Seeking Stories ... Help!

Welcome to the ultimate in placeholder posts, late on a Sunday eve. You see, there's a problem this evening: There ain't no worthwhile poker news out there this week, and there hasn't been in days. It's the typical Death Valley of poker stories in the days just preceding the WSOP, and this year it really sucks. Recent news searches on "poker" and similar terms turns up the following stories which I'm just dying to tell you about:

A story about a Nepalese poker cashier suing her employer over an alleged lack of pay for overtime worked;

Anne Heche's custody battle over her five-year-old son, who is reportedly allowed to participate in Daddy's poker games --- and 'Daddy' is Heche's ex and the news is so slow that Chops already bit on this one;

The assault charges against actor Ryan O'Neal being dismissed. O'Neal was accused of firing a gun 'into the air' in an argument with his son, who supposedly attacked him with a fireplace poker. Ryan O' Neal's been a poster boy for irresponsible behavior for three decades now; what more do we need to know?

The thing about Greg Raymer considering a run for Vice President on the Libertarian ticket, which is news so old and stale it's almost new again.

Anyhow, it really sucked looking for interesting poker stories the last few days. Better you should go wash your car. Twice.

And hope for a richer week. Sorry, gang. Better luck next time.

Unusual Finish to Ultimate Bet $200,000 Guaranteed

There's news, and then there are the stories behind the news. The heads-up battle at the end of tonight's just-completed $200,000 Guaranteed on Ultimate Bet illustrated one of the pratfalls of the online game, one that in this instance cost a player a reasonable shot at $18,000, the difference between first- and second-place money.

The two players, 'FeedMEMunE' and 'raaazib,' were the last survivors of the 867 who entered the $200+15 event. FeedMEMunE had held the lead moments prior, only to see raaazib come from the rail's edge with three key double-throughs, the last two against an aggressive player named 'winnAA,' to send that player home in third.

Anyhow, the two began heads-up play, and raaazib edged out in front. When, the unthinkable happened: FeedMEMunE suffered an online disconnect.

raaazib immediately took advantage of the situation to begin speed-raising, which ultimately (no pun intended) consumed about two-thirds of FeedMEMunE's chips before he was able to reconnect. The image at right shows the speed-raising in process.

Yuck. I hate to see that garbage in a $22 sit-n-go. It's especially noxious when big bucks are on the line, as happened here or on one of the last episodes of MANSION Poker's Poker Dome Challenge a few months back.

Here's how the exchange went when FeedMEMunE was able to reconnect:

FeedMEMunE: classless
FeedMEMunE: steal 15k from me
raaazib: what can i do

raaazib then went on to say that it was online poker, thereby inferring that it was acceptable. Well, it might be legitimate by the rules of the site, but it's hardly acceptable, if you get the difference.

Perhaps this will energize Ultimate Bet to install a Poker Stars-style disconnect time allowance. The Stars process actually allows for a longer disconnect in the late stages of large tournaments, sometimes two or three minutes each for multiple occurrences, simply because no site in its right mind wants to see a tourney end like this.

WSOP 2007 Schedule - All Set For the World Series of Poker?

Seven weeks of madness and mayhem --- and just a wee bit of pokery goodness --- is set to begin in just a few days at the Rio in Las Vegas. I plan on having a back-row seat, meaning I'll be watching all the happenings but won't be there in person. Anyhow, here's the schedule of 'bracelet' events:

WSOP 2007 Schedule

Event #1 June 1 12pm $5,000 World Championship Mixed Limit/NL Hold’em (3-day event)
Event #2 June 1 5pm $500 Casino Employee NL (2-day event)
Event #3 June 2 12pm $1,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #4 June 3 12pm $1,500 Pot-limit Hold ‘em (3 day event)
Event #5 June 3 5pm $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #6 June 4 12pm $1,500 Limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #7 June 4 5pm $5,000 PLO w/rebuys (2-day event)
Event #8 June 5 12pm $1,000 NL w/rebuys (3-day event)
Event #9 June 5 5pm $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #10 June 6 12pm $2,000 NL (3-day event)
Event #11 June 6 5pm $5,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud (3-day event)
Event #12 June 7 12pm $1,500 NL Hold ‘em / Six Handed (3-day event)
Event #13 June 8 12pm $5,000 World Championship Pot-limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #14 June 8 5pm $1,500 Seven Card Stud (2-day event)
Event #15 June 9 12pm $1,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #16 June 9 5pm $2,500 HORSE (3-day event)
Event #17 June 10 12pm $1,000 World Championship Ladies Event NL (3-day event)
Event #18 June 10 5pm $5,000 World Championship Limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #19 June 11 12pm $2,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #20 June 11 5pm $2,000 Seven Card Stud 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #21 June 12 12pm $1,500 NL shootout (2-day event)
Event #22 June 13 12pm $5,000 NL (3-day event)
Event #23 June 14 12pm $1,500 PLO (2-day event)
Event #24 June 14 5pm $3,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #25 June 15 12pm $2,000 NL (3-day event)
Event #26 June 15 5pm $5,000 HORSE (3-day event)
Event #27 June 16 12pm $1,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #28 June 17 12pm $3,000 NL (3-day event)
Event #29 June 17 5pm $1,500 Seven Card Razz (2-day event)
Event #30 June 18 12pm $2,500 NL - 6 handed (3-day event)
Event #31 June 19 12pm $5,000 World Championship Heads Up NL (3-day event)
Event #32 June 19 5pm $2,000 Seven Card Stud (2-day event)
Event #33 June 20 12pm $1,500 PLO w/rebuys (2-day event)
Event #34 June 20 5pm $3,000 Limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #35 June 21 12pm $1,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #36 June 21 5pm $5,000 World Championship Omaha 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #37 June 22 12pm $2,000 Pot-limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #38 June 23 12pm $1,500 NL (3 day event)
Event #39 June 24 12pm $50,000 World Championship HORSE (5-day event)
Event #40 June 24 5pm $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘em (Limit/NL - 3-day event)
Event #41 June 25 12pm 41 $1,000 World Championship Seniors NL (3-day event)
Event #42 June 25 5pm $1,500 PLO 8 or Better (2-day event)
Event #43 June 26 12pm $2,000 Limit Hold ‘em (3-day event)
Event #44 June 27 12pm $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split (2-day event)
Event #45 June 28 12pm $5,000 NL Six-Handed (3-day event)
Event #46 June 28 5pm $1,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better (3-day event)
Event #47 June 29 12pm $2,000 NL (3-day event)
Event #48 June 29 5pm $1,000 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) w/rebuys (2-day event)
Event #49 June 30 12pm $1,500 NL (3-day event)
Event #50 July 1 12pm $10,000 World Championship PLO (2-day event)
Event #51 July 1 5pm $1,000 S.H.O.E. (2-day event)
Event #52 July 2 12pm $1,000 NL w/rebuys (3-day event)
Event #53 July 3 12pm $1,500 Limit Hold ‘em Shootout
Event #54 July 4 12pm $5,000 World Championship NL 2-7 Draw Lowball w/rebuys (2-day event)

