4/10/2011

We have for sale, seven cases of Nexgen Las Vegas poker chips, which are 11.5g in weight and are fully denominated on both sides with high quality laminated vinyl stickers. They come in the following colours / denominations: Yellow / 25, Red / 100, Blue / 500, Purple / 1000, Black / 5000, White / 10,000, Green / 25,000. These chips are tournament standard chips and we have enough to host a 100 seater tournament. If any poker club / individual is interested in purchasing these chips, either email me - ken@northernpokerstars.co.uk or call me on 07860697204

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6/12/2011

The search for the Northern Poker Stars Players of the Year in Carlisle and West Cumbria is over. Both title's were not decided until the final day and both title's were won by the player that started the final tournament in second place. Alan Hewson was crowned Carlisle Player of the Year after overhauling Kevin Orr at the final live league tournament of the year at Carlisle. Alan will be presented his trophy at the Team Championship event on Saturday 17th December. For winning the league, Alan will also receive a £200 discount off his entry into the Northern Poker Stars Championship in July 2012. Alan was also the highest placed Carlisle player in the West Cumbria league, finishing in joint 6th. Excellent poker all year Alan - a very likeable and worthy winner. Kevin Orr was pipped to the post in the final event but secured the runner-up berth after leading for most of the year. Kevin will pick up his trophy at the Team Championships and will be awarded a £190 discount off his seat in The NPS Championship in July 2012. Stuart Beattie was our bronze medalist and will collect £110 as well as his trophy. Congratulations to all three players. Kevin Orr was crowned West Cumbria Player of the year after overturning a 10 point deficit at our last live league tournament of the year. Kevin will receive his West Cumbria Player of the Year trophy and will receive a £200 discount off his seat in the NPS Championship. Kevin also finished runner-up in the Carlisle league and has had a fantastic rookie season with NPS. Excellent play Kev. It's a high standard you have set yourself now. Paul Christian, our 2010 West Cumbria Player of the Year was only 2 places off making it back to back live title's in West Cumbria but was taken out by the Carlisle Champion, Alan Hewson. Paul will collect his trophy at the Team Championships and will receive a £190 discount off his seat in the NPS Championship event in July 2012. Our final medal winner in West Cumbria was Ken Johnston who this year was crowned NPS Champion 2011 after taking down our Blue Ribband event. Ken will collect £110 for his placing in the West Cumbria league. Congratulations to all three players.

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14/12/2011

Congratulations to Lee Anderson (anderl39) who was crowned NPS 2011 Online Player of the Year in our final online league tournament of the year. The competition went to the wire with Dean Lamonby (dlamonby) finishing runner-up and Bob Cloudsdale made up the medal positions. All three of these players have at some stage been the league leader this year and any of these players would have been a worthy winner. Our online league will return in 2012 with a new format - $7.50 Double Chance, a new scoring system - which will mean an even tighter league, a new day - Monday (starting Monday 9th January) and some added prizes - blackbeltpoker will award the NPS league three BBP Live seats. One seat will be awarded to the 2012 league winner with the other two seats going to the highest placed Orange Belt holders. If you haven't already done so, sign-up to blackbeltpoker via one of the many banners on this website, send me your tablename and join us for the NPS Online League 2012

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15/9/2011

Players, I have been asked to consider changing the format of the live tournaments to a Double Chance event. Some players have fallen foul of variance and been unfortunate to run Kings into Aces (for example) early on in an event and have been knocked out. It is obviously easier for Paul and myself to run a Freezeout event, but I am willing to give you, the players, what you desire most. I can see the advantage of being allowed to take a Double Chance but can also see that some players would like to take both from the start and treat the event as a Freezeout and would have a superior stack to those that do not take the Double Chance from the start. The event if changed would be a £25 Double Chance event with the same £7 rake, regardless of whether or not you take your Double Chance. You would start with 5k in chips and your Double Chance would be for an additional 6k of chips. This could be taken from the start but must be taken by the break at the latest which will be 90 minutes into the event. You do not have to lose all of your original stack to be eligible to get your Double Chance. This format might encourage a new group of players that cannot afford to enter a £50 event, but would be willing to take a shot at the event on a £25 entry. More players would mean a greater prizepool for all concerned whilst the additional 1k of chips for taking the Double Chance would not force players into making the rebuy. Please could I have your comments on this subject? If you wish to change to a £25 Double Chance structure for all of our live league tournaments in both Carlisle and West Cumbria for 2012 then put a blog on the site, but please include your name so that I know that it is a genuine blog from one of the NPS members. Alternatively email me - ken@northernpokerstars.co.uk or text either Paul Lamonby or myself. Whichever format you prefer, it is in your interest to let us know. If you do not pass on your preferences then you will have to settle for the voice of the majority. There will be no more £100 Super Stack Freezeout events this year as they are not as popular as some suggested and if we stick with the Freezout events for 2012 then all events in both venues will be £50 Deep Stack Freezeouts with a 10k starting stack. The alternative will be a £25 Double Chance event with 5k starting and 6k rebuy stacks. The choice is yours.

