A Different “Chris Ferguson Challenge”

When I started this blog in 2006, blogs were much more of a “thing.” Heck, so was poker, especially online poker.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was still a few months away from slithering into our lives in the dead of night as a surreptitious supplement to another, unrelated bill. And it would still be nearly five years before Black Friday came along to raze the online game down to the felt (here in the United States, that is).

I’d been playing online for some time before I started the blog. I was also eagerly consuming other blogs, books, magazines, podcasts, forums, and everything else related to the game. Like some (or most) of you, I’d guess.

For a number of years I probably played at least some poker practically every single day. I also spent nearly every spare moment reading about poker -- studying strategy, learning about the game’s long and colorful history, and reading news about players and tournaments.

I was as fascinated as anyone by all of those “poker celebrities” of that “boom” era, too, and early on got a kick out of the idea I was playing the same game they were. Full Tilt Poker’s long-running “Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros” campaign was a good one, encouraging many to get involved and even believe they, too, could improve their games and move up to bigger and better things -- not unlike the pros with whom they learned, chatted, and played.

One of the many, many promotions Full Tilt Poker ran way back around 2009 or so was called “The Chris Ferguson Challenge.” If you played the micros back then you surely recall it. It involved Ferguson, one of the site’s founders (and one of the core “red pros” representing FTP), embarking on a nifty “challenge” in which he tried to build a bankroll of $10,000 from nothing at all.

He started out with freerolls and won entries into small buy-in events, then by following strict bankroll management guidelines (and continuing to win, of course) he did after busting a time or two manage to built that $10K roll which he then donated to charity.

In 2011, the whole idea of “The Chris Ferguson Challenge” took on a different connotation following Black Friday, and especially after the later amendment to the civil complaint that added Ferguson (among others) to the list of those accused of wrongdoing.

Allegations against Ferguson were ultimately dismissed several months after PokerStars bought out the site, paid the DOJ an enormous settlement, and also managed to get funds back to FTP players after years of uncertainty regarding whether or not the money in those accounts might be lost forever.

The dismissal swept away the issue of legal culpability for Ferguson and others, but the ironic juxtaposition remained. “The Chris Ferguson Challenge” provided a lesson in how to turn a little (nothing, in fact) into a lot. Full Tilt Poker meanwhile provided a lesson in how to turn a lot into a little (into a lot less than nothing, in fact).

After the last of the FTP-related settlements were finally completed in 2016, both Ferguson and Lederer turned back up at the World Series of Poker after a six-year absence. Most with any memory of the Full Tilt debacle were less than delighted.

The pair then came back again this summer, even boldly playing a tag-team event together. While Lederer has yet to cash once since returning to the tables, Ferguson has thrived, cashing 10 times at the 2016 WSOP, then a record 17 times at the 2017 WSOP. (John Racener also cashed 17 times in Las Vegas at this year’s WSOP.)

That success inspired Ferguson to continue a quest for WSOP Player of the Year in the recently completed WSOP Europe series in Rozvadov. There he managed to collect six more cashes including a bracelet win to clinch the award.

Back in 2016, Ferguson responded to questions about his return with a curt non-response: “I’m just here to play poker.” After winning his bracelet last week and clinching Player of the Year, he noted how the prospect of winning POY presented a kind of challenge he wished to attempt: “I was just trying to sneak in... just advance a little bit; trying to get a couple more [POY] points. And it’s just kind of happened. It’s the best way,” he said.

Ferguson’s new challenge -- and his meeting it with success -- managed to be the central story of the WSOPE, stealing attention and headlines away from others like Niall Farrell and Dominik Nitsche (who each won high rollers) and Main Event champion Marti Roca.

Again, many were less than enthused by such a turn of events. Indeed, while the original “Chris Ferguson Challenge” was genuinely inspiring, this new one kind of has the opposite effect.

Photo (adapted): PokerNews

That Time I Learned That Jesus Didn’t Love Me

I think any of us who work long enough “in poker” -- as players, staff or tournament organizers, agents, promoters, reporters and “media,” or in other capacities -- end up collecting quite a few stories that we can’t really share, for a variety of reasons.

Some of the stories can’t be told because they involve “sensitive” information never intended to be publicized. Others have to remain hidden because they might endanger a person’s current employment. Still more are kept quiet because they reflect badly on either the one telling the story or others who for whatever reason are judged not to deserve such treatment.

I know over the ten-plus years of this blog I’ve “self-censored” a number of times, although to be honest I wouldn’t suggest any the stories I’ve suppressed were all that scandalous. One of the stories I consciously chose not to tell before I’m gonna share today, as it seems both a little timely and at this far remove fairly innocuous.

My first time covering the World Series of Poker was for PokerNews back in 2008, and as I’ve written about here many times before during those first couple of summers everything seemed especially interesting and exciting thanks largely to the novelty of it all. The interest remained even by the fifth or sixth summer I was there, even if the excitement had waned a bit by then.

Chris Ferguson -- a.k.a. “Jesus” (a nickname I tend not to employ anymore) -- was of course one of the more recognizable “poker celebs” back then. One of the early events I helped cover in 2009 was a $2,500 buy-in pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha event, and Ferguson played. While at the table he had out his phone and was playing Chinese poker, and I remember writing a live update in which I mentioned this fact.

It was kind of a novel thing back then to see someone on a device playing a different poker game while at the table -- not nearly as ubiquitous as it would soon become -- making for a bit of color worth mentioning amid an otherwise not-so-exciting Day 1. Kind of thing wouldn’t deserve being pointed out even a year later, I’d say, but at that time it was curious enough to include. I seem to recall making a joke in the update about two games not being enough, since the tourney featured PLH and PLO and Ferguson was playing a third game on his phone.

Anyhow, in my next “travel report” post here on the blog, I retold that story and a few others from the day. When referencing Ferguson, I said something about peeking over his shoulder to see him playing Chinese poker, taking a bit of poetic license in the way I described the scene (as though I had captured a little “inside dope”). Truthfully, there was no reason to look all that closely to see what he was playing. In fact, he was talking about the game with Andy Bloch who asked him about it.

In that post I also mentioned an “Approved Electronic Device Rule” the WSOP had in place that year which was not being enforced at all. I explicitly said I didn’t care one way or the other about players being on phones or other devices while playing, but I did note it seemed inconsistent to have a rule that no one heeded and that no one seemed interested in requiring anyone to heed.

There was a short sequel to the story -- this is the part I haven’t told before.

The next day I was back at the Rio where I first heard from a fellow reporter, then from the head of the team something about Ferguson not being happy with my posting about his Chinese poker playing. It was never 100% clear to me whether the objection concerned the live update or my HBP post (it seems like it was the latter, actually), but apparently “Jesus” was concerned enough to have spoken to then-WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack about it.

This is all very vague in my memory, I’m afraid, but I have a fleeting recollection of Ferguson having said something about how the WSOP shouldn’t allow the reporters to nose around in private business, with there even being some suggestion about credentials being revoked. However severe his objection really was, Ferguson was eventually told whatever he needed to be told, and the matter went no further. Meanwhile I was assured I’d done nothing wrong -- either in the live updates or on my blog -- and not to worry about it.

I also remember being told how Ferguson and I would probably get along quite well -- that we have similar personalities and interests, and seemed like we’d hit it off. Needless to say, I never sought out meeting him to find out if that were true.

I didn’t tell the story at the time partly because I was a little embarrassed by it, even if I shouldn’t have been. As a reporter, I didn’t like being noticed at all, never mind in a negative way. And if given the choice, I would have much rather reported that Ferguson liked me than that he had been made upset by anything I’d done.

I thought about the story again after Ferguson made his inglorious return to the WSOP earlier this month. When asked by PokerNews if he had anything to say regarding his absence since 2010 and/or his feelings regarding what had happened with Full Tilt Poker, he repeatedly responded “I’m just here to play poker.” It was a little like back in ’09, when he didn’t like anyone reporting on his doing anything other than playing in an event.

