Absolute Anticlimax

There was an item of news in the poker world last week, the sort of thing about which I might have written several blog posts had it occurred five or six years ago. After all, it was about an online poker site -- two sites, actually -- and cheating and scandal and illegality and all sorts of things your humble scribbler used to spend lots of time and energy opining about back in the day.

It has taken me a whole week even to acknowledge the story, though. Probably because it doesn’t affect me directly at all, and for those it does affect it has come so late as to make it seem we are in a place almost entirely distinct from where we all were when the story began.

It’s like one of those way, way, way late sequels. Or when a band who after shining brightly when young get back together many years later to try to reignite things with new material.

One of my faves, Robyn Hitchcock, actually has a new album out today (and the tracks I’ve heard are terrific). His old band, the Soft Boys, did one of those reunion records in the early 2000s about two decades after they’d split, and in an interview once he referred to it as “a bit of reactivating the undead by bringing back” and reanimating the band for that one-off.

That’s kind of how it feels writing about Absolute Poker and UltimateBet again, this time to report that almost six years after “Black Friday” -- the anniversary for which just passed -- players who had funds on Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and never were able to withdraw them are finally getting a chance to get that money back.

This has to be the slowest of any slow play in poker history.

For those keeping score, there were three sites named in the indictment and civil complaint unsealed on April 15, 2011 by the Department of Justice -- PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker -- with a fourth site, UltimateBet, then part of the “Cereus Network” along with Absolute, similarly affected by the DOJ’s action.

All four sites were subsequently prohibited from allowing players from the United States to continue playing on them. PokerStars shut us off right away. It took Full Tilt Poker an extra couple of days, but soon we got the stop-you-can’t-go-any-further pop-ups over there, too.

Both of those sites also made agreements with the feds right away to get back their domains (after they were momentarily seized). Those agreements involved ensuring funds went to the Americans, something PokerStars did immediately, but Full Tilt Poker never did, having shamefully squandered everyone’s money.

Eventually that led to the DOJ amending the civil complaint in September 2011 with further charges against Full Tilt Poker and new names added, and branding the site a “ponzi scheme” in an accompanying presser.

It took AP and UB a couple of extra weeks to make a similar agreement with the DOJ. Meanwhile, the sites blithely continued to allow U.S. players to play more than a month later (without their having any means of withdrawing). Finally both sites totally shut down -- not just to U.S. players, but the “ROW”-ers, too (rest of world) -- and as was the case with FTP no one was able to cash out a cent.

During the summer of 2012 PokerStars managed another deal with the DOJ, paying a big settlement that included acquiring Full Tilt Poker’s assets and making available outstanding FTP balances to U.S. players. Stars then reopened Full Tilt in November 2012 (outside the U.S., natch). Last year the two sites’ player pools were merged as one.

The reimbursement process was lengthy. I took part in it, finally getting my Full Tilt Poker funds in June 2014, more than three years after being shut out of the site.

(Incidentally, I’m convinced that by going through the withdrawal process which required me to submit bank account information to the DOJ in order to receive my funds, Fifth Third bank chose to close my account without warning and with zero explanation, very likely encouraged to do so by a DOJ initiative called “Operation Choke Point.”)

Anyhow, to get back to those rogue Cereus sites, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, up until last week it appeared as though anyone with funds on those two sites at the time they went offline were never going to see that money again. Suddenly, though, came an announcement that a process similar to the one by which Full Tilt Poker players were able to recover their funds had begun for those who had money in accounts when Absolute Poker and UltimateBet closed up their respective scam-sites.

Am glad for those affected, although truthfully I can’t say I’ve had a lot of empathy for them during their six-year-long plight. That’s because not only did I not have any money on either AP or UB, I’d withdrawn from both at the first whiff of the insider cheating scandal on one of them (Absolute) in October 2007.

For those coming to all of this well after the fact, you can search this blog for “Absolute Poker” or “UltimateBet” and find plenty. This post from February 2008 links to a lot of other articles about the Absolute scandal, while this one from May 2008 is an early one among many relating details of the even bigger scandal that erupted on UB.

Also, if all of this is only vaguely familiar to you or if you aren’t up at all on the story of “Black Friday” and its aftermath, I wrote an article a year ago for PokerNews describing a lot of it in detail: “Black Friday: Reliving Poker’s Darkest Day Five Years Later.”

Just prior to Black Friday, UltimateBet in particular had somehow crept its way back into the limelight by signing a lot of “team pros” some of whom did work to rehabilitate the site’s post-scandal image. As it soon turned out, whatever the spokespersons’ intentions might have been at the time, it was all incredibly damaging to the poker community and, truthfully, to the subsequently dim prospects for online poker in the U.S.

This news regarding Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and the unveiling of the website where claims can be made by players (through June 9, 2017) took many by surprise, and I noticed a couple of articles describing it having come from “out of nowhere.”

I also saw some attempts to connect the DOJ’s decision to start the process with Preet Bharara’s headline-grabbing dismissal along with a number of other U.S. Attorneys by the Trump administration last month. Bharara, for those who don’t know, was the one who brought the charges against the founders of the implicated sites (and others) that were unsealed on Black Friday. He was also the one who called Full Tilt Poker a “ponzi scheme.”

Truthfully, it seems more likely that the news is more directly connected to Absolute Poker founder Scott Tom -- one of those named in the indictment and civil complaint -- having finally returned to the U.S. in February to face the charges against him. (Tom pleaded not guilty.)

Whatever prompted it, I’m sure the players are glad about it. To me it’s all the faintest hint of a whisper of an echo of a story finally lumbering, zombie-like, toward a much-belated anticlimax. And like Robyn Hitchcock was saying, it feels a bit like reactivating the undead to write about it.

The DFS “Scandal” and Online Poker’s Past

Late last week I was following a few tweets and read a post on what appeared to be a yet-to-explode forum thread regarding this story about a DraftKings employee accidentally releasing ownership data for the Week 3 NFL games during the afternoon that Sunday, including ownership for games that hadn’t started yet.

The post appeared on the RotoGrinders site in a forum thread titled “DraftKings Ownership Leak.” Like I say, the thread didn’t seem to have gotten much attention, although if I remember correctly subsequent posts (which I don’t see today) made it seem like the thread might have been locked early.

The first response (that remains) was from someone at RotoGrinders saying he was talking to a person named Ethan at DK who was about to post a statement. The RotoGrinders guy defends Ethan and DraftKings. Then Ethan’s statement appears, and he explains how “I was the only person with this data and as a DK employee am not allowed to play on the site.” An innocuous-seeming, nothing-to-see-here-please-disperse kind of exchange.

This back-and-forth sat there quietly for a couple of days, but over weekend Twitter picked up the story in a big way, and by yesterday it had developed considerably with more details about the data leak as well as information about the employee Ethan Haskell’s successes on the rival FanDuel site, including a massive $350,000 win for finishing second in FD’s $5M NFL Sunday Million during Week 3. More on Haskell himself has been made more generally known as well, including his position at DK (Written Content Manager) and his previous experience as a content editor for a couple of years at RotoGrinders (perhaps explaining the RG guy’s defense of him in the thread).

It should be noted that there is no evidence that Haskell used any of the info he accidentally leaked to help him land the big prize in the FD contest (or in other games). In any event, the story has now ballooned into a larger discussion about daily fantasy sports, in particular about potential problems with game integrity.

