Hello Chiliz!

New day, new week, new blog post! I told you to get used to it!

I promised I would introduce you to Lloret de Mar, Costa Brava, where the first tournament of this upcoming Chilipoker DeepStack Open season will take place. Here we go.

Agrandir le plan

Costa Brava, Spain: a holiday resort.

Lloret De Mar in Catalan, or Lloret Del Mar in Spanish, is a city in the Gerona district, Catalonia, Spain.

It is one of the most popular holiday resorts on the Costa Brava with a population of nearly 40,000 and is considered as one of the most important resorts in this area. Although our tournament will take place at the end of the month, and the water might still be a little chilly, you will find a 1,630m long beach which is one of the biggest on the Costa Brava and one of the cleanest too, as it is consistently awarded the blue flag for cleanliness!

The beautiful landscapes have in the past been a huge source of inspiration for Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso. Why couldn’t we make it the source of inspiration of the next Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, or Daniel Negreanu?

I am sure that most of you will come here for poker, but also to have a great time. We saw what it was like last year during the different DSO stages, and you guys certainly like to party. Well, let me tell you that Spain and especially the Costa Brava and Lloret de Mar is famous for its nightlife. You will find a crowd aged between 18 and 30 years old, mainly from the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands, and many others, mostly European countries. (Don’t forget, if you would rather play cards, we will organize side event tournaments and low stakes cash games tables if you were to bust out of the main event!).

Gran Casino Costa Brava, a pleasure for the five senses

Our tournament will take place at the Gran Casino Costa Brava, in Lloret de Mar. It combines the new entertainment, culture and games concept with contemporary design and is equipped in keeping with the latest trends. It will provide you with an unforgettable experience for your five senses.

Gran Casino Costa Brava offers the excitement of games of chance in a large games room covering over 1,500m². Restaurants, concerts, shows, cocktail bar, exhibitions … All of this added to the poker tournaments, you can’t get bored in such paradise!

A large number of quality hotels

A large number of quality yet cheap hotels are available in close proximity to the casino. The Plaza Paris is already sold out, but you will find great deals at the Selvamar, the Augusta Club, the Marsol, or the Gran Garbi, to enjoy a relaxing time in between your fights at the table. You will find all the rates on the Chilipoker DeepStack Open website.

Convinced? Get a chance to join this European paradise for almost nothing, by playing one of our super satellites TONIGHT and on the next three Mondays which will give you a chance to win a €900 all inclusive package to play the DSO Main Event! Register now or find more information on the Chilipoker Deepstack Open website.

Liz Lieu is our professional sponsored player, here at Chilipoker, and everybody calls her the Poker Diva.

She plays poker tournaments all over the world, representing Chilipoker, and trying her best to maintain her level and stay at the top, among the best poker players in the world.

Our Poker Diva was born in Vietnam, and her family moved to the USA not long after. Raised in Colorado, thats where she fell in love with cards. But Vietnam has always been the country were she was from, where  her parents lived… a country  she never forgot.

Humanitarian Poker Maven Award by Women Poker Player Magazine

Helping out the unfortunates back in Asia, has always been important to her. All the way across the oceans, she never forgot where she was born. Feeling very fortunate and blessed in her life, it only made sense to her to give back, and do charity work over there.
Whether it is with kids for Christmas, or in a Children’s Cancer Hospital, she likes to show her support, sure, but also she needs to be involved and help, , get her hands dirty.

Although she doesn’t help to get recognition from the poker world, or any other community, it is always nice to see that people approve and might want to do the same and be inspired. On her blog, Liz explains that being nominated for this award, not only warms her heart, but also means a lot to her, personally and professionally.

Poker Maven Awards

The Poker Maven Awards are conducted by the Woman Poker Player magazine and were created to recognize the achievements of woman in the poker industry and heighten the profile of woman in poker on a global scale. As they say themselves, the whole message is not about poker, it’s about a movement, an open statement of a new horizon that everyone needs to recognize because it is the future and the role women play in building it. In other words, don’t only think about the cards, but move yourself and help the others.

Other awards were attributed to Jennifer Harman, for Best Role Model For Women, or Vanessa Rousso for Female Player of the Year (full results here).

