6th Year for UB Online Championship
Mood:  cheeky
Saying goodbye to 2010 means saying hello to 2011. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to use the best Mac poker sites, you are in luck because UBOC 6 has started. The UB Online Championship for 2011 has 29 exciting events including the Championship Event with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. Winning one of the events nets you a special UBOC watch, and if you were a winner in UBOC 2010, you have the Tournament of Champions to look forward to. If you were thinking about using poker flash, there is no better time than now to give it a shot!

Everything got started on January 16th with a No Limit Texas Holdem Deep Stack event for $530. Those that used a Full Tilt Poker referral code because they like Omaha better than Holdem were able to play UBOC’s first PLO event yesterday. If heads-up poker is your specialty, Event 13 is the tournament for you, but be sure to plan ahead because there is no late registration for this event.

The High Roller event is a $2,100 buy-in and takes place on January 23rd. The Championship Event features the biggest guaranteed prize pool, however: $1 million. The buy-in for this tournament is $1,050. If you are new to online poker rooms and don’t want to commit to these stakes, you can opt to play satellites. If you don’t mind working your way up, you can qualify via Step Satellites for as little as $0.10!

Another solution for those that would like a little more free poker training is Mini-UBOC. Mini-UBOC mirrors the UBOC events but the stakes are a fraction of the size. While you won’t win a special watch, the prize pools will be large and the excitement of a final table will be there in spades!

We have been waiting all year for UBOC to come around again, so be sure to take advantage of it. Also, if you are a fan of no download free casino, you might be happy to know that UB can also be played in your browser. Best of luck!

UB's Omaha Jackpot
Mood:  amorous
UB.com is one of the best Mac poker sites for Omaha. They have a new Royal Flush promotion that might remind you of a bad beat jackpot. They made a progressive Royal Flush Jackpot, and players receive cash bonuses for hitting royal flushes. Pretty cool way to reward someone for the most awesome hand in poker.

If you have tried a Lucky Ace Poker download, you might have tried playing on the bad beat jackpot tables. 50% of the jackpot is given out when someone loses a hand with quad 8s or better, and players dealt into the bad beat hand also win a percentage. You will see that the Royal Flush promo is very much like this bad beat promo. The royal flush winner receives 50% of the jackpot, the players dealt cards in the same hand share a quarter of the jackpot, and then the remaining 25% goes to everyone else playing Jackpot tables of the same stake. A promo like this gives players more opportunities to rake in the dough than at most other poker sites!

An important fact to know is that only 65% of the jackpot is handed out when a royal flush is made. The remaining 25% and 10% go to the next Jackpot and UB administration respectively. People that prefer the Fulltiltpoker download might look down upon the fact that UB receives a fraction of the jackpot, but the folks at UB need to get paid somehow too!

To have a chance at the Jackpot, you need to play at a Royal Flush Jackpot table. Flash Texas Holdem is an option at UB, so you can play these tables even if you don’t want to download the software. The Jackpot is built up by taking 50 cents from every raked hand at these tables.

If you play online poker and are about to hit the Royal Flush tables, take note of a few conditions for winning the Jackpot. The hand had to involve at least four people, and the hand must go to show down. Players that were sitting out do not qualify for a share of the Jackpot. If two Royal Flush Jackpot tables get dealt a royal flush at the same time, the Jackpot is given to the hand that began first. I have to admit that if I hit a royal in the hand that started second, I would probably stick to my free slots download for a while because I would be so upset!

If you are sick of Holdem and want to give Omaha a try, definitely consider UB. It is comforting that you are not forced to download Full Tilt Poker if you are interested in the less common poker games. We don’t want a Full Tilt and PokerStars monopoly or anything!

Tournament Leaderboard
Mood:  caffeinated
If you are interested in the best Mac poker sites, chances are you will probably want to play tournaments. In this case, it would be good to know about UB’s tournament leaderboards. There is one big MTT leaderboard and three smaller SnG leaderboards, and there is cash to be won on each one.

UB, like many other Mac poker poker sites, uses a points system to rank their players. The number of points received in a given tournament depends on the prize pool and where you finish. The same formula is used for both MTTs and SnGs.

To compete with the flash Texas Holdem sites, the site has split the MTT leaderboard into weekly, monthly, and yearly divisions. The weekly version takes your best 10 results, and the person finishing in 1st wins $1,000. The monthly leaderboard takes your best 20 results, and there is a $14,000 prize pool for the top 10. Finishing in first place would net you $6,500. And finally, the annual leaderboard takes your top 100 results, just like with the PokerStars download. There is an exclusive freeroll for the top 50 players. Cash prizes are awarded to the top 10. If you can place in 1st or 2nd, you will also win a WSOP Main Event seat!