... and of course:

Event #55 2007 WSOP Main Event Championship $10K NL
July 6 12pm Day 1A - 3000 Players
July 7 12pm Day 1B - 3000 Players
July 8 12pm Day 1C - 3000 Players
July 9 Day Off
July 10 12pm Day 2
July 11 12pm Day 3
July 12 12pm Day 4
July 13 12pm Day 5
July 14 12pm Day 6
July 15 12pm Day 7
July 16 Day Off
July 17 12pm Final Table

Antigua Ups Ante, Asks for EU, Chinese Support

In our previous post, we mentioned that Antigua & Barbuda was poised to push back as strongly as possible at the United States for the U.S.'s defiance of the WTO judgment recently awarded to Antigua in the long-running war over Internet gambling. What was surprising is just how strongly and quickly Antigua continues to push the matter.

Several sources have reported that Antiguan representatives have appealed directly to Chinese and European Union [EU] officials, attempting to enlist their efforts as aggrieved parties in the matter of compensation from the United States, or in the case of the EU, to ensure that the international trade body backs up its judgment with as strong an award as possible. Antigua's own economy, heavily devoted to the online-gambling industry in previous years, has declined overall as its gambling sector fell 85% from its highest point a few years back.

China, already under attack fron the United States in a different WTO dispute, is viewed as very likely to join the action on Antigua's side, as much in retaliation against the U.S.'s own claims as anything else. The EU, for its part, has a heavy interest in backing Antigua's claims, since several member nations have been adversely affected by the U.S.'s protectionist stance. Several other countries have expressed interest in filing compensatory claims against the U.S., while not one country has hinted that it supports the U.S.'s stance. Viva la difference? We think not.

Antigua to Pursue Compensation from U.S. in WTO Dispute

The United States acted as expected earlier this week in the matter of its ongoing World Trade Organization dispute with Antigua. Or rather, the United States, as expected, failed to act. As previously announced, the United States followed through on its recently announced decision to not file a final appeal in the decision that's gone Antigua's way at every step in the process.

The U.S.'s latest attempt to back out of the whole mess is to deny its own GATS [General Agreement on Tariffs and Services] agreements, claiming that the last 13 years never really happened. For honesty, this approach ranks right up there with the 'it was all a dream' season of 'Dallas,' or that wretched year of 'The Dukes of Hazzard' that featured Byron Cherry and Christopher as Coy and Vance, Bo and Luke's cousins, taking over those alpha-male Duke Boys roles while Tom Wopat and John Schneider held out for more pay.

Maybe the U.S. is treating the whole WTO thing as a 'high-concept' experiment, anyway.

More seriously, though, the U.S. thinks that it can give a fluttery wave of the hand to Antigua and the WTO and this whole matter will disappear. The joke's on the U.S., it seems; it's not going to work out that way, since Antigua quickly and stridently announced plans to pursue the United States through all compensatory means possible, including trademark and copyright waivers, telecommunications-industry levies, and more. Antigua also issued an open invitation to all WTO countries to join it in its battle against the United States, and is pleading for outside assistance to make it a fair fight.

Here's what Antiguan Ambassador John Ashe had to say on the matter: "Not only do we think that members should press claims for compensatory adjustments as a matter of economic self-interest, but we also believe it is important that the process is made as difficult as possible for the United States."

It is highly likely that a lot of countries will take up Antigua's offer, most importantly the U.K. I hope these countries kick our collected American asses 'til our asses are purple and green and chartreuse and whatever other colors you can imagine. God, we as Americans need this wake-up call, as much to wrest our country from the narrow minority of religious zealots who are calling the shots right now as anything else.

Several experts are now citing this struggle as having the potential to develop into the most important matter in the WTO's 13-year history. We're not pretending to be experts here, but this blog did note several months back that this case had the potential to help define the Internet and certain human freedoms itself... and it sure looks like it's going to unfold that way.

Basically, there's two ways this thing could go. One is that there's no give anywhere, and the U.S. will continue to lose decision after decision, judgment after WTO judgment, but refuse to modify its laws and/or pay up as ordered and simply force the WTO to shred itself into inconsequentiality. The impact this would have on international trade would be measured in trillions of dollars, not billions; it could, in a worst-case scenario, set the world economy back by years. The second route is that big business finally wakes up and understands that there's a lot more than gambling dollars at stake.

There's only one thing that trumps the collective might of the nut-case, religious right in Washington D.C. these days, and that's the muscle of the Fortune 500. No other force has the power to right the wrongs that the Bush administration's trade representatives are trying to foist upon the world.

Were I big business, I'd start having interest in this WTO trade dispute just about... now. All of a sudden, it's not just about gambling any more. There are hundreds of billion-dollar American companies who stand to be negatively impacted by the WTO decisions that are sure to unfold in the months ahead. Kyl and Goodlatte might have been cackling when the UK gambling stocks lost billions, but it's likely that they're not doing so any longer. This baby's gonna come home to roost.

On a different aspect, one of the biggest disappointments to date is that there has not been one handicapped, home-bound poker player willing to seek an injunction against the UIGEA on discriminatory grounds. I'd have to think that a lot of online sites would be only to happy to contribute to such a legal effort, were they approached.

