The MPN Poker Tour (MPNPT) today announces its first stop in Dublin in collaboration with Gaming Association, a coalition of Irish poker promoters. The festival will run from September 2nd – 6th 2015, and its headline event, the MPNPT Irish Poker Cup, will feature a guaranteed prize pool of €250,000!

Held at Bewley’s Hotel, the festival consists of 15 events in total. Highlights include:

• 2nd September – €500 MPNPT Irish Poker Cup [Multi-day Event] – €250,000 Guaranteed
• 2nd September – €225 Irish Omaha Cup [Multi-day Event, Triple Chance] – €10,000 Guaranteed
• 5th September – €150 Dublin Poker Cup [Multi-day Event]
• 6th September – €120 Monster Stack – €10,000 Guaranteed

Speaking for Gaming Association, Fintan Gavin commented: "It’s my privilege to assist in the promotion of the most exciting poker festival to hit this region in years."

Online satellites to the Dublin Main Event will kick off in late May, after the MPNPT’s biggest festival in Tbilisi, Georgia gets underway. Every €1,500 package includes entry to the MPNPT Irish Poker Cup and €120 Monster Stack event, plus accommodation for four nights, a welcome drinks party and money towards travel and expenses.

"As a former Dublin resident, I know that Irish players love the game just as much as we do, and I’m excited to see the MPN Poker Tour visit the capital for the first time," said Alex Scott, Head of Poker at Microgaming. “With a prize pool as big as the spike, more action than a night in Coppers, and craic as mighty as the beer is pricey, what more could you ask for in a weekend away?"

The MPN Poker Tour was founded in May 2014, and has grown from a small festival in London to a major international poker series in just one year.

Adjarabet has completed a full migration of its poker offering to the Microgaming platform; they are the first operator to use the revolutionary Babelfish API.

The project, a joint effort with Georgian development house Singular, involved Adjarabet building their own custom poker software. Using Microgaming’s Babelfish API, this software is ‘plugged in’ to Microgaming’s servers, giving Adjarabet a completely tailored, unique poker client with none of the hassle or cost of server-side development and hosting.

Adjarabet was founded in 1998 and has firmly established itself as the Georgian market leader in poker, casino, sports betting and skill games. The company made waves in 2013, when it was revealed that the Georgia-regulated operator was one of the world’s biggest standalone poker sites. In 2014, following a promotion giving away over 500,000 Georgian Lari, it was the third-largest poker room in the world.

"Adjarabet has generated a lot of interest in the last couple of years and naturally I am thrilled that they have chosen Microgaming and our Babelfish technology to take their poker platform to the next level," comments Alex Scott, Head of Poker at Microgaming. "It has been a pleasure working with Singular and Adjarabet to do something that has never been done before in poker, and I’m very excited to see how we can grow poker together over the coming years."

Adjarabet’s custom-designed software is available in both download and instant-play versions, with mobile coming soon. Adjarabet’s players will continue to play at tables in Georgian Lari, but because their software is running on the MPN systems, they can add network liquidity to their offering at any time with the flip of a switch.

"We were looking for a partner to help us grow and improve our poker offering; when Microgaming presented Babelfish we knew it was exactly what we needed," comments Alastair Ives, Head of Poker at Adjarabet. "The Babelfish API allows us to offer a product that is completely tailored to our customer base, eliminating the pain of migrating to a new software provider. We are very happy with how the process has been handled and with the results of the migration so far."

With Adjarabet live, Microgaming can also reveal that the MPN Poker Tour’s planned stop in Tbilisi, Georgia, will be run in conjunction with Adjarabet. Held at the Tbilisi Sports Palace from the 28th to 31st May 2015, the event will offer players a substantial guaranteed prize pool for a minimal $550 buy-in.

The launch of Adjarabet comes at an exciting time for Microgaming poker, with several other new operator signings to be announced in the coming months, and major changes to the poker software also on the way.

Microgaming announces the launch of a revolutionary new technology for poker software.

Babelfish, named after the fictional creature which performed universal translation, is a brand-new API which allows any software developer to create poker client software and run it securely on the MPN. Operators can develop software in any programming language, and using the Babelfish API, join in the MPN’s liquidity pool, giving them access to all of the network’s cash games and tournaments (both real money and play money).

"Babelfish is definitely a game changer for poker," comments Alex Scott, Head of Poker at Microgaming. "It allows operators to customise their poker software to a higher degree than has ever been possible before, without having to go standalone. Furthermore, it allows them to do this without having to worry about expensive hosting costs, random number generators, or any of the other complexities that come with developing server software.