If you feel inexperienced on US friendly poker sites, it might be beneficial to try the SnG leaderboards instead. They are more friendly to new players since there are 3 separate divisions for different buy-in amounts. If you play $20 or lower, you belong to the Diamond division. The total weekly prize pool for Diamond is $1.5k and the prize pool for the month is $5k. The Heart division is for people that play between $21 and $50. The weekly Heart prize pool is $3,000 while the monthly prize pool is $7,000. If you are so serious about the UB leaderboards that you got rid of your Lucky Ace Poker download, you might want to try the Spade division for buy-ins higher than $51. Every week $6k is won while every month $10k is won in this division.

Placing well on leaderboards is a great way to make a tournament player more ambitious and excited to play. It might be a good idea to obtain some free poker training to become even better at the game. I daresay the prizes are well worth it!

Adam Levy
People hoping to play cards on the best Mac poker sites will be contemplating playing at UB, so let’s talk about Adam Levy, another UB representative. Online players will know him as “Roothlus” since he uses that alias on the best US poker sites. The 28 year old professional was born in New York but he has since moved away and now lives in Florida. Before he discovered poker, he made money by waiting tables while also going to school.

Levy has cashed for over $3 million on money poker sites, something most people cannot say for themselves. An extraordinary fact regarding Levy’s online scores is that there isn’t a single tournament win that surpasses $387.5k, yet he still has over $3 million in cashes. This goes to show his impressive consistency as a player. His $387,500 score was obtained by placing 2nd in an FTOPS event on his Fulltiltpoker download a year ago. His next largest cash is quite a bit smaller: he won $80,250 for placing 2nd in Full Tilt’s $750k Guarantee. His largest PokerStars cash was a few years ago when he finished 3rd in the Sunday Million for $56,990.

Levy has some live cashes in casinos for USA players to be proud of, as well. He had his largest cash ever in this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event after barely missing the final table in 12th place. Missing the November Nine was very disappointing, but he must have been pleased to add an extra $635k to his bank account. Before this Main Event finish, his best live cash had been in 2008 for $266,445.

Levy has a pretty solid routine laid out when he plays poker. He prefers to get out of bed a couple hours before signing in to download free poker sites since he likes to do a couple things before getting on his computer. He prefers to have a good breakfast and a shower first thing. His music of choice while he is playing is, surprisingly, techno. After his day of playing on US friendly poker sites is over, he jumps onto his XBOX and plays FIFA. I like a man that knows what he’s doing!

If you would like the chance to sit at the table with Levy one day, there is no substitute for playing tons of hands and studying. There is plenty of poker literature on the Internet so even the most inexperienced player should make progress fairly quickly. You might have to forget about your no download free casino sites, but that's okay because poker is way more fun!

Card Player 2009 Player of the Year
Mood:  incredulous
If you would like to play poker in online casinos for USA players but you can’t decide between a poker download and free poker no downloads, maybe you will be convinced to pick UB after meeting Eric Baldwin, another UB representative. The 27 year old poker player has had great success with tournament poker since he turned pro. He was born in Beaver Dam, WI, and he attended the University of Wisconsin and studied Psychology and Mathematics. Right now he currently resides in Vegas.

Baldwin sometimes plays tournaments on US friendly poker sites, but he became famous due to live poker where he has over $3 million in cashes. He has one bracelet on his list of wins, earning over $500k in Event 34, a $1,500 NL Hold’em event. In WSOP 2010 he cashed in four events but he didn’t make any final tables. He had his best cash in the Main Event where he placed 59th and received $138k in return.

This young tournament star enjoys US poker rooms and can also be found playing the big WPT events. He had a great year last year, first finishing 3rd in a Legends of Poker event in August and then winning a Five Diamond World Poker Classic event near the end of the year. The previous year in 2008 he placed first in Event 2 in the Five Star World Classic Poker Classic for $148,860. With all these live tournaments to attend, I’m sure Baldwin doesn’t have much time for Bingo codes.

Since he is sponsored by UB, Baldwin spends the rest of his working hours on download free poker sites. He has stated that online play differs from live play because preflop is much more aggressive online. He tries to earn most of his chips without showdown when he plays online in contrast to live where he will attempt to see many pots multi-way and win chips that way.

Baldwin was the Card Player 2009 “Player of the Year”, so he is obviously doing something right when it comes to poker. If you’re looking to get into real money poker, be sure to carefully consider which site you choose. A Bwin Poker download has some good features, but go through my old articles to see what UB can offer you as well.

Brandon Cantu
Brandon Cantu agrees with Tiffany Michelle: he would also encourage you to support online casinos for USA players by playing at UB. After Cantu learned to play poker in Washington from his grandfather, he practiced his game in Oregon casinos. It makes sense that he now lives in Vegas because he has easy access to US poker rooms there.

