There’s talk in the comments down below about poppin’ caps in the poker bandits. It’s a shame when your decisions about where to play factor an EV calculated as Expected Violence. (Fortunately most poker players I know are a bit too lazy to hunt down bad guys and show ‘em who’s boss with a barrel, and the CHL holders steer clear of premeditated homicide — no matter how justifiable — for fear of losing their license.)

But still … guns were in play in last night’s robbery. Not just on the thugs who obviously come in not wanting to shoot anyone, but also on a player or three … At least one guy last night had a (legal) gun on him when being robbed. Afterwards, some apparently questioned his decision not to use it. The rub is that had he fired as robbers were kicking their way in through the wall, the ski-masked duo woulda turned right around and skeedaddled. True enough, but as liberal as Texas is when it comes to shooting people messin’ with your property, the nature of the venue might negate that defense. And what if it was the police?!? Yeow, shooting blindly at what may or may not be a SWAT team can never be good for a game. Hmm, Class C misdemeanor or Death Penalty … decisions decisions.

Clearly a good fold. In general I’d prefer loaded weapons to be in the hands of a rock more than a maniac.

A little more info coming in … one thing, it was way more than $10k stolen … as one of the players‘ watches taken cost that much. So our new estimate for damage is $20k. Probably a little more.

Another North Dallas poker room apparently just got robbed about two hours ago — the gunmen making off with more than $10,000 in cash, watches, cell phones, and at least one bracelet.

The 15/30 Omaha game had just broken a little after 10 pm central and a full 2/5 NLH table was going strong when players heard Smash! Crash! “What the fuck?!?” one player screamed.

“I know what that is,” another player answered as he ran toward the back room and others followed. It sounded like a police raid — we all remember how the cops busted through the walls at Jackie’s on semi-live TV — only this time it was robbers. Two armed black males wearing ski masks and hoodies came busting through glass windows and sheet rock to enter through the smoking room. Players looked for an escape in the seconds that followed, but there was no back door. This game – located in an office building near the Galleria – was relatively new … had been open just a few months … and seemed plenty secure with a two-door entry system monitored by cameras.

“Where’s the fucking money at?” the lead thug shouted as he emerged from the smoking room into the main area and made his way to the gace.

“There are a couple 50s beneath the drawer,” on of the room operators said.

Four or five players had crammed into a supply closet in the back room and locked the door behind them. Huddling together in the dark, they scrambled to find places to hide their wallets. One player had wedged his in some plastic wrap behind a stack of plates just a few seconds before the robbers realized there were people in there and ordered them out. They were told to lay on the ground with their faces to the floor – all complied – at which point the other robber frisked them one-by-one for their valuables while his accomplice made a quick check of the closet but apparently found none of the stashed goods.

The whole robbery lasted just a few minutes … as of last night, no decision had been made about whether or not to call the police, which you can suspect whoever is behind this latest string of poker robberies is partially banking on.

In this week’s episode:

The Man Behind Poker Dream… Meet John Dutchak…
The “dream” is over, but the nightmare has just begun. John Dutchak swears he’s not the owner of the now destroyed Poker Dream Network, but family, friends, and former co-workers all say differently. And did we mention that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in player deposits are missing as well? Yea…

Tusk Gaming Gone… Players Money is Safe… APCW Member Saves the Day…
We tried to tell players not to worry! Even though the Tusk Gaming group folded, we knew that MicroGaming would honor the player’s cash on deposit. What we didn’t expect was that Rewards Affiliates would step in and manage the casinos left homeless by the collapse… but that’s just what they did!

UIGEA Enforcement to be Debated Within Weeks… Barney Frank Expected to Speak…
It only took one year, six months, and five days, but it looks like Congress will finaly discuss how to enforce the regulations they passed into las on September 30th, 2006. Barney Frank is expected to speak, and we know he’ll remind them all just how stupid this law is… we just hope he uses really small words to do so…

Inverse Underground: Small private games in luxury high-rises such as The Ashton (above) seemed a safer alternative to strip malls and warehouses as gun-wielding cops/robbers began infiltrating Dallas poker action.