And where the hell is the PPA? Al D'Amato mentioned a similar thought in his coronation address, but has there been any action yet? There's just about 500,000 members of the PPA these days --- it seems inconceivable that somewhere in that mass there's not a single soul who could qualify to file for the injunction as described above. The point is to put that UIGEA on a shelf somewhere, inactive, until it can be re-written by the next group of legislators, who might not be any better but simple cannot be any worse than this 'Nadir of Congressional History' pack that passed the law in the first place.

Erica Schoenberg Maybe in Strip-Poker Video...?

Well, that's the gist of a thread that's been blossoming on 2+2 lately. The show was some sort of Carmen Elektra-hosted 'Strip Poker' show taped in 2004. In the show, the poker player now presumed to be Schoenberg goes by the handle 'Erica Allen.'

You can check out the various screen grabs from the old video, compare them to the slightly more recent Schoenberg pics that abound on the Web, and decide for yourself. [Photo source: ericaschoenberg.com] Softcore porn usually results in a positive career boost, so MansionPoker, current sponsor of Erica, may well be pleased if it is indeed her. Erica's also generally reported to be a decent person, unlike a few of the other whackjobs that frequent the poker world.

So whatever. More power to you girl, if it was your open and willing choice (assuming a 'yes' answer on the question raised here); this peanut-gallery commenter couldn't care either way.

Onward. Geez, I hate slow news weeks.

Let's wrap up the week with a total tasteless joke that a friend of mine just forwarded to me, unrelated to this stuff. Ummm, NSFW warning, too:

.
.
.

A guy meets an older woman at a club. She was okay for 57, he thinks, so they drink, dance, chat. Later she asks if he'd ever had the sportsman's double, a mother and daughter threesome?

He says no.

They drink a little more, and she tells him it's his lucky night, and they head to her place. Once inside, she turns on the hall light and shouts upstairs, "Mom, you still awake?"

FirePay, Citadel Commerce Targeted in Ongoing NY Investigations

It turns out that NETeller wasn't the only gambling-friendly online payment processor targeted by the New York State federal prosecutors continuing their investigation into the Lefebvre/Lawrence case and online gambling in general.

Both Optimal Group (the parent company of FirePay) and Citadel Commerce parent ESI have announced the seizure of millions of dollars held mostly in merchant reserves. The total of the CSI/Citadel funds now held under U.S. warrant is about $9.25 million, while the Optimal/FirePay seizures add up to a little over $19 million. Both companies are in ongoing 'discussions' with U.S. authorities regarding the seizures, though there's little doubt that the U.S. is pressing its narrow edge as its case against the NETeller founders winds toward another hearing near the end of the month.

Citadel was one of the companies that exited the U.S. in the wake of the arrests of the NETeller founders, while FirePay was the first major online-processor to depart the business, doing so immediately after the UIGEA's passage.

Several related topics are coming to a head in the next few weeks. We're also nearing the end of the initial 270-day window for the issuance of financial-transaction guidelines as dictated by last fall's UIGEA, though there's been no indication that major banking systems are in any hurry to comply. Recent federal indictments issued by a Utah-based prosecutor also highlight the current administration's intent to crack down on online sports wagering in particular, no matter what the laws themselves have to say on the matter.

It'll be an interesting summer.

Louisiana Poker Bill Generates Majority of Votes, Still Fails

Poker players in Louisiana received a setback this week to hopes of having a more widespread version of the game available in state establishments.

State Rep. Warren Triche (D-Thibodaux) has made repeated attempts in recent years to get a pro-poker bill into and through the legislature. This year, his most recent version of the bill (titled HB 484) made it out of committee and onto the main floor of the Louisiana House for a vote, where it received a narrow majority of the votes cast, 48 ayes to 47 nays, with 10 abstentions.

However, Louisiana House votes require a bill to receive a two-thirds majority of the votes cast to move on to the Senate for further consideration, and this measure fell well short of that standard. In any event, LA governor and gambling opponent Kathleen Blanco expressed her intent to veto the bill should it have passed both state legislative branches, so its odds were very long anyway. A motion to reconsider the bill remains pending but carries scant chance of success in the current state legislature.

More on the 'United Poker Group' Crapfest

I'm always tickled pink when 'the other side' responds, with the other side in this case being 'Johnny Rothman' of the United Poker Group fame. Since poor Johnny feels maligned by my previous post, I thought I'd take an extra moment to explore more fully some of the claims made on the Rothman-and-pals site.

Let's start here, with the first of a series of quotes: "Fact: 3% of Professional Poker Players Raking Over $10,000 Per Month Don't Solely Rely on Playing Poker."

Source for this fact? There is none. Blindly quoted facts may or may not be true, but when they appear within an infomercial they tend strongly toward the bullshit side. In this case, though, the whole matter is laughably irrelevant. Because... made from thin air or not, what difference could it make to the efficacy of the product?

Verdict: Baffled with bullshit

Here's a good one --- the graphic purporting to prove product income from an online poker business:



But, there's no supporting facts here. Again, this crap is cobbled up out of thin air, or may as well be. There's no reference for verification.

Verdict: Empty, unprovable claim

The whole section on creating 'customizable poker content' remains an incredible hoot. The UnitedPokerGroup con artists make this claim without showing a single example of the content they presume to supply. There are only two realistic explanations. First, and most likely, is that this 'plan' is simply the pre-packaging of the illegal, black-hat SEO tactic of swiping stories from the RSS/news feeds of other sites; second is that they'll issue you a dozen or so cheesy and uninteresting pieces from their own hastily-built library. And judging by the writing skills 'Johnny Rothman' shows, those would pretty much suck. A professionally designed product with grammar as bad as these examples:

Why SNG’s? Let me put it in Laman’s terms: Playing an SNG is like watching the same movie over and over again…The beginning, middle and ending will always be the same result. And that’s the secret to SNG’s…If you know the exact winning poker SNG system, you’ll always end up a winner!

Okay, who is Mr. Laman and how did he get to set the terms?

No matter how good you may be there are many donkey's that can rain on your parade.

Donkeys come in all flavors. Those that can't spell or use punctuation correctly have blogs that are laughable, not informative.

The problem is that you are most-likely playing MTT’s wrong. Using typical texas holdem strategies when you should be using something else – All the while,...

Hideous.

I'd put in more examples, but it's just beating a dead horse to death, if you get my drift.

