Free Slurpee's this Friday

7-Eleven® celebrates Friday, July 11,
with Free Slurpee® drinks,
National Hot Dog Month with Big Bite®
Meal Deal, and first frozen Monster beverage
not sold in a can.

DALLAS, (July 2, 2008) – It’s that time of year
when the sun is hot and the Slurpee® drinks
are free-zing – emphasis on the FREE part.
July 11, aka 7/11, is the day that 7-Eleven, Inc.,
the world’s premier convenience retailer,
celebrates its birthday and says “thank you”
to its customers with free Slurpee drinks at
participating stores. This year’s 7-Eleven® Day
marks the company’s 81st birthday.
Customers can pour their favorite Slurpee flavour
in colorful, 7.11-ounce “Birthday” cups throughout
the day, while cup supplies last.

7-Eleven is the home of the Big Bite® Oscar-Mayer
all-beef hot dog and the number-one retailer of
grilled hot dogs. And to celebrate National
Hot Dog Month in July, participating 7-Eleven
stores are offering a quarter-pound Big Bite
hot dog and Big Gulp® drink for just $1.99 (all July).

Also, new for July is the first ever Monster Energy
Slurpee drink, called Black Ice. Black Ice is a
black-colored energy Slurpee drink packed with
a full load of Monster’s potent energy blend.
This is the first frozen Monster beverage and
the first variety not sold in a can.

Main Event picks disappoint

Most of my WSOP main event picks
(for the Full Tilt Fantasy Poker)
were eliminated on the first day of play.

David Chiu, David Pham, J.C. Tran,
Kenny Tran, John Phan, Minh Ly,
Andy Black, Tony G, Gavin Griffin
and Surinder Sunar are all toast.

My hopes rest mostly on Scott Clements,
Toto Leonidas, and Hasan Habib, who
all advanced to day 2 with VERY healthy
chip stacks. My two other picks that
still remain, Alex Jacob and John Juanda,
cant be counted out yet, as they both have
around 20,000 chips going into day 2.

Scott Clements has played really well
throughout this years events and has
had a lot of success surviving large fields.
Toto is one of the best there is at reading
people & picking off weak donkey stacks,
so those are the 2 i'm sending my mojo to.

Full Tilt FTOPS 9 announced

Full Tilt has announced the dates for the
Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS.

The latest edition of the highly popular
tri-annual series, FTOPS IX, will run
August 6-17, 2008.

FTOPS IX jumps forward from previous editions
with the inclusion of 25 events, and a total
guarantee over the series of more that $15 million
in prize money. Highlights in the upcoming
FTOPS IX series include the return of the
two-day $2,500 "deep stack" NL, event,
beginning on Saturday, August 16th and
carrying a $2 million guarantee, and the
FTOPS IX Main Event itself, which runs on
Sunday, August 17th and features a minimum
of $2.5 million in prize money.

Four other FTOPS IX events will serve up
at least a million each in guarantee winnings:
Event 1, $200+16 No-Limit Hold'em;
Event 10, $300+22 No-Limit Hold'em;
Event 12, $1,000+60 No-Limit Hold'em 6-max;
Event 17, $300+22 NL Hold'em 6-max (w/Rb).

Satellites start this week for all FTOPS IX events.
Event hosts have not yet been named.

