In my tenure as a consultant for commercial lawsuits, I read more than my fair share of initial complaints. Early on I realized these complaints often overbet the pot with farfetched claims, many of which can’t be supported by facts. So I wasn’t totally surprised by the far reaching claims of Clonie Gowen’s complaint against Full Tilt Poker et al. But I was surprised by what she was unable to piece together about the entities she was suing. And overall, I think her case may have one fatal flaw.
Whether Clonie understood it or not, I don’t think her ownership stake was vested. Time may or may not prove my assertion — I suspect this will be settled out of public view. But if I am correct, all that hype about Gowen’s savvy business acumen may go in the same tank as Sarah Palin’s executive experience. Although I will say this for Clonie: she won two major tournaments after a rift with her benefactors. We’ll see how well Palin can do now that the price of oil has dropped below the point that balances the Alaska state budget. Read More »
In the waning days of summer 2006, the recently appointed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and past commissioner Paul Tagliabue wrote Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) in an attempt to sway him to tag the UIGEA onto “must pass” defense spending legislation. Warner told them to go pound salt. But that didn’t slow the NFL down much. After all, they had hired Bill Frist’s former counsel, Marty Gold, as their lobbyist. On September 30, 2006, the “must pass” SAFE Port Act was approved by Congress, with the UIGEA tacked on, courtesy of Bill Frist.
Regulations, however, for the UIGEA have not yet been approved, primarily because there is widespread belief that the UIGEA is unenforceable. As proposed, the onus to enforce the UIGEA falls squarely on the banks. Both the Treasury and Justice Department have admitted that they, themselves, would be unable to determine legal versus illegal online sites under the law – and yet that is precisely what they are requiring the banking system to do. The costs and risks to banks are huge. And with everything facing the banking system today, introducing more cost and more risk to the system seems like a ridiculous prospect. With few UIGEA reg proponents — and major economic catastrophes brewing on the home front – one would think that the UIGEA regs would be a backburner issue at best. But then that’s not how the NFL and Bush administration roll Read More »
Is that your dorsal fin or are you just happy to see us? — Overheard at the office on Halloween.
While the boss dressed up as a man getting eaten by a shark, most of the rest of the office dressed up as the boss. It turns out that making fun of the boss was a good stress reliever after a near-cataclysmic month in the market – well for everyone except maybe the boss.
I had a personal best for Halloween this year. I got 160 kids before I had to shut off the lights at 8:25 pm. My favorite costume was worn by three teenage girls: they came as rock-paper-scissors. I’m so glad we got to turn back the clock this weekend – I really needed the extra hour. Although the down side is that all morning long, I’ve had Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” in my head and it’s really freaking me out. Now if I could talk them into turning back the clock say 240 hours I might get caught up.
I was able to sneak in one poker indulgence this week. I spent an hour on Rounder’s Radio with Lou Krieger. I had to give up the weekly show with Lou when my schedule got overloaded, but I still need my fix once in awhile. We generally don’t plan ahead much -we just kind of let it flow. This week we talked about the lack of mainstream promotion and sponsorships for the November Nine –the benefit to the players was used as a justification for moving the final table. We also talked about how Russ Hamilton not only bilked amateurs out of their money – he apparently targeted his poker pro “friends”. He’d call them on the phone to set up heads-up matches, he’d transfer money to their UB accounts which they then paid him in cash for, and then he’d cheat them. So not only did he cheat his friends out of millions, he used them to unwittingly launder his money. At least that’s the scuttelbutt. If anyone wondered why his accounts transferred so much money to other, seeminly unrelated, accounts – that could be why.
We also got a listener question about how I felt about Tiffany Michelle’s behavior during the WSOP and whether I thought she was good for women and poker. This question was sort of hard for me. I’ve worked with Tiffany (picture swiped from PokerNews) many times, including our seven week stint at the 2006 WSOP. Personally I always liked Tiffany – she was always very laid back, had a great sense of humor, and gave terrific backrubs. But reading the accounts of the WSOP this year, and then watching the TV coverage – albeit highly edited – I was a little disappointed. I’d never seen Tiffany’s snarky side, although I guess I might get a little snarky down the homestretch of one of the biggest tournaments in history. Stress and pressure rarely inspire our best behavior. And while she was able to amass a big stack by playing a little fast and loose in the middle of the event, I was sorry she wasn’t able to ratchet that back in the later stages. But then again, she finished 17th and I didn’t play a hand – so take that for all it’s worth. And 17th totally rocks, make no mistake about it.
I guess my biggest disappointment with Tiffany was her ill-advised UB sponsorship. With everything that was known about the UB situation at the time, I found this to be an unfortunate choice. Read More »
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that there is gambling going on here!
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh, thank you very much
Alan Greenspan: Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief.
