No Time to Read, Must Comment

Continuing to follow that “battle of Hastings” I discussed here late last week. Find myself still checking that 2+2 thread about it fairly frequently while also reading some of the commentaries such as the thoughtful one contributed by the Australian player James “Andy McLEOD” Obst yesterday over on the Calvin Ayre site (presented as an interview, though in fact an essay by Obst).

No major advances occurred over the weekend, really. In fact, the most noteworthy recent developments concern how certain high profile pros have been reacting and responding to the story.

Speaking of the 2+2 thread, I noticed today someone chiming in some 1,500 posts into it with one of those amusingly oblivious posts that often come up deep in an active discussion, saying essentially (I’m paraphrasing) “I heard something about this but haven’t read -- what’s this all about?” The question earned the derision it deserved, as well as a pointer to the “Cliffs” of the discussion that appear as the thread’s initial post.

Such a contribution is a bit like the daydreaming student who suddenly becomes aware of the possibility that something either in the discussion or the teacher’s incessant yammering might in fact be important for him to know. He thrusts up his hand and shamelessly asks for a recap, insensible to the fact that he’s distinguishing himself as an obstacle to actual dialogue.

Saw someone tweeting something similar today about not having followed the story, though nonetheless being eager to share a position regarding it, namely, that whatever it was about, it likely confirmed other theories this person has advanced in the past about online poker.

Sort of thing happens a lot online, of course. Read the comments to any post or article, and you’ll frequently find many only responding to the headline, leading photo, or whatever text or picture might have successfully baited the person to click over to the page.

That’s a different kind of non-contribution, perhaps even more frustrating for those who are actually engaged with the story and trying to find something constructive to take away from what is happening. Kind of a like a movie review by a person who is only acquainted with the title, perhaps has seen a trailer or has a general idea of the plot, and has picked up on the fact that others are talking about it and so feels compelled to talk about it, too.

Some time ago I got on a kick of listening to a lot of film-related podcasts, including a couple focusing on low-budget, “exploitation” and cult fare for which discussions about the making of the films can be as interesting (or more so) than discussions of the films themselves.

One such podcast was devoted to the whole “video nasties” phenomenon that arose in the U.K. during the mid-1980s, going through and reviewing all of the films that were put on the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) list -- 72 in all. (Here’s a link to the show’s website, if you’re curious.) Each episode opens with an audio clip of Mary Whitehouse, the activist who led the charge against the video nasties, in which an interviewer is asking her if she herself had in fact seen any of the films she was petitioning to have banned.

“I have never seen a video nasty,” she responds. “I actually don't need to see visually what I know is in that film.”

What a line, eh? Seems to imply she was able to “see” the movies in some manner other than “visually.” (Whitehouse, incidentally, is one of the three targets in Pink Floyd’s brilliant track “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” from the 1977 LP Animals.)

It’s a quote those who have studied the whole “video nasties” story enjoy bringing up when criticizing the movement to stop the sale of what in truth was a pretty arbitrary compilation of videos, representing as it does a kind of bald-faced, strangely unembarrassed hypocrisy.

That’s the example I think of when someone butts into a conversation the person hasn’t been following, only to deliver judgments and conclusions about what the person thinks might be at issue.

UP Goes Down

Sour news to end last week with the announcement from Ultimate Poker they were folding for good. Brings to mind how often it seems those players who show up early for tournaments and get seated first end up being among the first to be eliminated.

I’m looking at the website this evening the front page of which doesn’t even reflect the fact that UP is done. There’s the notice to New Jersey players, first posted less than two months ago to announce Ultimate Poker was leaving the Garden State, but one has to dig around a little to learn that the Nevada games ended today, withdrawals can be made as usual for the next week, and any remaining player balances will be refunded by check thereafter.

The New Jersey pull-out had seemed primarily consequent to the troubles of Trump Taj Mahal Associates, the land-based casino with which UP had partnered up. Details of “multiple breaches” of their agreement on the part of the Trump group -- not the least of which being TTMA’s owing UP’s parent company some significant cabbage -- all colored that move as unsurprising and not necessarily indicative of Ultimate’s shutdown being imminent.

That said, the prospects for Ultimate in Nevada were hardly rosy. The front page of the website not being updated to reflect the latest news seems kind of emblematic, in fact, of the feeling of stasis that has characterized Ultimate Poker pretty much from the get-go.

The news caused me over the weekend to look back at what I posted here on April 30, 2013, the day Ultimate Poker dealt its first hand in Nevada. Seems hard to believe that was only a little over a year-and-a-half ago, but as often happens in “poker time” things move quickly. And for UP, it all moved much too quickly, and mostly in the wrong direction.

In that post I was hopeful for UP, if not overly optimistic. My main concern then was that the site successfully operate “minus the scandals and other problems that became such a conspicuous part of our previous experience with online poker here in the States.”

It did that, I suppose -- the fact that the funds in all of the 25,000 NV accounts with money in them will be reclaimed (as the UP account tweeted) is a kind of faint silver lining. But as the tweets and forum posts have been spelling out in bits and pieces, while there was an adherence to the regulations that permitted the site to serve U.S. customers, the company’s management perhaps wasn’t quite as disciplined.

Terrence Chan’s thoughtful “post-mortem” video blog provides insight along those lines. Posts by “Union of the Snake” on 2+2 (here and here) provide some interesting reading as well, with the points made corresponding closely to those made by a “wise man” on a certain podcast just a few days before, one regular listeners know more often than not opens with an ’80s ear worm.

The slow-moving story of Online Poker 2.0 in the U.S. will continue pretty much as it had even when Ultimate Poker was still sitting short-stacked at a table full of short stacks. But the inauspicious launch and fall of the first to the table can’t be much of a source of encouragement for those still in the game.

Stirring Things Up

I’ve written here before -- although it’s been a while -- about Dashiel Hammett’s unnamed detective the Continental Op who appears in about two dozen stories and a couple of novels by the hard-boiled writer.

Most of the stories follow a similar trajectory in which the Op is given some sort of assignment that often seems relatively simple, then discovers early on the particulars are more complicated than had been earlier suggested. From there, a favorite response by the Op is to introduce some further, often creative complication -- kind of like putting in a surprising check-raise -- to see how others will react and thus perhaps reveal their motives. Or crimes.

The Op often benignly describes this strategy as “stirring things up.” For example, “The House in Turk Street” (1924) is a weird little story in which the Op finds himself accidentally holed up with a gang of bank robbers whom he notices gradually starting to turn on each other. Despite being their prisoner and tied to a chair, he nurtures their growing conflict himself at one point -- in fact, he uses a poker analogy when he refers to having “led my ace” with one false statement, something which he subsequently refers to as “my little lie that was meant to stir things up.”

When I brought up the phrase here before, in was in the context of talking about poker strategy, referring to the choice “to stir things up” with a bet or raise or anything that takes one out of one’s typical style or approach. Doing so can sometimes be worthwhile, a means to improve one’s game and prevent falling into predictable patterns that others can exploit.

Over the last week or so I have been thinking of the phrase in a different way, though, as there have been a lot of examples of people “stirring things up” in the poker world, with several different debates flying about concerning a host of topics.

I’m thinking of course about the recent brouhaha following Daniel Colman’s victory in the “Big One for One Drop” and his subsequent decision not to go through the usual picture-taking and interviewing, with various op-eds popping up in response, then Colman’s own provoking “I don’t owe poker a single thing” explanation.

