Bryan in Washington DC sends along an update from PPA lobbyist Jeff MacKinnon (of Ryan, MacKinnon, Berzok and Vasapoli, LLP) on the current legislative landscape for online poker as seen by those working the hallways of Capitol Hill. It’s apparently all about gearing up for a lame-duck-session smackdown, and riding our net-positive revenue potential onto an appropriate bill.

MacKinnon explains:

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Calm before the storm.  That’s what it feels like on Capitol Hill these days.  There’s a certain melancholy feeling around here – sort of like a lull between battles during the Civil War. Coming off a year of budget deficit/debt/payroll tax crises, Congress is quietly putting all pending skirmishes off until an end of the year legislative battle royale. If one were in college - it’s sort of the equivalent of taking an incomplete in every class the whole year then having to do a year’s worth of work in 25 days at the end of the year.

Before everyone rushes to E-Trade and shorts the market, in Washington I’ve found that things are never as good or as bad as they appear to be. The one thing Congress is good at is kicking the can down the road. This will be a test of wills like no other – especially for lobbyists like me.

The breadth and number of contentious issues to be decided after the election is overwhelming and quietly has garnered the attention of many CEOs and financial industry leaders. A few of the issues that must be addressed before the end of the year: expiring Bush tax cuts; extending the debt limit; stopping drastic reimbursement reductions for physians in the Medicare program; an unemployment insurance extension; a transportation bill to fund highway programs in 50 states; changes to the alternative minimum tax; tax credit extenders for renewable energy and research and development; and the expiring payroll tax cut. Combined, these issues on the table are equal to 3% of our GDP.

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On Today’s Cold Call Show we talk about the Pokerstars buying Full Tilt rumor, and how Group Bernard Tapaie has to sit in the corner and jerk off while Pokerstars bangs Full Tilt out.  Jewdonk calls in and tells us about his altercation with local thugs.  Joeyyeaaaeah does some cold calling with me.  GODSPEED!

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Matt Savage returns home to Las Vegas tomorrow to take the TD helm for the MGM Grand Challenge Series, which began on Friday anr runs through May 6.

At first glance, this series resembles most “tourist stakes” festivals in Las Vegas — two-and-a-half weeks of two tourneys a day, with buy-ins ranging from $150 to $550 and a $1,600 main event (starting May 1). But a closer look at the schedule reveals that 9 of the 30 events are something other than no-limit Texas hold’em. There are five Omaha events, two HORSE events, a stud event and a hi-lo variant of Chinese Poker. Even the WSOP doesn’t have that.

And six of the hold’em events veer from standard full-ring multi-table freezeout structure — to include turbos, a double-stack event, bounties, an “all-in or fold” tournament (where those are your only two choices on every hand), and a mix-max, where the number of players at each table progressively shrinks (from 10 to 8 to 6 to 4…).

Savage says he  expects a healthy turnout of pros for the Chinese Poker ½ High, ½ 2-7 event.

The idea for this series, he said, was “to provide a variety of games that other series’ in Vegas don’t generally have. No-limit hold’em, while it’s popular, isn’t the only game.”

The Grand Challenge series is taking place in a temporary location on the casino floor,  next to the old lion habitat, while construction on the adjacent bar is underway.

For the first event, a $230 NLHE tournament with 3 day ones, there were more than 300 entrants. The top three finishers chopped for a $10k, $9k, and $9k payout.

Dan played the $150 Pot Limit Omaha with $100 rebuys last night. The Sunday evening event drew 37 players and saw 98 rebuys, for a first prize around $5k. Dan got knocked out just short of the money, with 32 players remaining. I wonder how many hands he played before realizing the odds can actually change when you don’t run it twice.

I’m personally interested in Wednesday’s 6-max NL Hold’em event — something I’ve played before online but never live. We’ll see if my online experience short-handed combined with my looser live cash-game style gives me the edge I anticipate. And if I make the money there, I may just take a shot at the all-in or fold event on Friday. Ever since I heard about it, I’ve been hashing out strategy with friends.

Sounds like it could be really fun or really quick.

This week I’ve been living under a fluorescent cloud of disease. My ragged immune system fights off the invading malady with slow, but inevitable success, yet despite my ailing health the poker world has rudely continued to turn. I’ve done everything I can to ensure that this news isn’t infectious, but you might want to wash your hands after reading.

