Change for Good

Saw Marco Valerio (formerly of QuadJacks) this week proposing what I thought was an inspired idea.

Having gotten an email from Ultimate Poker informing him he’d be due a whopping $0.18 upon the closing of his account there in Nevada, Marco thought about how he probably wasn’t the only one cashing out for a small amount from the site. As I recall, when the news broke that UP was closing up for good there was a tweet from them confirming they had something like 25,000 player accounts with funds in them, then a follow-up noting how a lot of those accounts had only a dollar or less (I think). (Can’t look it up now as UP has already deleted its Twitter account.)

In any event, being a licensed and regulated site UP couldn’t make like Full Tilt Poker 1.0, UltimateBet, or Absolute Poker and just not bother returning funds, so everyone is getting his or her cabbage back, even if as with Marco it’s only a few pennies.

Marco’s idea -- delivered over Twitter a couple of days ago -- was to suggest players who were interested could pool those piddling returns to make something more substantial, then they could donate whatever amount that turned out to be to a charity. I don’t think a specific one has been picked out as yet, although Marco mentioned hoping maybe to collect “a hundred bucks to buy a child some toys” in an early follow-up tweet.

Within a couple of days the idea has already picked up a lot of momentum, with many chiming in wanting to donate to the cause. I told Marco I’d like to as well, even though I never deposited anything in my UP account. Now it looks like he’s already had more than $1K pledged altogether (including some “matching” pledges by some).

Anyhow, I thought it was a neat thought and Marco a good person to have had it, considering his well-connected place within the web of poker people. Here’s a webpage he’s set up describing both the idea and how things are progressing thus far that includes info about how you can get involved, too, with this “spontaneous act of poker kindness” ideer if you wish.

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.

Ultimate Poker NJ Busts Out

The Atlantic City story this year has been something else, with four of the 12 casinos on the Boardwalk having already closed and a fifth one -- the Trump Taj Mahal -- having announced that it will likely follow suit in November.

When first hearing about the Taj possibly closing it did cross my mind that Ultimate Poker’s New Jersey site would have to find itself a new casino with which to align in order to continue in the Garden State. In New Jersey the land-based casinos get “online gambling permits” and can then partner up with technology providers who also are licensed to operate in the state. UP was the platform for Trump Taj Mahal Associates, meaning that without them Ultimate would need to partner with another casino in order to continue.

That ain’t happenin’, obviously. Late Friday the news arrived that Ultimate Gaming was both terminating its agreement with Trump Taj Mahal Associates and ceasing operations in the state (while continuing in Nevada). Their press release cited “multiple breaches” by the Trump group precipitating the break-up, the declaration of bankruptcy by TTMA a couple of weeks ago and listing of Fertitta Acquisitions (parent company of Ultimate Gaming) as a creditor owed nearly $1.5 million suggesting an obvious one.

Just two days later -- at 11:59 p.m. ET last night -- it was all over for Ultimate Poker as the New Jersey site stopped dealing hands. Players are now being told to cash out their funds, which represents one small silver lining when compared to the shutdowns of other, non-regulated sites in the past and subsequent troubles players have had retrieving their funds from them.

Of course, there wasn’t a heckuva lot happening at the Ultimate Poker New Jersey site, anyway. A week ago I was writing here about the Party Borgata site and the snafu it had during the Garden State Super Series. That got me curious about how the NJ sites were doing, and so I visited PokerScout last week and saw that while the Party site and WSOP.com’s NJ site both had 300-400 cash players (or thereabouts), Ultimate Poker had practically no one playing at all -- like just a table or two, if I recall.

Ultimate’s NJ casino site was apparently doing fairly well, earning half a milly per month in revenue. But nothing much was happening on the poker side, which makes the site’s swift closure decidedly less dramatic.

UP is doing better in Nevada, although has been behind WSOP.com’s Nevada site since shortly after the latter went online almost exactly one year ago. And the traffic in Nevada is only a fraction of what’s happening in New Jersey at the moment, making all of the numbers there very modest all around.

