Lou Krieger's Poker Blog

2007 Ladies Champ Sally Anne Boyer Sues Harrah's and WSOP Academy

2009-10-31T17:19:00.000-07:00

2007 WSOP Ladies' Event winner Sally Anne Boyer (pictured right) filed a suit against Harrah's and the World Series of Poker Academy for misusing her name and image. Boyer alleges they used her photograph for marketing and promotions without her permission.

Her suit claims she attended the academy for only one day but did not graduate, although in an interview with Lianna Shen for Poker Listings, Boyer is quoted as saying, “I attended the Academy, the World Series of Poker Academy—it was very helpful … I changed up my strategy a bit, and, it worked!”

She added, “The Academy is sponsored by the World Series, it's for ladies only, and they limited to 100 women, and Annie Duke was one of the instructors! I played with her and it was just wonderful. I highly recommend it. She was a mentor to all of us. So great, very encouraging, and I was thrilled just to play with her.”

That interview is available in its entirety here: http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-player-interviews/wsop/2007/sally-anne-boyer-queen-of-poker-2007-wsop-ladies-event-champion

Despite what seems to have been a ringing endorsement of the Academy in her Poker Listings interview, Boyer now claims that the WSOP academy had nothing to do with her performance. No comment from Harrah's.

This is another story that’s still developing, and we’ll bring you more news as it happens.

Congressional Committe Cites $42 Billion in Available Revenue thru Legalized Online Gaming

2009-10-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reported that an analysis by (pictured left) Rep. Jim McDermott’s (D-WA) Joint Committee on Taxation found that—HR 2267—introduced by Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA) and Jim McDermott (D-WA), would generate nearly $42 billion over 10 years.

"This analysis further reinforces the fact that a regulated environment will generate billions in new revenue to offset the costs of health care reform or other vital government programs," said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. "With the completed analysis, and support for Internet gambling regulation growing daily, it's only a matter of time before Congress acts and begins allocating the billions in new revenue sitting on the table to one program or another.

"We believe this tax revenue analysis will encourage immediate discussions and consideration of pending legislation to regulate Internet gambling," added Waxman. "With everyone acknowledging that attempts to prohibit the activity have failed, this provides even more incentive for Congress to act."

Since its introduction in May, House Committee on Financial Services Chairman Frank’s bill has attracted a bipartisan group of more than 60 co-sponsors has signed onto the bill.

Chairman Frank's legislation would permit licensed gambling operators to accept wagers from individuals in the US, while putting a series of consumer protections into place. These include safeguards against compulsive and underage gambling, money laundering, fraud, and identity theft, along with the right of each state to determine whether to allow Internet gambling within their state.

Rep. McDermott's Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act (HR 2268), a companion bill, raises revenue through individual and corporate taxes and license fees on regulated Internet gambling. This potential revenue—millions US-based players wager more than $100 billion online annually—is currently uncollected.

Mandalay Media Makes Enormous, Last-Minute Offer to Buy World Poker Tour

2009-10-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Has the ugly duckling World Poker Tour turned into Cinderella? Earlier this year Gamyina Limited offered $9.08 million to purchase the World Poker Tour Enterprises. That was topped recently by an offer of $12.3 million by Peerless Media. In fact, Tour’s board of directors was preparing to vote on Peerless Media’s offer. In case you’ve never heard of Peerless Media, their subsidiary is PartyGaming.

But wait! Stop the presses! WPTE received an eleventh hour offer from Mandalay Media worth $36.5 million. This is an enormous increase by any standards over the original Gamyina offer of slightly more than $9 million as well as the offer of $12.3 million from Peerless that was under serious consideration by WPTE’s board of directors.

WPT is now looking at something that’s four times larger than the original deal, plus Mandalay Media is offering what they’ve referred to as “significant cash and stock” to WPTE shareholders.

Mandalay Media is hoping to meet with the WPTE Board of Directors as soon as possible, so this is a story that has yet to play out. Even so, one has to wonder why, and how, suitors are now finding such increased value in a company that was reportedly foundering just last year.

Mike Sexton to guest on my radio show tonight!

2009-10-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Mike Sexton, the only candidate to be inducted to the Poker Hall of Fame in 2009, will be my guest Thursday, October 29, on my radio show, Keep Flopping Aces.

The show is webcast at http://www.roundersradio.com/ at 6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. Eastern Time), and can be heard worldwide at corresponding times. Listeners can call in with questions for Mike, or questions can be posed by anyone in the Rounder’s Radio chat room during the broadcast.

If you can’t listen live, the show will be rebroadcast Friday. Just check the Rounder’s Radio web site for the time.

If you can’t listen live, you can also hear it on demand a day or so after it airs live.

Hope you can tune in tonight, and every Thursday evening for the very best in poker talk radio at Keep Flopping Aces.

the durrr challenge is turning into a slumber fest

2009-10-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

The off again-on again nature of the durrr challenge is causing it to lose steam—at least I’m beginning to lose interest in a match that will seemingly never be finished—but they did play yesterday, during four choppy session that comprised a total of 2,040 hands.

Tom Dwan won almost $82,000 for the day, and now holds a lead of $1.2 million over Patrik Antonius. However, what should have been an exciting, bigger-money-than-anything-ever-played-for-before poker game, is dragging on and on and on. At this point, they’ve played slightly more than 27,000 hands, and have something less than 23,000 left to play. At their current pace, most everyone will have another birthday or two before they are finished.

What would have made this match special—and clearly the equal of the Johnny Moss vs. Nick the Greek match that took place in the window of Binion’s Horseshoe and was responsible for popularizing poker in Las Vegas oh so many years ago, was that Moss and the Greek played every day and the match was a daily drama.

This one is turning into coitus interruptus, and while the sums wagered are still enormous, the drama has morphed into glacially-paced boredom. They can still bring back the excitement by playing out the remaining hands on a daily, or almost daily basis, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. And with this match taking forever to complete, it doesn’t seem like the other challenge matches durrr had planned will come to fruition either. And that’s sad. This had all the makings of the greatest poker match of all time. Instead, it seems to be dying on the vine.

