Online Poker Not a "Gambling Device"

Here I was going on and on about the court case in Pennsylvania that may have qualified Texas Hold’em Poker as a game of skill, when it was finally ruled in Kentucky that online poker rooms are not gambling devices.
And that means that there won’t be any seizing of internet poker rooms. In the words of Nelson Muntz, “haha!” And might I also add: Microgaming, you’re idiots. You pulled out way too soon, now they have given no clout to that case, and you’re out thousands of customers.
Tsk tsk and for shame abandoning all of your U.S. players. And not just the players, but the affiliates too.
And as for Kentucky! You should have known better! You can’t seize anything on the internet! You certainly cannot expect to go up against iMEGA, the Poker Players Alliance, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, GoDaddy AND 141 domain owners! Especially when the governor that filed this lawsuit is lobbying for more gambling in the state. Are you NUTS? Kentucky is home to one of the biggest gambling events EVER in the WORLD! If that doesn’t make you look like you’re playing favorites, I don’t know what WILL!
Well, at any rate, this is a HUGE precedent for the online poker industry. Because in this case, internet gambling sites were found not to be “gambling devices,” if the UIGEA is reviewed this year we can pretty much expect that it will be thrown out. Or at least I am hoping.
I think to celebrate, we should all have a class of wine and hit up whatever website is Microgaming’s closest competitor that caters to the U.S. and bet like a bunch of Big Business types. No, scratch that. We should all go to and offshore gambling site and bet on the horses to ensure that no gambling proceeds go to Kentucky. HA!

Follow the Queen!

I love Paddy Power. I haven’t had a whole lot of experience with its online poker room, but I love how balls to the wall these guys are. Is it any wonder that they’re Irish?
Paddy Power is notorious for its unique and sometimes controversial wagering themes. It’s Back That Ace Up promo is no exception. Although, I have to say, I’d like there to be some sort of ace-driven winning stipulation – with its title as the simple reasoning for this.
Maybe something like Follow the Ace, or Ace’s Wild or something. For those of you who have never played the Follow-the-Queen format of poker, try it! It’s super fun, although you rarely see it in online poker.
This is the kind of poker that I started out playing. Essentially, whatever you decided is the followed card (usually a Queen) is a wild card. So, if it were an Ace, any card that was immediately dealt after an ace becomes a wild card. If the final card dealt is an ace, then all aces are wild. If no aces are dealt, there are no wild cards for that particular hand. The Queen usually comes up more times than you would expect, and it makes for a slew of wild card throughout the game, and it makes you think and exercises those memory muscles.
But what really makes this game fun is that if you have an amazing hand due to a wild card – if another ace were to come up, it will totally screw you! AND! If you have a crappy crap hand, you can turn it around with one card.
You know what? I’m going to go e-mail some online poker rooms and request that they start offering a follow-the-Queen game. It’s nostalgic for me, but I think a lot of people haven’t heard of it, so it would add a good mixture to players that are gradually becoming bored with the Texas Hold’em and Omaha formats.

Poker on the Stock Market

It has just dawned on me why online poker sites rarely become a topic of controversy – and rarely are put under litigation by the U.S. (compared to casinos anyway). I was just reading about Playboy Poker having closed its doors forever – may it rest in peace – and how, as a member of the Cryptologic poker network, it is traded in the U.S. stock market.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but I am one for calling B.S. on the U.S. when I see it! I am not saying that I WANT online poker rooms to be prosecuted. I’m saying that I want the U.S. to open its mouth and insert its foot!
You can’t really chastise online gambling sites when you profit from it on the stock market. This is my opinion, anyway. Not to mention, many government officials gamble every day – the stock market in itself is a form of gambling. It takes skill, however, just like poker!
If you really wanted to, you could consider everything that you do gambling. You could gamble on the outcome of Candyland if you really wanted to so no amount of anti-gaming legislation is going to prevent people from developing gambling addictions if they are prone to it. Let’s give it a rest already.
You know how well legalized online poker and casino gambling could stimulate the economy? Not just in taxing gambling winnings, but on the stock market. There are thousands of gambling websites out there and new ones coming into the market EVERY day. Some are really profitable when their shares are sold, and some are in their infancy. Buy when they’re young, promote the living hell out of them, and then sell sell sell! It’s a win-win situation.
And with U.S. players having the ability to legally gamble online, the sites that already do exist are going to become worth more. So people that already have stock in Cryptologic’s poker network would probably be able to sell shares for a pretty penny, I’d imagine.