For more videos about the Poker Diva, please click here.

Alexandre Dreyfus created Chilipoker.com in 2006 and quickly became one of the French experts about the gaming industry.  He often says what he thinks on his blog, sometimes in French, sometimes in English.

This weekend, he will be joining our poker diva in Los Angeles to play the World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational at the Commerce Casino (the biggest card room in the world). Flying to California to play that kind of event, is not what a CEO of a gaming company normally does. But this tournament is different. First of all, it is a freeroll. Only invited players can enter the competition. Then, the prizepool is “ridiculous”, compared to the huge amounts of money you normally see during a WPT. $200.000 is the expected prizepool, and on top of that, the winner will get a chance to play the WPT World Championship ($25.000 buy-in) in Las Vegas, closing the WPT season.

More than just a tournament, this is a chance to see a whole bunch of movie stars, singers, TV personalities, sports figures, musicians etc … This year for instance, we expect to see Randy Couture, the boyz II men, Kunal Nayyar aka Raj from the Big Bang Theory, Jennifer Tilly, Michael Clarke Duncan, and i’m not even talking about the poker pros such as Liv Boeree, Liz Lieu and more…

Last year, Alexandre Dreyfus played that very same tournament, and managed to finish in the last 30 players (27th)  out of 564! We obviously hope he can do even better this year, so he can show the Chilipoker colors for as long as he can, and maybe add another line to his Hendonmob!

Everybody here in our Maltese offices is supporting him, and i will try to give you some updates over the weekend either on our Twitter or on our Facebook page!

GO ALEX GO !!!

It is back ! Chilipoker has announced its first DSO stages starting with beautiful Costa Brava from the 31st of March until the 3rd of April.

After a nearly sold out first season that took us to Dublin, Aix en Provence, Namur, Vilamoura, Vienna, Marrakesh, and Paris -Champs Elysées (with over 3000 players total),  we are coming back with a schedule full of new destinations!

Before going to Cannes La Croisette -where the future WSOPE will be held-, and Marrakesh, the DSO will first stop at Lloret de Mar, on the Costa Brava, Spain. Full schedule is available on this page.

For those of you who don’t know yet what the DeepStack Open is, here is a quick catch-up that will tell you all about this outstanding event.

You always dreamt about taking part into a major live event, with a fantastic structure,  a field composed with some of the best players in Europe… but there was one thing though … The buy-in was… expensive. You do have a bankroll, but spending over €3,000 for a poker tournament, is just bad management. Plus I know somebody back home who just won’t agree to let you spend the family savings to go abroad and play cards.

What if  you could play the same tournament, for an affordable entry fee? I can hear your answer from where i’m seating: “This would be ace”

Here at Chilipoker, we think we understand what you want, and we created a series of tournament, all around Europe, that matches exactly the needs of a poker passionate.

A DEEP STRUCTURE, AN AFFORDABLE BUY-IN

What if you had 50,000 chips to begin with, levels of 60 minutes, in a beautiful city, and up to 500 other poker fanatics to battle with? And what if you could play that tournament for only €550? With a deep prizepool, a minimum of €30,000 for every winner of every stage. 15% of players paid instead of the usual 10% – that means more players can enjoy a great poker weekend!

Register today at Chilipoker and qualify from as little as €0,12 and get a chance to participate in a beautiful tourney.

BECOME A VIP

And because it doesn’t stop here, become a VIP and get even more, for the same price!

• Spicy Bubble : Busted out of the tournament just a few seats from the money? Don’t worry, Chilipoker knows how annoying and unfair this is and we’re here to help ease the pain! We will credit the Chilipoker accounts of the three DSO VIP players closest to the bubble with the exact same sum of winnings as the first person in the money!

• Bounty : Kick out one of the three bounty players and win a seat at another DSO stage! It’s as easy as it sounds!

• Full House : Be one of the first three DSO VIP players to hit at least a full house on Day 1 and choose to take home either a Laptop, iPad or a Bose Headset! Three DSO VIP players will win these prizes on every Day 1 of every tournament! In total there are 2 laptops, 2 iPads and 2 Bose Headsets up for grabs at every tournament!

