Cake Poker announced on Thursday that they had entered a "strategic partnership" with PokerListings. com. The translation for those of you that don't speak poker business speak is that the Cake Poker Network was sold to PokerListings. VictoryPoker.

On Thursday, PokerStars announced the EPT Tournament of Champions, and that will run up against the first ever Onyx Cup event in May. This is just another example of the online turf wars that have spilled out into the live arena. Can you imagine what would happen if more online sites started to participate in the turf wars? Just imagine the screener questionnaires that would accompany tournament registration. Of course, I have put some thought into it and here is what you may encounter.

If there is one person in the poker world whom you would want to learn poker from who would it be? We all know who my choice is in the matter. Today, I almost wet myself when I saw the following site: www. philivey. com[http://www.

In case you missed it this past Sunday, Daniel Negreanu took on Viktor Blom aka Isildur1 in the latest Pokerstars[http://www. pokerjunkie. com/poker/poker-stars/]Superstar Showdown Challenge. More accurately, Daniel tried to take him on.

While I didn't think I would do so, I have watched every episode this season of High Stakes Poker[http://tv. gsn. com/shows/highstakespoker/] on GSN.   Here are a few of my thoughts on the season so far.

Mike Sexton had to give up his final table announcing duties at the Bay 101 World Poker Tour event on Friday. The reason was that he actually made the final table. He wound up finishing in 6th place. Mike Matusow also made the final table and ultimately finished in 3rd place.

Often we see poker media or poker pros talk about doing things that are in the "best interest of the game" or in the "best interest of the poker community. "I was just reading a blog talking about the Onyx Series that Full Tilt is going to put on this year. They were talking about how that poker site rivalries are spilling over into the live arena due to the fact that poker sites are telling their pros not to play at other sites' live events. The comment was made that the people in charge of the sites should do what is in the best interest of the poker community.

I was looking for a picture for a redhead in a sexy baseball uniform, but I ran across the one below instead. Ok, I realize that she isn't wearing a baseball uniform, so just pretend she is associated with the "Cincinnati Reds. "  She can be my bat girl anytime. Or maybe we can play strip baseball poker.

Yesterday Full Tilt Poker announced the creation of the Onyx Cup. It is a series of live high. stakes tournaments with buy-ins from $100,000 to $300,000. In a nutshell, the top 3 players in each event get points toward the Onyx Cup.

The folks on another "poker news" website posted an article debating who had the tougher road to the NBC National Heads-Up Final. For those of you that don't know or don't care, Erik Seidel faced Chris Moneymaker in the finals. I figured I would give my opinions on who had the tougher route to the finals. These were Moneymaker's opponents: Round 1 - John Racener Round 2 - Daniel Cates Round 3 - Doyle Brunson Quarters - David Oppenheim Semis -  Jonathan Duhamel   These were Seidel's opponents: Round 1 - Allen Cunningham Round 2 - Jen Harman Round 3 - Phil Gordon Quarters - Vanessa Selbst Semis - Andrew Robl Let's look at Seidel's opponents first.