The narrator behind Online Poker Sites is Jim Griffin, better known in poker industry by his long time forum handle pokerprop. If you don’t know Jim, he’s as much of a player advocate as you’ll find on the affiliate side of this business. A while back he near single handily forced a poker site that had just changed ownership to make good on the old owners’ debt to poker players. He’s also reported potential risks and warnings dozens of times over the past decade, quite a few times saving poker players from loss of their deposited funds. He’s as dialled into the poker industry as anyone and always puts poker players’ best interests before his own affiliate business.

Looking further at his website, the title and description meta-tags read:

Online Poker Sites – Covering All Things Poker without Bias

Unbiased research and opinions about online poker sites, poker strategy, and industry tidings by a premier no advertisement allowed poker site.

This is what makes it newsworthy. Here’s an affiliate who has been around the industry for a decade, has protected players and is now claiming “without bias” and indicating no advertisements are allowed. EatMyStack staff drilled him a bit recently on a forum where he claimed “every word written at Online Poker Sites is entirely sincere”.

Considering his website has a lot of unique interesting content that seems near impossible to make money from, we’re pretty sure, as the website claims “this is a hobby” (or at least it is at this time).

If you’re interested in poker history, regulation, poker strategy, poker site warnings or other interesting poker related content check them out. Our personal favourite section is written by John Mehaffey (PokerAddict as he’s known on 2+2). This section “The Muck” covers poker sites that have gone out of business. It sounds like an odd topic to be all that interested in, but the historical value is superb with a lot of interesting facts build in. For example did you know the first hand of real money online poker ever dealt took place on 1 January 1998 in a $3/$6 FLHE game at planetpoker.com? Or did you know the first ever full download Mac compatible poker client was offered by Victoria Poker, or that JetSet Poker was the first to bring bounty tournaments to online poker? These are a few the facts we picked up just today reading this section of the website.

Again, rare we comment on a competitor’s site but this is the first start-up poker site in a long time we sincerely enjoyed reading; we suggest you at least take a peek.

Session Options: PokerStars will make it easier for players to manage their sessions by adding a small icon at each table that allows immediate access to the Session Options. From there, players can choose to “Sit out on all tables,” “Sit out next big blind on all tables,” “Resume play on all tables,” and “Sit out next big blind on all tables and close them.” The table icon will change from green when sitting at all tables to yellow when sitting in on some and sitting out on other tables to red when sitting out on all tables.

Auto buy-in: This option allows players to instantly buy in after left-clicking “Seat Open” without any in-between steps. Once the buy-in preferences are set, they will be automatically implemented every time a player sits at a table.

“Seat Me”: Clicking the “Seat Me” button in the lobby automatically opens a table and seats players in an empty spot. PokerStars has also included a “Remove from All Waiting Lists” button to save players from having to find and click on each table they’re waiting for.

“Stack” Layout: This feature will be very beneficial for the extreme multi-tablers out there. PokerStars has added the ability to “Stack” all tables in addition to the existing “Cascade” and “Tile” options.

Average Stack column: This is a new column in the lobby that shows the average stack of the players at the table.

“No Chat” in table tooltip: When players lose their chat, they now have the ability to display “No Chat” in their table tooltip. Previously, many players typed “No Chat” in their mailing address to let opponents know that their privileges had been revoked. This new option is only available if players have lost their chat privileges.

Advanced action “Check” moved: To avoid misclicks when selecting the “Check” advanced action, PokerStars has re-positioned the “Check” box slightly higher so that it does not overlap with the “Call (Amount)” check box.

Link to last hand when dealing stops: Players will now be able to access the last hand after the dealing stops. The “Previous” link in the upper left-hand corner will remain active on the table instead of disappearing.

Notes reliability: PokerStars has changed the way notes are saved so that players don’t lose their notes when the client is closed in a non-conventional way.

Tournament Tickets dialog improvements: The window has been improved and will now list all tournaments that accept a specific ticket type, among other things.

With the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) taking place on PokerStars this month, the Tournament Tickets window can be very helpful in finding a WCOOP event to qualify for. The series will run through September 26th with satellites running hourly to each event, whether it be a No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, or Badugi tournament. The WCOOP concludes with a $5,200 Main Event that guarantees $2 million to the winner.

Full details of the new weekend our here…

The £300 Deepstack has become a feature in British poker and is without doubt the best value monthly comp in the country . DTD  have had 31 Deepstack weekends since February 2008 and over 3000 unique players have taken part , this year alone over 1900 have played and DTD attract at least 30 new players each month .

With all those stats DTD feel it is now time to introduce a second £300 Deepstack on the third weekend of the month . This gives more players the opportunity to choose which weekend suits them best instead of having to plan around the first weekend of the month which many can only make every 2 or 3 months or more. DTD do expect some dilution but hope to get 220 to 250 the first weekend and initiall 180 + the third weekend which will hopefully grow to the same size.

