PPA Can Do Better

Back in January, Frank “Life’s a Bluff” Frisina started a thread over on the Poker Players Alliance forum regarding the Absolute Poker scandal. Specifically, Frisina was wondering why the PPA had not chosen to issue any sort of statement regarding the AP scandal.

Some reasonable discussion ensued. Rich “TheEngineer” Muny offered his thoughts on the subject. The subsequent back-and-forth between the two then moved onto some other PPA-related subjects, and while Frisina and Muny disagreed on several points, there was a genuine dialogue going on between them. Incidentally, Muny is actually one of those PPA State Directors (he represents Kentucky). He’s also a PPA Board member, and made clear to Frisina that his responses to him were as a board member, not as a state rep.

The thread died down after the first week or so, but in February another State Director, Randall Castonguay (of Massachussetts), chimed in to point out some of the good things the PPA has been doing.

In fact, earlier this week the PPA helped stage a rally across from the Mass. State House to oppose a recently-proposed casino bill that included a clause making playing online poker a felony for which one could get two years in prison and/or pay a $25,000 fine. The turnout for the rally was apparently light -- Foucault was there (see his summary). In any event, the protestors’ efforts were not in vain as the bill was thankfully voted down by the committee considering it, so it never went to the full MA Congress for its consideration.

Anyhow, after lauding the PPA’s efforts in his state, Castonguay ends his post by censuring Frisina for having raised his criticisms. Writes Castonaguay, “So, you wanna b%$#@ and moan because you think the PPA isn't doing enough of this or that...then look in the mirror and ask how much action YOU have taken to support the cause.”

That’s how one PPA State Director responded to Frisina’s criticisms. Not the sort of tone one would like to see from someone charged with leading others, but there it is.

Then another State Director, Steve Brubaker (who represents Illinois), added his two cents yesterday. After dismissing worries about Ultimate Bet -- Brubaker says he continues to play at UB because he sees the current troubles there as an “isolated incident” -- he echoes the sentiment of some others by saying that the PPA doesn’t need to publicize any given online scandal since “most people know about it and can make decisions based on their trust of the site.” A few debatable claims in there -- that UB is A-OK, that “people know about” the scandals -- but Brubaker is certainly entitled to his view.

However, his post doesn’t end there. After making his point and defending the PPA, Brubaker saw fit to add this bit of paranoia-fueled vitriol:

“Now - a word on ‘trolls’. In any open forum, trolls (haters that only want to stir up problems) abound. I think Lifesabluff [i.e., Frisina] is a troll. Perhaps he's an employee of casinos or others that want to see the PPA or online poker fail. I think he should be blocked from posting.”

Again, this is a State Director of the PPA, here characterizing a member who has raised questions about the organization as an enemy combatant who needs silencing.

Can’t say I blame Frisina for cancelling his PPA membership. I realize those who have volunteered to serve as State Directors are especially passionate people who believe not only in fighting for citizens’ rights to play poker but in the PPA’s strategy for accomplishing that goal. They have to be that way -- the organization would be ill-served by State Directors who didn’t feel so strongly about the cause.

Even so, I find the responses of Castonguay and Brubaker to Frisina to be appalling. State Directors simply cannot come onto the PPA forums and address members in this way, no matter how much they might disagree with the opinions to which they are responding.

As the PPA’s recently-altered mission statement claims, the organization allegedly “consists of enthusiasts from around the United States who have joined together to speak with one voice” in the effort to preserve our rights to play poker. How can that happen if issues raised by members are met with derision and/or calls to suppress those offering a dissenting view?

One (Ex-)Member Inspires PPA to Alter Its Mission Statement

Still in S.F. Vera and I ended up at Fisherman’s Wharf last night for a wind-blown walk up and down the bay. Stopped off for some seafood and a glass of Anchor Steam (supersized), then took a rowdy bus back to our hotel. Along with my Oaks Card Club excursion earlier in the day, I probably walked at least six miles altogether yesterday, and so I was fairly zapped when we made it back last night.

