The book is available for just $9.99 on Amazon and covers seven essential topics, including Cash Games vs. Tournaments, Board Textures and Three-betting. Three pros tackle each topic to give you some serious perspective on what it takes to win at poker.

All the money raised by Poker with a Purpose will go straight to the Green World Campaign, an organization seeking to raise living standards for the rural poor through reforestation and sustainable agriculture projects.

From the GWC’s website:

The Green World Campaign has been cited by OnEarth, the magazine of the Natural Resources Defense Council, for its bold agenda: Turn degraded lands green again. Raise the living standards of the rural poor. Combat climate change. Create holistic ways to work for the health of our shared biosphere and the harmony of our global village.

The GWC connects those who want to help create a more sustainable world with on-the-ground projects that benefit people and planet. We focus on providing ecological and social benefits where they're most needed. We seek out effective grassroots partners, then finding the simplest, most direct ways we can all contribute to their success.

Our work centers around tree-planting. We ally with local experts who best know the problems and opportunities in their country. Our trusted, ground-level partners work with villagers who are motivated to work for the benefits our programs bring. Contributions from the GWC get planted right in the ground. We always learn from our partners, and collaborate with them on creative solutions.

The poker players featured in Poker with a Purpose include:

Alex Kim Andre Akkari Annie Duke Dan Colpoys David Sands Erika Moutinho Greg Shevach Isaac Baron Jared Vengrin Jason Koon Jason Young John Tabatabai Mark Herm Matt Vengrin Mike McDonald Perry Friedman Sorel Mizzi Stephen Chidwick Steve Gross Tom Marchese Tony Dunst

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There have been attempts before in the world of tournament poker to create what would be essentially a “professional” poker circuit that would draw the greatest players in the game to the felt. The World Poker Tour attempted it early during the Aughts with the Professional Poker Tour but, after one season, it fell apart. Thus, when Federated Sports & Gaming decided to enter into this difficult area, there were some grumblings as to whether it could actually be done.

FS&G, however, persevered in their efforts and came up with the Epic Poker League, which would only allow players who had earned the proper “tour card” to participate in their events (amateurs and non-cardholders can earn entry into tournaments through “pro/am” events). These “tour cards” were determined through the performance of players over a significant span of time rather than a quick hit, one time score.

Over the last half of 2011, the EPL has made some noise in the tournament poker world, some good and some bad. Their first event in August drew in a respectable 137 player field, but tournaments in September and earlier this month only brought in 97 and 100 players, respectively. While the players that have participated in the tournaments have raved about how well they are run and how it is “for the players,” there have also been a couple of controversies that have been well documented.

With this said – and with EPL Commissioner Annie Duke’s recent statements that the inaugural year of the EPL has been an “overwhelming success,” the question has to be asked…has it?

The concept of a truly “professional” poker league is a good one. By bringing some of the biggest names in the game to battle it out (in differing formats for each Main Event, by the way), the poker public is rewarded by seeing those “known” professionals either live at the Palms Casino Resort (the home base of the EPL) or through their televised broadcasts on the major American network CBS and the cable outlet Velocity. The players are rewarded as well, as the tournaments have been excellently managed and run by Tournament Director Matt Savage and, from player comments, they are treated well by the Palms staff.

Add in the factor that there is no rake taken from the tournaments and FS&G has even added a significant amount of money to each of the first three tournaments, there would seem to be little to discuss.

But, alas, that discussion has fermented. One of the top players in the world, Daniel Negreanu, has all but disavowed the league, potentially because of his beliefs but also potentially because of ongoing animosity with Duke. “I don’t think this league can succeed,” Negreanu stated earlier this year on his blog and he listed the reasons, including revenue streams, “time buys” to garner television airtime, and lack of major mainstream sponsorships.

With the discussion ongoing, here are three ways to potentially improve on what the EPL and FS&G have started:

1. Have One Event In Europe

While the majority of the EPL cardholders are from the United States (or call the U. S. home), approximately 70 or so players are primarily in Europe. It is nice that the EPL has their home base at the Palms, but one tournament in Europe – to give those European cardholders a taste of the EPL experience – wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

The tournament could be held around the time of the WSOP Europe – when many of the U. S. cardholders would be on the Old Continent – and could have the same format as what the EPL does at the Palms (a Pro/Am, Charity Tournament and Main Event). Hold the tournament at an arena that is respected – the Aviation Club in Paris comes to mind here – and the players will come out for it.