Party Poker Premier League Crowns Seiver

An elite gaggle of poker’s most elite players gathered to play in the elite Party Poker Premier League V. An elite tournament featuring an elite $1.6 million prize pool and a $500,000 elite first place prize. The winner was avuncular American Scott Seiver, who bested a final table including Tom Dwan, Sam Trickett, and Patrik Antonius.

After busting out in 7th, record breaking endurance crazy-man Phil Laak hot-footed it over to the Big Game – a 48 hour cash table also organized by those rascals at Party Poker. The Unabomber maintained his reputation for extreme stamina by emerging as the game’s biggest winner with a profit of €160,000. [Poker News]

Sam Holden Existentialism

Just like the rest of you, I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering what it must be like to be Irish November Niner Sam Holden. Well you need wonder no more. A documentary entitled ‘Being Sam Holden’ is due to air May 2nd in the UK and Ireland, with screenings in the rest of the world scheduled for later in the year. It follows Sam’s trials and tribulations at last year’s World Series where he finished 9th for over $700k. [IFTN]

Manila Millions

Right now in the Philippines, a group of players are battling for the Manila Millions title. A HKD$1,000,000 ($129,000) tournament organized by the Asian Poker Tour. Supposedly among the locals are the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Johnny Chan, and Sam Trickett.

If you’re lucky, you could catch a glimpse of these pros on the “live stream” airing right now. The feed currently features a group of asian men sitting around a table, with an asian lady commentating in a language I don’t understand. People who’ve been watching it longer than me insist that it’s repeated itself at least once, calling the whole ‘live’ thing into question. I can tell you that they are definitely playing poker, but that’s about as far as I’m willing to go. [WPT Mag]

Stars Beat Table Ratings in Poker Battle

The war against datamining took a big swing in favour of PokerStars this week as they successfully forced tracking site Poker Table Ratings to remove all information scraped from their poker client. For years, players had used PTR to gain information on potential opponents by accessing graphs formed from thousands upon thousands of hands. However, after receiving a cease and desist letter from Stars, PTR have been forced to eradicate a huge chunk of their service. [Part Time Poker]

EGBA Publish EU Manifesto

The European Union is a confusing beast at the best of times. Sometimes a united whole, but more often a loose alliance of countries with wildly conflicting agendas. The approach taken by various EU states to online gambling is an excellent example of the varying philosophies present across the continent. After months of consultation and debate, the European Commission will release an online gaming ‘communication and action plan’ this summer. A trade group for European operators – the European Gaming and Betting Association – have weighed in with their own manifesto, which they no doubt hope will influence the EC’s final decision. [InterGame Online]

AGCC Full Tilt Hearing Scheduled

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission have announced their plans to hold a public hearing into Full Tilt’s application for a new license. Excuse me if I don’t get overly excited about this one, but the last time I turned up for a public AGCC hearing on an FTP license, I spent a day sitting in a hotel lobby while teams of lawyers debated behind closed doors. Odds are pretty low on Full Tilt’s council once again attempting to argue for a session that takes place ‘in camera’. [Poker News Report]

Mark Cuban wrote that a sure sign of failure for any start-up is too much promotional gear. I’ve always kinda agreed … believing too many pokerpreneur types come with all the hype but not an actual product (let alone value proposition). But who am I to complain? Everyone knows Pokerati’s business model: to run a haphazard media empire and someday retire by collecting poker swag for future sale on eBay.

Totally coincidental, I happened upon this keyless keyring while cleaning out one of my poker closets last week and couldn’t help but lol-chuckle that none of these three operations made it to a second birthday despite significant hype and promotional spends.

Oh yeah, and Pokerati turns 8 years old today or tomorrow. So does Full Tilt Poker.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably either a poker player or fan of the game in some fashion. You know that the games in Las Vegas are plentiful on any day of the week. The weekend crowd consists of tourists from all parts of the US escaping their routine lives for a few days in the desert. During the week, the player ratio skews more towards Europeans on extended holiday, mixed with the company conference crowd and conventioneers. There are always locals in the game and during the daytime, they can represent 50 percent or more of the table lineup, even at Strip properties.

At nighttime the ratio shifts more towards the out-of-towners, but where the tourists are, there will always be local regs scattered about.

It’s so fun playing a heads-up tournament. You get to play every hand… what more needs to be said?