More info coming in about last week’s robbery of a Dallas game in Uptown. First, we have no indication of any synchronized Al Qaeda-type attacks … it appears to be a single robbery, committed by two black males … which has some people speculating that the perps were the same two black males that have been seen brandishing guns in at least one other poker robbery. Because you know, two black guys is very specific.

The poker venue that got robbed Friday night was known as “The Ashton,” after the building it was hosted in. There were actually two games there — a “little game” (2/5) during part of the week, and a bigger one less often that attracted pros and somtimes saw five-figure bricks of cash on the table. The robbers poked their 9mms in the door during the little game, which suggests that either they didn’t know that there was less money in play with more potential players/potential troublemakers, or they just were being less criminally greedy, thinking thousands of dollars stolen from many players would be nicer than taking 10s of thousands from just a few. With that said, the robbers left cash on the floor, so they musta been in a hurry, too.

Security was apparently the problem … dudes got lax, or at least comfortable. So much so that others involved in the game(s) reportedly had been complaining about security procedures to poker authorities at The Ashton, but no one really tightened up their game. The more details I give you here, the less certain I am of my accuracy, but one (theoretical) dealer supposedly lobbied successfully for hallway cameras, but they weren’t used very diligently. Hey, play too loose with a comfortable stack and its almost certain you’ll eventually lose it, right?

The Ashton’s non-poker management reportedly knew about the game(s) all along — I suspect they thought it was kinda cool to have a two-table poker speakeasy in their joint, especially one that paid the rent reliably — but have since asked their poker tenants to leave, who of course, being the good clean pokerers the are, are complying.

That’s what we’re hearing … that three games got robbed on Friday. One such robbery is semi-confirmed at a popular 2/5 locale.

Not sure about the other two. The last time guys with guns stormed in to three places simultaneously and took all the money was in November 2006, when the DPD busted out the big guns and battering rams. More TK, of course.

UPDATE: The one semi-confirmed robbery took place in an Uptown high rise. Reportedly, “the phone rang indicating that someone had entered the access code in the lobby. They authorized access without picking up the phone. Whoever opened the door did not check and the perps stuck a 9mm in the door. 2 black males. They told everyone to empty their pockets but did not even take all of the money on the floor.” One player who was there also happened to be at another Dallas poker robbery a while back and says it was the same two guys.

We continue to hear that two other rooms were robbed, but whenever there was a poker raid, we would always hear about two others with it, and only once did that check out.

Details are just starting to come in … but three armed men broke into a residence on the West side of San Antonio last night, shot one player in the chest (twice) and reportedly made off with about $3,000. The SA media is calling it a “high stakes” game — are we all sickwads to not see a $300 buy-in the same way?

Pokerati’s chief techdude happens to live in San Antonio, plays in games for the stakes mentioned above, and almost always carries a gun … he just also happens to not be reachable right now. Please no one be dead.

The Absolute Poker scandal should have been enough. It remains unresolved, though most of the details of the cheating have been made clear, and the poker public still awaits the conclusion of the audit.

Back in early October, there was another mini-scandal on PokerStars. The winner of the WCOOP main event — the largest online poker tournament in history — was disqualified, and “TheV0id” was stripped of his title and $1,378,311 in winnings.

And we have another.

This time the allegations of nefarious online play revolve around Bluff Magazine’s managing editor Chris Vaughn. On 10/21, he took down the $1 Million Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt Poker for $197,984. The following Sunday, he won the Sunday Million tournament on PokerStars for $240,633. Well, it seems the first one didn’t stick.

According to the second place finisher in the Full Tilt event, Soren “Kongsgaard” Kongsgaard, he received an e-mail from FTP stating that Chris - screen name “BluffMagCV” - had been disqualified and “Kongsgaard” was awarded first place money.

Reportedly, though unconfirmed at this point, Chris’ backer, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, took over at some point in the tournament and played the remainder of it for him. Chris and Sorel have now been banned from Full Tilt. More details can be found on Sorel’s blog, though it’s not clear who is writing the posts.

