Bovada Turns Ignition

So it sounds like Bovada -- the U.S.-serving online poker site (and casino and racebook and sportsbook) -- is going to shut down at the end of September.

The site has been sold to Ignition Casino, and players have been invited to open accounts over there and have their funds transferred over. There’s a casino there, too, to go with the poker room, but no racebook or sportsbook I believe. An email to players explains how Ignition’s poker room “uses the same platform as Bovada,” and so includes all the same games and tournaments.

In fact, the site looks very much like a “skin” or copy of Bovada in every respect. In other words, the move is a bit like the one the site pulled off back in December 2011 when the U.S.-part of Bodog split off and was rebranded as Bovada.

I played on Bodog back in the day, and still have an account over on Bovada although I never played any real money games there. After messing around with some small bankrolls won via freerolls on Merge sites during the year or two following Black Friday, I haven’t bothered trying to play on any of these “rogue” sites at all. Too many stories of various difficulties getting funds onto such sites and making withdrawals have been enough to discourage me -- never mind the much worse tales of scams and loss of funds (via various causes) making playing on those sites even less enticing.

Of course a lot of players have stuck with Bovada in particular over the last few years, with its traffic essentially rivaling that of the 888poker, the world’s second-most frequented online poker site behind PokerStars (that is, well behind Stars which is like 8-10 times as busy as either).

That’s including the Bodog.eu portion of the player pool, too, which I’m not sure will be the case with Ignition. That is to say, Ignition may only have U.S. players competing against each other, or at least that’s what an Ignition customer service rep told PokerNews.

Americas Cardroom (on the Winning network), another U.S.-facing site, also remains popular among a decent number of American players, despite all sorts of bugginess with its software and other issues (besides that missing apostrophe in its name).

It remains kind of curious how this Bodog-Bovada-Ignition shell game gets to continue onward while managing to escape the punishments -- and, it seems, the miscalculations that helped lead to those punishments -- that knocked their larger rivals out of the U.S. five-plus years back. Seems like this might be a step away from the U.S. online poker game (of sorts) for Bodog owner Calvin Ayre who recently has been mentioned in some of these investigative reports regarding Bitcoin (with which he seems heavily involved).

The rogue sites remain interesting on some level, I suppose, if only as a dim echo of other examples of shady, legally-dubious poker games that have constantly been part of the history of the game in the U.S. But for me the interest is essentially academic, as I’m content to watch from the virtual rail.

Image: Ignition Casino.

Bodog Catcher

Nearly a year after the Black Friday indictments -- and a long, long time since the feds first took an interest in Calvin Ayre and his Bodog gambling website -- Bodog’s dot-com domain was seized yesterday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And this morning we have learned that Ayre has been indicted for operating an illegal gambling business offering sports betting and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

News of the domain seizure came last night, about two months after Bodog had shuffled everyone over to its new Bovada.lv site where Americans continue to play anonymous poker and bet on sports unimpeded.

It was just a few hours ago that news of the Ayre indictment being unsealed appeared over on Forbes. According to Nathan Vardi, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore is charging Ayre with having violated Maryland state law by running (with others) his illegal gambling business “from June 2005 to January 2012.” Vardi explains that the indictment also highlights the moving of funds to and from various international accounts as well as “the hiring of media resellers and advertisers to promote Internet gambling.”

The fact that the feds have finally gotten to the point of acting with regard to Ayre and Bodog is noteworthy. Indeed, for a lot of observers one of the early follow-up thoughts regarding the Black Friday indictment and civil complaint targeting PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute/UB was “What about Bodog?”

The feds had seized funds from accounts being used by Bodog way back in 2008, and of course had been watching the site long before that. And even if Bodog was small scale, poker-wise, there was the sports betting. But it took 10-plus more months for any action against Bodog to arrive.

It will be interesting, of course, to see whether or not these moves will preface further efforts by the U.S. government to deal with Bovada’s continued acceptance of U.S. bets, or if their last-minute move back in December will successfully shield the operation from any interruption of service.

Some are responding to the news about Bodog and Ayre with cries of “Merge is next,” although it seems like the fact that Bodog/Bovada has always offered sports betting makes it a different animal than the other, small poker-only sites continuing to serve Americans. The allegations concerning advertising are interesting, too, perhaps having to do with the continued prominence of Bodog’s sportsbook in the U.S. as well as its popularity among American sports bettors.

Merge’s days in the U.S. may well be numbered, especially if any of the cashout procedures being used by the network’s sites make them vulnerable to those conspiracy to commit money laundering and/or bank fraud charges. Recall that alarm sounded Subject:Poker last September that the “DOJ Plans Action Against Merge.” While nothing ever came of that, those whispers that were then loudly relayed apparently emanated from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, too.

Since this Ayre indictment specifically references sports betting, the only form of online gambling unequivocally covered by the Federal Wire Act according to the DOJ’s revised opinion back in December, I don’t necessarily think this news has too much to do with the current prospects for Merge or other U.S.-facing poker sites. Other than to indicate in a general way what we already knew, namely, that the policing of online gambling continues to be of interest to prosecutors. (For more on the Ayre indictment, see Michael Gentile’s analysis over on PokerFuse.)

Still, even if the status of Merge and the other sites hasn’t changed, it remains tenuous. Maybe Bovada will post a line for us to bet on how long the remaining sites’ will last.

The Bravado of Bovada

This morning Bodog -- the site where even Americans can still play online poker for real money as well as bet on sports, horse racing, and play other casino games -- shifted its American customers over to a new site awkwardly called “Bovada.”

The new site appears to feature all of the same software and design as the Bodog site, with only the URL and name differing. According to the site’s welcome page, the new name was chosen deliberately to begin with the same letters as Bodog so as to help users “find us in your browser for the next few weeks.”