Also from this week I’m thinking about the back-and-forthing instigated by Greg Merson regarding the World Poker Tour scheduling a low buy-in event at the Aria during the WSOP Main Event. Jeff Walsh summarizes that one at F5 Poker, covering most of the discussion except for a few WPT-directed blasts fired by WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart along the way.

Then yesterday came another quasi-tempest when Earl Burton wrote an op-ed complaining about Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers of Bluff getting bought into the Main Event by some poker pros wishing to give something back to Kev after he’s given so much to the community for several years. Haley Hintze does a good job explaining that one and responding to it, too, over at Flushdraw.

There are real issues at the heart of all of these conversations, involving poker as it played, organized, and reported upon and discussed. Not to be too elusive about my own positions on all of these matters, but I’m finding myself almost more interested to observe how others are responding to the “stirring up” that to be inspired to respond myself, with some in a few cases revealing themselves like characters in Hammett’s stories.

To tip my hand a little... Colman certainly overlooks most of the positives about poker, while others have overlooked some of the negatives. Those running competing poker tours and series should feel free to compete with each other, but should also find ways to communicate and respect each other, too. And the indefatigable Kevmath more than deserves whatever the poker community wishes to give him by way of gratitude, while most discussions of “journalistic ethics” in poker reporting tend to forget that most of it doesn’t really qualify as journalism, anyway.

It’s a funny world, the one surrounding poker. To be in it sometimes feels like sitting among a mob on the run, listening to them argue back and forth about what their next step will be.

A Beat More Rare Than a One-Outer (And No One Noticed)

Kind of an odd one from the WSOP yesterday. You might have heard about this.

Over in Event No. 37, the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, a player busted after dinner in one of those hands that was unique enough he felt inspired to snap a photo (pictured at left, click to embiggen).

After getting to the turn with the board showing , the player got all of his chips in the middle holding for top set plus the nut flush draw against an opponent holding for the second-best set.

Alas for the all-in player, a queen fell on the river to give his opponent quads, thus knocking out the player just shy of the money, and he took the picture just before departing.

Indeed, the one-outer was remarkable enough to inspire the player to post his picture on Facebook, then a friend looking closely at the picture discovered something to make the beat even worse.

That last queen... was the ! Just like the one that had fallen on the flop.

A fouled deck had produced a duplicate card, and the player ended up getting in touch with WSOP staff to see about possibly being refunded his buy-in.

It was still more bad news for him, unfortunately. As he told a friend who then posted the story on Two Plus Two, he “could not get any form of compensation since attention was called to right away despite the picture evidence.”

Curious stuff, and while posters are skeptical about everyone missing the duplicate card, such a collective oversight doesn’t seem too hard to accept. Weird things go unnoticed sometimes, like this Manu Ginobli pass in Game 1 of the NBA finals from a year ago:

Two Cents (Not a Manifesto)

Lots of manifestos and visions and grand statements flying about the poker world these days.

There’s probably a reasonable explanation for everyone suddenly becoming inspired to deliver such sermons. Sort of like the way certain styles of play slowly begin to be popular, then suddenly it seems like everyone is four-betting light. I guess it’s like a lot of people are playing “long ball” right now when it comes to what they’re saying or writing, trying to articulate big-picture ideas rather than sweat the small stuff. (Although plenty are doing the latter, too.)

That’s not to say some of these grand opinions and the debates they’re engendering aren’t diverting -- even enlightening, in places. I’ve been following with interest Daniel Negreanu’s thread over on Two Plus Two over the last few days, the one occasioned by Joe Hachem’s “poker is dying” interview (discussed here a couple of weeks ago). Phil Galfond’s “old school-new school” post last week -- to which Negreanu was also responding -- contained a number of thoughtful points as well.

One theme that’s been reoccurring in these statements is the familiar one about the poker community benefiting from the civil treatment of individuals within it of one another. Among Negreanu’s points, for instance, is the one in which he says he wishes for “a world where the game is fun first and a competitive endeavor second.”

I’ve seen a couple of especially obtuse responses to that thought, also delivered in manifestos-like fashion arguing that poker is solely about “profit” and that any suggestion it isn’t is either (1) wrong or (2) deliberately misleading. “He’s only saying have ‘fun first’ to trick the fish into happily losing their money to him, thus increasing his profit” goes that argument, one that willfully ignores both the idea that Negreanu isn’t being cynical and that poker actually can mean something other than the bottom line.

I’ve written before here many times about the paradox of poker being a game that brings us together while also encouraging us to view each other as antagonists. I’m remembering writing a post titled “Poker, the Antisocial Social Game” that touched on the topic. It’s that tension that makes the game so intriguing -- the fact that our being able to compete against one another depends in part on our being able to get along with another.

Obviously I’m one who like Negreanu believes poker has the potential to provide a lot to those who play it beyond just a means to make money. I also think those who approach the game in that narrow way are missing out, big time.

I’m not saying profit isn’t important. (Nor is Negreanu.) For those who make a living at the game (or who try to), that obviously tops the list of reasons to play. But there have to be other reasons, too, to give meaning to one’s participation, with having fun or at least participating in a constructive way in a community of others with similar interests being a good start.

That’s just my two cents. Small change. All anyone can make on his or her own.

The Poker Shot Clock (Again)

I think I’m turning into a night blogger.

Long ago -- back when I worked a full-time job every weekday -- I’d get up an hour or two early each day to write here. Then writing became the full-time job, although I’d usually still post here during the morning hours or at least by noon. Now I’m finding my days are too full of other obligations for me to get over here until the late afternoon or evening.

I don’t suppose it matters too greatly as time here on the internet tends to be reduced down to a kind of perpetual present, anyway, with nothing much seeming to matter except for what is happening right now or perhaps only just recently happened, in which case right now is filled up with everyone repeating to each other what just was.

Speaking of time and the seeming lack thereof, I was skimming through Two Plus Two a couple of days ago and saw how a thread started almost exactly one year ago titled “Should there be a ‘shot clock’ in live tournaments?” had gotten bumped to the front page once again in response to some of the WSOP Main Event coverage currently being shown on ESPN.

One of the posters embedded a hand from Day 4 involving Yevginiy Timoshenko and Adam Friedman in which Timoshenko took a long time (about two minutes, we’re told) to make a decision, during which time Norman Chad brought up the shot clock idea.

Last week I watched some of the broadcast and saw another hand from Day 6, kind of a memorable one involving Carlos Mortensen and Jorn Walthaus in which Mortensen folded on the river after having the clock called on him.

I say the hand was memorable because Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum was there taking photos for BLUFF, and he snapped a very cool picture of Mortensen tossing away his hand that revealed he was folding pocket kings (see left, click to enlarge). For more about that hand, check out this Betfair piece I wrote a while back describing the situation.

Both of those hands happened at the feature table, and as it happened both saw players not involved in the hands being the ones to call the clock.

I know there are some who are very much in favor of having some sort of shot clock in poker, but to me the current system almost always seems to be satisfactory with only occasional exceptions. It reminds me a lot of the current situation in Major League Baseball, perhaps because with the playoffs underway I’ve been paying a little more attention to baseball than I normally do.

In fact just today I was listening to the latest B.S. Report with Bill Simmons in which he had Bob Costas as a guest and among the topics they covered was the one about baseball games being too long and often unnecessarily drawn out by batters stepping out frequently and pitchers taking more and more time between pitches.

There, too, people will sometime argue in favor of a “shot clock” (or the equivalent). While I’m mostly a purist when it comes to baseball (including still being anti-DH), I could imagine something like that being put in place without too much of an intrusion. I don’t think I’d like to see the same become the norm in poker, though, not because I’m a purist but just because I think it would change the game too radically.