Interestingly, Chris was just interviewed on 11/18 by Scott Huff and Haralabos Voulgaris on Big Poker Sundays, a radio show on PokerRoad.com. Haralabos asked him if he’s ever been accused of ghosting, where a person’s backer plays for them, and Chris said, “I’ve been accused of that. I think it’s going to come with the territory when someone relatively unknown wins two in a row… But as far as having someone take over, that’s ridiculous.”

Poker player arrested for marking cards at Mohegan Sun casino. Hey buddy, if the trial doesn’t go well and you can’t get back in the game, there is always Absolute Poker.

Cardplayer has published a statement by Absolute Poker claiming there is not now, nor has there ever been, a super-user account enabling anyone to see another player’s hole cards on their site. I guess they call it something else.

[Photo: Emergence Marketing]

Last night the word was — via PocketFives and 2+2 — that Absolute was ready to admit malfeasance and guilt.

That mea culpa has been released, and the AP honchos are blaming a disgruntled kid wanting to stick it to his superiors:

The cheater, whose illegitimate winnings were estimated at between $400,000 and $700,000 by one victim, was an employee of AbsolutePoker.com who hacked the system to show that it could be done, said a spokesman for the company, who spoke with msnbc.com on condition of anonymity.

“This is literally a geek trying to prove to senior management that they were wrong and he took it too far,” he said.

Hmm, So we all good and ready to deposit a bunch of money into our Absolute accounts?

Thanks Cliff and Lisa for the links!

Anthony in McKinney-ish writes in with more:

Ok, I swear I’m not an email attention whore, but the hits just keeepp ooonnnnnn coming with this Absolute thing.

http://www.pocketfives.com/06D9EA78-E38F-49D3-AFA1-2B4B128CE7E7.aspx

Not to make it all about blogging, but poker players should be proud of the “citizen journalism” at work in this case. When “former” chief operators of a company are allegedly the ones pegged as playing with “superaccounts” … that clearly can’t be a good thing. Absolute looks to have done themselves in here. Short-term greed catches up with the offenders. This page now seems like a sadly ironic case of Strong Means Weak.

So as the evidence against Absolute becomes more and more solid, it raises a lot of other questions, including:

1. Will anyone go to jail? In an unregulated environment can anyone go to jail?
2. What other sites might be engaging in similar activities?
3. How can we trust that any particular site is not?
4. Will politicians in the United States see this as an example of why online poker needs to be regulated, or will it be their case for why it needs to be more comprehensively banned?
5. Since Absolute is in bed with Ultimate Bet, what will become of that relationship? And how connected are they really?
6. Will UB pros — Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke specifically — speak out on the matter? And/or will they leave Ultimate Bet?
7. Will major online affiliates — such as CardPlayer, PokerNews, and PokerListings, for example — stop sending players to Absolute?

Big questions for online poker. How different folks with a vested interest in the answers react to this situation will tell us a lot about what kinda players we really are dealing with in this biz.

UPDATE: PokerListings is currently refusing to send players to Absolute and Ultimate Bet:

PokerListings.com has temporarily suspended the listing of the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet poker rooms as a result of serious problems with both historical and current payments due PokerListings for services rendered. We are aware that our decision not to list these two brands may be an inconvenience, but as a trusted guide and resource, we do not believe it is appropriate to continue listing them.

Sincerely,

The PokerListings.com Team

The Absolute Poker cheating scandal has been picked up by the mainstream press. That’s if you consider the New York Times mainstream. This is bad for online poker…very bad.

We knew it was gonna happen, right? It was just a matter of when and where. … two masked men busted into an 8-handed home game in Smyrna Beach (just south of Daytona) … shots were fired … and 62-year-old Damon/Dennis Turner is dead. (The Channel 9 news report features both names, one of which is obviously a mistake … but hey, I’m sure Mr. Turner’s family won’t care.)

The circumstances around this homicide are still a bit unclear … the masked men engaged in an argument with the host that escalated to the point of gunfire. If this was over an old debt with known acquaintances, of course, you gotta question why the armed bandits would be wearing masks. The man killed was a player who came to the game from a couple suburbs away.

Police say it’s possible this game was legal — if betting was capped at $10 per hand. That seems unlikely, however, since people came to play at this house multiple times a week, it was robbed a few months earlier for more than $30,000, and the owner even had cards painted on his driveway.