Legal Sports Report has been a good site to follow for coverage of the many issues arising with this story as well as other DFS-related topics. This article from the weekend titled “DraftKings Lineup Leak Rocks Daily Fantasy Industry: Questions and Answers” provides details of the original story, a full explanation of why “insider” knowledge of DFS player ownership data ahead of time can provide a huge edge, and other issues having to do with the sites’ policies and current lack of regulation. The article also includes new statements from both DraftKings and FanDuel from Monday about their intentions to review their “internal controls” and policies.

The story has now moved into the mainstream as well, with even The New York Times reporting on it yesterday in “Scandal Erupts in Unregulated World of Fantasy Sports.” Thanks in large part to the highly conspicuous blitz of television advertising by both DFS and FD, the topic of daily fantasy sports is no longer interesting just to those who play but to others, too, who have been inundated so aggressively with all the ads.

Those of us who were involved with online poker when it first appeared and began to grow in popularity can’t help but notice several parallels seeming to emerge with regard to this story.

Like with DFS, online poker was around for a few years before suddenly catching fire. Planet Poker was the first online site to deal real money games, doing so on January 1, 1998. A little over five years later came the first episodes of the World Poker Tour, then Chris Moneymaker’s win at the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event, and then the “boom,” generally speaking.

Last week I noted the anniversary of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, a piece of legislation that interestingly has had the dual significance of helping jettison online poker from the U.S. while introducing a means for what has now evolved into the DFS industry to be introduced. The first DFS site (Fantasy Sports Live) went live in June 2007, with that industry’s “boom” (as it were) also not occurring until several years later.

As online poker grew more popular, the potential for scandals began to grow as well with much discussion about possible industry-threatening problems on the horizon. Lots of stories about collusion, ghosting, multi-accounting, and other violations of sites’ terms and conditions were circulating, as were instances of player funds being lost with the boom-preceding PokerSpot controversy the biggest early example to occur.

Then on September 12, 2007 a player going by the username POTRIPPER won the $100K Guarantee on Absolute Poker after correctly calling an opponent’s final hand all-in with just ten-high. My first reaction -- chronicled in a post here a week-and-a-half later -- was to wonder about AP getting hacked somehow or perhaps there having been an “inside job.” As we would come to learn, the latter was indeed the case, something AP would initially try to cover up (thereby making the scandal worse). The story then quickly took off in a big way both within the poker world and in the mainstream (including an article in The New York Times).

The loser of that crazy ten-high hand versus POTRIPPER was poker pro Marco Johnson who emailed AP afterwards to request hand histories from the tournament. Johnson didn’t initially study the response, but after buzz about the hand and other possible shenanigans at AP had begun to build he went back to look at those hand histories again and discovered something remarkable. Not only were his hole cards listed, but so, too, were the hole cards of all the other players. The hand histories then became a “break in the case” helping prove POTRIPPER was able to see others’ hole cards and a first step in unraveling the “superuser” scandal.

The larger superuser scandal that would follow at AP sister site UltimateBet (a story that first broke in early 2008) would similarly start out focusing on a single player -- “NioNio” -- who won at an insanely high rate on UB right up until the week the AP scandal broke at which time the player suddenly disappeared from UB. (That scatter plot graph above created by Michael Josem famously illustrated NioNio’s dominance.) Other suspicious accounts were then identified, and the story and scandal got bigger and bigger from there, never being truly resolved (despite former UB part-owner and representative Phil Hellmuth’s revisionist claims to the contrary).

At least a few parallels can be seen here -- an accidental “leak” of information by a site suddenly opening the door to closer scrutiny and suggestions of wrongdoing, a focus on “insider” information allegedly helping an employee to win (in the DFS case by going onto a different site to play), and remarkably high win rates inspiring accusations of an imbalance in the playing field.

The unambiguous advantage of seeing others’ hole cards and the less obvious advantage of having access to ownership data before games close in DFS perhaps don’t seem analgous (to most of us). But those who understand DFS strategy and how the games work have persuasively put forward the parallel. Again, this issue isn’t unrelated to other ones affecting the game, including the huge knowledge gap between number-crunching DFS regs and everyone else, something that is also akin to what we’ve often talked about in online poker where third-party software and other aids have created a significant advantage for a segment of full-timers over those who don’t benefit from the information provided by such tools.

Online poker survived (and mostly continued to thrive) despite the AP and UB scandals, with the sites themselves even able to remain in operation until both collapsed post-Black Friday (resulting in another huge loss of players’ funds). There continued to be serious problems with game integrity thereafter, of course, and the Black Friday indictment and civil complaint would dramatically demonstrate even larger issues for the industry.

I’m actually not quite ready to join the torch-carrying crowd currently storming the gates of DFS. I will say, though, as someone already not hugely inspired to get involved with DFS, recent developments are hardly encouraging me to give it an earnest try.

That said, knowing how similar things unfolded and turned out with online poker, it will be curious to see where the faster-moving DFS “scandal” goes next.

Listening Back to Back in the Day

There’s a lot that’s interesting swirling around with regard to online poker and where it’s going these days. (Or not going, if you’re here in the U.S.)

But that’s standard -- that is, for there to be all sorts of stories, scoops, sensations, and scandals associated with the online version of the game. Has been the case ever since I started writing this blog more than eight-and-a-half years ago.

In fact today I took a break from reading the latest to look back a little at some of the issues being discussed not long after I started this sucker, thanks in part to my having randomly happened on a folder on an old computer full of poker podcasts.

The shows are all from late 2007 and early 2008, back when I remember having to download podcasts in order to hear them. That above is a crude screenshot of the folder -- if you’re curious you can click the pic to enlarge it. Looks like more than 40 different shows represented in the folder. Just by chance I decided to dial up one from exactly seven years ago today -- the 12/2/07 episode of “Big Poker Sundays” hosted by Scott Huff and Haralobos Voulgaris which aired on the now-defunct PokerRoad site.

The show covered various topics of the day, including a story about an infamous instance of “ghosting” involving the soon-to-be-let-go Managing Editor of BLUFF, Chris Vaughn, and Sorel Mizzi. Shane “shaniac” Schleger called in, too, to talk more about the state of online poker including current worries about multi-accounting, ghosting, and what was then a recent development regarding cheating on Absolute Poker. (I was even surprised to hear a quick reference to Hard-Boiled Poker in there, something I hadn’t remembered at all.)

Listening to the show sent me back to some articles online as well as some old posts here, including this post written the day after the BPS show that mentions some of what was discussed. Think I’ll probably next have to back up a few weeks with these and listen again to the first discussions of the Absolute Poker cheating scandal as it was just starting to break.

Speaking of, during my clicking around through some old HBP posts I landed on this one from February 2008 compiling lots of early articles about AP. Talk about a rabbit hole.

I’ll spare you all the little twists and turns I’ve been clicking my way through tonight, though will say I had a chuckle over this article (from mid-September ’07) from someone expressing utter disbelief that any cheating could have happened on the site, as well as this follow-up (written a week later) adamantly confirming that position, then adding the following:

“I've also spoken with an anonymous source who has had contact with individuals at Ultimate Bet and a few other sites, who notes that no such super user exists on those sites, either. Why, then, would Absolute Poker be the lone site that finds a need to create a super user?”

The “Very American” Story of Online Poker

I mentioned yesterday how I’d started my class once again, that American Studies course called “Poker in American Film and Culture.” I’ve taught it several times now, and each semester am adding certain readings, moving others off the “required” list and onto a “recommend” one. I’ve also been gradually accumulating more and more examples of poker in film, showing different clips in class along the way to emphasize various topics we cover.

One scene I know I’ll be showing at some point this time around is from the 1968 film The Odd Couple which I just wrote about in a new “Pop Poker” piece for PokerListings.