Anyhow, thanks for your patience today as I took most of the day before posting. And I appreciate no one calling the clock on me.

Lehavot’s Leveraging

One of this year’s November Nine, Amir Lehavot (currently second in chips), yesterday announced that he was selling pieces of himself to interested buyers. He tweeted the news, linking to a Two Plus Two thread he’d begun outlining the details of his offer.

In the thread-starter Lehavot makes reference to past results (mostly online) and to the fact that going into the Main Event he had 80% of his action. Of that, he’s now offering up 30% (overall) while keeping 50%.

The price Lehavot is setting on shares he’s deriving from the value of his current stack as determined by the Independent Chip Model (ICM) such as is often used when negotiating final table chops. Subtracting the ninth-place money he and each of the other final tablists have already been given ($733,224) and then comparing his current stack to the remaining prize money still up for grabs, this makes his stack of 29.7 million chips “worth” $2,924,822 according to ICM.

Thus the price for 1% of Lehavot for potential buyers is $29,248, nearly three times the Main Event buy-in.

Lehavot will need to finish third or better in order for investors to make any profit at all. To finish third would mean earning a $3,727,023 payday for Lehavot. Take away the $733,224 he’s already gotten, that adds up to $2,993,799; thus, every 1% purchased for $29,248 would get back $29,938, or just a little less than $700.

If Lehavot finishes fourth, that will only yield $20,588 per 1% (a loss of more than $8K), and so on down to a ninth-place finish which would mean investors get zero return. If he finishes second, 1% would be worth $44,399 (about $15K profit), and if he wins, 1% would be worth $76,263 (about $47K).

From Lehavot’s perspective, if he were to sell all 30% he’s offering, that puts another $877,440 in his pocket before he plays a hand in November, which added to the ninth-place money is a little better than the total prize for finishing sixth.

While most responding in the thread are critical of the deal, a few are not. Meanwhile, responses to Lehavot’s original tweet are mostly characterizing it a less than attractive offer for buyers (“it’s only a good deal if your name is Amir Lehavot,” says one).

I think I belong to that latter, skeptical group when it comes to assessing the merits of Lehavot’s offer. But setting the actual deal aside, it seems to me that the whole idea of a November Niner selling pieces of himself at the delayed Main Event final table must be creating a headache for the WSOP.

The issue of deal making at the WSOP has always been complicated. Unlike on the European Poker Tour where everything is done out in the open -- such as was exemplified with a little bit of extra drama at the recent EPT Barcelona Main Event final table -- the WSOP doesn’t acknowledge or help broker deals. There have even been suggestions here and there that the WSOP doesn’t allow deals at all, although that isn’t really the case.

Back in 2010 in a $1,500 limit hold’em shootout event there was a notable instance of a player -- Yueqi Zhu -- being disqualified at the start of the tourney’s second round after having made a deal heads-up with his short-stacked opponent in the previous round to ensure he would advance. At the start of the next day Zhu was disqualified, with WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel at the time announcing “there is no deal making at the World Series of Poker.”

In truth, Zhu’s case wasn’t simply “deal making” but an instance of a player essentially giving up his chips to Zhu at the end of their match, an action considered as having violated the WSOP’s rule about “Ethical Play” which states “Poker is an individual game. Soft play will result in penalties that may include forfeiture of chips and/or disqualification. Chip dumping will result in disqualification.”

The WSOP has no specific rules (that I know of) forbidding final table deal making in the traditional sense, although like I say they don’t help players make the deals nor do they recognize them when it comes to payouts and tax documents. (Thus does Lehavot also add a note to his offer about needing SSNs from investors to handle potential tax issues later on.)

I have to guess the WSOP isn’t crazy about Lehavot selling shares of himself this way -- i.e., so publicly -- and thus foregrounding the whole idea of final table deal making. What would happen if all nine of the players were to make similar offers? What if they started buying pieces of each other? Or what if all nine arrived at a more traditional arrangement to flatten out the payouts prior to the start of play in November?

Four-plus months of down time obviously gives us lots of time to imagine such scenarios. Gives the players a lot of time to ponder them, too.

Looking Back at the OP on UB

Yesterday I listened to episode 7 of the poker podcast Life With Face Cards, featuring an interview with poker player David Paredes.

I hadn’t heard the show before -- it just debuted in April -- but I enjoyed listening, with the host David Podgurski giving his guest lots of room to discuss in detail various topics while also keeping the interview moving forward. (I hope I’m spelling Podgurski’s name correctly.) Past guests have included Dan Cates, Jay Rosenkrantz, and Dani Stern.

It helped that Paredes proved an interesting guest. I remember first covering Paredes in a tournament back in early 2010 when he final tabled the NAPT Main Event at the Venetian, finishing fifth. I’ve seen him now and then at other tourneys since, I believe most recently at the one at the Sands Bethlehem last winter.

The show reminds us all that Paredes was in fact right in the middle of things way back in January 2008 when the initial discoveries regarding cheating on Ultimate Bet first surfaced.

It was during the fall of the previous year that Paredes, a.k.a. “dplnyc21” on Two Plus Two, had compared notes with Mike “trambopoline” Fosco regarding some unusual losses both had experienced on UB when playing against the player “NioNio” from July-Sept. 2007. They noted both the player’s insanely high win rate -- more than 60BB/100 hands -- and the fact that the player was playing more than 65% of hands (well over twice that of a typical, successful NLHE player).

Using PokerTracker, the pair were able to identify other unusual patterns in the relatively small sample size of 3,000 hands or so, and decided to take their findings and concerns to the High Stakes PL/NL forum on Two Plus Two.

A little after midnight on January 8, 2008, Fosco started a thread with the title “Suspected super user on UB: NioNio” with a long post starting with a brief summary of NioNio’s unusual stats followed by about 25 hand histories.

We now know this was just the beginning, with the NioNio account being one of dozens employed by the many who used the so-called “AuditMonster” program to cheat opponents on the site. Many more threads would appear after this one, as would a more careful marshaling of evidence by numerous others to compile a more substantial (and convincing) case regarding the cheating.

It was exactly two months later on March 8, 2008 that Ultimate Bet issued its “Interim Statement” acknowledging that a cheating “scheme” had been perpetrated on the site. Of course, the recent revelation of that audio recording secretly made by primary cheater Russ Hamilton of a meeting involving himself, Greg Pierson, Dan Friedberg, and Sandy Millar, we now know definitively that the statement and other machinations by Ultimate Bet going forward were part of a new scheme to cover up as much as possible so as to minimize player refunds and enable the site to continue operating. (That first three-hour recording came a few weeks after the first 2+2 thread appeared; the second two-hour recording was from July 2008.)

And with the benefit of hindsight we also know the latter scheme in fact worked, with the subsequent signing of more sponsored pros including Joe Sebok, the continued support of spokespersons Annie Duke (until a few days ago an aggressive champion of UB, old and new) and Phil Hellmuth (a.k.a. “Completely Oblivious”). The site stumbled for a while, but recovered and in fact thrived right up until April 2011 and Black Friday, with its Full Tilt Poker-like failure to segregate player funds resulting in the loss of about $55 million worth of funds by those who continued to play on the site.

Speaking of hindsight, reading through that original “Suspected super user on UB: NioNio” thread is kind of fascinating. It begins and ends on 1/8/08, and I think might have actually been locked or even temporarily deleted amid criticisms that the accusations presented by trambopoline and dplnyc21 were without merit.