The site has an odd “.lv” extension (a Latvian domain), which it explains is meant to “remind our players of Las Vegas, the number one gambling destination in the U.S.” And, of course, the made-up word “Bovada” sounds a little like Nevada as well, thus perhaps furthering the association.

While the rest of the world continues to play and gamble on Bodog, then, we Americans are now being invited to visit Bovada, a kind of mythical destination where I suppose we are to believe U.S. laws cannot reach.

Way back when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was first signed into law and the possible fate of U.S.-facing online poker sites was first being discussed, nearly everyone held up Bodog as the least likely to survive in the U.S. going forward. Remember? The fact that Bodog offered other gambling games, especially sports betting, alongside poker, caused most in the poker world to believe the site couldn’t possibly be long for the U.S. post-UIGEA.

Some of us also recall Calvin Ayre (who founded Bodog back in 2004) brazenly appearing on the cover of Forbes magazine and being featured in a story whose title -- “Catch Me If You Can” -- paraphrased the entrepreneur’s attitude toward the U.S. Department of Justice. That, too, made it look like Ayre was just asking for trouble, which in a few short months would potentially arrive in the form of the UIGEA.

Lots of talk at the time by poker people over whether or not our favorite game was in fact covered under the UIGEA’s original definition of a “bet or wager” as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance.” However one came down on that one -- then or now -- all tended to agree that what Bodog was doing by offering sports betting along with other games pretty obviously subject to chance must make them a more obvious target.

But somehow they perservered. On Black Friday, when we first scanned the list of sites targeted -- PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and UltimateBet -- many were surprised Bodog had escaped being included in that list.

Sorta seems like ever since I first opened an account on Bodog way back in late 2006 they’ve been on the move.

It was right about the time I first started playing on Bodog that the site announced it was planning to scale back its advertising in the U.S. This was back during that brief period when 2006 WSOP Main Event champion Jamie Gold was representing Bodog, a relationship fated to last only a short time.

I wrote Bodog at the time asking about the decision regarding advertising and whether they like Party and others were about to leave hte U.S. They wrote back to confirm their plans while also underscoring their stance that the site was “completely legal” and a “legitimate business.”

Then a few months later, in a somewhat less legitimate-seeming turn, Bodog temporarily lost their domain. Remember in the summer of 2007 when they suddenly went offline for half a day when they lost the dot-com thanks to some legal legerdemain by an enterprising web designer who’d sued them for patent infringement? They were NewBodog.com for a short while after that, then BodogLife.com, then they finally got their dot-com back.

I know Bodog didn’t take bets from Canadians for a long time, then opened up in 2009 via bodog.ca site. Last May -- after Black Friday -- Bodog finally got rid of the dot-com site altogether, moving the operation entirely over to bodog.eu. (The Canadian site now redirects there, too, I believe.)

It wasn’t long after that (in July), that we heard about this move to eliminate the Bodog brand in the U.S. Sounded at first like Bodog was pulling out of America altogether, but we soon came to understand that wasn’t the case.

Then in September the site removed full tables from their lobby to try to thwart PokerScout and anyone else tracking what was happening on the site. Didn’t exactly work as planned, but the change did make it less simple for most of us to know what exactly was happening on the site.

And, of course, a couple of weeks ago came the move to wholly anonymous play at the poker tables, a move accompanied by a variety of stated motives but which also obviously makes it more difficult for observers to observe.

Yes, Bodog -- or Bovada -- is still here.

I’ve long stopped playing on the site. And with anonymous tables, I can’t say I’m at all enthused about ever hopping back on there again. Can’t help but continue to be intrigued by the site having endured in the U.S. to this point, though. And even if I’m not a participating citizen of Bovada, I expect I’ll still be monitoring its diplomatically difficult co-existence within American borders.

Bodogoholics Anonymous

“If you paid me to sit for a year and think only of ways to make online poker less good, I doubt I could improve upon ‘anonymous tables.’”

So tweeted @JuliusGoat yesterday, responding to Bodog’s sudden move to “anonymous tables” last week and the subsequent brouhaha. As the respected author of the award-avoiding Stupid/System, I trust Mr. Goat’s judgment here.

Because the man definitely knows stupid.

I’ve seen a number of comments over the last few days regarding the switch. The forum posters seem to hate-hate-HATE it. And if what they are saying is to be believed, many who played on the site are talking about withdrawing their funds and never going back. You know, like dedicated drinkers suddenly swearing off the stuff for good.

I also saw that the revelation yesterday over on the HH Smithy blog that the new Bodog tables aren’t in fact as anonymous as they seem. A site that sells hand histories, the hackersmiths over at HH Smithy have managed to show how it is still possible to identify individual players and in fact find out their Bodog account numbers, too.

Here’s the video, if you haven’t seen it:



Thus while Bodog advertises their new tables as completely anonymous, that’s apparently not exactly the case. Of course, even if they were anonymous, fears about cheating and especially collusion should remain high for anyone playing on the site.

Not only are there no usernames or avatars with which to identify opponents, player notes have been disabled, too. There is no way to see mucked cards anymore. And hand histories -- never simple to deal with on the site -- cannot be easily saved, either, which to me would be the biggest reason to steer clear.

When playing online poker -- or making any sort of real money transaction online -- one simply has to be able to have some sort of record of the transaction. There are many reasons why this is so, including being able to consult such records should any dispute arise. For example here, should one have suspicions of collusion, it would be difficult if not impossible to build a case without any concrete evidence from hands played.

In its press release last week announcing the move to “anonymous tables,” Bodog described the change as part of the effort to implement a “Recreational Poker Model” on Bodog -- i.e., a place to play poker for fun where one needn’t worry about opponents gathering data on your play, incorporating that data in Hold’em Manager or PokerTracker, and using HUDs against you.

As the press release says, the new model “offers all players of all abilities the fairest place to play.”

(Remember when Bodog used to be the site where players were invited to “play hard” -- that hypermasculine ad campaign that made playing poker on the site sound just a wee bit like dropping Viagra? What is the slogan now -- “play nice”?)