I also noted in yesterday’s post how we begin the semester reading an excerpt from Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats by Al Alvarez, taken from the first chapter titled “The American Game.” It is a neat way to kick off the whole discussion or “argument” of the course that poker is distinctly “American” and thus worth studying as a way to learn more about American history and culture. Reading the excerpt also introduces Alvarez to the students, whom we’ll read again later on when we pick up The Biggest Game in Town.

By talking about the syllabus, reading that Alvarez excerpt, and then soon after starting James McManus’ Cowboys Full (from which we’ll read a lot during the first few weeks), we quickly gather lots of examples of so-called “American” values or ideals. Thus do we focus a lot at the start on ideas and concepts like freedom, liberty, equality, democracy, capitalism, self-reliance, the “frontier spirit,” the “American dream,” the importance of being rewarded for one’s work, and the inclination to take risks and gamble. And how poker could be regarded as a game that neatly reflects or is shaped by all of these ideas and concepts.

Of course, when we use the adjective “American” in class we do it in the context of academic inquiry, not jingoistic sloganeering. That is to say, it is understood that while there is much that is great about the U.S., not everything that is “American” is automatically “good.” There are a lot of things about the country and American culture that aren’t necessarily admirable, and some of those less than admirable characteristics also find their way into poker.

Speaking of The Odd Couple, Alvarez includes in his chapter that great Walter Matthau quote about how “the game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.” The quote points out in an humorous way how there are both positive and negative aspects to the game and the country.

I found myself thinking further about referring to something as “American” as a kind of uncritical defense when I heard Ben Mezrich, author of Bringing Down the House (about the MIT blackjack team) and The Accidental Billionaires (about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook), talking on CNBC about his plans to write “a big new book for next summer” that appears to cover the rise and fall of Absolute Poker. Mezrich appeared on the panel show Squawk Box as a guest host, and while there was given a chance to talk about his own writings, past and future.

Mezrich enthusiastically characterized the story as being “about a bunch of college kids who launched the online poker world out of a dorm room essentially” -- kind of a nutty, highly misleading thing to say about the AP guys who hardly “launched” online poker, having come into it years after its beginnings.

Mezrich continued, revealing he has a strange take on the story’s principals, too. “They’re brilliant kids who built an empire in a way, and now they’re being persecuted, hiding in Antigua or whatever, and because they did something to me that was very American,” said Mezrich. “It’s an intersection of 21 and The Social Network,” he added, alluding to film adaptations of his two best-known books.

The misleading here becomes more grievous, I’m afraid. Those “brilliant kids” now being unjustly “persecuted” are the same ones who were involved in the original superuser scandals and subsequent cover-ups, the bilking of millions from investors, various forms of bank and wire fraud, violating the UIGEA, and the failure to return player funds following Black Friday.

Hardly heroes, in other words, although it sounds like Mezrich might be angling towards shaping them into such with his version of the story. See Haley Hintze’s response to Mezrich’s weird take here, as well as this article on PokerFuse that notes how Mezrich may himself in fact have ties to the AP “frat boys” that might be influencing both his decision to write about them and how he’s approaching the task.

Mezrich describes AP’s founders as having done something “very American,” a superficial defense of the entrepreneurial urge that motivated them to build their “empire.” But clearly there was an abundance of unchecked greed there, too, perhaps also an “American” trait though here pursued to the point of abandoning morality and engaging in criminal behavior damaging to many, many others.

Mezrich certainly seems to be glossing over (or missing altogether) some obvious points in the story in this early, abridged pitch of his book. We’ll see where Mezrich goes with his project, which obviously could change. After all, as the Absolute Poker frat boys well demonstrated, things don’t always go as originally planned.

I will give him this much, though -- there is perhaps something “very American” about the story of online poker’s rise and fall in the U.S., as well as the stories of some of the more nefarious characters in that narrative.

I think when I use the phrase my meaning is a little different, though.

A Man-Made Monster is On the Loose! (Black Friday)

We keep talking about Black Friday. And we will for a long time to come, too.

Headlines yesterday regarding Brent Beckley, one of the 11 targeted as part of the “Black Friday” indictment and civil complaint unsealed back on April 15. Beckley pleaded guilty to a couple of the counts against him -- conspiracy to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. Here’s the DoJ’s press release announcing Beckley’s plea.

As Haley Hintze points out over on the Kick Ass Poker blog, Beckley wasn’t exactly one of the founders of Absolute Poker -- as was his stepbrother, the also-indicted AP founder Scott Tom -- although he did come in early on and served as the director of payment processing. Beckley now likely faces up 12-18 months imprisonment (or more) while also being made to give up $300,000. His sentencing isn’t scheduled to happen until April 2012.

Stuart Hoegner (a.k.a. “Gaming Counsel”) has a new blog post over on Pokerati in which he discusses Beckley’s deal, interpreting its terms to suggest that Beckley may not be cooperating with the DoJ in quite the same way another of those indicted on “Black Friday,” the payment processor Bradley Franzen (who pleaded guilty to three counts back in May) might be.

Meanwhile, two other “Black Friday” defendants -- Chad Elie (another payment processor) and John Campos (former Vice Chairman of the Board and part owner of SunFirst Bank in Utah) are fighting the charges at this point, having filed a motion earlier this month to have the charges against them dismissed. (See Subject:Poker’s report on that motion.) That probably ain’t gonna happen, meaning that barring any deal those two will be going to trial in March 2012.

One other indicted on “Black Friday,” the payment processor Ira Rubin, was arrested back in late April in Guatemala. I believe he’s still in custody and is apparently nearing some sort of plea agreement.

It seems doubtful at present that any of the others indicted will be coming to the U.S. either to make pleas or fight the charges against them any time soon. Those include Isai Scheinberg (PokerStars founder), Paul Tate (Director of Payments for Pokerstars), Ray Bitar (CEO of TiltWare/Full Tilt Poker), Nelson Burtwick (Director of Payments for TiltWare), Scott Tom (of AP), and Ryan Lang (another payment processor), all of whom remain “offshore” like the sites with which they are associated.

Remember the separate civil complaint targeting the sites -- the one amended back in September to add more allegations against Full Tilt Poker as well as the names/accounts of Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst -- seeks the forfeiture of a big bunch of cabbage (i.e., $3 billion) but isn’t bringing criminal charges or aiming to imprison anyone.

Also worth remembering is the fact that the still-pending deal involving Group Bernard Tapie and FTP -- the one “brokered” by the DoJ (and on which the DoJ hasn’t really commented, as far as I know) -- involves dismissing those civil claims against FTP but doesn’t affect the “Black Friday” indictment or amended civil complaint.

We’re coming to the end of 2011, and thus instinctively are encouraged to look back and think about the year’s top stories in poker. Obviously Black Friday will be topping all such lists this time around.

But really, just about every poker-related story from 2011 is going to be related in some fashion to the sudden shutdown of the online game in the U.S. following the events of April 15. Probably most of them in 2012, too.

UB Data Leak

At some point within the last couple of weeks, a large amount of information concerning player accounts on UltimateBet was made available on the web. The information was contained in a number of Excel and text files -- like 150 or so -- and could be downloaded by anyone in possession of the URL.

The files are all dated around the middle of last month. Late last week someone posted a link to the page on the Two Plus Two forums, then deleted the post just a few minutes later. However, a small number of people -- including the moderators at 2+2 -- were able to obtain the URL and get a look at what the files contain.

