Poker News in 2007 - The year in review

2007 will likely go down as the most transformative year online poker has experienced since 2003, when Chris Moneymaker pulled off his WSOP upset via online qualification and convinced tens of thousands of people to give ‘that internet poker thing’ a try. Actually, in many ways this year was like the evil twin of 2003 - same levels of hype and happenings, but none (or very little) of it positive.

Rather than waste your time (ok, our time) with a long rehashing of the year’s news, we’ll keep it short. Below you’ll find our top three stories of the year and then a bunch of links to what other sites are saying about about 2007 and what it meant for the pokerverse.

Top three stories from 2007

• #3: I Can Has Multiaccounts?

  More of a trend than a single story, but with the disqualification of the WCOOP Main Event winner, the banning of Sorel Mizzi and the scores of smaller stories of crackdowns, 2007 will be remembered as the year that online poker tournaments were finally revealed to be played on an uneven field - not that many seemed to care.

• #2: Chip Reese Dies, Annette_15 Thrives.

  Ok, that’s two stories, but the passing of a poker legend (and by all accounts, a great guy) and the ascent of an online phenom provides a perfect shorthand for the larger transition of poker out of the hands of the old guard and into the new.

• #1: Absolute(ly) Rigged.

  High-stakes cheating, online investigative squads, massive coverups and attention from national media. Somehow, Absolute ends up gaining traffic from the whole ordeal. Go figure.

Year-end wrap up articles from other sites:

• Wicked Chops counts down the top ten stories of 2007.
• Bill Rini reviews his 2007 predictions scorecard.
• Poker King muses on the most significant happenings of the year.
• PokerNews breaks 2007 down month by month in their year end series.

• Poker Listings offers up a similar drilldown in their Year In Review series.

• Pauly wraps up the year with a one-two punch over at Tao of Poker