Ferguson has cashed seven times already this summer, including finishing fourth in an event over the weekend. His appearance at that final table created a bit of a stir, as PokerListings described in detail. He was asked again about whether or not he planned to apologize to the poker community, he responded “What are you talking about? No comment” before walking away.

Howard Lederer has also returned to the WSOP, the prospect of which I wrote about here back in May following his apology (which seemed at the time an unsubtle prelude to his returning). I mentioned in that post how his playing in any events would be a bit like men playing in the ladies event, necessarily producing a lot of unpleasantness and ill will, especially should he be successful. The same obviously goes for Ferguson, and it sounds a lot like that final table scene over the weekend confirmed that prediction.

Of course, while Lederer’s apology caused us to wonder about his sincerity, Ferguson seems unequivocally sincere in his non-avowal of responsibility for what happened at Full Tilt Poker.

No, people aren’t really loving Ferguson very much these days, and his success in WSOP events only seems to be adding still more negativity to a poker community he and others damaged so greatly already. Can’t say I’m that bothered, though, given how I found out long ago “Jesus” didn’t love me.

Image: “Jesus eyes the next table,” Matt Waldron. CC BY 2.0.

WSOP-Related Reads on PokerNews

A few good reads over on PokerNews today, IMHO (as they say). All have something to do with the 2016 World Series of Poker, which starts in just about a week.

For one there’s the first part of PN’s annual predictions for the upcoming World Series of Poker, where I’m chiming in along with several others. We give thoughts about 10 different questions in this part, with more to come.

We guess who will win WSOP POY, who will win various marquee events, opine about how various pros will do, and weigh in as well on this question of whether or not Howard Lederer and/or Chris Ferguson will turn up at the Rio this summer.

I’m more or less okay with my predictions in this part, though I’m less confident about some of the ones I ventured in the second part. In any case, check out “2016 World Series of Poker Predictions, Part 1: Will Ferguson or Lederer Return?” and compare your own ideas about what’s going to happen this summer.

Two good strategy articles additionally went up today, also both relevant to the upcoming WSOP.

One is by Darrel Plant, who took a close look at the structures for the low buy-in events at this year’s WSOP and saw the early levels go much faster this time versus last year. The $565 buy-in Colossus gets most of the focus, and what Darrel has to say should be pretty interesting (and useful) to those playing in that one.

See “Playing the Colossus? Structure Changes to Early Levels Make Fast Start Crucial.”

Also, our friend Robert Woolley, a.k.a. the “Poker Grump,” wrote what I think has to be the first strategy article I’ve seen that specifically focuses on seniors events such as the $1K one the WSOP has for players aged 50 and up.

Check it out: “Thinking of a Seniors Event? Tips to Make it Fun and Profitable.”

Photo: courtesy PokerNews.

Click to Confirm: Finally, Those FTP Funds

Because I just came from the Full Tilt Poker Claims Administration website being managed by the Garden City Group and the pursuit of my long lost FTP balance is foremost in my thoughts at the moment, I thought I’d share a quick update regarding that quest today.

I mentioned less than a week ago -- on “Green Friday” -- how I hadn’t been part of that first wave of U.S. players getting their funds back, but I did feel fairly confident I’d be among the second group. My confidence stemmed from another cordial and what seemed to me productive exchange over the phone with a GCG representative, with that conversation ending with a promise of an email follow-up.

Indeed that email arrived today with my correct petition and control numbers and an invitation to log in over at the site and see if the balance they had listed for me was what I had left in my account back in mid-April 2011.

I followed the instructions, corrected some contact info, then clicked through to the page showing what they believed to be my balance. And it was... correct! I actually did a faint little fist pump at the laptop, kind of a dim, gestural reprise of all those years of playing on Full Tilt.

Had to click through a few more screens, including one on which I had to give information to facilitate repayment, and I was done. No idea how long it will take, but the prospects seem better than ever that I will finally be cashing out from Full Tilt Poker.

Last night I was listening to Todd Witteles’s weekly show on Poker Fraud Alert where I heard that Chris “Jesus” Ferguson is apparently planning to return to the poker world in the near future, perhaps at this summer’s WSOP. Witteles was relating news shared by Diamond Flush in a Two Plus Two thread a few days ago.

I enjoy Witteles’s show and have found myself either listening live or seeking out the podcast practically every week lately. His take on the Ferguson news was appropriately negative -- this is a “second coming... we don’t want,” says Witteles -- and I can’t really disagree with his view.

Thinking back at the absurd spiral FTP had entered into at the time, if it weren’t for Black Friday coming when it did, we’d all have lost our FTP funds permanently. And of course if it weren’t for PokerStars striking its deal with the DOJ later, we would’ve have been SOL, too.

Assuming there isn’t a coincidence that news of Jesus’s plan to resurrect his poker career -- the puns are all so dangerously close here -- comes just as U.S. players are starting to get their funds back. We’ll see what happens with that. Meanwhile, keeping eyes peeled for another, long belated return in my bank account.

A Heads-Up on the NBC Heads-Up

Most readers of this blog probably have been hearing about the rebooting of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship happening this week. After running from 2005-2011, Black Friday came along to turn the lights out on poker for a while, and the NHUPC went dark during 2012. But poker’s prospects are brightening here in 2013, and the event is returning.

As before, 64 players will compete in a “March Madness”-style series of heads-up matches. The names of the competing players were announced last Friday (save the one WSOP.com qualifier), and a draw party will be happening tomorrow at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to determine the brackets.

The event will play out this Thursday through Saturday, Jan. 24-26. A $25,000 entry fee is being put up for each participant (either by the player or his or her sponsor). In the past, the entry fee was $20,000, with the prize pool then topped off further to total $1.5 million. Those who won two matches to make the final 16 were guaranteed $25,000, those losing in the quarters got $75,000, the semifinalist losers each earned $125,000, the runner-up took $250,000, and the winner made $500,000.*

Here is a list of who’ll be competing:



As was the case in previous years, the announcement of the list of invitees inspired a lot of conversation about who was chosen and who was left out. Donnie Peters posted a comprehensive breakdown on PokerNews over the weekend addressing all of the “snubs” and further commenting on the selections.

Like happens with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament every spring, such debates regarding the NHUPC are inevitable. And of course with poker there’s always that additional layer of discussion focusing on marketing the game and players being more or less “good for television.” As if ranking players isn’t hard enough, that additional issue regarding entertaining audiences and representing poker in the mainstream gets evoked as well to complicate further the conversation.

It’s all fairly diverting, though, and I think most agree that getting poker back on a major network represents a positive development for all. (The matches will begin airing in March.)

When I heard about the selections, I thought back to the criteria that had been previously employed for choosing players. If you recall, it was a pretty involved list that changed from year to year but usually included the previous five champions, the previous two runners-up, anyone who had cashed four consecutive years in the NHUPC, the previous three WSOP Main Event champions, and so on. The WPT Player of the Year, the EPT Grand Final winner, the BLUFF magazine POY, and others who’d achieved recent, significant poker successes were usually invited, too.

It appears that with the one-year hiatus these criteria for selecting players were probably jettisoned or at least modified considerably. For example, of the last five NHUPC champions -- Paul Wasicka (2007), Chris Ferguson (2008), Huck Seed (2009), Annie Duke (2010), and Erik Seidel (2011) -- only Seed and Seidel will be among the 64 this time.

We don’t necessarily know if Ferguson and Duke were invited or not, but I would think given both players’ current status in the poker community, it’s quite likely they were not. In fact, other than noticing a few of the more conspicuous omissions Donnie discusses in his article, the non-appearance of these two names in the list probably stood out the most for me as I first perused it.

