Richard Goes from PC Sales to Poker Pro at CelebPoker.com

An IT salesman who became a professional poker play after losing his job has won almost £100,000 in just three months and is now heading to one of the world’s most prestigious poker tournaments, courtesy of CelebPoker.com

Until February this year, 40-year-old Richard Hemmington was your average man in the street with a nine-to-five job, a wife and two kids, but now he’s heading to the Seefeld Poker Masters in Austria after overcoming the odds to win a hard-fought selection tournament on CelebPoker.com.

“When I was made redundant from my job, I could have joined my colleagues in the dole queue, but I’d always enjoyed playing poker online and I seemed to have a flair for it, so I thought why not give it a go,” said Richard, who lives in Surbiton, Surrey. “In four months, I’ve managed to exceed my old salary and I’m now getting into the offline tournaments as well.”

Richard has already travelled to the Philippines for the APT Manila tournament and will now join an exclusive group of just six CelebPoker members in Seefeld, having beaten off competition from hundreds of others in the final of the qualifying tournament on May 24. In addition to the €2,250 sponsorship package, he will also have the opportunity to share in a prize pool estimated at over €180,000.

“Poker players come from all walks of life and not everyone would want to turn professional, but Richard has shown just what can be achieved if you put your mind to it,” said David Donovan, Chief Executive Officer of CelebPoker.com. “We’re investing a big sum to send six of our members to Seefeld and it’s great that Richard is one of them. Let’s hope he plays as well there as he did in our online qualifiers.”

“This will be my third major live tournament and I learnt a lot from the first two, so I’m very confident that I can improve on my results and get into the big money,” added Richard. “I’m looking forward to whole experience and hopefully playing poker well enough to reach the final table.”
After playing poker for just five years, Richard’s is a success story that will inspire many other aspiring poker players, from online amateurs to experienced professionals. Richard is just one of thousands of people from all background and social groups who are discovering the thrills and suspense of online poker.

The Seefeld Poker Masters will see him play against big international names such as Eddy Scharf and Sigi Stockinger, less than five months after turning professional.

CelebPoker News and Promotions Update

5 Million Euros Guaranteed
Our guaranteed monthly tournament prize pool now equates to over €5 Million! With a range of game types and guaranteed prize funds from €1,000 to €1 Million running throughout the month; there has never been a better reason to play your game with CelebPoker.

€1 Million Guaranteed
CelebPoker are happy to announce our next €1 Million Guaranteed which will take place on the 10th of May at 19:00 GMT – with a life-changing prize of over €200,000 for the 1st place finisher!

€250,000 Guaranteed Monthly
We’ve fired things up, to bring you our most incredible cash give-away every month! Our scorching €250,000 Guaranteed Tournament will prove if you can handle the heat once and for all.

€100,000 Guaranteed Every Sunday
The €100,000 Guaranteed Tournament Final will be held every Sunday at 19:00 GMT. You can buy directly in to the tournament for €140 + €10, Daily Satellites start from €13 + €1 satellites. There is also lotto satellites buy-ins from €7 + $0.50.

Win a Las Vegas Holiday
During the coming weeks you can win a €10,000 package for a Las Vegas Holiday during the WSOP main event 2009, being held at The Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas from the 27th May to the 15th July 2009.

Deposit Bonus 200% up to €500
CelebPoker is pleased to offer one of the most generous poker Deposit Bonuses online. Make your First Deposit at CelebPoker today and receive a 200% Bonus up to €500. This deposit bonus is a great way to increase your poker bankroll just by depositing and playing at the best poker site on the web

€75,000 Sit & Go Race
During the Month of May, CelebPoker will be giving away €75,000 of prizes to our players in three different Sit & Go Leader boards, one for each level of player!!

