Every week I open tab after tab and occasionally star a website intent on sharing it with you in some sorta blog capacity … hopefully before my browser crashes. So in an attempt to keep tabs on the poker-industry, here’s a grab-bag of relatively new (to me at least) and noteworthy sites to visit because either they’re really good or I owe someone a favor.
— Former Neverwin/Donkdown bandmate (and WSOP bracelet winner) Todd Witteles is going solo to be a crusader for clearing out the scumbags in poker. (And Dan Druff doesn’t need-no fancy “blog” or “forum” software to do it!)
LegalPokerSites.com — These guys hustle to stay on top of poker-related legal matters across America and worldwide … and provide a thorough rundown of the newsbuzz should a certain site’s editor need to catch up with what’s been going on!
StackemCoaching.com — Yet another training site … but this one (led by John Kim and Joe Tehan) focusses on live play and offers coaching via audio lessons and live sweats with their stable of pros. Their students (and coaches) make up many of the local grinder thugs, and thus SEC is shaping the way a certain sect of Vegas player handles their chips these days.
IGamingNorthAmerica.com — Politicians, regulators, and gaming industry nerds executives descend upon Planet Hollywood over the next few days for a boutique confab with Oscar Goodman introducing Caesars’ chief bean-counter to deliver the keynote. Who woulda ever guessed such a policy-wonk road show like IGNA (with panels on taxation modeling, regulatory timelines, internet security, and liquidity paradigms) would be such a hot ticket in 2012?
StupidBetz.com — Possibly in preparation for the inevitable legalization of making semi-obscene jackass-style prop bets online … or maybe just to encourage stupid behavior for money … this site pays out “stupidbuckz” for people to eat bugs, shave heads, and stick tongues in mousetraps.
An example of what PTR found is in the video below:
Cereus COO Paul Leggett issued a response shortly after the PTR report came out Thursday evening and posted a status update just a few minutes ago stating that they’ve issued an update to their software earlier Friday and are working with PTR on the new encryption and the eventual release of a more advanced solution using the Open SSL protocol, scheduled to be available in one week.
Here’s some video from this afternoon’s attempted robbery at EPT Berlin:
Here’s a clip of an interview from German TV news:
A translation from 2+2 poster “B4RT3K” from the interview between the reporter and “Roman” the security guard in the video above:
Reporter: “We got one witness with us, Roman, you are from the security Team (Security-Kuhr), you were involved in this conflict, how can u describe what happened there ?”
Roman: “It was really scary, with how much brutality the gangsters were acting, I was just standing there minding my own business and securing the money, happy about the fact that the day was calm and nothing happened, suddenly there is shouting and screaming coming from the hallway and the people (gangsters) rush the cashier floor with huge brutality and even armed… it was really scary.”
Reporter: “You are injured, but you got to get hold of one of the gangsters, you were trying to get the money back from him… were you successful ?”
Roman: “Yeah, thank god, we were successful… we got a huge amount of the money back from the gangsters, one of the employees of the hotel helped me there, but we couldn’t secure the gangster because he got rescued by his friends.”
Reporter: “Which weapons were used ? We saw a machete, there were rumours about grenades, kalashnikovs, guns, pump-guns etc.?”
Roman: “I can only verify the machete and a hand-held gun.”
Reporter: “So you really tried to get hold of the gangsters even though u were unarmed and they were armed with guns?”
Roman: “Yeah, in the first moment I didn’t think of the fact that they will use the guns against me, and I just wanted to stop them from what they were doing in that particular moment.”
Reporter: “Brave.”
UPDATE: Here’s another PokerNews update with audio from a police spokesman:
One of the main complaints about those affected by the UB superuser scandal is that players have not been able to see their hand histories against the list of 100+ superusers. From Joe Sebok’s blog:
Whew, crazy couple of days. Thanks everyone for all the support. You guys are amazing and I can’t thank you enough for the love. For the skeptical, I just ask that you give the situation some more time…
Now, let’s get to the release of the hand histories. It’s a two-part process and here is the rundown:
First off, UB is currently working to catch up on all past historical requests, so be aware of that if you already have a request in. In truth though, it can’t hurt to send another email request just to lock it up. You can do so at pokersecurity@ultimatebet.com. Please include all pertinent information in your email: your name, address, and your user name.
Now, once your request has been processed you should expect a summary version of the information first. It’ll be a spreadsheet that details every hand you specifically played against each of the identified 117 cheating accounts. This will be a complete record of all those hands so that you can go through and verify the refund amounts yourselves. This will act as a summary as we want to get something out to you while the actual detailed hand histories are processed, which obviously takes longer.
Some hand histories will go out quickly, as they won’t contain as many hands as others. Some players have played a ridiculous amount of hands however and that will take a longer amount of time to process. Again, this is the reason for the first, summary hand breakdown of the information, as that gets something in your hands that you can begin checking sooner.
Please be a little patient with getting this information out and back to you once you have requested it. I know you have all been waiting for quite a while, but this kind of project takes some time to run through.
Thanks to the KGC and UB for making this all happen. I am impressed to say the least.
Just some early-morning semi-pokery stuff that’s caught my eye … actually, first part’s not so pokery, but I think a lot of poker fans might be curious about this upcoming ESPN piece on the governor’s efforts in Delaware to bring sports betting to that state:
(And no wonder Doyle Brunson loves it in Montana.)
And this job ad, for a new position in London … Investigator – Poker Specialist. I don’t have much to say about the specific position (London usually means PartyPoker, but not always) … except that I’ve never seen such a title before. New.
Key Responsibilities:
• Fraud prevention, detection and investigation
• Understanding of international online payment methods
• Knowledge of Money Laundering detection and regulation
• Knowledge of foreign language/customs
• Experience of reading Poker hands in relation to chip dumping cases.
