Just Conjecturin', Volume 31: Intermezzo

Once again, major news developments have forced a change of schedule in my "Just Comjecturin'" publishing plans. I'd hoped to have my original Volume 31 up a week or ten days ago, but behind-the-scenes events required me to hold back for a short while.

Then, of course, Black Friday happened, and things everywhere are in an uproar. I asked one of my contacts what the latest was regarding the core folks at Cereus, and he replied back: "The rats are running for cover. Not taking any calls."

It's affected some (not all) of my good sources as well, but for those who are on the right side of this, I'm pretty sure they'll realize that nothing really has changed. As I've written elsewhere, this day was always going to happen, and the charges brought in those indictments center solely on alleged illicit banking practices, no matter what other noise the DoJ proclaims. I firmly believe that events were set in motion when PartyGaming paid its blood money to the US a couple of years bac. When financial boy-toy Daniel Tzvetkoff later paid back those who turned him in by turning states' evidence, it was a fait accompli that what happened Friday... would.

Of course I noticed that Scott Tom and Brent Beckley, stepbrothers and two of the original "frat boy" founders of Absolute Poker, were among those indicted. Absolute Poker SA, as shown in the indictments, is the parent company of the Cereus Network, which in turn houses the AP and UB sites. I don't know if this scuttles the rumored plans of Victory Poker to join that network, though that's a bit of a digression.

Regarding good ol' Scott Tom, of course he's been with the company the whole time, and yes, I'm still holding that evidence in abeyance, too. There will come a time when it is made public, and it will bring into question the actions of at least one more big name. There is also one other major poker player, plus one additional WSOP bracelet winner (though not a household name), whose involvement will be examined as well.

The Just Conjecturin' series marches on. You haven't seen it here, but I've never been busier, working on it virtually full-time of late. I am in the way of knowing about a couple of significant things about to occur, perhapsjustmaybe a news story or two, and out of professional courtesy I choose to let at least the first one of those things come out before I move forward once again. So I wait, a bit longer, but I'm still working on these affairs. If those expected stories take too long to appear or seem to fizzle out, I'll go ahead at some point anyway.

I am fairly confident that Stars players will eventually receive their money. I'm a hair less confident regarding Full Tilt, though it's probably only a few percent less likely than Stars. Quite a ways down the probability chart is where I place the Cereus sites, AP and UB, and this only because of the extenuating circumstances surrounding the company. My personal opinion is that Cereus players have a less than 50% or recovering their bankrolls, but I hope I'm pleasantly surprised, despite my feeling that these players were collectively stupid and greedy for continuing to play on the network in the first place.

So it's a holding pattern here, but I'm pretty sure that May will be momentous.