FTOPS IX schedule (all starting times ET):
#/ Date/Time/ Buy-in/ Guarantee
#1, 8-6 21:00 $200+16 NL Holdem $1million
#2, 8-7 14:00 $240+16 PL Omaha/8 KnockOut $200k
#3, 8-7 21:00 $200 + $16 NL Holdem 4x S/O 6-Max $250k
#4, 8-8 14:00 $300+22 NL Holdem (1R/1A) 6-Max $600k
#5, 8-8 21:00 $200+16 Stud $100k
#6, 8-9 14:00 $500+35 PL Omaha 6-Max $300k
#7, 8-9 16:30 $100+9 NL Holdem Rebuy $500k
#8, 8-10 14:00 $240+16 NL Holdem 6-Max Knockout $500k
#9, 8-10 16:00 $500+35 NL Holdem Heads-Up $500k
#10, 8-10 18:00 $300+22 NL Holdem $1.5million
#11, 8-11 14:00 $200+16 LIMIT Holdem $200k
#12, 8-11 21:00 $1,000+60 NL Holdem 6-Max $1.5million
#13, 8-12 14:00 $200+16 HA (PL Hold 'em/PL Omaha) $200k
#14, 8-12 21:00 $500+35 HORSE $300k
#15, 8-12 21:00 $200+16 NL Holdem TURBO $500k
#16, 8-13 14:00 $200+16 Omaha-8 $200k
#17, 8-13 21:00 $300+22 NL Holdem 6-Max Rebuy $1million
#18, 8-14 14:00 $500+35 NL Hold'em 3x Shootout $300k
#19, 8-14 21:00 $300+22 MIXED Holdem 6-Max $300k
#20, 8-15 14:00 $200+16 NL Hold'em 6-Max $400k
#21, 8-15 21:00 $300+22 Razz $150k
#22, 8-16 14:00 $2,500+120 NL Hold'em $2million
#23, 8-16 16:30 $100+9 PL Omaha Rebuy $350k
#24, 8-17 14:00 $120+9 NL Holdem KnockOut $400k
Main Event
#25, 8-17 18:00 $500 + $35 NL Holdem $2.5million

New Season/Format for Poker After Dark

Poker After Dark' Season IV Begins July 14

NBC's "Poker After Dark" series returns with
its fourth season of episodes beginning July 14th.

Season IV of "PAD" promises to break the
tradition established by the highly popular
late-night series in its first three seasons,
where it offered a revolving mix of poker's
biggest names in 6-handed freezeouts.

PAD's fourth season expands the show's horizons.
The debut episode of the upcoming season features
high-stakes, no-limit cash game play as opposed to
the series' traditional freezeout format, wherein
most of the weekly challenges offered a $120,000,
winner-take-all prize to a single player.

Instead, the July 14 episode kicks off new
territory for the show. It's a full week of
high-stakes cash-game action featuring a
lineup of diverse but impressive talent.

In seat order, the six chairs will be occupied by:

- 21 year old Tom "durrrr" Dwan

- 11 time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth

- high stakes, part-time cash-gamer Mike Baxter

- 5 time WSOP bracelet winner Allen Cunningham

- Cirque de Soleil CEO Guy Laliberte... and

- cash game veteran David "Viffer" Peat.

Dwan and Hellmuth have a (very brief) bit of
poker history on NBC, since the two squared off
in Round 1 of the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker
Championship. Courtesy of a bad beat, Dwan
defeated Hellmuth in just three hands,
the shortest match in NHUPC history. They and
the other four players – including Cunningham,
who will be making his televised cash-game
debut here – promise to get the new season
off to a lively start.

The debut week's new cash-game format
has the players starting with blinds of $200/400,
with, according to the show's press statements,
plenty of straddles and prop bets.

The minimum buy-in is $100,000,
the maximum $250,000, and the
mimimum for rebuys is $50,000.

Leeann Tweeden also makes her debut
as the series new host in the July 14 premiere.
The first episode airs late night Monday,
at 2:05 a.m. ET on July 14 (technically Tuesday ),
with five episodes airing on consecutive nights
at the same time.

As in previous seasons, a special "Director's Cut"
episode airs late Saturday night (technically
1:00 a.m. ET Sunday morning), following
"Saturday Night Live." Each day's show will
also be available for same-day viewing
at www.nbcsports.com/poker.

A second week of cash-game action is scheduled
for this fall on PAD. That week's episodes,
starting October 13, will feature Patrik Antonius,
Dee Tiller, Howard Lederer, Doyle Brunson,
Gabe Kaplan, and Eli Elezra.

PokerStars WCOOP 7 announced

PokerStars has announced dates for the
World Championship of Online Poker
(WCOOP), online poker's largest championship
series. The 2008 edition, is scheduled to begin on
September 5th, 2008. There will be 33 events
and a massive overall guarantee of $30 million,
twice the total guaranteed in last year's WCOOP VI.

