Popular pro Daniel Negreanu, a member of Team PokerStars, could be your coach and then your opponent in the pursuit of a million-dollar prize on a new TV show airing on FOX beginning Oct. 11. You can qualify to appear on the show for free at PokerStars.

NEGREANU IS KEY POKER STAR IN NEW TV SHOW ON FOX

You say you missed out on winning a free seat on NBC’s “Face The Ace” against Full Tilt Poker pros? Well, now there’s a similar show coming to the FOX channel with celebs and Team PokerStars pros providing the competition.

Both shows offer qualifiers a chance to win $1 million!

The new FOX show, called the PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge, has a few different wrinkles than “Face The Ace,” but the goal is the same — survive preliminary heads-up matches for a shot a million bucks. One wrinkle is that in early matches, pro Daniel Negreanu is your coach, but for the million-dollar game, he’s your opponent! Qualifiers must live in the U.S. or Canada.

Free qualifying events — held twice daily at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET — began Monday on PokerStars and continue until Nov. 25. You don’t need a cash account on PS to play, but newcomers will need to download the free PokerStars.net software to try to qualify.

The first recording sessions will be Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and the show airs on Oct. 11 and 18, Nov. 22, Dec. 13, and a grand final on Dec. 27 — all at 4 p.m. ET.

Here’s the PokerStars promo:

Have you ever dreamed of risking it all and hitting it big? Here’s your chance with the PokerStarsMillion Dollar Challenge. We’ve teamed up with FOX to bring you an exciting poker challenge that could see you face-off against poker legend Daniel Negreanu on FOX TV for $1,000,000.

All you need to do is play any of the PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge daily freeroll tournaments and finish in the top ten. Then submit a short video, explaining why PokerStars should choose you to be part of this exclusive show. Make a good impression and you could be heading off for the TV shoot to star in poker’s hottest new show. And to support you all the way, we’ll let you bring a couple of poker buddies too!

When you arrive there you’ll get to play in a series of heads-up poker matches against celebrity poker players and members of Team PokerStars Pro. And to help you on your way, you’ll get expert coaching from Daniel Negreanu - one of the highest earning poker players of all time. Then you’ll get to challenge the man himself heads-up, before going on to play for that incredible $1,000,000 prize.

This is the chance of a lifetime and your shot at becoming a TV poker superstar - and best of all it’s all for free.

Qualifying is easy:

* Play a free-to-enter twice daily qualifier on PokerStars.net
* Finish in the top 10 to be pre-qualified for casting
* Submit a two minute video telling us why you should play for $1,000,000 on FOX
* To find a PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge qualifier tournament, simply download the free PokerStars.net software, log in and click ‘Tourney’ & ‘Regional’. From there you can scroll to locate the qualifiers, running every day at 8pm and 11pm ET.

Contact support@pokerstars.net if you have any questions about the PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge.

Click here for more details.

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Actor Matthew McConaughey, who plays the lead role in “We Are Marshall,” works the crowd along the green carpet through a jammed downtown Huntington on his way to the movie’s premiere screening on Dec. 12, 2006.

The post-premiere reception at the civic center was a rockin’ good time!

MOVIE TELLS STORY OF NATION’S WORST SPORTS TRAGEDY

NOTE: Ol’ LuckyDog’s straying today from his usual poker ramblings. Hope you don’t mind.

When the movie, “We Are Marshall,” premiered in my hometown of Huntington, W.Va., on Dec. 12, 2006 — 10 days before its national release — I was fortunate enough to be in the sold-out theatre alongside several family members.

Our seats were in the balcony’s very last row at the historic Keith-Albee Theatre, but that was OK for me because earlier that day I attended a media screening for about 150 reporters and dignitaries at a different theatre.

That first viewing took my breath away as the memories of covering the 1970 plane crash as a young reporter for The Herald-Dispatch turned vivid again. So many lives lost, such a tragedy for a community and its university — my town, my alma mater.

“We Are Marshall” tells the “true story” of the crash of the football team’s chartered plane just short of the local airport. Some Marshall followers quibble about a few minor points in the movie’s account, but the film captures the primary, lasting story very well — how a community dealt with an unspeakable horror and how its college football team “rose from the ashes.”

Now the movie is premiering again — this time on TNT. It airs Friday (Aug. 14) at 9 p.m. Eastern/8 Central, and will be shown four additional times on TNT in the next two weeks.

Actors Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox and David Strathairn got top billing in the movie’s promotions. They were excellent, but Anthony Mackie’s performance flat blew me away.

I honestly can’t recall if this is the first TV showing of the film, but it’s labeled as a “network television premiere” for TNT and if you haven’t seen “We Are Marshall,” I encourage you to watch. You’ll be moved and, at the end, uplifted.

