Robbie Renehan
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Robbie Renehan $147,877 – LAPT Colombia
Blake Barousse $15,757 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Elisa Burkett $15,449 – $580 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Travis Johnston $7,956 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Caufman Talley $29,743 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi

There’s something pretty cool about a guy winning a poker tournament wearing a Big Lebowski t-shirt. If you’re going to dress down for a final table, at least be interesting. Also cool is a guy in Ireland winning an LAPT package on the cheap, travelling to the safest city in the world (Medellin Columbia is a walk in the park, correct?), and boosting his career tournament earnings from $5,000 to $150,000.

The Dude abides.

Also starting is the next round of WSOP Circuit events with a series of tournaments at the IP in Biloxi, MS. Not to be confused with the IP in Las Vegas where you’re more likely to get stuck to the floor before you lose your bankroll. On top of the great food and music, Biloxi will offer 12 tournament including the $1,675 Main Event.

Link Dump

Exclusive: Michele Clayborne, Former Consulting Head of PR for Full Tilt Poker, Releases Statement – Part of her statement concerning FTPDoug: “Until this announcement, I too was not aware of this person’s identity”. Booshit. I knew she wasn’t FTPDoug but I would be damned shocked if she didn’t know who it was. There are plenty of stories about what a pain it was to deal with Clayborne and I have quite a few myself. Doubly painful since we were both collecting a paycheck from the same company.

Department Of Justice Looks For Aid With About 1.3 Million ‘Potential U.S. Victims’ Of Full Tilt Poker – CardPlayer reports the DOJ is looking for a third party processor to take care of the ~$139,000,000 of payments due former US players at Full Tilt Poker. They are saying potentially 1.3million possible “victims”.

Claims Administrator—Full Tilt Poker – Unemployed, the Department of Justice might have a spot for you. Double checking Michele Clayborne’s LinkedIn profile to see if she’s qualified.

If sports betting is so obviously beneficial to the sports leagues, why do they still oppose it? Insiders weigh in – Everybody from New Jersey to Washington state has taking their bats to the gaming industry and the boys at QuadJacks decided to take a look at why sports leagues oppose betting.

The Micros – The gang wants to take advantage of the PokerStars Full Tilt Poker buyout. For real, can someone please sponsor these guys again so we can get back to the episodes?

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

Photo: Heartland Poker Tour

Today’s Boxscore

Greg Raymer $71,875 – HPT Route 66 Main Event
David Allan NZD$110,600 – ANZPT Snowfest Main Event
Dan Sun $77,103 – BLUFF MSPT Meskwaki Main Event

All hail our new PokerStars overlords. As Dan posted earlier (and you’d have to be living in a cave or passed out to not have noticed), PokerStars reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to pick up Full Tilt assets in exchange for backing up a dump truck full of cash. This opens the door for Stars to pay out FTP bankrolls, reopen Full Tilt for play, and take over the online poker world.

Stars stated they will release bankrolls for non-US players within 90 days but US players will need to go through the DoJ to collect. This might open up a huge can of crap for players but it’s a step in the right direction.

Official DoJ document regarding US player funds: Regulations Governing the Remission or Mitigation of Civil and Criminal Forfeitures (PDF format)

With all the online news, the latest Heartland Poker Tour champion is pushed below the fold. They wrapped up their 200th episode and none other than 2004 WSOP Main Event Champion Greg Raymer captured the title. HPT could not have asked for a better result coming through their Epic disaster and new ownership. Allen “Complainsaw” Kessler, Kathy Liebert, and former HPT champion Rob “veeRob” Perelman we also part of the 131 player field.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day 1 – Understated by Poker Stars

We’ve just announced the DOJ settlement. Please read here: psta.rs/NGA1tC for more information.

— PokerStars (@PokerStars) July 31, 2012

Tweet of the Day 2 – Todd Terry has lost his damn mind. Why stop at thanking the DoJ? Why not thank Bill Frist, Jon Kyl and everyone else who sat on their hands while UIGEA was rammed through Congress?

All thank yous should be directed to Preet Bharara and the DoJ. They’re basically distributing $ they could keep to FTP’s victims. — Todd Terry (@toddbterry) July 31, 2012

PokerStars FAQ for Full Tilt Players – Almost everything you want to know as a player on FTP including turning the lights back on within 90 days. Also, thanks but no thanks to France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Belgium and Estonia.

A Statement by Nolan Dalla – It’s great to see Nolan Dalla back to writing on his site (plus using Twitter!) and here’s his take on the Full Tilt/Poker Stars news. Now if he would just change the white text/dark background format so my retinae don’t burn out.

Poker Community Reacts to PokerStars-Full Tilt Poker Deal – Thanks to BLUFF for saving me the time to collect the Twitter reactions to the news. They also have comment from Blair Hinkle, who has $1.15million locked up on Tilt, plus statements from the PPA and Ray Bitar.

U.S. Department of Justice Requests Settlement Agreement with Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet – Oh yeah, now what about the Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker fire sale and player funds? Lost in the big news seems to be the DoJ reaching a settlement agreement with UB/AP to dump their assets to pay back players. That should get them a solid $3.50 to divide between everyone.

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

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/

The first major live poker tournament since Black Friday in the United States kicked off today with the World Poker Tour at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood Florida. One of the unknowns coming into the tournament was wether or not sponsored pros would show up wearing their patches.

With 406 players in the field today only 13 players were found wearing either a Full Tilt Poker or a Ultimate Bet patch. The one “big three” site that did not have a single patched up player was PokerStars, even though WPT regular and PokerStar Pro Jason Mercier was in the field.

Also in the field today not wearing their normal patch were Maria Ho (UB) and Antonio Esfandiari (Victory). The fact that these two are not wearing a patch for their respected site while Adam “roothlus” Levy (UB) and Jonathan Little (Victory) are patched up definitely creates more questions.

Here is a rundown of the players found in todays field that were wearing patches:

Since we are on the discussion of who is wearing what Tony Dunst, who is known for always being well dressed was not wearing his normal suit today due to a delay in dry cleaning. Instead he was wearing a V-Neck shirt and a pair of jeans. Dunst will be returning tomorrow, hopefully in his freshly cleaned suit, to grind out his short stack.

After 5 levels of play only 290 players remain with registration open until the start of play with Randy Dorfman at the top of the leaderboard with 160,000. Other players returning for day two are Vivek Rajkumar, Shannon Shorr, Annette Obstread, Mike Sexton, Kathy, Leibert, and Lauren Kling.

The players will return at 12 noon local time tomorrow for the start of day two of this six-day event to play another 5 levels.