I have never played a hand on Ultimate Poker, having looked into it last summer while in Nevada but deciding not to bother with the hassles involved with getting up and running on the site. The fact that they still have no Mac-based client is kind of amazing, really, and has to be an obstacle that virtually ensures the site will never become more than a very minor player versus any competition whatsoever. (That screenshot is from the page that says -- just as it has for the last year-and-a-half -- that the Mac client is “in the works.”)

Speaking of, as I mentioned last week PokerStars is poised to enter New Jersey via the Amaya Gaming Group who hold a license in the state -- possibly within the next couple of weeks. And expectations are the site should easily outstrip all others immediately in terms of traffic, and in fact will become an interesting test case to see just how well a single-state site might be able to thrive.

In any case, the slow-moving start to “online poker 2.0” in the U.S. continues, moving much like a very slow-structured tournament with the stakes being almost trivial (relatively speaking). And, of course, the occasional bustouts.

Two Players at the Online Table (WSOP.com Takes a Seat)

There were eyes on WSOP.com yesterday with the official launch of the site for real money games. Not as much fanfare, it seemed, than was the case back in the spring when Ultimate Poker beat everyone to the table to deal the first hand of online poker 2.0, but still a notable moment.

Just peeking over at PokerScout, they’re reporting a 24-hour peak of 113 real money ring game players during the first day of operation at WSOP.com, with 46 on there on a Friday afternoon.

Will be curious to see where that WSOP.com graph settles once it rises over the near term, and how it will compare to the numbers over at Ultimate Poker. Over on UP it appears there are generally around 200 players at any given time, an average the site reached early on and at which it has remained for several months.

Unlike over at Ultimate Poker where it’s possible to rail all the games from outside of Nevada, there’s no looking in over at the real money games at WSOP.com (as far as I can tell). I have an account on the site and the play money client downloaded on my desktop, but that appears to be separate from the new real money games. I believe the software is similar, though, with hold’em, Omaha, and stud games available at a variety of stakes.

Over on Two Plus Two, a News, Views, and Gossip thread begun yesterday devoted to the launch is getting scant attention, with only three dozen posts thus far and a few thousand views although it is gamely keeping a spot on the front page.

As the WSOP.com player pool grows and the promotions get going in earnest, the site will gain more attention. There's already some WSOPE satellite stuff on there as well as some freerolls and guaranteed tourneys, and there will be this WSOP.com Online Championships starting in October that should get a lot of press -- nine tourneys comprising a first tourney series on the site. The press release that accompanied yesterday’s launch also outlines other marketing strategies in place including Total Rewards tie-ins and lots of television and other forms of advertising planned.

I’m curious about the site and kind of vaguely hopeful about it, and indeed I have more hope for WSOP.com growing into something relatively significant with its ready-made brand than I’ve had for start-from-scratch Ultimate Poker. Can’t help but think the latter’s prospects have dimmed just a tad with another player finally having taken a seat at the U.S. online poker table.

That said, the broader effect at the moment -- and for the near future -- is not unlike a new live poker room opening up in Vegas, one that those of us living elsewhere might perhaps visit one day, but which otherwise doesn’t mean a heck of a lot to us just yet.

News of the Day

Sort of an interesting confluence of online poker news here lately with announcements coming from both Full Tilt Poker regarding the process by which U.S. players may finally get to file a petition in an effort to recover their erstwhile balances as well as breaking news regarding the launch of WSOP’s online poker site in Nevada. You might say both announcements come under the “long-time-coming” category.

U.S. Full Tilters have been waiting nearly two-and-a-half years for their funds, with the new Full Tilt Poker Claims website having been launched by the Garden City Group way back in March. No time frame was suggested then, and I guess six months later seems about right for something finally to happen on that front.

Meanwhile the WSOP.com real money online poker site was first announced in a conference call in mid-May with a lot of indirect suggestion at the time that it could possibly go live at some point during this year’s Series. That didn’t happen, but today came another conference call with the news that the launch will occur this Thursday.

I’ll admit to feeling a little bit detached from both of these stories, for different reasons.

The FTP news comes a few days after that report of a leaked GCG email containing of list of persons ineligible for payment from the fund they have been charged with administering. That list includes folks like FTP affiliates, FTP pros and other employees of the old site and its myriad shell companies, and “a past or present vendor of FTP that received compensation through FTP players’ accounts.”