Obviously if some have the ability to identify players (as the HH Smithy guys can), the whole idea of leveling the playing field this way is no longer valid. But even if this weren’t the case, it seems like making the games anonymous would tend to diminish the skill element even further, making the games more like the “in-Client Blackjack” the site is also proud to list among the innovations introduced into the newly-refurbished tables.

Such is the position of Kid Dynamite who in a blog post recently argued why he believes anonymous poker is in fact a “skill mitigator.”

As KD points out, not allowing players to keep track of opponents’ play means the information one gathers from playing against an opponent in one session is no longer of use the next time you sit down with that player. Responding to the suggestion that Bodog is the “fairest” site on which to play, Kid Dynamite says “‘Fair’ is one way to put it. ‘Taking the skill out of the game’ is another.”

There’s also, of course, the utter erasure of whatever social element existed for online poker that occurs when usernames, avatars, and the ability to search for certain players are removed. This sort of thing is important to many, in particular the “recreational player” who isn’t necessarily playing the game primarily to grind out a profit.

Thinking back to Mr. Goat’s suggestion that if given a year he couldn’t come up with a worse idea for online poker, I can’t help but think he’s being damned provoking. Truth be told, I’m finding myself responding to that pronouncement in much the same way the HH Smithy guys did when Bodog claimed in their press release that “Anonymous tables make... player data impossible to collect.”

I mean, there has to be a worse idea for online poker out there, yes? Put on your thinking caps, people, and let me hear your ideas. We can’t sit back and let a goat get our... you know, get us upset and all.

All comments welcome. Even anonymous ones.

Talkin’ Bitar, Facebook, and Bodog

A few items stood out this week among the various articles and headlines falling under the “poker news” heading.

F-Train’s lengthy feature on embattled and indicted Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitar that appeared on the Wicked Chops Insider site was damned riveting. He interviewed a number of Full Tilt Poker employees who while remaining anonymous otherwise opined openly about the “rise and fall” of Bitar and FTP.

It’s an enlightening read start-to-finish, in truth an important part of a larger narrative about the history of online poker that currently exists only in fragments all over the web. Haley Hintze’s forthcoming book on the UB/AP scandals will be another important part of that story, too. (By the way, Haley has an interesting new post up this week regarding Phil “The Chairman of the Board” Tom, father of Absolute Poker’s also-indicted owner Scott Tom, a story that kind of resonates with the Bitar article in a couple of spots.)

As I was talking about here a couple of weeks ago, one needs a subscription to read the Wicked Chops “Insider” pieces, although the cost for one is quite modest. As indicated by a minor furor on Twitter prompted by the appearance of F-Train’s article earlier this week, there are some who are opposed to the idea of paying anything for this variety of what might be called “intellectual property” online.

As I think I implied in my post a couple of weeks ago, I definitely share some of that same skepticism. Nonetheless, I have gotten myself a subscription to the Insider Wicked Chops site, partly out of simple curiosity, and partly out of a desire to support some friends and colleagues. Whether you choose to or not is your call, but if you do, a captivating read awaits.

Speaking of transitioning into the real-money world, another story of note this week concerned the social media behemoth Facebook contemplating entering into agreements with PokerStars, 888, and a half-dozen other online gaming companies. The report appeared on another subscription-only site, the eGaming Review, the cost of which is much too prohibitive for your short-stacked friend. But Paul Hoppe offered a nice summary on PokerFuse that provides some details.

It sounds like Facebook may follow the affiliate model and start directing users (not U.S., of course, and over 18 years of age) to the online gambling sites. It’s further possible that the site could let some companies work up apps that would run within Facebook, too. In any case, should Facebook make this step they’d instantly become a massive player in real money online gambling outside the U.S. (and maybe, eventually, in the U.S., too).

While I have a Twitter account (@hardboiledpoker) I use fairly often, I have continued to resist Facebook pretty much altogether. I do have a Facebook account, created mainly to set up a page for my novel, Same Difference. But don’t bother “friending” me or anything, because I almost never log in.

Part of it is because I’m too lazy to get in there and learn how to use the site, but I’m mostly staying off because of what sounds like a constant need to update settings in order to keep Facebook (and who knows who else) at arm’s length from my bidness. Not to get all Tao of Fear or anything, but I’m half-convinced if I log into Facebook for more than a minute or two I’ll wind up under such heavy surveillance I might as well be part of a Witness Protection Program.

Finally -- to segue to one last story from this week -- this desire to remain anonymous online came up again with Bodog’s announcement that they were suddenly removing all usernames and avatars from cash games and tournaments. Can no longer see mucked cards in hand histories anymore, either (if you can even see HHs at all -- I am not 100% clear on that).

The move is being dubbed as further underscoring the “Recreational Poker Model” the site is championing since it thwarts the use of HUDs or tracking programs to compile data on opponents. Whether it hurts or helps the recreational player is in fact an issue over which reasonable people might disagree. In any case, this development follows a move back in September to remove full tables from being listed in the lobby, thus making it harder for sites like PokerScout to count players. (Read more on that here.)

I still have an empty account at Bodog, a site on which I used to regularly back in the day. I haven’t bothered to log in over there in a good while, partly because I tend to work on my laptop (a Mac) and not my desktop (a PC), and Bodog doesn’t run on the Mac.

While the idea of non-trackable, anonymous play might sound okay, not being able to consult my hand histories seems highly problematic, particularly if any suspicions regarding cheating/collusion were to arise. Again, while I’ve always been highly circumspect about putting cash on an online poker site, I’d be even more so when it came to a site where there were no identifiers at all for players, nor any simple way of keeping track of your play. (For more concern being expressed about the new anonymous tables, see this article over on Pocket Fives.)

Sure is a wild, weird world online. Thanks again for tripping over to my little corner of it this week.

Stop Counting Me! Bodog vs. PokerScout

Here’s something sorta curious.