Party Gaming Pulls Through

Despite everything that has happened with Party Gaming in the last month or so, the online poker room continues to provide the very best to its customers. Kudos to them I say.
The U.S. Department of Justice went after Anurag Dikshit (who is appropriately named according to Doyle Brunson) because as one of the founders of Party Gaming, or Party Poker, he was accused of having accepted U.S. wagers. This was of course, when internet gambling was not prohibited by U.S. federal law. Can we do that? Yes we can, apparently.
Well needless to say, his peers were none too happy with him, and neither was the online poker community. He sold us out, plain and simple. He agreed to a settlement and pled guilty to…being completely within his legal rights? So while he set some dangerous precedents for the industry in future litigation, we got one up on him when a Pennsylvania judge ruled that Texas Hold’em was a game of skill and not one of chance. So there’s prior legislation to refer to on both ends.
I guess my question is, after hearing about this, what about other popular forms of poker that are played online? You know, Omaha? Stud? Will it eventually come down to online poker rooms only being able to offer U.S. players Texas Hold’em? I don’t think most of us would be overly opposed to this, as it is obvious the game of choice for most – and any tournament worth its weight in salt is played in this style.
At any rate, Party Poker, despite the $300 million settlement, is offering a monthly million-dollar guaranteed tournament, so I can’t imagine that they’re doing too poorly. In fact, they are the fourth most popular site, second to Poker Stars, Full Tilt and the iPoker Network. And of course the iPoker Network is going to be ahead, they’ve only got twenty seven card rooms to compete. Shame on you, Dikshit, but congrats Party Gaming!

Having a Law Overturned

U.S. legislation can always be overturned no matter how old, which is sort of the beauty of this country - if of course the people care enough. If public interest drops on any subject then a stupid law will be passed by some fanatic of whatever affiliation. How do you think the UIGEA got passed in the first place? Some fanatical jerk tacked it onto a bill that nobody was going to not vote for. There’s hope for online poker, because it happened to be the subject of such circumstance in Phildelphia.
North Carolina is another example, as recently a judge had to throw out a law that was 201 years old. The law stated that it was illegal for unmarried couples to live together. The case was brought up against a 911 emergency operator, when a sheriff learned that she and her boyfriend were living together. The woman was given an ultimatum, she could either marry, move, or she would have to leave her job. After she would be forced to marry her boyfriend or move out she was forced to leave her job. The woman was Debora Lynn Hobbs and she filed a constitutional challenge, she didn’t want her old job back (who would after that) she just wanted the law changed so nobody else would have to face the same BS as her.
Now as crazy as that law sounded to everyone with brain cells left in their head, there was a fanatic who opposed it’s removal. "I think it's terrible," said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina. "It was simply judicial activism at its best. That knocked down the law that is a cornerstone of state marriage policy. The law emphasizes that marriage is the family structure that ought to be encouraged because that is the best institution for family, children and society. What the judge actually did was undermine marriage," said Creech,
So you see no matter what law passes or doesn’t pass, no matter how stupid it is, there will be someone who will defend it with all they have for some moronic reason. Such is the case with live in boyfriends, and such is the case with online poker.

The Future of Online Poker?

February is a very important month for online poker players. There’s a court date set for Friday the 13th which may change the way we view that date. In fact, 13 could be a lucky number! If we can’t rely on the Obama administration to alter anti-gambling laws, we may be able to attribute a change to a South Carolina state court, where a judge is willing to consider that poker is more of a game of skill than chance.
I don’t know why this argument has gone contested for as long as it has. You would think that with a legislative body compiled mostly of men, poker would have been one of the first activities legalized. Poker has for decades been viewed a sporting activity that men use to get away from their wives for a night. Congressmen play poker, poker is broadcast on ESPN, for all of its “shortcomings,” and anyone who has ever played it, or watched it be played, knows that it takes skill. That’s common sense. To me, poker is no different than football or baseball. It may require less physical activity, but it certainly entails more psychological activity.
So for the first time in the U.S., someone in the judiciary system is willing to consider that it may require some skill. I’m very hopeful for the ruling in this case, because I really don’t think it’s hard to prove that point. Aside from the fact that there are college professors who have come up with actual mathematical formulas to prove so, you can take into account online poker rooms like PokerTwin, where the site has complete OMITTED the element of chance.
In this poker room, players were each assigned a seat at one of two tables, where each table was dealt the same hands. I think that because this site was legalized because there was no element of chance, it does show that there is obviously skill involved, and as such will be a valuable tool in the court battle.

