Railbirding RAWA

A few months after I started this blog -- more than eight-and-a-half years ago, if you can believe that -- the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was passed into law. Suddenly I found myself writing about a host of other topics besides simply playing poker, among them legal matters affecting my ability to play the game online.

As we’ve been reminding each other over and over again since the UIGEA was passed -- kind of like repeatedly relieving a bad beat -- that bill was snuck onto another one in the dead of night just before that Congress adjourned for the final push of campaigning prior to the ’06 elections. Thus did it become law without going through what many would rate a legitimate process of thoughtful debate and decision-making -- that is to say, via a process other than one in which our elected representatives would appear unequivocally to be representing the wishes of those who voted them into office (not that such an ideal is so often realized).

From there followed several years of mixing in posts in which I’d write about various legal developments that followed the UIGEA, including the long, drawn-out process of the regulations getting finalized by late 2008, as well as the many rival federal bills introduced by Barney Frank and others hoping to legalize and regulate online gambling in the U.S.

Then came Black Friday, which I might call a game-changer but in truth more or less stopped the game altogether, at least for most online poker players in the U.S. Before then, though, I remember somewhere along the way finding an analogy between poker and legal machinations surrounding the online game, the parallel having to do with both involving a combination of luck and skill.

That’s a generalization, but the point was that when it came to legislation regarding online poker, the process was in some respects controlled by the “players” (i.e., legislators, judges, lobbying groups, plaintiffs and defendants and those representing them, and so on) and also -- seemingly -- by what often appeared “chance” elements insofar as the combination of individuals and circumstances would result in lots of unpredictable outcomes.

Some “players” in the legislative game -- like in poker -- have a lot more influence than others, with money often making the difference in both contexts. Such is what we’ve been seeing happening over the last couple of years with Sheldon Adelson’s ongoing efforts to curb online gambling of all kinds. The CEO of Las Vegas Sands (parent company of the Venetian Macao Limited) is purportedly the 10th richest person in the world (as of this past summer), thus it hasn’t been difficult at all for him to toss chips various legislators’ way in order to lean on them to play his way.

The most recent orbit of this game has involved Adelson backing this new Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) first introduced in both houses back in March of this year. This federal law would rewrite the Federal Wire Act of 1961 (which the DOJ opined in late 2011 only applied to sports betting) to prohibit most forms of online gambling in the U.S., including making current state-regulated online gambling (in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware) illegal. (Horse racing and fantasy sports would still get a pass.)

RAWA has gotten some co-sponsors but not huge traction this year, but during this “lame duck” session some surmised it could be tossed into this huge $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, with a lot of talk about how the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) was being goaded by Adelson (and his money) into sneaking it in there in UIGEA-like fashion. You’ll recall how during an earlier lame duck session (in 2010), Reid was introducing a federal bill to license and regulate online poker while curbing other forms of online gambling. Well, now he apparently is sitting behind someone else’s stack.

During the day yesterday I noticed Rich Muny, Vice President of Player Relations for the Poker Players Alliance, noting how on his most recent webcast a former member of the House, Jon Porter, said it was “50-50” the RAWA would get added to the spending bill. The bill finally dropped last night without RAWA, and as one commentator in a Two Plus Two thread about the situation noted, “we went from about a 50% chance of being safe, to about... 85%.”

Again, just following the story makes it hard not to think of poker analogies. In this latest hand, those not wanting to see a federal bill outlawing online gambling across the U.S. were all in preflop with Q-Q versus an opponent’s A-K-suited, and now have faded both the flop and turn to have a big edge with one card to come.

The problem with those analogies, though, is that most who oppose RAWA aren’t even sitting at the table, never mind making decisions about pushing their stack in behind a premium hand. They’re on the rail, watching others with big stacks keep buying back in and playing the game on their own.

Crashing Carbon

In the post-Black Friday era, I was still playing online for a couple of years thanks to winning some cabbage in a freeroll over on Hero Poker. Those funds I had transferred over to Carbon Poker once Hero decided to step aside in December 2012, where I played a few months longer although sadly saw my small roll dwindle down to next-to-nothing.

