Full Tilt laid off some 200 people on the Pocket Kings staff in Dublin last week — leaving pretty much just the head honchos, who apparently believe that ole Chris Ferguson bit about “a chip and a chair” too much and somehow still think they can salvage the company something.

Sucks for the Dubliners, but for the rest of us, that means 200 or more employees with insight into FTP operations over in Ireland, no real reason to necessarily protect certain information anymore, and access to 2+2.

Sure enough, at least two former employees from two different departments are posting away and answering questions. Check it out … worth the skim.

Nothing earth-shattering (yet … gotta figure anyone with the uber-goody dirt probably would go to the DOJ requesting immunity before turning informant) but the virtual deposition one former employee goes through provides plenty of color to paint a decent picture of what life was like in the middle of a corporate collapse … not to mention how the nouvea-poker-riche behave without the cash (and TV shows) that previously formed the foundation of their power.

For example, I learned:

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Woman Poker Player Magazine has some special awards — The Poker Maven Awards — that have nothing to do with online training and fauxhawks, but do show the love for those who have made some sort of special difference in the women’s sector of the poker world during the first half of 2010.

It’s a voting thing (give your email address to everyone!) … and you can cast your vote online here.

Special props and encouraged ballot-stuffing on behalf of former Pokerati contrib Jen Newell and current Poker Beat cohort Gary Wise, who is the only male nominee in the whole contest. (How pissed must BJ be to not get that nod?) They are duking it out in the Favorite Blogger or Author category, while our pals at LuvinPoker and CardRunners are also facing off for the Most Encouraging Poker Forum Award.

Click below for more deets about the honours — what, no special Courage Award for Clonie? — and a full list of contenders in what some might call a great big catfight on behalf of poker grace.

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Perhaps inspired by Wicked Chops’ telling him to please stop, Jeff Madsen apparently has rented 8 Mile and/or got laid this weekend:

ALT HED: Poor Girl

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.

NeverwinPoker.com, the filthiest, most offensive poker site on the internet — filled with racist, sexist, drug-addled degeneracy and perverse nudity that provided a voice for a notably vile, socially maladjusted segment of the poker world — is no longer, or at least no longer what it used to be.

Tony G and the semi-corporate interests at PokerNews, who bought a controlling interest in the “gossip site” two years ago, have turned off the infamously uncensored forum. It simply wasn’t “converting” supposedly.

But don’t expect thousands of black-cock refugees to suddenly flood 2+2. Neverwin pioneer Bryan Micon is launching a new site for his toxic flock of angry outcasts at www.donkdown.com.

Meanwhile, PokerPages is somehow staying afloat — producing semi-regular new poker articles — despite declarations that they’d be fully out of business by the end of October.

Sure, this is a cheap hedline we really could run daily — at least until it’s no longer true — but there were some very specific rumors circulating around the internet and the Wynn that Paul ‘Eskimo’ Clark had been robbed and killed. While death is never seldom a laughing matter, at least one cold, heartless journo may or may not have gotten juiced up about the conspiracy theory possibilities It had to be Vinnie Vinh! Or Russ Hamilton! Where’s Layne Flack!?! and abandoned a night at the tables before it really even started to investigate.

We found little … other than that he is still alive and kickin’ hustlin’ for backers in Reno.

I’m still thinking settlement … but maybe not, as Howard Lederer has responded publicly (odd that any attorney would encourage this) saying, basically, bring it on, let’s open it up … we’re all-in, ho-bitch!

UPDATE: The below from “HowardLederer” has turned out to be a hoax post. My apologies for briefly forgetting that blogs came about in part to filter through all the crap on forums, so you don’t have to waste your time. But the Negreanu stuff after the jump is really him.

From 2+2:

Originally Posted by HowardLederer
I have personally given Clonie over 600K in cash over the last three years alone. I wonder if she has paid he taxes on this money? I never once offered her 1 percent of anything. For her to say otherwise is disingenuous and is really sad.

Team Full Tilt has decided to take this case all the way. There will be no settlement. This will just give us more publicity, and when online poker is no longer public enemy number one in a few months, it will make our brand that much stronger.

Clonie, I am really disapponted in you. What you really need is a good tax attorney for the 600K that you never reported.

