You've probably heard all kinds of misleading news about online poker. Here's the truth: It's still not illegal for Americans to play online (unless you live in a misguided state that has made it illegal). The government may like to say that it is, but they've never got a court to agree. It may become a little more difficult to get your money into an online poker room, but it's far from impossible. And as long as you're dealing with one of the big sites (like PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker), you can be reasonably sure that your money is safe. Regardless of the long-term outcome, we urge everyone interested in continuing to play online poker to always do business with those companies that haven't overreacted to the recent changes. Those companies should be rewarded. Companies like Poker Stars...

PokerStars continues to accept poker players from the U.S. and they've been rewarded with even bigger crowds for all of their online poker tournaments. The big weekly $1 million guaranteed tournament had its biggest ever prize pool on October 15th - not coincidentally, the first Sunday since the "other" big site made the ill-advised decision to ban Americans from their site.

If there were any doubts in your mind about whether the "poker boom" was still underway, recent events at PokerStars.com should erase them. They just completed their annual "World Championship of Online Poker" (WCOOP), a two-week series of mega-tournaments, and the results were bigger than ever. The main, final event of the WCOOP was held on Sunday, October 1st and had a prize pool of $6,275,000 - easily the biggest in the history of online poker. Over 2,500 players bought in for $2,600 each to take the prize fund waaaay beyond the $3 million guarantee. The top 3 money makers each made over $500,000 and the winner was poker pro J.C. Tran (using his player ID of "area23JC") for $670,194!

For the 2006 WCOOP, the 5th annual series, there were 18 events with a guaranteed total prize fund over $10 million. Each day between September 16th and October 1st another WCOOP bracelet was awarded to one of the world's best (or luckiest) online poker players. Tournaments were held in no-limit hold 'em, limit hold 'em, Razz, pot-limit Omaha, hi-lo Omaha, 7-card stud and HORSE.

Congratulations to all of the 2006 WCOOP winners:

1. "Nabokov" - Razz ($215 buy-in)
2. "Rambo5" - NLHE ($530)
3. "thegiant" - PLO w/rebuys ($320)
4. "spawng" - NLHE match play ($215)
5. "kwob20" - Omaha hi/low ($530)
6. "austinlewis" - NLHE w/rebuys ($215)
7. "yaaaflow" - LHE ($215)
8. "F.Briatore" - HORSE ($215)
9. "uncforte" - PLHE ($530)
10. "strassa2" - NLHE ($1,050)
11. "nikstar" - 7-card stud ($320)
12. "Mr.Shhhhhh" - PLO 8 or better ($320)
13. "dnKid" - PLHE ($320)
14. "kwob20" - 7-card stud hi/low ($530)
15. "Trabelsi" - PL Omaha ($530)
16. "stelladora" - HORSE ($5,200)
17. "laurentia" - limit HE ($1,050)
18. J.C. Tran ("area23JC") - NLHE ($2,600)

PokerStars is always the place for the biggest online poker tournaments, so even if it'll be almost a full year before the next WCOOP now is the time to start your preparations for next year's series.