Redemption and Remission Song
No surprise, QuadJacks was all over Tuesday’s news — as the story that originally put them on the map begins to come to a close some 15 months later. They did a series of quick, YouTubeable interviews throughout the day that you can listen to all together here. Was gonna highlight just a few, but by the time it was all said and done, I listened to the whole lot of them, well-hosted by Marco doing his best Frasier Crane of Poker.
Collectively they tell quite the narrative about a dramatic day’s impact across a representative patchwork of serious players who all had some sort of stake in the outcome. And while I’m loathe to do Zac and Marco’s work for them, here’s a rundown of what I spent my yesterday listening to (in the order I listened) instead of watching the Olympics even though Michael Phelps still plays poker.
Nolan Dalla – the WSOP media director speaking off-duty as he gets on various soapboxes to express anger at key Full Tilt figures and the “conspiracy of silence” among those (poker media included) who would rather cater to the poker masses’ desire for “jackass talk.”
Steve Preiss – Wicked Chops first told us about this story several months ago, and plenty of poker idiots out there didn’t believe it for a second — calling the deal “fiction” and “fantasy” while figuring WCP musta still been on tilt after the collapse of Epic Poker, which the consummate poker-insider indie-media op also reported ahead of anyone else. Here’s what Chops saw that others didn’t as the Stars-buys-Tilt deal emerged.
Jeff Ifrah – Ray Bitar attorney celebrates a “victory” as his client awaits trial in a California mansion and is still facing the rest of his life in prison for getting rich by lying to his customers about how awesome he and Full Tilt players were. But none of that matters because all Full Tilt ever wanted to do was clean up the mess that Bitar didn’t leave behind?
Wendeen Eolis – Wendeen got the scoop on the Stars-Tilt-DOJ agreements in the days before and some hate when it took an extra half-day for her story to self-confirm. She gives insight into how this sorta near-billion-dollar deal takes shape and does or does not break down in the end.
Kathy Liebert – A vocal critic of Howard Lederer and Full Tilt, she addresses the future of key Full Tilt players if and when they start showing up at tournaments again, her guilty pleasure in seeing how the powerful have fallen, and her belief that PokerStars will be back in the USA in 3-5 years.
Diamond Flush – This semi-anonymous reporter got as close as any outsider could get as the deal took shape speaks on keeping info to herself while keeping relevant documents flowing to the hungry public
Jordan Morgan – the active 2+2er gives perspective from a Red Pro. (It was all kinda boo-shit and getting worse even before Black Friday.)
Scott Bell – Filmmaker on the declining value of the UB database, and why this case is being handled differently, with the Norwegian government staking a claim for AP/UB, Blanca Games, and a connected Portuguese company. He surmises that players gotta hope they’re victims to elevate them above the shareholders with a priority claim on the UB assets.
Aaron Wilt – An online pro who set up alt-residency in Costa Rica discusses what he’ll do with his money (and how he’s going about getting it back) as well as the good intentions behind StolenBankrolls.com, a project he started but is now ready to shutdown.
Todd Terry – former criminal defense attorney and class-action plaintiff against Full Tilt gives props to the government for paying back FTP players, calling it an uncommon act of generosity while acknowledging it to be very strange, yet a “brilliant solution” from Preet Bharara and the Southern District of New York.