Affiliate Advertising

It seems that online poker affiliates have caught a break of sorts – if you live in the UK. Google is allowing gambling affiliates to advertise for their sites as long as they target a UK audience. I don’t understand why then, you have to live in the UK to advertise to just gamblers there. If you use adwords, you can target a specific audience. So even if you live in the U.S., your ads will only go out to UK residents.
Still, Google says that if you live outside of the UK, you can still advertise there if you obtain a license to do so. So I guess it’s not all that bad. In fact, this will open up a new door for online poker players, because now we will be able to search for affiliate websites that provide honest reviews of internet poker rooms. And that is a very handy tool to have.
There are officials in the UK that chastise Google for allowing this, under the assumption that it will contribute to problem gambling in young people. I don’t agree with this, nor the hoopla that advertising for gambling has caused.
If you get an online poker advertisement on Google, it means you were searching for it in the first place. These ads don’t pop up when you’re looking for a good cookie recipe, they relate to the original search. So it would seem that the youth are looking to gamble before the affiliates poison their young minds.
Not to mention, there’s a parental control setting that will ban gambling advertisements from being viewed, so what’s the big deal? Kids search for way more detrimental content on the internet – pornography, firearms, etc. None of this content gets anywhere near the attention that gambling does.
The taboo connotations that have been placed on internet poker are really inaccurate. If you can’t handle monitoring your child’s internet activity, don’t blame the gambling site. One of the arguments is that the financial crisis is going to drive people to gamble. I think anyone in financial ruin at this time has a little bit higher priorities.

I must say, I was quite turned off by Tom Dwan’s million dollar “I’m better than everyone, you can’t beat me, nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAH nyah,” challenge. Whether you play poker online or off, there is a certain level of integrity, honor and respect that comes with the game. Offering a million dollars to anyone who can beat you out of a buck is just cocky, and there’s nothing in that that implies any amount of respect for your fellow players. It makes us all look like assholes.
Not to mention the fact that Phil Galfond can’t play, for the speculated reason that Galfond beats the tar out of Dwan. And you can’t go making the statement that you’re better than every other online poker player, when you finished third in total high-stakes games for your sponsor just this past year.
But I suppose what really gets me is that there are a lot of poker players out there that donate their money to good causes… there are charity tournaments like Ante Up for Africa. So this guy has a million bucks just floating around that he can throw away on a whim, and he uses it to try to prove he’s better than us? That’s just lame. Self-indulgent tripe, if you ask me, but that’s just an opinion. Please don’t sue me, Tom.
I personally hope that Phil Ivey, who came in first in high stakes games for Full Tilt (where they both work), takes him out. Every good poker player must learn that cockiness leads to epic failure. Confidence is one thing, but a Braggadocio often is found on the tilt. Tom, we know you’re a good player, that’s why Full Tilt has hired you to just sit in their poker room and play cards all day. Who are you trying to prove your worth to, if not yourself?

Carlos is Back on the Radar

I was happy to find that Carlos Poker found a new home. I was turned off when iPoker Network gave them the boot, as many others were, because it’s always been a reputable operation – and it seems it looked out for the online poker player.
I like the iPoker Network, for the most part. It hosts a number of great online poker rooms. It just seems to me, that from the business end of things, when you kick out two of your most popular rooms because they allow players to withdraw all of their winnings and deposit, you’re going to lose some fans. This was not the official explanation given, it’s just the only conclusion that online poker players have come to.
Carlos Poker was not found to be at fault in any other area. They’ve always offered a great platform in customer service and software, and there’s a good deal of tournaments.
The thing that gets me about iPoker is that it doesn’t allow its poker rooms to offer any rakeback to its users. I suppose it can get away with this because it is home to many Playtech rooms, and Playtech is the best of the best. I guess I just thought, again from a business perspective, that you’d want to offer your customers more incentive than just having some amazing software. Bonuses are all well and good when you first sign up, but to the avid online poker player, that doesn’t last long. It’s all about the rakeback. I like to know when I’m playing online that I’m not going to pay out the wazoo for the amount of tournaments I play.
Now what upsets me about Carlos’ move is that it is now in the Microgaming network, which means poker players like me, who live in the U.S. won’t be able to play. What a bummer, thanks a lot iPoker.
At least there’s a venue out there that will appreciate a good online poker room when they see one.

