Actually there are some here and there occasionally, but really the reason why there aren't much of these promotions for poker is that there are not much bitcoin poker sites. Not because the bitcoin community does not have interest in poker. More on there is little interest in online poker. The pros that farm newbies call the newbies, "fish" which just is like saying they are fishing for the money of these people. I guess that is why there is no staying power on poker, since if the newbies get tired of losing money and there is only a few chance they see they are winning then they get tired and just don't play anymore. I guess that is a hurdle for poker sites to get over.
More than newbies getting tired of loosing to pros there are some other hurdles as follows:
1) player colluding which is near impossible to prevent in virtual world in multi player tables.
2) No provably fair randomization of deck so its very hard for some one to believe that he/she is not being cheated.
3) how do you know that the other player you are playing with is not a casino employee who is able to see your whole cards and there fore you stand no chance.