OnlinePoker.org

The list of US-based poker players leaving the country in order to continue playing online poker continued to grow this week as one of the Internet’s most prolific multi-tablers, Randy “nanonoko” Lew announced he has made the move to Canada in order to play online poker.

Lew celebrated the fact by creating a video of himself playing a $1,500 Sit and Go on PokerStars –where he is a member of the sites Team Online. The perennial Supernova Elite has been mulling the decision to relocate since Black Friday, and its likely not a coincidence that his move, and subsequent return to PokerStars, comes during the running of the popular WCOOP tournament series on the site.  Since Black Friday, Lew had been prompted by his legions of Facebook and Twitter followers to leave the US and continue plying his trade at the online poker tables.

Lew joins other high-profile online players who have moved abroad, following the likes of Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky and Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond to Canada, while William Reynolds headed for Costa Rica, and Justin Bonomo and Ike Haxton decided on Malta. Other players who have relocated, or are looking to relocate include Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Cates, Daniel Negreanu, and Shaun Deeb.

You can check out Lew’s video of his first $1,500 Six-Max Hyper-Turbo Sit & Go tournament at the following link on YouTube: “My return to poker begins in Vancouver!”

If you play most of your online poker on PokerStars, the biggest real money virtual card room in the world, you’ll be happy to know that the site’s software is receiving a major overhaul within a few days. Some of the features deal with strategy, while others relate to convenience or simply aesthetics.

Cash Game Lobby Improvements – Cash games can now be sorted by a new column entitled Type. The Type column displays the buy-in structure and the game speed.

Large Opponent Cards – Enlarges the size of opponent hole cards, making it easier to see at a glance who’s still in the current hand.

Full Hole Cards – Shows your entire hole cards instead of just their top half, making them easier to read.

Fold and Show – After you’re the last to act in a hand, you’ll have the option of showing one or both cards after you fold. You can select the cards to show simply by clicking on them.

5 Players in 4-Max Final Tables – All 4-Max tournaments will be sent to the final table when five players remain. Previously, 4-Max tournaments created an unfair situation by having one heads-up table and one 3-handed table prior to the final table.

Timed Tournaments – An interesting new tournament format in which play concludes at a pre-defined time. Once the clock reaches zero, players receive payments based on their current chip counts. These tournaments will be low-stakes-only initially.

Easy Seat – Perhaps the most convenient new feature, Easy Seat allows you to set your table preferences and automatically join ideal tables with the click of one button. This feature is built with multi-tabling in mind, so you could theoretically seat yourself at 20 different tables, all with the same stake levels, game types and speeds with just one click.

Other updates include new table themes with overhauled graphics, improved animations, bigger, more readable fonts and minor client/server bug fixes.

In his most recent blog post, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu made a very fitting analogy between the current state of online poker in the United States and the way the U.S.S.R. was portrayed during the Cold War, saying: “For this of you who can, I really suggest moving out of the Unites States of America to a country that will allow you the freedom to play poker in your underwear… During the cold war, the Big, Bad, Communist U.S.S.R.” was seen as an oppressive regime, while the U.S.A. represented freedom. Who woulda thunk, that to enjoy the freedom of playing poker online you’d have to move away from Los Angeles and head to Moscow. That’s just bizarre,”

Negreanu, who finds himself back in his native Canada, living in Toronto, in order to take part in the WCOOP that will be running on PokerStars in early September, the transition back to the world of online poker has been pretty seamless, primarily because the native-born Canadian already possessed a Canadian Passport and simply needed to setup a bank account in order to fund his online account. Negreanu explained his current plans on his blog by saying: “As for my online poker plan, I’m probably just going to jump into whatever games seem the most lively, which at this point looks to be pot limit Omaha… I’m going to stick to the $25/$50 game for now until I get used to playing online again. I’m hoping to play a bit of everything really, just fun to have that option again,”

Negreanu joins a long list of players that have relocated around the globe, including Phil Galfond and Olivier Busquet (both of whom also went to Canada); William Reynolds who found some very nice digs in Costa Rica; and Justin Bonomo who settled on Malta as his new home.

You can read the entire blog post at Negreanu’s Full Contact Poker site

A number of online poker players including Jon Agular, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Galfond and Mike Brooks have left the United States in search of greener pastures (and by “greener pastures,” we mean places where it’s actually legal to play online poker for real money). Haseeb Qureshi and Dan “jungleman12″ Cates have taken the same action, though it’s unclear when they’ll actually be returning to the virtual tables given their ongoing cheating scandal.

As announced on his Facebook wall, Justin Bonomo is the latest player to join the mass exodus. However, Bonomo hasn’t chosen Canada, the UK or Costa Rica, some of the most popular asylums for recently relocated online high stakes grinders. Instead, he’s chosen Malta, a tiny island in the Mediterranean about 70 miles south of Italy. With a population of nearly 370,000 and a land area of barely 300 square kilometers, Malta is one of the most densely populated nations in the world.

When asked by one of his friends for the reasoning behind his decision, Bonomo cited the excellent weather, easy access to a variety of European tournaments, and the relative ease of setting up permanent residency. Another poster mentioned that “taxes are capped very low too,” which makes one wonder why more players aren’t choosing the tiny island as their ultimate post-Black Friday destination.

Bonomo said that he’d be attending a wedding in Virginia on September 16, and hopes to be settled in Malta by September 20 for the local World Poker Tour tournament. In the meantime, he’ll be getting rid of his furniture, apartment, and possibly even his vehicle, a 2009 Infiniti G37. If you live in Las Vegas (Bonomo’s current residence) and you’re interested in the car, you’d better act quickly, as poker pro Eric Mizrachi has already shown interest.

It was a great night for Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom, the Swedish online poker phenom who has been largely absent from the virtual felt for the past week or so. That changed last night when Blom engaged in three sessions, and just over 2,000 hands, to win a staggering $382k. Chief among Blom’s victims were some of the biggest names in the high stakes online poker scene, including Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies, Rui “PepperoniF” Cao and Ben “Sauce123″ Sulsky.

Although Blom has been successful in the nosebleed games recently with several wins at the $200 / $400 and $100 / $200 stake levels, he made the apparent wise decision of dropping down to $50 / $100 and even $25 / $50. In less than five total hours of play, Blom managed to take 25 buy-ins at the higher stake level and 27 more at the lower one.

Isildur1′s evening began with a multi-table PLO session against Sulsky. After just under three hours and 1,100 hands, Blom found himself positive by $137k. Although Sulsky’s bankroll isn’t in jeopardy by any stretch of the imagination, the loss stung given his recent $230k battering at the hands of Rui Cao.

Later that night, Blom turned his attention to Cao himself. It took less than 800 hands and just over an hour for Blom to add $115k to his bankroll, with all of the action occurring in Pot Limit Omaha at the $50 / $100 stake level.

Blom finished his evening with a brief session against Sahamies, who gave up $130k playing the same game type and stake. This time, however, 200 hands was enough to seal the deal.

Blom is undoubtedly hoping to keep up his newfound momentum. After a year of incredibly streaky play, he’s positive by around $400k for 2011.