Verdict: The UPC group's writing skills are at the level of... grocery list, NOT someone who should be teaching you to establish and profit from a professional, high-quality poker site. Their site-desing skills are a bit better... if using a web-editor program's pre-packaged template is your thing. Note that your site really won't look any different, after all; it'll be just like every other sucker's site resulting from the purchase of the same package.

Ahh, here's another example of one of those meaningless graphics that purports to prove something:



It's supposed to enervate the reader into believing that the biggest dollars are made by the entrepreneurs, not even the biggest or most successful of the poker players. But what factual proof -- or even statistics or other damned lies -- is offered to back up this visual claim? Nothing. It could be true, you know... but no one would ever know from this crap.

Verdict: Pseudo-factual assertions without underlying statistical support are garbage.

The section on setting up a 'power poker blog' remains my favorite:

UPG Expert #4: George Deveroe

“How a Blogging Expert Earns Thousands of Dollars per Month Effortlessly Off His Online Poker Blogs.”

One would think that a so-called 'power poker blogger' would have some sort of a web presence, but 'George Deveroe' exists nowhere else except on the United Poker Group site. Why, I'd dare say that 'George Deveroe' is a --- gasp! --- pseudonym, hiding the identity of someone who doesn't want to admit that the methods he's selling to you violate the DMCA and its European counterparts.

What say you to this repeated blind assertion, Mr. Site Author Johnny Rothman? Tell you what, you want a 'fair review,' although I assume that just means you want further pimping of your product, and you're not really interested in anything else. How about you send me this part of your program as it exists today and I'll see if it violates any digital copyright laws, or otherwise supports this claim:

"The only 7 Super-Effective Blogging Techniques you’ll ever need to know to dominate the search engines and have an unfair-advantage over the competition."

Let's see just what those seven (not "7," you illiterate dolt) techniques are, huh? And how does that jive with this claim: Create your poker blog, then set it and forget it…And continue to watch the money rolling in! Sure sounds like something automated --- and illegal --- to me. (Note to Johnny: Even swiping a Yahoo! or Google feed for 'poker' is illegal.) But seriously, you send it to me at halhal2@yahoo.com and I will report on exactly what the product offers, good or bad. Put up or shut up.

Oh, and I did get a kick out of the 'site traffic' graphic accompanying this section, reproduced in part here:



Ummm, starting point higher than finishing point. You do realize, dear Johnny, that the long-term trend as you've defined it within this graph goes to zero traffic, right? Also, all interested parties should note that 'page views' is the least relevant stat to use, since every image or script call embedded within what most non-techies think of as a 'web page' can result in another hit. It's typical of this site's pseudo-factual bogus-ness.

Verdict: It's either lies or misrepresentation. Either way, it's not worth buying.

Google Page rank is a more relevant way of determining real web strength. This site and my personal poker blog both pull a 4/10 at last report, and here's how UnitedPokerGroup fares, based on the algorithm at checkpagerank.com:



Verdict: You guys are good.

Oh, wait, that's a lie, too.

The Poker Bots Apparently Weren't Selling Fast Enough...

[Editor's note: Apparently the PokerBot Pro garbage and the product mentioned here come from separate sources --- re: comment received. Apparently. My response to the complaint rendered by the product's author is the old saw: "You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas...."]

A good writerly friend forwarded me one of the latest turds to plop into his e-mail box, and it's a doozy. What say you to this?

Hello _____,

A group of Poker Pros and Top Online Marketers just released The United Poker Group...

Click Here To See!

Now I don't wanna let the cat out of the bag but These guys are literally probably putting their career at risk by revealing their Poker Playing and Marketing secrets.

It’s never been easier to profit off online poker and the poker industry! The UPG package comes complete with everything you need to sharpen your poker playing skills and build a profitable poker business!

Get complete access to the online poker training center that offers you the tools you need to cash in off of the poker industry. Become both a top-notch professional poker player and an industry marketing entrepreneur!

Get the real deal right now and find out what all the hype is all about!

Check it out

All the best,
Your partner in Poker!

Naturally, I deactivated the links before sharing with you all this heaping pile of steaming poo. While I'm not sure it's possible to construct a phrase worse than 'These guys are literally probably putting their career at risk' --- whatever the hell 'literally probably' is supposed to mean --- that's almost nothing, because the letter quite clearly goes back to the Ken Chan/David Glazen/John Maynor persona that's scammed hundreds of people through the sale of 'Pokerbot Pro' in recent years.

Not that there's much attempt to hide that fact. After all, the spam e-mail broadcasting this glorious new product came with the following 'From' header:

From: Doyle Brunson {kenchanpoker@gmail.com}

I'm sure Doyle appreciated the misrepresentative use of his name. It's also par for the course for your garden-variety scammer; to a thief, all the world's a target. In case you're wondering, the Chan/Glazen/Maynor persona has long operated out of the Toronto area, and we'll return to some of those records later in this piece.

The link-through in the e-mail is also a redirect that goes through the old pokerbotpro.domain, as follows:

http://www.pokerbotpro.org/list/lt/t_go.php?i=26&e=MzY4NTU=&l=http://golani.ieproducts.hop.clickbank.net

For now, however, I'd love to share some of the hilarious and outrageous claims made by Glazer on the new UnitedPokerGroup.com site.

I'd love to, but why bother? The short definition of United Poker Group is this: It's the cheesy online poker vision of all those wretched late-night informercials telling you how you can become a millionaire by starting, for example, your own eBay site. The package you're supposed to buy from these scammers includes but is not limited to packages from five experts/poker pros: Johnny Rothman, Marc Dominic, Matthew Sable, George Deveroe and Jeffery Kenderson, each of whom seems to exist nowhere except on pages linking back to this very same operation.

Ayup. Gotcha. As an erstwhile poker blogger myself, I admit to a bit of a fondness for the 'Power Poker Blogging' section purportedly authored by Deveroe. Here's a screen grab showing the highlights:



That all looks stylish, doesn't it? Strip away the garbage, and I suspect that the real nuts-'n'-bolts of the operation is to create a bunch of affiliate accounts, then plop links to the sites all around RSS feeds swiped from blogs with real content. I don't know it for sure, and damned if I'll pay a penny to find out, but they've got to be stealing something for resale and that makes the most sense.