2. Offer A One Year Exemption

While the two, three and five year card memberships are an excellent way to determine the crème of the poker world, many people also might like to see if those players who perform well in one year can sustain that level of excellence against the best competition. Thus, the EPL might want to look at the idea of offering a one year exemption for outstanding performances in the previous season.

For example, wouldn’t people want to see the defending World Champion, Pius Heinz, step up to the pros on the EPL and see if he can duplicate his success? Give an exemption to the WSOP Championship Event winner (in the WSOP Europe also), the European Poker Tour Grand Final champion, the World Poker Tour Championship winner, potentially the winner of other major tournaments (the Aussie Millions and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure come to mind) and the Players of the Year from at least two of the major poker publications, if they’re not already cardholders. This would pump some “new blood” into the ranks as well as allow the poker public to determine if these one year wonders can become the next great poker superstar.

3. Guarantee A $1 Million First Place Prize

The buzz around the inaugural event for the EPL was that it awarded a first place prize of $1 million, which was won by David “Chino” Rheem. Each of the last two events, while having nice paydays of $782,410 (Mike McDonald) and $801,680 (Chris Klodnicki), didn’t seem to have the panache without a seven figure score.

If FS&G and the EPL were to guarantee that each tournament would pay out a $1 million first place prize, the players would most certainly come out for the event, perhaps to the point where adding money to the tournament would be unnecessary. Even if you had to sacrifice some ducats from those down the payout sheet, the lure of $1 million for the winner of the tournament would guarantee some exciting poker.

With these additions, the EPL can solidify themselves as a serious option on the world poker stage. While it may not solve all the ills of the EPL (remember, EPL leadership…we cannot be the poker world’s police!), it would allow the EPL to evolve and continue its impressive start. As to the question of whether the first season of the EPL has been a success, the jury is still out; we will have to see what happens in the near future, in a second season of the EPL, and over the long haul.

“It’s unnecessary but I guess it’s nice to be remembered for what we went through to get poker to this point,” Brunson told The Associated Press. “Most people just don’t realize exactly what all transpired … but we went through some pretty adverse things.”

Jeffrey Pollack, Executive Chairman of Federated Sports & Gaming (FS&G), the company that owns the Epic Poker League, cites Brunson’s contributions to the game, in addition to his success at the tables, as the reason for the lifetime exemption.

“The modern history of poker is Doyle’s life,” Pollack said.

Annie Duke, Executive Vice President of FS&G and Commissioner of the Epic Poker League, said, “He just has this secret sauce of every accomplishment you can imagine, big generosity to the poker community, incredible longevity, amazing ambassadorship.  And then on top of that he’s just an easy guy to really like.”

Brunson currently holds a 2-year Category A membership card, indicating that he is eligible for the Epic Poker League through 2013.  Players who have achieved this level of eligibility have at least $2 million in adjusted lifetime tournament earnings, with a maximum of $1 million counting from any single tournament, at least one major lifetime title, and at least six cashes since January 1, 2008 for a total of least $300,000.

We all know that Brunson has won his share of major titles, including ten World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.  And while his tournament play has slowed down in recent years, he still has more than enough winnings since January 1, 2008 to hit the $300,000 threshold.  His WSOP and World Poker Tour cashes alone easily take him over that mark.

Brunson has yet to play in an Epic Poker League event and just because he now has lifetime eligibility doesn’t mean he’s about to pony up $20,000 for every league Main Event.  “As I’m getting older, these tournaments are getting too hard to come through,” he said. “It’s probably not worth it to me anymore to really go on the tournament grind, so I don’t plan on playing a whole lot of tournaments the rest of my life.

“I much prefer to play cash games.”

The Epic Poker League Tournament Series Three Main Event begins Wednesday at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.  It is slated to run five days, concluding with the final heads-up matches on December 18th.  The tournament is a bit different than the standard No-Limit Hold’em tournament, as it is a Mix-Max event.  On Day 1, the tables will be 8-handed.  Day 2 will feature 7-handed tables and will redraw to 6-handed if the field gets down to 36 players.  Day 3 will be 6-handed and will redraw to 4-handed if it gets to 12 players, while Day 4 will be 4-handed.  The final day will feature just two players competing in a best-of-three heads-up battle.  Interestingly, for the first two heads-up matches, the players will start with the chip stacks they had at the beginning of heads-up play, but if it goes to a third match, the chip stacks will be evened out.