It’s interesting to see the overwhelmingly negative response to the pair’s findings. A few chimed in to agree that they, too, had played with NioNio and were suspicious, with others also saying that Fosco’s findings provided reasonable cause for suspicion and warranted further investigation. But most of those posting express serious doubts in response to the OP.

Isaac “Ike” Haxton is the most skeptical of that latter group, saying he “bet this guy is just a lucky fish” and that from what had been presented “there is no evidence this guy is anything other than a lucksack.” After speculating further regarding some of the hands that were posted, Haxton even goes on to say “you could make a much stronger case that i'm a superuser.”

(Haxton, incidentally, would go on to build a $300K bankroll on the “new UB” and Absolute only to see that money evaporate on Black Friday. I know he was trying to sell those funds off at 20 cents on the dollar about six weeks later, but I’m not sure what came of that.)

To be fair, the small sample size and selection of hands presented wasn’t nearly enough to build a convincing case, thus it is completely understandable to see posters on that day regarding the idea as belonging to the large category of “online-poker-is-rigged” arguments instinctively made by players following losing sessions or a preponderance of bad beats.

That is to say, I’m not suggesting any sort of criticism regarding those who initially doubted Paredes and Fosco -- after all, if we think back, they were voicing what was really a majority view at the time.

It is amazing, really, to think about the climate of trust in which online poker operated during those years. Trust which we now know was in several cases misplaced, but then had little or no hesitation to give.

The great majority were convinced the games had to be on the up-and-up, even after the Absolute Poker scandal had surfaced in the fall of 2007. And no site would ever be so kill-the-golden-goose reckless as to cheat its own customers, right?

Here’s Mike and Adam

Had a chance recently to interview a couple of dudes with whom I’d guess just about anyone reading this blog is familiar -- Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz of the Two Plus Two Pokercast. The interview is now up over at Betfair Poker, and features the pair talking about what has now become an eight-plus year run at poker podcasting.

I’ve written here many times over the years both about Mike and Adam’s original podcast, “Rounders, the Poker Show” (that ran from April 2005 to December 2007) and the 2+2-based show they’ve been doing since January 2008. A remarkable run not just for podcasting, but for poker, too, where there are very few on the reporting side of things who’ve lasted that long.

In the interview the pair start out talking about how the original “Rounders” show got started, discuss the move to 2+2, and then share some thoughts about memorable moments and guests. The conversation next moved over to consider their contribution to the chronicling the story of poker -- especially online poker -- over the last eight years. I got them to opine a little toward the end about the state of “poker media” (so to speak), too.

Regarding that latter subject, Mike brought up a point about the passion many who get into reporting on poker demonstrate, which he attributed to the fact that the great majority of those who write and report on poker play the game as well. (Such is true of the two of them.)

I think Mike’s right on that count, that is to say, just about everyone who takes a shot at podcasting about poker or writing/reporting on poker in some fashion is at the very least a casual poker player, with many being a lot more serious about the game than that. I also think that among those who end up sticking with poker reporting for a lengthy period the amount of time spent playing the game often begins to wane (something I’ve experienced), but there nonetheless still exists that ability to think about the game from a player’s perspective.

Kind of makes poker different from other sports and/or other subjects of news reporting, if you think about it, in which that overlap between participant and observer isn’t so great.

With most sports, for instance, ex-players frequently become broadcasters or get involved with the media, but they necessarily do so after their playing days are behind them. Poker, meanwhile, doesn’t really feature players “retiring” and then moving over to the media side (except perhaps when it comes to that sort of gradual sliding away from playing to which I was just referring). That is, the line between the two -- player and reporter -- is not just blurry, it’s essentially non-existent.

To build a little further on Mike’s point, when it comes to those few who have reported on poker as long as Mike and Adam have, it’s probably safe to say just about all of them have a special passion for the game that has sustained them. I know that is the case for Mike and Adam, and I think the poker community has a lot to be grateful for when it comes to what those two have contributed to the game over the years.

It was definitely fun to talk to a couple of guys with such enthusiasm for poker, not to mention take a shot at interviewing a couple of the best interviewers in poker (in my opinion). Check out the interview.

Lock’s Stock in Peril

I continue to follow the worsening situation at Lock Poker which I wrote about last week. More details regarding the non-payouts, ever-shifting policies, Two Plus Two refusing their adverts, and various other dramas concerning sponsored players (and their perceived responsibility/culpability) continue to emerge every day.

For a good catch-up on the situation since last week, check out Haley Hintze’s most recent articles on Flushdraw regarding Lock: “Lock Poker Malaise Deepens as Trade Values Crash, More P2P Restrictions Allegedly Introduced” and “Monitoring the Lock Poker Spiral: The Shane Bridges Blowout.” (There’ll probably be more on Flushdraw to come.)

Also, Todd “DanDruff” Witteles’s thread-starting post (as “Kilowatt”) on Two Plus Two from Monday titled “Lock Shady Practices 101” provides another thorough summary of the situation up until a couple of days ago.

There are numerous, rapidly-growing threads on Two Plus Two regarding Lock. In some ways I’m surprised to see so much response, not because complaints aren’t warranted but because I hadn’t necessarily realized the site had earned so much traffic. It certainly seems that within the crippled U.S. online poker scene of the last two years, Lock had carved out a significant place.

And now with Lock’s final crash starting to appear imminent, there’s a certain canary-in-the-coalmine feeling that the whole “rogue” approach of small sites trying still to serve U.S. players is about to blow up once and for all.

I was intrigued a little this morning by a post from 2+2 moderator “SGT RJ” in the humorously-named “Lock Poker Crisis Containment Thread.” I say the name is funny because the thread -- begun less than a week ago -- is now approaching 1,400 posts.

In her post, SGT RJ offers some advice to posters as well as to those burdened with the unenviable task of trying to get funds off of Lock. She also makes a distinction between 2+2 posters and others who might have played on Lock. Or who, I suppose, might even be thinking of signing on and depositing on Lock.

“If you are knowledgable about poker in general, and frankly if you’re on 2p2 and following these mess of threads,” writes SGT RJ, “you’re probably more tuned into the poker world than 95% of the regular joes who play.”

She goes on to say “I think it’s part of our responsibility as poker players to not give business to owners and sites who have demonstrated, time and again, that they do not have the players’ best interests at heart.”

We circle back, once more, to that unavoidable conflict in poker, namely, the fact that it is a game based on self-interest that also requires cooperation among competitors in order to exist at all.

The idea of more informed players being “responsible” for the community as a whole in a situation like Lock is certainly more obvious to us post-Black Friday than it was before. I’m thinking back to Bill Rini’s provocative post from a while back titled “Who to Blame for Black Friday?” which I opined on here a bit in “Talking Black Friday and Blame.”

This notion that for online poker to work at all there has to be a sincere working together among all parties -- including a shared responsibility and trust -- is a new thing, I think, at least for those of us in the U.S. The tone of responses from players to Ultimate Poker’s first week of operation perhaps reflects this changed mindset, with many seeming to demonstrate patience and a willingness to remain hopeful and supportive of the site as it experiences various early growing pains.

In any case, I tend to agree with SGT RJ about players needing to avoid Lock if possible. And perhaps there’s a further need, too, for those who know about Lock’s problems to make an effort to publicize those issues to those who don’t (an idea reflected in the new “#LockPokerSucks” hashtag on Twitter).

Public Concerns

Marco Valerio, frontman for QuadJacks who after leaving for a stint with the Global Poker Index has recently returned to revive QJ in time for the upcoming World Series of Poker, has penned an interesting article for the May issue of Two Plus Two Magazine. The article is titled “The Poker Community versus the Poker Public,” and among the topics addressed is the distinction between the two groups identified in the title.