The decision to go pro came in 2006 in Vegas after winning a bracelet in Event 2 of the World Series. Amazingly, that was the first major tournament he ever played! Since then he has continued to do extremely well in casinos for US players. Regarding WSOP, he won a second bracelet in 2009 in Event 48, a PLO tournament, for $228,967. That year he almost won two bracelets. He had to settle for 2nd place and $400k in Event 39, a NLHE tournament. His best Main Event finish was 2 years back when he took 20th for $257,334.

He also has three cashes in the World Poker Tour including his first WPT title in the Bay 101 Shooting Star championship for $1 million. Because he also earned $30k for busting 6 bounty players, he earned the nickname “The Bounty Hunter”. It would make sense if the six pros he took out of that event wished he were into online casino gambling for a living instead!

Cantu has cashed for over $3.4 million in live tournaments. He’s on Team UB, though, so you’d think that he must sometimes play poker in online casino USA sites. Because he prefers live poker, he actually doesn’t download free poker all that often. This does not mean that he doesn’t play online at all, however. He went for the obvious choice of “brandoncantu” for his UB screen name, and he can be found playing tournaments and sometimes high stakes ring games.

Part of the reason for Cantu’s success in tournament poker is that he is a very aggressive player. If you aspire to challenge him in the WSOP one day, you definitely shouldn’t download roulette. It would be way more worthwhile to get on a poker site and start building a bankroll.

Tiffany Michelle
Mood:  not sure
Welcome back to my blog! Today we shall discuss Tiffany Michelle, another representative of UB and online casinos for USA players. Michelle went pro a mere 4 years ago, but being attractive and participating in the World Series has caused her to turn heads in the poker community. She created the record for the biggest tournament field ever beat by a lady after finishing 17th out of 6,844 people in the WSOP Main Event back in 2008. Since she wore a UB patch during her WSOP run, it’s been a couple years since she started advertising for UB. As such, she most likely doesn’t care for a Bwin Poker download.

Michelle is 25 years old and she grew up in California. She went to school at UCLA where she finished a theatre program, and she has been seen on a few different TV shows such as American Dreams and The Amazing Race. She is into writing and singing her own songs, and she’s even won a beauty pageant. She used her talent of finding the spotlight once she started playing in casinos for US players. She was an on-air host for Sirius Satellite Radio, and then she got a gig on camera for hosting tournaments for PokerNews.

Michelle can be seen playing tournaments of all stakes on UB, which is a Mac poker site. Her favorite type of tournament is one with bounties, but she also enjoys the deep stack structure. Because she prefers deep chip stacks, it’s not a big shock to learn that she also participates in cash games. Instead of playing Internet slots like a lot of other poker pros, she likes to play cash games at NL midstakes tables when she has free time.

It’s no doubt that she got lucky to go so far in the WSOP, and she has worked hard to stay prominent in the poker world. Players everywhere speculated why she elected to promote UB rather than a PokerStars bonus code, but it definitely worked out just fine for her. She has a long way to go to catch up to the likes of Annie Duke, but she’s very young and most certainly has plenty of time!

Joe Sebok
Mood:  rushed
This next entry will be about Joe Sebok, another poker professional that encourages a UB referral code. Sebok is a relatively new face to the poker scene, but you’ll definitely recognize his stepdad, Barry Greenstein. Sebok was born in Illinois, but he grew up in California and went pro back in 2005. He’s been encouraging the UB referral code since late 2009.

Tournaments are Sebok’s specialty, and his live tournament winnings total just below $2 million. Although he’s never won a WSOP bracelet, he’s cashed 15 times to date. His highest finish in the Main Event was 56th just last year. Because tournaments are his main game, it makes you wonder if he ever secretly plays on a Full Tilt Poker download or uses a PokerStars bonus code from time to time. I guess it’s a UB pro’s job to keep that stuff private, so I’ll probably never know!

Sebok has gotten quite involved in the poker community. He is involved in PokerRoad.com with Greenstein, a website that has poker blogs, poker radio, and poker TV. He co-hosts the PokerRoad Radio with Gavin Smith, fellow professional player and good friend. Perhaps you’ve seen the Internet show “Prop Bets” where Sebok and Smith bet against each other in random prop bets in things like kick boxing and eating. The idea for the show came from a prop bet that caused Sebok, the loser, to wear 3 different costumes to the 2006 Main Event, including a diaper-wearing bear, Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman. His life may be strange, but you can see that Sebok does not always use poker downloads and live events to bring home the bacon.

Sebok is pretty young, so his accomplishments can only increase in the near and far future. He’s been a pro for a mere five years, and it’s not a stretch to believe that he’ll win a WSOP bracelet in the next year or two. He improved his game online when he first started playing poker, and if you strive to become a great player, you should do the same. However, Sebok would encourage you to forget everything you've heard about a Party Poker download bonus or a Bet365 bonus. He's just trying to be a good UB rep!