I made the trip to Barcelona to play in the WPT Spanish Championship. This trip was a big mistake in so many ways, but for this particular post, I’m going to reveal what a true dumbass I really am.

My friend John lives in Barcelona and has for several years. He takes Julie and I down to this famous street called the Ramblas…don’t know if that’s the right spelling, and I don’t give a shit either. He looks at Julie’s wedding ring and suggests she not wear it and says that the only real crime in Barcelona is pick pocketers, so watch your purse and your wallet. I’m guarding my wallet like a pit bull and watching Julie’s purse like a trained assassin.

We are walking down the street and we see statue people. They dress up in unusual costumes and people pay them for this. We stumble onto this group of people in a circle making a lot of noise. I always like to see what’s going on so Julie, John and I squeeze in. The guy has 3 tops of match boxes which he rotates and scrambles while hiding a pea underneath one of them… in essence a shell game. The strange thing about this shell game is that people are winning at it and the pea is actually easy to spot in many cases. Enter dumbass.

More…

For those who may not get the reference — we’re sometimes a little lax on keeping you up to date on everything… there’s quite the mini-non-scandal brouhaha over at Absolute Poker. It’s a potential cheating scare that goes far beyond the typical “Online Poker Is Rigged!” conspiracy theories. In this case, there’s some respectable hand-history analysis that sets out to mathematically prove the existence of a “super account” allowing illicit avatars to see everyone’s hole cards.

Maybe it’s naivete on my part, but I’m still a believer in the amazingly powerful abilities of humankind to make the most utterly ridiculous unfathomably stupid calls. I know I’ve made a few of them myself.

At a minimum, it’s a great commercial for PokerTracker.

Here are the 2+2 threads.
And here.
Pocket 5s always has some good stuff to say.
(via Shamus)
And Justin West from PokerPages tells people not to worry.

For those interested in the details of the Carolina poker raid, information is continuing to flow via Otis and G-Rob (including specifics about the tournament itself, which should give you a little better sense about what sort of poker operation it was that police went after):

Updates here, and here.

One of Otis’ favorite local games was also robbed just a couple weeks ago. Sometimes the cops go after the money first, then the robbers start coming … and sometimes its the other way around. Either way, the same underlying mechanisms are in place for what leads to the rise and fall of a vibrant poker scene.

Remember that shooting at Caesar’s Palace last month, near the elevators? Here’s the video:

They’re still deciding whether or not it was gang-related, but based on this dude’s aim, patience, selective aggression, all that stuff … I’ll take the Centurions over the Crips any day.

By the way, how awesome is YouTube for people who want to leak stuff to the press?

Julian in Dallas writes back with official (but terse?) information about last night’s armed poker robbery. Says the DPD vice unit deputy chief:

We had an Aggravated Robbery about 12:30 AM, at 13340 Audelia, #108. The offense location is a high stakes poker game room. Three suspects entered the game room with a rifle and shotgun. Shots were fired. Twelve people were robbed of a significant amount of money. One person was shot.

So there you have it. No word on whether or not anyone the injured player was transported to the hospital. But generally, getting shot really hurts.

ALT HED: Oklahoma Anyone?

As the World Series has concluded and the new poker year begins, just like that we get a reminder of some real issues facing poker players in search of a good, honest game.

Details are sparse as they filter in to Las Vegas, but we’re hearing that a room in Northeast Dallas was robbed at about 1 am central. According to unconfirmed reports:

• Three men burst into a big Omaha game firing rifles and shotguns.
• One player hit, either from ricochet or shrapnel.
• Dallas police were called to the scene and responded.
• Local news crew in tow.
• Typical player here lived in Plano, Richardson, Frisco, or McKinney.

This has been at least the third armed robbery of a Dallas poker room in the past few months, fourth if you include the attempted pillaging where the gunmen were briefly locked in a lobby and a dealer tried to hide herself in a trash bag.