Mike Sexton Elected to Poker Hall of Fame

2009-10-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Sexton
Congratulations to Mike Sexton on his selection as the 38th member of the Poker Hall of Fame. In 1989 the 62-year-old Sexton won a WSOP title, and won the WSOP Tournament of Champions event in 2006. He has 47 WSOP cashes and more than $3 million in tournament winnings, making him eleventh on the all-time list, though these are not the primary reasons he was selected for enshrinement in the Poker Hall of Fame.

It's What He Did Away From the Table That Mattered Most

But it is his stunning list of contributions away from the poker table that propelled him into the HOF. He’s been the announcer for the World Poker Tour and is one of the founders of pokergives.org, one of poker’s first charitable organizations.

More than anything, Sexton has been an ambassador for the game, and many who have taken up poker during its boom years cut their teeth listening to Sexton explain that Texas hold’em “…takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” Sexton has been a fighter for poker’s legal rights both behind the scenes and testifying in court cases as an expert witness.

Nine Nominated ... Only One Chosen Nine finalists were nominated this year, with selections made by a panel of 15 Hall of Fame members and 15 media representatives. Sexton was the odds-on favorite for selection, and as it turned out, he was the only nominee who garnered the required 75 percent of the votes needed for election. Others on the ballot included Tom McEvoy, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Men “the Master” Nguyen, Erik Seidel, and Scotty Nguyen.

I'd Have Chosen Sexton, Harrington, and McEvoy
If I were one of the electors, I would have voted for Sexton, Harrngton, and McEvoy. In my opinion each of them meets the criteria for selection. Of this group, I firmly believe that Ivey, Negreanu, and Greenstein will eventually be selected for induction. Seidel appears to be on the bubble, while Men Nguyen and Scotty Nguyen probably carry too much negative baggage to ever be chosen for induction.

Induction Ceremony Set for November 7, at the Rio
Sexton’s official induction into the Poker Hall of Fame will take place in Las Vegas, at the Rio, on November 7—a part of all the glitz and glamour surrounding the conclusion of the 2009 World Series of Poker main event.

Poker Players Alliance Asks For 1 Year Delay in Enforcing UIGEA

2009-10-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

A petition sent by the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) to US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner included a warning that enforcing the provisions of UIGEA would put “an unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis.”

This refers to banks and designated payment systems that will be required to block the movement of funds in and out of online poker sites.

The petition sent to Geithner asks for an extension of one year, from the December 1, 2009 date of compliance to December 2010, before the provisions of UIGEA are to take effect.

The U.S. Treasury Secretary now has 180 days to reply to the petition.

The PPA’s petition was filed jointly with the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and American Greyhound Track Operators Association. Nineteen Congressmen also wrote to Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in support of this petition.

The group of 19 Congressmen includes such heavy hitters as Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-MA.), Homeland Security Committee ranking member Peter King (R-NY), Financial Institutions Subcommittee chairman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL), Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee chairman Melvin Watt (D-NC), Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee ranking member Ron Paul (R-TX) and Oversight Subcommittee ranking member Judy Biggert (R-IL).

Poker Pages Folds its Hand

2009-10-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

“It is with sadness and regret that we must announce that Poker Pages and all of its related services will be closed on October 31, 2009.” So goes a headline at the Poker Pages website, and I’m really saddened to see them go.

For years a few mouse clicks to http://www.pokerpages.com/ brought up the latest, most up-to-date tournament results, as well as access to a variety of poker information, strategy articles, a directory of cardrooms, a variety of blogs, poker players ranked by money won, videos, galleries of photographs, interviews, book reviews, and assorted other markings from poker’s recent history.

Poker Pages also started and ran Poker School Online, one of the first online poker learning centers, and I was the school’s first Dean, way back before the poker boom actually hit and took hold. I wrote articles for the school, monitored conversation and questions in the school’s forum, recorded some poker lessons, interacted with students, and that sort of thing.

But the site always operated close to the financial edge, and in recent years its financial burdens were exacerbated by the general economic woes we’re all suffering. Finally, Poker Pages simply slipped off the slippery precipice it had occupied for a while, and is closing its virtual doors at the end of October.

Their web site says, “For many years Poker Pages has enjoyed providing the best source of poker related content, arguably the Internet's largest and most complete live poker tournament results and listings database, as well as a place to play poker for free. These services will certainly be missed, but we realize that the most appreciated benefit of our products and services has been the community created by our user base. We thank you for the many great years you allowed us to provide you with the best poker content on the Internet and wish you all the best in your future poker endeavors. It has been a pleasure and a privilege serving you over the years!”

I always had a fond spot for Poker Pages and Poker School Online, and now they’ll soon be gone. I’ll miss them.

Brit Paul Zimbler Breaks World Record for Continuous Poker Session

2009-10-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

Englishman Paul Zimbler broke a world record for the longest recorded continuous poker session during the World Series of Poker-Europe, when he played 74 hours, 20 minutes, and 21 seconds straight.

Challengers were asked to donate a minimum of £10 to play against him, with proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Betfair Poker added a £5,000 donation and Zimbler raised close to £35,000 during his sleepless saga.

He began on a Monday and finished three days later after playing Mike Matusow. Zimbler had to be helped—and partially carried—from the table.

During the nearly 75-hour session, he played a total of 183 matches. Zimbler won 102 of them.
"Thankfully I had a lot of support and I'm very happy I did it," said an exhausted Zimbler. "I was very close to stopping right at the end. I wasn't doing it for the world record and all that rubbish. It's just a great thing to do good things for those who are less fortunate."

Who's In Bed With Whom on the Online Gaming Issue?

2009-10-05T09:43:00.001-07:00

Speaking at the recent International Masters of Gaming Law conference in Amsterdam, attorney Tony Cabot (pictured left) believes that PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker—sites attracting most of the US online poker players nowadays—will be major players in keeping Frank's legislation from passing.