“For representing poker in the worst light imaginable when she was on Celebrity Apprentice? For all those things than yes,” Negreanu told PokerListings.com at the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes.  

“If you took out the “F” and added an “Sh” in the word fame then yes, I think she should be inducted,” he added.

Bad blood between Negreanu and Duke is nothing new, it’s one of the most heated and talked about rivalries in the poker world.

Dating back to when they met in the late 90s, Daniel Negreanu has gone out of his way to take pot shots at Duke in the media.

It’s a rivalry that’s pulled Duke’s brother Howard Lederer into the fray on more than one occasion.

On September 27, 2002, Lederer posted an open letter on the rec.gambling.poker forum putting Negreanu down and detailing the many ways he had disrespected his sister.

While the two seemed to be able to keep things civil in the intervening years, Negreanu wasted no time including Lederer when speaking today about Duke’s inclusion on the list of HOF nominees.

“Along with her brother, the Lederer family would be the king and queen of the poker Hall of Shame," Negreanu said.

Negreanu was nominated for Poker’s Hall of Fame in both 2009 and 2010 but wasn’t eligible this year thanks to a new rule that sets the minimum age for induction at 40.

Kid Poker, 37, now has a few years before his name will once again be included on that list.

Voting is now open for the 2011 HOF induction and PokerListings.com is on the panel. Opinions on who should be voted in and why may be expressed in the comment section or on the PokerListings.com Facebook page.

A “sneak peek” of what will happen on the EPL will make its debut on the new cable network Velocity on September 30. This new network, which currently is operating as the HD Theater network to cable subscribers, will follow that preview with the first full-fledged broadcast on October 7 and the American television network CBS will air part of the EPL festivities on October 8. Future broadcasts will be divided between the two networks, with a majority of the tournaments seen on Velocity.

The EPL has culled the tournament poker ranks in an attempt to provide the “best of the best” for fans of tournament poker. The EPL events, which feature a changing format for each event and have a $20,000 buy in, have strict qualifying standards which, according to Commissioner Annie Duke, allow for fans to have knowledge of the participants and set the EPL in a different niche than other tournament circuits.

“Every other sport, even snowboarding and skateboarding, had a format where the best players in the world could play against the each other,” Annie said last week in an interview with Bloomberg.com. “There’s a lot of value to limiting your field, both for the player experience and for the fan experience.”

The broadcasts of the EPL will take on the feel of watching something along the lines of the Olympics, with player profiles of participants in the tournament. In the first broadcast, Eugene Katchalov is one of those players featured, detailing out his story from his family’s departure from the Ukraine to the United States as the former Soviet Union was collapsing. Along with these features, the EPL is promising innovative statistical analysis for its viewers. The television productions are filmed by 441 Productions, who produced the World Series of Poker broadcasts up until last year.

One worry about the EPL broadcasts is that they have not in actuality been purchased by either Velocity or CBS, denying a revenue stream that could help the EPL. The CBS broadcasts are a “time buy” – in essence, the EPL’s ownership, Federated Sports & Gaming, is purchasing the airtime much like an infomercial – and Velocity is receiving the programming for free for promotional purposes. As many major networks are shedding poker programming following “Black Friday,” it would be a good shot in the arm for the EPL and FS&G to have the broadcasts purchased.

Another worry following the EPL is some of the controversies that have erupted surrounding their first two events. The first tournament, in August, featured an electric final table that saw David “Chino” Rheem and Erik Seidel battling for the inaugural title. After Rheem defeated Seidel, however, an uproar over Rheem’s professionalism – allegedly his failure to properly pay off backing debts – saw the EPL take the unprecedented step of putting Rheem on probation under the threat of being suspended from the league.

The second tournament featured a controversy before the Main Event even began. One of the players who won their way into the tournament through the EPL Pro/Am, Michael DiVita, was found to be a registered sex offender resulting from a 1991 conviction. Depending on who you believe, either DiVita was forced out of the tournament by EPL officials or he voluntarily withdrew. DiVita has threatened a lawsuit, as he wasn’t paid the $20,000 he feels he earned by winning the seat in the Main Event and only received his $1500 buy in back from the Pro/Am tournament.