LAS VEGAS–EF Hutton one of my MySpace friends whom I didn’t even know I knew reportedly had $32,000 stolen from his room at the Rio. It wasn’t like it was just lying around the nightstand … it was locked away in a safe:

The way this clearly appears to be a targeted break-in makes you gotta wonder if other high-stakes poker players haven’t been followed back to their rooms. Fortunately, you can always rely on the Rio (and Harrah’s) to make things right. They’ve offered Hutton a $750 settlement. Sounds fair, no?

Click below for the details straight from the victim’s MySpace blog.

More…

Police busted through the doors of another Dallas poker room on Thursday — this time not to round up a bunch of low-stakes misdemeanor offenders, but rather to serve a warrant on a convicted cop-killer wanted in connection with the death of Meaghan Bosch, the 21-year-old SMU coed whose lifeless body was found disposed of in a portable toilet last week.

Click here to read the kinda scary story by Jason Trahan in The Dallas Morning News.

James McDaniel, who ran what Dallas players knew as “James’ Game,” admitted to having lunch with Bosch around the same time she sent her friends a text message saying she was with her drug dealer, shortly before she disappeared. Not sure who conducted the raid on McDaniels’ poker room — the Texas Rangers are taking the lead on this investigation, not DPD — but he was not there, nor was he at his house in Pleasant Grove, and is now apparently on the lam.

So much more to this story … developing.

CLARIFICATION: McDaniel was convicted of killing an ex-Dallas police officer in 1978, not one on active duty.

TO BE FAIR: Sources of unknown reliability are telling Pokerati there may be evidence supporting claims of innocence for that crime. Hmm, a black man falsely convicted of murder some 25+ years ago in Texas? Yep, certainly plausible enough … just as it would be that an assertion of “didn’t do it” is a bluff.

Yep, turns out there was indeed another poker game robbed in Dallas Wednesday night … yeesh, sounds very friggin’ scary. It appears to have been low-stakes action, but that didn’t stop three men from busting in to take whatever loot they could find. The main bad guy was wearing an orange ski mask and carried a pump-action shotgun. The other two wore black ski masks — one was brandishing a semi-automatic pistol, the other was standing guard at the door with a baseball bat, according to what two of the eight victims told police officers.

Wednesday Night scoreboard (amongst armed, masked men acting out of turn):

Cops: $1,473
Robbers: about $800

Click here to read the police reports.

Meanwhile, as Dallas Police were busting a poker game last night, an 8-Liner room less than a half-a-mile away was getting robbed. (Maybe not at the exact same time, but pretty close to it.)

I am not sure that non-poker people realize that even though the charges are the same, we could kinda care less about 8-Liner rooms getting tagged by the 5-0. We are selfish like that. I mean we don’t want anybody to get shot/robbed/killed … but, shit, they don’t even have blogs! Clearly the slot-machine players here have gambling problems, and they would be better off discovering the educational joy and subsequent Zen of Texas Hold’em.

(NOTE: My opinion might change if they ever bust Grandma Michalski, who loves her some nickel slots, but can only find quarter machines when she goes on church trips to Oklahoma.)

ALT HED: War on Video Poker?

UPDATE: It was a poker room that got robbed, not an 8-Liner room. DPD’s mistake … but hey, they were busy writing tickets to players down the street, right? Developing …

Really, it’s almost like the people robbing rooms know when the police are busting other joints. That’s three robberies (one just attempted) in a row on the same night that the cops were also confiscating cash from poker players. Whaddya think, coinkydink?

Not sure why Ram Vaswani’s not in the vid (playing golf with Phil Ivey, perhaps?) but check it out … the Hendon Mob getting cheated in a recent televised home game:

Really good story in yesterday’s Star-Telegram about the rise and fall of Eon Marshall, grandmaster of WorldPokerParty.com. It gives a little background on Marshall from his pre-poker days … where he seemed to be running something scammy in California … and talks about a semi-religious tale of Eon’s showing up in his signature white limo for a neighborhood Bunko game.

OK, really, I’m not gonna pick on him … too easy to kick a jackass when he’s down. But it’s an interesting reminder about what happened to at least some of the con-men out there who tried to bank it big during the early days of the American poker boom.