The other parts of the package are similarly hilarious. What's it all worth? In reality, not a plug nickel, but rehashed informercial math produces rather different numbers. Here's what they say it's worth:



A fair estimate to learning everything there is to know about winning at online poker... really? I love nonsense claims and assertations. But seriously, the whole point of this post is that if you're even thinking about spending Dollar One with these people, then you are an idiot. Worse, these are dishonorable businessmen. This thing supposedly carries a "100% Iron Clad 56 Day Money Back Guarantee" --- ROFL at that, too --- but in reality your $127 purchase price is gone as soon as you're stupid enough to send those dollars away.

Please don't. Pay attention to what the Better Business Bureau has to say about 'David Glazen's related firm, Glazen Online Services: "Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to failure to respond to two or more complaints."

Of course, "two or more" actually means 36 complaints, 34 of which remain outstanding because Glazen Online Services no longer responds to BBB mediation efforts. Sounds like a reputable business to me.

This is an outfit that needs to be nuked, no two ways about it. Failing that, save your money, okay?

France Again a No-Go Zone for Poker Tournaments

The recent announcement by the National Poker League [NPL] of the cancellation of the debut event, the Paris Open, continues the current attitude of French authorities toward professional poker. Whether in the form of online sites or big events hosted by international interests, the attitude of the French right now seems to be that if it's not being run solely by a French concern, it's not allowed.

The NPL had a nice gala set to go for its kickoff event, which was scheduled to begin this coming week and run through May 22nd. Among the niceties were a high-end celebrity auction designed to bring more publicity to the new tour, which now moves on to the August U.K. Open in search of a friendlier venue.

It's a sad turn of affairs for French poker stars, and it's only going to get worse in the short term. France's new president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozi, is a staunch gambling foe who's made his stance on the issue quite clear. Worse, Tony Blair's resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is likely to bring Finance Minister Gordon brown to power, and it was Brown who single-handedly torpedoed previous British plans to move forward with an affordable major-nation regulatory base for Internet gambling companies.

It means that we're likely to witness a heightened battle over Internet gambling in general in the European Court within the next year or two, as Sarkozi's new government is almost certain to test its will against the European Union's recently established open-market precedent. In this case, 'open market' equals greater freedom for online gambling in most forms, which runs quite counter to the state-run lotteries Sarkozi seeks to protect.

No bets on who'll win, either. In a lot of ways, walls are being erected right now.

Early Odds on Making WSOP Main Event Final Tables Released

UK Betting firm Blue Square has just released its early line on poker players favored to make the final table at this year's WSOP, which makes one think that any one of these individual lines is a bad bet, considering no one knows how big the field will turn out to be anyway.

Anyhow, here's how Blue Square tabs its favorites at the present time:

20:1
Phil Ivey

33:1
Daniel Negreanu
Carlos Mortensen
Allen Cunningham

40:1
Phil Hellmuth
Howard Lederer
Antonio Esfandiari
Michael Mizrachi
JC Tran
Erik Seidel
Johnny Chan

50:1
Chris Ferguson
Barry Greenstein
Dan Harrington
Gus Hansen
Doyle Brunson
Ted Forrest
John Juanda
Scott Fischman
Scotty Nguyen
Erick Lindgren
Joe Hachem
John 'World' Hennigan

The rest of the names you might recognize have higher odds. Best women's chances are placed on Jennifer Harman at 66:1, the same as given to previous WSOP winner Greg Raymer, TJ Cloutier, Gavin Smith and many others. The 250:1 category seems to be the 'grab bag' level for any recognizable names that Blue Square thinks will garner action but don't have large chances; this group includes former winners Rob Varkonyi, Jamie Gold and Chris Moneymaker, along with players such as Shannon Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly and Steve Dannenmann.

Odds like these make great argument starters, don't you think?

Paul 'Kwickfish' Wasicka and Others Scammed by MySpace Fraudster

Imitation isn't always the highest form of flattery. On occasion it's blackmail instead.

Paul 'Kwickfish' Wasicka, the runnerup in last year's WSOP Main Event and the recent winner of the third annual NBC National Heads-Up Championship, has discovered this in an unfortunate way. Some blatant thief set up a MySpace account a week ago pretending to be Paul and asking for money. As if he needs any right now --- the dude is flush.

Anyhow, friends and fans of Kwickfish quickly pointed out the existence of the site, which Card Player reports was used to beg contact other high-profile players. Among those Card Player mentioned as being contacted in the scam were Jennifer Leigh and Allen Kessler.

Wasicka's business manager, Truman Bradley, quickly told the impersonator to take the site down, at which point the impersonator really took things off the charts. Here's the exchange, which Truman (or Paul himself), put up for all to see on the kwickfish.com blog (photo source www.kwickfish.com):



IANAL, but to this semi-educated observer it looks like a felony either way. If the guy actually did con someone out of money, it's fraud by misrepresentation, and it appears to be blackmail regardless. One lump or two?

Bradley, Wasicka's business manager, seems to have then went to MySpace to have the account yanked, and the account is a modestly glowing thermonuclear crater as we speak. But here's hoping that Wasicka and Bradley pressure MySpace to take further action on this matter, to trace and pursue the fraudster on more serious charges. Bradley has declined further comment on the incident to date, but we've reached out anyway for any additional info that might be forthcoming.

Poker Stars 'The Big 10 Billion Celebration'... at Hand

Woo-eee, that's a big number, fully 10,000 times more than the number of dollars Dr. Evil first asked for in the original Austin Powers movie. 10,000,000,000 is about 4,000,000,000 greater than the Earth's population, just for another point of comparison.

It's also the milestone that Poker Stars.com is going to hit later this month. Stars ran a huge wingding when they hit five billion hands, and they're outdoing themselves this time around. The ten billionth hand alone looks as though it will result in about $200,000 to be awarded in cash and WCOOP entries, and there's 100 hands with smaller payouts --- just a few thousand each, on average --- on the way to the life-changing hand. Last year a young housewife from Germany won some life-changing money just for being at the right cash-game table at the right time, and later this month, it's going to happen again. PokerStars is growing in the German market, that's why we added a German Download Guide.