Freeroll Hunter
CelebPoker’s Exclusive Freeroll Hunter Offer. We have added EXTRA CASH in addition to the normal freerolls running on the Celeb, resulting in over 60,000 Euros in Freerolls.
Daily Freeroll Tournaments range from €20 – €25 – €50 – €100 – €200 – €300 -€500 – €1000 – €10,000

11-11 Turbo Freerolls Series
New 11-11 Turbo Freerolls. CelebPoker will be holding €20 Freerolls from 11am to 11pm every other hour 7 days a week. 4 with Absolutely No Requirements and 3 with 1 FPP buy in.

€1000 NEW PLAYER FREEROLL – NO DEPOSIT REQUIREMENTS
Register and Win! On every Saturday at 18.00 GMT will be a €1000 Freeroll open to all new players who have registered in the previous 7 days. Simple as that! Anybody who registers gets a free chance to win a part of this massive prize pool. NO DEPOSIT REQUIREMENTS

€10,000 Loyalty Freeroll
This Freeroll is open to all players who rake 1500 hands in the previous 30 days play, a prize pool of €10,000 is up for grabs monthly!

Poker Sponsorship – Team CelebPoker
Six €2,250 packages for the Seefeld Poker Masters Austria Main Event are up for grabs for the winners of our Team CelebPoker online Grand Final on May 24th, with runner up prizes of €375 paid out for 7th to 10th places. The Seefeld Main Event takes place on June 13th and 14th 2009.

€75,000 Sit & Go Race

€75,000 Sit & Go Race -
During the Month of May, CelebPoker will be giving away €75,000 of prizes to our players in three different Sit & Go Leaderboards, one for each level of player!!

CelebPoker Returns to Live Poker Circuit

Leading online Poker Room CelebPoker.com has bowed to popular demand and will shortly relaunch its acclaimed series of live off-the-wall poker tournaments across the UK and Europe.

After taking a few years off to concentrate on their popular online poker business, CelebPoker is returning to it roots – Live Poker Tournaments !

Renowned for their glitz and glamour, in the early noughties, CelebPoker’s live events were a hazy mix of skill, fun and wild after-show parties that were hugely popular and attracted celebrities from all walks of life. Including the likes of Teddy Sheringham, Victoria Silvstedt, Nick Leeson and Brian McFadden to name but a few.

CelebPoker are convinced that the nation’s obsession with celebrity culture will mean the new poker series will be bigger and better than ever. “I’ve lost count of the number of people who have asked us to bring back CelebPoker’s live poker tournaments,” said David Donovan, Chief Executive Officer of CelebPoker.com. “The game’s become too serious. We want to bring back the fun into the live arena. Imagine this: one minute you’re playing against your mates in the pub, the next minute you’re sat next to rogue trader Nick Leeson trying to work out if he’s bluffing. Now that’s what I call poker!”

Negotiations are taking place with some of Europe’s leading casinos and venues, with a schedule set to be announced over coming months. Players can certainly expect to be entertained as they experience the celebrity lifestyle alongside big names from the world of sport, film, music, business. And of course, poker!

Players can expect all the strong competition and quality for which CelebPoker.com is renowned, with the chance of winning big money cash prizes. Initial event planning is being directed by the company’s own team to ensure that the carefully selected venues exceed the required standards.
“We don’t do things by halves, so when we announce the schedule, it will feature a series of tournaments that poker players want to be part of,” added David. “We believe you can have a great time playing poker without taking life so seriously. And we’re looking to put a smile on the faces of our players; apart from when they need to be poker-faced of course.”

For further information please contact
Julian Bewley at CelebPoker Events on +44 (0) 1244 679 660 or email julian@celebpoker.com

About CelebPoker.com
CelebPoker’s live event schedule will be announced shortly. In addition to those already confirmed on the circuit, we are currently evaluating casinos and potential venues across Europe. Established in 2003, CelebPoker.com was voted the Best Poker Room in 2007 by readers of Gambling Online Magazine and is a fully licensed and regulated online poker room available in 14 languages.

