Online poker room, Full Tilt Poker, has announced that it has inked a deal with professional poker player Justin ‘Boosted J’ Smith.

The contract comes on the heels of Smith’s impressive performance at the Bellagio in Vegas, during the first stop of the World Poker Tour. At this event, ‘Boosted J’ came in third place, following close behind Faraz ‘The Toilet’ Jaka and the winner of the competition, the Brazilian Alexandre Gomes.

Smith’s efforts to shift his long time online poker talents to the world of live gaming certainly seem to have paid off, as has been seen over the past year. He started playing live on a serious level at the World Series of Poker Europe last year, and went on to do exceptionally well at this year’s World Series of Poker.

Smith finished with five cashes in this year’s WSOP, including an eight place win at the final table of the $10K Seven Stud Hi/Lo World Championship.

With the WSOP finale coming on TV we expect to see all the Fulltilt.net download commercials on television as their main pro, Phil Ivey has made it to the final nine which is a huge draw.

Boosted J’s diversity across the game of poker is what probably attracted Full Tilt Poker this highly talented player in the first place. Unlike other players whose specialties lie in one type of game play, Smith is just as comfortable playing Pot Limit Omaha as he is going for the pot in Lowball and Texas Hold ‘em.

Full Tilt boasts one of the most successful professional names in the industry. Smith will be joining a team of pros that incorporates the famous Friends of Full Tilt celebrities, an exceptional training crew, top sponsored pros such as Gavin Smith and Svetlana Gromenkova (2008 WSOP women’s title) and others.

Smith will also join players such as Huck Seed and Paul Wasicka as a Red Team Pro.

In his honor, and to celebrate the inking of the deal, Full Tilt has named three high stakes mixed games tables after Justin Smith.

Smith, on his part, will need to drop his online persona title, Boosted J and see his real name displayed in red on the Full Tilt Poker site.

It’s official. The European Poker Tour is not taking any chances with the latest declaration by the Russian government that poker is no longer considered a game of sport and has shifted the Moscow stop of the tour to another location.

Last week we reported that the Russian authorities had put an end to the loophole that poker rooms were using in the country, quoting the law that poker is a sport and therefore should not be included under the same gambling legislation that was passed recently.

The new Russian laws called for all gambling establishments to close, with only a handful of locations allowed to host gambling activities.

While poker enjoyed protection from the law for about a week, the authorities soon put a stop to it and declared that the game is no longer considered a sport.

As a result, Pokerstars.com announced that its European Poker Tour that would have taken place in Moscow from August 17 through to 23rd has now been moved to Kiev in the Ukraine.

Poker Stars said that the new location would mean that the date of the event needed to be moved a day later and the Kiev stop will now be held from August 18th to 23rd at the Kiev Sports Palace.

Those who won packages to attend the Moscow stop through satellite tournaments at Poker Stars online poker site will be able to convert them to European Poker Tour Kiev packages, including accommodation and buy in fees.

There are benefits to North American players for the venue change, such as the fact that they now don’t have to worry about obtaining visas to the Ukraine, as was required before visiting Russia.

The EPT Kiev tournament will be held under the auspices of the Ukrainian Poker Federation along with the Ukrainian Ministry of Youth, Family and Sport.

Ukraine can actually thank the Russians for enforcing their ban and this will be the biggest poker tournament ever held in the country, creating a huge boost for poker in the region.