Clonie Gowen vs Full Tilt

Tsk tsk and for shame, on both ends. First and foremost, I am very concerned to hear that Full Tilt allegedly does not pay its pro members. The fact that Full Tilt has not flat out denied that they were supposed to pay her and didn’t, leads me to believe they were proooobably supposed to pay her. So my concern now lies with the credibility of the site’s management. If it won’t pay its professional players, how can I take any comfort in ME being paid? You don’t screw your players over, behind the scenes, that’s as shady as it gets.
HOWEVER, this does not merit Gowen going after her fellow players, come on now. It’s not their fault that they got paid and she didn’t. It’s not their responsibility to make sure she has a paycheck. They didn’t make her keep playing at Full Tilt for four years without getting paid, and they certainly have not wronged her in any way. They sign into an online poker room and play tables for a living, and sometimes they attend major offline tourneys. They are not management, they are not customer service, they are poker players. It almost would appear that she’s jealous of them, because they got what was promised them, and she didn’t.
And Howard Lederer, despite this not being his responsibility, offered Gowen $250,000 last year and she refused it, because she was due more than that. So rather than take ¼ of a million dollars, she decides she’ll just not get paid for another year, as a matter of principle.
Jim Kohl, one of Gowen’s attorneys, “We are confident the allegations will be proven at trial. Clonie has been wrongly denied her compensation and, after we go through the process of discovery, we feel the court will find in our favor.”
Full Tilt should pay as soon as Gowen drops the other 13 players from the case.

Affiliates, Don't Get Screwed!

Affiliates of online poker need to do just as much research into their material as the poker players themselves. In any case where money is at stake, your money, make sure that you know what you’re getting into.
I say this after a recent online poker room essentially failed to pay any of their affiliates for the members driven in, even after assuring it would come for months on end. It’s very much the same process as with online poker players. And in a case like this, many times arbitration is needed. That’s why there are groups out there, like Poker Affiliate Programs.
This is a website that will refer newcoming affiliates to reputable online poker business as well as the unsavory ones. There is an “All-in” poker room section that provides reviews of all of the poker rooms it promotes. As of yet, this list includes Cake Poker, Everest Poker, Euro Partner, thisisvegas.com, Poker Stars, Wager Profits, Red Star Poker, Tower Gaming, Carbon Poker, Bwin, Kharma Partners, Affiliate Club, Chipleader, Sportsbook.com, Intertops, Paw Network, Paradise Poker, Paddy Power Poker, Sun Poker, Doyle’s Room, Stryyke, Eurolinx, Bet365 and Eurobet.
For each of these rooms, an extensive list is provided of the revenue models (including revenue share, cpa, hybrid and referral), program info (the software and the establishment date) and payment details (whether it uses a check, wire transfer, neteller, affiliate speed pay, moneybooker, ecocards or others). The site provides a community environment, where users can post in the forum, to pitch a bitch as they say, or the compliment a website. There is also a number of radio broadcasts, blogs, sponsors, etc.
In the long and short of it, is important to never trust another person or company with your money. As such, keep yourself informed as to which operations are out there to screw you over. In case anyone was wondering, it was CardSpike that came into question for not paying its affiliates. And for online poker players, never trust a site that can’t pay its affiliates, as they probably won’t pay you either.