As a poker player and/or fan, you might’ve heard that while Las Vegas is the gambling epicenter of the US, when it comes to poker, the true Mecca is actually located in Los Angeles. And after a recent return visit to my old stomping grounds, I was quickly reminded of that fact. The LA cardrooms are different in so many ways from their Vegas counterparts in everything from the atmosphere to the feel of the cards to the player makeup to what’s comped and what isn’t. At any one time in the Commerce, Bicycle, Hustler or any other casinos that occupy very non-glitzy East LA districts, you won’t find more than 1 percent of the player pool designated as “tourists”. No tourist is going to take time out of enjoying gorgeous Malibu or exploring the weirdness of Venice Beach to grind Commerce Casino. These places are packed with locals who love poker, love gambling, and very much love action. They absolutely have to… how else could you explain these folks braving horrific Los Angeles traffic to get to Bell Gardens to play $2/$3NL midweek? It’s true, you do get comped food from a rather impressive menu at the Bike, as opposed to free cocktails a la Las Vegas. But I have to assume it’s more than that. Poker has become a real part of several cultures that make up Los Angeles’ diverse demographics. It’s been that way for decades now, before the no-limit era and now well into it.

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The Boyd School of Law at UNLV will host an Internet Gaming Regulation Symposium on May 18. The conference is being sponsored by Lewis & Roca. You can read more about the conference and speakers and register for it here. I’m preparing a paper on financial transaction handling (with a focus on anti-money laundering) for the event, and that’s why I haven’t made time to blog on Pokerati lately. (Apologies to Dan.)

The conference is really an interesting concept. True to the symposium definition, different authors with familiarity in the gaming space – and anyone else who wants to attend – are getting together, presenting a series of papers, and critiquing them. Later, each writer or writing team will return home and make further changes and amendments to her, his, or their article. The whole collection of papers will then be published as a book by the UNLV Gaming Law Journal sometime in the fall.

The symposium and the resulting book has as its objective the compilation of selected worldwide best practices in the regulation of Internet gaming and betting. Topics that will form discrete chapters include location verification; fraud and cheating detection and prevention; responsible gaming; accounting, reporting, and audit requirements; taxation; and, advertising. I don’t expect that the presentations will just rehash the papers. I hope that mine, for example, goes beyond what’s in the article to try to explore where international regulation of the igaming sector is going.

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Today on DonkDown radio we get a Chainsaw check-in with Allen Kessler.  We talk to Pokerati Dan about Pokerstars-India-Missle theory among other topics.  Jewdonk joins us between Pokerati Dan issues to talk about his noisy neighbors.  VPPlayer14 comes back again to play a voicemail of PeterDC the scammer saying his new fake name, Mike Esposito.

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The 2012 WSOP is right around the corner, and one key question you have to ask every year: OMG, what am I gonna wear? It’s been a long time since i’ve seen a poker T-shirt that actually made me LOL even a little bit … but dare I say kinda cool?

And the good folks at Grinder Gear Clothing Co. (poker, surfing, skateboarding apparel) have partnered with the Poker Players Alliance to put out their “Live and Let Grind” collection — a political statement and slogan of solidarity that stands to catch on with poker players and strippers alike.

Grinder Gear says 20 percent of what they make on these shirts will go to the PPA, so it’s feel-good fashion all around — comfortable clothing for poker freedom.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of online poker’s Black Friday. Anyone who ever clicked a raise button remembers the fateful day, and many are reminiscing about how their world changed on April 15, 2011.

Here’s a best-of list of links, tweets and general brooding from over the weekend:

The cold anniversary was, of course, trending on Twitter Twitter hashtag #BlackFriday … From Ben Lamb wondering if anyone would tweet about it to Dan Fleyshman posting this sad picture http://instagr.am/p/JcjU9BJT1C/

The legal landscape

Reminding people they really do represent the players (especially since Black Friday) the PPA urged them to continue to contact their political representatives. http://www.lvrj.com/business/poker-lobbying-group-marks-black-friday-anniversary-147424325.html

As legislators grapple with the future of online poker, Nevada officials want to host the first legal sites. http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/13127-black-friday-the-day-that-changed-online-poker

Poker affiliates reflected on lessons learned since being forced to admit that the whims of authorities are a legitimate risk for anyone doing business in a legally gray world. http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/blog/black-friday-lessons-learned/