Testifying before the Committee of Government Oversight and Reform, an almost penitent Alan Greenspan was not only shocked but admitted something few deemed possible- a flaw in his free-market belief system. Perhaps if Greenspan knew a little more about a good poker game, like Marriner S. Eccles, Federal Reserve Chairman from 1934-1948, he would have been spared this public confession.
“In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.
Had the six billion dollars, for instance, that were loaned by corporations and wealthy individuals for stock-market speculation been distributed to the public as lower prices or higher wages and with less profits to the corporations and the well-to-do, it would have prevented or greatly moderated the economic collapse that began at the end of 1929.” Read More »
A couple of months ago, I got an email from Matt Showell over at PokerListings. It had something to do with a series of blogger freerolls. Between my day job, the book, and the few articles I was able to sneak in, I barely had time to pee. I had already reluctantly been passing on one of my most treasured luxuries – my home game. I was trying to sneak into a Saturday with Pauly once in awhile, but even that was hit or miss. So I blew off the blogger freeroll – dubbed the Run-Good Challenge — invitation.
When I was in Vegas to work on Mike’s book, the Poker Shrink asked me if I was going to play the PokerListings’ freerolls. When I told him I hadn’t responded, he asked me if I was nuts. Since he is the shrink, I figured he knew something about nuts. That’s when he told me that it was limited to only 12 players (10 bloggers and 2 PokerListing Dudes) and the payouts were ridiculously fat. For the first three events, the payouts were $600/$300/$100. Using a point system from the first three events, the top five bloggers (and a PokerListing Dude) were eligible for a six person Grand Final where the payouts were $1000/$650/$400/$200/$150. I was nuts. I immediately emailed Matt and discovered they still had one slot open. Sweet. Read More »
I’m still surprised how similar the investment world is to the poker world – and how the people within those worlds are seemingly cut from the same cloth. But to some extent they play the same “risk versus return” game. And while each set of players knows that probability and odds factor strongly in their result, they are also keenly aware of the psychological factors at work. The ability to understand the psychology of their opponents, as well as their own individual state of mind, is paramount to both poker player and investor.
I was focused on this thought as I got into a co-worker’s car at lunch time last week. Delicately moving the used syringe and high-dollar sun glasses from the passinger seat, I slid into the car for what I knew was going to be a short lunch – but a long ride. He’d made a couple of bold moves in the market, well researched and objectively analyzed. But bad beats happen – and sometimes they keep happening. Read More »
Well – within the next couple of days. In the mean time I’m pretty heartbroken about the loss of two years worth of my blog. And if there was a villian in all this, it was Bill Frist. But I’ll explain it all later.
Over the next few days I’ll be working to build back my blogroll. And hopefully I’ll be uncustomized, but functional by the weekend.
You don’t talk about fight club
Chris Moneymaker’s win was always a double-edged sword for the poker media. It began the Cinderella model of coverage with the requisite fairy tale ending — where the winner was not only the most skillful, but the most worthy of taking home the glass slipper. And the money that flowed from online poker sites for ads and affiliate deals had print and the online media heavily invested in maintaining poker’s Lake Wobegon image where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
I remember my first article for Bluff Magazine’s inaugural October 2004 issue chastised ESPN’s judgment to not only whitewash Dutch Boyd’s reputation in the poker community, but glorify “the crew.” And I guess we’re still waiting for the day they “take over the poker world.” I was actually a little surprised at the time that Bluff let me publish my swipe at ESPN. But then again, when they first started up, I was dealing with an editor from the UK who during one of our first conversations asked if Mike Matusow was a US football player. Read More »
For some reason, I thought my days were going to be much easier once the WSOP ended, but I was obviously just in denial. I keep thinking of these great ubber posts I want to do, but there really isn’t going to be ubber time until the Matusow book is completed – which is still some weeks away. And if I needed any motivation (or panic) on that front, I got it yesterday, when by total chance I found this. I nearly peed my pants.
So a lot of my life will continue to go on hold until that puppy is put to bed. I’m totally backlogged on my correspondence, so I suspect there are a ton of people that think I’ve run off with BJ to join the circus. But I swear I’ll catch up at some point. I’ll be going out to Vegas in early September to read over some chapters with Mike – but short of that, it’s just going to be crunch time. In light of my current reality, I think I’ll probably be spewing bloglets rather than ubber posts. Random spewage follows: Read More »
I won’t write about the Main Event until it starts to air on ESPN. I had no idea how many people don’t want to know anything until they see it on TV until I went to my home game last week. With my work day starting at 4:00 am during the WSOP and not ending until after 6:00pm, I just couldn’t manage my Wednesday night poker fix. I was so happy to be returning to the game. But when I walked into the room, half the people said, “Oh no, she’s here.” “Don’t talk to me” “I hope you don’t sit at my table.” huh? Everyone was afraid I’d just blab about the WSOP all night long (which had been my plan) and they just didn’t want to know. Read More »