Cabot, who is based in Las Vegas, believes that because Poker Stars and Full Tilt currently accept US players, they would be low on the list of sites to receive licenses in a post-UIGEA environment. To prevent that from happening, Cabot opined that the sites would work to ensure the defeat of Frank’s legislation.

Could this be true? Aren’t Poker Stars and Full Tilt the major sources of financial support for the Poker Player’s Alliance—the major lobbying effort to repeal UIGEA? Could they be working both sides of the street, and if so, why?

I don’t know the answers, and I don’t have a clue why they might do this. So if you do … lemme know.

Regardless of this speculation, not all the stars are aligned in favor of Frank’s legislation, because some Las Vegas land based casino owners are against Internet gambling, although others support it. Reports say that Steve Wynn has reportedly hired lobbyists to fight against the Frank Bill, while just down the Strip, Harrah's is pushing for Internet gambling regulation.

Cabot’s opinion isn’t universally shared either. Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr believes Frank's Bill—now with 60 co-sponsors—is gaining traction in Washington. Barr believes the revenue from taxed and regulated online gaming is too great for lawmakers to ignore.

Nothing is certain about any of this except that politics does make for strange bedfellows.

Rep Barney Frank Adds 60th Co-Sponsor to Bill

2009-10-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) recently added his sixtieth co-sponsor for his proposed legislation that would tax and regulate online gaming in the US. Representatives Bennie Thompson and Adam Smith became co-sponsor numbers fifty-nine and sixty.

Frank’s proposal has been on hold in Congress while the Financial Services Committee—chaired by Barney Frank—deals with the economy. But that hasn’t stopped Frank from working behind the scenes on this issue.

Frank, along with Peter King (R-NY) and seventeen other bipartisan lawmakers, sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, asking that the implementation of UIGEA’s rules be delayed by one year. The letter stated that they “… believe this is an unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis."

The rules are set to take effect on December 1, but the lawmakers hope to delay the law to give them time to overturn UIGEA.

Former BetOn-Sports Boss David Carruthers Drops Guilty Plea

2009-10-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Remember David Carruthers? He’s the Edinburgh-born former CEO of online bookie BetOn-Sports who spent the past three years under house arrest in a Missouri hotel, pending a court appearance for violating the Wire Act, a 1960s prohibiting sports wagering over the phone.

He pled guilty to racketeering charges—part of a deal by which Carruthers would be sentenced to 33 months—but just a few days before he was to be sentenced, he opted out of his plea. The timing is a little strange to say the least, because his attorneys were planning to argue that he served his time and should be released.

Now Carruthers has a change of plea hearing scheduled October 14. His defense team gave no reason for his change of mind, and the prosecution was also mum.

Carruthers was arrested in July 2006 on charges that he headed a company that accepted unlawful sports bets on the web from Americans. The arrest occurred when he changed planes in Dallas Airport on his way to Costa Rica, where the company was headquartered. Since his arrest, Carruthers has been confined to a hotel in Clayton, Missouri.

I’m wondering why he decided to drop his plea at the eleventh hour, especially when he stood a chance of being released for time served? Could it be he just wants to fight the bastards? Maybe so. We’ll see.

Plan to Tax Online Gaming to Finance Healthcare Reform Just Not in the Cards

2009-09-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged about Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introducing an amendment to Barney Frank’s bill that sought to legalize and tax online gambling to help pay for healthcare reform.

But it wasn’t long after that Wyden’s staff said the senator did not want to introduce additional controversy into the healthcare debate. As a consequence, he pulled his amendment—which would have taxed online gambling to pay for heath insurance subsidies—from consideration.

“It’s a great idea,” Barney Frank said. “Why should we leave all that money untaxed?”

But this amendment would only serve to rile up the opposition, primarily conservative Christian groups that believe legalized online gambling harms family life and values.

But the financial implications strongly support Wyden’s amendment, and a PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis estimates that an Internet gambling tax would rake in $62.7 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years.

Frank’s bill, which won’t go anywhere in 2009, now has 58 co-sponsors. Most are democrats but the list also includes Republicans representatives Pete King (N.Y.) and Ron Paul (Texas).

My gut feel is that UIGEA will eventually be repealed or otherwise neutered, but I wouldn’t bet on that occurring in the near future.

Oregon Senator Suggest Using Internet Gaming Tax Revenues to Fund Health Care

2009-09-21T19:46:00.001-07:00

An increased focus on the benefits of Internet gambling regulation are expected as the Senate Finance Committee considers a proposal introduced three days ago to use Internet gambling revenue as an offset to the costs of health care reform. An amendment offered by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) would dedicate Internet gambling tax revenue generated through implementation of Barney Frank’s currently pending Internet Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267) to increase low-income subsidies provided through the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that collecting taxes on regulated Internet gambling would generate revenue of $62.7 billion during the next decade.

"We applaud Senator Wyden's proposal to collect and put to good use tens of billions in Internet gambling revenue that would otherwise be lost in the underground marketplace," said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. "The Senate Finance Committee should approve the resolution, finally putting to an end a failed prohibition on Internet gambling that leaves Americans unprotected and unlicensed offshore operators as the only beneficiary in a thriving marketplace."

The Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2009 would establish a framework permitting licensed gambling operators to accept wagers from individuals in the US, while mandating a number of significant consumer protections that include safeguards against compulsive and underage gambling, money laundering, fraud, and identify theft. Additional provisions in the legislation reinforce the rights of each state to determine whether to allow Internet gambling activity for people accessing the Internet within the state and to apply other restrictions on the activity as determined necessary.

A companion to Chairman Frank's legislation introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act (H.R. 2268), would raise revenue for the U.S. Treasury primarily through ensuring that applicable individual taxes, corporate taxes and license fees on regulated Internet gambling activities are collected. Without this legislation, this revenue will remain uncollected while millions of Americans gamble online without consumer protections.