While I know some would like the NHUPC to aspire to be more like the NCAA tourney and feature poker’s elite players and ultimately a worthy “champion,” the event obviously cannot ever realize such a goal. Even with ultra-rigorous vetting and/or selection criteria in place, the process will necessarily be imperfect. And to be honest I think it is better that there be no pretense to following some sort of quasi-objective criteria for selecting players.

(*EDIT [added 1/25/13]: Payouts for this year’s NHUPC are following a different schedule, with a total prize pool of $1.65 million: 1st, $750,000; 2nd, $300,000; 3rd-4th, $100,000; 5th-8th, $50,000; 9th-16th, $25,000. In other words, winning three matches only wins one his or her money back, and just $50,000 has been added to the entry fees.)

Kid Poker Not Kidding Around

Many noticed the always forthright Daniel Negreanu made a short video blog this week in which he comments on various items, including the continued silence from those three Full Tilt Poker principals, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Ray Bitar.

I said something on Monday about how I thought we’d probably hear other pros comment on FTP in the wake of Matt Glantz’ thoughtful post concerning “The Silence of Full Tilt,” so it wasn’t too surprising to see Negreanu’s video come when it did.

I still think as I did a few days ago that such petitions aren’t that likely to encourage anyone from Full Tilt to step forward and suddenly start communicating anything of significance to the rest of us. But as I said on Monday, I support those who insist on making sure we all don’t just forget about the hundreds of millions of dollars of players’ funds that remain inaccessible more than 10 months after Black Friday.

The level of vitriol in Negreanu’s statements captured some notice, something I think PokerLawyer did a nice job addressing in her post from yesterday, titled “Targets.” I think most are familiar enough with the context to understand what inspired Negreanu’s comments -- and frustration -- but it’s also worth pointing out the relationship between words and actions as PokerLawyer does.

I do believe that Negreanu is dead on, though, when he points out how those responsible at FTP “have no respect for our community.” The damage they’ve done to poker’s place in the culture, generally speaking, goes well beyond the theft of players’ funds.

It’ll be curious to see how everything develops with regard to the Full Tilt Poker saga as we get closer to the one-year anniversary of Black Friday, assuming that nothing happens with regard to the still-pending Groupe Bernard Tapie deal and players are still without their funds.

Even if something does happen and the deal somehow gets done before then, the logistics of players getting paid -- particularly for American players for whom the DOJ would be involved in facilitating such payments -- will mean a lot of time will necessarily have to pass before anyone actually gets their money back.

But even that slight ray of hope is pretty dim at present. And so the many who played on Full Tilt Poker -- and even those who didn’t but who have strong feelings about the game and the way it is perceived (and often proscribed) by the larger culture -- will continue to be frustrated. And justifiably so.

Ivey Showing Up Down Under

Three days of play at the Aussie Millions Main Event have seen the starting field of 659 play down to 26, with Phil Ivey (currently in sixth) being the name that stands out most conspicuously among the remaining players.

Ivey has been on the first page of the leaderboard pretty much since the start of the $10,600 (AUD) Main Event. After the first three Day 1 flights, Ivey was in the top 10 overall out of the 305 players who made it to the second day of play. And he was second in chips after Day 2 with 75 players left.

Leading right now is Matt Turk with more than 2.6 million chips, about twice what second-place Tim O’Shea has. Ivey will have a little over 1.1 million when Day 4 begins a few hours from now. I believe they’ll be starting with Level 18 (1,000/5,000/10,000), with the average stack at about 760,000.

Ivey played in the $100,000 event at the Aussie Millions as well, bubbling the final table when Gus Hansen knocked him out. (That’s Ivey playing in the $100K below, as photographed by the PokerNews guys who are there covering several events from the series.) Hansen would go on to be the cash bubble boy by finishing fifth as only the top four spots paid in the 22-person event.

Ivey stayed away from the professional poker circuit for most of 2011, skipping the WSOP in dramatic fashion and stating on his website that as long as Full Tilt Poker’s many players weren’t able to cash out their funds, he didn’t feel as though he should play. At the time Ivey noted that he was “deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed,” adding “I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot.”

He continued to sit out of events after the WSOP had completed, only surfacing at last in late November in Macau where he participated in the APPT Main Event while joining some of those big cash games there, too. And now he’s in Melbourne, suddenly the focus of poker world’s attention yet again.

While Ivey and Hansen -- a couple of Team Full Tilters -- played in that $100K event, most of the FTP crowd that participated in the $100K event at the Aussie Millions in 2011 weren’t there this time around. Exactly half of the 38 who played in 2011 were either members of Team Full Tilt or FTP red pros. This time around just Ivey, Hansen, Erik Seidel, and Tom Dwan were among those who played.

Recall also that $250,000 “Super High Roller” added at the last minute to the Aussie Millions schedule in 2011. Of the 20 who participated there, 11 were either Team Full Tilt members or red pros. It is safe to assume the turnout for that one will be smaller this year, too, when it happens this weekend.

Revelations since Black Friday have clued us all into the fact that besides having significant amounts of money seized by the Department of Justice, Full Tilt Poker additionally squandered a lot of funds in other ways, too, including (one presumes) for recompensing the site’s many sponsored players and thus -- directly or indirectly -- enabling them to play in high-stakes events such as the high roller ones at Melbourne last January.

As we all know, Full Tilt Poker players still have not been paid money they are owed. At the time Ivey made that statement, the site was still operating outside of the U.S., but went offline entirely about a month later when the Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspending its license to operate in late June.

Hopes were raised late in the year in response to news of that possible Groupe Bernard Tapie deal to purchase Full Tilt Poker, though nothing has come of that as yet. And yesterday Subject:Poker dropped another drama bomb (sans identifying sources) regarding Chris Ferguson’s various bank accounts and the efforts he and his lawyer, Ian Imrich, apparently have been taking to recover $14.3 million or so he believes he is owed by FTP.

Remember how according to that September 2011 amendment to the civil complaint (discussed here) the DOJ alleged that Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst, Ray Bitar, and “the other approximately 19 owners of Tiltware LLC” had funneled $443,860,529.89 into various “FTP Insider Accounts” and other personal accounts? The amendment also noted how at the end of March 2011, FTP had only about $60 million on hand at a time when its players worldwide thought they had about $390 million sitting in FTP accounts.

I mentioned on Twitter yesterday how Ferguson’s lawyer having that name -- Imrich -- serves as kind of an uncanny-name-bookend to a guy named Moneymaker starting it all. In other words, when the story of online poker’s meteoric rise and staggering fall in the United States is finally told, it will begin with Moneymaker and end with Imrich.

All of which is to say, I can’t help but feel ambivalent about Ivey -- most certainly among those other “approximately 19 owners” mentioned in the amended complaint -- showing up and doing well at the Aussie Millions this week. His presence obviously adds interest to the story of the tournament, and if this deep run had happened at last year’s Aussie Millions, it would’ve been hard not to have been intrigued by yet another high-level performance by one of poker’s best.

But given what has happened over the last eight months -- and remembering what Ivey himself was saying about what he thought was the right course of action for himself back in late May -- makes it difficult to get too enthusiastic about it all this time around.

The Chris Ferguson Challenge

Those tourneys on Carbon I mentioned last Friday both turned out well for me. Both had $5 entries, but I’d won free entries by answering questions posted by the @CarbonPoker account over on Twitter.

The “Fat Stack” tourney featured starting stacks of 1 million chips (with 25,000/50,000 blinds to begin) and 10-minute levels. A total of 50 entered, which I liked because Carbon has a kind of odd payout schedule whereby only the top five spots cash if 30-49 players play, but the top 10 make the money if 50-99 play.