Sure, I'll be there, trying like everyone else just to be lucky at the right moment. Stars is even tossing in an reload bonus --- "10Bhand" --- if your account is lower than it needs to be at the moment. And if you're one of the few who hasn't played at Stars before, then click that link above and join the fun. Stars bonuses are offered less frequently than at other sites, but they're among the easiest to clear.

The 'Not-Bot' Controversy --- Script Kiddies in a 1/2 NL 'Sweatshop' at Full Tilt?

Here's one of those stories that was just bound to occur. A couple of days ago, an experienced 2+2 poster went public with his accusations about a supposed 'bot' ring that was flooding the $1/2 no-limit games at Full Tilt earlier this year. The evidence --- on its surface clearly indicating that something unusual was going on --- was the detailed posting of hundreds of thousands of hands played by the four suspect accounts. The accounts showed highly similar, very tight betting patterns over the span of something like 200,000 combined hands of play.

The original poster/accuser had made a private complaint about the perceived offending accounts several weeks earlier, which at that time, as events would later show, resulted in the freezing of nearly three dozen Full Tilt accounts for as much as a month while that site's internal investigation unfolded. This included many players who had done peer-to-peer transfers with the offending core accounts, and who, it seemed, were quite innocent in the matter. Full Tilt's lengthy investigation apparently turned up no proof of botting activity. The suspect accounts were later restored to active status, hence the public airing of the original complaint on 2+2.

And what a firestorm that posting produced. In two days, the thread has already become on of the largest in recent 2+2 history, garnering nearly 2,000 posts. Included are the public outing of the group involved and an intense debate over whether the stats as presented provide unambiguous proof of poker-bot usage, or, as the group's leader maintains, it's merely a highly structured operation adhering to very tight playing patterns.

The three-person group doing the 'not-bot' playing was pinned to an eastern Pennsylvania locale early in the debate; four accounts were mentioned as participants because one of the players was replaced part way through the play period under examination. One of the 2+2 moderators was quickly on the scene as well, claiming personal knowledge of the players in question and preaching loud and long that the players were in fact real. The moderator --- not of the 'Internet Poker' forum where the thread appears --- would later admit to having considered joining or funding another facet of the operation, which led many posters to question this visiting moderator's legitimacy in serving as a 2+2 mod himself. (That's an apples-and-oranges matter, not that the moderator in question seems to be a high moral beacon in poker concerns... for reasons we'll get to in a bit.)

Toss in peripheral concerns, including the long-delayed responses of FullTilt's 2+2 representatives, FTPDoug and FTPSean, and this whole mess stormed to the front of the must-read lists among the 2+2 populace, and has started to pick up outside notice as well. Even from the bloggers --- Iggy was perhaps the first to mention the thread specifically, while I waited on this one to see just how the thing would unfold.

Well worth the wait, even if the thread quickly has become a porridge of repeated unproveable claims and personal attacks. So here's my read on the situation, having read every entire damn post in the thread (and its outliers) to date:

The players in question seem to be real players, not bots. However, the players in question have been less than forthright about the 'system' that developed to assist them in their multi-table grinding. In case you're wondering, these are only marginally profitable players in terms of the play itself; their system relies on extreme tightness to avoid the big mistakes. The bigger bucks they're making are likely coming from rakeback deals for the action they generate. Each of the three players plays up to 12 screens at once and has never, ever played a single hand with any of the other players. Since all three are purportedly playing side-by-side (literally), in a tight setup featuring a string of oversized monitors, and also playing from the same IP address, it's quite obviously part of the plan.

The accuser and his supporters focus on the extreme similarities of the players' PokerTracker stats as proof that a bot of some form had to be involved, though the strident claims by the accused players that it's all merely a result of adhering strictly to a very tight system can likely never be refuted beyond all doubt. Such is the nature of adopting a bot-like approach to play; it makes the action so automatic that the difference between what a human does and what a bot might do in the same spot becomes irrelevant.

What compliments the problem is this: The ringleader of the grinding operation was quickly identified as an active procurer of scripts which can be used to automate online play.

Cue the shades of gray, baby, because here's where it gets really cute.

The use of these scripts is a highly debatable tactic, though in their simplest form they're designed to allow players to make their own decisions easier across multiple screens. However, these same scripts are part of the foundation beneath bot programs themselves, which combine these scripts with strategy and action components to fully automate the poker-playing process.

At what point does the whole automation thing fit into a definition of a 'poker bot'? Where exactly is the line behind game-enhancing scripts and bot-infused, fully automated play?

There's a faction among the 2+2 populace that I'm going to anger right now. I'm going to call them the technological angle-shooters. To them, anything is fair game unless it is absolutely, specifically, redundantly prohibited by the site ToC in question, and even then there might be another way to do what they want done. In this instance, that hard line insists that a bot must both automate the play and devise the strategic decisions.

But what about a series of scripts that went halfway there? What if a series of scripts was devised that recommended an action to a player, based on general guidelines, but left it to the player to make the clicking of the choice himself. In some of these hardcore technowonks' eyes, this makes it no longer a bot.

The argument comes up here because the overwhelming uniformity of actions over the hundreds of thousands of hands played by this group suggests that some steering by an overriding script was involved in the process. Just from the top, it's laughable that three players could play hours and hours at up to 36 tables at the same limits and never once accidentally end up two at the same table. The only logical explanation for this is that the three computers are linked (probably to a fourth computer), with a script specifically warning them when such a situation is likely to occur. The players wouldn't want to be at the same table, anyway, because that would open them up to collusion charges of a different sort.

The problem, though, is the automation itself. It's highly ironic that the accuser identified the purported bot users through PAHUD, another live-time application that gives its users an unfair advantage. (Many sites specifically ban the program.) PAHUD usage is linked to another spurious practice, datamining, which means gathering results from tables the user is not at, simply for the purpose of gathering data on potential opponents.

I detest the practice. It's cheating. Its proponents rationalize datamining and PAHUD usage by noting that since other people are doing it, they have to, too, or else they'll be at a disadvantage as well. And a lot of sites have recognized the difficulty in policing these programs and have basically thrown up their hands at the whole mess.