Finalists Unveiled for Team CelebPoker at San Remo EPT

Finalists Unveiled for Team CelebPoker at San Remo EPT
Leading online poker room CelebPoker.com has unveiled the 20 finalists in the competition to choose its representatives for the San Remo Main Event poker tournament.

Just three team members will be chosen from the hundreds who entered the hugely popular promotion February and March, with three packages worth €6,500 each on offer for the Main Event, which takes place from April 18th to the 23rd. Participants will be selected in a Grand Final on April 12th.

“Here at CelebPoker.com, we’re committed to sending representatives from among our membership to the world’s greatest poker tournaments, and San Remo is among best in Europe,” said David Donovan, Chief Executive Officer of CelebPoker.com. “These three individuals have earned themselves a buy-in to the tournament and that means the chance to win some serious money.”

The San Remo Main Poker Event debuted on the European Poker Tour in 2008, with 701 players forking out €5,000 each to compete for €3.1 million in cash. Young American poker player Jason Mercier rose to the top to capture the title and €869,000 in one of the final table battles of the season.

CelebPoker.com’s entrants will be competing in a pool of 800 players, with the additional 99 seats meaning that an extra €475,000 will be added to the prize pool, meaning an estimated prize of more than €1 million for the tournament winner. In addition to the buy-in, the three winners will also receive €1,250 from CelebPoker.com towards accommodation and expenses.

The CelebPoker.com competition was open only to those members who raked more than €1,000 on the site in February or March, which earned an invite to the two online semi-finals. The top 10 players from the semi-finals then qualified for the Grand Final, from which the three winners will be chosen, with a €500 consolation prize for the fourth-placed competitor.

Members going through to the Grand Final are as follows:

February Qualifiers: March Qualifiers:
1. I Moreno 1. V Kivirinta
2. O Yilmaz 2. M Perkowski
3. D Kelly 3. M Haas
4. B Szabad 4. A Gnuva
5. M Friedmann 5. M Siekaniec
6. G Juhasz 6. E Petrov
7. R Hollaar 7. E Flesjo
8. H Lindemann 8. J Eijnden
9. M Offenbach 9. A Altinel
10. S Hollaar 10. M Kreidler

About CelebPoker.com
CelebPoker.com was voted the Best Poker Software 2007 by readers of Gambling Online Magazine and is an exciting, fully licensed and regulated online poker room available in 14 languages. We are dedicated to helping online poker players find fame and fortune by honing their skills on the site and providing them with the opportunity to become sponsored players at major live poker events. We also have an excellent online poker league and great monthly promotions. Check out www.CelebPoker.com today.

CelebPoker.com sends players to Estonian Olympic Open Championship

European licensed poker room CelebPoker.com is giving their players the chance to compete in the 2009 Olympic Open Championship event in Tallinn, Estonia, between 4th and 9th of May 2009. The prestigious main event will run over two days, from the 8th May to the 9th May in the luxurious Olympic Casino in Tallinn, Estonia.

The prize package comprises of a €1,150 entry to the Tallinn main event, as well as generous €950 for accommodation / travel.

How to win an Olympic Open Package:

Satellites are running on the CelebPoker.com poker room over the next five weeks, giving players the opportunity to gain entry to the €200 + €15 online final on the 19th of April 2009, via daily and weekly satellites. One package will be up for grabs for each €2000 in the prize-pool in the online final.

Daily Satellites to the weekly final:

Celebpoker.com is running daily satellites to suit all bankrolls: €1 + €0.10 Rebuy and €2.20 + €0.30 freeze-out satellites. Winners of the daily satellites will win entry into the weekly €22 + €2 final.

Weekly Satellites to the online final:
Each Sunday, players can compete in the €22 + €2 weekly final, to win entry to the online final (€200 + €15).

