Rumorati: PokerStars Buying PokerPages
+ other poker media shifts, lawsuits, and shutdowns
Unconfirmed … but that’s the word we’re spreading, based on possibly drinky information from a semi-reliable source, a presumably reliable source, and a plausibly reliable source.
The status of PokerPages has been up in the air ever since they announced they’d be closing up shop effective Oct. 31. That day passed and they still kept publishing — and even sent two reporters to cover the November Nine. But no original content has been put up on the site since Dec. 3. Everyone was expecting some sort of sale, and now that has apparently gone through.
PokerPages, of course, is one of the oldest poker information sites on the internet — having reported on tournaments since 2000 … and having built a massive tourney/player/results database in the process.
What PokerStars plans to do with a site they haven’t yet told many people they’ve bought (or intend to buy) remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the transition from NeverwinPoker to Donkdown seems complete — with the old NWP forums successfully transfered over to their new home. Donkdown is now a Bryan Micon and Todd Witteles (aka “Dan Druff”) joint, with no more Tony G or Dustin Woolf, who is now the lone face for his namesake site.
Speaking of forums … 2+2 honcho Mason Malmuth has sued Dutch Boyd (and a guy named Anthony Scocozza) over domain squatting issues.
Oh, and our once-superbeloved PokerBlog.com … yeah, they’re apparently gone. For at least the past week, visiting the site gives you this message:
Fatal error: Table ‘./pokerblog/cache’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: SELECT data, created, headers FROM cache WHERE cid = ‘variables’ in /home/pokerblogcom/public_html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66
R.I.P. Yeah, seems kinda appropriate. PokerBlog was/is a PartyPoker operation … but now they seem to be focussing blogging efforts on their more official company blog.
UPDATE: PokerBlog is back. Looks like we can expect some WPT coverage there.
Kevin Mathers says:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:06am
Scocozza’s was a guy who created a couple of domains, one mocking PokerStars and encouraging fraud thru E-checks, while the twoplustwo site he created had copies of several poker books online. Him, or an accomplice would post on 2+2 his screeds against Jews, PokerStars, Mason Malmuth, etc. and get instabanned/deleted.
DanM says:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:09am
Interesting. So where does Dutch Boyd fit in with Scocozza?
Kevin Mathers says:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:26am
They’re totally separate. Dutch created a site called twoplustwopoker.com and 2+2’s law firm now owns the domain. It looks like Mason’s going to drop the hammer on Dutch.
Tom Baker says:
December 15th, 2009 at 3:57am
Hi Guys, we had a little server issue but http://www.pokerblog.com is back up and running! Tom, PartyPoker