Motion Sensored Poker

The Wii was just recently released a world series of poker for their system, and that’s freaking awesome. Of course nothing goes better with a game of poker than a black eye. I do like the Wii but I just wish it would have better graphics, I kind of want to see a legit looking Doyal Brunson and not a bubble headed Mii version of him. But this is seriously cool, maybe they’ll allow for some online gambling for it, maybe this will qualify as a game of skill depending on how you move the Wii remote maybe you’ll play better. At least I will, as a U.S. citizen, have something to do when they completely ban me from playing online poker.
What sounds pretty cool to me is the story mode, where you can start out as a noob in the series and work your way up to poker god! This game has some serious potential for the future, every corporation has tried one way or another to get kids interested in their product for the future by starting them out as kids. There were candy cigarettes, McDonald’s video games, even bible video games at one point. It has always been clear that getting kids interested in something will lead them to like that same something when they are older, and you know loads of kids will be learning at a young age how to be a good poker player.
I know when I was 8 I had no idea what poker was, especially not Texas hold’em. But if I would have had a chance to get into it when I was so young I probably would have started playing in tournaments when I was 18, and that would have been damn cool. All of my favorites will be there which is nice, I remember some earlier attempts at video poker have left out so many, but the Wii has their pros locked down pretty tight.

Phil Hellmuth is Not a Superuser

While I’m not so convinced on the explanation provided by Ultimate Bet on its online poker network’s software glitch, I’m also not an idiot. There are many players out there who actually think that Phil Hellmuth is a superuser, and that he cheated some guy out of a $5,600 pot. Now, if you were to cheat in an online poker room, would you do it, as a renowned and sponsored player of the site, right out in the open?
I mean honestly, these people aren’t giving him enough credit. He’s won something like 11 WSOP bracelets – he’s a pretty good bluff. Don’t you think he’d at least be smart enough to create another account?
I don’t personally believe that Ultimate Bet was intentionally cheating its users. I think they’ve given a bogus explanation of the glitch. I think in order to appease all of the complaints launched, they made a statement too quickly and perhaps a more thorough investigation as to the shortcomings of the software could have been made, is all. There are bound to be a few bugs, the network was just released less than a month ago. But much like with the other scandal, Ultimate Bet seemed to want to keep it out of public knowledge. Like the guy whose hand history was deleted. That’s not appropriate, and I think they just wanted to avoid a confrontation.
Again, this is not fact, it’s my opinion.
I feel bad for Tokwiro, as they’ve had nothing but issues after buying UB and Absolute. It’s going to be hard to maintain a solid reputation after that, but if they would just be open and honest with their users as to what’s going on, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much controversy.
At any rate people, Phil Hellmuth is not a superuser. He was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time, and did not show enough empathy, as a spokesperson, for what happened. Now he is the victim of all sorts of slander. Poor guy.

Why Play Freerolls?

Freeroll tournaments give online poker players the opportunity to win tons of cash, sometimes thousands of dollars, without investing any of their own money. The guaranteed prize pool is posted by the poker room, and the amount cannot be any more or less because add-ons and rebuys are not available. Why not take advantage of this? If not for the money, for the experience.
Freerolls allow amateur players to practice different strategies on their fellow users. This gives you a way to up your game against bloodthirsty aggressive players without the cost. It’s all well and good practicing for play money, but how many REALLY good players do you see in the play money tables? If they’re good, they’re going to be trying to get some cash! SO! If you kind of suck and plan to make any money at poker in the future, you’ve gotta learn how to play these guys, and that can be an expensive habit. Freerolls, baby.
So, you’re trying to beat an aggressive player in a freeroll. By all means, be aggressive back. Freerolls, because they’re free, can last a pretty long while with a small payout, so get a move on or you’ll be there all day. The goal is to attack fish players to build a good stack – hit a good flop and double or triple up – or bust out. None of your money is at stake, so don’t try bluffing before the flop. Since there’s nothing to lose for anyone, most every pre-flop hand gets called by at least one player. Just play hands that have huge payoff potential, and either make them pay off or move on.
If you get down to a heads up battle for first place, look to raise almost every hand, no matter what your cards if the other player is the type who will fold on a regular basis. If he plays back you can fold your junk, but many times the opponent will practically blind themselves out. You shouldn’t feel much pressure in this sort of tournament, again because it doesn’t cost you anything. So you’re more confident, and when you’re more confident, you play better.

Don't Give Them a Reason!!