I believe the last hand I played over there was probably sometime in the spring or summer of 2013, which now that I think about it had to have been the last hand of real money online poker I’ve played.

In any event, my memory of briefly goofing around on Carbon for a few months isn’t especially enduring. That said, I found myself trying to remember the games when hearing about this recent story of the site experiencing frequent crashes and disconnections, including some weirdness involving players subsequently logging back on and having access to other players’ accounts, having hole cards change on them in the middle of hands, and other oddities occurring.

It sounds like the site might have fallen victim to a hacker who figured out a way to crash the site (like a “distributed denial-of-service” or DDoS attack). You can read more about what’s known and what’s being speculated about it all in this article by Steve Ruddock for PokerUpdate.

Ruddock uses the story as an occasion to argue again for legalized, regulated online poker in the U.S. He’s right that in a regulated environment players are theoretically going to be protected from fraud, theft of funds, or other consequences of site-hacking, even if the regulated sites aren’t necessarily going to be immune to such attacks.

Meanwhile... that business of the hole cards changing mid-hand -- how many of you have had that bad dream before?

Everything In Its Right Place: Watching Open-Face Chinese

Vera and I made it home in reasonably good shape, finally pulling up to the farm around midnight last night. Liked getting up today to feeds the horses and barn cats and see all were doing well. Felt like everything was where it was supposed to be again.

Spent some time this afternoon watching the livestream of this TonyBet Poker-sponsored €10K High Roller Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament playing out today in Prague in advance of the upcoming European Poker Tour stop. They are playing the Pineapple variant of OFC. That’s a screenshot from earlier today above, when Jason Mercier -- fresh off winning the WPT Alpha8 in St. Kitts -- was at the feature table. Pretty cool, and very fun to follow with the commentary by David Vanderheyden.

My appetite for all things OFC has been whetted somewhat over the last few weeks by some recent PokerNews articles by Nikolai Yakovenko. Yakovenko is a poker pro who was involved with creating the popular ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker app, and he’s been contributing strategy articles about OFC to PN for a while now.

A few weeks ago Yakovenko wrote a two-parter on the current state of OFC, then last week he both introduced how to play 2-7 Pineapple then offered some strategy for that variant.

It’s perhaps a narrow niche as far as topics go, but Yakovenko is a very good writer who explains everything well and keeps it interesting, too. If you’re at all curious about where open-face Chinese poker is (or is heading) at the moment or the “Deuce Pineapple” variant, check out those links.

Meanwhile, I dipped back into that High Roller live stream a short while ago to see Jennifer Shahade and Ilya Bulychev now heads-up for the title. Sounds like they’re working out a deal to end things fairly soon, so I’m gonna sign off and head back over. There will be another two-day €1K OFC Main Event starting tomorrow with the final table again being streamed on Wednesday, so that’ll be another chance to watch some live OFC.

Something surprisingly pleasing about watching players set their hands -- like they are putting everything where it belongs, sort of like the feeling we had when coming home.

(EDIT [added 12/9/14]: Jennifer Shahade won the €1OK OFC High Roller -- story here.)

Travel Report: WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts 2, Day 2 -- Come Open! Up Here!

Am sitting in the small St. Kitts airport with Vera Valmore as we wait to board the first of two flights that will take us back home. Looks like our first one is delayed a bit, but we’re hopeful of making the connection in time to get home late tonight.

Yesterday saw the World Poker Tour Alpha8 St. Kitts event finish up with Jason Mercier ultimately taking away the trophy and $727,500 first prize. He outlasted a couple of non-pros at the end who claimed the other two cashing spots, Kathy Lehne who finished second (for $436,500) and Tony Guglietti who took third (for $291,000).