Thus with exactly 50 registered, that meant 20% of us would cash. While I certainly wanted to win, even a small cash would be fine by me, helping me start a tiny bankroll. As it happened, I did make it all of the way to a seventh-place finish, at which point my pocket aces were cruelly cracked by a player holding 6-6. Good for $12.50, that.

I chipped up early in that one and was sitting on 30-35 big blinds for much of the time, so there was some play pretty much until the very end. By contrast, the other one, the “Slim Stack” one, was just about entirely chance-based, essentially an “all-in-or-fold” tournament in which we began with 10 chips and 0.5/1 blinds, then saw increases every two minutes.

Only 15 entered that one, which meant only the top three spots paid. Again, though, we were looking at 20% of the field cashing.

On the third hand I shoved with A-8, got called by A-J, and spiked an eight. Tripled up soon after that with A-Q (I believe), then survived to finish third and score another $15. In other words, I made more in the crapshoot than in the one requiring some genuine decision-making.

I mentioned Friday how I had a penny in my account there before, so that makes my total roll on Carbon $27.51.

Once again, then, I get to contemplate how best to turn a little into a little more. For those of us who were playing online poker several years ago, this whole “zero to hero” scenario automatically recalls “The Chris Ferguson Challenge” in which the pro succeeded in building a bankroll of $10,000 from nothing, starting his journey by winning a pittance in a freeroll, then practicing sound bankroll management from there.

Ferguson’s rules included never buying into a cash game or sit-n-go with more than 5% of your total bankroll, never buying into a multi-table tourney with more than 2% of your total, and leaving a cash game if you ever worked the money on the table up to more than 10% of your total worth.

He allowed exceptions for the micro limits. You could buy into any cash game or SNG for $2.50 or less, or any MTT for $1 or less, regardless of your roll. I think he may have busted at least once and had to start over, but eventually he did reach the goal, then donated the $10,000 to a charity.

That whole story reads much differently today, of course, thanks to the “Black Friday” indictment and civil complaint that targeted (among others) Full Tilt Poker, with the civil complaint later amended to include Ferguson among those being accused of various wrongdoing.

The amended complaint (made public in September) alleges that “Defendant Ferguson” was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tiltware LLC as well as a part-owner of the company, and that he was among those who were paid large sums out of player funds, thereby helping create a situation in which Full Tilt owed players something like $390 million worldwide while having less than $60 million on hand (in late March 2011).

According to the amended complaint, “Ferguson was allocated approximately $85,161,305.88 in distributions,” although records indicated only about $25 million had actually been transferred to Ferguson’s accounts “with the remaining balance characterized as ‘owed’ to Ferguson.”

Shortly after the amended complaint dropped in September, Ferguson’s lawyer, the excellently-named Ian Imrich, responded by refuting the whole “Ponzi scheme” characterization made by U.S. attorney Preet Bharara. A couple of days after issuing the amended civil complaint, the DOJ moved to seize funds from FTP board members’ accounts, including Ferguson’s.

A week later Ray Bitar filed a claim against those seizures, and a couple of weeks after that (in mid-November) Ferguson likewise filed a few motions with the Southern District of New York, including some against seizures of funds from his accounts. One of those motions lists a couple of different FTP companies (the Kolyma Corporation and Vantage Ltd.) having the rights to $98,276,540 in several accounts seized by the DOJ. Another speaks of Tiltware, and that one Ferguson claims his right to $196,553,080 worth of funds in several different accounts.

The argument -- if I am following it correctly -- is that some of the funds in those seized accounts were “in the process of being returned to Full Tilt Poker players” (to quote from one of the motions). Indeed, I’ve thought since I first heard of those “FTP Insider Accounts” that the moving of big sums into the owners’ personal accounts probably wasn’t unrelated to an effort to keep the money squirreled away somehow and not necessarily evidence that the owners were simply taking the money for themselves. Then again, I think some of that was probably going on... who knows, really?

Of course, the status of all of this has likely changed with the apparent deal between Groupe Bernard Tapie and FTP (“brokered” by the DOJ) to effect the sale of the company to the French group as well as the return of funds to players, including funds seized by the DOJ.

A curious contrast, isn’t it, between Ferguson's careful management of money in his “Challenge” and his apparently less-than-cautious handling of things at Full Tilt Poker?

In any case, I'll consider Ferguson's bankroll advice as I try to manage my little roll on Carbon, realizing as I do that it’s hard to refer to something called “The Chris Ferguson Challenge” anymore without recognizing all of the new possible meanings the phrase evokes.

Reports from the Department of Redundancy Department: Full Tilt Poker’s Ex-Employees Speaking Out

Was diverted somewhat over weekend by these new threads popping up over on Two Plus Two in which ex-employees of Full Tilt Poker (or, rather, Pocket Kings Ltd.) are answering questions about their experiences working for the company.

Apparently close to 200 employees were finally let go from Full Tilt Poker last week -- their positions having been deemed “redundant” -- after several grim months of what sounds like reporting to work and doing nothing. (For a snapshot of the scene from the Dublin offices circa late summer, check out this melancholic post by another employee from August 25 by “solongdue.”)

All of the layers of secrecy and subterfuge surrounding FTP’s operations make these revelations from ex-employees -- even the minor ones -- a bit more intriguing than they would be otherwise. Of course, there is a lot of, well, redundancy going on here, with much of what is being said merely going over ground that has already been well covered over the last few months.

Still, it’s kind of absorbing. And there are a few tidbits in these threads that are not entirely old news, including at least one item that I think qualifies as altogether new (at least to me).

(I should add as a disclaimer that we’re assuming all of these posters are indeed who they say they are -- i.e., recently let-go employees of FTP. Evidence and in some cases corroboration in the threads seems to confirm one can assume as much.)

The first of these “Q & A” threads that I became aware of was started by a poster named “AnyQuestions” early Saturday. (EDIT [added 10/25/11]: This thread was eventually deleted; see bottom of post.) Within 24 hours he’d posted over 100 times to respond to others’ questions, and the thread continued to have momentum until late Sunday night when the questions finally stopped coming.

A lot of AnyQuestions’ thread involves him confirming things either suspected or known, such as that there are many players with “seven figures” locked up on the site, that employees started to become aware of the company’s massive (and increasing) shortfall late in December 2010 or January 2011, and that morale has been understandably low around the Dublin offices over the last few months.

Oh, and that Ray Bitar and the board members seemed to eat a lot of lobster. But we’d heard about that.

At one point AnyQuestions notes that after last week’s layoffs there are now less than 200 people left with the company. He does not sound very confident the Bernard Tapie deal will go through, and believes if it doesn’t the company will be done by January.

He speculates about the possibility of players getting paid (possibly in part) even if the sale doesn’t happen. There are other items in there regarding security, customer service, and various trivia, with AnyQuestions’ earnestly answering all questions as well as he can while not naming names.

Another ex-employee actually started a thread earlier (on Thursday), although he did so over in the Brags, Beats, and Variance forum rather than NVG and so I didn’t notice that one until the weekend. That poster -- “Amphitryon” -- appeared to have worked in security at FTP.

Amphitryon is a little less forthcoming about the behind-the-scenes stuff than AnyQuestions, but is more explicit with his expressions of disappointment with the company, at least early on in the thread. But the level of conversation over there is mostly less serious and more given to joking around about FTP’s many follies, and by Sunday morning it had evolved into another funny photoshop thread before pretty much petering out.

Amphitryon does provide a few minor insights into how security operated, though. He also notes how over in security they had no idea beforehand that anything like what happened on Black Friday was about to occur. Both he and AnyQuestions sound as though they sincerely loved their jobs with FTP, repeatedly expressing variations on the “good while it lasted” theme.

A third ex-employee, who alluded to the manner in which he lost his job by taking the name “Redundo,” then started yet another thread on Sunday morning, which after several hours was deleted from the site by moderators after the poster expressed regret for starting it. In fact, the same “Redundo” started a similar thread over on HighStakes.db where his post has not been removed.

