Things are starting to get a lot busier at CarbonPoker lately. Our Bad Beat Jackpot is going off, tourneys are getting bigger each week and more players are coming through the door — we’re expanding. The blog is no different and we’re bringing a new member into the family: Cousins of Ron Mexico. He’s a noted online blogger and player at Carbon.

Hello, my name is Stephen. I’m an avid poker player and over the next 100 years I’m going to be sharing some of my poker-playing experiences with you. I know what you’re thinking – 100 years? That’s a really long time. Well, I’m such a dedicated player (and blogger) that I agreed to contribute to Carbon Poker over the next 100 years.

You may recognize my name from the first two Carbon Poker blogger tournaments. I won the first ever CPBT and finished second in the… second. It took a wick beat to bump me from a second straight victory, but I’m not hear to talk about that. Nobody likes to hear someone else’s bad beat stories, right?

Over the next 100 years, I’ll be talking poker strategy and just generally trying to get a discussion going about the best way to play. I don’t have a fool-proof system and don’t think that anyone does. Just because you play aces perfectly one hand doesn’t mean anything the next time you are fortunate enough to have them.

To me, poker is like tennis, but with a lot less movement. Except in tennis, you know exactly how many games you have to win to win the match. Poker can go on forever. So maybe its more like cricket? I’m not really familiar enough with that sport to know if that works. Maybe its more like baseball. No, wait. Its just like poker.

Its a beautiful game that can be infinitely frustrating and yet provide hours of boredom intertwined with moments of joy. No matter how good you get at poker, you’re always in danger of losing to someone who is just awful. That poker, she’s a cruel mistress. I’ll try to deal with that and in turn, help you guys deal with it. And maybe – just maybe – we’ll teach each other something along the way. Now get back to those virtual tables. There’s poker to be played.

Even the rails are heating up with numerous spectators for these hands.

With thousands of dollars swinging from hand to hand, the mid-day excitement is really hitting its peak.

If you want to see the action, or get in on it yourself, login to CarbonPoker and hit the $25/$50 Tables.

As you can see (from my expert screen cap + cropping skillzzzz), the Thanksgiving Jackpot is now over $13K! You guys are hitting the Special Turkey SitNGos hard right now.

We are almost halfway through the month, so there is still time to crack your way into the top 128 players on the Leaderboard and become eligible for a unique starting stack in our Thanksgiving Heads up Grand Slam Finale.

Interested? I thought so.

Track the Leaderboard here and look for the Turkey SnGs in the player admin.

Bring yourself some luck this Friday the 13th, and compete for this growing jackpots.

Sometimes I’m a little too quick for my own good.

Here’s a Facebook thread that came as a result of my reporting of the WSOP Main Event News from last night: LANGUAGE NSFW or Young Kids

The Final Table was the longest in the event’s history – logging over 17.5 hours of play until only two remained.

Joe Cada was the eventual winner – beating out Darvin Moon in heads up action last night.

Here’s the breakdown of the Final Table Winners:

Joe Cada – $8.55Million

Darvin Moon – $5.18Million

Antoine Saout – $3.48Million

Eric Buchman – $2.5Million

Jeff Shulman – $1.95Million

Steven Begleiter – $1.59Million

Phil Ivey – $1.4Million

Kevin Schaffel – $1.3Million

James Akenhead – $1.2Million

Half of each Turkey SnG goes into the Jackpot for the top 128 players on the leaderboard – so there is still time to crack into a good spot on the leaderboard and be eligible for a piece of the ever-expanding prize pool.

As of this afternoon (pictured) the official count is $10,767.90. We’ll hit $11K soon, and then keep going. We seeded the Jackpot with $2,500, and now it’s all up to you guys.

Keep playing and watch it grow!

Schaffel and Akenhead are now out, with Akenhead taking only his 9th place money that was awarded in July.

More updates coming soon at CarbonPoker.com.

With a 1.5Million Chip change, Eric Buchman is the new leader!

Stick around at CarbonPoker for more live updates on the November Nine

The CarbonPoker Thanksgiving jackpot has grown by over $1000 in the last 24 hours. You guys are rabid!

As of 13:06:24 Server Time on November 5, 2009 (that’s official!), the Jackpot is weighing in at $7,289.25. And that’s pre-cooked.

You guys still have 3.5 weeks to baste that into a pretty insane prizepool for the heads up leaderboard championship. Remember, you need to finish in the top 128 to get a spot and try for the payout.

Here’s the breakdown of how you get points:

1c of entry fee = 1 leaderboard point

Buy-in	Total LB Points	Points for 1st	Points for 2nd
$2 + 20c	40	28	12
$5 + 50c	100	70	30
$10 + $1	200	140	60
$25 + $2.50	500	350	150
$50 + $5	1000	700	300

And just so you know, you’re still not late to the party. There is plenty of time to crack the upper echelon of the leaderboard. Get grinding, turkeys.

The good people at CarbonPoker seeded the jackpot with $2,500 and you players have jacked it up to over $6K already. If that’s not enough motivation to work your way up the leader board, I’m not sure you should even keep reading this.

As I told you before, half of each Turkey Jackpot SnG gets thrown into the Final Tourney Jackpot. The top 128 players on the Thanksgiving leader board will face off in a unique starting stack heads up bracket tourney (say that 3 times fast) at the end of the promotion.

Track the Thanksgiving Leader Board here to see how far you need to go to increase your stack. If the first four days are any indication, there will be a lot to play for at the end of the month.

Current Leaders:

1. sliekas
2. mazokie
3. LTUFlawless
4. Edener2012
5. Smaggie
6. vader46
7. freeroller4
8. 27imod
9. mart1129
10. racer13