A few of the technowonks are only now realizing that the line between swiping an illicit computer edge and veering toward bot-driven play isn't as clear as it might seem. In true self-serving fashion, a whole bunch of 2+2ers are up in arms over what they perceive as Full Tilt's failure to properly police its games and eliminate bots, even as these same posters are the foremost practioners of hunting down the latest techie tool to play a few more tables or get information on their opponents that they haven't earned by playing the hands themselves. I can justify PokerTracker's usage (though I don't myself), because it provides a rough equivalence in knowledge value compared to what would be lost due to online poker's speeded-up play. But the Pokerbilitys and the PAHUDs and the action scripts... damn them all. Collectively. For tilting the table balance, for moving online poker farther and farther away from the live version of the game, which it's really supposed to replicate.

It's all about hypocrisy and greed, really. Hypocrisy on the players' part, to imagine that their preferred technological angle-shoot is somehow more legit than someone else's. Poker bots are just the extreme end of that whole damn sliding scale. The greed, well that's both the tech-driven players and the sites. The tech-driven players are greedy for cheating the system to grab a larger slice of the pie than their poker skills would otherwise entitle them to, and to the sites, for enabling so many tables to be played by a single account that it virtually begs for these add-ons and enhancements to be used... just because there might be a bit more rake to be had that way. I'm not calling out any site in particular, either; it's an industry-wide issue.

And, a now-open can of worms. It's important, because it shines a cold spotlight on exactly what technology, in its worst incarnation, has brought to the world of online poker.

Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II Extends Submission Deadline

What, you haven't already submitted your audition tape to be a contestant on Season II of Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker? Well, you're in luck, since Bodog has extended the deadline. You now have until June 3 to go to the CAWCP website and, ummm... do the dirty deed.

This season's version of the prgram looks to be a little bit shorter on the poker and longer on the strangeness than the debut effort. According to a recent release, "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II is a reality TV lifestyle show combining aspects of Texas Holdem poker with everyday life. Season II pits 12 contestants against one another in a number of poker infused lifestyle challenges."

Like chip-riffling contests, maybe?

Hell, I don't know. It seems like a lot of fun and two million smackeroonies are up for grabs. For that kind of money I'd happily put up with a lot of bizarre nonsense, and might even willfully join in the creation of same, just like the screen grab above, taking from a montage of submission videos proudly displayed on the contest site. You've gotta be able to do better than that, right?

North Carolina Court Rules Against Poker as Game of Skill

While a greater setback for poker occurred in the form of this week's nonsensical U.S. stance towards the World Trade Organization, a lesser decision went against poker earlier in the week as well. This time it was a North Carolina appellate decision that went against Howard Fierman, who wanted to open a Durham-area poker establishment called the "Joker Club" back in 2004. He was unsuccessful then and remains unsuccessful today.

Naturally, the three-person appellate judges all misunderstood the mathematics and probabilities of chance, confusing single-outcome randomness with the fact that it's the long haul in any event that determines skill. A heartfelt thank-you goes out to the judges in question for demonstrating that rank stupidity can be found elsewhere besides the federal level.

The key point in the argument, according to the judges, was an anti-gambling witness who described the typical 'poker suckout' situation, wherein a hand with a 10% chance of winning goes ahead and takes the pot. Since this single occurrence went against the lomg-term expected probabilities, went the bogus argument, the game itself must be luck.

Really....

God forbid the pro-poker side had competent rebuttal, because this is am embarrassingly easy argument to refute. Take, for instance, North Carolina native Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player in basketball history and widely recognized as one of the game's best clutch shooters. In Jordan's best year, 1990-91, his field-goal percentage was .539. This means, according to the logic employed by these judges, that over 46% of the time, Jordan had zero skill. How does the image of a player of 0% success in nearly half of all test occasions --- and this in Jordan's best shooting year, nonetheless --- relate to Jordan's reputation as a clutch player and incredible shooter?

It doesn't. Because a small number of test cases never determines the difference between luck and skill.

I actually like Annie Duke's comment on the topic. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Duke commented that poker had to be a game of skill, because in poker you can lose if you want to.

She's right, you know.

'Lucky You' Opens to General Indifference

The signs were on the wall on the wall long ago with 'Lucky You,' the new poker-themed movie. If not exactly a stinker, the film has turned out to be something less than an inspiration to a new generation of wannabe poker players.

Wicked Chops noted the film's debut with a reference to the conglomeration of reviews over at rottentomatoes.com, for years one of the leading movie-review sites. Early on, 'Lucky You' checked in at about a 38% rating (roughly equivalent to receiving an enjoyable grade by 38% of known reviewers), and has slipped down to the 30% range in the following days. It's even lower (24%) in the site's 'Cream of the Crop' category, meaning those reviewers with a track record of providing reliable and honest commentary.

Over at IMDb it's checking in at 6.4 out of 10, meaning it's still being influenced by the promoters who pump up all early releases with a bunch of bogus "10" votes, as shown in this little screen grab. (Or possibly from some teenybopper Eric Bana fan club: A disproportionate number of the high votes come, supposedly, from girls under 18.) IMDb's flawed weighted grading system corrects for some but not all of that. Expect this sucker to fade to somewhere about 4.8 or 4.9 over the coming weeks.

Is 'Lucky You' a horrible movie? Probably not --- and you'll notice I'm carefully not reviewing it here. I'm simply noticing that all the signs pointed to its being a disappointing cinematic exercise, and those pointers look to be dead on.

Here's a few of the most recent reviewer comments:

"Staying home and playing solitaire would be two levels more interesting than watching this movie, which is directed, or rather embalmed, by L.A. Confidential man Curtis Hanson." --- Kyle Smith, New York Post.

"Lucky You is like the old joke about the classified ad: 'LOST DOG. Three legs. Blind in one eye. Missing half his tail. Recently neutered. Answers to Lucky'." --- Atlanta Journal Constitution.

"Unfortunately, somebody seems to have had the idea that Lucky You should be a long movie -- that way, we might take it more seriously, perhaps." --- San Francisco Chronicle.

Ouch. I suppose there's a hard-core audience for the film, that being Eric Bana fans and poker-movie enthusiasts who wish to wax knowledgably on the entire genre. But that makes for a short half-life on the big screen. I may even force myself to review it, so I don't have to just review the reviews. But I've sat through the trailers already... what's a little more disappointment, anyway?