While Redundo also stated he was ready to answer questions from 2+2ers, he clearly wasn’t as interested in doing so as were the other two thread-starters. He only came back into the thread a couple of times afterwards, and then only to ask that the thread be deleted. Rather, it looks like he just wanted to share a few pieces of information and express some frustration.

In that initial post (which as I say, can still be read over at the HighStakes.db forum), Redundo addresses a number of topics that were being discussed in the other threads. He, too, expressed pessimism about FTP’s future prospects (“it is sad to say but full tilt is gone”). He also suggests he believed players’ chances of getting their money returned was slight (“i don’t think it will happen”).

Then, during the next part of his post, Redundo showed a much greater willingness to name names than is the case with either AnyQuestions or Amphitryon.

He confirms that “FTPDoug” was still part of Pocket Kings (something being discussed in AnyQuestions’ thread). He then mentioned how Gil Coronado, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, has largely managed to avoid censure or legal trouble to this point despite being “probably number 2 guy in whole company” behind Ray Bitar and “largely responsible” for the current situation.

He next speaks of two others among the company’s management team -- Deirdre O’Shaughnessy and Caroline Lynch. O’Shaughnessy’s a co-director with Bitar at Pocket Kings (and at several other of the companies they set up), while Lynch heads Human Resources. Redundo largely absolves O’Shaughnessy (“i dont think [she] knew just how badly coronada and bitar ****ed up”) though is critical of Lynch (whom he called a “snake” and a “not nice person”). (That post by “solongdue” referenced above also includes comments about these two.)

Redundo then notes how Phil Gordon and Andy Bloch were more heavily involved in decision making than many realize. (AnyQuestions confirms in his thread that “to the best of [his] knowledge” Gordon’s involvement was substantial, and that Bloch is a major shareholder.)

Additionally -- and perhaps most notably -- Redundo briefly shares details of a “secret project” called “Project Coyote” that Full Tilt Poker had been working on that involved an agreement with the Facebook folks in Dublin to try to get an FTP game up and running on the social networking site.

The game would “connect to the back end of full tilt play money games and make the network really big,” the idea being to have the biggest site in the industry in terms of player base. “Then they woiuld [sic] try to convert to real money players,” Redundo goes on to explain, an idea he says “could have fixed the shortfall of funds if it didn’t get so many bugs and was delayed so much.”

Presumably, such a move represented part of the company’s plan for “global domination in the poker world” (a line from Ray Bitar that AnyQuestions quotes in his thread). Later in his thread, AnyQuestions acknowledges -- without going into specifics -- that the Facebook idea was indeed in the works.

It was the sharing of this news that led to Redundo’s thread being deleted. Two Plus Two moderator NoahSD (of Subject:Poker) had chimed in to point out how the Project Coyote stuff was perhaps better left undiscussed, Redundo agreed, and thereafter he asked that his thread be removed.

Interesting how one of the few non-redundant items to appear in any of the threads would raise ethical concerns about how much ex-employees should be willing to share. I suppose there are still some who think the “FTP on Facebook” idea -- which sounds like it might have been relatively close to happening prior to Black Friday -- still has some significance at this point as a bargaining chip for FTP with the Tapie group. I can’t see it mattering much now, though. After all that has happened this year, how could Facebook possibly be interested in working with the site going forward? (Besides, several others have already started down the Facebook road by this point, yes?)

There’s another ex-employee (or, perhaps, current employee?) of FTP who started doing something similar over in a Swedish poker forum a few days ago, too. A 2+2er has translated a lot of the Swede’s responses and posted his translations here.

The Swede is offering more specifics regarding how the remaining employees are working in preparation for a relaunch, although people are quitting, too, and it appears that given who’s left the company probably would be quite challenged to handle a relaunch should it occur.

Like Amphitryon, the Swede notes how Black Friday and its aftermath took him by surprise. He says Chris “Jesus” Ferguson -- whom he finds most culpable along with Bitar and Howard Lederer -- is still hanging around the offices there in Dublin. He also suggests the alarming possibility that Full Tilt Poker never donated money it collected from charity tournaments set up to deliver aid to Haiti and Japan. (Dealing in speculation here, obviously.)

Like I say, all of this was quite interesting to read through, even if relatively speaking there wasn’t a ton of new information to discover. It’s also interesting to consider the possibility of others speaking out, including those with more extensive knowledge of the site’s management -- in other words, people who might start providing information that isn’t so redundant.

(I believe the great Firesign Theatre were the first to create the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. -- on their 1970 album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers -- although I know Monty Python slipped it into a “Flying Circus” sketch somewhere in there as well.)

(EDIT [added 10/25/11]: The AnyQuestions thread had continued throughout the day on Monday with many more questions about Full Tilt’s operations being answered. However, as Mr Glich notes in his comment, the thread was deleted from the 2+2 site after AQ was apparently threated with a lawsuit. Here’s the new thread in which the removal of the original thread is discussed.)

Talk About Red Pros (More on the DOJ vs. Full Tilt Poker)

Have been perusing that amended civil complaint a bit this morning.

Like PokerStars and UB/Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker was accused in April of violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, bank fraud, and money laundering. Now the DOJ’s amendment to the civil complaint, besides adding Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst to those being accused, adds a few other major allegations as well, including...

(1) that the company’s manner of crediting accounts without first securing those deposits plunged the company into serious financial trouble;

(2) that the owners were skimming from players’ funds in a major way, thus further accelerating the company’s progress down that road to ruin; and

(3) that all along the way the company was inaccurately telling players everything was hunky dory.

Looking at these separately...

(1) “Phantom Money”

That first item is mentioned early on in the amended complaint when the DOJ explains how “Full Tilt Poker’s payment processing channels were so disrupted that the company faced increasing difficulty to collect funds from players in the United States,” and thus made the grievous decision to begin crediting accounts without finalizing transactions.

The complaint estimates the site did this to the tune of about $130 million worth of so-called “phantom money,” funds that appeared on the site between the summer of 2010 and April 2011.

I read a piece yesterday over at the Reason site arguing that “The Government Blames Full Tilt Poker for the Disruption the Government Deliberately Created.”

The author, Jacob Sullum, makes a couple of good points in the piece. Alluding to what has surely been the most-quoted line this week regarding the DOJ’s action, the one from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (in the press release) stating that “Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme,” Sullum correctly points out that in Bharara’s eyes, there is probably no such thing as a “legitimate poker company” operating online and serving U.S. players.

I thought the exact same thing when I first read Bharara’s statement. That never mind the “Ponzi scheme” stuff... what the heck does he mean by a “legitimate poker company”?

Sullum also points out how by passing the UIGEA, “it was the U.S. government, of course, that deliberately disrupted Full Tilt Poker's payment processing network in the United States in the name of preventing Americans from playing online poker.” Again, that is eminently the case. If not for the UIGEA, the site’s payment processing channels would likely not have been “so disrupted.”

But from there Sullum draws the odd conclusion that “the government created the very situation it is now blaming on Full Tilt Poker.” Which makes no sense.

Full Tilt Poker is being accused of a host of blameworthy offenses, none of which are “the situation” created by the passage of the UIGEA. Some of those offenses may well have never been committed had not the UIGEA been passed. But it’s silly to say the DOJ is blaming Full Tilt Poker for the “disruption” because it’s not. And it’s also silly to suggest that when it comes these other allegations -- of owners’ skimming funds or the site’s deliberately misleading communications to players -- that culpability can somehow be transferred away from Full Tilt Poker and rested at the feet of the U.S. government.

(2) “FTP Insider Accounts”

The amended complaint includes some remarkably precise details, obviously obtained by the DOJ from someone inside of Full Tilt Poker. These details include information that helps to measure just how deep the doo-doo was in which FTP found itself as well as the extent to which the owners were apparently funneling money at a rapid clip into their own “FTP Insider Accounts.”