There’s a lot of hoopla about the Party Gaming’s litigation under the U.S Department of Justice. One founder, separate from the online poker room itself, pled guilty to charges of….operating an online gambling site…..outside of the U.S.?
So the concern is that this guy acted too quickly, coming to a settlement agreement, as he was completely within his legal rights to keep his poker room operating overseas. Not so much that he paid the money, or that he’s doing jail time for no reason, that he sold out his colleagues, but more so what this says for the history of online poker.
Think about it, this guy pleads guilty for having done nothing wrong – for doing what thousands of online poker sites do, legally, every day. So, he was admitting he was wrong for operating a gambling website, even though it was legal to gamble online in the areas where the site was accessible. Many times in U.S. litigation, an attorney will refer to prior court cases where there was a ruling in favor of what they’re charging so and so. I can see the Department of Justice going after several offshore gambling facilities under the same reasoning.
There are plenty of online poker rooms that operate in the U.S., or cater to U.S. players, and the U.S. has since turned a blind eye, it would seem. Take PokerStars or Full Tilt, who sponsor many members in the World Series of Poker – it’s not like those who are after poker sites are unaware of this. Why it they get off completely free, but offshore websites are being pursued by a government that has no jurisdiction over them?
And how is it, that when this comes up in trade dispute after trade dispute, that it’s still allowed to go on? How come these governments are losing, after filing appeal after appeal, and the U.S. gets away with it? It boggles my mind.

More News from UB

So there were more complaints that arose about the Ultimate Bet online poker room glitch. Again, I am skeptical of the findings of the management team.
It seems that the gentleman that was robbed of the $5,600 pot was “disconnected” at the exact millisecond that the pot should have gone to him. Correct me if I’m wrong, but generally when you get disconnected from a gaming software platform, aren’t you, you know, booted out of the room, so to speak?
I’ve always found that if I am disconnected, I’m not permitted to stay where I am unless I sign back in.. and it seems strange that he wouldn’t notice, but he was completely witness to the fact that the pot went to the wrong person.
I’m not convinced.
And the guy who lost 700 chips? They reimbursed him, and the keep assuring they deleted his hand history because it has other player information in it. Well, first of all, if you’re trying to protect users from having their previously played hands looked at, you shouldn’t offer a hand history feature – that’s what it’s THERE for! How was this incident any different than any other time someone has reviewed their hand? You cannot view hole cards that were mucked or not played, you review the step by step replay of the game…and if you were already present when it happened, why wouldn’t you be allowed to view the same information?
There has been no statement released by Tokwiro or the Kahnawake Gaming Commission on this occurrence, although it seems more pressing to me. I suppose I can believe that the other guy was booted, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But when someone blatantly tries to hide all evidence of any wrong-doings of their online poker room, such as Ultimate Bet has done in the past, it looks much worse than if you were to pass it off as a glitch. I tell you, these people keep digging their hole deeper.

Online Poker Rooms Need Better Faq Sections!

Well, it’s true. I cannot count how many times, because an online poker room had a very minimal FAQ section, I’ve had to go through the rigmarole of e-mailing the poker site and wait some 2 to 3 days just to find out what the maximum payout is.
There is tons of information you need to gather when choosing the right online poker room, and it seems these websites could save themselves the hassle if they’d just write out an in depth FAQ section.
I mean, I am sure I’m certainly not the only person who wants to know things like my wagering options, in terms of minimum and maximum bets, maximum payout, whether there’s WAP or P2P betting, etc. Do they withhold this information just so the customer service reps can have something to do? It seems to me that their hands would be pretty full as it is.
Today I was reading through an online poker room that said if I was not comfortable submitting my credit card information over the internet, I could easily fax them the information… but they didn’t provide a fax number ANYWHERE. SO! I had to get on the live chat server to discover it wasn’t open, and then e-mail them… and then I received the response, “Do you have an account here, we don’t accept US wagers.”
Well, that’s all well and good, need to know information, but I just wanted to know a fax number, and I’m sure if it were in the FAQ SECTION, I’d have eventually ascertained that information much faster than waiting for an e-mail for a day and a half to tell me I wasn’t allowed.
An in-depth help section suggests that an online poker room’s management cares about its customers, wishes to keep them informed, and puts its time and effort into bigger things than the miniscule questions that get sent to CS reps daily.

UltimateBet Users, Beware!