Finally, this last week saw the suspension of two of the higher profile qualifiers on the EPL roster. As a result of their addition to the amended complaint on Tuesday against three online poker rooms that served American players up until April 15, former World Champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Howard Lederer were stripped of the five year player cards, prohibiting them from playing in any EPL tournament. These events have cast a pall as the EPL looks to its next tournament in December but, if the broadcasts of the EPL events on CBS and Velocity are successful, could help to change the tide for the fledgling tournament series.

The ongoing Full Tilt Poker saga has had another chapter written with Full Tilt’s attorneys hitting back at the U.S. Department of Justice’s claim that Full Tilt Poker was not a legitimate online poker site but merely a ponzi scheme used by Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst and the CEO of Full Tilt Ray Bitar to defraud players the world over out of in excess of $440 million.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that an attorney for the beleaguered website, Ian Imrich, has claimed that Full Tilt was a legitimate poker room and that “under any reasonable interpretation, the world-wide operations of the online card room are not a so-called Ponzi scheme.”  Jeff Ifrah, who is Ray Bitar’s personal attorney, backed up these claims though he did concede that the site was “mismanaged.”

However, the Epic Poker League clearly disagreed as they have hit out at Lederer and Ferguson this week by suspending the two players from the league.  The chairman of the Epic Poker League’s Standards and Conduct Committee said on Wednesday “The committee voted to suspend Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson indefinitely, pending the outcome of the Department of Justice’s action.”

The committee is made up of a number of pro players and a few select other members such as tournament director Matt Savage.  Annie Duke, who is a joint founder of the league, is also a non-voting member so she had no say on whether or not the two would be suspended but as the sister of Howard Lederer many will be curious as to what she had to say on the decision.

The committee, however, is there to create a code of conduct for players and many had previously questioned how Duke could create such a committee following the actions of her brother.

Neither Duke nor the DOJ have responded to the latest update in the scandal.

For those of you impacted by the FullTilt scandal it is time to pack your bags and move to a new poker site.  We work with a few, reputable online poker sites so we can safely say you will not be treated in the same horrendous way as it seems FullTilt has treated you.  Take a look at our online poker site reviews and pick your favourite.

It’s been less than one full day since the poker community learned that professional poker pros and Full Tilt Poker board members Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson had been accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of defrauding players out of millions of dollars, but already the attack on their reputation is producing more ramifications.

On Wednesday, the Epic Poker League released a statement saying that the EPL has decided to suspend both Lederer and Ferguson from the tournament series pending the outcome of the indictment against them.

So Much For Sisterly Love!

The suspension was handed down by Stephen Martin, the EPL’s Chairman of the Standards and Conduct Committee, which includes Tournament Director Matt Savage, Andy Bloch, Joe Hachem, Mike McDonalad, and most interestingly, Annie Duke. Annie Duke, who is the sister of Howard Lederer, acts as the commissioner of the EPL, however, she is a non-voting committee member, which removed her from any obligation of having to rule against her brother.

“The goal of the EPL is to put the players first and to build the professionalism of the sport so that the entire poker community benefits” Martin said.  “In order to raise poker to the levels of a legitimately recognized national sport, there must be a disciplinary body that takes action against those who are going to bring harm to the game.”

Rafe Furst, who was the third party named in the indictment, was not mentioned in the EPL suspension statement, most likely because Furst is currently not a card-carrying member of the league.

EPL Attracting Plenty Of Controversy In Formative Months

This isn’t the first time that the EPL has levied punishments on its players either, as former EPL main event champ David “Chino” Rheem faced disciplinary action after failing to pay outstanding debts owed, while Pro/Am qualifier Michael DiVita was asked to return his tournament buy-in after it was discovered that he was a registered sex offender.

Looking towards the future now, it is likely that we can expect to see other organizations place restrictions or suspensions on both Lederer and/or Ferguson, so stay tuned to PokerBlog.com for more on this situation as it develops.

“The Committee voted to suspend Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson indefinitely, pending the outcome of the Department of Justice’s action,” said Committee Chairman Stephen Martin, a former federal prosecutor who now acts as the Independent Ethics Advisor to Epic Poker.

In a story explaining the decision, Martin expanded on the factors that went into the committee’s decision, citing the specificity of the charges and the fact they came from the US government as key reasons behind the suspension.

Martin went on to add that should the civil complaint be further amended, the EPL committee will consider additional disciplinary action.

Andy Bloch, who serves on the committee, recused himself from consideration of the issue.

Annie Duke, sister of Howard Lederer, serves as commissioner of the Epic Poker League.

Visit our Black Friday Bulletin Board for ongoing updates.