More Reasons to Join CelebPoker
• Frequent Reload bonuses for high-volume players
• Sunday Majors: More and more p5ers can be seen playing our weekly €100k and monthly €250k tournaments. Join in and claim your share of some sick prize-pools.
• Live Sponsorship opportunities to major High Stakes European ranked live tournaments: qualify for Team CelebPoker
• Monthly €25K Freerolls, and upcoming Freeroll mania month, with an extra €15k in exclusive freerolls.
• €1000 New Player Freeroll (19:00 GMT) every Saturday
• Regular Frequent Player Promotions (e.g. €1k, €2k Freerolls with <80 players!)
• Flash Instant Play (No install necessary: Play on Mac, @work, in University, Internet Café etc.)
• Lucrative Refer a friend bonus
• 24/7 Live Customer support
• Quick Withdrawals

CelebPoker.com Player wins €102,723 Bad Beat Jackpot

At 2.12 AM on 26 February, 2009 the CelebPoker.com Bad Beat Jackpot was hit for €293,495 on a €0.25/€.50 Bad Beat cash table where nine players were seated. The poker player with the screenname “oFFshore*” held pocket jacks, while his opponent square19 held “the bullets” (pocket Aces).

* The flop was dealt: Ace, Jack, Jack
- giving player “square19″ a full house (Aces over Jacks) and giving offShore* quad Jacks.

* The turncard was the deuce of diamonds.

* The river was dealt: Ace of hearts
This rivercard gave the underdog “square19″ four of a kind Aces, meaning a sick beat for “square9″.

Usually one would scream at the monitor or utter something in disgust after such a sick beat – however because this was a bad beat jackpot table, both players were elated.

As you would expect with two players holding such premium hands, both players were all in. square19 won the €109 pot by hitting his quad Aces on the river, but oFFShore* with Quad Jacks won the CelebPoker Bad Beat Jackpot.

Payouts were:

oFFShore* – €102,723
square19 – €51,261
The other 7 players dealt into the hand each received €7,337.

Play Poker At CelebPoker.com

Exclusive Freeroll Poker Tournaments – CelebPoker.com

Freeroll Crazy Only at CelebPoker.com

CelebPoker is pulling out all the stops by adding a bunch of tasty Exclusive Freeroll Poker Tournaments to its schedule. We have added EXTRA CASH in addition to the normal Freerolls running on the Celeb, resulting in over 60,000 Euros in freerolls on CelebPoker.com

CelebPoker Daily Freeroll Poker Tournaments Range from €20 – €50 – €100 – €200 – €300 – €1000 – €2000 – €25,000 most with NO Requirements.

Team CelebPoker – Poker Sponsorship Offer

Three €6,500 packages for the San Remo Main Event are up for grabs for the winners of our Team CelebPoker online grand final on April 12th, with a runner up prize of €500 paid out for 4th Place. The San Remo Main Event takes place between April 18-23, 2009.

CelebPoker ICOP Tournament Series: 7days – €600K Prizes

CelebPoker.com is proud to announce the International Championship of Poker (ICOP) – a series of tournaments running over 7 days, with a guaranteed prize-pool of €600,000.

As an extra incentive to the best players in the series, 3% of the total prize-pool will be set aside and awarded to the top three players over the whole series, based on points (which are awarded to the top 30 players in each event), meaning that in addition to winning some fat prizes, the top player over the course of the series can win an additional estimated €10k for accumulating more league points than their competitors in the series.