Click below to read some of the comments I got via not-for-attribution email about the pleasure that went with this federal-court affirmation that certain types really don’t get to live the good life … at least not for long:

More…

Here’s a name from the past … and I hope I’m not messing with the poker-karma river gods by taking delight in his misfortune praising their good work. Remember Robert Eon Marshall?

Last I heard he had disappeared and was on the run from the Feds. Well, the FBI caught him — and he’s been sentenced to 10 years in prison (with no parole) and ordered to pay $900k in restitution for the people he defrauded with his failed online poker affiliate venture, WorldPokerParty.com.

Marshall (seen here at left, next to Sommer, en route to bubbling at the 2004 Pokerati Invitational), you may recall was the bombastic $2/$5 NLH maniac who reportedly made his fortune by hitting a $36 million Powerball. He also claimed to be the 20th ranked poker player in the world and bought himself a Super Bowl-style ring that said “No Limit Hold’em Champion.” Very classy-sad, no?

More on Eon Marshall and his abrasive table demeanor here.

Beyond being the bearer of so many bad beats to so many better players, he also was connected to one of the first “good folds” I made in the poker biz … he had some money ready to go to start a poker magazine, and while I was excited about the possibility, in the end I decided this guy with assault rifles and glorious stone fountains in his South Arlington strip-mall office was just too shady to get in bed with — especially when I saw him yell at his daughter for putting stickers on poker chips the wrong way. It was the right read, because his whole business was a failed Enron-style investment scheme based around convincing old ladies to buy-in (and rebuy) into an online poker affiliate model that was going nowhere.

ALT HED: All Incarcerated

ED. NOTE: Eon had a limo driver whom I talked with at length a couple years ago … but I don’t remember his name nor do I have his contact info handy. If someone has a clue who I am talking about and/or how to get in touch, please let me know.

More…

Turns out it’s true … while we were all abuzz about police poker raids last month, there was not only the attempted robbery that we already told you about, but also there was an actual robbery just a few days later in Dallas proper* — and this time the armed bad guys were successful.

Pokerati’s “facts” are still fuzzy … perhaps we’ll get some more right here. What we do know is that the victims were at a $5/$10 game located somewhere along what many of us have called “Poker Row” or the “Dallas Poker Corridor.” The perpetrators were two black males (as was the case in the foiled robbery above), and one of them put a shotgun to the face of whomever answered the door — I believe it was a woman. From there they barged in and took somewhere around $7,000 (an extremely rough number based on the typical size of this game) … and as far as we currently know, police were not called.

Perhaps these robbers are just building their bankrolls for the WSOP?

*NOTE: It is Pokerati’s editorial policy to not name poker rooms in Texas unless the operators are overtly public about it and/or it has been shut down. Ahh, remember the good ole days when they used to buy ads?

Over at The Agitator, they’ve got a firsthand account from someone mis-arrested during the June Aces raid. (Thanks, Jason, for the link.) If you recall, that was the poker room busted in cahoots with the A&E network … only to have the tapes from that episode of Dallas SWAT mysteriously disappear.

Bear in mind that, prior to police entering, the place was virtually quiet. There was the sound of poker chips in the air, but not much else. The players were essentially professionals and working stiffs having fun…there were doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. There was hardly anything “dangerous” about the place at all. In fact, the cops found no weapons in the facility or on anyone there. The show of force and weaponry brought by the cops was simply outrageous and unjustified, given the circumstances, but, then again, are they enforcing the law or making a TV show?

[...]

Despite the abject mistruths in the police report, I was still confident the tapes would help me. We finally got our subpoena response. Guess what? According to Granada Entertainment, there wasn’t any videotape of the event. All of the tapes had been recorded over, and there simply wasn’t any tape available. Two camera crews and helmet cams on the SWAT guys and not one single inch of tape existed.

It’s a lengthy report, but definitely worth the read (especially if you happen to have a poker case pending) — particularly because this guy had nothing to do with poker … he was simply helping out in the kitchen because the main food lady had an injured hand. Even as a non-poker player, this guy was able to call down the Assistant District Attorney on his bluff (literally!) when he said during the plea bargain that they had video of the defendant at the tables.