In the article, Valerio comments on frequent, often loosely-defined references to a “poker community” which often seems to include players, Two Plus Two posters, and others fairly in tune with the game as it is played in cardrooms, online, and on the many tourney tours. I like his suggestion that those belonging to the group have an “affinity for poker goes beyond merely playing it.”

He then discusses the “poker public” as a larger group of which the “poker community” might be understood as a subset, encompassing people who aren’t necessarily living and breathing poker the way the “poker community” often does. Some play, but not all do, as there are some in this larger group who are content merely to watch others play on television or in person. All, however, are interested in poker in some fashion.

Valerio ultimately offers advice to all regarding the significance of this distinction, in particular directing his comments to those working in various poker-related industries (esp. online poker) who have a vested interest in trying to attract members of the “poker public” into the “poker community” as players.

In other words, while the title of the article might suggest an adversarial relationship, Valerio’s clearly petitioning for better communication and respect between the groups. It seems a worthwhile point to make, perhaps of special significance to certain parties within the “poker community.”

The article reminded me of various debates that have popped up before over recent years, including some of those “Is it good for poker?” discussions focused on moments when poker occasionally earns brief attention from so-called “mainstream” popular culture. A reference by Valerio to Two Plus Two’s central place in the “poker community” also made me think of a post I wrote here a couple of years ago “On Poker Communities” that overlaps a little with some of what he discusses.

However, a lot of my thoughts after reading the article centered around the experience of teaching my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class for the past couple of years, one consequence of which has been being frequently forced to think about the larger “poker public” Valerio describes.

Most (not all) who sign up for the course have at least some interest in poker, with a few being players themselves. Readers of this blog -- most of whom are probably best considered part of the “poker community” Valerio is describing -- might be surprised to learn that very few among those who take my class play poker regularly, let alone are as serious about the game as most of us are. And I even have a few take the class who have never even thought much about poker before at all, let alone played.

It might have been different if were teaching the class a few years ago. Black Friday happened during the first semester I taught the course (spring 2011). I know I had quite a few online poker players enrolled in that first installment of the class, but obviously the situation has changed since then. These days there are usually only a few who take the class each time around whom I’d unequivocally peg as coming from the “poker community” group.

In any case, talking with groups of people who mostly belong to that “poker public” about poker and its place in American culture has forced me to think a lot about how people outside of our “poker community” view the game and its significance. Often there are some great differences between how the two groups think of poker, the most conspicuous usually being the way the “poker public” views poker as essentially just another gambling game while those in the “poker community” often consider poker as something much different.

Being the teacher in this dynamic, I guess I’m also quite conscious of how those in the “poker community” sometimes recognize a need to educate the “poker public” about certain important elements of the game (including its skill component). But I’m also aware that I often learn a lot from my students, too, regarding the topics we discuss, and thus can say from experience that the “poker public” can teach the “poker community” a lot, too.

Stirring the High-Stakes MTT Pot

A couple of nights ago I was up late following PokerStars’ Super Tuesday, the weekly $1,050 no-limit hold’em tournament that tends to attract a lot of top players and familiar names in the world of online poker.

The tourney has grown remarkably over the last several months, breaking records as far as field sizes go. A week ago 614 played (making for a $614K prize pool), establishing a new all-time high and thus more than doubling the event’s $300K guarantee. This week the field was 580, which as usual pushed the scheduled first-prize up over six figures. (A two-way chop in the end meant the final two made about $95K each.)

I found myself diverted a little late in the evening around the time the money bubble burst, and thought I would share the reason why. I noticed with 72 players left that the leader was a player from Portugal going by the strange-looking username “T 54 T 97s.” A search of the name soon led me to a thread in the High Stakes MTT forum over on Two Plus Two begun last month titled “War challenge!” And for the next little while I was fairly entertained to read what I found.

The player -- real name Tomás Paiva -- started the thread with a kind of manifesto-looking, pot-stirring screed in which he addresses the high-stakes MTT community as mostly comprised of “so many retarded regs,” “sad nerds,” and “nits.”

Having established his insensitive self thusly, he goes on to quote Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, cut-and-paste an old New Zealand war cry (the “haka”), then add a second post in which he listing around 250 MTTers by their usernames as his “black list” of players whom he particularly wishes to “destroy.”

The list included tags clarifying whether a given player is a “****ing nit,” a “top idiot,” or an “elite idiot.” Among those listed appear many who regularly play the Super Tuesday, including some who have won it in the past.

Unsurprisingly, the “war challenge” earned a lot of response.

Some were critical or less than amused (“u mad bro?”). Some championed Paiva’s hubris (“OP confirmed awesome”). Meanwhile others variously played along with Paiva’s attempt at fashioning a kind of new, provoking poker personality (“nerd version of Tony G?”).

Some of the funniest responses came from players not appearing on T 54 T 97s’s “black list,” but who were humorously complaining that they should be, such as from Adam “Squee451” Sherman (“respectfully ask to be added to black list [heart]”) or David “Bakes” Baker (“damn where am i at”).

I also enjoyed Sam “TheSquid” Grafton making a similar complaint and plea to be added to the list. I was just following Grafton at EPT Deauville where he made a relatively deep run in the Main Event to finish 24th, during which I had several opportunities to witness him demonstrating his sense of humor.

“Incred thread. Really brightened up my day!!” began Grafton. “T54 you continually berate me in chat and yet haven’t made your list! I know a small time grinder like me appears as little more than a microbe from your god-like vantage point, but SURELY you can find room for me on your list. Did all those insults really mean nothing to you??? They seemed so heartfelt at the time....”

Paiva quickly responded by adding Grafton to the list, with “TheSquid” voicing his appreciation soon thereafter.

The contribution of Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (also not on the list) probably had me laughing the loudest, though:

“First they came for the nits, and I did not speak out because I was not a nit,” said Rasmussen.

Eric “sheetsworld” Haber also chimed in to say “OP is my hero” and speak wistfully about how Paiva’s post reminded him of the relative lack of personality in online poker these days.

“Back in 2005-9 whatever there was so much trash talking and insulting of other players,” writes Haber. “People got chat taken away on a regular basis and there were challenges and personal attacks 24/7. I miss that.... I don't know whether it was black friday or this new regime of regs who keep quiet but online poker should have more guys like this.”

Paiva went on to final table the Super Tuesday, finishing eighth, with a number of railbirds (all obvioulsy aware of the 2+2 thread) chatting frequently until the final table at which point observer chat is no longer allowed. Paiva himself did take to the chatbox occasionally along the way, sometimes typing “(flex)” after winning a hand, or congratulating another player at the final table once for having “heart” (again, recalling Tony G) when he cracked the eventual ninth-place finisher’s pocket aces with T-8-suited.

The thread continues, revived a bit thanks to T 54 T 97s’s deep Super Tuesday run this week, some other tourney scores, and Paiva’s frequent returns to the thread to add still more taunts as well as further names to his list.

Like I say, I found it all kind of diverting. And while I’m not necessarily pining for the trash-talking and personal attacks like Haber, I get what he’s saying about how online poker can sometimes appear to be overpopulated by characterless button-pushers.

But there are some characters out there, including those who aren’t as obviously making an effort to create and shape their online personae into something worth following.

