The Alderney Gambling Control Commission announced today that Full Tilt has paid the license fees that were due. According to reports, this amount was reported to be around $410,000. In its statement regarding the matter, the AGCC claimed that "The recent payment of overdue license fees by FTP is also in players’ best interests since it allows commercial negotiations to take place that might result in a successful refinancing deal. " If you read between the lines, that basically equates to "We will give them their license back should Full Tilt secure a deal.

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.

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.

As most of you know, there is a new web based animated series called "The Micros" that follows three online grinders as they try to get out of the micros and become famous.   Well, as you know, in the pilot episode, the trio landed a score of $1 Million.   The next episode is due out next month, but in the meantime, a holiday special has been posted for the show with special guest star Erik Seidel.   All I am going to tell you is WATCH THIS! [youtube]http://www.

The new face of Fein energy drink, John Racener, hasn’t been getting much sleep these days, but is it energy drink overload? I would probably guess the answer would be all the nerves, excitement, and build up surrounding the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event final table happening in less than 24 hours. *“I’m extremely excited, I don’t really feel nervous or anything because this is what I do. It’s just something that I’m used to doing, playing poker; obviously it’s the biggest stage I’ll ever be on. I’ve had visions and dreams about hands at the final table, I’m thinking about it 24/7.

For those of you hiding under a rock, PokerStars announced earlier in the week that they are no longer serving Washington State residents for real money gaming. This came from the WA Supreme Court's decision that the law that bans online gambling was not unconstitutional. They upheld the law and PokerStars decided that it was time to get out. So many Washington players headed over to Full Tilt to chill out with Ivey and the boys.

I logged onto Full Tilt to play a little Stud Hi-Lo and inspiration came to me for a new slogan for the site. As such, I figured I would share some ads that were rejected from various sites.    (Ad tag line in photo caption. ) *Full Tilt Poker:* For some reason, Full Tilt thought that trying to convince people they might actually win would be a better way to go: *Poker Player Magazine:* Daniel Negreanu was pegged to be this site's spokesman, but there were privacy concerns: You can talk to these guys about anything.

It was announced today that bwin and Partygaming have completed the talk of a merger and will now form one company in 2011.  Essentially, the assets of bwin will be transferred to Partygaming but bwin will have the majority of the shares. I have been watching this for a while due to the fact that I do some work for some sites run by bwin, so this merger has been of keen interest to me.   However, anyone that plays online poker should be keeping an eye on bwin and Partygaming over the next few months.

Gavin Smith on winning a bracelet, life at the WSOP, and prop betting. [youtube]http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=kndRqzTGaCE[/youtube].

Day 8 is finally here. This will be the last day of play for the Main Event until the final 9 come back in November to play out the 9-man SNG for the ~9 million first place. *Battle of Sponsors* As per WSOP rules and regulations when players are on a feature table only 3 players can wear a logo for a single site. What this means is on a table full of 9 players, only 3 can wear Full Tilt Patches and 3 can wear PokerStars patches.