Man Wins Women's Poker Tournament at Borgata

2009-09-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Man, oh man, and I’m not talking about a resurgence of the Tilt Boys again, but Abraham Korotki, 65, of Ventnor City, NJ, beat out 260 women in a $300 buy-in hold’em tournament at Atlantic City’s Borgata to take home the $20,982 first prize in what was otherwise a woman’s poker tournament!

This was not without drama, tears, and heartbreak either. Just ask 40-year-old Nicole Rowe, of West Windsor, NY, who placed second in that event. Rowe—diagnosed with breast cancer—planned on using her winnings to cover living expenses during recovery from a mastectomy scheduled later this month.

But Korotki took home first prize in a tournament he entered after early elimination from another tournament. Rowe, who finished second, took home $11,889.

Borgata’s management did not know that a man entered the woman’s event, but said anyone of legal age is legitimate.

"Borgata offers specialty tournaments, including the Ladies event," said Borgata executive Joe Lupo. "In the spirit of this event, it was our hope that only women would have participated, as has happened in the past . . . However, given legal requirements, we must allow anyone who is over the age of 21 the opportunity to participate."

"When you're a woman and you play poker, 99 percent of the time you're at a table with nine men,” said Rowe, adding that she looked forward to playing against a field of women.

Korotki—a semi retired real-estate developer was quoted as saying that he's donating his winnings to three charities, including one dedicated to breast cancer, and that he just "wanted to get back on the horse," and signed up because he had earlier seen "five to 10" other men in the registration line.

Borgata officials, however, were quick to point out that they were unaware of other male entrants, nor were any other men pointed out by female players.

According to Korotki, no one from the Borgata told him that he couldn't play. He added that he would not have made a fuss if asked to leave. "If someone had said, 'Abe, you can play, but please don't,' I would have said, 'Fine,' and gone home and been bored until the next tournament."

From the casino's standpoint, their only option was to seat Korotki.

Final Candidates for Selection into the Poker Hall of Fame

2009-09-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

The list of nine finalists eligible for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame was released a few days ago and a panel of 30—15 members of the Hall of Fame and 15 media members will cast their votes by October 2 to determine the two finalists who will be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame November 7 at the Rio.

The nine final candidates are:

Barry Greenstein

Dan Harrington

Phil Ivey

Tom McEvoy

Men Nguyen

Scotty Nguyen

Daniel Negreanu

Erik Seidel

Mike Sexton

Each voter gets two votes, and the smart money is on Mike Sexton’s induction. Others with a shot seem to be Greenstein, Harrington, McEvoy, and Seidel. Negreanu and Ivey might be a bit young at this point in their careers, and Men Nguyen and Scotty Nguyen carry a lot of negative baggage with them.

Allegations of cheating and chip-dumping have followed Men Nguyen for years, and Scotty Nguyen’s alcohol-fueled table behavior is likely to turn off a significant number of voters.

A lot of the selection process turns on judgment calls, and there’s just no simple metric or formula for determining precisely what makes for a Hall of Fame career. And while there are guidelines, they’re subjective enough to allow voters significant leeway in making their selections. Here are the guidelines:

Since it began in 1979, the Hall of Fame has honored 37 gamblers, one for each year, with the exception of 1993 and the year 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2008. All but two, Hoyle and Hickok, were twentieth-century players.

Selection criteria for the Hall of Fame are:

1. A gambler must have played poker against acknowledged top competition,

2. Played for high stakes,

3. Played consistently well and gained the respect of their peers,

4. Stood the test of time,

5. And for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.

"Be a Guest on my Radio Show" Contest Winners Announced

2009-09-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

We have a winner. Actually, we have four winners for the contest I announced in early August on my Internet radio show, Keep Flopping Aces.

Many more entries were received than expected, and four rose to the top. I couldn’t choose a winner from among them, so I decided to invite each of them on the show, where we’ll discuss poker for an entire hour.

Here are the four winners, along with the date each winner will appear on my show.

September 10: James Foster
September 24: Steve Bortnyk
October 8: Eric Crump
October 15: Eric Nelson

Keep Flopping Aces airs each and every Thursday evening at 9 p.m. Eastern Time (6 p.m. Pacific Time) on http://www.roundersradio.com/. You can listen live, call in to chat with me or my guest, or use the site’s chat window to type questions for us. You can also listen to a Friday rerun, or download the show for on-demand listening a day or so after it broadcasts live.

This contest was so successful in terms of the number and quality of responses I received, that I plan to have more events like it in the future. I’m not sure what kind of contest I’ll conjure up, but the idea of listener interaction is very appealing, and this contest provided a lot of that.

Tune in. Call in. Talk to me or my guests. And stay tuned for the next contest sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Poker's Prime Directive: One Player Per Hand

2009-09-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

A recent email from a player in Northern California brought up the issue of unintentional collusion, something common to smaller rooms. Regular groups of local players, who have created friendships over the poker table, are often a little casual with the rules and treat their casino game like a home game in Charlie’s basement.

The player who emailed me—we’ll call him Jasper—described events that transpired during one session of Omaha/8 at his local cardroom. Jasper was in seat seven and folded before the flop. The player in seat eight raised and proudly showed Jasper his four hole cards. Jasper said, “Please don’t show me your hand, it’s not fair to the other players.”

And he was right. If the player in seat eight won the hand without a showdown, only Jasper would know whether he had the goods or was bluffing. If the player seat eight folded before the showdown, only Jasper would know what kind of lay down he made.

The “only Jasper would know” scenarios are too many to list, and Jasper’s complaint was based on the fact that the exact same thing was occurring between seats two and three at the other end of the table.

They weren’t cheating or trying to gain an edge, at least Jasper didn’t think they were, and he knows all the players. Nevertheless, the player in seat three had a blueprint of everything his neighbor in seat two would play, fold, and raise, and knew exactly what gear he was in at all times.

Jasper felt like a sucker because information was available to some of the players, but not to all. It wasn’t fair.

While Jasper could have continuously asked to see the shown hands, that gets old pretty quickly, especially at a table where all the players know one another.