An Academic Study of Online Poker Forums

This morning I found myself trying to read a kind of thumbnail history of poker forums written by Wendeen Eolis for Poker Player Newspaper. I say “trying” because like other pieces by Eolis, her less-than-clear writing style can make reading her a bit of a challenge, I’m afraid. Indeed, the title of this one -- “Online Poker Forums: Winding Through The Maze” -- has kind of a double application, referring both to the complex world of the forums and to the piece itself.

The article is actually the first of two parts, and despite the unclear organization and occasional Faulkernesque unwillingness to end a sentence, the article does manage to remind us that poker forums have been around for a long time -- more than two decades, in fact, with the once-prominent rec.gambling.poker (RGP) site among the pioneers.

I only bring up Eolis’s piece, actually, because it made me think of another article by Killian O’Leary and Conor Carroll published late last year in the Journal of Gambling Studies called “The Online Poker Subculture: Dialogues, Interactions, and Networks.” I had meant to write something about this study some time ago, and so am glad to have an excuse today to share it.

The study does a good job of explaining not just how online poker has evolved into an important “eco-system” over the last 15 years, but also how poker forums have come to affect and shape the functioning of what the authors refer to as the Online Poker Subculture (OPS).

As the authors point out, poker forums constitute one category or “platform” for interaction within the world of online poker, along with news sites (PokerNews, BLUFF, etc.), reporting/tracking sites (PokerTableRatings, etc.), and the online poker sites themselves. The forums are their focus, however, and they end up uncovering some interesting findings as they develop their ideas regarding how people tend to interact within these forums and how those interactions follow certain expectations regarding subcultures, generally speaking.

The methodology employed by the researchers was to follow procedures of “netnography” which if I understand it applies techniques used by anthropologists or ethnographers when analyzing a web-based group or subculture. In other words, they were essentially “lurkers” looking in on the forums of Deuces Cracked, High Stakes Database, and most primarily 2+2 in order to learn more about them.

They share a lot of interesting ideas and ways of describing how, say, a site like 2+2 functions and the influence the forums have over the OPS and even the poker world at large. As a way to make my own post more readable and also avoid going through the entire study point by point, let me just list a few of the findings presented in the article and comment briefly on each.

Collaboration and Competition

It is common to hear poker forums characterized as an antagonistic, combative environments, but what the authors of this study have found is something different, namely, “an ethos of collaboration/co-operation” within the forums that involves “conforming to the norms of OPS etiquette.” In other words, people often genuinely communicate and work together on the forums, as evidenced by the individuals sharing information in order to uncover insider cheating scandals as well as small groups discussing how best to play a particular hand.

That said, there also exists “a competitive hierarchy of status” in the forums. “The more one engages and participates in online forums the higher [one is] elevated within the subculture[’]s hierarchy,” they observe, noting for example how things like join dates and post counts greatly affect one’s influence when it comes to posting. There’s also a pressure to “enact and adhere to the ideals and ethos of the OPS” since “members are and have been in the past ostracized for non-conformity.”

Thus, the forums in particular show how the online poker subculture “distinctively enacts a contradiction, in that within a context of individually driven selfish motives (i.e., everyone playing to win), collaboration and cooperation comes to the fore within the OPS.”

Identity Creation

The authors have much to say about how in the process of participating in the forums, individuals create identities that extend beyond the forums and into the OPS at large, or even beyond. “Online poker forums allow players to develop their own online persona,” explain the authors, “through interaction, participation and engagement with the subculture, thus reaffirming their reputation amongst their poker peers.”

They go on to address how “online poker celebrities” sometimes emerge from the poker forums. In fact, they point out how within the OPS it is often the case that “to become a highly successful online poker player and to receive accreditation, monetary results are not solely sufficient,” but some sort of meaningful, “intense interaction” on the forums is needed as well.

A Game-Changer

The authors also come away from their study concluding that their influence upon the way poker is played -- not just online, but live as well -- “has revolutionized the game.”

They go into some detail explaining in what strikes me as a knowledgeable way how forums have affected strategy, introduced new terminology, and sometimes even the behaviors exhibited in live poker (e.g., “the lack [of] social interaction/dialogue during physical game play”).

Two Plus Two’s “Sacred Status”

Having explored all of these areas, the authors are prepared to refer to 2+2 in particular as enjoying a so-called “sacred status amongst this online poker subculture.”

Such talk reminds me a little of some of the fuss that arose couple of years ago when 2+2 Grand Poobah Mason Malmuth once suggested that “2+2 is where the poker community is.” But truthfully the authors are not suggesting 2+2 is “the” poker community. (Neither was Malmuth, in my opinion.) Rather are they pointing out how the site and its forums possess special, extensive influence on the online poker subculture and its functioning.

I’m reminded here that BLUFF just released its “Power 20” last week and once again neither Malmuth nor any representative of Two Plus Two were listed. (I actually was asked to vote this time, and in fact I did include both Malmuth and Kevmath in the lower half of my 20.) I believe the last time any reference to 2+2 was made on the list was 2009.

Anyhow, if you’re at all curious to read a smart, studied analysis of poker forums, go read O’Leary and Carroll’s “The Online Poker Subculture: Dialogues, Interactions, and Networks.” They absolutely prove that the “OPS” exists, in my opinion, and also do a good job explaining the role forums play within that subculture.

The writing is dense, of course, following as it does the dictates of academic discourse (with lots of citation). But the argument is clear and the style still accessible, I think, particularly to readers of this blog who presumably already have an interest in online poker and the way those of us who play it (or used to play it) tend to interact.

(EDIT [added 2/27/13]: Thanks to @PokerScout1 for pointing out to me over Twitter that O’Leary and Carroll’s introduction actually contains a few glaring mistakes regarding online poker’s historical background, most coming in a single paragraph I have to confess to have only skimmed in my haste to get to the study. Also worth noting -- as @PokerScout1 reminded me -- is the fact that in referring to tracking sites the authors failed to mention Poker Scout [!]. I do think the study is insightful and highlights a need for similar kinds of inquiry, although have to acknowledge that as was the case for me with Eolis’s article, I can see how these errors might prevent some from wanting to delve further into what the authors have to say.)

Heroes, Villains, and Haralabos Voulgaris

Way, way, way back when I first started this blog, Haralabos Voulgaris was one of the very first poker pros about whom I wrote a post. It was a short one, just praising him for being so friggin’ funny on an episode of the old Circuit podcast with Scott Huff, Joe Sebok, and Gavin Smith. The post was titled “Hilarious Haralabos.”

In fact, looking back I think that was probably the very first post in which I tried to write about something other than my own play or to pretend to offer some kind of pseudo-strategy-type talk. This was late May 2006. Over the next few months I’d write about other things happening in the poker world, including that year’s WSOP. Then in October came the UIGEA, and that’s when the blog really started to focus more on the poker world at large with my own little poker stories only occasionally appearing as part of the overall mix.

Voulgaris would go on to co-host a podcast with Huff, Big Poker Sundays. That show was very well liked, I recall, in part because of Voulgaris’s readiness to share opinions and not pull punches regarding things like the insider cheating scandal at Absolute Poker and other knotty matters. (People also liked BPS because Voulgaris is a funny dude, as is Huff.)

More of a sports bettor than a poker player, Voulgaris kind of receded from the poker scene a bit over the next few years, although he did turn up on High Stakes Poker and also participated in the “Big One for One Drop” at the WSOP this past summer. He also has kept contributing now and then to certain conversations in the poker community via Two Plus Two posts and his Twitter account (@haralabob).

Back in March of this year, when the extent of Erick Lindgren’s gambling debts became public and inspired one of those conversations in the poker community, Voulgaris shared some details of “E-Dog” owing him considerably (i.e., millions) and his six-year struggle to get paid. I wrote some about all that here in a post titled “Hero Call.”