With all the events on in London DTD’s first new £300 Deepstack will be guaranteed at £40,000 but providing they get the response they hope for this will be going up in future months to match the first weekend. We hope those that can will both support the new event and spread the word to other players , as always there will be satellites with seats guaranteed both online in the week before the Deepstack and live the Friday night before at 9pm.

Saturday 18th September 3pm , £300 + £36 10,000 chips 45 minute clock , 2 day event guaranteed at £40,000 with a Super 50 side event , £50 + £8 10,000 chips 30 minute clock , one day event guaranteed at £4000.

Sunday 19th September £100 + £12 10,000 chip 30 minute clock one day Deepstack guaranteed at £10,000 with an XXL £25 + £7 side event , 10,000 chips 30 minute clock one day event guaranteed at £2000

A Deepstack event to suit every bankroll!

Summer Series 5a – Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London  23rd – 30th August

Monday 23rd August      £300 + £30 NL Hold’em Freezeout 7.30pm (2 days)

Tuesday 24th August     £200 + £20 NL Hold’em Rebuy  7.30pm (2 days)

Wednesday 25th August  £500 + £50 NL Hold’em Freezeout  7.30pm (2 days)

Thursday 26th August      £200 + £20 NL Hold’em Freezeout       7.30pm (2 days)

Friday 27th August  £300 + £30 PL Omaha Double Chance Freezeout  7.30pm (2 days)

Saturday 28th August     £150 + £15 NL Hold’em Freezeout Super Satellite into £750 Main Event   7.30pm (1 day)

Sunday 29th August  £750 + £60 NL Hold’em Freezeout Main Event  2.00pm  (2 days)

Monday 30th August  £100 + £12 NL Hold’em Bounty Freezeout      5.00pm (1 day)

Afternoon Super Satellites

At 2pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there will be a £50 one Rebuy or Add On dealer dealt super satellite into the £500 event.

At 2pm on Thursday and Friday there will be a £75 one Rebuy or Add On dealer dealt super satellite into the £750 main event.

10-Seat Guaranteed Super Satellite

At 5.30pm on Sunday 22nd August, there will be a £50 NL Hold’em Rebuy Super Satellite into the main event, with 10 seats guaranteed (with 40 players or more).

Summer Series 5b – G Casino, Bury New Rd, Manchester  26th – 30th August

Thursday 26th August      £200 + £20 NL Hold’em Freezeout       7.30pm (2 days)

Friday 27th August       £300 + £30 BL Hold’em Freezeout    7.00pm (2 days)

Saturday 28th August    £100 + £10 NL Hold’em Freezeout Super Satellite to £500 Main Event  7.30pm (1 day)

Sunday 29th August      £500 + £50 NL Hold’em Freezeout Main Event  2.00pm (2 days)

Monday 30th August      £100 + £11 NL Hold’em Bounty Freezeout  5.00pm (1 day)

Play will recommence at 2pm on the second day of two day tournaments.  Late entries/alternates accepted during the first two levels of 2-day tournaments or the first three levels of 1-day tournaments.

Afternoon Super Satellites: At 2pm on each day of the festival before the main event, there will be rebuy super satellites into the main event. These will either be £20 or £30 rebuy tournaments.

10-Seat Guaranteed Super Satellite

At 7.30pm on Wednesday 25th August, there will be a £30 NL Hold’em Rebuy Super Satellite into the main event, with 10 seats guaranteed (with 40 players or more)

Tonight BBC 5 Live is set to broadcast a program that digs deep into problems with online poker. The program focuses on Poker Stars and details the Chinese poker bots story which has recently rocked the online poker giant.

Perhaps most worrying are the comments from a claimed former A former Pokerstars employee…

“We had a hard job keeping up, just because of the volume of complaints from players [about suspected cheating],” he said.

“Not that all of the complaints were legitimate – 95% were just bitter [customers] because they lost, and there was no collusion. But Pokerstars still pledged to investigate them all.”

The program also reports on the fact that 25,000 players were recently awarded compensation due to the Chinese poker bots which resulted in Pokerstars paying out over £1.6 million,

Listen To The Program

Adrian Goldberg presents 5 live Investigates on Sundays at 2100 BST on BBC Radio 5 live

• Download the 5 live Investigates podcast
• Follow 5 live Investigates on Facebook
• Follow 5 live Investigates on Twitter

Running every 3rd weekend of the month £200 + £24 gets you in to the  2 day event 10,000 chips 45 minute clock.

Guaranteed at £30,000 so far they have only 90 players , so currently a £12,000 overlay.

Buy in is available until 5.35pm.

For the smaller bankroll they also have a £50 one day event 10,000 chips 30 minute clock , guaranteed at £5000 , so far 61 players , buy in up to 5.00pm.

DTD , the best poker experience and the best value !