But that’s not the worst of it. Later that same evening, a player who was shown a hand during play stopped his neighbor from throwing his hand into the muck at the showdown. “Wait, you’ve got a low,” he muttered, which was quickly followed by, “Oops, I’m sorry,” to the player who would have won the entire pot, but was now only getting half of it.

Fortunately, there’s a rule designed to prevent this, and it’s one of poker’s prime directives. It prevents players from calling hands that have not been put face up on the table, prevents players from giving information to some players and not others, and prevents players from encouraging or discouraging their neighbor from making a call on the river.

In our book, The Rules of Poker: Essentials for Every Game, Sheree Bykofsky and I talk about this right up front.

One player per hand: "Poker is not a team competition, and each player is responsible for playing his or her hand without advice or assistance, either directly given or provided inadvertently by other players, dealers, or spectators to the game.

The ramifications of this directive are broader than you might imagine at first glance. Not only does this mean that you cannot ask your neighbor, who may or may not be involved in the hand, what you should do or how you might play your hand—that goes without saying—but your neighbor bears a responsibility not to assist you.

All of the rules and punishments for cheating at poker are, in fact, violations of the one player per hand rule. Collusion by two players, marked cards, signals, cold-decks—you know; you’ve seen all the movies—are methods cheats design to circumvent the one player per hand rule.”

Even when players have no malicious intentions, one player per hand—no ifs, ands, or buts about it—is an essential requirement for a fair game and a level playing field.

That’s sometimes tough to enforce when a game has adopted a style where card-showing is the norm, but it’s everyone’s responsibility—players, dealers, and management included—to ensure the integrity of the game.

(No Poker content) Bike the Bay--a trip report

2009-09-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

“What kind of schmuck gets up at 2 o’clock in the morning to ride his bike?” That’s my parentally and sober, serious voice posing the question to me, and it’s the voice I’m doing my best to ignore.

I’m not actually going to ride my bike at 2 a.m. I’m getting up that early so I can drive down to San Diego, pick up my registration material and then ride my bike at 7 a.m., as part of the annual Bike the Bay event sponsored by the San Diego Bicycle Coalition.

The ride departs from Embarcadero Marina Park, just behind the convention center in downtown San Diego, crosses the 2.12 mile, 4.7 percent grade Coronado bridge, and traverses the bay. It’s something I always wanted to do ever since I first saw the Coronado bridge. The very first time I saw it, I thought, “Jeez, I’d love to ride my bike over that bridge,” and today would be my chance.

So I’m not listening to that sober, serious voice; I’m listening to the other one—the one shouting, “Dude, this is your opportunity. You can only ride across the Coronado bridge one day a year, and this is it. Show a sense of adventure. Go for it. So what if you have to get up when the rest of the world is sleeping. Don’t wimp out. Go for it.”

So I’m up early. My bike and gear are in my car, all packed and neatly tucked away the night before. I grab a banana and Cliff bar for the road and I’m off, choosing the long way, via I-10 and the 215, because I don’t feel like driving up Hiway 74 and through Anza when the night is still pitch black and I can’t see where the road ends and the sky begins.
When I reach San Diego, the sun is coming up, and the map I downloaded does a pretty good job of getting me downtown. From there I work my way to the convention center, following a car with a couple of bikes on a rack hitched to its back. They lead me right to the Convention Center, where I can stash my car in their garage all day for $10.

Although I registered online, I still have to pick up my bib number and wrist band—my tickets, so to speak, to ride across the bridge. My bib number was 2221. In their promotional literature the Coalition said they will limit the number of riders to 2,500. Since I signed two weeks earlier and I’m assuming they assigned bib numbers in numerical order, I figured they sold out this event, or came close to it.

From the Convention Center parking lot, I ride down the length of the building, turn right and follow a road that leads behind the Convention center and right to the event’s staging area. When I arrived, there were already a goodly number of riders milling around.

I quickly signed in, pinned my bib number to my jersey, and went to queue up in a line of riders on the road leading out of the park.

One of the volunteers told me they send riders out in groups of about 50 or 60, each group accompanied by a ride leader. It’s spaced out to avoid the mass confusion you’d get at the start and at the entrance to the bridge with 2,500 cyclists trying to pedal away from the park and cramming onto the bridge’s on-ramp all at once. The ride leader tells me that once we get to the bridge, the idea of small, separate groups would fall apart and it’s everyone for him or herself, with fast riders challenging the bridge while the slower riders challenge themselves to get over it without resorting to walking.

At 7 a.m. the first group of riders departs, with about a two minute gap until the second group is allowed to go. I’m in Group No. Seven, so we clip in and pedal off somewhere around 7:20. It’s really a short ride to the bridge entrance, and I follow our group leader because he knows the way, and I don’t.

“Once over the bridge,” he tells me, “becomes one long, steady stream of riders all along the course. There’s no way,” he assures me, “that you can get lost or miss a turn.”
You’re really not supposed to stop on the bridge, but the view from the top was so spectacular that I stopped anyway, pretending to be checking out a mechanical issue on my bike. In reality, I was gazing at the San Diego skyline from the top of the bridge. It was magnificent, and the view I always wanted to experience whenever I saw that bridge. The weather was perfect too—a clear day, about 70 degrees, with no wind or morning fog.

The riders were all over the lot in terms of experience and skill, although the majority had no experience when it came to riding in formation. Most appeared to be really casual, recreational riders rather than experienced cyclists. Probably about five to seven percent were walking their bikes at least part of the way over the bridge, which seemed to be about as steep as Hiway 74 but not nearly as long. There were some fast riders, most in cycling club jerseys, but they were only a small part of the 2,500 out for a spin that day.

The descent into Coronado was fast and fun. I got into the fast lane and really flew down the west side of the bridge. Once in Coronado, we were on dead, solid, flat ground heading south to the bottom of the bay. We were routed onto a bike path adjacent to the bay. First we passed single family homes, and then an area filled with high rise buildings which appeared to have spectacular views of the city, the ocean, or both.

There were volunteer course marshals at every intersection coordinating the flow of riders with any cross traffic we might encounter. And they were terrific. They were all well-trained, courteous, and plentiful. It would have been tough to get lost if you tried.