You might’ve heard how just a week or so ago Bodog changed its software so as to make it more difficult for tracking sites and those interested in “datamining” to do their thing. The site removed full tables from being listed in the lobby, thus making it harder to see at a glance what’s happening on the site.

Other sites have it set up as an optional feature to remove full tables from the lobby view, but now on Bodog you can’t see ’em even if you wanted to. As I understand it, they’ve also gotten rid of waitlists, too.

I report this somewhat second-handedly, as I haven’t really been on the Bodog site for quite some time. I used to play on it regularly, but long ago pulled my money from the site. I sometimes wish now that I’d left a pittance on there with which to mess around. But to be honest, when I thought of the possible futures for the sites on which I was then playing -- PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Bodog -- for a long time it seemed like the latter was the most likely to be the most risky on which to leave money thanks to its inclusion of sports betting.

In any case, I’ve heard the dataminers are starting to find ways to work around this new obstacle, but I’m not up on the specifics. Meanwhile PokerScout, the site that provides traffic info on all the online sites, found itself momentarily thwarted by Bodog’s new system and thus unable to track numbers. A story on PokerFuse from last week described the changes at Bodog as well as how they were affecting PokerScout’s ability to track Bodog’s traffic.

Apparently PokerScout was also able to overcome the new challenge and start reporting numbers again for Bodog, but meanwhile a brouhaha has developed between the two sites. I first noticed this conflict via some tweets between the two, then early this morning Bodog fired a fairly inflammatory-sounding shot via an article on Bodog owner Calvin Ayre’s site titled “PokerScout.com’s Extortion Attempt.”

It should be noted that articles appearing on Ayre’s site are occasionally of dubious origin and/or intention, many of them existing as fairly obvious SEO-grabs presented under the superficial auspices of news reports or editorials. Thus do I always find myself reading articles there with a measure of skepticism, knowing that they are often necessarily self-interested and/or biased in one way or another.

This article stands out, however, as it not only comments (negatively) on PokerScout’s efforts to track Bodog’s traffic, but flat out accuses PokerScout of trying to extort money from Bodog.

Say wha?

When making the change last week, Bodog explicitly referred (in another article) to its desire to stop PokerScout from keeping count of its players (which, it ought to be noted, is markedly different from the full-fledged datamining performed by other sites). In “The Death of the Poker Volume Tracking Model,” Bodog argued that since PokerScout “serve[d] no beneficial purpose to the poker industry other than to feed the sharks” with its data, Bodog wanted to help the non-sharks by keeping PokerScout from filing its reports.

As mentioned, PokerScout was nonetheless able to keep on tracking Bodog’s traffic, or at least that is what they claimed. As PokerScout explained (in an article posted yesterday), they are still able to estimate traffic at Bodog and thus are keeping the site listed. Also noted there was the fact that Bodog was the only online poker site that had ever asked PokerScout not to track their traffic, a request with which PokerScout decided not to comply.

In today’s missive, Bodog notes that in fact there were two reasons why they had earlier asked to be removed from PokerScout’s listings.

First was that desire to protect the non-sharks or “recreational poker players” whom Bodog claims are somehow being hurt by the information PokerScout provided. “The second reason,” explains Bill Beatty in today’s calvinayre.com article, is “the US Department of Justice had just indicted the top 3 poker sites listed in the PokerScout.com rankings.”

To be honest, I understand the second reason a lot more than I do the first. Sounds like Bodog would like to grow, but would also like for no one to notice they are growing, thus perhaps helping them continue evade being targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

“It wasn’t a time where poker companies wanted to raise their profile,” continues Beatty. “It might have been putting a huge target on their chests. Potentially if Stars, Tilt and AP/UB had not been sitting at the top of these ranking sites, who knows if the DOJ would have had such a hard on to take them down.”

Beatty is being more than a little disingenuous here, I’d say. Stars, Full Tilt, and UB/AP had a pretty high profile even without PokerScout’s reports. Indeed, I think it would have been a pretty simple matter for anyone to conclude those sites were the four biggest worldwide back in April -- and by far the biggest U.S.-facing sites -- even if PokerScout didn’t exist.

In any case, then comes the bombshell from Beatty when he claims PokerScout said they would remove Bodog from the listings in return for “a seven figure extortion payment” which Bodog ultimately refused to pay.

PokerScout has tweeted a response that appears to deny the accusation. “More lies about PokerScout coming from the Bodog-mouthpiece website,” was the message. “What a surprise. So disappointing.”

Here comes Bodog, making a pretty serious accusation against PokerScout, characterizing the traffic-tracking site as having engaged in “unethical and potentially criminal behaviour” (i.e., the alleged extortion attempt). Meanwhile, Bodog continues to serve U.S. customers, thus subjecting itself to similar accusations from certain parties, including those who are in a position to do something about what they interpret to be “criminal behaviour.”

Like I say, sorta curious.

Getting harder to count how many are playing on Bodog, I guess. Meanwhile, in the poker world, it is becoming easier to count on such conflicts cropping up, not to mention increasingly weird ideas of what is and what is not “unethical.”

The Impression of Darkness

Still tinkering here with backgrounds. Bear with me. Haven’t quite reached identity-crisis level fretting about it, but getting there.

Longtime readers know that I stubbornly stuck with the light-text-on-dark-background for a long time, even though I knew there were a few who found it hard on the peepers. In fact, I remember a reader telling me once how the black actually made him “annoyed,” that “impression of darkness” kind of jarring with what he considered to be generally positive content.

The scheme fit with the whole noir theme, sure. But we’ve got to keep the mood at least somewhat light around here, right? I mean it is a card game we’re mostly talking about. And while I’m a cynical guy, I’m also not one to indulge too much in boundless brooding.

Speaking of staying upbeat about things, I think some took yesterday’s post as being more pessimistic-sounding than was intended. Not necessarily the impression I meant to give, but I guess it is hard at the moment even to bring up online poker in the U.S. without a touch of gloom getting in the way.