That last item has been taken by some perhaps to cover anyone who ever received any sort of transfer into their FTP account as payment such as often would happen back in the day for various purposes, including payment for writing gigs.

I personally don’t remember ever having been paid in this way for an assignment -- not via FTP, anyway. But I know many who have. I also never got into the affiliate game, and so think I might actually be okay as far as being eligible to petition to get back my tiny roll of just under three hundy is concerned. It has been so long, though, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by skepticism when finally being introduced to some process (of yet-to-be-determined length) by which to get back my cabbage.

My detached feeling from the other news of the WSOP.com real money launch is more obviously caused by it only pertaining to folks within the state of Nevada which is more than a couple thousands miles away from where I’m scribblin’. That said, my sense is this is a development that will eventually have some significance beyond the borders of the Silver State, and perhaps sooner than later.

I’ll be very curious to see how the new site fares in comparison with Ultimate Poker and whether or not UP’s four-and-a-half-month head start will really matter that much once the WSOP machine gets cranking in earnest.

For now, though, it’s as though I’m today reading stories about a distant past (the old, corrupt, doomed Full Tilt Poker) and a distant future (the new, full-of-potential, promise-filled WSOP.com site), both of which are far away from my current time and place.

Let’s Talk Player-to-Player

As I was mentioning yesterday, there’s a ton happening poker-wise these days, including the World Series of Poker inching ever closer.

The first WSOP bracelet events start in just over a week (on Wednesday, May 29). Meanwhile we’re hearing announcements practically every day from the WSOP concerning all sorts of other news, including about that Carnivale of Poker schedule of events, the 2013-14 WSOP Circuit schedule (expanded to 22 stops) and the 2013 WSOP Europe schedule in Paris, France (including seven bracelet events).

One thing we haven’t heard anything about as yet is a specific date for the launch of the new WSOP real money online poker site, something that came up in that WSOP Conference Call last week. Lots of chatter on the grapevine about that. For example, there was a brief item on Pokerfuse earlier today passing along a forum rumor that the sucker was going to launch tomorrow, but WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky has already confirmed that ain’t going to happen.

Lots of eyes on that story, obviously, which is starting to draw some of the attention away from Ultimate Poker as far as Nevada’s newly burgeoning online poker scene is concerned. Many are assigning a lot of significance to whether or not Caesars manages to get the site up and running during the WSOP, with a failure to do so already being characterized as a big misstep before the fact. But I think it’s clear the desire to launch a site that is tested and ready is probably a higher priority at the moment than to beat a deadline, especially since Ultimate Poker has already managed to claim the title of first to the virtual felt.

As this new U.S. Online Poker 2.0 starts to reveal itself, it’s interesting to observe how differently-managed the new games are from what went before. Licensing requirements in Nevada include a number of provisions that necessarily introduce changes from what players experienced previously with online poker, one of which is to disallow sites from enabling player-to-player transfers.

Players being able to transfer money back and forth to each other was common to pretty much all online poker sites (as far as I can recall), considered by most to be an extension of sorts from the frequent practice in live poker of exchanging money, backing and/or staking, and so on. I remember when I first started playing online I didn’t think too much of P2P transfers being a significant issue, particularly since as a recreational player I didn’t engage in making transfers all that often, but was glad to have the option for the few occasions when I needed it.

Now, though, I think we all see a lot more clearly all of the potential problems that can arise from sites allowing the unrestricted transferring of funds among players, or even the ability to do so with certain limitations. I’m thinking, of course, of things like Full Tilt Poker’s multi-layered implosion (prior to PokerStars’ acquisition and rescue) and the insider cheating scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker and how P2P transfers could be said to have helped facilitate other more obviously bad (and even fraudulent) practices. The recent Lock Poker brouhaha is also highlighting potential problems surrounding P2P transfers, although there are lots of other issues are in play as well.

The always provocative Kim Lund has been inviting conversation about the topic of P2P transfers via his Twitter feed (@InfiniteEdgeKim). Yesterday morning, Kim invited such discussion thusly: “Writing something on a sensitive subject. Why should sites facilitate player-to-player transfers? I see few reasons, none good enough.”

