Gaming attorney Jeff Ifrah and his law firm have removed the Nevada state civil case against them filed by Chad Elie to the US District Court for the District of Nevada. “Removal” refers to the transfer of a case from a state court to a federal court that includes the place where the state action was pending, so the venue in Nevada makes sense. Only defendants may remove cases to federal court. To remove, the case must be eligible to have been filed in federal court in the first place. In this case, the federal court’s diversity jurisdiction appears to be met because Elie and Ifrah are citizens of different states and the matter in controversy exceeds $75,000.
Presumably Ifrah wants to get this in front of the federal bench because he’s more confident of his hearing there than in state court. And perhaps there will be a further move to transfer this case east of Nevada, to another federal court. Time will tell.
APCW Perspectives Weekly: There are new charges in the Full Tilt Poker case, as Howard Lederer and Ray Bitar get in deeper and deeper. Also, the first online poker affiliate has been licensed in Nevada.
Online Gambling News: Last week we looked at the Republican party’s agenda for online gambling, and this week we look at the Democrats. Also, industry news from Intertops, Zynga, and our old friend State Senator Ray Lesniak of New Jersey.
APCW Perspectives Weekly Online Gambling News: The US Presidential elections are just around the corner, but which candidate is the best choice for our industry? Also, real money online poker is set for launch in Nevada!
This week a Federal Judge in New York has ruled the poker is a game of skill and not chance… but what will this mean for our industry? Also, the next big thing in online gambling: Mobile meets live dealer!
Much has been made of Full Tilt Poker and the money they owe their players… but what about the payments to their affiliates? Also, industry news from Ongame, Zynga, and California.
This week’s top online gambling news includes the surrender of Full Tilt poker founder Ray Bitar to authorities in New York. Also, headlines from 888.com and Zynga.
Online Gambling has been legalized in the state of Delaware, nearly six years after the passage of the UIGEA. Not only that, but Nevada has started to issues online poker licenses to gaming companies in the state! What a week!
Twitter is an ideal communication tool for poker players. The sleek interface makes it perfect for mobile devices at the table and the 140 character limit works well for tournament updates. When major poker events like the WSOP come around though, many casual followers get frustrated by the constant tournament updates cluttering their timeline.
Daniel Negreanu came up with a clever solution to this problem by using the @mention function as a filter. If you wanted to see his updates, in addition to his main @realkidpoker account, you also had to follow @dnchips. Whenever he sent out a tournament tweet he would start it with “@dnchips” and these tweets would only be seen by followers of both accounts.
This was a solid innovation and one that has allowed twitter users with non-poker followers to effectively compartmentalize their tournament reports. The idea has gained traction over the last year with many poker players adding a second account to separate their updates. This solution works well if you only want to follow a few players, but if you want to follow a large group of players things become more complicated.
With so many players making these new accounts it’s getting harder to keep up with them. When I want to follow a new player at an event, not only do I have to dig up their twitter account, then I have to find their chip account as well. This isn’t terrible for one player, but doing it ten times is annoying.
The last few months have been a blur of poker and travel. I had a handful of days between wsop circuit stops to unwind and no spare time to write. I should say no spare time to write my blog. I have been working on a side project that has been eating up most of my creative writing efforts and cutting into my poker sessions. Hopefully the work pays off this summer and opens up some new business opportunities. Until things settle down I guess I will have to forgo sleep to fit in my blogging sessions.
St Louis Circuit Props:
Welcome to the St Louis WSOP please “smoke freely”
It’s a global gambling show, with industry news from England, France, Belgium, Germany, Antigua, and the USA! Stories include licensing, trade disputes, and the collapse of a spread betting firm.
I was never an online poker rock star. At the height of my online career I was mid-stakes PLO grinder on Pokerstars and FTP. The low expenses and generous player incentives made this a comfortable lifestyle for La and I, who also made her living grinding online mtts. Decent bankroll management and a few well timed live scores prior to April 15th 2011 left us in better shape than most when our virtual bankroll was frozen, but our lives were still drastically altered after our freedom to play online poker was taken away.
Our average pre Black Friday day consisted of waking up whenever, having “breakfast”, and grinding out sessions in the upstairs war room. We lived a good life in a nice house close to our friends and family in DFW. A few times a year we would travel to a deep stack tournament series for a change of pace, but the majority of our working hours were spent at home in our boxers and bathrobes. When we went on the road we would take our laptops with us. If there was no action after we busted a live event we could supplement our income with online sessions.
After Black Friday our war room got turned into an arcade.
The first thing you need to understand when planning a trip to Rincon is that it’s not San Diego. Our friend Billy made the mistake of bringing his family thinking he could play poker while his family enjoyed the city. Rincon is an hour outside the city up a nice windy mountain road and should in no way be categorized as “close to the beach”. Billy’s family left him the day after arrival, exchanging their mountain view for something oceanside.
