Mansion Poker is giving away free cash to regular players...who can understand the complicated bonus scheme

Mansion Poker is legendary for coming up with bonus schemes that nobody understands.

From Don Key’s Double Up Derby (er, something involving a donkey) to Cash & Carry (er, where you can win prizes instead of cash for no apparent reason) you just can’t fault ‘em for trying…largely because it’s impossible to understand what they’re trying to do.

But, good news…they’ve finally come up with a good idea that rewards regular play and – effectively – turns everyone into a poker pro.

Their new Cash Generator promotion rewards players with cash just for playing a 10 times in 28 days.

Just log-in and play on any Mansion table, in any currency, from today through until Sunday March 28.

All you have to do is play poker online for at least 10 days during the 28 day qualifying period and you will be eligible to receive a poker cash bonus.

Ok. It’s Mansion. So that was too good to be true. Here’s the bit where it gets really complicated….

Players will get $1 for every 20 points they have on their 10th best day.

This, apparently, is the equivalent of a 100 per cent return on the revenue generated on this day with no limit to the amount of cash you can earn.

Nope, we didn’t get that either.

But whatever they’re on about, you basically get paid for playing lots of poker. Which can’t be bad.

And, just as importantly, there are no bloody donkeys involved…

PokerStars has launched an unusual promotion to celebrate the 40 billionth hand dealt on the site.

The ‘February 40’, or F40 promotion started on Thursday and awards prizes to players in every millionth hand.

Prizes in the promotion will be based on the number 40. In each of these ‘million hands’ there will be a cash prize of $40 for every VPP earned by the player in the preceding 40 hands at the table.

Everyone in the hand wins, with the winner of the hand receiving double prize money.

Still with us? Great.

A spokeswoman for the Stars said: “The idea is to reward all players, regardless of the games or stakes they play as everyone has contributed to this historic 40 billion figure.”

Key features of the F40 promotion include:

* A Sunday Million fourth anniversary special on 21 February with a $4m guarantee.
* A $40 tournament with a $1m guarantee on 14 February.
* Eight special 40 FPP tournaments with $40,000 prize pools.
* Four special 40-player Sit n-Go’s with varying buy-ins for the duration of the promotion, winners receiving a share of $40,000.

PokerStars said it expects to give away at least 400 cash prizes in milestone
hands during the promotion.

The winner of the special fourth anniversary Sunday Million will take away a first prize of $1million.

Phil Hellmuth is, in many ways, more than human...as Phil Hellmuth will now explain

Poker brat Phil Hellmuth may have had a miserable year or so, but he’s not going to let that shut him up.

The 45-year-old only won a meagre £109,000 ($177,243) in 2009.

By his high standards, that’s almost reason to pack up and go home.

But the 11-time WSOP bracelet winner - who has career earnings of $ 10,941,556 – now insists last year was just an insignificant blip.

And as if to prove it, Hellmuth has already broken one world record in 2010…by writing the longest sentence in recorded human history.

In an extraordinary blog entry, the ever-modest Phil Hellmuth Jnr lists…er, Phil Hellmuth Jnr’s significant achievements in the past 10 years.

Now, far be it for us mortals to tamper with the writings of the great man, so here it is.

Best buckle up and get the sick bag ready. This is pretty special:

“I picked up five WSOP bracelets, I won an NBC Heads Up Championship, I had tons of cashes and final tables at the WSOP, I helped launch www.Ultimatebet.com, I emceed poker tournaments that raised almost $10 million for charity, we donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of our own money to charity, my wife and I raised two fine boys almost into adulthood, I launched a clothing line (Poker Brat Clothing Company) and a publishing company (Phil’s House Publishing), we launched a cell phone game (PHTH Phil Hellmuth’s Texas Hold’em) that has 1.3 million users in the USA alone, we just launched another cell phone game on IPHONE and other smart phones in over 180 cell phone systems across the world, I bought a piece of 15 different companies including the amazing online device reputation security company “Iovation” and the industry leading “Card Player Magazine,” “Milwaukee’s Best” beer here put a picture of me and one of my lines on 12 million beer cans, I am the star of the WSOP video game across all systems (from XBOX to Nintendo), I sold nearly $1 million dollars worth of my four-and-a-half hour long poker course online at philssecrets.com, I sold tons of my “Phil Hellmuth’s Million Dollar Secrets” videos, I sold 50,000 copies of my second book “Bad Beats and Lucky Draws,” Phil’s House Publishing put out its first book “Deal Me In” (a few months ago and sold 15,000 copies already), I put my poker column into over 50 newspapers, I wrote a series of columns for “USA Today” (7 million readers) and “USA Today Online” (7 million readers), in some ways I helped grow the sport of poker, we put together a great team of people to run my life and companies from a COO and a personal assistant to a full time maid and a bill payer, and I wrote a New York Times Best Selling book “Play Poker like the Pros.”  What a decade!”

Peter Eastgate, the 2008 WSOP Main Event winner, is up for two awards. And boy, doesn't he look thrilled...

LEGEND has it that when the vikings came home, the real drinking began.

Well, 1200 years later, history is about to repeat itself.

Pokerstars have confirmed they will host the Nordic Poker Awards on the eve of the EPT Copenhagen next month.

The event will celebrate the recent achievements of players from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway – which by happy coincidence are the four hardest-drinking nations on earth.

Among those up for an award at the ceremony itself is 2008 WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate.

The 24-year-old Dane made the final of EPT Deauville last Sunday and was runner-up at EPT London in October. He has been nominated for both Best Live Tournament Player and Best Performance.

Other nominees include poker legend Patrik Antonius, WSOP Player of
the Year runner-up Ville Wahlbeck and EPT Copenhagen winner Jens Kyllönen as well as Norwegian EPT Grand Final finalist Dag Martin Mikkelsen.

The 2010 Award categories are Best Live Tournament Player, Best Performance, Best Online Player and Rookie of the Year.

Winners will be chosen by public vote from shortlists created by the
Awards’ media partners – Ace Magazine (Denmark), Norsk Pokermagasin
(Norway), Poker Magazine (Sweden) and Pokerisivut (Finland).

All EPT players are invited to the awards ceremony which is being held at
Park Café in Copenhagen at 8pm on Monday, February 15.

Qualifying satellites for the 35,000 DKK EPT Copenhagen main event are
running now on PokerStars. The event runs February 16-21, 2010 at Casino
Copenhagen at the Radisson SAS Scandinavia Hotel.

Last year 462 players took part with well over half from the Nordic region. The event was won by Jens Kyllönen, 19, from Helsinki, who earned the Danish kroner equivalent
of €878,000.

Titan Poker is holding a special tournament on Sunday to raise funds for Haiti earthquake victims

TitanPoker.com has joined Pokerstars and a range of other big poker sites in raising money for the Haiti earthquake appeal.

The poker room will stage a special tournament this Sunday, January 31, and buy-in funds will be matched by Titan to donate to the Red Cross, to help the people of Haiti.

Pokerstars announced a similar venture last week and several other sites, including Full Tilt, have also stepped in to help following the disaster, which left more than 150,000 people dead and 400,000 homeless.

Like Pokerstars, Titan players will also be able to buy-in directly to “no play” tournaments where their funds will be donated directly to the Red Cross relief efforts.

The Haiti earthquake has claimed more than 150,000 lives

A spokesman said: “Titan Poker and its players are hopeful that these donations will come to the aid of the people of Haiti at this difficult time.”

TitanPoker.com is part of the iPoker Network, which includes Boylepoker, Bluesquare and Bet365.