A research team at the prominent McGill University in Canada have studied the blood pressure and blood sugar levels of players and found that online poker actually de-stresses us.

It works likes this: Our bodies’ adrenal gland secretes a stress hormone called cortisol in certain situations. The academic team found that when we play online poker, the level of cortisol in our bodies actually decreases.

The researchers monitored cortisol levels of players over a prolonged gaming session and watched in amazement as the stress hormone dipped as much as 17% in the average player.

While any novice online poker player could have told these boffs that this form of entertainment naturally causes them to feel better overall, it is still good to know that online poker gets endorsement from the scientific camp for a change.

The McGill guys stressed that it wasn’t only online poker that would make players’ cortisol levels drop. They noted that in fact any form of online gambling would produce the same results. (We think that the results of this study should definitely be appendixed to Rep. Barney Frank’s proposal to overturn the UIGEA).

So how do the scientists explain the decrease in the stress hormone in their own language? Apparently, when we focus on our games, after a while we become so immersed in them that our brains manage to block out everyday thoughts and happenings. When this happens, we start to feel more tranquil and thus our stress hormones drop.

This isn’t the first scientific study done on internet poker and gambling and others have also outlined the benefits of this form of entertainment. The long term benefits of poker are also well documented, including the improvement of cognitive functions and sharper brain activity as we age.

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.”

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.

Around 3:45 am, Sunday night, the regular game, frequented by members of the community, including teachers, businessmen, and even police officers, found itself the subject of uninvited guests. At first, the players thought it was a joke, with some even laughing. Soon, however, it became apparent that the three armed robbers, dressed in all black and wearing masks, meant business, and the players got down on the floor while the theives took the cash, wallets, cell phones, car keys, and jewelry. No estimate as to the overall value of the theft was given, nor has it been publicized how many cars were stolen in the end.

Each player was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, and several players needed to be treated at the scene by paramedics, although no one was taken to the hospital. One player was beaten on the head with a shotgun when he refused to lie down, but apparently, the damage was minimal. Players were wary to give their personal information, afraid of repercussions of being caught playing at a poker game which might cross the boundary between a friendly game and one that is actually banned by law. Perhaps they’d be better off sticking to the strictly friendly penny-ante games for face-to-face play, and go online for higher-level action.

At last count, over 71,000 were registered, and the prizes are $50,000 for first place, $30,000 for second place, $20,000 for third place, and $10,000 for fourth place. All players who participate will get a certificate for participating in a Guiness World Record breaking event. The website encourages players to join saying “This is your chance to play in the largest online poker tournament in history and be part of a Guinness World Record. We’re aiming to beat our previous World Record of 65,000 players, set in July 2009. And with a buy-in of just $1, it’s easy for everyone to take part.”

Players will be given a stack of 2000 chips, and blind levels will rise every five minutes, so even if the competition isn’t fast and furious, the tournament is likely to go fairly quickly. Players will be seated ten players to a table to keep things moving. While some players are very excited by the idea of vying for $50K with just a single dollar, others are annoyed that the field is too big and there will simply be too many players. Still others are concerned that PokerStars servers won’t be able to handle the load. PokerStars is unconcerned, though. They regularly have many more players than that on their site, and their servers are more than up to the challenge.

It’s a big chance to take, but some fools and their money are more easily parted than others, and Patrik Antonius obviously thought he had a good chance of beating Dwan. It’s hard to say how he feels now, almost thirty thousand hands in, when he’s over nine hundred thousand dollars down. There’s still time to turn things around, but he’ll really have to work hard, and with Dwan on a winning streak like this, it’s going to take luck and pluck for Antonius to get back on track.

Durrrr’s had a hard year, having been one of those to take a hit when Isildur1 was on his winning streak, so the win will really help him get back on his feet if things continue on their current path, but who knows what a blow like this will do to Antonius. Antonius has only recently joined the ranks of Team Full Tilt, and has probably not built up the kind of safety net to allow him to take this kind of defeat.

Full Tilt penalized him by revoking his ‘Red Pro’ status for one month. No action has been taken against Hastings who abused the information given to him by Townsend in order to take $4 million dollars from mystery player Isildur, who seems to have quit playing at Full Tilt Poker. Something about the whole story seems very disturbing. Either there was a violation of Full Tilt’s Terms and Conditions, in which case both Hastings and Townsend are guilty, and the one who ended the session $4 million ahead should be the one taking the penalty, not just the one who gave him the tools to do it!

Moreover, if Isildur1 is the victim of a violation, then Full Tilt needs to make some form of restitution to the player. If they don’t, then they are showing clearly that they are not willing to welcome new high-level players. Only low level players will be able to get a fair shake at the game. If there was no violation, then any action taken against Townsend is gratuitous. Full Tilt, please make up your minds. Either there was a grevious violation and you need to protect your players from the real perpertrator or there was no violation and there is no reason to punish Townsend!

According to information available about the poker website, Full Tilt Poker’s, and those who have played against Isildur, this puts him about $1.59 million down. Fans shouldn’t worry, though. One of the rumors as to Isildur1’s identity say that he is soccer player Henrik Larsson. Others suggest he is Viktor Blom, a high stakes player who usually frequents the European-only online poker rooms.

What is certain is that he is now down some serious cash and has been inactive for the past few days. There is a question as to whether there was wrongdoing involved on the part of Hastings, Brian Townsend, and Cole South. According to posts on Hastings’ blog, Townsend and South shared information with him about previous hands they had played with Isildur1. This is in violation of Full Tilt’s terms of service, where it clearly states: “Players are not permitted to use the hand histories for hands that they have not personally participated in. Software designed to collect hand history information from games that the player did not participate in is prohibited. Some specific examples include: community shared hand histories and exchanging hand histories with a friend.” It remains to be seen what Full Tilt will do with this admission.

He retired less than three years later, and took up an interest in online poker. He played PokerStars.net’s freerolls, and placed high enough to be eligible for a place in their Million Dollar Challenge show. With some help from his son and daughter, he submitted a video interview to YouTube and was accepted to play.

He and his wife had to delay an anniversary party that they had been planning for him to play, but he, his wife, and his daughter, flew to Las Vegas for the taping. His son, 15, couldn’t miss school and was unable to join them.

When it came time to tape, none of the contestants in his game managed to beat the celebrity contestants they were up against, so an off-stage game was played and Koswski managed to beat the other three contestants. Then he went up against contestants from the previous three shows.

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Luck was with him, and even though he mucked some good hands along the way, the former detective managed to beat the other three players and soon it was just him and Daniel Negreanu in the final. Kosowki managed to walk away from the table one million dollars richer!

To add incentive to this, and to underscore his confidence, Dwan added a million of his own money as a side bet on the game – if he is defeated, the winner will get his extra million. It was an enticing prospect, but it took a while for players to start responding. Eventually they did, and the first to step up to the plate was Patrik Antonius.

The game hasn’t been running as smoothly as you might expect. Both Dwan and Antonius make their income from nosebleed stakes poker at Full Tilt’s most elite tables, and so their attention tends to drift when big fish are about. The end result is that although the challenge is more than half complete, we haven’t seen action on it in weeks.

But all that changed last night when the two locked horns again for the first time in almost six weeks. It was a cracking session that took them more than 500 hands towards their target, with some spectacular play on both sides. Overall, Antonius managed to take back almost $70,000 from Dwan, reducing his lead to a little over $700,000. We’ll keep you updated as the challenge progresses and more on real money poker sites.