Wanted to weigh in briefly on Frank Frisina’s interesting interview with John Pappas, the Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance. Frisina posted the interview on Life’s a Bluff yesterday, along with his own comments regarding some of Pappas’ answers. There have also been a number of comments by others added there as well, including some from Rich “The Engineer” Muny, a PPA Board Member and frequent (& helpful) contributor to the 2+2 Legislation forum.

If yr interested, you should check out the interview and subsequent discussion. I just wanted to touch on a couple of items I found intriguing.

One point of interest concerns the issue of PPA’s funding. I had not previously realized the PPA wasn’t solely maintained by those dues some of us have sent to the organization. (By the way, I sent ’em my twenty bucks back in October 2006, shortly after the UIGEA was signed into law. My member number is 16,290, although I think there were actually over 100,000 members when I signed up.) According to Pappas, “the PPA receives its funding from member dues, merchandise sales, individual contributions, and financial support from the Interactive Gaming Council.”

The Interactive Gaming Council is a not-for-profit outfit located in Vancouver whose interests cover not just online poker, but all forms of “interactive” or online gaming. According to their website, the IGC’s purpose is essentially twofold -- (1) to establish fair trading guidelines and practices so players can be sure the sites they play on are legit ; and (2) to be a public policy advocate (e.g., fight things like the UIGEA).

Like a lot of us, Frisina was interested in having Pappas explain why the PPA hasn’t bothered to speak publicly about the various scandals that have plagued online poker over the last year or so, including the Absolute Poker insider “super-user” scam from last year. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that the PPA would be very interested in talking about such scandals as they could be used to further their case for the passage of bills like Barney Frank’s H.R. 2046 -- a bill that would invite governmentally-run, industry-wide regulation.

Frisina suspects the IGC’s support of the PPA may have something to do with the PPA’s reluctance to weigh in on the matter. He points to the presence of Mohawk Internet Technologies on the IGC’s member list as potentially significant here. Mohawk Internet Technologies is that server farm where something like 60% of the world’s online gambling sites are hosted, and it is owned by the Kahnawake Mohawk territory (located just outside of Montreal). That’s where you’ll also find the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, the group that adminsters licenses to 400-plus online gambling sites.

You remember the KGC. They’re the ones who made public that report back in January telling how Absolute Poker had violated four of their regulations, and so the Commission put AP on a kind of probation (the site is subject to random audits for two years, and if they fail any they’re no longer a KGC permit holder), made the site get rid of the guilty guy(s), forced them to pay a fine, etc. (Here’s the full report.)

Of course, Absolute Poker is owned by Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, which is located there in the Mohawk territory and is owned and run by the tribe. Tokwiro is presently headed by Joe Norton, former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake. Norton has also served as the CEO of Mohawk Internet Technologies, though I don’t believe he presently holds that position. All of which means it isn’t obvious how separate Absolute and the KGC really are, thus making the Commission’s $500,000 fine of AP more than a little suspect-seeming. (Who was paying whom?)

So what we have here is a lengthy, possibly-curious chain linking the PPA to the IGC to Mohawk Internet Techologies to the KGC to Absolute Poker, all of which makes it reasonable to wonder (as Frisina does) whether there might be something in the way the PPA is funded that prevents them from weighing in on the AP scandal. I can’t really say one way or the other here -- the web of obligation and influence is too tangled for me to see through clearly. However, something else came up in the interview that perhaps explains even more directly why the PPA isn’t interested in being involved when online poker cheating scandals erupt.

In the context of asking Pappas about the AP scandal, Frisina asked the PPA’s Executive Director to comment on the organization’s mission statement, specificially its reference to wanting to “ensure the integrity” of the game. Pappas responded by saying “Admittedly, our mission statement overstates the PPA’s interest in serving as the ‘integrity police’ for the poker industry.” Rather, said Pappas, the organization is more directly focused on “providing the legal/legislative framework for licensed and regulated poker to prosper,” thereby establishing “a secure and safe place for poker players to enjoy the game they love.”

Sort of a weird, unexpected response here, I thought, to say the PPA isn’t going to act as the “integrity police” while also saying the PPA wants to make poker not just legal, but “safe and secure” for everyone.