All charges ended up being dropped (even the ones for possession of marijuana and a pipe, which were actually found on him) — as has been the case for all poker cases where defendants have insisted on a jury trial.

No word on whether or not any charges will be filed against the the city of Dallas or agents of Granada Entertainment (the forces behind Dallas SWAT) for destruction of evidence, or perhaps more aptly, lying about destruction of evidence.

Go Poker!

ALT HED: Why We Play (Legally Questionable) Poker, Part 2

Exhibit A: by Pauly
Exhibit B: by Otis

Is there any doubt that these guys are clearly the two best writers in poker? Sorry McManus — you’re still great and all, but that was like so 2004. The above stories (about life in the poker underground) are totally must-clicks, and I’m not just saying that because they also happen to be quality linkers. You wait and see … These are the guys etching out the tales of an era that will be read decades from now.

UPDATE: Wow. Apparently ESPN is no Rolling Stone. Pauly’s said thanks but no thanks to the top gig in town. And, of course, in true Tao fashion, he’s taken what is essentially an age-old storyline and given it the juice:

That all changed after a conference call on Tuesday afternoon. A suit in the upper brass (and non-poker person) had an issue with my philosophy of covering poker. The WSOP is not figure skating. It’s cut-throat poker in Las Vegas, held in one of the most dangerous cities in the world where crystal meth abuse runs rampant, gangbangers frequently blow each other away, female players offer anal sex for tournament buy-ins, and poker players get robbed in the parking lot of the Rio by gunpoint. Heck, just this past weekend, a pro named William Gustafik was brutally stabbed to death by his wife… in Las Vegas.

That’s just the beginning. If you dig deeper, it gets worse.

Seriously, it’s gonna be an amazing World Series this year, isn’t it?

A thriving low-stakes poker room got a bit of a scare last night — when two unidentified visitors attempted to rob the joint at gunpoint. This comes as the state Legislature is considering a measure to legalize various forms of poker in Texas, in part to offer more protection for players. (For all you who were there and may or may not have shit in your pants … have you written your state representative yet?)

The (unconfirmed) story we’re hearing about the attempted armed robbery …

It was reportedly about 11 pm, with at least two full tables of 1/2 action going strong when the two aspiring criminals showed up at the typical suburban office park locale and rang the telltale wireless poker-room buzzer. The manager thought he recognized one of the young 20something black guys as a semi-regular player, so he buzzed them through the first door. But when he went to greet them at the second door, he recognized neither, and apparently sometime in the seconds that followed, the dudes pulled out their weapons. A mini-scuffle ensued, but the manager was able to wrestle the security door shut before any shots were fired.

More…

Bluff announced Tuesday that Greg Raymer’s PokerStars account was accessed by another player by “guessing” the 2004 WSOP champ’s password.

The hacker circus side-show weight guesser other player reportedly signed into Raymer’s account, registered for sit-n-go’s then dumped chips to himself (to make winning the tournament easier).

A fresh comment on a relatively old post about a Dallas poker raid caught my eye … seemed relevant in light of discussions we’ve been having about police activity in other Texas poker scenes. In it, the accused houseguy makes claims of borderline abusive behavior from police — smacking an 83-year-old man in the back with the butt of a rifle, for example.

Nothing Rodney King-like, but still, pain-addled nuisances that might kinda should be expected when dealing with armed enforcers charged with putting a scare into a semi-criminal subculture.

Tim in Switzerland informs us that the World Trade Organization has just thrown a wrench at the United States’ crackdown on online gambling. Granted, it’s an allen wrench, but still … the WTO has upheld Antigua’s accusations that the US is engaging in unfair protectionist practices for allowing some online gambling (horse racing) but not that offered by international competition.

“What can they do that will affect the US one iota? Nothing,” said Jonathan Winer, a partner at Alston & Bird LLP who has followed the case closely. A greater threat is that success at the WTO for Antigua could pave the way for the EU to pursue a fair trade case against the US over online gambling, which the US might have to take more seriously.

Interestingly enough, it’s the carve-out for horse racing in the UIGEA that seems to be biting America in the arse … and yet this is the same kinda carveout that the PPA is seeking for poker. Hmmm.