There were also three rest stops, which is a lot when you consider that the entire journey totaled only twenty-seven by the trip’s end. But I’m never one to pass up free cold drinks, bananas, Cliff bars, nuts, and any of the other goodies on hand. I blew by the first rest stop, but did stop at the second and third. One stop even had a mechanic on hand, and one of the local bike shops that happened to be located on the return portion of the course also had a mechanic in the shop’s parking lot ready to offer free help to any rider with a mechanical problem.

Once we got toward the bottom of the bay, the bike path cut through a wetland area, which offered a view that couldn’t be obtained by driving.

The only issue with the bike path was that it was never designed for the 2,500 cyclists using it on that day. I was riding at about 17 or 18 miles per hour and passing at least 25 riders for every one rider that passed me. It was tough to maintain that average speed because of the congestion on the bike path. “On your left” became was the phrase of the day, and I seemed to shout it out constantly. After a while I fell in with a group of five other riders and we rode as a peloton, on the extreme left-hand side of the bike path, and when slower riders made way for one of us, they made way for us all.

The bike path is also used by runners, some of whom were going in our direction while others were heading toward us. The cry of “runner up” to alert riders about the presence of a runner heading his way was the second most popular call heard on the bike path.

Once we reached the bottom of the bay—which was also the bottom of the course—we were back on the San Diego side and headed back up to our starting point. That side of the bay is a light industrial area for the most part, without really anything worth seeing, but the lack of scenic views allowed me to focus on the road surface, which was a lot worse than the road in Coronado. The roads on the return trip are a lot like the old roads in Indio and La Quinta, the roads beyond the newer ones that were built when new gated communities were constructed.

The one kicker is that these roads were traversed by railroad tracks in a number of places. We were always perpendicular to the tracks, so they were really not a problem other than being bumpy, but on the return leg of the trip I passed three different riders who had gone down—one serious enough for the paramedics to be attending him when I rode past.

Back at Embarcadero Marina Park we picked up our event T-shirts and goodie bags, and there was a waiting line for hot food. It didn’t look all that good to me, so I checked out the vendor exhibits, grabbed another banana for the trip home, rode back around to the Convention Center parking lot, dismantled my bike, stowed my gear, and headed home.

The return trip was faster. It was daylight, so I took 163 up through Balboa Park to I-15 and then to Temecula, where I cut off to go the back way via Anza to Hiway 74 and home.

It was really an enjoyable morning, especially since I got to ride my bike over the Coronado bridge, which was something I always wanted to do. The event was incredibly well organized and well staffed by knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful volunteers. In fact, in my humble opinion, it’s probably the best run charity ride I’ve been on, and it’s something other events could learn from.

The only drawback is that it’s only a 25 – 27 mile ride, and that’s not much of a ride when you have to drive 130 miles each way. It would have been nice if they had optional loops, so it could be made a 27, 50, 62 (metric century), and even a full 100 mile ride. At least among riders I talked to, I was the only one who came from a distance to ride there. All the others were either from San Diego itself or its suburbs; in any event, as short a drive for them as it was for me to get to the Tour de Palm Springs.

Would I do it again? Probably … if crossing the Coronado Bridge by bike was that much fun one time, it’s got to be worth giving it at least one more go—even if I have to be idiotic enough to get up at 2 a.m. to do it.

Why Obama Needs to Help Tax and Regulate Online Gaming Now

2009-09-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

With bills to regulate online gaming and eliminate UIGEA introduced in both the House and the Senate, most people are feeling optimistic about overturning it sometime during this legislative session. While I hope I’m wrong, I’m not one of them.

I don’t think either of these bills will come out of Congress in 2009 for a number of reasons.

Congress Doesn’t Care: They’re consumed with issues related to our national economic doldrums, a war in Afghanistan and another in Iraq, and health care bill that has done nothing so far but pull down congressional and presidential approval ratings. Consequently, your elected leaders are not paying attention to other issues. Simply put, legislation to overturn UIGEA just isn’t high on their radar screen.

Regulating Online Gaming is Not a Political Winner: Elected officials need to keep getting elected, which is why they tend to avoid confrontational issues—and they especially don’t like taking sides when regardless of which side they support, they’re bound to anger, polarize, and help mobilize the other. Face it, for every ardent supporter of civil liberties, for everyone who realizes that Congress should not dictate to us what we can and cannot do with our own money in the privacy of our own homes as long as we’re not hurting anyone else in the process, there’s another voter somewhere in that legislator’s district who believes that gambling is sinful, and government needs to protect us against ourselves.

It doesn’t matter that nanny-state politics is bad public policy and wrong headed. What matters is counting votes. When confronting as potentially divisive an issue as online gaming, an elected official figures to lose more votes than he’s likely to gain, regardless of where he stands on the issue. Support it or oppose it—when votes are tallied-up, it’s heads you lose, tails you lose!

But What About the Money? One of the strongest arguments about regulating and taxing online gaming is the promise of reclaiming revenue now lost to the US government. And that’s revenue we can use now, can’t we? It’s hard to argue against that, but it’s only one side of a strongly psychological coin.

If our national revenue gap were such that it could be closed, or even significantly mitigated by revenues from online gaming (according to estimates I’ve read, we’re talking maybe $12 billion here), I believe we’d have a law on the books that would tax and regulate online gaming in a New York minute. But when we’re discussing a budget deficit in trillions, we’ve long since passed the misery index, and closing it by a billion here or a billion there—or even one hundred billion—won’t really cause a visible dent.

In other words, even if you and I and everyone else in America played online poker 24/7 for the next year—never sleeping and never eating, just multitabling day and night—we would not generate enough rake that would in turn yield enough in tax revenues to make a dent in our national debt. It would be like Bernie Madoff trying to pay back everyone he swindled with whatever he happens to have in his checking account right now.

Is There a Solution? But there is a ray of hope in all this. What online gaming needs now, more than ever, is a passionate salesman as its hero. We have that salesman, and he’s in dire need of a winning product.