On the casino side, Frank Fahrenkopf, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, pushed for amendments to the Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that would “unambiguously eliminate illegal Internet gambling.” http://www.americangaming.org/newsroom/press-releases/statement-on-the-anniversary-of-black-friday

And FairPlay USA has Greg Raymer reminding you to sign their petition while former FBI Director Louis Freeh cites the anniversary of Black Friday as a call for federal action and continue the fine worl of the DOJ. http://fairplayusa.com/blog/fairplayusa%E2%80%99s-judge-louis-freeh-statement-black-friday-anniversary

Meanwhile, lawyers of all stripes took note, with a new class-action lawsuit filed against Full Tilt filed just before any anniversary parties. 
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/13/45602.htm

Thanks for the memories, DOJ

QuadJacks.com did a special anniversary live podcast, which included “original Black Friday audio.” Ah, the memories.
http://quadjacks.com/poker-radio/

Short-stacked Shamus gives a thorough write-up of the drama to that would befall so many in different ways. http://betting.betfair.com/poker/poker-news/black-friday-one-year-later-130412.html

Wicked Chops Insider talked with poker industry leaders about where they were when they heard the news for an oral history of that fateful day (worthy of free distribution). http://insider.wickedchopspoker.com/543/an-oral-history-of-black-friday/

Many pros, like Shane Schleger here, had to share their thoughts and perspective from a day they won’t forget. http://shaniaconline.blogspot.com/2012/04/black-friday-one-year-later.html

Like a moment frozen in time, here’s the original 2+2 Black Friday thread, which received more than 6,000 replies in the first 3 days: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/reuters-full-tilt-poker-pokerstars-absolute-poker-charged-illegal-gambling-1020606/#post26050483

The guys at pokerfuse.com produced a bomb-ass timeline, tracking all the major events since that dark day, including their own birth. http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/one-month-black-friday-timeline/

Michael Gentile, a former online pro, interviewed Poker Players Alliance board member Patrick Fleming to (re)assess the online poker legal landscape in the US. http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/us-legal-landscape-one-year-after-black-friday/

Here’s another sharp timeline at PokerStrategy.com. http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/One-Year-Since-Black-Friday:-The-Complete-Timeline_58551/

And another by-the-minute timeline at PokerNews.com. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/04/the-black-friday-timeline-one-year-without-online-poker-12445.htm

Poker still has a future

A bunch of pros, like Matt Waxman, told PokerStrategy.com that this year’s WSOP Main Event should hold steady. “It’s like so prestigious and like world renowned, you know, so everybody’s gonna just make it out cause this is the one tournament that like if you’re the guy who plays the nightly home game for 100 bucks, you’re gonna splurge your 10k just so you can play in the main event,” he said. Like riiiight. http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/Daily-Rewind-Black-Friday-Anniversary,-New-Gambling-Film,-WSOP-2012-Thoughts_58570/

CalvinAyre.com looked at the companies “making noise” about bringing online poker back to the United States. http://calvinayre.com/2012/04/15/poker/how-to-make-it-in-america/

QuadJacks put out a new music video by Sonny Caine and Dennis Rybaczewski (DRybes) to inspire a little hope for the future.

And our own Dan Michalski summarizes it all as simply a “big, industry changing day” in All In – The Poker Movie, which is available April 24, 2012, on iTunes. http://mashable.com/2012/04/13/online-poker-black-friday/

This week we again visit the regulated online poker situation in both California and New Jersey, plus big news for Internet gambling from Manitoba, Canada. Also, a look ahead to what’s coming up over the next several weeks.

I was never an online poker rock star. At the height of my online career I was mid-stakes PLO grinder on Pokerstars and FTP. The low expenses and generous player incentives made this a comfortable lifestyle for La and I, who also made her living grinding online mtts. Decent bankroll management and a few well timed live scores prior to April 15th 2011 left us in better shape than most when our virtual bankroll was frozen, but our lives were still drastically altered after our freedom to play online poker was taken away.

Our average pre Black Friday day consisted of waking up whenever, having “breakfast”, and grinding out sessions in the upstairs war room. We lived a good life in a nice house close to our friends and family in DFW. A few times a year we would travel to a deep stack tournament series for a change of pace, but the majority of our working hours were spent at home in our boxers and bathrobes. When we went on the road we would take our laptops with us. If there was no action after we busted a live event we could supplement our income with online sessions.