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16/9/2011

Players, I am looking to make changes to the NPS Online Tournaments for 2012. Firstly they will emulate the live tournaments. If the live tournaments are changed to a Double Chance event, then the online tournaments will also be a Double Chance format. I am also going to lower the entry fee and will make it a maximum of $15 entry fee whether it be a $15 Freezeout or a $7.50 Double Chance. There will also be a revamp of the points system to keep the interest in the league throughout the year. I am considering we move to a scoring system where every player in each finishing position is awarded points, with the top three places being awarded a scoring bonus. Therefore you are awarded 13 points for 13th place, 7 points for 7th place, 4 points for 4th place, 1 point for 3rd place, -1 point for 2nd place, -3 points for 1st place. I will also allow each player to drop their worst five scores over the year. Therefore the NPS Online League Champion of 2012 will have the lowest aggregate points total. I am also going to approach Black Belt Poker to see if they will add some prizes of Black Belt Poker Live Event seats to the NPS Online League. Hopefully these changes will keep the players interested and increase the number of runners. If any of you have any suggestions about our online tournaments then please post a blog on the website (include your name), or email me - ken@northernpokerstars.co.uk or send me a text.

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18/9/2011

Northern Poker Stars are extremely proud to announce our new online partnership with online poker's highest kicking poker room - Black Belt Poker. Neil Channing's Black Belt site offers a very unique rewards system with loads of value-filled freerolls for Orange and Purple belts and some highly valuable training packages for those who want to make a more serious attempt at making money from online poker. The Black Belt online community is a great place to discuss hands, read strategy articles, catch up on other poker news, and chat to the other community members. The ipoker network is Europe's largest and offers a wide variety of poker variants, game types, and buy-ins to suit most.

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18/9/2011

Join Black Belt Poker and play two weekly freerolls without having to deposit a single cent - the White Belt $50 and Yellow Belt $100 tournaments. Earn just 500 belt points (that's a monthly maintenance of $125 in rake) and play the four Orange Belt freerolls per month and win prizes including a full league subscription, quality BBP chip sets and clothing, entrance to the Black Belt Nottingham Live event, training from the Black Belt pros including online Dojo sessions and 1:1 Enlightenment, and a share in the BBP pros live action - Sam Razavi won UKIPT Cork and $16k was returned to share between four lucky winners, including an $8k 1st prize. Great value on offer when you compare it to a rakeback deal.

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18/9/2011

Join us every Tuesday night for a packed night of online poker. The Black Belt $5.5 weekly league game has some amazing value-filled prizes - previously including a VIP Green Room trip to the Final of Late Night Poker, Xmas dinner with the Black Belt team, and currently a package to the Nottingham Live event this November. We also host our own NPS fortnightly $27.50 league game giving you a chance to settle some rivalries from our live events and forge some new ones. The Challenge Channing cash table means Neil Channing and other BBP pros putting their reputations and bankrolls on the tables against us mere mortals and the NPS private cash tables allow you to keep it in Cumbria - both run at stakes of $0.25/$0.50.

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18/9/2011

For more information on all of the above please head on over to our facebook group page 'Northern Poker Stars' and the Discussion Board. You will also receive notification of any further news and invitations to all our online and live tournaments.

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18/12/2011

Congratulations to Redfern 'A' after being crowned NPS Team Champions after a fantastic tournament at The Ukrainian Club, Carlisle on Saturday 17th December 2011. The event attarcted a record number of teams and of the 19 teams that entered, 15 of these teams took a share of the prizepool of £5640.00 The Top Donkey's team consisting of Dean Winder, Maurice Wigham, Mark Barlow, Mike Ditchburn and John McCracken finished in third place after collecting a total of £1055.00 from the Shootout tables and the final table. The runners-up were Call My Bluff - Pete Bryden, Carl Dawber, Jeanette Hunt, Matthew Lund and Shane Saunders. This team from The Borders cashed for a total of £1110.00 and were very unlucky not to be crowned Team Champions. Our winning team, Redfern 'A' only had 4 players after being let down by a team member, but I'm sure the four lads, Stuart Preston, Gary Bauld, Gordon Ferguson and Andy Ferry won't mind as they will only have to split a total of £1610.00 four ways as oppossed to spliting it five ways. After over 13 hours of play, we were heads-up after Maurice Wigham departed in third place adding £565 to the total collected by the Top Donkey's. The two remaining players, Carl Dawber (Call My Bluff) and Andy Ferry (Redfern 'A') looked set for a mammoth battle with the chip stacks of both players being almost equal, but to the surprise of all the onlookers that were still in The Ukrainian Club at 03:15am, it was all over within minutes. It took a very inconspicuous hand to decide the title and it went backwards and forwards through the streets. There was no pre-flop raise after a limped call and the board flopped 8, 9, 7. Carl bet the pot and was called by Andy. The turn brought a 4 and Carl jammed with Andy calling him instantly. Carl showed 8, 4 and Andy showed 8, 10. The river card brought a J and Carl and his team started to celebrate until it was pointed out that Andy had made a straight. It is easy to forgive Carl this premature celebration as he wanted the title as much as any player in the room and like everyone, he was tired after such a long event. The chips were counted up and Andy was declared the winner. Excellent play from Andy and the Redfern 'A' team.

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20/10/2011

Players, Northern Poker Stars are to host the first ever Black Belt Poker Academy outside of London. To date, all of these have been held in The Vic Casino in London, but on Saturday 25th February 2012, Neil Channing will bring his wealth of knowledge and experience to Carlisle and host a Black Belt Poker Academy on the subject of Live Tournament Play. The places are limited and will be sold firstly to NPS members that are playing online with Black Belt. Any remaining seats will then be offered to NPS members that are not playing our online events and then finally the general public. After the Academy, Neil will be testing himself against the NPS players in our monthly £25 Double Chance Carlisle event. YES... Neil Channing is coming to Cumbria to play an NPS live tournament. Further details will be published shortly. If anyone would like to reserve a BBP Academy place then contact me on 07860697204 or email ken@northernpokerstars.co.uk

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