Regards,
Howard

OK, hmm. Intriguing. I have a feeling that Howard “never once offered her 1 percent” might hold up as technically true. But I’m not so sure how the “tattletale strategy” will work in the legal system. But can’t wait to find out! The OJ Trial of Poker: Juicy!

And even though he has nothing to do with Full Tilt, Daniel Negreanu offers up his $.02 on Full Contact Poker — letting people know essentially that Clonie should be ostracized from the poker community. He also claims there’s “no freaking way” that she is a 1 percent owner, making him the first non-Team Full Tilt member to make an assertion with absolute certainty on the mysterious ownership nature of the biggest competitor to the site he works for.

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In a previous post, Dan mentioned Scotty Nguyen’s (bad) behavior as shown on the ESPN coverage of the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE final table. His drunken/erratic/insulting antics and chatter at the table has been controversial, as some members of the media blame editing for making Scotty look a little mentally unstable moody, while many viewers were clearly shocked by his treatment of his opponents, cocktail servers, and chips.

Evidently, Scotty reads forums and blogs. As I was made aware by Short-Stacked Shamus in his analysis of the ESPN episode, Scotty posted an apology of sorts on the CardPlayer forums.

He expressed his “sincerest apology” for the disappointment caused by his behavior caught on camera, and though he felt that he beat his opponents fair and square (“I would never be sorry to beat those players”), he felt bad that the fans saw him in a bad light. Scotty admits that he was caught up in a range of emotions, as is human nature, but knows that his fans are his bread and butter and wouldn’t want to disappoint them.

The full forum post is as follows:

I would like to apologize to all my fans for the disappointment I have caused in the H.O.R.S.E. Event. For that I would like to express my sincerest apology.

I would like to ask for understanding of what really took place.

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Das könnte meine deutschen Freunde interessieren… PocketFives.com launched its German-language site (de.pocketfives.com) with news, a forum, and special promotions. Es ist wahr.

In the official press release, PocketFives co-founder Adam Small noted that the site hopes to expand the number of languages offered. (I vote for Italian, but I’m a little biased.)

PocketFives.com is home to 50,000 of the top online poker players in the world and quickly rose to the top after its launch in early 2005. Recently, the number of German members on the site has increased dramatically. PocketFives.com Co-Founder Adam Small explains what German users can expect: “Our goal is to become more involved in the German poker community. We’re reaching out with a new German forum and poker strategy articles (http://de.pocketfives.com/Group/Online-Pokerartikel) by some of the top poker minds on the planet.” Perhaps the most distinctive part of the PocketFives.com experience is the exclusive promotions that are available to members of the site. Small comments, “We’re excited to be planning promotions just for the German-speaking community. Make sure to check out the new site for details.”

Since I made some German friends this summer at the WSOP, I thought I’d kiss up so I have a place to stay if I visit Germany share a little news from the good ol’ U.S.

Had a pleasant chat with PPA boss John Pappas yesterday about the state of poker legislation. “We have a new website!” he says. OK, that quote’s semi-made up, but he definitely wanted to pimp the Poker Players Alliance’s new forums, benefit packages, and webtronic goodies. Yeah, yeah, website uh-huh … I didn’t tell him that I get most of my PPA on MySpace, where they share rank with Ed, The Poker Atlas, and RawVegas TV.*

Anyhow, in hearing about what they’re trying to achieve, I came to realize just how much progress the PPA has made. There are currently five bills pending in Congress specific to our issue. You can say all you want about the “special interests” … but that’s what we are. And frankly a rather small one in the Beltway schema. Yet those five bills come with 98 unique sponsors — meaning nearly a quarter of the House of Representatives are more than familiar with poker causes and have affirmatively declared themselves on our side. That’s pretty impressive progress over the course of 18 months.

With that said, Pappas doesn’t necessarily expect to see a legally enforceable undoing of the UIGEA this year. Nor do I, nor does Lavigne in Austin, nor does anyone actively working toward that goal. This being a presidential election year, with so many big big issues in play and seats at stake, Congress just isn’t gonna get around to making the world safe for online poker in ’08. I could be wrong on this — and hope I am — but I’m not. Fortunately the PPA leadership and lobbyists seem to recognize that hoping is seldom a good strategy … and while there’s always a chance poker could hit a political miracle on the turn and river, the PPA should shove all-in! what’s important now for the PPA is putting us in a position to succeed in 2009, when table conditions are sure to have changed.

* Pauly, dude, when are you gonna get on MySpace?