After Black Friday our war room got turned into an arcade.

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On Today’s DonkDown Radio we are joined by Scott Fischman to discuss bitcoins, and Rawolf called in to make the point that Scott should give all of his salary from Full Tilt back to the DOJ.  We call Raymond Davis for the Chainsaw Check-in, where we learn that Allen Kessler must go to a strip club with Raymond to settle some $8 discrepancy.  Chinamaniac calls in to question me about the Druff fiasco, and our own Melanie Weisner is on the show getting raw with us about some sexual questions from the users.  VPPlayer calls in to tell more info on the PeterDC / Peter Falcone scammer.

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The first thing you need to understand when planning a trip to Rincon is that it’s not San Diego. Our friend Billy made the mistake of bringing his family thinking he could play poker while his family enjoyed the city. Rincon is an hour outside the city up a nice windy mountain road and should in no way be categorized as “close to the beach”. Billy’s family left him the day after arrival, exchanging their mountain view for something oceanside.

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I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. Whether or not you believe in the divinity of Nazareth’s most famous failed carpenter, there’s nothing like a holiday. For other people, that is. While everyone else was outside enjoying the sunshine I remained chained to my laptop, rearranging this jumble of letters until they coalesced into a streamlined summary of last week’s worldwide poker news.

Jobs Posted at Full Tilt Poker

Brace yourselves, everyone. Full Tilt Poker is poised to re-emerge from the ashes like a suspiciously French-looking phoenix. Parent company Pocket Kings are advertising for a handful of new jobs, suggesting that the tarnished online poker site is preparing for a re-launch. At the very least, they must have acquired the money to pay these new employees. Here’s hoping that their budget stretches to refunding jilted players. [Bill Rini]

Isildur Defeats His Nemesis for $1 million

Ever since Viktor Blom began taking on all comers in his SuperStar Showdowns, no one has put up more stubborn resistance than Isaac Haxton. The American had won both of their previous heads-up encounters, so for their third battle the duo decided to add a little extra spice. Both would buy in for $500,000 and nobody would be allowed to leave until one player held all the money. After three days and over 5,000 hands, it was the maniacal Swede who took home the prize. [Poker News]

Russian Gambler Turns to Politics

This is quite a peculiar one, made all the stranger by the language barrier. Online poker player Max Katz has been elected to a position on the municipal council of his hometown. He reportedly funded his campaign with money made from online poker. Katz has yet to record any major live scores and seems to be known as much for staking as for any online prowess. There’s also the small matter of him allegedly providing “ghosting” services to fellow players that spawned one of the many pocket controversies on 2+2. [Telegraph]

Poker Nordica is No More

Poker sites come and go, but it’s never a happy occurrence. The latest to bow out is Poker Nordica, a solid member of the Merge network. Players began receiving messages on March 30th announcing the imminent closure of the site and, in the wake of Full Tilt, will have be worried about getting their money back. Nordica are paying out only in cheques, which means that withdrawals under $100 cannot be processed. You can, however, move your money to one of the many other Merge Network sites. Any cash left floating around in Nordica’s coffers after May 1st will be lost forever [Poker News Daily]

Successful Start for iSeriesLIVE

After a well-hyped build up, the iSeriesLIVE finally made its debut on Thursday night. For the uninformed, it was a live-streamed single table tournament with visible hole-cards, which allowed players to bet on the action as it played out. I watched the whole show and thought it went down pretty well. It’s impossible to say exactly how profitable it was from a business perspective, but a mix of noisy old-guard and interesting new-players made for an entertaining spectator sport. The eventual victor was James Dempsey, who already has WSOP and WPT titles to his name. [Poker News]

Irish Open Pays Out to Belgium

The iSeries took place in Dublin, which just so happened to be the venue for the 2012 Irish Open. As host to one of the oldest series in the world, Ireland has a good track record of attracting the poker establishment. Also there’s lots of Guinness, which helps. The main event was won by Beligian pro Kevin Vandersmissen, who pulled the old ‘chip and a chair’ routine at the final table. [Poker News Report]

With that, I’m off to drown myself in the huge piles of chocolate which have mysteriously appeared in my apartment. A significantly heavier version of me will be back next week with another Wider World of Poker.