Even more eyebrow-raising, the PPA has apparently altered its mission statement in the wake of the Life’s a Bluff interview. Up until this week, the PPA described itself as a group “who have joined together to speak with one voice to promote the game, ensure its integrity and protect the right to play poker” (emphasis added). If you go to the PPA website today, you’ll find the organization now consists of people “who have joined together to speak with one voice to promote the game and protect the right to play poker in all its forms.” The reference to “integrity” has now been removed.

Perhaps it makes sense, on a practical level, to get rid of the “integrity” stuff. Hell, I don’t know of any group, now matter how big, who can do that for online poker at present. Even so, doesn’t it strike you as just a little bit disingenuous to alter your mission statement after nearly a million people have joined your group?

The PPA definitely should have made it clear from the outset it was simply a lobbying organization looking to keep poker legal (“in all forms”), and not anything more than that. Easy for me to say that now, of course. Then again, it isn’t clear to me that supporting bills like H.R. 2046 really is going to result in accomplishing that goal, either, as discussed here previously (“Do We Want Online Poker Regulated? (1 of 2)” & “Do We Want Online Poker Regulated? (2 of 2)”).

Anyhow, lots of stuff to ponder. Gonna meet up with Tim Peters (of “The Literature of Poker” and CardPlayer) later today -- looking forward to that. There is a possibility I might get over to Lucky Chances tomorrow; I’d say the odds are about 70-30 against at the moment . . . .

Looks like another windy day out there. Better take my hat.

Going to California

Am headed to San Fran this morning for a week’s worth of R & R. Might well find my way to a cardroom while I’m there -- am not sure at this point. If so, I’ll surely report back what happens to transpire. I have never played a hand of poker in California before (not in a casino, anyway). So am definitely curious to get out there and see what’s what.

Have had a not-so-hot little stretch of online play here for the last few days, mostly at the PLO tables. And while I can’t say for certain, it seems like things should be going better.

Jeff Hwang makes a smart observation at the very beginning of his Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy. “Pot-Limit Omaha is not a 50-50 game,” writes Hwang. He explains that while those “coin flip” situations do come up fairly often (e.g., a flopped set vs. a big wrap+flush draw), “it is a pure fallacy that you have to be in a gambling situation when the money goes in.”

He’s absolutely correct. There are numerous scenarios whereby one can get one’s opponents all-in drawing dead or nearly dead, if one is savvy enough to recognize those spots and take advantage of them.

Even so, been feeling as though I have endured more than my fair share of suckouts here lately where I have my opponent at a severe disadvantage and he or she gets there by the end. Seems like everyone gunning for that flush draw (and nothing else) keeps hitting after I get ‘em all in on the turn with my big set. Those are usually 85-to-15 type situations. Then, of course, there are the cases where I have a smaller edge, or it really is a coin flip, and I don’t seem be winning enough of those to make up for the other losses.

Then there are the hands I just simply screw up – mistimed bluffs, stubborn big calls with no redraws, etc. Ended up scampering back over to limit Hold ‘em just to clear my head a bit.

Probably a good time to get away, frankly. The online poker world is such a headachy mess, and I ain’t even referrin’ to them crummy beats. For more on that, go check out Frank Frisina’s latest over at Life’s a Bluff. Frank is discussing Ultimate Bet’s admission to a cheating “scheme” occurring on its site and how little coverage it has received.

In his post Frank invites readers to Google “Ultimate Bet cheating” and see what they find. Let me invite you to do the same. On that first page, sort through the old stuff -- and a couple of links pointing you back here to Hard-Boiled -- and you’ll find an interesting post from last week that appeared on Richard Marcus’ site suggesting the UB scandal might be a lot bigger than even the site has let on. (Marcus is the author of Dirty Poker.) Take a gander at that list of problems going on over at UB . . . just horrific.

Meanwhile, do stay tuned over at Life’s a Bluff for the interview with John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance coming forth later this week, which I think should prove interesting as well.

Not sure at the moment what sort of access to the intertubes I’ll be enjoying while I am in San Fran, so my streak of posting at least once per weekday may well be in danger. So I’ll talk to you next either from California or after I return . . . .