I know Lehne is the president and CEO of Sun Coast Resources, one of the nation’s biggest petroleum marketing companies that operates out of Houston. The first woman ever to play in a WPT Alpha8, I think Lehne has a home at St. Kitts not far from where the tournament was played at Christophe Harbour. Don’t know as much about Guglietti’s background, other than he played Alpha8 at St. Kitts when they first went there a year ago and didn’t make it past the first day.

There were some dramatic hands that led to that threesome occupying the final spots. Lehne spiked a four-outer against Olivier Busquet (who’d later bubble in fourth) once to survive, then in hand against Antonio Esfandiari won with A-K versus his pocket queens after a tantalizing 4-3-J-5-2 runout gave her a wheel.

Once Guglietti went out in third, Lehne battled with Mercier for a short while before they took a dinner break, with Mercier chipping up to increase his lead without too much resistance. Then after the break Lehne had a more aggressive approach and in fact had rattled off a streak of hands won before finally losing the last of her stack to the pro.

The weather was glorious for much of the day, with blue skies and warm temps all around. That increased the mosquito count a bit, although we all endured. Later came an afternoon shower, then the weather cleared as night fell. That’s when the whistling tree frogs came out, their squeaky chorus having by the third night become quite familiar to hear.

Got back to the hotel to reunite with Vera who spent the day at the pool, the beach, and exploring elsewhere as well where among the sights she saw was the warm invitation at left for a “Monkey Donkey and Horse Tour.” Despite the enticing exhortations (“Come Open,” “Up Here”), Vera didn’t take the tour, although we did spot a couple of monkeys during our stay, which I heard someone say outnumber the humans by about two-to-one on the island.

With our late flight out today we had a chance to hang out at the pool a bit, which is where Vera snapped the pic of me up top. Was a nice, relaxing finish to a busy, fun few days, made even more so by the friendly folks everywhere we turned while here. A great time, but we’re both anxious now to get back to our four-legged friends on the farm.

Travel Report: WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts 2, Day 1 -- Pants on the Ground

More rapid-fire posting this morning as we’re only about a half-hour away from the start of Day 2 of the WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts here at Christophe Harbour.

It rained fairly heavily yesterday, which scattered the mosquitos but dampened the view a little all around the resort. The tournament provided a lot of fun and interesting moments, though.

There were 11 players total, with a couple re-entering once and Antonio Esfandiari ultimate buying in three times after he was knocked out twice before the cutoff point. Esfandiari’s last re-entry made for an interesting twist as they had gone to a single nine-handed table, then when he returned they had to redraw and go back to two five-handed tables -- as though the tourney was running in reverse.

Esfandiari also provided some grins by going pantsless for most of the day, shedding them early on thanks to the heat. The five non-pros in the field -- Bill Perkins, Talal Shakerchi, Kathy Lehne, Michael Singh, and Tony Guglietti -- additionally made for some fun hands and a lot of enjoyable banter about the tables as the discussions ranged all over the place.

It was fun, too, to witness the large crew of WPT folks pulling together the show again as the tournament progresses. So much creativity all around, and you get the sense that everyone is constantly coming up with new ideas as it goes for ways to shape the program that will later be aired on Fox Sports.

Today the skies are a deep, rich blue and the forecast calls for sun all day, which is making for a nifty view from our perch here as we’ll watch them play down to a winner. Come over to the WPT live updates today to see Joe Giron’s photos of what we’re seeing and to follow the reports as they play down to a winner.

Travel Report: WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts 2, Arrival -- Cruising to the Caribbean

The flights down to St. Kitts were on schedule and without hassle, and Vera and I made it through customs and to our hotel in time to meet a group from the WPT heading out for a scheduled “sunset cruise.”

The drive took us over to Christophe Harbour, where the tournament is scheduled to play out, a long, winding voyage through the green hills and overlooking the lapping ocean waves. Alas by the time we got there the gathering clouds had conspired to produce some precipitation, and after a short while it was decided to scrap the cruise.