Responses have come arguing both sides of the issue, with those in favor of keeping P2P transfers in online poker often referring to customers’ desiring having such capability while others have pointed out reasons for doing away with the practice.

I lean in Kim’s direction on this one, perhaps in part because I am a recreational player for whom P2P transfers was never a vital element in my online poker experience. But I understand the arguments of those on the other side, too. I guess removing P2P transfers entirely from the game does, in a sense, further transform online poker into something very different from the live game.

But then again, it always was a different game, wasn’t it?

So how would you respond to Kim's question? Go on, you can tell me... there are no restrictions here regarding our exchanging thoughts and ideas, after all.

Whose Turn Is It, Again?

What a weird week already, and it’s only Wednesday. And I guess it’s May already, too, which means the World Series of Poker is just around the corner to start distracting us all even further.

Been trying to follow all of the online poker-related developments, although it’s starting to feel a little like I’ve accidentally sat down at a table where they’re dealing some brand new variant with multiple flops and extra streets where I’m not sure about hand values and I don’t even really know how many betting rounds there are.

Kind of makes me want to sit back and take a hand or three off, just to avoid playing out of turn or any other missteps.

On Monday I was writing about the current troubles at Lock Poker, the latest issue to emerge symbolizing the confusing and highly uncertain world of so-called “rogue” offshore U.S.-facing online poker sites. Easy enough to draw a conclusion there to steer clear of Lock and other such sites, although it’s still a bit headachy trying to delve into the specifics of what is happening with the communications and cashouts (or lack thereof) and ever-shifting landscape for players.

Then yesterday came the sudden launch of Ultimate Poker, which created some huge buzz and various conversations and commentary throughout the day and night.

Again, lots of questions linger as the site moves into its second day of offering actual U.S. licensed and regulated real money games to players in Nevada. PokerScout reported a peak of 136 players on the site during its first day of dealing, and a quick check of the “Hand ID” numbers at the moment suggest more than 25,000 hands have been dealt at the cash tables and in sit-n-gos.

Amid all of the talk of triangulation -- a word that always sounds short of breath -- and other matters related to players’ attempts to get up and running on Ultimate Poker, I wondered some more about how quickly the sucker went live, with only a few hours in between players being able to make initial deposits and the games getting underway. (No free play games, either, to test out things beforehand.)

But like the great majority of those talking about Ultimate Poker right now, I’m not actually playing on the site as I am not in Nevada. Thus am I hesitant to say much at all regarding how things appear to have gone during UP’s first day, although I have been following with interest the various posts, forum comments, tweets, and other talk about what’s happening.

Then last night came what appeared to be another item of apparently uncertain significance as Alexandra Berzon of The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal between PokerStars (or, rather, the Rational Group) and the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel (or, rather, Colony Capital LLC) had reached an impasse thanks to the passing of an important deadline established between the two entities.

According to Berzon, the deal had been contingent on Rational obtaining a Preliminary Casino Authorization (i.e., a temporary license) to operate in NJ by last Friday. That day came and went, and thus the agreement between the two parties expired. While the significance of the news was initially unclear -- neither side had offered any on-the-record comments for Berzon’s article -- this morning it sounds like the deal is well and truly nixed, as the Atlantic Club’s CEO is confirming that to be the case. Though again, it is hard to pin down what it all means for New Jersey and/or PokerStars going forward. (Hard for me, anyway.)

Finally, there was one more item popping up this morning over on Politico suggesting that yet another federal online gambling bill was about to be proposed by House Rep. Peter King (R-NY). Actually that item initially suggested another Congressman (Jay Rockefeller) was to propose the legislation before a correction soon followed.

Of course, it seems like just about every story we’re hearing at present having to do with online poker seems in need of correction. Or at least revising to add further clarification. And the fact that half of these stories are hidden behind pay walls doesn’t make it any easier for the majority of us wanting to know what’s up.

I’ve made the analogy before here about how reporting on poker -- like poker itself -- is often a “partial information game,” although when I have it has been in the context of reporting on tourneys in which those of us on the side cannot see hole cards or know players’ thoughts, entire shared history, and so on.

