All hands on deck: the PartyPoker.com Million VI cruise is back. The world’s best poker cruise starts this weekend with a mouth-watering prize pool of around $1.2 million.

For anyone not familiar with our flagship tournament, the PartyPoker.com Million has always been one of the big highlights of the poker calendar. Players of all levels from across the globe are invited to qualify for their seat on board a luxury liner and compete for a fortune alongside those who have bought in directly.

The MSC Poesia - home of PartyPoker Million VI 

While the glittering event has grown every year, culminating in this year’s tournament on the Mediterranean, it’s worth looking back and understanding the impact our cruise has had on the world of poker.

The debut PartyPoker.com Million in 2002 went down in history for a number of firsts that it created. It was the first Hold’em tournament to offer a $1 million first prize, it was the first tournament to combine direct buy-ins with online qualifiers - and it was first to hold its finals on a cruise ship.

The result threw up an important first, too, with Kathy Liebert making waves as the first female player to win a major tournament.

Kathy Liebert wins in 2002 

Back then, the field consisted of 139 players with 100 of those being online qualifiers from PartyPoker.co. The backdrop was the enticing Mexican Riviera.

One year later and the location of PartyPoker.com Million II moved to the Caribbean. It also became an event on the World Poker Tour. This time 130 online qualifiers were on board along with 43 big-money spenders who bought in directly. Just as 12 months before, a well-known name in Howard Lederer took the $1 million prize and an online qualifier took the runners-up spot.

Erick Lindgren took the PartyPoker.com Million III title and the top prize. With other top finishers sharing $650,000, the total prize pool made this event the WPT tournament with the largest prize pool in history - and was said to be the largest Texas Hold’em tournament ever held.

If anything, it showed just how massive the PartyPoker.com Million had become. In 2005 the winner and runner up both collected $1 million payouts: Michael Gracz receiving $1.5 million and second-placed David Minto pocketing $1 million. In 2005 more than 730 players made the cut to compete for a prize pool in excess of $7.4 million.

Before a hiatus in 2007, the last cruise carnival was in the PartyPoker.com Million V in 2006 where we got our youngest-ever winner of the series so far, 21-year-old Mike Schneider.

2006 winner Mike Schneider

There’ll be more about this year’s event later in the week but to whet your appetite we can reveal that one of the star players who will be on board is Canada’s Mike McDonald. Mike, aka TIMEX, is one of the stars of next-generation poker and also one of the most feared
online players.

For the rest of the field, Mike’s in top form right now, having won $1.3 million by claiming the EPT Dortmund event just a couple of months ago. He’s definitely one to watch.

* The PartyPoker Blog will be covering all the action from the PartyPoker Million VI from this weekend.

Congratulations to player BobPreflop for scooping this weekend’s $300K Guaranteed Sunday with a tasty $61,320 first prize.

Bob worked his way past 1,532 other players to take down the best Sunday tournament around - and to ensure his bankroll gets a massive boost.

The top ten finishers in the $215 buy-in event were:

1 BobPreflop,   $61,320
2 silverfang,   $33,726
3 BCFC_ste,     $21,155.40
4 xSIBERIAx,    $16,709.70
5 Unjaded,      $14,103.60
6 LanvalooO,    $10,577.70
7 Tall_Paul75,  $8,124.90
8 Viktor__,     $5,365.50
9 nuisanceindx, $4,139.10
10 luc4053,     $2,912.70

For your chance to qualify for next week’s tournament, and for as little as $3, visit our $300K Guaranteed Sunday page.

Winning the $300K event is a highlight for any online player. The winner of April 20th’s event, Matthias, a student living in Berlin, won $50,000 and will use the cash to help his studies and his bankroll.

Matthias, who plays as justhardcore, says he got lucky on just one hand when, on the final table, he pushed with KQ suited in a re-steal - only to be called by QQ. But he managed to flop a flush to take down a tournament-defining pot!

The huge win is no fluke - he’s finished 16th in the $300K event before, and won an $18K guaranteed event on PartyPoker.

Matthias, who normally plays sit and goes in the $55 to $350 range, has blogged about his success on his own site - but it is in German! See www.cardcore.de

Beautiful coral reefs, tropical forests, world-class nightlife: The Philippines has it all. That’s why it’s the perfect place to host this year’s inaugural Asian Poker Tour (APT) event, which takes place from May 27 through June 1.

Four hundred poker players from around the globe will be competing for $1 million and PartyPoker.com will be giving 11 lucky winners a chance to join the action.

Our $6,000 prize packages include the $2,500 main event fee, seven nights at the world-class Dusit Thani Manila Hotel, and $2,500 in spending money so you can get out and enjoy everything the Philippines has to offer.

To win your dream ticket to Manila, check our qualifiers schedule page and see how you can play your way to the prize for as little as $1.

The PartyPoker.com World Open IV begins in London this Friday - and the week-long event looks like being the best yet.

A top-class field, led by “Ambassador of Poker” Mike Sexton, includes Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott, Neil Channing, Juha Helppi, Marc Goodwin, Barny and Ross Boatman, Theo Jorgensen, Ian Frazer, Marty Smyth, Roberto Romanello, Jon Kalmar, Jon Magill, Thomas Bihl, Robin Keston, Roy Brindley, Surinder Sunar, John Tabatabai, Pippa Flanders and Liam Flood.

Also taking his place will be the winner of the recent PartyPoker.com European Open IV, Nick Slade.

Mike Sexton

A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: “Mike Sexton is a great addition to the World Open line-up and will be keen to make his trip to London a success. However, he faces a very strong field with many UK players such as Robin Keston and Neil Channing in great form at the moment.”

Bookmaker PartyBets.com makes man of the moment Neil Channing the 16/1 favourite off the back of his recent successes at the Irish Open and PartyPoker.com Poker Nations Cup. Others who have already been backed include UK Open winner Andrew Feldman and Ben Roberts.

Neil Channing

The Matchroom Sport organised event will be broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK later this year and distributed internationally.

The 72-runner, $8,000 buy-in event features a first prize of $250,000 from a total prize pool of $576,000. Last year, 45-year-old former Sidcup betting shop owner Anthony Hardy triumphed over a final table that also featured Ian Cox, Ram Vaswani, David Rudling, Ian
Frazer and eventual runner-up Ian Woodley. The winner in 2006 was Pippa Flanders, while in 2005 Lee Nelson won the inaugural event.

The winner of each of the 12 heats will progress to the semi-final stage, and, for the first time in the event’s history all is not lost for the runners-up on the table as they will battle it out for the remaining two semi-final spots in “last chance” turbo heats.