Annie Duke
Mood:  blue
When I wrote last time, I mentioned Phil Hellmuth because he helps promote UB and the UB referral code, and today I’m going to write about Annie Duke, another UB pro. One of the most successful women poker pros around today, Duke received a World Series of Poker bracelet six years back in an Omaha event. She was born in New Hampshire and has a brother, a sister, and three children.

Duke began representing UB and the UB referral code ten years ago back in 2000. It’s safe to say that she has done very well since she started playing poker, seeing as her live MTT poker winnings total over $4 million. Her highest cash in the WSOP ME was tenth place in the year 2000. To make it more impressive, she was pregnant with her third kid at the time! She’s cashed in the World Series an impressive 37 times for a total of $1.1 million, and she won $2 million in the WSOP Tournament of Champions back in 2004.

Duke isn’t famous just because she’s a female poker player. In 2004 when Ben Affleck won the California State Poker Championship, he actually received poker tutoring from Duke. She was the first poker player to talk on the Colbert Report, the game show 1 vs 100 was lucky enough to have her appear 3 times, and she appeared on Deal or No Deal one time. She also participated in Celebrity Apprentice just last year where she placed 2nd behind Joan Rivers despite the fact that she collected 3 times more money for her charity, Refugees International. Also consider that she’s on UB’s Best Damn Poker Show, and it’s amazing she ever has any time for poker hands.

Duke proudly supports US compatible casinos, and she speaks up when she thinks something is wrong. She has a huge problem with the rule that people are not able to represent poker sites on their clothes during select live tournaments. Regarding the subject, she boldly said, “We are not even slaves. We're people paying to pick the cotton.” There’s no doubt that Duke has taken advantage of the fact she’s one of a few women in the game, but she disagrees with the fact that women have their own exclusive tournaments. In her words, "Poker is one of the few sports where a woman can compete on a totally equal footing with a man, so I don't understand why there's a ladies only tournament." To support her stance, she refuses to sit in women only events.

Annie Duke is an excellent representative for poker in general and, of course, UB. It’s my hope that she will encourage more men and women alike to download free poker and play one of the best games around. If you’d like a chance to play poker with her, go ahead and make a UB download today.

Phil Hellmuth
Mood:  on fire
One well known professional poker player that would give a thumbs up to a UB referral code would be a UB representative famous for his temper tantrums as much as his countless World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets, Phil Hellmuth. Hellmuth was the first of five children, born in 1964 in Wisconsin where he also attended university. He currently lives in California with his wife and two sons.

Would you be more likely to get a UB download and take advantage of a UB referral code if you knew that UB’s most famous pro player holds some amazing tournament poker records? The most impressive record is that he has won 1st place in a whopping 11 WSOP tournaments, winning the first title when he was just 24 years old, another record at the time. He created the record for cashing the WSOP (75) and the highest number of final table appearances (41). His total WSOP winnings total $6.1 million which ranks him 9th on the WSOP All Time Money List. Surprisingly, Hellmuth has still never won a World Poker Tour (WPT) event, although he does have 3 final tables under his belt. In WPT tournaments he’s cashed 11 times which brings his total WPT winnings to $691k. All these records and cashes allowed him to be brought into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007.

It’s Hellmuth’s MTT poker success that caused him to become famous, but nothing keeps him in the limelight more than his reputation for outbursts and tirades at the tables. The success he’s had over the years has helped him develop a large poker ego, and it seems like he just loses control when he suffers some bad luck. He often mocks and bashes those that play in ways he deems less than optimal, questioning their intelligence and ability to play the game. He even received a penalty from the floor in the 2008 WSOP because he wouldn’t stop abusing a player that showed the table he’d bluffed Hellmuth off his hand with weak suited cards. Because of all his antics, poker players and spectators eventually gave him a special nickname: “The Poker Brat”.

Interestingly, Hellmuth took his unique nickname and ran with it. He started a clothing line using the name Poker Brat, and he’s even written a book called Poker Brat. It’s to be expected that he’s made instructional DVDs, but you might be surprised to find out that he also helped make a mobile phone poker game. He’s written several newspaper columns called “Hand of the Week” where he details interesting poker hands that he’s encountered during his career, and he also has a couple blogs online. And with several TV appearances and coaching gigs, you’ll see that Hellmuth has more going on than just tournament poker.

There’s tons of information out there regarding playing at Full Tilt or PokerStars, but you’d be mistaken to not consider playing at UB too. You can join the UB pros and earn your UB bonus at the same time. With a lot of hard work and practice in US poker rooms, it’s possible to accomplish some of the things that Hellmuth has accomplished in his career. If you haven’t already done so, visit my previous entries for more information about playing at UB.