We learn that “according to a balance sheet prepared by Full Tilt Poker, as of March 31, 2011, Full Tilt Poker owed players from around the world over approximately $390,695,788 but had only approximately $59,579,413 in its bank accounts.”

We also find details about how much “Defendant Bitar,” “Defendant Lederer,” “Defendant Ferguson,” and “Defendant Furst” each allegedly received into their personal accounts between April 2007 and April 2011, an amount totaling about $120 million, with about $60 million more “allocated” to Ferguson though not paid.

“The other approximately 19 owners of Tiltware LLC” are said to have received the rest of the $443,860,529.89, including one unnamed owner (“Player Owner 1”) who received about $40 million plus another $4.4 million in “loans,” a person many have surmised must be Phil Ivey.

These are all just allegations, of course. Rafe Furst, one of those named in the amended complaint, has already denied any wrongdoing. Other Team Full Tilters who might be among the “approximately 19” who could be considered “owners” have made statements as well, including Tom Dwan and Gus Hansen.

And Ferguson’s lawyer, while not denying the specific charges against his client, issued a statement yesterday decrying Bharara’s use of the term “Ponzi scheme” to describe Full Tilt Poker, claiming the characterization is both inaccurate and “inflammatory... in the post-Madoff era,” and thus “may violate pre-trial publicity rules of professional responsibility.”

Whatever you want to call it, should these allegations prove true they certainly suggest some pretty serious culpability. And while I suppose one could argue that if it weren’t for the UIGEA there wouldn’t be a need to be moving funds around like this -- including into personal accounts -- it looks pretty bad, regardless.

(3) “Please Know That Your Funds Are Safe and Secure”

Here’s where I think the average Full Tilt Poker player gathers most of his or her outrage -- from those statements by the company, repeated ad infinitum, that funds were “safe and secure.”

The amendment compiles a bunch of examples of such statements made between 2008 and 2011, although most of us are already familiar with them via our email inboxes, Two Plus Two, or simply visiting the fulltiltpoker.com website.

We read how in May 2008, Full Tilt Poker was emailing customers saying “we would like to assure you that your money is not at all at risk and there is no poker site on the Internet where your money would be any safer than at Full Tilt Poker.”

Think back to the summer of 2008. When one site told you then that your money was safer with them than with all other sites, which of those other sites would have sprung to mind? The ones where “super-users” and cheating occurred, right? Over which the poker community was split regarding whether or not one should feel safe when playing. The fact was, in such an environment, reassurances that Full Tilt Poker was no UB or Absolute Poker had some effect.

Along the same lines, the complaint quotes another boilerplate sent out around the same time in which the company pointed out that “unlike some companies in our industry, we completely understand and accept that your account money belongs to you, not Full Tilt Poker.”

Then come more specific assurances regarding the segregation of funds, such as “FTPDoug”’s July 2008 contribution to a thread on Two Plus Two (referred to generically in the amended complaint as the “Poker Forum”) in which he responds to posters’ apprehensions about the site's using players' funds for operational expenses. “I can say with authority,” writes FTPDoug, “that we do not mix deposits with operational expenses.”

Again in another thread, this one begun in June 2009, concerning the seizure of funds from a payment processor, FTPDoug chimes in “to reassure everyone that your funds remain safe and secure at FTP.... We always make sure we can cash out any of our players at any time. You should never have to worry that you won't get your money, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure you always have plenty of methods available for both deposits and withdrawals.”

Full Tilt made similar claims to the Alderney Gambling Control Commission apparently, too. The amended complaint quotes from a document (no date is given) in which the site ensured its licenser that “[a]ll players have an account that holds money that is available to them on the Full Tilt Poker system,” that “[t]he player may withdraw funds up to the current balance of their account at any time, subject to any applicable bonus terms and conditions,” and that “[n]o play may commence unless the player has credited his account with cleared funds and has adequate funds to participate in the selected game.”

Such was certainly not the case starting some time in 2010, if not before.

Then, in response to Black Friday, came a “Statement from Full Tilt Poker Regarding Recent Check Withdrawal Issues.” “In light of recent events involving the freezing of certain accounts,” the statement goes, “Full Tilt Poker would like to assure all players that their funds remain safe and secure. Processing of both deposit and withdrawal requests is proceeding as normal and is still available to all of our players.”

As noted above, this came a couple a weeks after that internal balance sheet was showing Full Tilt Poker owing its players about $390 million while only having a little under $60 million in its accounts.

And apparently it got even worse rather quickly, as another communication, this one an email sent by Ray Bitar on June 12, 2011, noted how “at this point we can’t even take a five million run” should players suddenly begin withdrawing.

The complaint also notes -- sort of like a weak, almost obvious punch-line -- how “As of September 19, 2011, Full Tilt Poker’s website stated that players’ funds were ‘safe and secure.’” Indeed, that line continues to appear on the site today.

There was clearly a moment, one that came well before Black Friday, when Full Tilt Poker knew it was operating in a way that could not be sustained indefinitely. In other words, even if it didn’t exactly match the criteria some would require to call it a “Ponzi scheme,” it was like a Ponzi scheme insofar as it was destined to fail.

What’s next for Full Tilt Poker? The amended complaint outlines its argument for forfeiture -- i.e., when it comes to whatever is left of the company’s assets, the government wants whatever it can get. F-Train and Chops (in that podcast I was referring to yesterday) speculated about a possible “widening of the net” by the DOJ to include other yet-to-be-named individuals. And there’s that still ongoing hearing with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, where rumors about possible investors continue to swirl.

Who knows, really? There will surely be more drama, but from the perspective of most who played on the site, it appears the damage has been done.

The players sponsored by Full Tilt were called “red pros.” The innocent among them are now red with embarrassment and/or anger. Those less so are being colored red as well as a symbolic reference to their guilt. And, of course, the whole dang outfit is deep in the red, now, too.

Full Tilt Priorities

I sent an email to Full Tilt Poker last week asking about my balance. I did this once before, back in early June. You know, just for grits and shiggles.

The money I have locked up on the site -- a little under three hundy -- is thankfully not too terribly significant, especially when compared to what others have been unable to access for the last four-plus months. Of course, when it comes to a low-stakes guy like me, that amount actually does represent a decent chunk of change. Indeed, it’s a heckuva lot more that I’d generally be willing to lose in a single session.

So, you know, I’d like it back. I mean, when I played there, I didn’t get any percentage of rakeback. But I also didn’t realize the rake was gonna be 100%.

When I sent my email back in June, I received the usual automated reply acknowledging I’d sent something, then later that same day I did get a response from a support person. He told me the site was “diligently working on facilitating the withdrawal of funds for U.S. players” and that “this is our top priority.”

I also got the automated reply to my email sent last week, but no follow-up. Not necessarily expecting one this time.

What has changed since my earlier email exchange with Full Tilt? Well, in late June the site’s license to operate was suspended by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, from which point we haven’t even been able to open the sucker to say hello to our balances. A late July hearing with the AGCC revealed little other than the fact that FTP owed Alderney some £250,000 in licensing fees, since paid. In early July, Phil Ivey dropped his lawsuit against FTP, but meanwhile a couple of other class action lawsuits have been filed against the site, one on behalf of American players, the other for all players. And a couple of weeks ago we heard the site had laid off its U.S.-based employees.

Then yesterday came another baffling, terse message from the site, delivered as an “exclusive statement” to PokerNews. The sad little message -- less than 200 words -- noted that Pocket Kings Ltd. (“brand executor” for FTP) had concluded the “exclusivity period” of discussions with one potential investor and is now starting to negotiate with others regarding a possible “sale/partnership.” The statement concludes by echoing something the erstwhile “FTPDoug” had said back on May 30 (I think essentially the last time we’ve heard from the much-ridiculed spokesperson aside from a couple of posts in mid-June regarding the site being down):

“Full Tilt Poker's number one priority remains the same: to secure an infusion of capital to repay all of its worldwide customers.”