One of those mods, Noah Stephens-Davidowitz, reported the leak on Subject:Poker early Friday evening. Haley Hintze got a look at the files and posted about them on her blog on Saturday afternoon. And Todd “Dandruff” Witteles (formerly of NeverWinPoker / DonkDown) also saw the files and shared an analysis on his new site.

The page linking to the files was taken down late Saturday, was back up again briefly early this morning, and is now down again. If you’re curious about what information is contained in the files, take a look at those three linked-to articles mentioned above. While there is certainly information most of us wouldn’t want spread around too liberally -- e.g., date of birth, mailing address, email address, phone number -- there doesn’t appear to be any specifics such as bank info, social security numbers, or the like contained in the files.

There’s some mystery about who is responsible for the leak (a rogue customer service employee?) as well as the possible reasons for the data having been sorted and assembled in this way (to sell to spammers?).

As Haley points out in her post, while some alarm is being expressed about this leak (e.g., in a new Two Plus Two thread started in response to the S:P article), it is not as though information provided to online poker sites hasn’t already been shared or sold or otherwise “leaked” around many times over. As Haley explains, “Most players are just commodities to the online sites. That’s the real why and how of it. Your data is secure as long as the site rakes in money, but once the squeeze comes, all bets are off, and anything that can be grabbed and sold is usually fair game.”

As I’ve written about here before, I had accounts on both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet.

I opened my AP account in October 2006, just a few days after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law. It was right about that time that the company that owned AP bought out the company that owned UB. Talk then suggested the player bases would be consolidated, but instead AP and UB continued to operate independently. (It was not until July 2008 that the two sites would start touting themselves as the “Cereus network.”)

Then in August 2007, AP and UB offered to allow players to move funds back and forth between accounts on both sites. In early September 2007, I decided to do just that and moved some money from my AP account over into a new one on UB.

Within weeks the insider cheating scandal at Absolute Poker became public, and I immediately decided to withdraw all of my funds from both AP and UB. Getting my money out of AP was simple enough, but I had a hell of a time getting my measly roll off of UB. I finally did get my funds, but not after enduring a lot of frustration and absurdity first, details of which I shared in a post titled “UB Kidding Me.”

Shortly thereafter I began posting fairly frequently about the Absolute Poker scandal while also suggesting neither AP nor UB were sites to be trusted. Then in early March 2008 the UltimateBet scandal first hit the fan in a big way.

Thus I had an active AP account for a little over a year, and one on UB for just a couple of months. Just as with other online poker sites, I never gave either AP or UB any information I wasn’t comfortable sharing (e.g., I never gave credit card numbers, bank account numbers, my SSN, etc.).

Since Black Friday, the Full Tilt Poker fiasco has mostly eclipsed the equally-bad-for-poker mess that was/is AP/UB. Whereas the two Cereus networks had previously been the standard for dishonesty and fraud in online poker, FTP has swiftly evolved into the industry’s current benchmark for the-worst-it-can-get.

Thus while a few are anxious about it, the general outcry at the UB customer info leak has seemed mostly muted. I agree that it isn’t as though we should be all that surprised at the news that online poker sites have sold our information if there were a buck to made from it. But I do think this latest development should be remembered and included in the long list of ways UB managed to screw over its players. And the game.

Does kind of recall late 2007-early 2008 writing about this, though. Back when cheating and scandal in online poker was still relatively new. And for many, still something that seemed like it could be dismissed.

Amazing Grace?

There are so many jawdropping twists and turns in this Absolute Poker/UltimateBet (or “UB”) story, nothing surprises us anymore. Not really.

I’m remembering just a little over a week ago, just after Haley Hintze shared with us that eyebrow-raising email exchange between UB COO Paul Leggett and Olman Rimola, operational head of the Costa Rica IDS office, sending out a koan-like tweet in response:

“Amazed at UB/AP's infinite capacity to amaze. #headasplode”

Was primarily intending to communicate there that even after everything else -- the cheating, the cover-ups, the relentlessly ironic PR machinations (not to mention a plane transporting millions of dollars crashing, the sex scandal, federal raids, and other international intrigues) -- it was a little surprising to discover yet another episode could successfully evoke a reaction, both in myself and in others. Hard not to feel a little sheepish after being amazed again and again and again by these guys.

We’ve now heard AP/UB has finally reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice concerning the return of funds to U.S. players. Both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker had done so previously, although the nature of their agreements differed in a few particulars, including that the PS & FTP ones included the return of domains (which the AP/UB agreement does not).

As far as cashing out goes, I’m in the same situation I imagine most of you are. I’ve successfully cashed out from PokerStars, having received my funds. (I requested a paper check, which came this week and which I was able to deposit without worry.) I’m still waiting like everyone else regarding Full Tilt Poker. Meanwhile, I haven’t done any business with Absolute Poker or UB since late 2007, but continue to follow the increasingly panicky exchanges among those who have.

By the way, for some good explanation and analysis of the various issues in play regarding player cashouts and the three sites, see Grange95’s lengthy breakdown, “Regulation, Segregation, and a 
Cereus Case of Déjà Vu.” Bill Rini’s post titled “Player Account Segregation Explained” provides further insight as well into what he thinks is going on with regard to Full Tilt Poker and AP/UB.

In any event, the agreement between AP/UB and the U.S. Attorney’s Office is similar to the previous ones with Stars and Tilt in that it explicitly requires that the sites “will not allow for, facilitate, or provide the ability for players located in the United States to engage in playing online poker for ‘real money’ or any other thing of value.”

The AP/UB agreement is dated May 4th, yet U.S. players continue to play in real money games on both sites as late as today (Friday, May 13th). There’s a provision regarding monitoring for compliance with the agreement’s terms -- put simply, AP/UB is charged with hiring a “Monitor” (who must be independent and meet with the feds’ approval) who will submit Compliance Reports to the DOJ. The first report is due within 45 days of the “Monitor” being retained, although it is unclear when the deadline is for that to happen (it must be by “a date solely within the discretion of” the U.S. Attorney’s office).

If "a Compliance Report identifies a defect” in AP/UB’s “internal controls” that violates the agreement’s terms, AP/UB "shall have ten (10) calendar days to cure the defect" from the date of the report.

All of which is to say, AP/UB is clearly violating the agreement -- right now -- but I suppose it may take some time for the violation to get officially reported. And, I suppose the DOJ could allow for a correction once the violation is reported, although they are obviously under no obligation to do so.

Is AP/UB counting on enjoying a brief, technicality-based “grace period” or some such here? Would be amazing to think that the DOJ could possibly grant such, given the way the sites’ criminal activities are characterized the indictment and civil complaint.

Did I say amazing? Damn. It happened again.

(Thanks to Kevmath and PokerScout for helping me out with this one.)

Following the Story of the Story (AP & UB)

Yesterday there were a couple of poker-related news items that grabbed my attention. Yours too, probably. Both concerned the Cereus network’s terrible twins, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet.

One was the news that Haley Hintze has a deal with Dimat Enterprises to write a book covering the insider cheating scandals at the two sites.

Just about anyone who has heard of the scandals is aware that Hintze has been investigating this twisted, troubling tale for quite some time. Since they first started to appear in the fall of 2009, Hintze’s “Still Conjecturin’” posts regarding the scandals have been required reading for anyone with any interest in what happened (and has continued to happen) at AP and UB. As someone with such an interest -- and as a fan of detective stories! -- I can’t wait to read Hintze’s account.