Obviously I don’t think Americans are simply going to stop playing poker anytime soon. But I think it is reasonable to assume that the lack of online options -- especially if we go a lengthy period without ’em -- will slow down the game’s growth somewhat. And from there I think it is safe to think about poker getting pushed back over to the cultural periphery, relatively speaking.

I think of a game like chess and its history in America. I’m obviously a lot more familiar with the history of poker in the U.S. than with chess, but I’m aware of the general outline of chess’s story.

Unlike poker -- a game some elements of which originated elsewhere but is essentially of American origin -- modern chess came to the U.S. via Europe long ago as a game with already established rules as well as a historical legacy. Then in the early 1970s came a “boom” of sorts for chess in the U.S., the catalyst for which being the rise of Bobby Fischer to become the top rated player in the world in 1971.

A year later came the famous Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky World Championship match, viewed by many as a symbolic battle in the Cold War. Suddenly chess was everywhere, culturally speaking, with Fischer quickly becoming a national icon. Fischer appeared on the cover of Life magazine and other publications, was casually referred to on episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore” and other shows, and eventually came the appearance of movies, musicals, and other cultural productions centering upon chess and/or Fischer’s story.

And more began playing the game, too. The U.S. Chess Federation boasted about 5,000 members in 1972; a year later 100,000 had joined. Chess remains popular today in America, although it is safe to say the game no longer enjoys the prominence in this country it had forty years ago. (Currently the USCF’s membership is about 80,000.)

Like chess, poker experienced a relatively sudden surge in popularity less than a decade ago. While Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP Main Event victory in 2003 is often cited as the primary catalyst, it was the ready availability of the online game that more than anything ignited the “boom.” Online poker was of course a crucial element of Moneymaker’s story with his having won his ME seat via a $39 satellite on PokerStars. And poker’s emergence on television also was considerably helped along by online poker’s advertising dollars.

Eight years later, we are a nation full of poker players, though many of us live in states without legal poker rooms. And the online options continue to decrease.

While many are wondering about how that Alderney Gambling Control Commission hearing in London regarding Full Tilt Poker is going to turn out, earlier today we learned that one of the very few remaining U.S.-facing sites, Bodog, will be withdrawing its brand from the U.S. market by year’s end. (It appears the group licensing Bodog is prepared to continue operating in the U.S. under a different name [?], but the Bodog brand’s days are now numbered as far as America is concerned.)

Many poker players perhaps don’t care about Bodog so much anymore, the games there having mostly dried up even before Black Friday. But the withdrawing of the once-popular Bodog brand from the U.S. is nonetheless significant, another apparent step toward the (hopefully temporary) shutting off of online poker for Americans. That’s the impression, anyway.

Chess may not enjoy the cultural spotlight today that it did before, but the game remains readily available and has potential for growth anew. However, unlike chess, poker is a gambling game, and thus will always raise various legal and/or moral issues every time it surfaces amid the cultural mainstream.

All of which is to say, it isn’t necessarily pessimistic to say poker’s place in the culture has been negatively affected by what has happened to online poker in this country over recent months. It’s realistic.

Let me make clear that we aren’t talking “lights out” for good as far as poker -- or even online poker -- goes in the U.S. Borrowing my reader’s phrase from before, we might call it an “impression of darkness.” (Such was the inspiration for referring to April 15 as “Black Friday,” yes?)

I think, though, that after a while, our eyes will grow accustomed to it. And then perhaps we’ll be able to see what next to do.

Lost in America

I wanted to write something about the current situation for online poker players here in the U.S., a little over six weeks after “Black Friday.” Was scrounging for a title and remembered that excellent 1985 comedy starring Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty, Lost in America. A movie which begins with an ill-fated trip to Las Vegas, if I remember correctly.

There was a point about two weeks after Black Friday when I considered changing that tag line up there at the top of the blog where I identify myself as “an online poker player.” I mean, I wasn’t playing online poker. And in truth I wasn’t sure when I would again.

The two sites on which I had previously played -- PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker -- no longer served U.S. customers. I had an empty account on Bodog, a site I abandoned long ago when its traffic had died down to a point that I could rarely find games/limits I wanted to play. As I mentioned in that “Five Years” post (from 4/28/11), I still wanted to keep my poker blog. But I wasn’t really playing at all, and it was looking as though I may not for a good while.

A week after Black Friday I had spent a small amount of time and energy looking into depositing options at a couple of the sites that still served U.S. customers. But meeting with some initial resistance I quickly gave up. I could have made it happen, I am fairly certain, but I lacked the resolve to see it through. (Probably says something about the nature of my commitment to the game, actually.)

Then, a few days after that fifth-anniversary post I won a whole dollar via a freeroll (and then a sit-n-go) on Carbon Poker. And two weeks later I managed to score another, larger success by earning $100 in a freeroll on Hero Poker. Since then I’ve split time between the two sites, occasionally playing those 11-cent SNGs on Carbon and some six-handed PLO10 on Hero.

Since April 15, more sites have left the U.S. market. For a variety of reasons, Victory Poker pulled out just a few days after Black Friday, initially moving its U.S. players over to Cake Poker, then more recently sending all the rest over to Cake and shutting down altogether. Then “Blue Monday” (5/23/11) saw the domains for both TruePoker.com and DoylesRoom.com seized by the DOJ, apparently due to their being part of the Yatahay network on which also resided the popular sportsbook Bookmaker.com.

Last week came news that the Merge network -- on which we find both Carbon Poker and Hero Poker -- was temporarily going to stop taking new U.S. players, although Americans who already had accounts would still be able to play, deposit, and withdraw as usual. Apparently that decision was primarily due to Merge needing time to handle the additional traffic the network has seen since April 15. No word on when Merge will again allow new U.S. players to sign up, although it sounds like it could be anywhere from 1-3 months. (A couple of Merge skins -- Sportsbook and Hero Poker -- had already made the decision to stop taking new U.S. players prior to last week.)

