Another Member Joins Team Absolute

4 May 2005

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – (PRESS RELEASE) -- This past Friday night at AbsolutePoker.com, Kevin Bott from Rexburg, Idaho, known as "Bottsky" at AbsolutePoker.com, became the newest member of Team Absolute to compete at this year's WSOP. The online poker destination handed over its second World Series of Poker $10,000 seat in as many weeks to "Bottsky" -- who played some very sharp cards to beat Mark Seif, Absolute Poker's resident pro.

Every Saturday at 2 p.m. EDT leading up to the WSOP main event in Las Vegas, which starts July 7, AbsolutePoker.com's Mark Seif takes on the AbsolutePoker.com weekly Tournament Leader Board winner. The FreeRoll prize pool starts at $1,000, and Absolute Poker adds $1,000, a custom Absolute Poker jacket, and an opportunity to win a WSOP Seat every week. Any player that beats Seif in the "Mark Seif Heads-Up Shoot Out" will win that week's prize pool and automatically qualify to play him again the following Friday at 9 p.m. EDT for a chance to win a $10,000 World Series of Poker Seat. This Saturday, Steve "Horse" Wiesman, screen name "Horseraching," is the Tournament Leader Board winner and will challenge Seif for $2,000, the custom jacket and his chance to play Seif again for the WSOP package.

Friday night was very exciting, with over 2000 spectators logging in to watch and chat during the play-off. "It was really something, there was a huge audience chatting, and a majority of the folks were cheering hard for me," Bottsky said. "It is a great feeling to win this. I'm very excited about my second WSOP appearance. I just hope I can close it out this time; last year I finished 14th."

AbsolutePoker.com, which provides games 24/7 for thousands of concurrent players around the world, is quite active in qualifying players for the WSOP main event in Las Vegas through daily online poker satellite tournaments in which players enter for as little as $5. Players that win their WSOP seat not only receive buy-in to the WSOP main event, but money toward airfare and accommodations. To participate, players simply need to download the free poker software at AbsolutePoker.com .

"The play-off is a great format. The quality and talent of the players continue to amaze and challenge me. I am genuinely excited to welcome each and every new member of the AP WSOP Team if they beat me, and I'm quite certain that team AP will do very well at the WSOP this year because our qualifying players are very talented," said Seif. "This is clearly the fastest growing sport in the world. I love it that players can compete at a high level early in their careers. It forces me to keep on top of my game."

"I think I'm ready," said Steve "Horse" Wiesman, an Abosolute Poker player who intends to turn part-time pro by September of this year. "All my friends play at AbsolutePoker.com. If I win this weekend, I'm going to donate $500 to the Lance Armstrong foundation. If I'm able to win the "Shoot Out" again, I'm going to take some of my Absolute Poker friends like Kev1, Sinnabunn, Raymondo, Slitman. The WSOP should be a lot of fun, but I have to win first."

The 36th annual World Series of Poker begins June 2 at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. The Rio will host all but the final two days, which will be played July 14 and 15 at the Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas, the original home of the tournament. With more than 6,000 expected entries, the WSOP's $10,000 buy-in main event is expected to generate a prize pool of US$60 million, making it the richest sporting event in the world.

There are an estimated 50 million active poker enthusiasts around the world, and the numbers continue to increase. Leading analysts predict that online gaming will soon become the largest industry on the Internet, outpacing both retail and travel in revenue. AbsolutePoker.com, which is five times larger than the largest land-based poker room in the world, is the fastest-growing online poker site out of an estimated 260 poker sites, regularly attracting more than 10,000 players.