As if the April Black Friday were not enough to deal a lethal blow to the online poker industry in the U.S., new breaking news shattered the poker world this morning as the British Channel Islands regulators suspended the licence of Full Tilt, yes, the website that has had such big problems returning money to their former American players. Inspired by the FBI, the commission started investigating deeper into Full Tilt’s activities and found the site in breach of local laws. No more information has been made available so far, however, PokerScout (that track poker action worldwide) found out that on Wednesday evening, literally no one was playing for real money at Full Tilt’s website.

Another player secured a reputation as a real pro at this year’s WSOP. Matt Jarvis might have missed out on the opportunity to win a bracelet back in 2010, but he returned this year to make up for his failure and emerged with his first WSOP bracelet on his wrist from Event 40, a $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold ‘em game. As he said, winning the coveted bracelet is every player’s dream and they dream of it from the first moment they start playing poker. On Sunday, he defeated Justing Flitz, last year’s November Niner who managed to finish in the money even this year and, at 24 years of age, he is very close to his first $1 million milestone in his poker carreer.

Amidst arguments whether poker is a game of skill or chance, a very interesting work has been published by Professor Steven Levitt and Thomas Miles from the University of Chicago. Their paper is called The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker: Evidence From the World Series of Poker. The work aims for a very special comparison of poker pros and professional players of the Major League Baseball and supports with ample statistical evidence an assertion that a very similar statistical pattern applies to the percentage of winnings achieved by professional poker players in the WSOP and by the best MLB teams. Investigating the winning percentages at the WSOP, the scholars found out that skilled player would earn 30 percent of their investment and the high skilled players would win 54.9 percent of the match ups. Then, looking at the MLB, they realised that teams that won playoffs in the previous season would subsequently win 55.7 percent of their games in the MLB. Since there is no arguing that baseball is a game of skill, now there should be no arguing that poker is, either.

At the beginning of this year, Swedish judges had to go through a lesson of poker and hear a statement of a professional poker player who taught them the game to show that poker has a certain amount of skill involved. Back then, the Swedish court concluded that whilst sit&go cash games were rather a game of chance, winning in a poker tournament required a considerable degree of skill. Now a similar debate is lead in the United States in connection with the shutdown of websites formerly operated in the U.S. by PokerStars, FullTilt and Aboslute Poker. As the big poker operators face charges of fraud and money laundering, it is becoming clear that at least the act that prohibits processing of transactions connected with internet gambling (UIGEA) needs to be revised and clarified, along with several other legal regulations pertaining to poker.

Pulling down the shutters on three biggest poker websites serving U.S. players is called the Black Friday by some, whilst others see the subsequent developments as an opportunity to stand up for legalisation of poker and gambling on the internet. Possibly the strongest lobbying group is the Poker Players Alliance, which is currently communicating with a range of lawmakers in the aim to persuade them that it’s high time for online poker and gambling to go legal. And, since money seems to be ultimately behind everything, they are flaunting the huge tax revenue potential of the industry, which can hardly be questioned. The shutdown of the big poker sites opened the market up for other operators and more and more people are now realising the huge fiscal potential online gambling and poker actually have.

Despite the turmoil in the online poker industry caused by the FBI shutting down the three biggest online poker carriers, the European Poker Tour stop in San Remo organised by PokerStars will go uninterrupted as usual. This year will be the fourth one for the popular show last year won by Liv Boeree. Back then, the prizepool amounted to more than $8 million with over 1,200 players attending.  The main event game will be no-limit hold’em and players will start with stacks of 30k chips. The tournament stop in San Remo begins Wednesday April 27 and will last through to Tuesday May 3 when the final table will be played.

As it’s 2011, no poker news site should lack a couple of headlines on the so far most successful poker pro who is no one else than Eric Seidel. He is just second to Daniel Negreanu on Hendon Mob’s all-time money list of poker pros that dug out millions from the poker industry through a savvy play. He is even ahead of a long-time king of poker Phil Ivey. Looking at Seidel’s performance this year, it looks like 2011 belongs to him. He won a series of major poker competitions and even took part in the most expensive poker games of all time where buy-ins exceeded $25,000. Only through January and February alone, Seidel won over $3 million in tournament winnings. No wonder if he cashed $625,000 in just one competition – the Aussie Millions high roller event where he ended up third. When queried about his card playing crusade, he gave an extremely modest answer saying that it’s just a freaky streak of fortune that happens once in a lifetime.

The World Series of Poker Circuit saw another stop, this time in St. Louis, and the main event was won by Kyle Cartwright who already snatched to gold rings in the Harrah’s tournament series. There are just three stop before this year’s final and players are travelling across the whole country in the aim not to miss out on their last chances to win a seat in the renowned tournament which will be held, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The competitions kicks off April 15, the $1,600 Main Event takes place April 28 – April 30. Players can, apart from other ways, qualify from the leader boards of the National Championships. For Cartwright, this victory means a third gold ring in 2011 and his first major poker title.

The Swedish Supreme Court arrived to quite a unique decision on the nature of poker, ruling that it is equally a game of skill and a game of chance. The ruling was initiated by a case against four men who organised a poker tournament back in 2007 and as a consequence were charged with breaking the law. Two of them have now been acquitted entirely and the two others saw their charges reduced. The court ruled that poker tournaments were rather a game of skill as the same players compete against each other and over the course of time, skill becomes the decisive factor. Cash games, on the other game, were designated as a game of chance as players can drop in and out as they wish and there is usually not enough time to let one’s skills in, winnings thus being won rather on a random than a structured basis. This decision left a major part of local poker community confused, however, glad that poker has not been labelled a game of skill entirely – which would mean that winnings would become taxable as an income.

Gaming Partners International Corp., a major manufacturer of poker chips and casino equipment, bought a French mould maker and incorporated the company into its manufacturing processes thus gaining more control over the whole course of the production. Poker and casino chips have become quite a currency, with every casino having their own chips which have to be identifiable and very hard to counterfeit. Therefore, a contemporary casino and poker chip may even be injected with ultraviolet and laser pigments which make it difficult for potential thieves to take the chips out of the casino’s door. GPI also manufactures dice, roulette wheels and gaming furniture and is looking to expand its business to new markets.