"Babelfish also has many other advantages. For example, operators can build software for almost any conceivable device – from specific mobile devices, to games consoles, to smart TVs. If you were so inclined, you could even build poker software for a smartwatch, a connected fridge or an in-car entertainment system. The only limit is your imagination."

Operators can tailor their bespoke client as much as they wish in order to customise the software to the specific market they are targeting; any language can be supported.

The first operator to make use of Babelfish, a well-known major operator in the poker marketplace, will be going live imminently using a client that they have designed and built from scratch. This operator’s completely custom-built client is carefully tailored to meet the needs of their players. The new operator will be migrating all of their players to the MPN, offering a mix of private and shared-liquidity games, providing mutual benefits for both the operator and the network.

"With this new operator on board, our network will grow significantly. But this is not the only exciting news that the MPN has for 2015", continued Alex Scott. "This year we want to be at the pinnacle of the poker industry – this is just the first step!"

The first operator to go live with Babelfish will be announced in the coming weeks.

Visit the Microgaming team at ICE Totally Gaming, 3rd – 5th February 2015 at ExCeL, London, stand N5-220.

Ben Affleck is not only famous for being a brilliant actor, and superbly playing and online poker site owner in the recent film Runner, Runner, he has also always been a bit of a card sharp. In 2004 Affleck was credited with winning California State Poker Championship, and he, and cousin – Matt Damon – host a celebrity poker challenge to raise money for an African Charity. But poker is not the only game that this actor is accredited at being a really good player.

Last week he was allegedly banned from the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, for simply being too good. At the time he was playing blackjack – where else – but at a high rollers table, when security believes they caught him counting the cards. Counting cards while not technically illegal, is frowned up as bad etiquette in all land based casinos. This is the act of knowing the cards so well that the counter is able to predict what the probability of the next hand will be. It is quite a feat in itself, in terms of the intelligence factor required.

Apparently he was told by security that he is “too good at the game,” but this is not new news to Las Vegas casinos. He is a regular high roller at many casinos, and makes many visits to these venues, often winning money in the millions. In fact in two separate visits to the Hard Rock, he walked away after winning nearly $1 million whilst also playing blackjack.

The New York Post recently reported that Affleck had won $140,000.00 in a single session, and that he was playing with Matt Damon at the time. It is also reported that he also used his winning to tip casino staff. In fact the totality of his Hard Rock winnings was given away in tips to waitresses, doormen and dealers, some of these tips were as much as $5000.00. We’ll bet that kind of action did not stand very well with management. A short time later it was reported that he won $800,000 while playing blackjack again. In fact during three simultaneous hands!

Hisprodigious poker playing proclivity is well-known, and as well as plying with Matt Damon, he hostson the felt at a Beverly Hills cigar bar, playing with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio. Both of whom appear to have a penchant for the game.

Multi- millionaires and even multi- billionaires have been made by the online gambling industry, and here we do no refer to players who have won big money. Although more than a few online multi-millionaires have been made when playing these games, the real winners are the people who dared to take a gamble, and offer casinos, bingo clubs, poker rooms, and sports-betting websites online.

Social gaming is a category that has long been popular online, but this popularity has recently expanded in to the online gambling arena. Basically this means that gambling-type games are being played on social media websites, and social media gaming designers are delving into the gambling genre. One of the latest of these social gaming developers – Playtika – has joined in the fray.

This Tel Aviv based developer is not to be confused with Playtech, also an Israeli-based online gambling game developer. Playtika aims to allow fans of their games a taste of what it might be like to enjoy gambling online, but at this point only for fun. In other words games will be developed in demo” mode where real money is not exchanged!

They are already creators of some of the most widely played social gaming titles – over five million people play these games daily – from one-hundred and ninety countries. Their online video slot title – Slotomania – is the current jewel I n the crown – introduced in 2010. It became an almost immediate hit, and immediately a big hit with web-based gaming enthusiasts. Its execution was soremarkable that Interactive Entertainment giant Caesar’s snapped it up just one year later. They became a 51% shareholder of the company in 2011, and we all know how big Caesar’s is.

Despite the fact that Caesar’s is a gambling brand, they are also predominantly a US land gambling brand. There are still currently all kinds of regulatory issues regarding the legality of Internet gambling in this country, so, Playtika, and their new major partner do not offer slots where money is involved. These games are considered to be normal online apps where the player accumulates points to earn virtual rewards.

Obviously there has to be some (rather large) money it in the system, or CIE would have never become involve. So, players effectively enhance their “freemium” gaming experience, by purchasing upgrades, but no player expects to win money. Playtika has essentially become Caesar’s Interactive Entertainments’ lynchpin in the social gaming industry. They even have taken the title of “largest in the world”, away from Zynga.