Another year of online poker is in the books, so I thought I would take a look at the top news stories from the online poker world; the good, the bad, and the ugly!

I’ll start off with the positive stories that marked online poker in 2010:

The Good:

• The Brunson 10

One of the best sponsorship programs in online poker was created by the team at Doyles Room Poker where they came up with the idea for the Brunson 10, a collection of top online poker talent that had yet to make the transition to live poker. By doing this, Doyles Room was able to snatch up the best young players in poker, and thus far the site has signed: Zachary Clark, Amit Makhija, Dani Stern, Chris Moorman, Alex Kamberis, Steve Gross, Dan Kelly and David Sands.

• NKOTB: Lock Poker and Victory Poker

I’m calling Victory Poker and Lock Poker the New Kids on the Block not just because they are new, but also because the online poker rooms seem to have more of a party atmosphere about them and appeal to new, young, players. Both sites have already built up an impressive stable of poker talent as sponsored players; additionally Victory Poker is fronted by their outspoken young CEO Dan Fleyshman and Lock Poker is among the most innovative poker rooms on the Internet, with their added security features and partnership with Sharkscope.com.

• Live, streaming, coverage of tournaments

This is a huge step forward for tournament coverage and is long overdue in the poker world. Streaming coverage of major poker tournaments not only gives poker aficionados –like myself– the chance to watch the action from their home as anyone who has ever watched a live tournament in person knows it falls somewhere between watching paint dry and grass grow, but also allows casual fans to get a better understanding of the big picture of what goes on at a poker table.

• States tackle online poker legislation

When the federal government fails the States take up the cause! With no endgame in sight for online poker legislation at the federal level a number of states including Casino powerhouses New Jersey and California have looked at getting a jump in the online gaming market.

• Rush Poker

Full Tilt Poker kicked off 2010 with a new form of online poker game called Rush Poker. Rush Poker is the first real innovation in the online poker world since Planet Poker first opened up shop in 1998, and marks a possible turning point in the evolution of online poker. Rush Poker is an ONLINE poker game, it can’t be played in a casino, and so instead of taking a long-dead form of poker, or tinkering with an existing tournament structure, Full Tilt Poker thought outside the box and CREATED an online poker game unique to the aspects of the online game.