So Ultimate Bet’s got to deal with more finger-pointing and accusations, because of a hand played earlier that gave one of its pro players (Phil Hellmuth) the pot, even though he had the losing hand.
At first I really wasn’t suspicious of Ultimate Bet, as I thought, well if they were going to have another super user on there, it’d be a little obvious to take money from people who know they won the hand. I don’t think that Hellmuth needs to cheat.
But then I started reading some of the forum posts and message boards and comments on UB’s official blog about it.
Ultimate Bet only plans to credit the guy less than half of the pot? Well, how does that work, when he WON the WHOLE thing? That seemed fishy to me.
And then I read some of the chat logs between the player and Phil Hellmuth, where he essentially blows the whole thing off, asks the guy if he wants to keep playing, even though he just took thousands of dollars that didn’t belong to him… and as a spokesperson for the site, shouldn’t he be concerned about what happened? He said to the guy at one point, something along the lines of “So what? Stuff like that happens.” Also, seems strange to me. Not very good PR.
But what REALLY got me, was that on the blog written by Paull Leggett, where he promises they’re looking to the the error, one users reports:
“Here’s another problem that cropped up today. I emailed support TWICE about it, but no response.
First hand - I limped as small blind. Pot was checked. Very next hand, I have about 700 fewer chips
< < REMOVED HAND HISTORY FOR PRIVACY OF PLAYERS >>
Would you care to comment?”
So an admin writes back, saying that customer service told him to do it.
How can you delete hand history, saying it’s for the privacy of players, when hand history is a feature that is AVAILABLE TO ALL PLAYERS? Something’s not right there. I don’t think I can overlook this one.

Grow a Poker Face!

How could you pick on Doyle Brunson? He’s the coolest man alive. Wins ten bracelets, and continues to play poker at 79, and with his fans in his own online poker room.
So Layne Flack has the audacity to question his integrity, saying that he won a bracelet because he bought back in.
Well, excuse me, but there is nothing wrong with buying back into a tournament. Here’s the thing, in the WSOP, you have to have SOME chips to buy back in… I mean, you can’t be completely out to buy back in, so it’s not like you’re losing and having a second chance. Not to mention, buying back in adds more money to the pot, and who doesn’t want to win more money? I mean, a million dollars is awesome, but throw another ten thousand on top of that and I won’t complain.
It seems lately that poker players don’t have the same spirit that they did back in Doyle’s day. While poker, especially online poker, is much more challenging than it used to be, and far more competitive, people don’t take it seriously enough, in my opinion.
With all of the finer pointing, and the whining, and the poor sportsmanship – cough, nguyen, cough – it just seems to me that there should be more respect for other players, and frankly, these people need a better poker face.
I think this new generation of people, who have so many luxuries that weren’t always available, online poker being one of them, are too soft. Poker is a tough man’s sport, it requires a lot of tolerance and patience, and sanity, and some people just don’t have it.
Doyle almost died of cancer 40 years ago. He was diagnosed and given 3 months to live. He survived and has continued to be an icon to poker players everywhere, offline and online, he’s still an amazing player, so leave him alone!

The UK Fights Back

Thank god for online poker advocate groups, I tell you what. I really cannot fathom the way that the U.S. government goes about upholding its laws sometimes, and ignoring the rights of others, having a total disregard for international law. We have this sort of, “we’re a super power, we’ll do whatever we want and there won’t be any consequences” kind of attitude. Of course, our economy sucks, our dollar is worth little more than half of a Euro, and we can’t figure why.
You know in some places in Europe, if you show an U.S. passport, you’ll get a discount as a “sorry about your economy” type of thing.
Well, anyway, as I mentioned in my previous blog, the hypocrisy of our government in internet poker rooms has come at astonishingly higher levels, and I’m pretty sure that the UK is coming to the point where they’re not going to take it lying down anymore.
We’ve had a blatant disregard for international legislation, and as such, we’ve had more than one government try us. AND! We’ve had to negotiate about internet gambling, and our enforcement of the UIGEA on overseas websites, come to settlement agreements, etc etc. We haven’t paid the settlement, we’ve sort of just ignored that we have any responsibility for our actions. I swear, this is the most arrogant country when it comes to what we perceive as “morality.”
So I am hoping that the RGA’s upcoming battle over internet gambling will finally make us open mouth, insert foot. On the other hand, I hope there isn’t another large settlement, because I don’t think we can afford it at the time. Maybe we could open our doors to the internet sites, and work off our debts.
I will leave my dear readers with this photograph, from an avian poker fan, who through it all, still manages to squeeze in a good game of Texas Hold’em.