All was not lost, however, as we were able to enjoy some finger food and good conversation among those who had come along. Vera and I had fun chatting with Alec Torelli and his wife, with Vera and Alec finding a lot of common ground between dressage and poker. Both have a keen interest in sports psychology, and Vera was able to recommend several titles she’s enjoyed.

We got back to the hotel and after a short rest made it downstairs for a little get-together for the players and staff, eventually getting back to the room for what turned out to be a full night’s rest.

I write today from Christophe Harbour where the set is being constructed and we’re in the middle of getting everything together to report on the first day of action from the WPT Alpha8.

Stunning views all around here (see above), and it’s definitely a different vibe to be covering a tourney in shorts with a warm wind wafting through rather than in a cold casino. Sun’s coming out today, too, making for an even more picturesque setting.

Check over at the WPT site for live updates today to see who ends up participating and how they fare.

Skedaddling to St. Kitts

Quick post this morning just to report I’m heading south once again, this time to St. Kitts to help cover the World Poker Tour Alpha8 event. This’ll be a first trip there for your humble scribbler, and while it will be a quick one (it’s just a two-day tourney), I’m especially looking forward to it as Vera is accompanying me.

I’ve covered one Alpha8 before, the first one that took place at the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida in August 2013. That one drew 18 players and 21 total entries for the $100,000 buy-in event (with re-entries), and I imagine it’ll be a similar-sized field this weekend in St. Kitts. They’ve been there once before and in fact had 28 entries total, which I believe is the most they’ve drawn for an Alpha8 thus far.

Gonna be a busy one and I doubt I’ll have too much time to spare for reporting here along the way, but I’ll try to stop in some and perhaps once I get back will be better able to share some pictures and stories from the trip.

Meanwhile, as you can see above, I’ve packed three buy-ins for the tournament. Wish me luck!

On What Happened

“What happened?”

So read the subject line of an email I received a little earlier today. Not the kind of subject line you like to see, especially if your life is complicated by various deadlines and assignments -- like mine, and like that of just about everyone else, too, who’s checking email regularly.

Looking closer, the sender’s name was vaguely familiar, then after I opened it I realized it was one of those regular mailings the Poker Players Alliance send out, I think on a weekly basis. The letter explained how I’d been sent a note recently asking me to contribute to the PPA. As I had not done so, now I was being chastised for not responding to the request to help “protect poker from DC politicians seeking to ban our game” by sending in some cabbage for the cause.

Have to say I didn’t like that feeling the subject line gave me, namely to think for a moment I might’ve lost track of some important assignment or other obligation. Not appreciating that, I found the link to unsubscribe from the mailing list, and did so.

I thought a little afterwards about both the “cause” -- that is, the fight to “protect poker” from those who wish to prohibit the game from being played (online or elsewhere) -- and the extent to which I am obligated to fight for it.

I obviously feel strongly that I should be allowed to play poker when and where I wish, and thus I am also obviously especially dissatisfied that is far from the case at present. I also appreciate the efforts of those who are working to change the current status quo.

That said, when it comes to online poker here in the U.S., it is impossible for me to be at all hopeful about that particular cause either in the near future or long term.

I was mentioning yesterday listening to that poker podcast from seven years ago. So strange to go back like that and hear the discussions and ads all reflecting a time when online poker was mostly taken for granted, with the associated issues (the first big cheating scandal and “ghosting” concerns) seeming like relatively minor problems that could be fairly easily endured while the games continued unabated.

A different world, that. What happened? I guess I more or less know what happened. And knowing that, it’s hard to be optimistic about anything that might happen next.

Listening Back to Back in the Day

There’s a lot that’s interesting swirling around with regard to online poker and where it’s going these days. (Or not going, if you’re here in the U.S.)

But that’s standard -- that is, for there to be all sorts of stories, scoops, sensations, and scandals associated with the online version of the game. Has been the case ever since I started writing this blog more than eight-and-a-half years ago.

In fact today I took a break from reading the latest to look back a little at some of the issues being discussed not long after I started this sucker, thanks in part to my having randomly happened on a folder on an old computer full of poker podcasts.