There I discussed (in part) the idea of “heroes” in poker. “I can’t really say I ever thought of any players in such a way,” I wrote, “although perhaps that says more about me and my (modest) aspirations as a poker player than anything.” I went on to suggest that when it came to identifying heroes among professional poker players, it was perhaps best not to choose from those who are the biggest winners (see Phil Hellmuth), but rather to look at “those who are best able to promote and preserve the game -- the ‘ambassadors’ or others who actively work to keep the game going (so to speak) for the rest of us.”

Anyhow, I was reminded of that post and the issue again this week when Voulgaris published a post on his blog titled “Heroes and Villains in Poker.” (Apologies for having a similar title for this post, but really, the alliteration was too alluring to avoid.)

In the post, Voulgaris primarily addresses “Black Friday and the FTP fiasco,” although additionally shares more about his dealings with Lindgren. He also has some things to say about Daniel Negreanu’s calling out of certain figures (e.g., Howard Lederer) while omitting doing so with others (e.g., Lindgren).

“Black Friday turned the poker world on its ear,” writes Voulgaris. “People who were heroes (as much as a poker player could be I suppose) have since been cast as villains, and it has actually become quite difficult to discern (aside from a few obvious choices) who the heroes and the villains in [the] post Black Friday poker world are.”

Voulgaris makes an excellent point, and his post provides still more food for thought, too. And for those wanting more details regarding Lindgren and his debt to Voulgaris, he’s added a lengthy addendum in a contribution to a Two Plus Two thread discussing his original blog post.

While offering some criticism of Negreanu, Voulgaris also praises him for mostly being what I’m describing above as a worthy “ambassador” of the game. That is to say, a “hero” (of sorts), although like Voulgaris I share that urge to add qualifiers when using such a term in the context of poker and poker players.

Anyhow, check out Voulgaris’s post which offers some genuine insight and goes well beyond just dishing more dirt on another now-fallen poker “hero.”

It’s not nearly as hilarious as that appearance on The Circuit, of course. Unfortunately those old shows have all disappeared from the CardPlayer site, although as I was talking about a few weeks ago, I have a number of old poker podcasts saved and in fact do have that very show. (I’d post here, but am sure CardPlayer would object.)

Gonna go listen now. Seem to remember something pretty good in there about Freddy Deeb....

Anticipation

For those of us of a certain age, the title of this post automatically makes us think of that Carly Simon song from the ’70s. Which in turn makes us think of Heinz ketchup. And absurd exchanges between children about whether or not their mothers buy them Heinz ketchup for their burgers and fries.

That’s because those ads were pounded into all our consciousnesses relentlessly during our formative years sitting in front of the tube, a.k.a., the “electronic babysitter.” Kind of like those multiple Geico campaigns from which there presently appears no escape.

Between the World Series of Poker being just a little over two weeks away, the big finale of the World Poker Tour’s Season X coming up before that, suggestive hints about the PokerStars-Full Tilt Poker-DOJ deal possibly edging toward completion, other legal machinations regarding online poker currently being advanced, and even the imminent return of the Two Plus Two forums (tomorrow?), the word seems most apt to describe the poker world at the present moment.

It’s like watching Tom Dwan holding out chips, hesitating before releasing them onto the felt. Like were all just waiting for something to happen. Soon. And perhaps something big.

Perhaps we’re also conditioned a bit by the fact that over the last year or so -- really the last several years -- there hasn’t been a stretch of more than a couple or three months to go by without some “bombshell” going off somewhere in the poker world. So after a period of relative calm, we brace ourselves, expecting something to happen yet again to cause us to rethink pretty much everything we thought we knew before.

I guess as poker players we all kind of hunger for such news, too... not unlike we crave “action” at the tables. All of which makes the feeling of anticipation that much stronger.

We’ll see what happens, and if we have to wait much longer. Meanwhile, I’m hungry. Who else wants to go for a burger?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forums

As all in the poker world have noticed by now, the popular Two Plus Two forums remain down, having been taken offline a week ago today. While the site is still up -- meaning the archives, the Two Plus Two store, and the weekly podcast are all available -- no one can log in and make new posts.

Speaking of the Two Plus Two Pokercast, I was invited to jump in for a brief segment during this week’s show to talk about the passing of Amarillo Slim Preston. I arrive around the 1:20 mark, I believe, coming on after Greg Dinkin who co-authored Preston’s memoir Amarillo Slim in a World of Fat People. Dinkin also wrote an interesting column on Grantland this week about his experiences with Preston.

During the early part of the show, co-hosts Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz spent a little while discussing the forums being down, and had 2+2 “Grand Poobah” Mason Malmuth on as well to give an update. It sounds like it may be another week or so before the site is up and running again.

As I mentioned last Friday, a hacker apparently gained access to 2+2 members’ encrypted passwords as well as their email addresses. The hacker showed an ability to decrypt the passwords as well. It sounds like whoever did it went into the moderators’ forum and posted some of the mods’ passwords, thus proving the site had been compromised.

In that post last week I mentioned how the longer the 2+2 forums remain down, the more obvious the forums’ status in the poker world as a kind of central “meeting place” will become apparent. Mike and Adam noted on the show how a lot of poker news sites essentially take cues from 2+2 when it comes to identifying stories about which to write and even researching them, and I think for the most part they’re probably right.

We live in an age where Twitter and other types of social networking assure that most newsworthy items -- or even just gossip -- will get passed around quickly enough to grab the attention of most in a hurry. In other words, it’s not like the absence of 2+2 means the poker world doesn’t have other ways of communicating with each other or learning what’s happening. Still, it’s interesting to imagine how exactly last week’s story of PokerStars’ potential purchase of Full Tilt Poker might have gotten passed around -- and received -- had it not begun with that anonymous post on 2+2.

On the one hand, if security issues remain, it’s certainly good for 2+2 to keep the forums down until those issues can be resolved and everyone who logs into the site can be assured their privacy won’t be unduly compromised.

Then again, the longer the forums remain down, the more time we have to wonder about what might have happened with regard to the security breach, and maybe to start accumulating some doubts about the forums going forward. Not to mention ponder whether or not the hacker might have made off with some truly interesting (or damaging) PMs (personal messages) -- e.g., previously private information related to the many scandals in poker explored on 2+2 over the years.

Something like that would make for some interesting poker news. Or some good gossip, anyway.

Someone Figured Out Two Plus Two

Like most of you, I’ve noticed the popular Two Plus Two forums went offline yesterday afternoon, having fallen victim to a hacker who “has displayed the ability to access e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords” as well as “the ability to decrypt passwords” (to quote from 2+2’s statement on the matter).

The site was taken offline as a precaution, with 2+2 advising users that if they happened to use their password for the forums for other accounts, they should change them as the hacker potentially has that info. NoahSD published a helpful post on his blog yesterday afternoon discussing the situation and providing advice.

The forums have been down for over 24 hours now, which means just about everybody who frequents them has become aware. The situation reminds me of that little brouhaha that erupted just about a year ago -- in late March, just before Black Friday -- which inspired a lot of talk about 2+2’s true significance to the poker community.

At issue was the revelation of still more questionable information regarding the insider cheating scandal (and subsequent cover-up) at UltimateBet. You might recall how during the first weeks of 2011, Joe Sebok -- at the time still a sponsored pro as well as UB Media and Operations Consultant -- was stirring things up a bit with interviews as well as some wars over Twitter. Coupled with some other new revelations about UB, the clamoring for answers was starting to become louder, with some wanting in particular to hear what UB’s COO Paul Leggett had to say about it all.