Stars' WCOOP annually offers the widest selection
of tournament formats, and the WCOOP VI lineup
is no exception. Among the less-common formats
in this year's series are the following:

● $10,300 High-Roller No-Limit Hold'em
● Eight-Game Mixed tourney
● Four-Max No-Limit Hold'em
● Mixed Hold'em
● PLO with one rebuy, one add-on
● $25,500 High-Roller Heads-Up NL Hold'em
● Six-Max Mixed Hold'em
● No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw
● Six-Max No-Limit Hold'em w/ rebuys

The WCOOP VII will run for 18 days, running
September 5-22, with the final event, the
two-day $5,200 NL Hold'em Main Event,
actually beginning on September 21.
That event carries an incredible $10,000,000
guarantee, the largest ever for an online,
series-based event.
Excepting the final Sunday of the series,
which is devoted to the Main Event,
two other events get underway on each
of WCOOP VII's first 16 days.

WCOOP VII satellites will start July 6.
As with previous WCOOP editions,
Stars will also have a sizeable number of
free entries via such avenues as FPP
(Frequent Player Point) qualifiers;
an additional $1.5 million in free entries
has already been earmarked for the
WCOOP VII series.

WCOOP VII schedule:
#/ Date/ Day/ Time/ Buy-in/ Guarantee

#1 5-8 Fri 14:30 $215 NL Hold'em [6-max] $1Million
#2 5-8 Fri 16:30 $215 PL 5-Card Draw $100k
#3 6-8 Sat 14:30 $215 Limit Hold'em $300k
#4 6-8 Sat 16:30 $215 2-7 Triple Draw $100k
#5 7-8 Sun 14:30 $10,300 NL Holdem $2Million *
#6 7-8 Sun 16:30 $530 NL Hold'em $3Million
#7 9-8 Mon 14:30 $215 PL Omaha [6-max] $300k
#8 9-8 Mon 16:30 $320 8-game Mixed Event $200k
#9 9-9 Tue 14:30 $215 NL Hold'em [4-max] $400k
#10 9-9 Tue 16:30 $215 Razz $100k
#11 9-10 Wed 14:30 $320 PL Omaha Hi/Lo $300k
#12 9-10 Wed 16:30 $320 Mixed Holdem $300k
#13 9-11 Thu 14:30 $215 NL Holdem w/RB $1Million
#14 9-11 Thu 16:30 $320 7-Card Stud $100k
#15 9-12 Fri 14:30 $320 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up] $500k
#16 9-12 Fri 16:30 $215 PL Omaha [1R / 1A] $300k
#17 9-13 Sat 14:30 $530 PL Hold'em [6-max] $400k
#18 9-13 Sat 16:30 $215 HORSE $300k
#19 9-14 Sun 14:30 $25,500 HU NL Hold'em $1.6Million *
#20 9-14 Sun 16:30 $1,050 NL Hold'em $3Million
#21 9-15 Mon 14:30 $530 7-Card Stud Hi/Lo $200k
#22 9-15 Mon 16:30 $530 Mixed Omaha Hi/Lo 6-max $200k
#23 9-16 Tue 14:30 $530 NL Hold'em [1R/1A] $500k
#24 9-16 Tue 16:30 $530 NL 2-7 Single Draw $200k
#25 9-17 Wed 14:30 $320 PL Omaha w/ Rebuys $500k
#26 9-17 Wed 16:30 $320 NL Hold'em [6-max] $500k
#27 9-18 Thu 14:30 $530 NL Hold'em Triple Shootout $300k
#28 9-18 Thu 16:30 $530 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo $400k
#29 9-19 Fri 14:30 $530 NLHE w/Rebuys [6-max] $400k
#30 9-19 Fri 16:30 $1,050 PL Omaha $500k
#31 9-20 Sat 14:30 $1,050 Limit Hold'em [6-max] $500k
#32 9-20 Sat 16:30 $10,300 HORSE $500k *
#33 9-21 Sun 16:30 $5,200 NL Holdem ME $10MILLION
* -- indicates two-day event