The opening leg of the Asia Pacific Tour (APPT) presented by PokerStars will take place Aug. 24-23, 2007 at the Hyatt Hotel and Casino. To give you the chance to play in this Asia-wide prestigious event, the online poker giant is holding satellite tournaments until Aug. 19.

Manila is fast becoming Asia’s poker hub as more and more Filipino poker players are playing and getting recognized in many tournaments including the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker.

Top poker pros, Phil Laak and Ali Eslami, narrowly prevailed against Polaris, the poker software designed to challenge human players, after four rounds in the world’s first man-versus-machine poker championship. The two won by just 570 points in the fourth and final game in the match.

An audience of computer scientists and a few spectators watched the grueling poker battle in a conference room at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Vancouver, Canada. The tournament stretched until 11pm on Tuesday (July 24). The room erupted in cheers when the humans won.

Two professional poker players, Phil Laak and Ali Eslami, will take on a computer program called Polaris in the world’s first man-versus-machine poker tournament. The challenge will run over two days and 500 hands of Texas hold ‘em at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Vancouver for a total prize pot of $50,000.

Polaris is the most sophisticated poker-playing program yet written and the product of years of research and development by a team of artificial intelligence experts at the University of Alberta in Canada.

The best poker players of the world will play for their countries to capture PokerStars World Cup of Poker IV title. The PokerStars WCP is an international team-based competition where national teams of poker players battle it out for the title of World Cup Champions.

The online tournament will run from July 12th – August 5th. The live finals are scheduled to be played in Barcelona, Spain, from September 4th – 7th. Each team in the World Cup of Poker is made up of four Poker Stars players. This is free to enter so don’t miss out on your chance to represent your nation by qualifying online. Not only will you be playing for national pride, but over $250,000 in prize money.

Out of the 6,358 players who started the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold’em Main Event of the 2007 World Series of Poker on July 6th at the Rio in Las Vegas, Jerry Yang came out victorious. Nine men from Denmark, Russia, Canada, England, South Africa and the U.S. played at the final table for a first prize of $8.25 million and the most coveted of WSOP bracelets.

The final table started with favorite Philip Hilm, from Denmark who plays poker professionally in England, as chip leader with 22,070,000 in chips. Ironically, he was first to be eliminated and it was Yang who sent him packing and settling for 9th place. The most well-known player at the table, Lee Watkinson, was eliminated in eighth place.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas will end soon after the Main Event, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until next year to win a Champion’s bracelet of your very own because next stop is the inaugural tournament of WSOP Europe.

The first ever World Series of Poker Europe will take place in London in September, and Full Tilt Poker wants to put you in the middle of the action.

The final table for the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event is set and gets underway at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas on Tuesday, July 17, at noon PST. Online Poker and Sportsbook, Bodog, has released betting odds on who will take down the event’s life changing $8,250,000 first place prize and coveted gold WSOP bracelet.

All nine players remaining will be first-timers at the final table and oddsmakers have picked Denmark’s Philip Hilm as the favorite at 14/5, followed closely by Tuan Lam and Lee Watkinson, both at 7/2.

Hall of Poker Famer and 11 WSOP bracelet holder and champ, Phil Hellmuth, and the legendary Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson has committed to display their skills when the World Series of Poker hits London September 6-16, 2007.

The first World Series event to be held outside North America will be hosted at three casinos operated by London Clubs International – Fifty, in St James; The Casino at the Empire, in Leicester Square, and The Sportsman, at Marble Arch.