Who is that salesman? It’s Barack Obama. Of course. He a proven master at lining up support behind him. But lately his ratings have been sinking faster than a stone. Regardless of how he spins the congressional health care plan, it backfires on him. Now he’s even going back to the drawing board to craft his own version of the plan, tweaking it to reflect the criticism the current plan has received from seemingly all sides and to give the soon-to-be-announced new plan his personal leverage, which is certainly stronger than any support Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can engender.

In poker terms, Obama is on a cooler right now. The economy stinks. His health care legislation—upon which he pinned much of his personal credibility—is dead. The wars aren’t going well, and while he inherited those twin albatrosses from his predecessor, the weight is firmly around his neck right now. The political fallout from aligning himself with such reprehensible characters as Van Jones hasn’t helped either.

Our president is in dire need of a winning hand, and I believe that handled properly, online gaming could be an issue that helps him accumulate chips. More than anybody else, President Obama could sell the American people on the merits of a bill similar to those introduced by Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Robert Menendez. If he does this, he will painlessly raise tax revenues and have at least one needed winner on his resume in the process.

Obama’s popularity is in decline and regardless of whatever other initiatives he might bring forth in the near future, the only one promising to generate revenue is regulated online gaming. All of the others will cost money, and we can’t afford it. The only other way to generate revenue is to raise taxes and it’s pretty clear that America is fed up with the idea of coughing up trillions of hard earned dollars to fund a trainload of debt that’s cascading out of control down an endless track.

Show Some Leadership, Mr. President: Get behind a bill to tax and regulate online gaming. You know that we will tax and regulate online gaming eventually. I’m thinking that it will happen soon, but not before 2010 or 2011. But you can prove me wrong, Mr. President. Instead of following this trend, you can get out ahead of the parade and lead it, and I hope you do.

Beat the drum for the Frank and Menendez bills. Do it now. You’ll raise some revenue. You’ll correct some very poorly thought out public policy. And your approval ratings will go up in the process. Everyone wins. What could be better than that?

Legalized Online Poker in California Appears Dead for this Legislative Session

2009-08-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

California’s state senate will not vote on a bill offering online intrastate poker until the next legislative session.

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which operates one of the largest tribal casinos in California working together with California card clubs, offered a bill that would allow online poker within the confines of California, but the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians—along with the California Tribal Business Alliance—opposed it. The opposition claims it would disrupt the state's tribal gambling compacts.

In a recent survey of 802 randomly selected registered voters conducted by EMC Research for the Pechanga tribe reported that 82 percent of the voters believe the state needs to look for new and But the poll also found that voters did not support legalization of Internet poker as a means to accomplish this goal.

In the EMC survey, 44 percent of those responding “strongly opposed” state legalization of Internet poker while 17 percent “somewhat opposed” it.

Fourteen percent “strongly supported” and 24 percent “somewhat supported” legalized online poker in California.
Many tribes, particularly those in the Palm Springs area, which are located in close proximity to the Morongo Casino, remained neutral in their opinions of legalized Internet poker.

A majority of members of the California Indian Nations Gaming Association (CNIGA)—an association of 36 tribes, including Morongo—voted in favor of a resolution "To support the concept in principle of a joint venture enterprise between California tribes and licensed card rooms to offer online intrastate internet poker and to proceed with further analysis."

Will California Have In-State Online Poker?

2009-08-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

California’s Morongo Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians, which owns the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa (pictured left) just west of Palm Springs, is spearheading an effort to enact legislation that would allow Californians to play poker online, thus legalizing Intranet poker in the Golden State.

The tribe argues that online poker in California will generate much-needed revenue for the cash-starved state, while providing far superior protection for players than the current level of protection offered by unregulated, offshore sites.

Under the proposal, the Morongo tribe and others would run a joint venture online poker operation with several Los Angeles-area card clubs. The state would get a percentage of the winnings, though the exact amount has yet to be determined.

Money Always Talks, But in a Bad Economy it Shouts!

"It's a way to head off competition," said Morongo spokesman Patrick Dorinson to the Desert Sun newspaper. He added, "This would be a game for Californians run by Californians. In a state strapped for cash, this will definitely bring in revenue."

Morongo hooked up with the Commerce Casino and other tribes to form a new group—the “California Tribal Intrastate Internet Poker Consortium LLC.”

Some California Tribes Favor it. Some Don't. Others Straddle the Fence

But rival tribes say this endeavor could jeopardize tribal gambling in California. Morongo’s proposal squares them off against other tribes, specifically those holding membership in the California Tribal Business Alliance (CTBA). Some other tribes have taken a wait-and-see neutral stance, at least for the time being.

The Viejas Band of Mission Indians, which owns a casino just east of San Diego, opposes it—as do other San Diego tribes, such as the Pala and Pauma Bands of Mission Indians. Tribes in the Palm Springs area are neutral. The Desert Sun quotes Alva Johnson, director of government affairs and public relations for Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, as saying, “We are still studying the proposal and do not have a position at this time.”

Michael Lombardi, of the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, expressed his neutrality, although he added, “We're opposed to widespread Internet gaming” put under the control of the U.S. Treasury, as proposed at the federal level.

The Governor Hasn't Taken a Position ... Yet

While the tribes are lining up on all sides of the fence, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the matter, and it’s probably a little early for him to stake out a position. After all, the bill that would make this happen is still underdevelopment and has not yet found a sponsor to introduce it when California’s legislature returns from their summer recess in a few days.

In a blog post four days ago I mentioned that Robert H. Smith, Chairman of the California Tribal Business Alliance, a lobbying group representing seven member tribes, wrote to members of the California Legislature, saying, “While there is no bill on the subject currently, we expect a proposal to surface shortly that will allow card clubs and California Indian tribes the exclusive right to operate an internet card game gambling web site.”His letter added, “Card game gambling on the internet would take business away from brick and mortar casinos. Card clubs and casinos provide jobs and tax revenue for the local communities where they are located. Online wagering does not.”