How do you become a DSO VIP player ? Just play normally on Chilipoker.com and accumulate 1000FPPs between the requested dates…. It’s as easy as that!

Be part of the CHILI DSO TEAM 2012

Chilipoker is introducing this year a DSO leader board, to give you the opportunity to be part of a poker team in 2012. Play your best throughout 2011 and you can win a full year of Chilipoker DeepStack Open tournaments, inculding buy-in, accomodation, transport and of course the very best VIP treatment.

So after playing a tournament like a pro player, join a poker team and get this sensation during a full season!

We will introduce you the different cities where we will be hosting our DeepStack Opens, starting  with beautiful Costa Brava in the next few days!

You’ve  always wondered who is behind an online poker room. Well first of all, it is very often a group of passionate. We LOVE poker!

So from time to time, we get out of the office (yes we do), and we gather all together to play cards. It’s fun, relaxing, and most of the time the competition is pretty intense. Some of us have been playing for a while, sometimes at decent limits, and some others enjoy the game with friends after diner, with a glass of wine. That’s what is good about poker, there is a game for everybody.

Last weekend in sunny Malta was organized the Italian Poker Tour, in Saint Julians, only a few miles from the office. The casino @ Portomaso is hosting a big tournament nearly once a month and at this rate, it wont be long before the major European events come to visit our little island. About that, this very same casino will be hosting one of our stage of the DeepStack Open this year (more info here). The weather in Malta is great, the view is perfect (especially during a lunch in the Portomaso Marina), people are very welcoming, and if you are looking for a pretty intense night life in case you get a bad beat at the table, well, Paceville will certainly keep you busy until early in the morning!

Three members of our crew took part in this major Italian Festival. Our CFO, Feliciana, our Live Event Manager, Alex, and the person in charge of writing this article right now, Community Manager, Fabien, moi

Don’t get too excited, we didn’t actually play the main event ! we took part in what is called the “mini IPT”. a €360+€40 buy-in instead of the €2,200 of the main event. A bargain if you ask me, considering the high quality of the organisation, the deep structure (15,000 chips, 1 hour rounds, and very progressive levels), and the quality of the field.  We all entered the day 1B, along with 62 other players. 115 players had entered the day 1A, for a total of 180 players and a prize pool of nearly €65,000 and a €15,000 top prize!

It all started great for our team, with both Alex and Feliciana building a big stack after only a couple of levels, to see them in the top 5 of the leader board after the first break. On my side, i had managed to grind up some chips to get my stack up to the 23,000 mark after two hours.

Feliciana, CFO @ Chilipoker

Not long after the break, it all went even faster for Feliciana, reaching the 50,000 mark, while Alex and I, where cruising around the 32,000 stack. All top ten, with a dozen players already gone, this started to smell pretty good for the day 2. On the way to the second break, we had lost our two friends Simon and David, both close to the team, who unfortunately never managed to build a stack.

With four more levels to go, it was still a long way before being able to put your chips in the little bag at the end of the day, beautiful sensation when you are a live tournament player. Things were not going too well for me, as i managed to lose every single hand i played the next two and a half hours, to see my stack melt down to 6,000 … I finally got lucky with pocket jacks against kings (jack on the flop, all in pre flop), which allowed me to get my head out of the water, back to 16,5k.. but during the last level, 20 minutes before the end of the day, and down to 20 big blinds, my queens ran into aces, and that was the end of my IPT.

While i was still hoping to hit a queen on the river, Feliciana was losing a monster pot on a set up (75 vs 77 on 55A 7 x) to finish the day with around 30,000. Our Live Event Manager, on his side, after losing a fortune with AA on a dangerous board, ended up busting 2 players with AA again, against A9 and JJ. We all sighed when a jack appeared on the flop, but the two diamonds on the turn and the river making him a runner runner nut flush let us all yell a big “YES”, sign of his survival in this competition.

They both qualified for the second day of this mini IPT 2011, and with a stack of 30 and 35 big blinds, everything is possible. There will be about 60 players coming back today, and 24 of them will get the chance to make some money. (Please post your encouragements right here if you want to cheer them up!)