The shows are all from late 2007 and early 2008, back when I remember having to download podcasts in order to hear them. That above is a crude screenshot of the folder -- if you’re curious you can click the pic to enlarge it. Looks like more than 40 different shows represented in the folder. Just by chance I decided to dial up one from exactly seven years ago today -- the 12/2/07 episode of “Big Poker Sundays” hosted by Scott Huff and Haralobos Voulgaris which aired on the now-defunct PokerRoad site.

The show covered various topics of the day, including a story about an infamous instance of “ghosting” involving the soon-to-be-let-go Managing Editor of BLUFF, Chris Vaughn, and Sorel Mizzi. Shane “shaniac” Schleger called in, too, to talk more about the state of online poker including current worries about multi-accounting, ghosting, and what was then a recent development regarding cheating on Absolute Poker. (I was even surprised to hear a quick reference to Hard-Boiled Poker in there, something I hadn’t remembered at all.)

Listening to the show sent me back to some articles online as well as some old posts here, including this post written the day after the BPS show that mentions some of what was discussed. Think I’ll probably next have to back up a few weeks with these and listen again to the first discussions of the Absolute Poker cheating scandal as it was just starting to break.

Speaking of, during my clicking around through some old HBP posts I landed on this one from February 2008 compiling lots of early articles about AP. Talk about a rabbit hole.

I’ll spare you all the little twists and turns I’ve been clicking my way through tonight, though will say I had a chuckle over this article (from mid-September ’07) from someone expressing utter disbelief that any cheating could have happened on the site, as well as this follow-up (written a week later) adamantly confirming that position, then adding the following:

“I've also spoken with an anonymous source who has had contact with individuals at Ultimate Bet and a few other sites, who notes that no such super user exists on those sites, either. Why, then, would Absolute Poker be the lone site that finds a need to create a super user?”

Is The Last Deal the First Poker Movie?

For a good while I’ve been under the impression -- and have written and said so on more than one occasion -- that the 1912 short A Cure for Pokeritis was almost assuredly the oldest “poker movie.”

A couple of years ago the 12-minute silent film starring John Bunny and Flora Finch was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the 25 films they pick each year to be added to the National Film Registry.

The selection was done mostly because of Bunny starring in the film, I believe, to help underscore the comic actor’s important place in film history after having starred in more than 150 productions during the silent era. But as I’ve written about the movie also helps highlight poker’s prominence in the early-20th century, another reason why A Cure for Pokeritis might like other selected films be said to have “enduring significance to American culture.”

You can read more about A Cure for Pokeritis plus watch the film embedded in a post here. Meanwhile, I was snooping around recently to find at least one poker-themed film to have predated that one.

It’s called The Last Deal and was written and directed in 1910 for Biograph by D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation, Intolerance). Running about 11 minutes, it tells a story not unlike the one told in A Cure for Pokeritis, although apparently in more of a dramatic than comic vein.

Like in Pokeritis, The Last Deal presents poker and gambling as a kind of illness in need of curing. A character is introduced as an addict whose poker-playing threatens to lose him his job and family until his brother-in-law comes along to help him with his “gambling fever” (so go the synopses). There’s also a classic (or clichéd) four-aces-versus-four-kings hand somewhere in there, too, I’ve discovered.

The Last Deal stars Owen Moore who appears in a lot of Griffith productions and was secretly married to Mary Pickford with whom he appeared in several films.

Not really seeing The Last Deal as readily available online as is Pokeritis, although I think there are existing copies including on VHS. It was included as part of a series of RKO shorts in the 1940s called Flicker Flashbacks, albeit in an imperfect form. That series (created in the 1940s) involved chopping up old silent shorts and adding soundtracks for comic effect, so one would only get a partial glimpse of the film there. It also might pop up in one of the many compilations of Griffith shorts out there.

I’ve only just started looking in earnest for it, though, so perhaps there’s a more obvious way to get ahold of it of which I’ve yet to discover.

(Faux title card above aided by CopyCatFilms.)