Click on “read the rest” for TNT’s capsule review of the movie and the channel’s list of scheduled air times.
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Actor Don Cheadle — along with poker pro Annie Duke and Norman Epstein — founded the charitable organization Ante Up For Africa. It was announced Monday that the 2009 AUFA charity tournament last month at the World Series of Poker raised $600,000 to help victims of the crisis in Darfur. (Photo by Stephanie Moore)

TOURNAMENTS ON ESPN & FULL TILT HELP DARFUR VICTIMS

The generosity of people in the poker industry will be on display again this week.

Tuesday night (8-10 p.m. Eastern) is ESPN’s first-ever coverage of the Ante Up For Africa charity tournament, which has been part of the World Series of Poker since 2007.

Expect plenty of celeb sightings at the felt — from actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Jason Alexander, to sports figures Herschel Walker, Charles Barkley and Mike Tyson, to top-tier poker pros Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson and Jennifer Harman.

The final table will be stacked with big-name pros, as you might anticipate, but the main goal of the day was to raise charity dollars.

The event drew 137 players — compared to 88 last year and 167 in 2007. Each player ponied up $5,000 for the cause that raises money and awareness for the crisis affecting millions of people in Darfur, Africa.

Many players who cash in this event donate back a significant portion of their winnings to AUFA. The official total — just announced today — is $600,000, which will go to three Darfur-related charities.

Since being founded in 2007 by poker pro Annie Duke, actor Don Cheadle and Norman Epstein, Ante Up For Africa has raised $2.5 million to relieve suffering of millions in Darfur and help people there victimized by violence.

Then Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern, Full Tilt Poker — online poker’s second-largest site — offers a new Ante Up For Africa charity event as part of its FTOPS XIII tournament series. Cheadle will be the host. The buy-in is $100 plus a $20 entry fee, with Full Tilt donating all entry fees to charity.

The online site also is guaranteeing a $100,000 prize pool, based on an anticipated 1,000 players. But look for the turnout to be twice that, given the relatively low buy-in and the feel-good nature of the event. If the tournament does draw 2,000 players, that would mean $40,000 in donations to AUFA.

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Truck driver Don Topel of Illinois celebrates winning $200,000 last Saturday night on the first episode of NBC’s new ‘Face the Ace’ poker show, which pits amateurs heads-up against elite pros, or “aces”. With him is show host Steve Schrippa. A true gambler, Topel decided to risk it all and play for $1 million on this Saturday night’s show in another face-to-face battle with a top pro. (Photo by Stephanie Moore for NBC Sports)

ILLINOIS AMATEUR RISKS $200K IN ALL-OR-NOTHING MATCH

UPDATE: Don Topel lost his million-dollar heads-up match against pro Gavin Smith, and left the show with nothing except the memories from his expenses-paid trip to Vegas.

Let it be said: Don Topel has some gamble in him.

The 41-year-old truck driver from Midlothian, Ill., defeated two top pros — ‘aces’ Erick Lindgren and Howard Lederer — back-to-back on last Saturday’s prime-time debut of “Face the Ace” on NBC. Then, in a decision he may come to regret, he agreed to battle one more pro for a chance to win $1 million.

The catch is that if he loses that third match to be aired this Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, the $200,000 he won on last week’s show is gone! Kaput! He walks away with, well, a painful memory and an expenses-paid trip back to Illinois.

Amateurs qualify for the show online at Full Tilt Poker and serve as cannon fodder — er, competition, I mean — in heads-up matches against FTP’s large stock of sponsored pros.

The math is easy: Beat three of poker’s most-decorated players in consecutive matches and your winnings progress from $40K to $200K and then to a cool $1 million! But you advance without a safety net, and risk everything (even your sanity?) as you keep playing.

The good news for Topel is that poker isn’t like playing basketball against Kobe Bryant. At least he’ll have a shot if he makes the right moves AND gets lucky. The bad news is he has to summon the courage to make those moves in the first place — AND still get lucky!

Click “read the rest” for “Face the Ace” air dates and a rundown on the pros assigned to the show — one of which will stand between Topel and a miracle.

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A revised set of poker rules was released July 31 and has been adopted, so far, by 70 card rooms in the United States and around the world.

The new rules were discussed and accepted by vote on June 16-17 during the 2009 Poker Tournament Directors Association Summit at the Rio in Las Vegas. More than 100 TDA members attended.

The members agreed to adopt four new rules (Nos. 7, 15, 28 and 33) and amend 19 others (Nos. 3, 4, 6, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43 and 44.

Not every tournament uses TDA’s exact set of rules, but many do. Those that don’t have their own set of rules (such as the World Series of Poker), but they include many which closely follow the TDA’s.

The TDA standards can — and probably should — be followed at any organized poker event, and they can bring consistency and fair competition to home games, as well.

Remember, if you’re gonna play this game, you oughtta know the rules! (And follow them!)

Click “read the rest” for a rundown (as of today) of card rooms that have adopted the new rules and for the full list of the 2009 rules. Varying formats of the rules are available on the TDA site.

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