ICOP Medallists additional prizes:

ICOP Gold Medallist – 50%

ICOP Silver Medallist – 30%

ICOP Bronze Medallist – 20%

Satellites for all of the ICOP events will be available in the CelebPoker lobby, meaning that no matter how big or small your online bankroll is, you can still take a shot at your cut of at least a cool €600k. See CelebPoker.com for more details

Freeroll Crazy Cash Giveaway

CelebPoker is pulling out all the stops by adding a bunch of tasty exclusive poker freerolls to their tournament schedule for the month. We have added an Extra €15,000 is up for grabs in addition to the normal freerolls running on the Celeb during the month, resulting in over €60,000 in freerolls on CelebPoker for the month of March. Freeroll Crazy Month at CelebPoker.com

FPP and non-FPP freerolls
Many of our Freeroll Crazy freerolls have ZERO Entry Requirements, and some require that you have a few Frequent Player Points (FPPs) to enter.
FPPs are earned through playing on the CelebPoker software and contributing rake from cash-tables or tournament entry fees. You can check your FPP
balance by looking at the lobby screen on CelebPoker.

Why Play Freerolls Online?
Freerolls are an excellent way to build up your bankroll for little to no outlay. World Series of Poker Europe champion Annete Obrestad is famous for having
built up her bankroll from freerolls, then moving up to buy-in tournaments. Our no-entry requirement freerolls will probably have larger fields than the FPP freerolls, so increase your edge by gaining some FPPs for entry into the larger
freerolls! Also worth a mention is dead money! Many freerollers are just learning the ropes at poker, and use freerolls to practice their game – and as such offer significant value to the skilled player (but watch out, you might be surprised
at the skills of some of the freeroll poker players and get owned!).
Structures to suit everyone. We appreciate that sometimes tournaments (especially freerolls) have terrible structures-� therefore we have adjusted the structures of our freerolls to foster both fast and loose, structured and creative play. We offer turbo hourly freerolls with 7 minute blinds as well as larger prize-pool deepstack freeroll tournaments with longer blind structures.

Play poker for Free?
Money! Kudos, freeroll domination! All of these things are possible – We are sure you will appreciate the chance to increase your bankroll for free.. If you are good enough! With over €60,000 reasons to play you would be burning money if you didn’t!
Good luck on the table freerollers!
CelebPoker.com

CelebPoker.com sends players to Estonian Olympic Open Championship

Win big at live poker tournament in Estonia with CelebPoker.com

European licensed poker room CelebPoker.com is giving their players the chance to compete in the 2009 Olympic Open Championship event in Tallinn, Estonia, between 4th and 9th of May 2009. The prestigious main event will run over two days, from the 8th May to the 9th May in the luxurious Olympic Casino in Tallinn, Estonia.

The prize package comprises of a €1,150 entry to the Tallinn main event, as well as generous €950 for accommodation / travel.

How to win an Olympic Open Package:

Satellites are running on the CelebPoker.com poker room over the next five weeks, giving players the opportunity to gain entry to the €200 + €15 online final on the 19th of April 2009, via daily and weekly satellites. One package will be up for grabs for each €2000 in the prize-pool in the online final.

Daily Satellites to the weekly final:

Celebpoker.com is running daily satellites to suit all bankrolls: €1 + €0.10 Rebuy and €2.20 + €0.30 freeze-out satellites. Winners of the daily satellites will win entry into the weekly €22 + €2 final.

Weekly Satellites to the online final:

Each Sunday, players can compete in the €22 + €2 weekly final, to win entry to the online final (€200 + €15).

More Reasons to Join CelebPoker

• Frequent Reload bonuses for high-volume players

• · Sunday Majors: Play our weekly €100k and monthly €250k poker tournaments. Join in and claim your share of some sick prize-pools.

• · Live Sponsorship opportunities to major High Stakes European ranked live tournaments: qualify for Team CelebPoker

• · Monthly €25K Freerolls, and upcoming Freeroll mania month, with an extra €15k in exclusive freerolls.

• · €1000 New Player Freeroll (19:00 GMT) every Saturday

• · Regular Frequent Player Promotions (e.g. €1k, €2k Freerolls with <80 players!)

• · Flash Instant Play Poker (No install necessary: Play on Mac, @work, in University, Internet Café etc.)

• · Lucrative Refer a friend bonus

• · 24/7 Live Customer support

• · Quick Withdrawals