All of which is to say, options are dwindling. Bodog is still around, although it appears U.S. poker players aren’t terribly excited about jumping into the games over there as the site has seen only a small uptick in traffic on its poker tables since Black Friday. Cake Poker is also today sitting at about the same level, traffic-wise, as on April 15 (according to PokerScout). There’s the Everleaf network where a site named LuvinPoker is starting to be promoted a bit, but I don’t know much about what’s happening there.

Another option for U.S. players, Rise Poker, popped up last week. Rise Poker offers freerolls with real money prizes -- i.e., you can play there without depositing. There is also a “VIP Membership” for $19.99 a month which gets you into lots of other tourneys and opens up further game play options. They’ve launched a blog and forum, too, over there, where some of my buds (including F-Train, Dr. Pauly, Change100, and Benjo) can be found writing.

Rise Poker is part of the ZEN Gaming Network. I’d actually heard of ZEN previously because I know someone who played on another site on the network, NLOP.com (National League of Poker). She enjoyed playing the games there, having gone deep in a tourney once and winning a small amount. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the player pools for both Rise and NLOP are now combined.

Thanks to winning that little bit of cabbage via those freerolls, I’m still calling myself “an online poker player,” although am not pursuing my hobby as often or at the same level of seriousness as I did before. I’m curious to know what other U.S. online poker players are doing at this point. My sense is most are still sitting on the rail, discouraged from trying to fuss with depositing on other sites (as I was back in April). Lost, so to speak.

So let me ask my American readers who also call themselves online poker players... what have you been up to since April 15?

On the Odds (2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table)

Not being a gambler -- not really -- I ain’t planning on placing any bets on who’ll win the World Series of Poker Main Event final table once they restart that sucker in November. Am curious, nonetheless, about the odds folks have come up with for such wagers.

Today on the Betfair site, chip leader Darvin Moon is listed as a 3.3-to-1 favorite to win. On Bodog, Moon is likewise listed as the favorite, though the odds over there are 17/10 or 1.7-to-1. And over at Ladbrokes, Moon is currently a 2.5-to-1 fave.

Here are the current odds for all nine players from all three sites:

Betfair: Darvin Moon 3.3-to-1; Eric Buchman 4.6-to-1; Steven Begleiter 6-to-1; Phil Ivey 6.6-to-1; Jeff Shulman 7.2-to-1; Joseph Cada 15.5-to-1; Kevin Schaffel 16-to-1; Antoine Saout 19-to-1; James Akenhead 19-to-1.

Bodog: Darvin Moon 17-to-10; Eric Buchman 3-to-1; Steven Begleiter 4-to-1, Phil Ivey 4-to-1; Jeff Shulman 4-to-1; Joe Cada 10-to-1; Kevin Schaffel 12-to-1; Antoine Saout 12-to-1; James Akenhead 22-to-1.

Ladbrokes: Darvin Moon 2.5-to-1; Eric Buchman 4-to-1; Steven Begleiter 5.5-to-1; Phil Ivey 6-to-1; Jeff Shulman 7-to-1; Joe Cada 12-to-1; Kevin Schaffel 12-to-1; James Akenhead 16-to-1; Antoine Saout 18-to-1.

All three sites essentially have the nine players in the same order as far as the odds go, with a few differences here and there. Of course, the most striking aspect of all three sets of odds is the fact that while they pretty much order the players according to current chip counts from first to ninth, the glaring exception in all three cases is Phil Ivey -- seventh in chips currently, but rated fourth-most likely to win it by Betfair and Ladbrokes, and tied for third-most likely by Bodog.

As a reminder, here are the current chip counts:

1. Darvin Moon (seat 1) -- 58,930,000
2. Eric Buchman (seat 6) -- 34,800,000
3. Steven Begleiter (seat 5) -- 29,885,000
4. Jeff Shulman (seat 9) -- 19,580,00
5. Joseph Cada (seat 7) -- 13,215,000
6. Kevin Schaffel (seat 4) -- 12,390,000
7. Phil Ivey (seat 3) -- 9,765,000
8. Antoine Saout (seat 8) -- 9,500,000
9. James Akenhead (seat 2) -- 6,800,000

Like I say, I’m not planning to place any bets, although if I were I think I’d probably take Shulman. I’d be betting on experience there, plus his having enough starting chips to make things happen from the very beginning. (Then again, people who bet against Phil Ivey tend to regret it.)

On whom would you bet (or are you betting)?

Levels of Difficulty

Was listening the other day to the latest episode of Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays (8/20/08) -- a consistently smart & interesting podcast, in my opinion -- which includes a good interview with cash game pro Gabe Thaler. Among other topics covered in the show, Hanson asks Thaler a question about playing deep-stacked no-limit hold’em.

The question actually follows up on something discussed in an earlier episode of Cash Plays and concerns the relatively rare situation of having to fold a set in no-limit hold’em. I won’t go through the entire question, but essentially Hanson asks Thaler how he feels about the argument that in order to play deep-stacked, high-stakes NLHE, one has to be able to fold a set if the circumstances warrant doing so.

I love Thaler’s response: “My feeling is that I don’t like to play in any poker game where people fold sets. I try and find other poker games, ’cos that’s just too f*cking good.”

Thaler brings up the same point a couple of other times in the interview -- that basically it is silly to play in games against tough opponents if there are other, less difficult games available.

Like most of us, I’m miles and miles away from the stakes of the games Hanson usually discusses on his show, but I still think I get something from the discussions. And that advice from Thaler -- that one really should seek out weaker opponents and avoid tougher ones whenever possible -- makes sense no matter what the stakes. Had a short little session of pot-limit Omaha on Bodog yesterday that confirmed the idea, in a way.