I have a couple of other reasons for being excited about the news of Hintze’s forthcoming book. For one, I’ve long thought she was one of the better writers/thinkers in this little field, and so would be interested to read anything Hintze wrote, regardless of the subject. I’m also a fan of Dimat and Matthew Hilger (whom I had a chance to interview for Betfair back in April 2010). I’ve found books published by Dimat have been of consistently high quality both in terms of content and presentation, which makes me even more pleased about yesterday’s news.

See Hintze’s blog for more on the book announcement. Also, check out Hilger’s Internet Texas Hold’em site where a special thread has been set up for discussions about the book. Some fun title suggestions being batted back and forth there at the moment.

The other AP/UB news item from yesterday concerned the announcement that both sites were cutting loose all of their sponsored pros, which I believe includes one from AP (Trishelle Cannatella) and 10 from UB (Eric Baldwin, Brandon Cantu, Bryan Devonshire, Prahlad Friedman, Maria Ho, Scott Ian, Adam Levy, Tiffany Michelle, Joe Sebok, and Dave Stann). That news comes on the heels other stories regarding raids in Costa Rica, bankruptcy rumors, and what appears to be a steadily decreasing likelihood of players ever recovering funds from accounts on the two sites.

In the wake of that announcement, much of the subsequent focus yesterday afternoon fell upon Joe Sebok, who as both a UB sponsored pro and “media and operations consultant” for the site has drawn a great deal of attention from the poker community over the last year or so.

After a week of Twitter silence, Sebok penned a blog post yesterday in which he addressed the news of his parting with UB and reflected on his tenure with the site.

When Sebok first signed with UB, I wrote a post (“The Sebok Surprise”) in which I likened my impression of the move to sweating a friend who looked as though he might be misplaying a hand. Judging from yesterday’s post, it appears Sebok did just that. Sounds like his holding was never that strong, he thought he had more chips to play with than he did, and his read of others at the table was way, way off.

Sebok joined UB in September 2009, coincidentally right around the time Hintze started publishing her “Still Conjecturin’” posts. I suppose one could say that over the last 20 months both have been similarly motivated to publicize the story of the scandals.

But if it’s true both shared a similar goal, one was obviously much more efficient than the other when it came to achieving it.

The 24-Hour Poker News Cyclone

A ton happening over the last 24 hours in the poker world. Glad I’m not our buddy PKRGSSP trying to follow it all!

I mean, I wrote two posts yesterday -- one in which I fretted over my poker skills becoming atrophied the longer my break from cash game play extends (“My Mind Is Going... I Can Feel It...”), the other summarizing poker-related highlights from yesterday’s House hearing (“House Judiciary Committee Discusses Online Poker with U.S. Attorney General Holder”). And I could probably write at least three more today.

One would concern Federated Sports and Gaming announcing both its criteria for membership in its professional poker league and the first 218 players to qualify to participate in its inaugural season’s worth of tourneys, set to begin in August. FS+G Chairman Jeffrey Pollack and Executive Vice President and League Commissioner Annie Duke talked at length about the current status of the professional poker league with PokerNews yesterday.

With Black Friday having caused the cancellation of a number of poker shows as well as the nixing of Full Tilt Poker’s Onyx Cup, the FS+G’s poker league’s prospects for success may well have improved significantly over the past couple of weeks, particularly if those rumors about the FS+G having partnered with a major TV network (CBS?) to cover its events prove true.

Another post could discuss how more signs have surfaced that the Cereus network’s days are numbered -- and that players’ funds on Absolute Poker and UltimateBet could possibly be worth approximately the same as my enormous play money roll on PokerStars (sick brag).

See Bill Rini’s post from yesterday for further details about recent announcements, that internal memo from AP’s Executive Management Team that was leaked yesterday, and a letter to AP’s shareholders. Rini concludes that all of the evidence points to a strong likelihood that “UB players are going to get screwed” when it comes to cashing out.

Haley Hintze did some more “conjecturin’” yesterday, too, noting how that internal memo’s reference to the formation of a “much smaller company that is focused on continuing our non-US operations” could be part of a “ruse to buy time” for the execs to gather up what’s left of AP and hightail it outta Costa Rica.

Incidentally, let me share two bits of hilarity with regard to the AP/UB mess. One is Matt Kaufman’s inspired post from last week over on his blog, Poker Smell, titled “UB Cashout Options Revealed.” Some big grins there. The other I can’t share with you directly, unfortunately, but can only describe.

The panel on QuadJacks spent some time yesterday trying to get through to UB’s customer service. Upon being connected, an automated voice informed them the “estimated wait time” before speaking to a representative would be two minutes. The next notice was the wait would be three minutes (?). Then, two again. Then one. Then three! Then four, then five... on up to seven.

The whole sequence was laugh-out-loud funny to hear, not to mention an utterly perfect emblem of what UB has come to represent, I thought.

Finally, a third post might have focused on recent reports regarding the status of U.S.-based affiliates for both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

I’m not as deep into the affiliate game as some of my colleagues -- I was a little late (and too lethargic) to position myself to grab a slice of that pie -- so I’m not as in touch with the ins and outs of the online poker affiliate story.

It appears, though, as fun (and lucrative, for some) as that story has been, the final chapter is not going to be a pleasant one for the American affiliates, as evidenced by Pauly’s post (regarding PokerStars) and this note over on Rake360 (regarding Full Tilt).

Like I say, any of these topics might have been worth exploring in individual posts. But to be honest, I want to write about other things, including one last Lima story I’ve been trying to get to for a couple of weeks now. So I think I’ll put all of this other stuff aside for now and focus on telling that one, which barring any other late breaking stuff I’ll try to do tomorrow.

Meanwhile, follow them links above if yr curious to learn more about any of these stories from the last day in poker.

We Leave the Sites, the Sites Leave a Legacy

Like many, I cashed out my entire balance from PokerStars last Tuesday, requesting a check rather than do the direct transfer to my bank. I had always just requested checks before when withdrawing, so that seemed the way to go.

I have since heard many report that they received their transfers within two or three days of cashing out, news that bodes well for my check arriving. And clearing, for that matter.

And like many, I still have cabbage sitting over in my account on Full Tilt Poker, though only just a few hundy. I imagine you probably received that email from FTP last Friday, too, in which we were told the return of funds to American players was a “top priority” and that they’ll “have a further update for U.S. players next week.”

You’ll recall how a few days after seizing the pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com domains, the Department of Justice entered into “domain-use agreements” with Stars and Tilt “to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in account with the companies.” Meanwhile, no such agreement has been reached with either Absolute Poker or UltimateBet regarding the absolutepoker.com, ultimatebet.com, and ub.com domains.

I had no funds on either Absolute Poker or UltimateBet. I did have accounts on both sites for a short time -- accounts which I opened after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 forced sites like PartyPoker and others on which I played to stop taking U.S. players’ bets.

But I withdrew my money from Absolute in October 2007, shortly after news of an insider cheating scandal broke. It’s been a while, but some remember how in the face of allegations Absolute initially reported there was “no evidence that any of Absolute Poker’s redundant and varying levels of game client security were compromised.” But more evidence soon came to light, and just a week later AP admitted to an “internal security breach.”

Was all I needed. Got my moneys off of AP (ASAP), then a couple of weeks later -- knowing that UltimateBet was run by the same crowd -- I cashed out from UB as well. Did so a few months in advance of the second, more extensive scandal breaking there (in March 2008).

My understanding is that U.S. players currently are unable to withdraw funds from either Absolute Poker or UltimateBet, although they have been able to continue playing on both sites -- despite pop-ups announcing U.S. players are blocked. (At least this was the case just a couple of days ago; I’m not certain what the status is today, but I believe it hasn’t changed.)

