The World Poker Tour (WPT) returns to Las Vegas for the fourth annual Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio, December 12-16, 2005.

The event is the eighth in a series of 17 scheduled World Poker Tour tournaments and features an entry fee of $15,000. The champion of the Five Diamond World Poker Classic receives first-place prize money as well as a seat in the World Poker Tour Championship at Bellagio in April 2006.

Bellagio is currently hosting daily No Limit Hold ‘em tournaments through Dec. 10 in conjunction with the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. The entry fees for these tournaments range from $1,500 to $5,000 and the entry fee for the super-satellite tournament, scheduled for

Sunday, Dec. 11, 2006 is $1,500. Professional and amateur players can register at Bellagio’s poker room.

The 2004 Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio included a WPT-record 376 participants and a prize pool of more than $5 million.

Daniel Negreanu of Las Vegas was awarded $1.7 million for his victory. Negreanu defeated five other players at the final table including Humberto Brenes, who came in second.

"The players enjoy competing and the number of entries and total prize money continue to increase at each tournament," said Doug Dalton, director of poker operations for Bellagio. "We look forward to ending the year with another successful event."

Meanwhile, the online poker tournament circuit is currently on fire with Doyle's Room (see web site here) offering an amazing $3,000,000 a month in cash guaranteed. 

Doyle's Room, which is tied in with legendary poker player Doyle Brunson, features both the web's lowest limit tables (1/2 cent tables), where ten bucks will last you a lifetime in addition to offering the web's highest limit tables to satisfy that high roller rush.

You can also play against legends the likes of Doyle Brunson himself. 

Doyle's Room is one of the few online poker rooms to now offer Badugi Poker.  Badugi Poker originated in Asia but is now rapidly becoming a popular game throughout America. Badugi combines the most exciting elements of poker. The game is a triple draw four card low-hand wins game! The best low hand is comprised of four cards, with none of the same suit, and none of the same rank: i.e. ace, two, three, four all of different suits is the best possible hand!! When you find yourself holding 4 cards of different rank and suit then you are holding a…..BADUGI.

....Empire Online Poker has continued legal proceedings against PartyGaming while the later company says it is "highly confident" of any legal outcome.  This report appears in Tuesday's edition of the BBC. 

The legal action comes after Partygaming altered its systems
Empire Online, which promotes internet poker and casino sites, has started legal proceedings against former ally Partygaming in Gibraltar High Court.
The legal action follows Partygaming's move to separate its online poker system from that of its "skins".

Skin sites such as Empire directed users to online poker operators, such as to Partygaming's Party Poker site, and were paid commission for doing so.
"The company seeks substantial damages and injunctive relief from Partygaming," Empire said on Tuesday.

It also said it was holding "confidential arbitration proceedings" with a Partygaming subsidiary.

However, a Partygaming spokesman said the legal action by Empire could be considered as the first "pantomime" of the season.

After the Partygaming decision on skins, online players using the Empire link were confined to the smaller poker site with fewer players.

In October, Empire, founded by Israeli entrepreneur Noam Lanir, warned that profits would be 10% below expectations.

In November, it threatened to sue Partygaming "in relation to damage caused to it by the conduct of companies within the Partygaming group in separating the poker system used by Partygaming players from that of its 'skins'".

In early September, a £790m bid by rival European leader, Sportingbet, for Empire fell through. Two takeover attempts by Partygaming for Empire also fell through this autumn.

This remains one of the more ugly stories related to internet gambling today.

....Cocaine Kate has been bombarded with offers since her drug scandal of a few months ago.

She'll earn £7m MORE this year.

Among the offers:

Calvin Klein have offered a £1.5m deal and pal Stella McCartney, 34, wants Kate to model her autumn/winter 2006 campaign.  

The model has also signed a £500,000 deal with French luggage firm Longchamps and is believed to be in talks with online gambling firm Nine. com. A possible £3m deal would see Kate fronting its anti-drug campaign aimed at students.  

The site has previously offered Matt Damon a $1 million deal to play exclusively at its poker room after hearing that Damon was an avid (and quite possibly addicted online poker player) while appearing on the David Letterman Show.

Sources close to Gambling911.com quashed such a possibility. 

"Matt's mom would not let him do it," Damon's wife was quoted as telling a Gambling911 source. 

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Have a question, general feedback or want to find out more about various online poker tournaments?  Email me at 911poker@1800-sports.com   I would love to hear from you.

Be sure to check out our online poker rooms and more poker articles from Bones McCoy.    

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Gambling911.com News Wire

Originally published December 6, 2005 9:14 am EST