Our Word is No Good, Says U.S. --- WTO Decision to Be Ignored

Purveyors of unmitigated, hypocritical dishonesty --- that's how the rest of the world must view the United States these days. The latest example of just how terrible our current administration is comes to us courtesy of that much-discussed verdict against the U.S., the World Trade Organization's upholding of a complaint made by Antigua and Barbuda.

Now, since the U.S. has lost every conceivable legal argument it could muster, our government has decided that its own word and signed agreements count for nothing. The U.S. has announced that it's rewriting its initial WTO trade agreements --- and doing so years after the fact --- to state that internet gambling was never intended to be a class of trade covered by treaty.

It's the purest bullshit, you know. The U.S. had the chance to opt out of internet gambling as a trade class over a decade ago and intentionally chose not to. At the time, the U.S. had as much of a chance as anyone to establish itself as a leader in the industry. Other countries saw a growing market and took advantage of it, while the U.S. dithered and pretended.

We've mentioned before that internet gambling is one of the hot-button issues that's likely to define the nature of the Internet, and, in a continuing way, the concepts of freedom and liberty itself. That sounds high and mighty, alrighty, but the truth is that the U.S.'s current actions could, if a worst-case scenario unfolds, cause the dissolution of the WTO itself. Nope, not idle ramblings, either. "I am disappointed to see our country lead a degradation of the system," said James Jochum, a lawyer and former Bush administration official, referring to the announcement.

That's how important all this really is.

As part of its move to rewrite new virtual walls around the U.S., Deputy U.S. Trade Representative John K. Veroneau has announced that the U.S. has conceded the WTO case to Antigua; there weill be no additional appeals. What this means is that Antigua now has the right to seek additional economic sanctions against the U.S., and those include anything up to those abrograted intellectual-property rights mentioned in previous posts. Antigua is now a giant step closer to being granted international rights to make 'pirate' copies of any book or CD or DVD made in the U.S. Software? That's included, too.

Here's how Veroneau describes the U.S.'s soon-to-be modified stance: "U.S. laws banning interstate gambling have been in place for decades. Most WTO Members have similar laws. Unfortunately, in the early 1990s, when the United States was drafting its international commitments to open its market to recreational services, we did not make it clear that these commitments did not extend to gambling. Moreover, back in 1993 no WTO ember could have reasonably thought that the United States was agreeing to commitments in direct conflict with its own laws."

"Neither the United States nor other WTO Members noticed this oversight in the drafting of U.S. commitments until Antigua and Barbuda initiated a WTO case ten years later. In its consideration of this matter, the WTO panel acknowledged that the United States did not intend to adopt commitments that were inconsistent with its own laws. However, under WTO rules, dispute settlement findings must be based on the text of commitments and other international documents, rather than the intent of the party. The United States strongly supports the rules-based trading system and accepts the dispute settlement findings. In light of those findings, we will use WTO procedures for clarifying our commitments."

"Clarifying our commitments," just to tidy things up, means the specific exclusion of Internet-based gambling. Again, remember that Veroneau's historical claims earlier in that quote are simply untrue.

Antigua is now in a unique position. It has the right to demand compensation for the loss of business previously understood to be involved in the WTO's GATS (General Agreement on Tariffs and Services), the specific pact involved. Other nations also have the opportunity to file claims against the U.S. if they are similarly affected, and this could run to many, many billions of dollars. For its part, Veroneau was already politicking on the public stage to the effect that, "since no WTO Member either bargained for or reasonably could have expected the United States to undertake a commitment on gambling, there would be very little, if any, basis for such claims."

In other words, it's the other nations' fault because the U.S. didn't do its job, even assuming that what Veroneau said was true. (Again, it's not.) That defense doesn't work in municipal court fighting traffic tickets, and it's sure as hell not going to fly on the world stage. Slim chance that's going to unfold the way Veroneau and his cronies would hope, meaning that major financial judgmengts would somehow not be awarded to Antigua and other countries. There is no reason for affected nations to not seek major retaliatory judgments against the U.S, and also little reason for the WTO itself not to back such efforts.

Antigua, of course, will be the focal point. The tiny nation has the opportunity to become what the U.S. will surely term a 'rogue state,' in future years, for Antigua will have the chance to set up a pirate industry with the full backing and protection of the WTO. Assuming of course, that Antigua does what's best for Antigua. Antigua's own Finance Minister, Errol Cort, was quick to point out that in this case, it's not likely to go the U.S.'s way without a battle. "We are now reviewing our options," said Cort, "and will be proceeding to use the WTO institutions to get full compensation for our citizens in the event the United States actually pursues this most regrettable action. We would strongly urge the United States to reconsider its decision."

Obviously, the U.S. wouldn't take such moves against its interests without retaliatory measures, which is why the WTO's own existence is now at stake. The U.S. also has its own pending WTO complaint with China over, guess what? Piracy issues. Good luck with that. Were I a Chinese trade official, I'd think about adopting Antigua as a base of operations and opening up a whole batch of software and DVD and CD manufacturing businesses there. Of course --- *nudge* *wink* --- the Chinese Triads would be there first, anyway.

But the saddest part of all of this is that it's so unnecessary. The U.S. is supposed to represent the moral high ground, and in this WTO dispute the U.S. has made it abundantly clear that high morals, honesty and integrity have nothing to do with the U.S. stance. This is about bullying and protectionism, thievery in the name of economic might. And it can be laid nowhere else than the far-conservative right wing of American politics.

That's why this arch-conservative administration and its ilk must be ousted from public life; their values are not the values that this country was founded upon, but are instead a cheap bastardization usurping the flag and country in the name of a spurious Judeo-Christian-state agenda. In case you think differently, bear in mind that Veroneau, the Deputy US Trade Representative, is none other than a former executive assistant to Good Book-thumper Bill Frist, the demagogue who made a mockery of Congress by inserting the UIGEA into unrelated, "must-pass" legislation and passing it in one of the 'Vampire Congress' late-night sessions made famous by this pack of disgraceful Republican politicians.

Mind you, I'm a centrist with strong libertarian values who leans a little bit to the right on a lot of matters. A lot of this is still in the process of unfolding, but it sure seems like to the far right, it's "us" against the world. Unfortunately, "us" equals "U.S." right now; this greater we, the United States, is on a long, unfortunate ride... with a year and a half to go before our next chance to make things right.