FTPDoug had mentioned this need for “raising capital” before, something we now all realize is going to have to happen before anyone ever sees his or her funds returned. In other words, while the “top priority” was once simply facilitating withdrawals, it has since become finding a way “to secure an infusion of capital” -- i.e., to find someone willing to pay their debts for them.

All very disappointing, obviously. Kind of makes me think about how the site’s “priorities” have necessarily shifted so markedly over the years -- away from giving players a chance to “learn, chat, and play with the pros” or even to generate revenue and advance the brand to achieving much more grim, even desperate-seeming goals.

Over the weekend Marco of QuadJacks drew my attention to a very intriguing interview with Chris “Jesus” Ferguson from May 13, 2005 on the “Charlie Rose” talk show. In the interview, Ferguson mentions near the end of the segment how he and “a bunch of friends... a bunch of the top players in the world -- me, Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, Phil Gordon, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Andy Bloch -- we've all gotten together and we've actually founded a software development company called Tiltware, and we wrote the software for FullTiltPoker.com, which is the fastest-growing online poker site out there.”

Even though Ferguson’s manner is typically understated in the interview, it is hard not to pick up on his enthusiasm when describing Full Tilt, then not even a year in existence. Sad to think how badly the site has turned out, not least of which because of poor decisions apparently made by Ferguson and perhaps by at least some of those friends he mentions. (Incidentally, for a clear-headed discussion of just one such bad decision, see this post from yesterday by Kim of Infinite Edge, “Why Rakeback Hasn’t Added To Anything But a Few People’s Wallets.”)

While I lament not having access to -- or even losing -- my money on Full Tilt Poker, I lament much more the way the site has so significantly damaged both the current state of online poker in the U.S. as well as its prospects going forward. I realize other sites share in the blame here, of course, but it’s FTP and its poorly-placed priorities that are mostly occupying our attention at present.

And like Kim, I can’t help but suspect even yesterday’s statement by Full Tilt identifying their “number one priority” is more than a little disingenuous, with the accomplishing of many other self-interested goals likely ranking more highly for them at present than finding players’ money.

2009 WSOP, Day 8: Isolation

It was a long, somewhat arduous night-slash-morning for yr humble gumshoe. As I mentioned yesterday, there were seven different World Series of Poker events going on at the Rio, and I was assigned to the last one of the day, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha (Event No. 10).

My event started a little after five o’clock in the afternoon, and it was past 3 a.m. by the time we were done. The tourney was tucked way back in the far right quadrant of the Brasilia room. I had just one reporter with me (Matt, who was terrific), so we were feeling pretty isolated back there, particularly during the very last level when all of the other events had already wrapped up.

Right near my station, Daniel Negreanu was seated at a table that didn’t break for the entire eight levels, so I basically got to witness fairly closely his play and all of his table talk for most of the evening. Also frequently got to experience a bit of claustrophobia as throngs of spectators intermittently gathered near Negreanu’s table. Had one elderly lady ask me if I had a piece of paper that she could take and get him to sign. Then she asked if I had a pen. Then if I had a book or something upon which he could write. I think I supplied a piece of scrap paper, but no other materials with which to bother the poker player while he was trying to play. But she succeeded in her quest, nonetheless, and Negreanu happily obliged her with an autograph.

He also was quite sociable with some of the more inebriated fans who occasionally wanted to engage him in conversation, coming over and posing for pictures with a couple of liquored-up ladies at one point. I remember somewhere in there as they were praising him one of them hollering “Hellmuth is such a douchebag!” to which Negreanu laughed loudly. “How many of those have you had tonight?” he asked. “Just five,” was the reply.

I reported a couple of Negreanu’s hands, but didn’t overdo it as I didn’t want the blog to become All Danny All the Time. As his Twitter followers know, he had a good day, chipping up past 80,000 (from the starting stack of 7,500), but slipping at the end back to around 50,000.

Incidentally, that Rule No. 88 -- the “Approved Electronic Device Rule” -- is not being enforced whatsoever at the WSOP. Not as it is written, anyway. The rule says players can use electronic devices as long as they cannot access the internet, send text messages, or have any sort of external communication. The rule also states (in bold, no less) that “iPhones, iTouch, Treos, Blackberrys, and other similar devices will not be allowed at any time.”

In other words, it does not say the devices can be used when the player is not in the hand. It says the devices “will not be allowed at any time.” But like I say, no one is enforcing this rule at all. And if I had to estimate, I’d say at each table probably seven or eight of the nine players will pull out their iPhones or Blackberrys at some point after they have folded a hand, with some keeping them out constantly -- even, in some cases (it appears), when they are in hands, too.

I reported on one hand last night in which Chris “Jesus” Ferguson let David “Chino” Rheem steal his big blind, all the while studying his iPhone as the hand took place. After he mucked, Andy Bloch asked Ferguson what game he was playing. “Chinese,” said Ferguson. I walked behind him and took a peek over the long-haired, hat-wearing player’s shoulder, and sure enough he was assembling hands on some Chinese poker application for the iPhone. Not sure if he was playing against others or not, but I’m going to guess he was.

I actually don’t feel that strongly one way or the other about players using these devices at the tables, as long as it doesn’t obviously affect the actual play or give anybody an unfair advantage. As a reporter, I have no problem at all with people following their favorite players on Twitter in addition to (or even instead of) my reports on PokerNews. Especially on a Day 1, when we aren’t always going to be tracking chip counts for the entire field the way we will try to do from Day 2 onward, it’s pretty cool for fans to be able to follow their faves that way.

I do have a couple of issues, though, with the non-enforcement of Rule No. 88. One is simply the hypocrisy of having the rule and not implementing it. Why include it at all if you aren’t going to stick to it? The only part of the rule that I’ve seen enforced is the part where it says once players reach the money they have to put all of the devices away (even the iPods and non-internet-accessing devices). Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of words. And having a rule and not enforcing it just undermines the significance of all of the other rules, too.

The other issue I have is less poker-specific and more an observation about our culture, generally speaking. I got me an iPhone a week or so before coming out to Vegas this summer, and I definitely like being in constant contact with Vera and other family and friends. But I generally keep the sucker in my pocket. Especially if I’m with others.

Seems like everybody everywhere is no longer looking at each other, talking to each other, experiencing each other’s presence. Instead, everyone is walking around with head down, busily jabbing at these little machines. Connecting with others, I guess, but not the ones right before them.

Be nice if people would look at each other now and then. Hey, we’re playing poker here! It’s a game -- we’re competing against each other. Let’s pretend we exist in the same time and place for a while. Let’s acknowledge each other’s existence. Let’s get together, people.

World can be too damn lonely a place otherwise.

2008 WSOP Moves to TV Land

Have been watching ESPN’s 2008 World Series of Poker coverage the past couple of weeks. Last week they gave two hours’ worth to Event No. 1, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event won by Nenad Medic. Last night was Event No. 2, the first (and biggest) of the “donkaments,” i.e., those $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events.

By the way, how about that last hand of Event No. 2 in which Grant Hinkle made a horrendous blunder and got rewarded? With just a small chip advantage over James Akenhead, Hinkle raised preflop from the small blind/button with , Akenhead reraised, then Hinkle crazily pushed all in. (Actually, the heads-up battle did last two hours -- ESPN only showed two hands -- and thus there was some context for Hinkle’s play. Still, even with the context, a pretty wild shove.) Akenhead snap-called with . But the flop came 10-4-10, and the turn brought the case ten, giving Hinkle quads and the bracelet. (Read F-Train’s account of that last hand here.)