Meanwhile, non-Americans apparently are able to withdraw funds but are limited to $250 per week! If it seemed like poor judgment to keep playing at either site before, those willing to continue playing now with little or no prospect of cashing out appear beyond foolhardy. Then again, it probably doesn’t matter one way or another, as everyone with money on either site seems to be drawing mighty thin when it comes to the prospect of cashing out.

An article appearing in the St. Petersburg Times yesterday narrates the brief history of Absolute Poker’s rise and seemingly imminent demise, summarizing details of some of the suspect post-scandal machinations with investors that have occurred. It is part of a story Haley Hintze has been covering for some time, spelling out just how dire the situation at Absolute and Cereus (the network that includes AP and UB) is at present.

According to Poker Site Scout, traffic at the Cereus Network has steadily fallen over the last two weeks to about 25% of its pre-Black Friday levels. Meanwhile, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker continue to occupy the top two spots worldwide in terms of traffic, with both sites appearing to be seating around 65-75% the number of players they had prior to April 15.

While many players are understandably upset at how the four largest U.S.-facing sites variously put themselves in positions to be indicted as they were, it is nonetheless interesting to follow both how the sites are handling post-Black Friday fallout as well as players’ responses to the relative speed of communications and cashouts.

As before, PokerStars is easily winning the PR war at present with its rapid response. Full Tilt Poker had been experiencing significant problems with processors in the months leading up to Black Friday, perhaps one of several factors causing FTP to fall behind Stars here (again). And AP and UB aren’t surprising anyone with their continued failures on all fronts.

All four sites have been such a big part of the online poker playing world for so long, it will take some time before Americans let go of their feelings, opinions, and attitudes about each. PokerStars and UltimateBet have been around for a decade, AP since 2003, and Full Tilt since 2004. For better or worse, the sites have significantly shaped how we think about online poker -- from game play all of the way up to the not insignificant place online poker has in American culture.

And that will continue to be the case long after all Americans’ account balances on the four sites finally read “$0.00.”

Going Through Withdrawal

I suppose I’ll go along with the crowd and start referring to Friday, April 15, 2011 -- the day the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed its indictments of 11 individuals, including some of the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and UltimateBet -- as “Black Friday.” My sense is most of those reading this blog, the great majority of whom probably have played a little online poker now and again, are going to know what I mean by the phrase whenever I use it going forward.

On Black Friday, I had funds in only two online poker accounts: PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

PokerStars was the first site on which I opened an account (in 2004). About a year later I opened one on PartyPoker, then soon after that I had a third account on Full Tilt Poker. Some might recall how back then one could use Neteller (where I also had an account) to transfer funds back and forth between online sites. Easy breezy.

While I’ve always been a recreational player and never rose to a level stakes-wise to earn (or lose) a lot of money, I did well enough on Stars to start withdrawing from that account, and then eventually -- using Neteller -- I was able to use money I’d earned on Stars to open those other accounts.

As I recall, I split time fairly evenly between the three sites before the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was signed into law on October 13, 2006 -- that other “Black Friday” for online poker, as some of us remember it.

I remember talking to a support person at PartyPoker by phone a few days after the UIGEA was signed, like the following Wednesday or thereabouts, to confirm that yes, as a U.S. player, I really was no longer allowed to play real money games on the site. I assumed all other U.S.-facing sites would soon be following suit. I recall a conversation with Vera at the time in which I told her how unfortunate it was that this hobby of mine was suddenly no longer going to be available to me.

But as we all know, it didn’t quite happen that way. Stars and Full Tilt stuck around. And so the games continued, both at the table and beyond.

When I started to play online poker -- first (for a good while) for play chips, then for real money -- I’ll confess I had little thought about its ever becoming a target of legislators. Sure, I was naive. I knew poker and/or gambling were pursuits to which some objected. But really, the game itself was much more interesting to me than was the larger significance of poker in other cultural contexts (moral, social, political, legal, etc.).

In other words, I didn’t really care about the (seemingly inconsequential) legislative debates or following all of the related ins and outs. I was more interested in outs and odds.

So I withdrew my funds from PartyPoker back into Neteller (which didn’t leave us for a few months), shipped that money back over to PokerStars and FTP, and played on. It was not longer after that I opened accounts on Bodog, Absolute Poker, and then (some time later) UltimateBet.

When the AP cheating scandal first hit in the fall of 2007, I withdrew from both AP and UB. (Thus, I got out at UB before its scandal broke in the spring of 2008.) At Bodog I played fairly frequently, but over the last couple of years the games had dried up to the point I took my money off of there, too.

Thus, like a great lot of us, I have funds on Stars and FTP only. We’re not talkin’ a ton of cabbage, but enough for me to want to get it out eventually.

As far as getting onto another, still operating and available U.S.-facing site, I can’t say I’m all that anxious to do so. I wasn’t playing that often even before Black Friday. In fact, thanks to the Lima trip and other deadlines I was trying to meet, I had gone over a week without playing a single hand before I left the country last Tuesday. Would have to check my records, but that might be one of the longest stretches I’d ever gone without playing since first getting those accounts so many years ago.

Thus, I am not really feeling any strong “withdrawal symptoms” or pains at present as far as not being able to play is concerned. I may eventually, but if poker-related writing opportunities dwindle (as they likely will), I’m going to feel that a lot more strongly than any unpleasantness caused by not playing.

So I have gone through withdrawal before, i.e., withdrawing from sites and leaving them. It sounds as though at the moment there is some uncertainty regarding how the withdrawal process ultimately will go with Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. We’ll see how all that goes. And like many others, I’ve experienced other sites withdrawing from the U.S., too.

But as far as not being able to play is presently concerned, I’m not “going through withdrawal” in terms of feeling any particular symptoms or pains or what have you. Perhaps I will eventually, though I know already that if (or rather, when) my poker-related writing opportunities dwindle, I’ll be feeling that a lot more acutely than any unpleasantness caused by not playing.

Still, there was a little melancholy associated with that last session I played. I sat down for a few hands of the 10-game mix on Full Tilt over the weekend while still in Peru, mainly just to see if I could. After an hour or so, the game dwindled down to just two of us, and when my opponent sat out I decided I would be signing off, too.

“wait until more players,” typed my opponent just a moment before I clicked the button to “sit out next hand.” I sat a little longer, then thought I’d say something back before closing up.

“have to go, time for bed,” I typed. Then, after a moment, I added “gg.”

“ok gg,” came the reply. And the game was over.

And I was asked if I was sure I wanted to leave my seat. And I clicked yes.

Security Leakin’, of SCOOP Speakin’, and C’mon, Everybody We’re Going Streakin’!

Was busy delivering the scoop on SCOOP again last night (and this morning), and so once again am running low on mental fuel this afternoon.

If I did, I might’ve written something about the latest shenanigans at Cereus -- there’s been yet another security issue over there -- but as I say I haven’t the energy at the moment to do so. Just as well, really, as all I’d have to add would be to reiterate my distaste with Cereus, to recommend new players avoid signing up at UB or Absolute Poker, and perhaps to laugh a little at the absurdity of it all.

In other words, to join in the (deserved) piling on.

For those unfamiliar, click here to read the original report over on Poker Table Ratings of the vulnerability at Cereus concerning their encryption mechanism. (There are follow-up pieces over on PTR as well, if you click around.) You might also see UB.com COO Paul Leggett’s initial response to the news, of which he says he’s “very shocked” to learn. And here is UB.com spokesperson and media & operations consultant Joe Sebok’s note on the matter, too -- not posted on his UB.com blog (yet?) but rather over on PokerRoad.

