Author Jennifer Newell's poker week in review for Sept. 2-8.

Our consolidation of the week's news is quick and to the point — seven stories, to be exact — for the week ending Sept. 8. Let's go.

No. 1 — PartyPoker Upgrades Software

The long-awaited new look for PartyPoker has appeared, and the white and orange simplified web pages are making waves in the poker community. Pokerfuse first revealed the new screenshots of the site, which boasts of a modern design with less clutter than most online poker sites.

Of the new features, one that caters to recreational and new players is a quick "Choose Your Game" page that finds a table for them. Another addition to the site is "Achievements," a way for players to set goals and track them, as well as make money in the Achievements promotion, which allows players to win cash prizes by making certain hands during play. Also, a new buddy-list feature offers the chance to add friends, see their achievements, and build a social circle through online poker play on PartyPoker.

However, the new upgrades were a bit much for the site, as the client was down on the day it was announced and had difficulties last week due to high traffic. The launch is taking longer than expected, but the final bugs are reportedly being ironed out.

No. 2 — EPT Players Hacked in Barcelona

Reports surfaced last week from poker players staying at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona for the European Poker Tour Season 10 kickoff series. Players began posting on the 2+2 forum that their laptops were stolen from their hotel rooms and then returned with a Trojan virus or key to access the players' personal computer information. Jens Kyllonen was among the accusers, saying that the scam involved deactivating his room key so he had to go back to the front desk for a new one. Upon his return, his laptop was gone, and when he went to the front desk to report it, the laptop was returned.

PokerStars' Head of Communications, Lee Jones, wrote in the thread to confirm that he knew of two cases, though there could be more. He also noted that the Hotel Arts staff, as well as the Barcelona police, was involved to try to solve the crimes. In the meantime, players who left their laptops in their hotel rooms at any time were advised to erase their hard drives and reinstall their software with new passwords so their online poker accounts and other information would not be compromised.

No. 3 — Online Poker Traffic Hits Six-Year Low

PocketFives reported that the online poker industry recently hit a six-year low in August. Using the most-recent PokerScout analysis, the current decline began on Black Friday with the loss of U.S. customers on most of the major online poker sites, at which point traffic fell 20 percent overnight. Since that time, there has been a general downswing of 14 percent per year, and the lowest point in six years hit in August.

The contrast is apparent when looking at the Moneymaker Effect years, which started a 12 percent growth in online poker traffic per month in 2004, though the UIGEA put a stop to that trend. Even so, with most of the large sites staying in America after the UIGEA, growth stayed steady at more than 10 percent per year, with a jump to 32 percent in 2008 and 2009, and up to 50 percent at one point. The separation of Italian, French, and Spanish markets have contributed to the decline ever since, and Black Friday started the most significant downturn.

No. 4 — PokerStars to Return Italian Full Tilt Money

While many in the poker industry focus on the hope for the return of Full Tilt Poker funds to online poker players in the United States, it was lost in translation that Italian players had yet to receive their funds, either. PokerStars did agree to repay all funds to players around the world as part of its settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and its purchase of Full Tilt Poker, but Italian laws prohibit the outright repayment to players because Full Tilt Poker did not have a license to operate in Italy. Therefore, the payment to players would be illegal.

PokerStars worked with the Italian authorities to find a way to offer the amount of more than €2 million to Italian players. PokerStars will offer Italian players a series of promotions for players of cash games, sit and gos, and multi-table tournaments. "Tilt Mania" will run from September through December of this year with added money in events and freeroll MTTs as part of the repayment process, though all players must be able to participate. Excluding some players, such as those who were not owed money from Full Tilt, would be considered money laundering by the Italian regulators.

No. 5 — Carbon Releases Mobile for U.S. Players

Few international online poker sites still operate with access for U.S. customers, but the Merge Network chooses to allow U.S. players to compete on their sites. Carbon Poker is one of the most popular with U.S.-based players, and they will be the first to have access to the network's real-money poker app. The new app will offer micro-stakes limit and no-limit hold'em games to start and expand in the coming months.

The Carbon Poker mobile app began testing in February and took on beta-testing volunteers from the 2+2 forum community in August. The app is finally ready for release and optimized for iOS devices, though Android users have reported successful usage, as well.

No. 6 — Players Find Sponsorship Opportunities

Recently, 888poker announced a sponsorship deal with JC Tran, the chip leader of the upcoming WSOP November Nine final table. Last week, French online poker site Winamax revealed that it has signed a sponsorship deal with Sylvain Loosli, the only French member of the November Nine. Loosli is no stranger to Winamax online poker tables, and he plans on playing more online, as well as in live tournaments as a Winamax Team Pro. He joins pros like Gaelle Baumann, Davidi Kitai, and Ludovic Lacay on the team roster.

Ultimate Poker also added another pro to its roster last week. Tom Marchese was signed to the Nevada online poker site, and he joins a slew of pros like Jason Somerville, Lauren Kling, Dan O'Brien, Brent Hanks, Randy Dorfman, and Matt Vengrin on the team. Antonio Esfandiari leads the crew as the brand ambassador for Ultimate Poker.

No. 7 — McCain Angers Poker Community with Mobile Incident

It was amusing at first when United States Senator John McCain was caught playing online poker during the Senate hearings on the potential for war in Syria. A photographer snapped a photo of McCain playing a free-money online poker site on his iPhone, and McCain then joked about it on news programs. He laughed that he was bored during the hearings and lost quite a bit of money — play money, he admitted.

Meanwhile, the poker community had a difficult time laughing, seeing as McCain has long been an opponent of online poker legislation in America. He has been one of the strongest critics of reasonable pro-gaming legislation, voting as far back as 1998 to make Internet gambling illegal in the United States. Some have pointed out that had McCain been playing for real money, even for a few pennies, he could have been prosecuted under any laws that McCain himself had backed in the past. Others in poker have taken this situation as an opportunity to petition McCain for his support of a federal online poker bill that is currently pending in Congress.