Have to say, all things considered, that finale has to be “good for poker,” as they say. Don’t you think? (How many fish will Hinkle’s move inspire?)

I don’t believe I’d even started my first shift live blogging for PokerNews until after Event No. 1 had completed. During Event No. 2’s final table I was there, positioned right outside of the little mini-stadium covering the second day of Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event. I mentioned in one of my early 2008 WSOP posts how we were somewhat affected by the spectacle of Chris “Jesus” Ferguson as we sat nearby posting about that other event. Big crowd of people that night wanting to get into that relatively small arena (only seats 90-100, I’d estimate).

Next week ESPN will be showing the Event No. 4 final table. Will definitely be watching that one closely, as I was there covering it live. I remember talking to Dr. Pauly on one of my last days in Vegas and him explaining how he tends not to watch the foreground of these ESPN telecasts but instead focuses on the periphery. Hard not to avoid doing that, I’m discovering, as I’ve already had fun spotting a number of colleagues and other familiar faces in the background these last two weeks.

The packaging of these ESPN shows is done quite well, in my opinion. I know some on the forums don’t care for certain aspects of the productions, e.g., the player profiles, the “Nuts” segments, the necessarily selective presentation of hands, etc. But they do manage to make it all fairly compelling, even for someone like me who is already very familiar with what happened.

I watched last night’s show with Vera, and she also got hooked by the various storylines ESPN created.

Early on, one player, Jeff Wiedenhoeft, apparently misread his hand and as a consequence found himself bounced in tenth place. (That was the first hand shown, and in fact was the very first hand of that final table.) ESPN continued to focus on his mistake, but did an okay job folding it into a larger narrative, I thought. They underscored his triumph (he had outlasted over 3,900 others, after all), and also did a “Nuts” segment about other poker players’ “most embarrassing moments” which made Wiedenhoeft’s miscue seem less egregious.

The Mike Ngo-Theo Tran drama that developed was curious to follow, as well. Ngo bluffed Tran out of a fairly big pot in which Tran mucked the best hand on the river (pocket aces). (This was Hand #43 of the final table.) After the hand Ngo gloated a bit, and while Tran appeared initially to take it well, he was obviously steaming afterwards. Later on, Tran outwardly roots for Ngo’s elimination. Neither player came off too terribly well there.

Tran would get pocket aces cracked again just six hands later by Aaron Coulthard. My colleague Loganmark reported both hands here. (I think ESPN might’ve shown just one of the intervening hands.) It was easy to sympathize with Tran’s predicament. Losing once with A-A is bad enough. Losing twice in such short succession -- at a WSOP final table, no less -- is simply brutal, especially when you actually had the winner on one occasion.

And the Hinkle family stuff was all entertaining, too, I thought. ESPN made a lot of the rivalry between the two Hinkle brothers, Grant and Blair, and their proud mother, Lynn. I think Vera especially liked that part of the show. After Grant won, I told Vera that Blair would go on to win a bracelet himself (in Event No. 23, the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event), and she got a kick out of hearing that. ESPN won’t be covering Event No. 23 in full, so I thought it was okay to give that part of the story away.

Back in May I complained about ESPN’s decision to forgo showing most of the preliminary events and instead devote most of its coverage -- 20 of its scheduled 32 hours -- to the Main Event. I still would rather see some of the other events, but frankly, I wouldn’t want to sit through too many of these No-Limit Hold’em final tables.

Like I say, ESPN does well to create interest, but one can only endure so many sequences of “all in” and “call.” So if they aren’t going to show other games (just four of the 32 hours will feature non-Hold’em games), they might as well get to the ME as fast as they can.

2008 WSOP, Day 17: Brasilia

Covering one of these three-day WSOP events from start to finish is unlike just about any other experience I’ve ever had.

I’ve done some traveling abroad, and I suppose I might liken the experience to finding oneself in a foreign country, far away from family and friends, interacting with a culture much different from the one to which one is accustomed. An utterly social experience, yet one is also always alone, too.

And there’s really no stepping away from it, even just for a moment in the hopes of catching some clarifying glimpse to help determine what it “means” or where it all fits into the “big picture” or the like. That’ll come later, perhaps, after one has returned home and resumed that other life, the so-called “real” one filled with familiar faces, routines, and/or modes of communication.

Was feeling that weird sense of being utterly enveloped in this other, strange world last night as we were off in the Brasilia room covering Day 2 of Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/rebuys event. The Brasilia room is down the hall and around the corner from the Amazon room where I had been every other day I’d worked thus far. Whereas the Amazon contains something like 165 tables, plus that mini-arena over in the corner (where I’ll be for tonight’s final table), the Brasilia room has perhaps a third of that number. Still a lot of people coming and going -- some asking about satellites and/or napkins -- but relatively speaking yr fairly well tucked away from the main thoroughfare of poker playing and watching.

Had a few exchanges last night with visitors inquiring about the WSOP and what was taking place there in the Brasilia, and I could sense their amazement when I told them who was playing over there in the middle of the room. Yes, that’s right. Chris Ferguson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, John Juanda, and David Benyamine are all over there. Yeah, I know it looks like just any other cash game, but that’s them, battling for a bracelet.

We went deep into the night-slash-morning, my first real marathon of a day (ended up working about 14 hours, total). If I were given to hyperbole (which I ain’t), I’d almost describe the scene at 4 a.m. as surreal. Didn’t seem right, somehow, for all of this to be going down so peacefully. Shouldn’t there be music? A laser show? Norman Chad?

The six above-named pros, all regulars on televised poker and unquestioned celebrities in our little poker world, were at that last ten-handed table being dealt the last hands of pot-limit Omaha of the night. Standing around the table were perhaps 20 people total inside the ropes, only a very small handful of whom were charged with the duty of reporting on what was taking place. There were some fans there, too, though not too many. Due to the late hour and the relative obscurity of our location, I’m guessing few had any idea what was happening.

Hellmuth, incessant craver of attention, would occasionally pipe up to remind everyone he was there. He had to, as his short stack of chips didn’t allow him to make any noise otherwise. Negreanu was quick and alert as always, constantly engaging others in strategy talk and post-hand analyses. Benyamine exuded confidence and competence, once defending his play against a half-baked criticism from the Poker Brat, but essentially remaining focused on the cards.

Chan chimed in at one point after dragging a pot with a fairly weak hand. With a king in his hand and one on the board, he’d offered from early position at a small pot and had a couple of takers. All checked the turn, then another king on the river prompted Chan to bet again. All folded, and Chan showed his king (and not much else) as he dragged the pot. Some ribbing about the lucky river ensued, but Chan defended his play through infectious laughter.

Juanda remained silent throughout those final hands, and in fact seemed almost to be hiding behind the dealer over in Seat 1. That’s Juanda’s style, constantly flying under the radar. He’d only appeared in a couple of our posts last night, despite having the chip lead at one point during the night. You just don’t see him over there for some reason, and he certainly does little to draw attention to himself.

I was standing behind Ferguson, and so didn’t see his expressions or reactions during those final hands last night. Didn’t have to, though, as we all know how little he varies his countenance and behavior at the table. After the hand in which he was eliminated, the player who knocked him out, Brian Rast, shook his hand, saying “Sorry, Chris.” Ferguson was utterly gracious, taking a moment to congratulate everyone for having made the final table before sauntering off into the sunrise.

And after spending some time helping chronicle those last moments over at PokerNews, I, too, made my exit. It was daylight again, the only evidence of the evening being the still-turned-on headlights of a few of the vehicles on the road with me as I made my way back to the home-away-from-home.

Another stacked final table tonight. As I said, we’ll be back in the Amazon, over in the staging area, with the cameras and an announcer and fans in the stands. Will seem more like a spectacle today than that quiet, serene scene from early this morning.

Which, in an odd way, may make it all seem a little less strange to yr humble observer.