverman pocketing over £20k as he cut his way through a final table that included the former WPT Dublin runner-up Chaz Chattha.

This year there will be three starting flights. Each day, you will exchange £200 for 20k in chips, with blinds increasing at 30-minute increments. Players can get involved in as many of the flights as they want (spending £200, £400 or £600), and can combine chip stacks accrued in total play to take forward to Day 2. The final table will play out on Sun, Feb 15.

“There were over 2,500 entries in last season’s partypoker WPT National UK. It proves what we set out to achieve, bringing more people into the game at various levels of buy-ins”, commented John Scanlon, Poker Manager at Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford City.

An Aussie Millions update with Sean O’Reilly, Jonas Mackoff, Ryan Dodge and Alex Trevallion picking up victories as the series reaches the point where the top dogs start setting up their kennels.

There are no places to hide in and around the dirty green baize: no white poodles, no ninjas, and no sharks. It’s the place where stars are revealed, and the Aussie Millions has just seen one shining brighter than most.

The name of Alex Trevallion is not a familiar one, but after he topped a field of impressive names in the $25,000 Challenge, that may well change.

104 players entered the event, and after 30-players commenced the final day of action (19 from Day 1 and 11 late entrants), it was Trevallion who headed into the final table with the chip lead.

He would need it as well.

Pratyush Buddiga, Stephen Chidwick, Steve O’ Dwyer, and Tobias Reinkemeier, just four of the big names that made it through to the final phase. It was going to be tough, but according to the PokerAsiaPacific blog, Trevallion always seemed confident.

This confidence comes from an impressive online career that sees him regularly beating people up at the $25/50 tables. But this was different gravy. He would never have experienced anything quite like this before.

Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications, for PokerStars and Full Tilt, has issued a statement apologizing to New Jersey online poker players who were led to believe real-money gaming was available at Full Tilt after a bug produced a statement to that effect on their mobile app.

Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications, for both PokerStars and Full Tilt, has issued a statement apologizing for the impromptu case of premature Full Tilt elation that placed New Jersey online poker players in a ditzy last week.

Excitement levels hit Megadeath type decibel levels after a poker player named Dennis Lopez logged on to Full Tilt’s free-play dot-net site, on his mobile device, to be greeted by a message from the online gambling giant welcoming him to a version of the game: ‘fully licensed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, offering real-money gameplay on a fully regulated online gaming platform.’

For the sake of clarity, I feel it’s only fair to point out that the news story here, isn’t the fact that people do actually play free-play online poker, but that Full Tilt were informing players that they were legal and live when they weren’t.

An excited Lopez wasn’t able to download the requisite software, but that didn’t stop a screenshot of his mobile phone, resplendent with message, being sent to all and sundry in the online poker world.

Step forward Mr. Hollreiser to set the record straight.

In e-mail received from Hollreiser the blame for the slip was laid squarely as the feet of a bug that was fed up at being snug in its particular rug.