The city of Portland is battling with the state of Oregon over the legality of its poker rooms. The city allowed “cover charges” for poker rooms who skirted around the no-rake laws. The Oregon Lottery, which handles all gaming in the state of Oregon, stated that the largest room in Portland, the Portland Meadows, has until end of October to cease operations, or figure out a legal alternative. Otherwise, poker rooms in Portland are only a month away from closing its doors.

The 2017 WCOOP concluded on Tuesday with the final table of the Main Event. The $5,200 buy-in championship event attracted 1,804 original runners and they added 379 additional entries for 2,183 total entrants. The prize pool was worth nearly $11M. First place was guaranteed at least $1.5M, but the final payout was $1.6 million. Holland's Steven 'SvZff' van Zadelhoff took down the Main Event for a sick payday.

PokerStars is joining forces with the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida to assist with the SHR's fundraising efforts in the wake of Hurricane Irma. On October 3^rd at 7pm, the Seminole Hard Rock will be hosting a charity tournament with proceeds going to Feeding South Florida. The Caribbean and South Florida were devastated by Hurricane Irma earlier this month. PokerStars' sponsored players, such as Florida resident Jason Mercier, Jen Shahade, and Jeff Gross, will be attending this special charity tournament to raise money for Irma relief organization Feeding South Florida. Through Helping Hands, PokerStars will be matching funds raised at the charity tournament on a dollar-to-dollar basis up to $100,000.

Lock up the purple! Germans continue to dominate high rollers! After five high roller events at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas, we finally have a newly-crowned Poker Masters champion: Steffen Sontheimer. Young German pro Sontheimer shipped two events including the $100K freezeout finale and the second event. In all, he banked over $2.7M and got to slide on the coveted purple jacket that all future Poker Masters winners will receive.

The first four events of the Poker Masters at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas are in the books, while the final and fifth event is currently underway. The first four events at Poker Masters each had a buy-in of $50,000, while the freezeout finale was an $100,000 entry. The overall winner at the Poker Masters will get awarded a coveted purple jacket. The first four event winners were Nick Schulman, Steffen Sontheimer, Bryn Kenney, and Brandon Adams. Only 14 players are still alive in Event #5. You can follow along with a live stream and coverage via PokerGO.

Whenever a tragic natural disaster hits like Hurricane Irma, most people are overwhelmed with a paralyzing feeling of helplessness. They want to help, but do not know the best way to assist those in need. Many charities are simply collecting for the "next" disaster, so the majority of your financial assistance is not exactly going to those currently afflicted. Luckily, PokerStars has lots of experience dealing with various charities. The online poker site recently announced how their players and other members of the poker community can assist with Hurricane Irma Emergency Appeal Fund. PokerStars teamed up with Helping Hands charity to make sure those in need get assistance. PokerStars will be matching their player donations, so every Dollar, Euro, or Pound counts.

Daniel Negreanu recorded another episode of the Full Contact Poker Podcast. Episode 15 titled The One About Angle Shooting covered a few incidents of angle shooting. Kid Poker gave some examples by Amarillo Slim, Puggy Pearson, and Shaun Deeb. Angle shooting used to be more common place in the days before the online poker boom, but we still see some examples today with players testing the elasticity of the rules.

William Kassouf, the chatter box Brit who got his fifteen minutes of fame at the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event, flopped a monster hand during an appearence on Live at the Bike live stream at the Bicycle Casino outside of Los Angeles. Kassouf flopped a monster hand in a cooler. A slow roll ensued that might have been one of the sickest and most annoying slow rolls in recent history.

Fedor Holz, the hottest tournament player in poker the last few years recently retired from full-time grinding to focus on other personal projects. But last week on Twitter, Holz announced that he was partnering with partypoker and that he's exited about "their plans for the future of poker."