As I said, was pretty much solely occupied with writing up several different SCOOP events here of late. Here’s how I spent the last 24 hours or so, if you’re curious:

In Event No. 24-Medium, the $109 buy-in Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw event, Buckeye 119 took it down. Team PokerStars pro Pat Pezzin had chips deep in this one, but finished 14th, thereby thwarting my opportunity to have built a headline around the phrase “Standing Pat.” Also some funny chat reported here, thanks to the appropriately-named player Needleking.

In Event No. 25-High, the $2,100 buy-in Stud/8 event, Gunslinger3 took it down, ultimately outlasting Team PokerStars Pro George Lind III to do so.

And in Event No. 26-Low, an $11 NLHE event, *guerillaz* carried the day, coming out on top of a huge, 16,498 player field. Tourney ended on a crushing bad beat for runner-up fysass1881. Post contains an utterly appropriate reference to Frank the Tank’s “We’re goin’ streakin’!” scene in Old School.

Nice little series they’re putting on over there at Stars. Not so little, actually. A decent poker site, I’d say. Definitely a better choice than some sites, if yr lookin’ for somewheres to play.

Final Decision on UltimateBet: None of My Business

On Friday, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission -- the entity that “is empowered to regulate and control gaming and gaming related activities conducted within and from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake [near Quebec, Canada] in accordance with the highest principles of honesty and integrity” -- issued its “final decision” regarding the cheating that occurred at UltimateBet, one of the sites to which the KGC issues a license (and thus purports to regulate and control).

Friday’s news comes nearly a year after we last heard from the KGC, and about 20 months after a few online players first began publicizing their suspicions that cheating might be happening on the site.

Turns out at least 31 different people -- in addition to 1994 WSOP Main Event champion and UltimateBet “consultant” Russ Hamilton -- were involved in the cheating at UB. And those guys had over 100 separate accounts with which to have their fun (click on list to enlarge). Over $22 million has now been refunded to affected players, and the KGC has further fined UB $1.5 million. The KGC says it believes “criminal behavior” has taken place, and so is providing information to law enforcement authorities, although whether any sort of prosecution will follow remains to be seen.

According to Friday’s report, this applesauce went on at UltimateBet for a period of four-and-a-half years -- from June 2003 to December 2007. If you’ve been paying attention, the UB cheating era keeps getting lengthier (and involves more cheaters) with each report. Back in May 2008, Tokwiro Enterprises, the company that owns UltimateBet (and Absolute Poker), reported that the “fraudulent activity” on UB first began in March 2006. The last time we heard from the KGC back in September 2008, we were told that “multiple cheating incidents” started to occur on UltimateBet in May 2004.

Since this is the “final decision,” I imagine the UB cheating era won’t be extending back any further. Couldn’t go back too much further, I guess -- UB only went online in 2001.

I’m glad the KGC has at last made its “final decision” public. I’m glad efforts are being made to try to make the criminals pay for their deeds, although am skeptical those efforts will get very far. I’m glad that the KGC has audited and approves of the operation of Tokwiro Enterprises, and has also audited and approves of the Cereus Poker Network system on which both Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet presently run.

Of course, it took a bunch of players noticing a player named “NioNio” was enjoying a statistically improbable run of good fortune on UB -- not the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, despite its being “empowered to regulate and control” the sites to which it issues licenses -- for the cheating by 30-plus other individuals on the site to be discovered. And, it appears, eventually stopped.

Not so glad about that.

Tokwiro took over ownership of UB in October 2006, and Friday’s report further details how the new owners became aware of the cheating, reported it to the KGC, and aided KGC with the investigation. The new report confirms the previous statement made by Paul Leggett, CEO of Tokwiro, that “this cheating occurred on our site through illicit software placed on the UB servers prior to our purchasing UltimateBet” and “that Tokwiro and its entire management team had no knowledge of the illicit software until it was revealed by our investigation; and no one associated with Tokwiro was involved in the cheating scheme at any point.”

Fine. The new owners are clean, although they were in charge for over a year before recognizing that a gang of folks using over 100 different usernames were cheating the site. And again, such recognition only arriving after some players started to notice and complain.

When that happened -- in January 2008 -- we had just heard from the KGC regarding the Absolute Poker cheating scandal that took place in 2007. There it was concluded that cheating had occurred at AP for a period of about six weeks during the late summer of 2007. Multiple user accounts were identified as having been involved in the cheating, “with players using software that enabled the viewing of the ‘hole cards’ of each of the other players.” Not exactly what happened at UB, apparently, according to the “Anatomy of the Cheating” section of the new report, but practically speaking very similar. The suckers playing with these cheaters were playing with their cards face up.

Absolute Poker was fined $500,000 and placed on a two-year probation by the KGC, a probation which involved the KGC conducting random audits of AP. By then, I had already abandoned Absolute Poker as a place to play, having pulled my money off the site in October 2007. I had an account over at UltimateBet at the time as well, and realizing that the same company ran both sites, I soon removed my funds from UB, too, in November (though not without some headache) -- that is, even before the NioNio thing came to light and (eventually) we all began to realize the UB scandal was much, much bigger in scope than what had happened at Absolute Poker.

So I was no longer playing on UltimateBet when the site acknowledged in March 2008 that a cheating “scheme” had been detected on the site via an “interim statement” sent to various poker industry folks. Nor was I a couple of months later when players began uncovering a number of other usernames that appeared to be involved in the cheating. Nor in September 2008 when the KGC issued its “initial findings” on the UB matter.

Nor in November 2008 when that “60 Minutes” story about the scandals appeared along with accompanying features in The Washington Post. Nor in December 2008 when UltimateBet spokesperson Phil Hellmuth was shipped a pot despite holding the worst hand, about which he said afterward (on the 12/28/09 episode of The Ultimate Poker Show) “this has happened 100 times.”

Like I say, I made my decision long ago. Am a bit incredulous, I guess, that an online poker site can manage to abuse its customers so badly for so long -- not to mention negatively affect the reputation of the industry as a whole -- and still be endorsed. And attract players.

But that’s none of my business.

The UltimateBet Follies (Winter 2009 edition)

A quick search of all my January posts (aside from the 2008 recap ones that came at the start of the year) reveals I have yet to mention the online poker site UltimateBet a single time.

I did make a passing reference earlier this week to the Cereus network -- which includes both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet -- in a post about the Kentucky Court of Appeals having reversed that domain-seizure case. Otherwise, I’ve managed to resist yapping about any of the nonsense we continue to hear about UB.

Decided it time to break that streak today, though, and give a little update. Julius Goat often likes to offer us what he calls “Your Weekly Dose of Crazy.” (Incidentally, the one from this week is especially cra-a-a-a-azy.) Consider this your seasonal dose of UlimateBaloney.

1. The Ultimate Poker Show

Back in November, UltimateBet decided to launch a new weekly poker podcast called “The Ultimate Poker Show.” The show is hosted by a couple of the site’s pros, Annie Duke and Mark Kroon, an adult man who probably wishes he hadn’t chosen that name “P0ker H0” way back when he first started playing online.

I’ve listened to a few of the episodes, including the one on which fellow UB pro Phil Hellmuth came on to tell about that hand of $200/$400 limit hold’em from late December he had lost to “DOUBLEBALLER” but was nevertheless shipped the $5,599 pot. You remember, that was the show where Hellmuth casually (and crazily) claimed “this has happened 100 times,” a statement that didn’t quite jibe with what Paul Leggett (UB’s Chief Operating Officer) had just said over on the UB blog where he claimed UB “never had an issue like this reported previously.”

