What can we expect in the poker world in 2008?

Yes, I know that it is almost February, but I was away the first 2 weeks of January and only now getting into the swing of this year.

The year 2007 was an interesting one for poker. I think it was dominated by the US Poker Bill which seriously threatened (and still does) online poker. It was the death knell for many online poker sites, and seriously hampered progress for others (e.g Party Poker). The big 2 (Pokerstars and FullTilt) seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed; indeed I say 130,000 people on Pokerstars earlier today which is the most I have seen. It also reduced the number of players in the WSOP Main Event due to the reduced number of satellites on offer; this meant that the winner Jerry Yang (“thank you God”) ‘only’ won $8 million instead of the $12 million (divided by 2!) won by Jamie Gold (who I am beginning to like btw!) the year before.

The Poker Bill was probably also responsible for the death of the Professional Poker League (PPL) which never got off the ground due to difficulties in getting financial backing (or so I believe). This brings us to the tragic and unexpected death of the legend, Chip Reese, who championed the PPL.

There was more than one case of online cheating in 2007 that made the news. There was the disqualification of the PokerStars WCOOP Main Event winner TheVoid, the Absolute Poker (knowing the hole cards) scandal, and most recently the refueling of the JJProdigy story (which I didn’t blog about). Daniel Negreanu has just made a comment in his blog about JJProdigy.

So what can we expect in 2008. There is already a feeling that the danger to online poker is settling down. I expect (or at least hope) that his continues. Just out of interest, it is a USA election year and the Pokers Players Alliance (PPA) recently released a summary of the position of all of the Presidential candidates.

As far as online poker goes, I think the big 2 will still dominate but there is some interesting innovation out there. One of these I have just found out about is pkr.com. This is a new online poker site, and offers a 3D client which is way above anything I have seen at any other online poker site. It without doubt takes online poker to the next level; I have been thinking for a while that the interface of the big sites is too ho-hum and hasn’t recently changed for a long time.

I think there will be a surge in online tuition. With the success of some sites, especially Cardrunners, we are expecting Daniel Negreanu’s Poker Virtual Training at some stage. I suspect there will be a lot of others too.

Online poker tournament coverage will get bigger and better. One of the highlights in 2007 for me was being able to watch live the TV table for the European Main Event online (streamed) with Negreanu, Gus Hansen and Howard Lederer. The Poker Road I have already commented on, but it is a great site and will only improve.

With the success of High Stakes Poker, NBC Heads-Up and more recently Poker After Dark, I think we can also expect to see a new TV Poker Show or 2.

So, exciting times ahead. Good luck everyone!!