The tip for how to play winning online poker this week is to follow the lessons of Mike Kosowski, the retired New York cop who won the $1 million top prize in Poker Stars and FOX Television’s Million Dollar Challenge. In this nationally televised poker game show, contestants face off against a series of successively tougher opponents, each in a heads-up No Limit Holdem match. If the contestant beats all the pros up the ladder, he faces his final pro opponent, Kid Poker himself, Daniel Negreanu.

And that’s just what this 9/11 hero did. After nearly being killed by the falling South Tower as he helped survivors escape the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001, Kosowski spent his recovery time learning to play poker. Four years after that, when he retired, he took the game even more seriously, until taking himself to a freeroll win that landed him a spot on the Million Dollar Challenge TV show. Then all he had to do was keep winning. Bet that detective sergeant training taught him real well how to read tells, don’t you think?

The schedule for the 2010 World Series of Poker has been released. 21-year-old 2009 champ Joe Cada has barely gotten used to the idea of holding the title and already players are getting ready to try and claim it from him.

The 2010 WSOP schedule much resembles the 2009 one, again being comprised of 57 braceleted events, winding up with the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event. Some additions to the schedule this time around include a new $50,000 Players Championship, an 8-game mixed event (replacing last year’s $50,000 HORSE event), a $10,000 HORSE event, and a $25,000 6-handed NL Holdem event. In addition there will be a special non-braceleted event held every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in June for a $550 buy-in.

The 2010 WSOP festivities will commence May 27, 2010 at Harrah’s Rio in Las Vegas. As the WSOP keeps growing (remember that whole debacle with people getting turned away from the main event last year?) the Rio has now extended the series to two rooms, totally approximately 350 tables in all.