Such a characterization seems appropriate with regard to stories about the status online poker in the U.S. at present, too. Like I was saying above, the whole scene regarding online poker’s present and future in the U.S. is getting so muddled it’s becoming increasingly difficult even to follow the order of play.

Makes the game more unpredictable, I guess, and thus more apt to surprise us. Even so, I think I might just sit out and watch for a while before getting further involved.

U.S. Online Poker 2.0: Ultimate Poker Deals First Hand

You’ve no doubt heard the news already -- real money online poker is being played within the United States at this very moment, with the Ultimate Poker site in Nevada suddenly springing to life this morning to deal its first hand. The site went live just about an hour ago at 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, noon here on the east coast.

Like you, I awoke to the news that UP was going to be going live today. Kind of surprised, actually, that there wasn’t a lengthy roll out or even any real advance notice beforehand, although I guess we all knew the launch was going to be soon. I went ahead and registered with the site, even though I’m in North Carolina and cannot play as yet. I will be in Nevada this summer, however, for the World Series of Poker, and so might well get on there to play a bit while I am there.

That said, there are other issues presently in the way of my playing on Ultimate Poker besides not being physically located within Nevada.

My cell phone carrier is Verizon, and apparently that’s going to exclude me right now as well. In order to play on Ultimate Poker, one must have a cell phone in order to use the site’s “location services” function. In order to determine that a player is in Nevada, the player has to respond to a text message sent to his or her cell phone, which theoretically confirms for Ultimate Poker that the player is within Nevada’s borders. (Easy to imagine folks scheming to work around this method of confirmation.) Anyhow, apparently Verizon customers are out of luck with regard to this system, and so cannot presently get verified to play.

Another hiccup for me is the fact that there really isn’t a good option for Mac users to play at present. There is a workaround, apparently, but it’s more than I want to deal with, especially as I’m not even in NV.

Hopefully both of those issues get resolved before mid-June when I get to Nevada with my Verizon phone and Mac laptop. Not going to get too worked up over the various snags as yet, though, as I think it is only fair to let the site get up and operational before any judgments can be meaningful.

I watched the first hand being dealt on Ultimate Poker a while ago. A $4.55+$0.45 turbo sit-n-go appeared in the lobby at the top of the hour, and after about nine minutes or so the nine spots were taken and the single-table tourney got underway. Check out the Hand ID# in the top left corner:

The player chazman then knocked out prognostic on the very first hand of the SNG after the latter flopped top pair then chazman turned a spade flush and they got it all in on fourth street with prognostic drawing dead. In the end, chazman finished third for $8.45, jharrington took second for $12.50, and a player simply named Ken won the sucker for $20.

Shortly after that SNG began the lobby began to fill with many other sit-n-go options with buy-ins ranging from $0.25 up to $100. Cash tables appeared in the lobby as well, with limit hold’em games ranging from $0.05/$0.10 up to $10/$20, and NL games from $0.01/$0.02 to $3/$6. All games are hold’em right now, as well.

Not too much is happening as yet, though. At the moment it looks like only seven players are sitting at the cash tables. Meanwhile there haven’t been enough players to get a second full-ring SNG going, although two have started a $5 heads-up one.

Of course, as I mentioned, it was only hours ago that most even heard the news that Ultimate Poker was going live, and given the hoops those who are in Nevada presently need to go through before being able to deposit and play, I wouldn’t expect the site to get too much traffic during these first few hours or days.

It could be that part of the thinking behind surprise-springing the launch in this way was to prevent having too much business right off the bat, thereby enabling those running the show to ease into things a little more carefully. A better explanation, though, is that Ultimate Poker simply wanted to be the first to deal real money hands, period, as the benefits of being the only option in what is necessarily a small marketplace are obviously huge.

Will be curious to see how things progress from here. Am really, really hopeful it all goes relatively smoothly as it is obviously important for the reintroduction of online poker in the U.S. to play out minus the scandals and other problems that became such a conspicuous part of our previous experience with online poker here in the states.

In other words, I sincerely hope the rush to be first doesn’t mean any unforeseen (or yet-to-be-dealt-with) issues arise to create problems going forward for U.S. Online Poker 2.0.