I’ve been wanting to play PLO on Bodog more often, but haven’t all that much of late for a couple of reasons. One is that I have some sort of firewall issue happening on my laptop which prevents me from being able to log on to Bodog.

I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled and still get the same error message. I phoned their support -- who I have to say, was very, very supportive, taking an inordinately long time with me trying to figure out what my problem was -- but we couldn’t resolve the issue. Most other programs work fine (including other online poker sites), but there are a couple which are behaving similarly, so I’m sure it is something on my end. I’ll figure it out one day, perhaps with the help of my tech-savvy brother.

The other reason I haven’t played that much on Bodog is that usually there aren’t too many PLO tables running at my preferred limits ($25 and $50 max. buy-in). I don’t play in the evening that often, so it’s usually daytime when I log in to find at best two and often just one table of PLO25 running -- six-handed, no less, and usually full.

So often I’ll just log in, take a look around, then log out and head elsewhere.

Yesterday I had just a short while to play -- a half-hour, max. -- and so took a peek over on Bodog to see what was happening. Again, just two tables of 6-max. PLO25 (both full), and a single table of 6-max. PLO50 (also full). Meanwhile, there were four tables of PLO10 running: three 6-max. & one full ring, all mostly full. So I took a seat really just out of a vague desire to play a hand or two on Bodog.

Stepping down a notch stakes-wise is often difficult for most of us. In fact, it might be one of the many paradoxes of poker that good players step down in stakes all the time, while poor players don’t (and/or move up when they shouldn’t).

As a part-time, recreational player, I’m tend not to be possessed by ambition to move up in stakes (although being human, I do contemplate the idea now and again). I know, however, I don’t want to move down -- at least not to the PLO10 tables -- and so as I took the first few hands was considering the exercise a strictly temporary, “special occasion”-type event. I was also preparing myself mentally to be frustrated. Not that the tables at PLO25 and PLO50 are necessarily dominated by brainiacs (doubt I’d be there, if they were), but I did figure to encounter a slightly higher-than-average amount of less tutored play at the lower level.

A windy preamble to what is essentially the story of a single opponent and two hands. In both hands, I’m playing from the blinds and manage to luck into hitting the nuts. So both presented me with the challenge of trying to get paid from early position with a big hand.

In the first hand, three others had limped, and I had in the big blind. I checked, and the flop came . The small blind checked, and I went ahead and bet the pot (a measly forty cents). Now what I’m expecting here is for the player with the set -- or in some cases, two pair -- to call (or, maybe, raise), and the guy who also has Broadway to raise it up. Or, perhaps, everyone to fold -- which would not be bad at all. As nice a flop as that is, it is not the most comfortable spot to be in when acting from early position.

Anyhow, I get two callers (the small blind went away). The turn was the . I was still good, but now there’s the spade flush to worry about as well. I went ahead and pumped $1.60 (a pot-sized bet) in the middle. I’ll admit I’m influenced here by the relatively small stacks. I only had $12.45 when the hand began, so there was not much reason to be cute. Again, both of my opponents just called. One could also have Broadway here, but I’d have expected a raise if so. Pot up to $6.40.

The river was a good one -- the . Worst I can do is chop. In these Bodog hand histories, there’s a timestamp for every single action, so I can tell you with confidence that I waited exactly ten seconds before acting on that river card. That was deliberate. I then bet one dollar.

Now I’m thinking this is the most transparent sort of value bet imaginable. No one is gonna buy this, are they? But to my delight, the player to my left called my bet two seconds later. Then the other guy -- ShowMeMoe -- waited twelve seconds before raising the pot with a bet of $10.40.

Oh, well. So I will be chopping. I called, of course, and the player to my left folded. I showed my nut straight, and ShowMeMoe turned over . Wha? He’d flopped a pair of aces (and a pretty hopeless straight draw), turned a flush draw, then rivered a jack-high straight. I won the $28.05 pot -- a nice one by my standards, never mind the stakes.

About ten hands later I was in the small blind with a pretty good holding -- . Three limped, I completed, and the big blind checked. The flop came . I wasn’t too interested in this one, but when ShowMeMoe bet a quarter into the fifty-cent pot and no one else came along, I decided to take one off. The turn brought the . How do you do? Broadway. Nice to meet you again.

I paused just a bit (six seconds this time), then bet the pot. ShowMeMoe took two seconds to call. Pot $3.00. The river was the and again I had the good fortune of ending the hand with the nuts. I took four seconds to bet the pot, and ShowMeMoe took half that long to call me. His hand? . Top two and another busted flush. $8.95 to Shamus.

Up over $20, I folded a few more hands then took off, wondering how much less I’d have made if I’d played those exact same hands at a higher limit. In both hands, the only “subtle” play I made was the dollar value bet on the end of the first one, and to my way of thinking, that was almost pathetic in its blatancy. Even making the nuts in both, I really shouldn’t have made more than a pittance given the other hands’ having come up short (not to mention my being out of position).

Of course, I’d planned going in to keep it simple. Which frankly ain’t that bad of an approach in PLO25 and PLO50, either.

In the end, the stakes you play don’t matter nearly as much as the ability of yr opponents (relative to yr own, that is). So find those ShowMeMoe shmoes -- or PLO games in which players try to bluff you off yr obvious nuts -- wherever you can. And if they’re folding sets in yr NLHE game, do like Thaler and find another table.

Wanting to Walk Away

Has been a good while since I’ve tried to cash out any funds from the three sites on which I currently play (PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Bodog). How ’bout you?

There was a time -- pre-Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act -- when I’d routinely pull a spare hundy off a site and dump it into Neteller, then once a certain amount accumulated there with our once-favorite third-party vendor I’d go ahead and ship it to my bank account, no problemo. Starting in late 2006, once Neteller bailed on us Yanks, I’d instead wait until I’d built up a bit more than that on a given site before requesting a check. Have had to exercise some caution, of course, as I haven’t wanted to leave myself too small of a roll to continue comfortably on any given site. (I still have yet to explore depositing options for any site, and don’t plan to do so if I can help it.)