The Law Does Not Prohibit Intrastate Online Gaming

When Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 and prohibited banks and credit card companies from transferring money for Internet gambling, they left the door open for states to allow online gambling within a state's boundaries.

George Forman, a lawyer working with the Morongo tribal council to draft this legislation, said there is nothing in federal law that prohibits a tribe from participating in state-authorized gaming outside the tribe's Indian lands. According to Forman, “The Sault Ste. Marie tribe in Michigan did just that when it bought an interest in Greektown Casino in Detroit.”

Morongo spokesman Patrick Dorinson has said that the bill will provide a cleaner, safer version of what is now a business run by unregulated foreign operators.

Some Tribes Claim This Law Violates a Promise Made by the Tribes to the People of California

Nevertheless, David Quintana, the legislative director for the California Tribal Business Alliance, said that allowing Internet poker in California would violate a promise tribes made to voters to keep gambling within Indian reservations. "This opens up gambling anywhere,” he said. “There's no tie to Indian land, and that's not what we promised voters in the state of California."

With no official legislation, not even an author for the bill—only a lot of drafts floating around—and the legislature not yet back in session, it’s far too early to predict how this will wind up. But if a bill is introduced that gains traction in California’s legislature, look for a lot of fighting between the tribes lining up in support of this bill and those standing in opposition.

Follow the Money

We’ll keep you apprised as this begins to sort itself out. As is the case with a lot of gambling legislation, the best way to figure things out is to follow the money.

A new "Durrr Challenge." This time it's in person!

2009-08-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

With his original, 50,000 hand online, multi-table challenge against Patrik Antonius seemingly stalled at the halfway point against, Tom "durrr" Dwan (pictured right) announced a new Durrr Challenge—and this time it will be played up-close and personal, in a brick-and-mortar casino.

The new one, entitled the "Durrr Million Dollar Challenge," will be a lot easier to play and complete than the Durrr vs. Antonius uber-marathon 50,000-hand, online, multi-table event. The new live challenge match will run 500 hands, and feature a $500,000 buy-in with blinds of $500-$1,000. Neither player can leave the contest until 500 hands are reached or a player is down to the felt.

Dwan’s opponent will be Sammy "Any Two" George, a London businessman who’s aptly named, and is famous for playing any two cards. Although comparatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic, he appears regularly on UK poker shows like Poker Million and The Big Game.

The Durrr Million Dollar Challenge is slated to take place in London during September. While the 50,000 hand Durrr vs. Antonius marathon may not be finished by December—if that early—a 500-hand match should take no more than 15 hours to complete, which I estimated based on 35 hands per hour.

So if they go at it in one fell swoop, the new Durrr Challenge could be played in one long day of poker. If they want a more sensible pace along with a good night’s sleep, they’ll be able to finish this match in a weekend.

Be A Guest on my Radio Show Contest is Underway

2009-08-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I announced a contest on my Internet radio show, Keep Flopping Aces, which airs each and every Thursday evening at 9 p.m. Eastern Time (6 p.m. Pacific Time). The winner will be a guest on my show and we'll discuss poker for an entire hour. In addition, I'll also send the winner an autographed book.

If you'd like to be a guest on my show, just send me an email telling me the following:

1. Why you want to be a guest. (a short paragraph, please)

2. Why you would be a good choice as a radio guest. (another short paragraph)

3. List four to six topics you want to talk about on the air.

The list need not be extensive. A few sentences or just some bullet points about each of the topics will suffice,

So far I've gotten more responses than I anticipated, and there are quite a few that are promising. But I'm not going to make my decision yet. I'll let it run at least another week and probably two more weeks, so you still have a chance to enter. I’ll contact the winner and we’ll decide on a convenient date for an on-air appearance. I'll announce it on the air, and then we'll do the show.

Send your entry to: loukrieger@aol.com. Please put “radio contest” in the subject line so I don’t ditch it accidentally, and be sure to nclude any pertinent contact details in your email.

That’s all there is to it. If you are chosen you’ll get an hour on the air and an autographed book, and a podcast you can download and keep forever.

Does Online Poker Steal Business From Traditional Casinos?

2009-08-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

In a letter to members of the California Legislature, Robert H. Smith, Chairman of the California Tribal Business Alliance, a lobbying group representing seven member tribes, wrote:

“While there is no bill on the subject currently, we expect a proposal to surface shortly that will allow card clubs and California Indian tribes the exclusive right to operate an internet card game gambling web site.”

Smith goes on to say, “Card game gambling on the internet would take business away from brick and mortar casinos. Card clubs and casinos provide jobs and tax revenue for the local communities where they are located. Online wagering does not. The potential is there for the same kind of economic undercutting experienced by local retailers when online shopping becomes popular.”

He cuts to his version of the chase by saying, “Card game gambling on the internet would take business away from brick and mortar casinos.” But this argument, which has been employed so many times before, just never seems to pan out.

I don’t know anyone who plays online and chooses to do so rather than play in a live game. Most online players use the internet because they can play multiple tables simultaneously—in which case there’s no real competition between what’s offered online and in person; they’re really totally different products—or they play online because they have neither the large block of time required to drive to a casino, wait around for an open seat, play, and then drive home again, or they play online because they simply don’t live anywhere near a brick and mortar casino.

I’ve yet to hear anyone decide to forgo their annual vacation in Las Vegas because they’d rather stay home and play poker online. For many, live poker offers a social interaction that simply can’t be had in cyberspace, and for them, it makes live games preferable to playing online, regardless of how much multi-tabling they have to give up when playing live.

I understand that the tribes don’t want to lose their lucrative casino business, but to me, this is a false issue and a specious argument. In my opinion, just the opposite is true.

Playing online drives players who cut their poker teeth on the internet to traditional casinos. It doesn’t cause them to stay away because they chose to play cyberpoker instead. One doesn’t have to look any further than the phenomenal growth of the WSOP, a growth fueled by online players, to see that online poker and traditional casino poker help each other. They are not competing for the same dollar.