That’s when 2+2 “Grand Poobah” Mason Malmuth suggested in a thread that if Leggett were to come forward to address any questions, “He should answer them here,” since “2+2 is where the poker community is.”

That suggestion of 2+2’s centrality to the poker community -- or, perhaps even that 2+2 was “the poker community” -- got a lot of response, including many pointing out that the poker community includes a lot of people who have little or nothing to do with the forums, among other rejoinders.

I wrote a post here at the time in which I noted that in poker we really have multiple, overlapping communities (plural). I also got a little abstract and talked about how the whole idea of “community” in sometimes hard to imagine in poker given how the game necessarily pits us all against one other.

I suppose the longer 2+2 stays offline, the more its significance within the poker community will be clarified to us. It isn’t hard to imagine us all congregating somewhere else to share news, spread rumors, discuss strategy, insult and troll, earn warnings and bans, and imagine different scenarios in which Phil Hellmuth would ride a giant hot dog on water.

Then again, since Black Friday a lot of us have been wandering around somewhat detached from “the” poker community for many months now. Could make it that harder to get back together....

I expect 2+2 will be back soon enough, though. Which is good, ’cause I don’t have time to keep making my own photoshops.

Developing: PokerStars to Buy Full Tilt Poker?

I remember a little over a year ago pulling together a lengthy feature article for a poker magazine for which I spent several weeks researching and interviewing players and industry figures regarding the “cold war” between online poker’s then-superpowers PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

The article was primarily focused on poker television shows and how top players representing the two sites were unable to compete against one another because the sites wouldn’t allow it. Most of the players I talked to hated the fact that they couldn’t play against one another on the shows.

Seemed kind of a one-sided thing, actually, with Stars being perfectly willing to let the FTP guys onto their shows, but FTP being less interested in such desegregation. Meanwhile, the shows’ producers (with whom I also spoke) had no restrictions regarding players -- that is, they certainly “cast” the shows, but didn’t follow any guidelines about not picking players based on which site they represented.

The due date for the article was April 15, 2011. No shinola. I managed to submit it a few days early before heading down to Lima, Peru for the LAPT event. That’s where I’d be when Black Friday happened. I knew shortly after hearing the news that Friday afternoon that my article had instantly become anachronistic, something I wrote a little about here a couple of months afterward in a post titled “From the Annals of Bad Timing.”

I was reminded of all that this morning amid this rumor-slash-news regarding PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Let’s back up a couple of days first.

“Recently heard some very promising news regarding full tilt,” tweeted Dan “jungleman” Cates this past Sunday afternoon. “Can't share it because it's confidential, but things looking very good :)”

Cates, of course, has a particular interest in all things Full Tilt Poker, given how he reportedly had somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million in his account when Black Friday struck a little over a year ago. Stories since then have suggested he may have sold a good portion of that balance, but obviously he’d still be one to take a sincere interest in the fate of FTP.

Then early this morning, before the sun rose here on the east coast, a brand-new poster at Two Plus Two named “PS<3FTP” provocatively started a thread in the News, Views, and Gossip forum titled “Big News: PokerStars Purchases FTP(?)”

The brief post declared that Stars “has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to buy FTP.” Additional bullet points include players getting “refunded 100%” as well as “both sites back online.” (The latter seems an odd thing to say as only one of the two sites is currently offline.) “Expect more news today,” is the signoff.

Moderator NoahSD (formerly of Subject:Poker) correctly responded with cynicism, deleting the thread, but reinstated it after “a number of inside sources” told him there might be something to the report. So the thread remains, with posts being added at a clip of a couple hundred per hour -- none containing any additional news thus far, natch.

About four hours after the post appeared, Alex Dreyfus, CEO of ChiliPoker, tweeted an unambiguous declaration: “Pokerstars buys FullTilt for a consideration of $750m, including settlement with DOJ and full balances of players (330m). I'm impressed.” That got retweeted a lot, of course.

A few minutes later, iGamingFrance tweeted they had asked the Laurent Tapie group about the rumor and the response was they had no comment and would be sending out a press release later today.

Now PokerFuse has posted an article the title of which appears to confirm the story once and for all -- “PokerStars Reaches Agreement to Buy Full Tilt, Settles with DOJ” -- although they, too, are still seeking confirmation from the parties involved. However, the PokerFuse article does indicate that the Tapie group has apparently tapped out of the game, quoting a source at e-Gaming magazine confirming that “efforts to obtain final DoJ approval to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.”

The general tenor of the gradually building hysteria is that all are awaiting word from PokerStars and/or the DOJ in particular one way or the other regarding the possible deal. Meanwhile, a few have begun speculating about the reasons why Stars might possibly care to involve themselves in the FTP saga at all.

Indeed, our memories of the situation from just over one year ago remain fairly vivid, with the two sites standing side by side, towering over the rest of online poker as wholly separate entities with seemingly little interest in joining forces, even for a televised sit-n-go.

All of which makes this development -- actual or not -- all the more intriguing to envision. That is, an actual winner in that old “cold war” as a possible consequence of the U.S. government’s having used its own legalistic weaponry to drive both from American soil.

Will keep an ear to the ground here, and perhaps come back to update this post as we learn more. In other words, as the news sites say, developing...

EDIT (added 12:30 p.m.): Shortly after noon Eastern time, the GBT indeed announced “that after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.” The statement goes on to explain the deal failed primarily for two reasons -- an inability to settle on a plan with the DOJ to repay “ROW” (rest of world) players, and FTP’s U.S. legal morass which the GBT characterizes as “unresolvable.”

The statement additionally refers to “press reports that the DOJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars” regarding the acquisition of Full Tilt Poker. In other words, the GBT here is merely confirming that it has heard what the rest of us have. You can read the full GBT statement at iGaming Post.

EDIT (12:45 p.m.): Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu tells PokerListings he has no information regarding the story, adding that “the idea of PokerStars buying Full Tilt for $750 million seems impossible to me.”

EDIT (1:30 p.m.): Picking up on the “cold war” theme, Brian Balsbaugh, the founder of Poker Royalty (the agency representing a number of poker pros), sent a tweet a short while ago in which he imagined how the PS-buying-FTP scenario might appear from the perspective of the latter: “It's hard to explain the level of corporate hatred btw PS & FTP. PS w power/control over major FTP shareholders is their worst nightmare.”

EDIT (3:15 p.m.): Andrew Feldman of ESPN Poker spoke with PokerStars and tweeted just before 3 p.m. “there is no comment from them at this time.” A little after that, Team Full Tilter Andy Bloch cryptically tweeted “This might just be ‘Super Tuesday.’”

EDIT (4:00 p.m.): A statement from PokerStars finally came a little after 3:30 p.m. with a note from Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications for PokerStars, explaining that the site couldn’t comment on either its ongoing settlement discussions with the DOJ or any of the other rumors swirling about. “As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so,” said Hollreiser.

EDIT (5:30 p.m.): As the afternoon wore on, Shaun Deeb stirred the pot a bit by starting a new Two Plus Two thread suggesting he had some inside dope about the matter that “the deal is already done” along with some other semi-surreal-seeming stuff. Meanwhile, a Full Tilt Poker lawyer spoke with Diamond Flush about the failed GBT deal, noting that the site continued to hope that players were repaid. That statement ended with a reference to “settlement discussions with the US Department of Justice” and the need to be confidential, as well as an indication that “as soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so” -- i.e., language uncannily identical to Stars’ earlier statement.