We all wish good luck to our two players, hoping they will manage to reach the money, and maybe, why not, the final table. Whatever the result, we already proved that, here, at Chilipoker, we can hold cards!

If you want to qualify for a live tournament, register now at Chilipoker and take part in our different satellites to get a chance to play in Spain, Ireland, the Philippines, Marrakesh, and more…

Hello Chiliz!

Here we are – the year 2011. The Chiliblog is now back and running, with lots of new improvements to come, for a better interaction with all of you.

This year, Chiligaming will be more active than ever, offering you plenty of promotions, whether you like online poker, casino games, sport bets, or even live poker tournaments!

So to begin with, let’s have a recap of what’s happening here, at chiligaming, and what 2011 will bring us.

You like Poker?

• PLAY ONLINE – $200k guaranteed every weekend on Chilipoker! So if you ever get stuck with what to do on a Sunday, and if you feel like winning life changing amounts of money (who doesn’t ?) but can’t afford the buy-in, well we are here to make your dreams come true … and in more ways than one!

Every Sunday, we are giving away crazy amounts of money. $200,000 GUARANTEED!

Play our daily Satellite structure or our Mega Satellite (20 seats guaranteed) every Sunday and grab your share of this amazing prize!

And the fun  never stops… Since we do believe in second chances, if you don’t make it to the money, you automatically enter a $5000 Freeroll!

Now tell me something,  have your weekends just got seriously spicy or what?

• PLAY LIVE -Last year Chilipoker launched a brand new series of tournaments: the Chilipoker DeepStack Open! And it is back with a vengeance… New year, new DSO stages and lots of new VIP surprises!

The first stage is going to be held on the first weekend of April  in the beautiful Costa Brava -Spain, at the Gran casino Lloret De Mar. We are giving away superb €900 all inclusive packages via our weekly satellite structure. A weekend of sangria, paella and top-class poker…all for as litlle as €0.24 … simply Caliente!

Watch out for next weeks post on the Chiliblog where you will get to discover the beautiful location of our upcoming live tournament in Spain!

Crazy about Blackjack, Video Slots or Video Poker?

First of all, if you do not have an account at Chilicasino, you will be happy to hear that we give away an up to $250 free welcome bonus when you sign up with us! You definitely can’t go wrong when you decide to play for real at Chilicasino.

You’re already a player but haven’t been lucky at all the past few weeks. No worries, you can safely make a new deposit, and your first deposit of the month will receive a 100% reload bonus. Kickoff a wealthy month right here, right now at Chilicasino with a 100% up to $100 Xtravaganza reload bonus!

Now that you have money on your Chilicasino account, let’s go and have some fun! Blackjack, Baccarat, roulette, dozens of different videos or classic slots, to the lottery games and the video poker – everyone should find what game is the most fun or the most profitable. Ever played a tournament against other players? Discover our sizzling tournament offers, free for all, every day, and around the clock!  You’re a big player and you feel you deserve to be part of our VIP program? Then make sure you discover the big shot club! And finally if you didn’t get lucky over the weekend .. don’t worry too much, weekends at Chilicasino are fun and risk-less. If you’ve ran out of luck on Saturday and Sunday, get up to $125 Cashback bonus for your second winning chance!

A total sportbetting nut?

Because here at Chiligaming, we are all crazy about sports, we felt like giving you the best odds to place bets on your favorite teams.

You think Manchester City will win the big Manchester Derby this weekend? Well we are offering a 4.50 odd for the citizens. Do you feel safer to place your money on a draw? 3.40 is the odd you will get on chilibet.com .

Combine your bets to get even better odds, on football, tennis, handball, rugby, the nba, and even some MMA action!

Feel like sharing?

Finally here at Chiligaming, because we like sharing and this spirit is part of our organisation, we have created an affiliation program that will help you share the chili. Whether your network is more poker, casino, or sportbetting, sign up now to “share the chili” and get 70% commission on the 1st month, 60% on the second, and 50% on the third joining month!

Make sure you join us on Facebook and Twitter, to get daily updates about whats happening here at Chiligaming, and of course you can let us know what are your thoughts or needs for the upcoming year.

Yes, the blog is back and running, so watch out, as there will be plenty of new promotions to come all year long!