O'Leary, Flood and Allen through to Poker Million Final, High Stakes Poker Line-up Revealed and more

Poker Million Final Taking Shape
Three of the six finalists for the Ladbrokes Poker Million were confirmed last night in the live semi final on Sky Sports. Ciaran O'Leary, Liam Flood and LEOCOP Masters winner Kevin Allen all survived elimination last night and will be joined on Friday by 3 of the following semi finalists:

The Devilfish, Marty Smyth, Roy Brindley, Eoghan O'Dea, Anthony Hardy, Sammy George and Tony G.

The second semi final will be televised live on Sky Sports tonight, with the final on Friday night.

High Stakes Poker Line-Up Revealed
Time to get excited by the 5th season

of High Stakes Poker as the full line up has been revealed. Daniel Negreanu, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson and Antonio Esfandiari are amongst the regulars making a return, and Phil Ivey is back for a 2nd appearance. The players will be licking their lips as soon as Phil Hellmuth sits down once again. This year will be certainly action packed, as bracelet winner Dario Minieri and online cash king Thomas 'Durrrr' Dwan make their debut. All eyes will be on Dwan, as well as WSOP champion Peter Eastgate and runner up Ivan Demidov.

Perhaps the most interesting addition is Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, who has previously cashed in the WSOP main event and maybe more interestingly, was married to Jennifer Tilly (Interesting because Phil Laak is also confirmed for the show). Notable absences include Mike Matusow, Jamie Gold and Sam Farha, but this is still a very sick line up indeed and we can't wait for it to hit YouTube:

PATRIK ANTONIUS
MIKE BAXTER
DAVID BENYAMINE
DOYLE BRUNSON
NICK CASSAVETES
IVAN DEMIDOV
TOM DWAN
PETER EASTGATE
ELI ELEZRA
ANTONIO ESFANDIARI
BARRY GREENSTEIN
PHIL HELLMUTH
PHIL IVEY
PHIL LAAK
HOWARD LEDERER
GIORGIO MEDICI
DARIO MINIERI
DANIEL NEGREANU
ILARI SAHAMIES
BOB SAFAI
SAM SIMON

More details on new PartyPoker Loyalty Scheme
We brought you news yesterday about the juicy looking new VIP programme from Party Poker, and today we have even more information on the new system. The most loyal grinders will be part of the Palladium Lounge, anyone who earns 5000+ PartyPoints a month will be part of this exclusive club, and will benefit from:

More than 30% in rewards and bonuses for your play, guaranteed – that's PartyPoker.com's biggest-ever offer
Rewards that best suit you, such as special leader boards, rake races, and non-deposit reloads
Exclusive events
VIP service around the clock

What's more, the real sickos that earn 300,000+ points a year will become members of Palladium Lounge Elite which includes:
Exclusive events every quarter
Opportunities to play in live televised events

Kristen Makin, Head of VIP at PartyPoker.com, said: "The Palladium Lounge is easy to understand and makes PartyPoker.com the most rewarding and exciting online poker room around. We've spent months listening to customers and are now giving them the great program that they want."
Party Poker are also adding heads up cash tables for the first time next week, all of which makes this a great time to switch over to Party Poker.

Poker still the most searched word on Lycos
For the 2nd year running, the word 'poker' is the most searched for term on search engine Lycos, and is the only gambling term in the top ten. Paris Hilton was once again 2nd, with 'YouTube' coming in third. 'Golf' came in 4th, rather amazingly 'Sarah Palin' was 5th and Britney Spears in 6th.

This is obviously great for the game of poker, but not to cast any doubt (or worse, make myself look seedy) but I am presuming that this was based on 'clean' searches, as surely words like 'porn' and 'sex' are the most searched for subject matter on the World Wide Web?

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