ESPN.com, the worldwide media source that covers every kind of sports, started coming out with a list of the top ten poker players in the world back in December. This list is released on a monthly basis and was created to put some kind of order in an area that is sometimes a cause of confusion.

The list is called The Nuts and is compiled by a professional group of sports fans who regularly follow poker and examine the top players and how they are performing in the industry. The panel includes top contributors to ESPN’s poker board, including Gary Wise, Bernard Lee, Bluff Editor in Chief Lance Bradley, Bluff writer Jessica Walman, tournament reporter Don Peters and Poker News editor Matthew Parvis.

This month’s list was posted as follows:

When ESPN first started the list in December, Mercier occupied sixth place. However, his performance in WSOPE was so impressive that the panel sat up to take notice and this month, the young player found himself in the second spot.

“It’s pretty cool to be number 2,” he said. “I think that I’ve reached as high as I can go. I don’t think I have any chance of beating out Ivey.”
Scott Sevier, in the number ten spot, reached the list after he caught the panel’s attention for a good run of victories over the past couple of months. He had two six-figure scores in a week and his last three cashes have been over $200K.

The ESPN list said goodbye to Betrand Grospellier, despite his impressive 13th finish in the Euro Finals of Poker. It seems that fresh talent is only a poker round away and with the likes of Seiver and Mercier on the scene, top players will need to work harder to keep their spots on the list.

If ever there was a sure sign that the popularity of poker is growing at an incredible pace, this has got to be it: The highest price ever paid for a .org domain name was seen this week when Poker.org sold for an incredible $1 million.

As poker affiliates ourselves we remember starting and watching the owners of Pokercompany in the beginning stages of their career. They have come a long way quickly.

It was reported this week that National A1 Advertising sold the Poker.org domain name to Pokercompany.com. This group already owns several other lucrative gaming domains, including craps.net, blackjack.org and RakeBack.org.

This is certainly a boon to the reputation of the poker world and also gives a wink of confidence to investors considering putting their money into the industry.

When we look at things in perspective, $1 million is small price to pay for a domain name. .com and .net domain names command considerably bigger price tags. Take for example Toys.com which sold for $5.1 million, or Candy.com for $3 million. However, the most ever paid for a domain name across all three options was undoubtedly the $14 million coughed up for Sex.com.

.org sales are seen are generally much cheaper, and looked at from another perspective, it can be seen that Poker.com came with a hefty price in comparison to other domain names in this category. The highest price ever paid for a .org domain name prior to the poker domain sale was $198.000 for engineering.org, followed by $151.400 for sexe.org.

The deal was brokered by Sedo, the domain market place. According to the Tech Crunch site, domain registrations for .org names have grown significantly, and were up 11% in the first half of 2009, compared to the same period in the previous year. There are currently seven million .org registrations.

According to Domain Name News, “this is a great sale and shows the value of a category killer keyword domain may be in its ability to rank well in a category, not just in its extension.”

NBC has just finished filming its sixth season of Poker After Dark, hosted by Leeann Tweeden. In total, there are thirteen new episodes of the series, including a charity episode. There are seven shows with tournaments in which the winner takes all like in the standard format, and there are six shows with regular ring games in which players will take home their cash winnings. The show airs at 2:30am late night on Monday, starting January 4th. (Actually, that’s early morning Tuesday, January 5th) Ali Nejad provides limited commentary to keep the fans interested.

Fans will be happy to note that there will be some big twists and turns in the action, including last minute victories snatched from the jaws of defeat. There will be loads of big names playing, including such greats as Annette “The Huntress” Obrestad, Todd Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Erica Schoenberg, Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Eli Elezra, Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, Gabe Kaplan, and Joe Sebok. Fans who have been watching all along will be happy to see some players get their revenge for previous losses in earlier seasons. New to USA poker is Annette “The Huntress” Obrestad who has just finally made it to the age of majority in the USA, so she’s one to keep an eye on!

The line up of episodes is as follows: Commentators III, Nicknames, Cash Game ($50,000 minimum buy-in), My Favorite Pro, He Said, She Said, Cash Game ($100,000 minimum buy-in), Lonesome Shark, Mixed Martial Arts, Cash Game ($150,000 minimum buy-in), and Charity in Mind. Be sure to tune in or TIVO on your local NBC channel. Poker After Dark is listed in NBC’s sports listings.