That conversation (from the 12/28/08 episode of the podcast) also didn’t really fit well with the previous weeks’ crowing about all the great new software updates going on at the Cereus network. As one might expect, while “The Ultimate Poker Show” does include some poker strategy discussion here and there, it mostly serves as a weekly ad for UB, showcasing its pros and promoting various promotions and tourneys happening on the site. In other words, safely skip.

2. New Possibilities for the Multi-Accounter?

More recently, Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch, the New York lawyer who was among that group of cybersleuths who uncovered the cheating scandal at Absolute Poker, made a post in mid-January reporting yet another jaw-dropping software (and security) issue at the Cereus network.

You might recall Ravitch appeared on camera briefly during that 60 Minutes report back in late November. In his reaction to the segment, WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla said Ravitch “came across as one of the most positive faces of the entire segment,” and especially appreciated the level-headed way Ravitch spoke about the scandals “without the hyperbole and apprehension that everything and everyone out there might be corrupt.”

Like me, Ravitch was purposely avoiding writing about UltimateBet on his blog, saying in his 1/15/09 post that he had “no intention of continuing to spend X amount of time every day documenting more Cereus scandal(s) fallout and/or security holes.” But then he pointed us to a Two Plus Two thread that suggested it was possible for a player to log into his Absolute Poker account and his UltimateBet accounts at the same time and subsequently enter the same tournament twice.

This may or may not be the case, actually, although like I say I wouldn’t expect Ravitch to fan the flames without reasonable suspicion. I do recall that prior to the merger of the sites it was apparently possible for multiple users to log into UltimateBet from different locations using the same username/password. (Wrote about that glitch about a year ago.)

3. Bad Mouth UB, Lose Yr Cabbage

Another thread on Two Plus Two caught my eye a week or so ago, one in which a poster was sharing the terms of service for the recent UltimateBet Online Championship series. Apparently, if one were to enter any of the UBOC tourneys and cash, one was subsequently restricted from saying anything critical of the site or risk losing one’s winnings.

The rule (part of Rule #18) specifically states that “UltimateBet® may cancel or terminate the UBOC and/or may cancel or terminate the awarding of any Prize(s), and cease distribution of any outstanding Prize if... A Prize winner commits embezzlement or theft against or from UltimateBet®, commits any public act of disrepute, publicly disparages UltimateBet®, or commits any other act that diminishes or that may diminish the value of UltimateBet® or any one or more of its brands.”

So be nice, y’all, if you happen to have won anything on UltimateBet. (Clearly I now have yet another reason never to play on the site!)

4. More False Promises

Finally, just a quick update on the status of my request to UB to send me all of my hand histories from the very brief period when I played on the site. You might recall back in December I posted about having heard Annie Duke claim over on the PokerRoad podcast that as part of UB’s efforts to make “everyone whole,” the site would “send anybody who requests it their lifetime hand histories.”

I was actually surprised to hear that, since a couple of months before I had made such a request to UB and was told then that “due to the amount of information, we are not able to send you all your hand histories.”

Incidentally, regarding the voluminous “amount of information” to which UB refers, I went back and looked up just how many hands we’re talking about here. A little over 1,200. That’s right. How many man-hours you think it takes to recover that heaping pile of hands?

I wrote UB again on 12/16/08, referring to Duke’s claim, and received a response telling me that yes, in fact, they could send me all of my hand histories, “however, because it is a lot of information we will need to look for that information in our server, this process could take up to 2 weeks.” I wrote back to thank the support person and to say that would be fine.

Two weeks passed, and I heard nothing from UB. So I wrote again (on 1/3/09), asking what was up. I got the automated response telling me my email had been “forwarded your email to the appropriate department,” but heard nothing further.

Send another message into the void on 1/19/09, and haven’t heard back. Clearly the claim made by Annie Duke that UB will send anyone their hand histories is a bunch of applesauce. The site disappoints again and again and again.

Wait a minute, what’s this? Looks like just this morning I received an email from Absolute Poker? Let’s see here...?

“$10 waiting in your AP account.”

Hope That Helps

Maybe once or twice a month I’ll take a peek at the stats and ponder over what searches led folks to stop by Hard-Boiled Poker.

Some keywords turn up pretty regularly. I’ll often have people who are looking for “169 hands” or “169 starting hands” (the number of different starters in hold’em) arrive at a post I wrote over two years ago in which I discussed what my first 50,000-plus hold’em hands looked like in PokerTracker (“169 Ways to Showdown”).

I am noticing that here lately seekers of information about Clonie Gowen keep finding a post from last year titled “Learn, Cheat, and Play Poker With the Pros.” That is the one where I talk a bit about an episode of Poker After Dark in which Gowen admits to having once scooped a pot even after she knew the deck had been fouled.

The recent 60 Minutes segment on the Absolute Poker/UltimateBet insider cheating scandals also drew a number of folks searching for further information, almost all of whom were focused on the UB part of the story. The most popular searches along those lines presently are “ultimate bet cheating,” “cheating on ultimate bet,” “ultimate bet poker cheating,” and “ultimate bet scandal.”

Oh, and there was one person apparently looking for information on “how to cheat on ultimate bet,” too. Clearly some are wantin’ to get in on that super-sounding super-user action!

Over the last few days, I’m seeing a number of folks looking for information about Stephan Kalhamer, co-author of that not-so-hot book with Chad Brown, Act to Win in Texas Hold’em Poker. I reviewed that book here back in August 2007, and I think my review may be one of the very few on the web as that post comes up first in searches of Kalhamer’s name. From what I can tell, Kalhamer continues to wield some influence in Germany as a well-known poker author, getting interviewed not too long ago in the German poker magazine Royal Flush. Indeed, appearances indicate that Act to Win was originally Kalhamer’s book (published in German), and when it was translated into English the publishers brought Chad Brown in to add a couple of brief passages and pose for the cover as “co-author.”

Have had a few hits for “sartre gambler” lately, from which search readers land on one of three posts I wrote back in May that were devoted to Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher -- most specifically looking at a short passage from Being and Nothingness in which Sartre uses the example of a gambler to make a point about existentialism. Here are those posts, if yr curious: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

There was one search from a day or two ago, though, that inspired me to share all of this today, a search which reminded me of what it was like when I first started to play online poker. Someone, somewhere, typed the following into a search box and as a result clicked on through to Hard-Boiled Poker:

“what does donk mean online poker talk”

Landed on a post titled “‘Nice catch, donk’” from early this year in which I related the story of a hand that ended with my opponent sending that message to me.

Do you remember the first time you were called a donk? Did you know what it meant? One of many, many poker-related terms, I suppose, that many of us learn the hard way.

I still remember the first time an opponent genuinely berated me in the chat box over a poor play-turned-lucky pot for me. It was at the penny PLO tables, and I’d only been playing for a week or two. Guy completely lost his mind when I’d chased my flopped two pair and backdoored a flush to pilfer a couple of dollars off of him (at most). (Now that I’ve gotten all of my old hand histories from PokerStars, I may have to go back and find that hand.)

As a brand new player, I was sincerely bothered by the unexpected dressing down, thinking perhaps I’d crossed some line of accepted behavior by my play. He didn’t use any terms that were unrecognizable to me. (I recall it was his typing “jesus christ” that signaled to me the dude was genuinely upset.) So I didn’t have to look online to see what I was being called.

In any event, I do hope my post was successful in demonstrating to the reader what the term actually means. I also hope that perhaps that reader might find his or her way back to the blog again someday.

Despite the fact that it appears the author might possibly be a donk.