To this point, then, despite my backwards-ass government’s efforts to the contrary, I’ve encountered zero difficulties from any of my three sites when it comes to cashing out. (Same can’t be said for the sites on which I no longer play, but all that’s pretty far in the rearview by now.)

But like I say, it’s been a while -- perhaps six months -- since I’ve bothered to pull any cabbage off. Haven’t been playing Bodog as much lately, and so the roll is relatively small over there. Have had some technical issues over there, too (not unlike others, I see). Can’t seem to get the site to load on the laptop anymore -- don’t ask me why. I have, however, built up decent-sized chunks on both Stars and Full Tilt, and so had been starting to think about claiming some o’ that hard-earned cheddar.

I know some -- especially those who play at my small stakes -- don’t bother much with taking money off the table like this. But for me, doing so has always been an important part of poker, not to mention my enjoyment of it. Money left on the sites is always theoretically “in play” (even though I’d never dream of taking my whole roll to a table at once). Thus do I feel it should frankly be considered a very high priority for all online sites to make withdrawing one’s money as easy as they possibly can. Fer Chrissakes, it’s part of the game.

Of course, one could probably additionally argue the ethical imperative for online poker rooms to make withdrawing easy. Most sites at least nominally promote “responsible gambling” in some fashion or another, and it only makes sense that making it easy for players to “step away” (as it were) should be a big part of that effort.

But I personally happen to think it’s part of the game, too. Whether you agree with that or not, it’s most certainly a big part of how the very small percentage of us who don’t lose money at online poker -- something like 7-8% by most estimates -- manage to stay ahead.

Have to say, though, I’m feeling some serious trepidation about requesting any sort of cash out from any site at the moment.

Have been following that massive thread on 2+2 for the last month now detailing players’ difficulties getting funds off of Full Tilt in particular (although a few in that thread are complaining about Stars, too). There’s another thread, begun way back in April, that presently has several posters sharing their stories about having their withdrawal requests denied by Full Tilt. And I’m seeing a third thread, begun yesterday, that is also dedicated to posters explaining that none of the options presently offered by Full Tilt are working for them.

Have seen a few rumblings on other forums, too. Dan posted about it over at Pokerati yesterday. Read where PokerKat had posted her story over on the Poker Sift site, as well.

As I say, I haven’t tried to withdraw for a while, and so haven’t experienced this particular frustration first-hand myself. So I can’t really comment further on what is happening. I understand the feelings of those upset with a particular site, though I also know that whatever is happening, it probably isn’t entirely the site’s fault. The UIGEA, a law that still has never been enforced even a single time, has nevertheless helped create the situation in which this fundamental part of the poker experience -- the ability to “walk away” -- has been compromised.

In any event, anybody with moneys over on PokerStars who is interested in some pot-limit Omaha tourney action should seriously consider playing in this week’s Saturday’s with Dr. Pauly tourney. Following up on his big fifth anniversary blowout, the good Doctor is throwing in a free entry into the Stars Sunday Million to this week’s victor. Haven’t been able to play the tourney in a good while (and may not be able to tomorrow, either), but that’s a damned nice overlay!

Take a shot, why dontcha? You might win!

We’ll worry about getting the funds off later.

Flopping Quad Aces Is Usually Fun

Been kind of a light week as far as playing goes. Did manage to participate -- for a while -- in LeCheese Challenge II, to which I received a late invite. (Thanks again, man!) Held steady for the first few levels of the “HA” tourney (half-Hold ’em, half-PLO), then made a spectacularly donkalicious play in a Hold ’em hand that proved my suspicion going in that I was dead money.

The comedy of errors continued when I moved over to Bodog afterwards and accidentally sat down at a PLO/8 table, $25 max. (I’d thought it was high only.) Barely escaped a horrific first hand where I called a preflop raise with K-K-x-x. I stayed for a while, mostly folding, when I had a fairly memorable event occur.

Was in middle position where I’d picked up . I know A-A-x-x unsuited ain’t the cat’s pajamas in PLO high only, and even less so in PLO/8. I can only go high here, and even there I’m shaky. So I limp in, as do about five other players. Then the flop comes out a mesmerizing .

Whoa. But will I get any action? It checks to me and I check to let someone else build a hand. Here comes the turn:

Okay. Perhaps we’re gonna get some business. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone made quad queens here?” I think to myself. Let’s see. Everyone in the hand looks to be about $25 deep.

The potential is there, at least, for some sort of score . . . .

I watch as an early position player takes a moment to decide what to do. Hmm. He’s taking a pretty long time . . . . Maybe he does have the queens! No, wait. He’s timed out. Hang on a sec. What the hell . . . ?

To my horror, I see this little sucker pop up:

No! NO!!! No.

Patience, Shamus. Patience . . . . Ah, crap.

This is not good. Sat there long enough to take a couple of screen shots.

I time out and am treated all-in. Next I see, everyone had checked it down and I took the $1.50 pot.

“Lord,” I typed after having resumed my connection. Unlike certain WSOP champs, publicly-made allusions to some theoretical governor of human destiny only occur to me in highly absurd moments like this one. Got one “lol” in response.

Given that others checked it down, I actually don’t think I missed out on any extra cabbage there. Still, flopping quad aces and then losing your connection ain’t the most pleasant of experiences.

Stuck around a little longer, went over and goofed around for a few hands of 5-card stud, then logged off.

Am starting to develop a real aversion to tourneys, I fear. Can’t remember the last time I felt good about how I played one. Haven’t even tried any of those Silver Star tourneys for which I’m eligible this month. Seem to find much more comfort -- and profit -- at the ring games.

So while I’ll probably be staying at the cash tables, lemme go ahead and promote this here PLO tourney (which I may or may not coax myself into playing tomorrow) as I bid you all a happy weekend: