Had an unsettling week --- back in the saddle with a "Best of" piece in a flash.
H
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Shocked and Appalled
Please check the addendums. This story ain't over, and it appears something that I thought was so, might not be. More very soon, promise --- hh
A surf of several poker-related posts on Bloglines last night uncovered a couple of poker blogs announcing their registration into a curious freeroll on Full Tilt Poker. Called the SEO Poker Tournament, this $5,000 freebie is being run by whatever king-sized asshat is behind the site seoblackhat.com.
"SEO," should you be unaware, is short for "Search Engine Optimization," and a "black-hat SEO" is one of those people who typically scrapes your site and steals your content, putting his affiliate banners on the top of it, or litters your comment boxes with all sorts of unwarranted spam. Of course, that's just the start of it, as you can see by this neat list as shown on the site:
Now, that list isn't about things that are bad, it's about how to do them and get away with it. As an example, here's the lead-in for the "Scrapers" category:
"Borrow content from other sites," my ass. Basically, these guys traffic in theft, and if you create content, then you're one of the victims. Matter of fact, if you have a web site at all, then these guys victimize you, by manipulating meta code to mess with Google and Yahoo! search algorithms and get to the top of the list; in that instance, they're cutting in line, and they're not even doing it on their own dime.
These guys violate copyrights and ToS agreements by the thousands. Another of these sites proudly notes that "Yes, all these things are against the rules, but rules are made to broken." Don't step in front of my car, black-hat SEO guys; I guarantee you I won't brake.
So it's on to shocked and appalled time.
Shocking, that at least three recognizable poker bloggers have signed up for the event. Have you no pride, folks? No sense of worth for what you create? Shameful. One of them submitted an entry to my own puzzle contest a month or two back, but he won't be welcome to enter my future giveaways: I do not cater to thieves, nor those who would do business with them. As for this disgusting display, first prize is getting a bunch of other links to your site, but those three bloggers, who I previously listed, have been yanked from this site. They're on "-1" so far.
On to appalling. Not only does Full Tilt apparently think that site scrapers, spammers and link thieves are okay types, but they are actually donating $5,000 to the goddamned freeroll. I've fired off a complaint to Full Tilt, which they're in the process of shuffling from department to department until the event actually occurs, at which time they'll likely send me an empty, do-nothing apology.
It'll rank right up for there for meaningful value and sincerity with the apology Absolute sent to Pauly when his site got hacked. Absolute's way of dealing with that was to give the thief a brand new landing page, which remains operational to this day. If you think I kid, guess again; I saved the affiliate code from the thieving site and it's fully intact, right here. Then again, I do tend to be cynical; let's just say I'm seldom disappointed that way.
As to why this is so important, if you don't know, my screaming about it is unlikely to convince you. I'm way-y-y peeved, but I'm not going to call for a boycott, though the thought has crossed my mind. I'm just voting with my feet. I don't play at Absolute, and I won't be playing at Full Tilt anymore, either.
So be it.
Addendum:
Two of the three blogger sites I blind-referenced above pulled themselves out of the tournament after hearing about this post, one with the admonition that, frankly, I could have been a bit nicer about it. As in sending private e-mails. Umm, yes, but these tournaments tend to have a rush in late registrations, and I don't feel a nanny-type responsibility to keep chasing down any and every blogger who might register for something like this without thinking about the consequences. My aim is to tear that $5K bad boy down and leave a smoking crater in its wake. I doubt I'll be successful, but this thieving crap has gone on way too long and is too endemic. It's war.
The same writer tossed a small bomb my way, I guess for having an erstwhile link to Dutch Boyd's sad site. Besides the fact that I think Dutch's site is great for unintentional comic relief, there's still a huge distinction. Dutch maintains his innocence in a bizarre display of paralogical thinking, while these black-hat guys are not only proven thieves, they're willing and proud of it. And a site I give good money to is giving them more money, money that comes from people like me?
Seriously, I have made some friends in the blogging community, but I write what I think is important and what I believe in... and that comes first. For the rest of you, should you disagree, head on over to www.pap.com. In the meantime, I'm putting my neck on the line trying to get things done. I'm no saint, I don't live in a white castle, but goddamnit, I'm better than these black-hat thieves.
If the tradeoff is that a lot of people are more aware of these issues, and a lot more people dislike me for forcing the issue, I can live with that.
* * * * * * *
Addendum 2: Gee, you'd think if I'd wrongly accused someone, they'd correct me. That didn't happen here, and while I am issuing an apology, pending further news, I'd like to bring y'all up to speed.
Short-Stacked Shamus over at Hard-Boiled Poker, which is a blog I've neglected to link up properly for far too long, has also been tracking this issue. Shamus sent off two different inquiries to FTP about this matter. He got nothing of worth on the first one, tried again, and got this back on the second one: "The prize pool of private freerolls is always supplied by the people who have requested the private tournament not us. Also Full Tilt Poker does not actively administrate private tournaments, we only host them."
Okay, but over on the black-hat site, there was this:
That pretty clearly says the opposite. Now far be it from a black-hat SEO site to lie, I know, but here we have $5,000 that no one now wants to take credit for or accept, except for that Tom dude in the comments. Nor, last time I checked, was your typical black-hat-SEO type in the habit of giving away five grand. And this isn't just any site; it is a trackable FTP affiliate (see below).
So you tell me, what gives?
I'd like to say that I jumped the gun on going off on Full Tilt, but I waited more than a day before making my post after notifying them of the tournament. Shamus's second try also included this text, and I'll just toss it out in his words:
I also asked whether FTP exercised any sort of discrimination when it came to allowing groups or organizations to use their site for private tourneys. I even gave the Ku Klux Klan as an example, asking would they
be allowed to host a tournament. In response to this question, FTP
says "We hold the tournament on our site to the specifications of the
person or group that has requested to hold it on our site. So it is open
to those who they want to participate in it."
--- Short-Stacked Shamus
I'm actually in agreement with that stance, though I note with a bit of a wry touch that Full Tilt's own in-house content is among the most commonly stolen in the poker world. I guess they're being paid not to care. But --- and this is a huge "but" --- it still doesn't answer where the money came from. I'm going to remain infernally curious about that one. If Full Tilt wants to disavow that site's claims, I'll be happy to print it here. I'd guess that making false statements about a poker site might violate an affiliate contract, and if Full Tilt has any interest in the matter, here's the seoblackhat site's affiliate landing page at FTP:
www(dot)fulltiltpoker(dot)com/?key=MDAwMDEyMkIwMDAwMjY4NjIwNTI0MDI0MDAwMDAwMDA-
There, Full Tilt, I've done your work for you. What say you?
A surf of several poker-related posts on Bloglines last night uncovered a couple of poker blogs announcing their registration into a curious freeroll on Full Tilt Poker. Called the SEO Poker Tournament, this $5,000 freebie is being run by whatever king-sized asshat is behind the site seoblackhat.com.
"SEO," should you be unaware, is short for "Search Engine Optimization," and a "black-hat SEO" is one of those people who typically scrapes your site and steals your content, putting his affiliate banners on the top of it, or litters your comment boxes with all sorts of unwarranted spam. Of course, that's just the start of it, as you can see by this neat list as shown on the site:
Now, that list isn't about things that are bad, it's about how to do them and get away with it. As an example, here's the lead-in for the "Scrapers" category:
"Borrow content from other sites," my ass. Basically, these guys traffic in theft, and if you create content, then you're one of the victims. Matter of fact, if you have a web site at all, then these guys victimize you, by manipulating meta code to mess with Google and Yahoo! search algorithms and get to the top of the list; in that instance, they're cutting in line, and they're not even doing it on their own dime.
These guys violate copyrights and ToS agreements by the thousands. Another of these sites proudly notes that "Yes, all these things are against the rules, but rules are made to broken." Don't step in front of my car, black-hat SEO guys; I guarantee you I won't brake.
So it's on to shocked and appalled time.
Shocking, that at least three recognizable poker bloggers have signed up for the event. Have you no pride, folks? No sense of worth for what you create? Shameful. One of them submitted an entry to my own puzzle contest a month or two back, but he won't be welcome to enter my future giveaways: I do not cater to thieves, nor those who would do business with them. As for this disgusting display, first prize is getting a bunch of other links to your site, but those three bloggers, who I previously listed, have been yanked from this site. They're on "-1" so far.
On to appalling. Not only does Full Tilt apparently think that site scrapers, spammers and link thieves are okay types, but they are actually donating $5,000 to the goddamned freeroll. I've fired off a complaint to Full Tilt, which they're in the process of shuffling from department to department until the event actually occurs, at which time they'll likely send me an empty, do-nothing apology.
It'll rank right up for there for meaningful value and sincerity with the apology Absolute sent to Pauly when his site got hacked. Absolute's way of dealing with that was to give the thief a brand new landing page, which remains operational to this day. If you think I kid, guess again; I saved the affiliate code from the thieving site and it's fully intact, right here. Then again, I do tend to be cynical; let's just say I'm seldom disappointed that way.
As to why this is so important, if you don't know, my screaming about it is unlikely to convince you. I'm way-y-y peeved, but I'm not going to call for a boycott, though the thought has crossed my mind. I'm just voting with my feet. I don't play at Absolute, and I won't be playing at Full Tilt anymore, either.
So be it.
Addendum:
Two of the three blogger sites I blind-referenced above pulled themselves out of the tournament after hearing about this post, one with the admonition that, frankly, I could have been a bit nicer about it. As in sending private e-mails. Umm, yes, but these tournaments tend to have a rush in late registrations, and I don't feel a nanny-type responsibility to keep chasing down any and every blogger who might register for something like this without thinking about the consequences. My aim is to tear that $5K bad boy down and leave a smoking crater in its wake. I doubt I'll be successful, but this thieving crap has gone on way too long and is too endemic. It's war.
The same writer tossed a small bomb my way, I guess for having an erstwhile link to Dutch Boyd's sad site. Besides the fact that I think Dutch's site is great for unintentional comic relief, there's still a huge distinction. Dutch maintains his innocence in a bizarre display of paralogical thinking, while these black-hat guys are not only proven thieves, they're willing and proud of it. And a site I give good money to is giving them more money, money that comes from people like me?
Seriously, I have made some friends in the blogging community, but I write what I think is important and what I believe in... and that comes first. For the rest of you, should you disagree, head on over to www.pap.com. In the meantime, I'm putting my neck on the line trying to get things done. I'm no saint, I don't live in a white castle, but goddamnit, I'm better than these black-hat thieves.
If the tradeoff is that a lot of people are more aware of these issues, and a lot more people dislike me for forcing the issue, I can live with that.
* * * * * * *
Addendum 2: Gee, you'd think if I'd wrongly accused someone, they'd correct me. That didn't happen here, and while I am issuing an apology, pending further news, I'd like to bring y'all up to speed.
Short-Stacked Shamus over at Hard-Boiled Poker, which is a blog I've neglected to link up properly for far too long, has also been tracking this issue. Shamus sent off two different inquiries to FTP about this matter. He got nothing of worth on the first one, tried again, and got this back on the second one: "The prize pool of private freerolls is always supplied by the people who have requested the private tournament not us. Also Full Tilt Poker does not actively administrate private tournaments, we only host them."
Okay, but over on the black-hat site, there was this:
That pretty clearly says the opposite. Now far be it from a black-hat SEO site to lie, I know, but here we have $5,000 that no one now wants to take credit for or accept, except for that Tom dude in the comments. Nor, last time I checked, was your typical black-hat-SEO type in the habit of giving away five grand. And this isn't just any site; it is a trackable FTP affiliate (see below).
So you tell me, what gives?
I'd like to say that I jumped the gun on going off on Full Tilt, but I waited more than a day before making my post after notifying them of the tournament. Shamus's second try also included this text, and I'll just toss it out in his words:
I also asked whether FTP exercised any sort of discrimination when it came to allowing groups or organizations to use their site for private tourneys. I even gave the Ku Klux Klan as an example, asking would they
be allowed to host a tournament. In response to this question, FTP
says "We hold the tournament on our site to the specifications of the
person or group that has requested to hold it on our site. So it is open
to those who they want to participate in it."
--- Short-Stacked Shamus
I'm actually in agreement with that stance, though I note with a bit of a wry touch that Full Tilt's own in-house content is among the most commonly stolen in the poker world. I guess they're being paid not to care. But --- and this is a huge "but" --- it still doesn't answer where the money came from. I'm going to remain infernally curious about that one. If Full Tilt wants to disavow that site's claims, I'll be happy to print it here. I'd guess that making false statements about a poker site might violate an affiliate contract, and if Full Tilt has any interest in the matter, here's the seoblackhat site's affiliate landing page at FTP:
www(dot)fulltiltpoker(dot)com/?key=MDAwMDEyMkIwMDAwMjY4NjIwNTI0MDI0MDAwMDAwMDA-
There, Full Tilt, I've done your work for you. What say you?
Sunday, March 18, 2007
No, No, It's St. Patty's Day, Not April Fool's, Dear Poker Sites
It was either 2005 or 2006 (I believe it was 2006), when Royal Vegas Poker offered a special St. Patrick's Day tournament to its participants. Having set up a couple of alternate skins, such as Poker Time, the RVP folks didn't quite get the private/special connections for the event worked out. Play began, but was terminated a short while later. Monies were refunded, but no complete explanation other than the usual "technical difficulties" was ever offered.
What are the odds that I'd get in another St. Patrick's Day tourney on a different site, and that the same thing would happen again?
Bet the over, whatever odds you get. Between watching basketball, handling some off-line chores and knocking off a couple of last-minute pieces, I found time to sign up for a $1,000-added St. Patrick's Day event over at poker.com. It was an R&A event (not my favorite), but I chipped up gradually through the first hour, about doubling my initial 2,000-chip stack.
When, suddenly, the lights went out. A message went up on the screen stating that the tournament had been cancelled by an administrator and that all entry fees would be returned to the players per site rules. That's fine and all, but I detest things like this, particularly when the message indicated that the tournament had been halted intentionally, for whatever reason. Maybe it had something to do with the U.S.'s early shift to Daylight Savings Time, or maybe a pack of kangaroos invaded poker.com's Aussie headquarters.
I'm just jealous of my time, and I hate having it snatched from me in such a manner. Obviously, I'm not supposed to be playing promotional poker tournaments on St. Pat's Day, am I?
What are the odds that I'd get in another St. Patrick's Day tourney on a different site, and that the same thing would happen again?
Bet the over, whatever odds you get. Between watching basketball, handling some off-line chores and knocking off a couple of last-minute pieces, I found time to sign up for a $1,000-added St. Patrick's Day event over at poker.com. It was an R&A event (not my favorite), but I chipped up gradually through the first hour, about doubling my initial 2,000-chip stack.
When, suddenly, the lights went out. A message went up on the screen stating that the tournament had been cancelled by an administrator and that all entry fees would be returned to the players per site rules. That's fine and all, but I detest things like this, particularly when the message indicated that the tournament had been halted intentionally, for whatever reason. Maybe it had something to do with the U.S.'s early shift to Daylight Savings Time, or maybe a pack of kangaroos invaded poker.com's Aussie headquarters.
I'm just jealous of my time, and I hate having it snatched from me in such a manner. Obviously, I'm not supposed to be playing promotional poker tournaments on St. Pat's Day, am I?
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Other Side of the F-Bomb
One would probably think that I'm fanatical about the Mansion Poker Poker Dome show, having luckboxed my way onto the program last summer. Not true. In fact, I've only watched one complete episode of the show, and that's not the one I was on, which I have the DVD of but have never been able to bring myself to view.
So it was a bit of a surprise to find out that a hubbub broke out over the unfortunate occurrences that took place in Episode 41, the very last of the 'quarterfinal' episodes. The winner was decided because of not one, but two, abusive-language penalties that saw the Finnish player who held a commanding lead at the start of heads-up play eventually blinded out, to the delight of his Canadian opponent, who pocketed the $25,000 winner's check by acting as quickly as possible during the five minutes called for by the penalties.
I didn't see the episode, and in fact a week passed before I learned of it, only encountering the story when I saw the posts that the show's tournament director, Matt Savage, posted on the topic. The first of these was put up on rec.gambling.poker (link via Google), and the second was a running commentary of about 100 posts over at 2+2, where Savage also commented. There may be others; I haven't checked.
In reading through the posts, what's been most amazing to me are the number of posters willing to villify Savage for taking the action that he had to, given the circumstances. It sucked that the player uttered the bombs, even as accidental exclamations, but I can verify that everything Savage has laid out as being explained to the players is true.
The people who seem willing to pillory Savage --- for not somehow ruling in the "spirit" of the law, rather than the "letter" --- ignore the fact that he had no other choice, given the contractual circumstances as he's explained them. I'd even go a step further and say that the folks doing most of the bitching in general are players who just have a problem with f-bomb rules in general... and I don't agree with them. There is no reason why organized, competitive poker should not be able to establish a baseline for acceptable social standards, and constant f-bomb uttering, despite the accidental occasional exclamation (as happened here, unfortunately), is a part of that standard.
Let's face it: Constant f-bombs (rather than the rare, unintentional exclamation) are often just a cheap, adolescent attempt to intimidate a table.
But back to Matt Savage and the Poker Dome tale of woe. I'm sure this is the first time that any televised event has been settled in this manner, and Savage himself emphasizes how sorry he was that he felt compelled to enforce the rule. Instead of being slammed for it, he needs to be applauded... simply because, in the heat of the moment, he remembered the importance of existing precedent and acted accordingly.
Here's what a lot of the people slamming Savage are forgetting to include: The Poker Dome was designed to put people off balance, to put them under unusual pressure, and see how they react. It's an experimental format that is built within the framework of a poker game, but is really something more of a reality show. The no-swearing rules are a part of that format, an additional burden placed upon the player to see how much stress he or she can take.
I cracked under the stress; I made two clear mistakes, one when I didn't trust an obvious tell and another when I mis-spoke a bet, which happened after the action really heated up. (The excessive on-set heat was one of several contributing factors.)
The point is that this is what the show is designed to do --- to quickly force situations where people play subpar poker. That subpar performance can occur in many forms, and in the case of the Finnish player, it emerged in the form of unexpected (and forbidden) utterances. It's unfortunate.
It's also true that the show's bigwigs (including Savage) underestimated just how Draconian the penalty would be if it occurred during late-stage play. They've quickly made changes to the format for the remaining shows (actually, now just "show"), to bring it more in line with what some pure concept of "fair" would be.
Perhaps it's an unfortunate coda to the Poker Dome experiment. My guess is the show will go away after this season's run, but that's due to the impact of the UIGEA, not to the success or appeal of the show itself. If nothing else, though, the recent f-bomb episode may have a lasting impact on the way this type of penalty is administered throughout poker.
Matt Savage has a very high reputation among tournament directors as well. I'd heard of him long before I stumbled onto the Dome....
Untold anecdote: On our first trip downtown to the Neonopolis (the show's studio locale), we waited around for some time through a sorta-kinda-press conference stretching into eternity... then were escorted down into the set to be shown the layout and to conduct the seat drawing for the next night's taping. Our tour guide/nanny handed us over to the set producer, and that person introduced this second man, there in a t-shirt and jeans: "This is Matt Savage, the tournament director."
That was my second biggest jolt of the weekend, following my wandering upstairs in the Caesar's labyrinth of business suites and walking smack-dab into Tony G. As Savage came around to greet each of us in person, I said something like, "Matt Savage! I'm pleased and honored to meet you!"
And Matt said, "No, I'm pleased and honored to meet you, Haley." Which was nice. (Thick, too, in the way of a great PR guy.) Matt had certainly read all our bios, and on mine was the information that I was a fledgling poker writer, but at that point my list of paid poker credits was pretty miniscule. These days I have a few more, but Matt played it up in style, and we were all there in Tony's shadow, anyway.
Matt then gave me the honor of drawing the first seat card, which was the three, and we got around to the other business at hand. During the taping of the show, Matt would pop in behind us during breaks, looking rather dapper but still affected a bit by the heat, like the rest of us. He'd encourage us to chat it up a bit, as I did with Tony once or twice during the show. And then he'd melt back to his post at the left-rear of the set, from the audience perspective.
So much more, so many strange, surreal things. Do I regret not playing better? Of course. Do I regret going through the experience? Not for a minute.
That's maybe why this latest Poker Dome episode is so noteworthy. The concept pushed the edge, creating unforeseen circumstances and situations where no one really quite knew, going in, what the result would be.
Poker quality aside, that willingness to push the edge isn't a bad legacy for the show, come what may.
So it was a bit of a surprise to find out that a hubbub broke out over the unfortunate occurrences that took place in Episode 41, the very last of the 'quarterfinal' episodes. The winner was decided because of not one, but two, abusive-language penalties that saw the Finnish player who held a commanding lead at the start of heads-up play eventually blinded out, to the delight of his Canadian opponent, who pocketed the $25,000 winner's check by acting as quickly as possible during the five minutes called for by the penalties.
I didn't see the episode, and in fact a week passed before I learned of it, only encountering the story when I saw the posts that the show's tournament director, Matt Savage, posted on the topic. The first of these was put up on rec.gambling.poker (link via Google), and the second was a running commentary of about 100 posts over at 2+2, where Savage also commented. There may be others; I haven't checked.
In reading through the posts, what's been most amazing to me are the number of posters willing to villify Savage for taking the action that he had to, given the circumstances. It sucked that the player uttered the bombs, even as accidental exclamations, but I can verify that everything Savage has laid out as being explained to the players is true.
The people who seem willing to pillory Savage --- for not somehow ruling in the "spirit" of the law, rather than the "letter" --- ignore the fact that he had no other choice, given the contractual circumstances as he's explained them. I'd even go a step further and say that the folks doing most of the bitching in general are players who just have a problem with f-bomb rules in general... and I don't agree with them. There is no reason why organized, competitive poker should not be able to establish a baseline for acceptable social standards, and constant f-bomb uttering, despite the accidental occasional exclamation (as happened here, unfortunately), is a part of that standard.
Let's face it: Constant f-bombs (rather than the rare, unintentional exclamation) are often just a cheap, adolescent attempt to intimidate a table.
But back to Matt Savage and the Poker Dome tale of woe. I'm sure this is the first time that any televised event has been settled in this manner, and Savage himself emphasizes how sorry he was that he felt compelled to enforce the rule. Instead of being slammed for it, he needs to be applauded... simply because, in the heat of the moment, he remembered the importance of existing precedent and acted accordingly.
Here's what a lot of the people slamming Savage are forgetting to include: The Poker Dome was designed to put people off balance, to put them under unusual pressure, and see how they react. It's an experimental format that is built within the framework of a poker game, but is really something more of a reality show. The no-swearing rules are a part of that format, an additional burden placed upon the player to see how much stress he or she can take.
I cracked under the stress; I made two clear mistakes, one when I didn't trust an obvious tell and another when I mis-spoke a bet, which happened after the action really heated up. (The excessive on-set heat was one of several contributing factors.)
The point is that this is what the show is designed to do --- to quickly force situations where people play subpar poker. That subpar performance can occur in many forms, and in the case of the Finnish player, it emerged in the form of unexpected (and forbidden) utterances. It's unfortunate.
It's also true that the show's bigwigs (including Savage) underestimated just how Draconian the penalty would be if it occurred during late-stage play. They've quickly made changes to the format for the remaining shows (actually, now just "show"), to bring it more in line with what some pure concept of "fair" would be.
Perhaps it's an unfortunate coda to the Poker Dome experiment. My guess is the show will go away after this season's run, but that's due to the impact of the UIGEA, not to the success or appeal of the show itself. If nothing else, though, the recent f-bomb episode may have a lasting impact on the way this type of penalty is administered throughout poker.
Matt Savage has a very high reputation among tournament directors as well. I'd heard of him long before I stumbled onto the Dome....
Untold anecdote: On our first trip downtown to the Neonopolis (the show's studio locale), we waited around for some time through a sorta-kinda-press conference stretching into eternity... then were escorted down into the set to be shown the layout and to conduct the seat drawing for the next night's taping. Our tour guide/nanny handed us over to the set producer, and that person introduced this second man, there in a t-shirt and jeans: "This is Matt Savage, the tournament director."
That was my second biggest jolt of the weekend, following my wandering upstairs in the Caesar's labyrinth of business suites and walking smack-dab into Tony G. As Savage came around to greet each of us in person, I said something like, "Matt Savage! I'm pleased and honored to meet you!"
And Matt said, "No, I'm pleased and honored to meet you, Haley." Which was nice. (Thick, too, in the way of a great PR guy.) Matt had certainly read all our bios, and on mine was the information that I was a fledgling poker writer, but at that point my list of paid poker credits was pretty miniscule. These days I have a few more, but Matt played it up in style, and we were all there in Tony's shadow, anyway.
Matt then gave me the honor of drawing the first seat card, which was the three, and we got around to the other business at hand. During the taping of the show, Matt would pop in behind us during breaks, looking rather dapper but still affected a bit by the heat, like the rest of us. He'd encourage us to chat it up a bit, as I did with Tony once or twice during the show. And then he'd melt back to his post at the left-rear of the set, from the audience perspective.
So much more, so many strange, surreal things. Do I regret not playing better? Of course. Do I regret going through the experience? Not for a minute.
That's maybe why this latest Poker Dome episode is so noteworthy. The concept pushed the edge, creating unforeseen circumstances and situations where no one really quite knew, going in, what the result would be.
Poker quality aside, that willingness to push the edge isn't a bad legacy for the show, come what may.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
PPA --- The Organization that Can't Shoot Straight?
Talking about the Poker Players Alliance these days seems to be dangerous territory, but what the heck, I'm going there anyway.
I need to preface this post by saying that I am neutral toward the PPA. That's not "pro," and not "anti." Color me agnostic. I'd also like to point out that due to my inquiring nature, the president of the PPA, Michael Bolcerek, might not believe that. In working on several stories about the lack of transparency the PPA initially proffered concerning their finances, stirred in part by the private investigation of the PPA undertaken by 2+2 head Mason Malmuth, I did a bit of research into the PPA myself. I also made several phone calls and sent a few e-mails on the topic, and was promised a callback from Bolcerek (not by him, but by the office staffer taking my calls) on multiple occasions.
None of those callbacks ever occurred, nor were my e-mails through standard channels ever answered. That said, however, I think that the voices of several writers, my tiny contribution included, were a part of what finally prompted the PPA to post some of its financial information.
This is a good thing, in my estimation. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
As I mentioned in a post on another site, the PPA went ahead and posted its 2005 financials, which you can view here.
I'm really pleased to see this stuff, just on general principle. I do however, disagree with leading the page off with this: "While there is no legal requirement that we make this information publicly available on our website,..."
That reads as more than a bit defensive to me. Given that the PPA is not a scam, they should be happy to present their financials upon request, not make it seem as though the world is pulling their teeth. This is an organization that deals in goodwill and is dependent upon contributions for its very survival. I don't feel that any contributor owes them anything, and I feel that people who write about poker have a responsibility to look into organizations such as the PPA and, basically, check them out.
I'm reminded of this when I think of the one return contact I did have from Mr. Bolcerek. Working on a D'Amato story, I was, asking for comment on the early rumors, and I made some calls and e-mails and finally uncovered his PPA e-mail address. I sent off a letter explaining my inquiry and indeed did get a response to my asking if he or the PPA had a comment. It read like this, in its entirety:
no i do not
No signature, no cap letters, no nuttin'. That's fine and all, but it underscores a lack of professionalism on the part of Mr. Bolcerek in dealing with the media, at least in this instance. In this case, he may well have been rushed, but given the height of D'Amato rumors that were swirling, right from the start, I'm a bit incredulous that he and the PPA didn't have a canned "no comment" statement ready for any and all inquiries.
Does the PPA really not know how the game is played? Previous history (imagined or not) aside, when a writer makes a legitimate request for comment, either issue something with at least a minimal level of professionalism, or just accidentally delete the request and pretend it never showed up. Instead, the PPA continually seems to take a stance that says, "If you ain't solid behin' us, you're agin' us," and that can't be healthy for the PPA as a whole.
If it were only an isolated example. The PPA has recently put several promotional ads up on its You Tube site (id: pokerplayersalliance), and two of them look like pretty decent efforts. Here's the links:
"Poker Presidents"
"The State of Play: America and Online Poker"
Good stuff. Nice to see the PPA making an effort like this, and these need to be distributed to a wider audience.
And then there's this:
"Bad Beat"
Are you kidding me? Please-oh-please-oh-please, do not let 19-year-olds with misguided views of property rights post videos on the PPA site without executive overview. Or at least that's what it looks like. In the animated clip, a couple of pretend cops bust a player who tells his tablemates that he's from Phoenix, and bloody him up a bit in the process.
A bit crude, but funny. But then, the cartoon cop delivers an extra kick, and says this: "AND THATS FOR FILE SHARING LAST JULY YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!"
As a crime, file-sharing ranks right up with shoplifting a candy bar, but it's still wrong. Worse, not only is wrong, it's off message: it has no business whatsoever appearing in a PPA video. Of course, the denouement them comes as no surprise:
Worst of all, it's not even right, except in the state of Washington at the present time. C'mon, PPA. If you're going to bring respect to the world of poker, you need to show some professionalism yourselves.
That is all.
I need to preface this post by saying that I am neutral toward the PPA. That's not "pro," and not "anti." Color me agnostic. I'd also like to point out that due to my inquiring nature, the president of the PPA, Michael Bolcerek, might not believe that. In working on several stories about the lack of transparency the PPA initially proffered concerning their finances, stirred in part by the private investigation of the PPA undertaken by 2+2 head Mason Malmuth, I did a bit of research into the PPA myself. I also made several phone calls and sent a few e-mails on the topic, and was promised a callback from Bolcerek (not by him, but by the office staffer taking my calls) on multiple occasions.
None of those callbacks ever occurred, nor were my e-mails through standard channels ever answered. That said, however, I think that the voices of several writers, my tiny contribution included, were a part of what finally prompted the PPA to post some of its financial information.
This is a good thing, in my estimation. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
As I mentioned in a post on another site, the PPA went ahead and posted its 2005 financials, which you can view here.
I'm really pleased to see this stuff, just on general principle. I do however, disagree with leading the page off with this: "While there is no legal requirement that we make this information publicly available on our website,..."
That reads as more than a bit defensive to me. Given that the PPA is not a scam, they should be happy to present their financials upon request, not make it seem as though the world is pulling their teeth. This is an organization that deals in goodwill and is dependent upon contributions for its very survival. I don't feel that any contributor owes them anything, and I feel that people who write about poker have a responsibility to look into organizations such as the PPA and, basically, check them out.
I'm reminded of this when I think of the one return contact I did have from Mr. Bolcerek. Working on a D'Amato story, I was, asking for comment on the early rumors, and I made some calls and e-mails and finally uncovered his PPA e-mail address. I sent off a letter explaining my inquiry and indeed did get a response to my asking if he or the PPA had a comment. It read like this, in its entirety:
no i do not
No signature, no cap letters, no nuttin'. That's fine and all, but it underscores a lack of professionalism on the part of Mr. Bolcerek in dealing with the media, at least in this instance. In this case, he may well have been rushed, but given the height of D'Amato rumors that were swirling, right from the start, I'm a bit incredulous that he and the PPA didn't have a canned "no comment" statement ready for any and all inquiries.
Does the PPA really not know how the game is played? Previous history (imagined or not) aside, when a writer makes a legitimate request for comment, either issue something with at least a minimal level of professionalism, or just accidentally delete the request and pretend it never showed up. Instead, the PPA continually seems to take a stance that says, "If you ain't solid behin' us, you're agin' us," and that can't be healthy for the PPA as a whole.
If it were only an isolated example. The PPA has recently put several promotional ads up on its You Tube site (id: pokerplayersalliance), and two of them look like pretty decent efforts. Here's the links:
"Poker Presidents"
"The State of Play: America and Online Poker"
Good stuff. Nice to see the PPA making an effort like this, and these need to be distributed to a wider audience.
And then there's this:
"Bad Beat"
Are you kidding me? Please-oh-please-oh-please, do not let 19-year-olds with misguided views of property rights post videos on the PPA site without executive overview. Or at least that's what it looks like. In the animated clip, a couple of pretend cops bust a player who tells his tablemates that he's from Phoenix, and bloody him up a bit in the process.
A bit crude, but funny. But then, the cartoon cop delivers an extra kick, and says this: "AND THATS FOR FILE SHARING LAST JULY YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!"
As a crime, file-sharing ranks right up with shoplifting a candy bar, but it's still wrong. Worse, not only is wrong, it's off message: it has no business whatsoever appearing in a PPA video. Of course, the denouement them comes as no surprise:
Worst of all, it's not even right, except in the state of Washington at the present time. C'mon, PPA. If you're going to bring respect to the world of poker, you need to show some professionalism yourselves.
That is all.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
ESPN.com's Mark Kreidler: Independent Buffoon or Corporate Lackey?
ESPN.com's Mark Kreidler has authored a piece, published yesterday, that begins with the signing of Alfonse D'Amato as chairman of the PPA, and ends by taking a broad swipe at the whole of online poker. It's a wretched piece, full of half-truths, misinformation, badly interpreted statistics and at least one flat-out personal attack, and while "shit journalism" has its place in the world (for better or worse), this one's a prime example of why one doesn't want to make a mess of one's own nest. The piece appeared on the front page of ESPN's own Poker Club, populated by the very same online poker players Kriedler chooses to slap.
A dunderheaded, vacuous move. Or was it?
Given that the piece is appallingly short of meeting professionally standards, one has to wonder about motive. It's not about why the piece was written --- because any idiot can vomit forth inane wordage --- but about how the piece managed to pass editorial muster and see the light of day. This one smells bad.
Maybe, just maybe, Kreidler's taking one for the (ESPN) team. ESPN's WSOP broadcasts remain a staple of the network's off-primetime programming, and there's no doubt that ratings for all poker programs are off in general. The biggest reason for the decline isn't because people no longer want to watch poker on TV, but rather, that there are so many poker programs to choose from.
Given that many televised poker programs are sponsored in whole or in part by online sites, anything that damages those sites therefore makes sense, in a lefthanded sort of way, to ESPN's bottom line. It'd be a fool's quest of sorts, thinking that making a Fox Sports Net's or Game Show Network's selection of poker programs disappear would somehow be good for the game, but ESPN has no interest in poker itself. ESPN only cares in milking poker for whatever can be added to ESPN's own bottom line.
It's good to see folks like Daniel Negreanu quickly speak out against the article. While the story shouldn't be yanked, despite its appalling inaccuracies, it certainly should be subject to some sort of rebuttal. It would also be interesting to see what will happen with name players in the absence of such a rebuttal or followup. Do you think Negreanu would decline an interview opportunity with ESPN at next year's opportunity, as a way of making a statement against the publishing of crap by ESPN.com?
I highly doubt that, cynical person that I am. But we shall see, won't we?
A dunderheaded, vacuous move. Or was it?
Given that the piece is appallingly short of meeting professionally standards, one has to wonder about motive. It's not about why the piece was written --- because any idiot can vomit forth inane wordage --- but about how the piece managed to pass editorial muster and see the light of day. This one smells bad.
Maybe, just maybe, Kreidler's taking one for the (ESPN) team. ESPN's WSOP broadcasts remain a staple of the network's off-primetime programming, and there's no doubt that ratings for all poker programs are off in general. The biggest reason for the decline isn't because people no longer want to watch poker on TV, but rather, that there are so many poker programs to choose from.
Given that many televised poker programs are sponsored in whole or in part by online sites, anything that damages those sites therefore makes sense, in a lefthanded sort of way, to ESPN's bottom line. It'd be a fool's quest of sorts, thinking that making a Fox Sports Net's or Game Show Network's selection of poker programs disappear would somehow be good for the game, but ESPN has no interest in poker itself. ESPN only cares in milking poker for whatever can be added to ESPN's own bottom line.
It's good to see folks like Daniel Negreanu quickly speak out against the article. While the story shouldn't be yanked, despite its appalling inaccuracies, it certainly should be subject to some sort of rebuttal. It would also be interesting to see what will happen with name players in the absence of such a rebuttal or followup. Do you think Negreanu would decline an interview opportunity with ESPN at next year's opportunity, as a way of making a statement against the publishing of crap by ESPN.com?
I highly doubt that, cynical person that I am. But we shall see, won't we?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
And a Fond Farewell Flip of the Bird to Paradise Affiliates
Paradise sent out this mailing to its affiliate network today:
Dear Affiliate,
Firstly you are receiving this email because you have registered on the
Paradisepoker.com affiliate program at www.paradiseaffiliates.com and
you have the USA as your registered address.
If you no longer promote Paradisepoker.com, please ignore this email.
As I’m sure you are aware UIGEA has made any financial transactions
into the US very difficult for gaming companies. Netteller have had
their US funds seized and I’m sure you have all been hit by this. As
a result we have been working to find a new solution by which to pay you
your affiliate commissions.
Unfortunately the messages out there are too strong and no financial
institution or their subsidiaries are willing to touch the States, with
many of them already under investigation.
This doesn’t leave us with many options to get payment to you if you
reside in the US.
I therefore urge you to look into foreign (non US and non US$) banking
methods.
If you have a bank account outside the US (in a non US$ currency), or a
non US Netteller account, then these are your best options going
forwards. Please update these at www.paradiseaffiliates.com.
In recent weeks we have managed to wire some funds to US bank accounts,
but the window of opportunity is soon to close. For now we will
continue to make bank wires of over $500 – so please make sure you
update your payment methods at www.paradiseaffiliates.com to your bank
details. We also urge you to use a non US$ currency if possible.
Going forwards it is likely that payments are stopped or seized and it
is therefore in your interests to set up non US banking facilities so
we can get payment to you, there are no other options at this stage.
Please let me know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to
help you in this difficult time.
mailto:affiliates@paradiseaffiliates.com
Best Regards
Peter Hanford
Affiliate Manager
www.Paradiseaffiliates.com
First, I'm on the mailing list but I'm not actually an affiliate, having pulled my banner when I long ago rethought what I wanted my blog to be about. Second, despite its nonprofessionalism, the mailing raises all sorts of interesting points, doesn't it? And how's that for the opening salvo of the new month? In like a lion, out with the bath and the baby, or something like that....
So exactly what are we to make of a line like this? "Unfortunately the messages out there are too strong and no financial institution or their subsidiaries are willing to touch the States, with many of them already under investigation."
Heck, it might be true. But I also doubt that Paradise has put full effort into obtaining a U.S.-facing payment processor or of setting up a payment-by-check system. Given its pullout from the player market, Paradise has a largely reduced need to arrange any special mechanism for such payments, and Paradise had a bit of a shifty reputation in dealing with affiliates, anyway. Speaking of shifting, this letter attempts to rather neatly shift the blame onto nefarious "others," partially true or not, absolving Paradise from any responsibility in the matter. How nice for them. And of course, for any Americans unwilling or unable to establish overseas corporations at a cost of several thousand dollars a pop, I guess Paradise just gets to keep the payments due those affiliates.
Color me unconvinced.
Notice this ominous line from later in the missive: "In recent weeks we have managed to wire some funds to US bank accounts, but the window of opportunity is soon to close." Note that what it specifically does not say is whom is doing the closing of the window. My guess it's Paradise, not wanting to bother with doing direct bank transfers for its U.S.-based affiliates.
Well, Paradise isn't much to worry about these days, anyway. It was my first online poker room, back in the day, though as I garnered knowledge of the online scene, I thought that the site combined poor customer service with a certain flair for promotions that leaned toward the ol' bait-and-switch style, so I departed for more forthright, if not necessarily greener, pastures.
Au revoir, Paradise, if ever. And since you're short-arming your affiliates as you depart, don't let the door hit you in the butt as you leave.
Dear Affiliate,
Firstly you are receiving this email because you have registered on the
Paradisepoker.com affiliate program at www.paradiseaffiliates.com and
you have the USA as your registered address.
If you no longer promote Paradisepoker.com, please ignore this email.
As I’m sure you are aware UIGEA has made any financial transactions
into the US very difficult for gaming companies. Netteller have had
their US funds seized and I’m sure you have all been hit by this. As
a result we have been working to find a new solution by which to pay you
your affiliate commissions.
Unfortunately the messages out there are too strong and no financial
institution or their subsidiaries are willing to touch the States, with
many of them already under investigation.
This doesn’t leave us with many options to get payment to you if you
reside in the US.
I therefore urge you to look into foreign (non US and non US$) banking
methods.
If you have a bank account outside the US (in a non US$ currency), or a
non US Netteller account, then these are your best options going
forwards. Please update these at www.paradiseaffiliates.com.
In recent weeks we have managed to wire some funds to US bank accounts,
but the window of opportunity is soon to close. For now we will
continue to make bank wires of over $500 – so please make sure you
update your payment methods at www.paradiseaffiliates.com to your bank
details. We also urge you to use a non US$ currency if possible.
Going forwards it is likely that payments are stopped or seized and it
is therefore in your interests to set up non US banking facilities so
we can get payment to you, there are no other options at this stage.
Please let me know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to
help you in this difficult time.
mailto:affiliates@paradiseaffiliates.com
Best Regards
Peter Hanford
Affiliate Manager
www.Paradiseaffiliates.com
First, I'm on the mailing list but I'm not actually an affiliate, having pulled my banner when I long ago rethought what I wanted my blog to be about. Second, despite its nonprofessionalism, the mailing raises all sorts of interesting points, doesn't it? And how's that for the opening salvo of the new month? In like a lion, out with the bath and the baby, or something like that....
So exactly what are we to make of a line like this? "Unfortunately the messages out there are too strong and no financial institution or their subsidiaries are willing to touch the States, with many of them already under investigation."
Heck, it might be true. But I also doubt that Paradise has put full effort into obtaining a U.S.-facing payment processor or of setting up a payment-by-check system. Given its pullout from the player market, Paradise has a largely reduced need to arrange any special mechanism for such payments, and Paradise had a bit of a shifty reputation in dealing with affiliates, anyway. Speaking of shifting, this letter attempts to rather neatly shift the blame onto nefarious "others," partially true or not, absolving Paradise from any responsibility in the matter. How nice for them. And of course, for any Americans unwilling or unable to establish overseas corporations at a cost of several thousand dollars a pop, I guess Paradise just gets to keep the payments due those affiliates.
Color me unconvinced.
Notice this ominous line from later in the missive: "In recent weeks we have managed to wire some funds to US bank accounts, but the window of opportunity is soon to close." Note that what it specifically does not say is whom is doing the closing of the window. My guess it's Paradise, not wanting to bother with doing direct bank transfers for its U.S.-based affiliates.
Well, Paradise isn't much to worry about these days, anyway. It was my first online poker room, back in the day, though as I garnered knowledge of the online scene, I thought that the site combined poor customer service with a certain flair for promotions that leaned toward the ol' bait-and-switch style, so I departed for more forthright, if not necessarily greener, pastures.
Au revoir, Paradise, if ever. And since you're short-arming your affiliates as you depart, don't let the door hit you in the butt as you leave.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Quiet Times
Not to much report on the poker front, from a personal perspective, so call this one a checking-in-for-the-helluvit type of post. I've been on a nasty cooler of late in tournaments, either getting it in with the best of it and losing or running queens or kings into aces, and cash games haven't run any better. Momma Yoda said there'd be months like these, but stories find here bad beats you shall never.
I've also been working on a couple of projects behind the scenes, said projects taking up some large chunks of my time. Besides that, recent snowstorms, the continuing NETeller mess, and growing uncertainty as to whether I'll be able to travel to Vegas this summer all have me in a bit of a spring-fever funk. That last is related to the poker world's steady contraction, and who knows? Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard one works, if the timing is off. Maybe March will be a better month. I shake the Magic Eight Ball and it keeps telling me my future is cloudy, and I should try again later.
I had one of the originals of those things, way way back when. The darn fluid inside mine degraded and bubbled to the point that it affected the little "fortune" float on the inside, keeping the float from showing up in the little window if you held the ball so that the window was at the very top.
Funny, though, that the malaise seems to be affecting more than just me; it's touching the poker blogosphere in general. There a few good posts popping up, but things are sparse right now. One of the funniest bits of recent days was over at Tom Bayes' blog, which I stop by occasionally.
Surfing through some of his comments, I found this a link to a site which is supposed to tell you how many people have your last name. The results?
Now they tell me.
Time to muck and wait for the next hand. See you soon.
I've also been working on a couple of projects behind the scenes, said projects taking up some large chunks of my time. Besides that, recent snowstorms, the continuing NETeller mess, and growing uncertainty as to whether I'll be able to travel to Vegas this summer all have me in a bit of a spring-fever funk. That last is related to the poker world's steady contraction, and who knows? Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard one works, if the timing is off. Maybe March will be a better month. I shake the Magic Eight Ball and it keeps telling me my future is cloudy, and I should try again later.
I had one of the originals of those things, way way back when. The darn fluid inside mine degraded and bubbled to the point that it affected the little "fortune" float on the inside, keeping the float from showing up in the little window if you held the ball so that the window was at the very top.
Funny, though, that the malaise seems to be affecting more than just me; it's touching the poker blogosphere in general. There a few good posts popping up, but things are sparse right now. One of the funniest bits of recent days was over at Tom Bayes' blog, which I stop by occasionally.
Surfing through some of his comments, I found this a link to a site which is supposed to tell you how many people have your last name. The results?
Now they tell me.
Time to muck and wait for the next hand. See you soon.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Hai, It's Danny Boy, Mon
Alright, I'll bite. It's been surprising that Daniel Negreanu's misguided attempt at being funny, filming a video as a Jamaican rasta type for Chops and the crew over at RawVegas.tv, hasn't received more blog coverage in recent days. I'd even say that despite the video's base inanity, the greater discussion topic is being studiously avoided.
Anyhow, for the ten percent of you yet unaware, Negreanu donned some dark brown shoe polish, topped it off with some some mock dreads sewn into the requisite rainbow Rasta headgear, and then did an unfunny schtick. Of course, as soon as the video came out, Negreanu was then accused of being racist and applying "blackface," and that he owed an apology for to America's black population for the video. Say what?
Oh, great, another misguided cause and a new faux battle du jour, which ended up seeing Negreanu make dozens of posts in defense of the whole matter. Negreanu even went so far as to say he'd sent the video to some black friends of his and since they found it to be not racist, it was then okay. However, the fact that he sent the video out for preview indicates that he knew the vid could cause a kiddie controversy, despite his later protestations and links to YouTube shots of the "exchange student" train scene from Trading Places, and others, notwithstanding. Negreanu somehow overlooked the fact that Dan Aykroyd's costume was only acceptable because Eddie Murphy's character played another role in the same gag, and that Murphy's bit in that scene (despite being a helluva lot funnier than Aykroyd's) was a PC allowance in and of itself.
Or something like that. After a while, it became confusing, even as Negreanu continued that backpedaling on various poker forums, including his own at Full Contact Poker. It even featured cameos by other well-known names, including Negreanu's old friend Evelyn Ng, who despite being Chinese-Canadian, proved her depth of understanding on the greater issues by noting that she had seen "Crash," the Canadian t.v. show about a Muslim family. Okay, Evy, thanks for checking in. That was, like, deep.
But whatever; the maw beckons. Do I think Negreanu's skit was racist? If it was, it was only mildly so, and it was done so in innocence and familiarity; I do not believe Negreanu to be racist in the manner we all should protest, that of evil intent. We are all racist or predujiced to some small extent, of course, and that's an inescapable part of the modern human condition; show me the person who doesn't have a prejudice and I'd be verifying the lack of a pulse. As for Negreanu, he clearly meant no ill will; he's just not 100% up to speed on the current ass-hatted, "play the victim" nature of American society, and a life spent at a high-stakes poker table, where race really does matter for nothing, does little to teach it. The odd thing is that if any group could or should have been offended, it should have been some Jamaican organization, not this whole "American anti-Black" thing that the debate has devolved into. Lord knows we have enough real victims in the world, no matter the color, creed or personal issue. Why invent others out of thin air?
Negreanu gets minus points here not for being racist, but for being a dunderhead in the fun of the moment. That he's compounded it by making other disingenuous statements is often irrelevant, more an exercise in his trying to back away from a quicksand pool now that he's ankle-deep in the mire.
Also, true to the nature of the world, Negreanu's received as much ill-advised support as rebuke. Those who support Negreanu often call out anyone who dares speak against him as a hater, someone who's just out to kneecap a famous person. This is simply untrue. The more famous a person becomes, the more newsworthy that person gets, because through the person's fame he is supposed to represent something that other people enjoy learning about.
Entertainers, athletes, and politicians are always open for comment because they are selling themselves; they are the product. Whether poker players are important enough to qualify is always a matter for debate, but it's clear that some players are --- people want to read about them or watch them. Also, any player willing to sign up for an endorsement contract is automatically fair game, because he's now placed a monetary value on his image and name; he is satisfying audience demand and accepting payment as part of the trade; he no longer has absolute control over his image in the marketplace of ideas. This clearly includes Negreanu. Maybe he doesn't quite get that, yet. Not that he'd be the first, as immortalized in Charles Barkley's classic "I ain't no role model" utterance.
Charles was full of b.s., of course, since he was taking money to fill some sort of role, whatever it was.
What's funny is that the video in question is appearing over at rawvegas.tv, which is designed to be controversial. Putting the video on a site that one can reasonably expect to be both cutting edge and non-PC is not an excuse for the video itself, but I sure hope Negreanu wasn't looking to Chops and Co. for guidance as to whether the video would be inoffensive to all audiences. Much as I think Chops and his new crew do some neat stuff, the last thing Chops would ever be is a PC filter. Nor, contrary to some persons' wishes, do we quite yet live in a Harrison Bergeron world.
People do silly and stupid things all the time. Negreanu, for his part, needs to either not do silly things, or to do them with full freedom and accept the consequences, rather than trying to renegotiate the world to his preference after the fact. Either is fine by me, not that anyone has asked. Until he figures it out, we're likely to keep getting these performances of smelly toes waving in front of Negreanu's face, whereupon he takes a bite and discovers that it is indeed a foot.
Anyhow, for the ten percent of you yet unaware, Negreanu donned some dark brown shoe polish, topped it off with some some mock dreads sewn into the requisite rainbow Rasta headgear, and then did an unfunny schtick. Of course, as soon as the video came out, Negreanu was then accused of being racist and applying "blackface," and that he owed an apology for to America's black population for the video. Say what?
Oh, great, another misguided cause and a new faux battle du jour, which ended up seeing Negreanu make dozens of posts in defense of the whole matter. Negreanu even went so far as to say he'd sent the video to some black friends of his and since they found it to be not racist, it was then okay. However, the fact that he sent the video out for preview indicates that he knew the vid could cause a kiddie controversy, despite his later protestations and links to YouTube shots of the "exchange student" train scene from Trading Places, and others, notwithstanding. Negreanu somehow overlooked the fact that Dan Aykroyd's costume was only acceptable because Eddie Murphy's character played another role in the same gag, and that Murphy's bit in that scene (despite being a helluva lot funnier than Aykroyd's) was a PC allowance in and of itself.
Or something like that. After a while, it became confusing, even as Negreanu continued that backpedaling on various poker forums, including his own at Full Contact Poker. It even featured cameos by other well-known names, including Negreanu's old friend Evelyn Ng, who despite being Chinese-Canadian, proved her depth of understanding on the greater issues by noting that she had seen "Crash," the Canadian t.v. show about a Muslim family. Okay, Evy, thanks for checking in. That was, like, deep.
But whatever; the maw beckons. Do I think Negreanu's skit was racist? If it was, it was only mildly so, and it was done so in innocence and familiarity; I do not believe Negreanu to be racist in the manner we all should protest, that of evil intent. We are all racist or predujiced to some small extent, of course, and that's an inescapable part of the modern human condition; show me the person who doesn't have a prejudice and I'd be verifying the lack of a pulse. As for Negreanu, he clearly meant no ill will; he's just not 100% up to speed on the current ass-hatted, "play the victim" nature of American society, and a life spent at a high-stakes poker table, where race really does matter for nothing, does little to teach it. The odd thing is that if any group could or should have been offended, it should have been some Jamaican organization, not this whole "American anti-Black" thing that the debate has devolved into. Lord knows we have enough real victims in the world, no matter the color, creed or personal issue. Why invent others out of thin air?
Negreanu gets minus points here not for being racist, but for being a dunderhead in the fun of the moment. That he's compounded it by making other disingenuous statements is often irrelevant, more an exercise in his trying to back away from a quicksand pool now that he's ankle-deep in the mire.
Also, true to the nature of the world, Negreanu's received as much ill-advised support as rebuke. Those who support Negreanu often call out anyone who dares speak against him as a hater, someone who's just out to kneecap a famous person. This is simply untrue. The more famous a person becomes, the more newsworthy that person gets, because through the person's fame he is supposed to represent something that other people enjoy learning about.
Entertainers, athletes, and politicians are always open for comment because they are selling themselves; they are the product. Whether poker players are important enough to qualify is always a matter for debate, but it's clear that some players are --- people want to read about them or watch them. Also, any player willing to sign up for an endorsement contract is automatically fair game, because he's now placed a monetary value on his image and name; he is satisfying audience demand and accepting payment as part of the trade; he no longer has absolute control over his image in the marketplace of ideas. This clearly includes Negreanu. Maybe he doesn't quite get that, yet. Not that he'd be the first, as immortalized in Charles Barkley's classic "I ain't no role model" utterance.
Charles was full of b.s., of course, since he was taking money to fill some sort of role, whatever it was.
What's funny is that the video in question is appearing over at rawvegas.tv, which is designed to be controversial. Putting the video on a site that one can reasonably expect to be both cutting edge and non-PC is not an excuse for the video itself, but I sure hope Negreanu wasn't looking to Chops and Co. for guidance as to whether the video would be inoffensive to all audiences. Much as I think Chops and his new crew do some neat stuff, the last thing Chops would ever be is a PC filter. Nor, contrary to some persons' wishes, do we quite yet live in a Harrison Bergeron world.
People do silly and stupid things all the time. Negreanu, for his part, needs to either not do silly things, or to do them with full freedom and accept the consequences, rather than trying to renegotiate the world to his preference after the fact. Either is fine by me, not that anyone has asked. Until he figures it out, we're likely to keep getting these performances of smelly toes waving in front of Negreanu's face, whereupon he takes a bite and discovers that it is indeed a foot.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Party's Deal-Making Software a Flawed Application
I was sweating the final table of last night's this morning's "Deep-Stack Disconnection," a.k.a. the FTOPS Main Event, when I remembered that I had a little bit of oddball news saved up, with a supporting image grab. Sometime ago I tossed out a little blurpette about Party Poker's deal-making software having a hiccup that might have shifted payouts by a thousand or two in the $200,000 Guarantee back on Christmas Eve. I've now seen the same thing two more times, occurring in exactly the same way, and I'm convinced of it: Party's deal-making software has a pretty big bug.
If you're reading this in the States, you likely don't give a rat's ass, of course, but still, it's one of those things that's interesting for its own sake. Party spent some big bucks developing the deal-making system, and for all the hype, one could expect it to work perfectly. But it doesn't.
Here's how the bug unfolds:
1) The surviving players are noodling around with the idea of a chop as a break looms, which happens frequently;
2) The players agree to discuss terms sometime during the break, and they all click their "Deal" option buttons over to "Yes";
3) The break ends, and even though the software recognizes that the players want to discuss a chop, it starts dealing the first hand after the break, which always has increased blinds, too;
4) The players collectively say, "What the hell?" In most instances, there is little or no action on this hand; it's folded around to the big blind or a single pre-flop raise takes it down;
5) The players' chip counts change as a result of the hand that was dealt;
6) The software then enters deal-making mode, but does so with the chip counts as they existed before the previous hand, meaning as they were at the break;
7) The players scratch their heads again, and usually exit the deal-making algorithm, recognizing that the totals being used by the deal-making process don't match what they can see on their screens;
8) A second post-break hand is dealt, which changes the chip countsn again, and during this hand the players usually choose to re-enter the deal-making the process;
9) After this second hand, the second trip into the deal-making software now picks up the ocrrect chip-count totals, and a deal is usually struck. However, two hands have been forced to be played after the players themselves wanted to make a deal, and so the program itself has forced a change in the totals onto the players. This isn't how a deal is supposed to work.
I wouldn't expect you to take my word for it without some sort of proof, so here are images of the disparity illustrated above. These two images display what the chip counts actually were at the end of the hand and, moments later, once the flawed part of the deal-making process has occurred:
Compare the chip counts for the players from one image to the other, and you'll see that they don't match. This is because of the program bug. In this case some big dollars were at stake, meaning that the bug itself could have impacted the potential deal by hundreds of dollars, if not more, and it of course raises the possibility that the flaw itself has kiboshed some deals in other tourneys that the players themselves were ready to make.
Interesting stuff. If I ever see evidence that it's been fixed, I'll let you know....
If you're reading this in the States, you likely don't give a rat's ass, of course, but still, it's one of those things that's interesting for its own sake. Party spent some big bucks developing the deal-making system, and for all the hype, one could expect it to work perfectly. But it doesn't.
Here's how the bug unfolds:
1) The surviving players are noodling around with the idea of a chop as a break looms, which happens frequently;
2) The players agree to discuss terms sometime during the break, and they all click their "Deal" option buttons over to "Yes";
3) The break ends, and even though the software recognizes that the players want to discuss a chop, it starts dealing the first hand after the break, which always has increased blinds, too;
4) The players collectively say, "What the hell?" In most instances, there is little or no action on this hand; it's folded around to the big blind or a single pre-flop raise takes it down;
5) The players' chip counts change as a result of the hand that was dealt;
6) The software then enters deal-making mode, but does so with the chip counts as they existed before the previous hand, meaning as they were at the break;
7) The players scratch their heads again, and usually exit the deal-making algorithm, recognizing that the totals being used by the deal-making process don't match what they can see on their screens;
8) A second post-break hand is dealt, which changes the chip countsn again, and during this hand the players usually choose to re-enter the deal-making the process;
9) After this second hand, the second trip into the deal-making software now picks up the ocrrect chip-count totals, and a deal is usually struck. However, two hands have been forced to be played after the players themselves wanted to make a deal, and so the program itself has forced a change in the totals onto the players. This isn't how a deal is supposed to work.
I wouldn't expect you to take my word for it without some sort of proof, so here are images of the disparity illustrated above. These two images display what the chip counts actually were at the end of the hand and, moments later, once the flawed part of the deal-making process has occurred:
Compare the chip counts for the players from one image to the other, and you'll see that they don't match. This is because of the program bug. In this case some big dollars were at stake, meaning that the bug itself could have impacted the potential deal by hundreds of dollars, if not more, and it of course raises the possibility that the flaw itself has kiboshed some deals in other tourneys that the players themselves were ready to make.
Interesting stuff. If I ever see evidence that it's been fixed, I'll let you know....
Thursday, February 15, 2007
A Brief Non-Poker Discursion
I very, very rarely post non-poker content, but I've been playing around with the free "Google Earth" program, available for download on Google, and the program is cool. yes, Google always wants to mess with your other browser programs, but to be able to be enjoy something as neat as Google Earth, free of charge, I'm willing to put up with a little bit of hassle.
So what can you say about a progam that prevents a coherent, unified view of the world's high-def land-sat maps, all put into a structure that literally allows you to surface over the globa at will? While the resolution varies greatly, the shots are awesome if you happen to be curious about one of the regions where the photos are linked up at greatest resolution. I can check out my childhood home, or zoom in on an 8' satellite dish that I helped erect in a good friend's yard a couple of years back. It's all in the freakin' program.
It's a great program for checking out more exotic locales as well, such as this medium-resolution view of Wake Island:
Of course, it's a top-down look at the world, despite neat rotational tools that can make it seem as though you're skimming over the Earth's surface. It means that you can't really see signs such as this, so we'll just have to take it on good faith that they really do exist:
So what can you say about a progam that prevents a coherent, unified view of the world's high-def land-sat maps, all put into a structure that literally allows you to surface over the globa at will? While the resolution varies greatly, the shots are awesome if you happen to be curious about one of the regions where the photos are linked up at greatest resolution. I can check out my childhood home, or zoom in on an 8' satellite dish that I helped erect in a good friend's yard a couple of years back. It's all in the freakin' program.
It's a great program for checking out more exotic locales as well, such as this medium-resolution view of Wake Island:
Of course, it's a top-down look at the world, despite neat rotational tools that can make it seem as though you're skimming over the Earth's surface. It means that you can't really see signs such as this, so we'll just have to take it on good faith that they really do exist:
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Anatomy of a Cybersquatter --- Introduction: Binion’s Horseshoe on the Ropes
Las Vegas
It’s as an outreach of this original dispute that Harrah’s initially acquires a financial interest in the property. Behnen had assumed control of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in 1998, and that only after signing a long-term note compensating brother Jack Binion for his stake. Jack Binion’s interests are rolled into his Horseshoe Gaming Holdings corporation; they take the form of an in-default note from Becky Behnen worth as much as $20 million late in 2003, when Binion sells out his Horseshoe Gaming Holdings enterprise to Harrah’s. The total deal between Harrah's and Jack Binion, worth some $1.45 billion, takes place in late 2003 and includes this outstanding financial interest in the original Binion’s Horseshoe.
Harrah’s has interest in the growing
“Horseshoe” brandname and affiliated properties such as the World Series of Poker, but little interest in the old downtown casino property itself. And some of the workers at Binion’s Horseshoe come to view Harrah’s as the Vegas version of the “evil empire”. Among them is Federico Schiavio, and at Becky Behnen’s casino he was the computer guy, the information technology director, and the self-styled guru of all things computer-related regarding the World Series of Poker. That included the creation of a custom software application for the event. And post-deal at Harrah’s, except for short-term transition stuff, he’d have no job.
By most published accounts, Schiavio notices something at some point in 2003, as the financial situation at Binion’s Horseshoe grows dire and the viewed-as-predatory interest of Harrah’s builds. While there are any number of brand names, mottoes, and the like that have already been registered as trade names in connection with Binion’s Horseshoe and the World Series of Poker, one seems to have slipped through the cracks: No one has ever bothered to obtain the Internet domain name “wsop.com,” or register “WSOP” as a federal trademark... or so it has seemed.
It’s an oversight borne from an evolving market and trend towards acronyms and abbreviations in general, but with every passing day, the connection between the brand name “World Series of Poker” and the acronym WSOP”grows stronger. So Schiavio, certainly savvy in Internet matters, registers the wsop.com domain, but not on behalf of Binion’s Horseshoe -- he registers it in his own name.
The story, though, rolls on. Harrah's discovers Schiavio's registration of the wsop.com domain months later, sometime during the acquisition of Binion's Horseshoe. Negotiations with Schiavio soon turn acrimonious, entwined with Schiavio's control over the World Series of Poker software application and any short-term continuation of Schiavio's job. Civil lawsuits unfold, although they're all related to the same core dispute: Who will own the rights to the trademark and Internet domain name based on the WSOP acronym?
This series will highlight the history of the legal battle, and it will also include materials never before published, pulled together to show that at least a portion of Schiavio's claim is quite arguably and knowingly false. The evidence suggests that Schiavio has acted in bad faith not just once, but on several occasions; however, the evidence also suggests that Harrah's attorneys and research staff did a less-than-adequate job of due diligence, jeopardizing a perhaps stronger claim to the acronym and causing untold additional legal expenses that continue to this day. But perhaps the biggest stunner is that the battle for wsop.com has much older roots -- it is in fact one of the last outliers of the bitter war between siblings Jack Binion and Becky Binion Behnen for control of Binion's Horseshoe itself.
There's more to this, much more, so grab a beer, get comfy in the chair, and settle in.
© 2007, Haley L. Hintze. All Rights Reserved.
Creative Commons Rights Superceded on this Material.
Creative Commons Rights Superceded on this Material.
Link to Introduction
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
Link to Part 3
Link to Part 4
Link to Part 5
Link to Part 6
Anatomy of a Cybersquatter, Part I: Bad Blood Runs Deep
For the Internet, domain-name registrations go through various domain registrars and top-level clearing houses such as InterNIC, and are ultimately maintained under the auspices of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. That said, anyone can register a domain name, if no one else has already has claimed it; it is through this registration process that a uniform series of numbers, termed an Internet Protocol (IP) address, is assigned to that name.
Name: Jim Albrecht
Address: ....
The project seems to have remained on the back burner for nearly a year, evidence of just how lightly regarded the connection between the Internet and the World Series of Poker was considered at that time. Not until February 9th, 1998 was a major uploading of content uploaded to the Web, and it was major only in relative terms. A bit of the content already seemed dated, as if it had been written prior to the 1997 WSOP and had been plugged into an available spot, but the point remains: As of early 1998, the domain wsop.com existed, was full of content dedicated to the World Series of Poker, and was available for browsing to one and all on the World Wide Web.
And over on the left, a simple visual table offered links leading to brief background pieces on several topics, including the 1997 WSOP Main Event champion, Stuey Ungar, the Women’s Event champ, Susie Isaacs, and a handful of other features. One page, seemingly left incomplete, was intended to serve as a historical tribute to some of the earliest Main Event champions. Other pages recapped the schedule of events, a special “radio charity” tournament, press contact information (this was back in the days when the WSOP needed more coverage, not less), and several interesting statistical nuggets. Curious as to who the all-time WSOP money-winners were through 1997? The site offered a clean graphic displaying this information, part of which appeared as this:
All this might seem far afield from the story of the wsop.com domain battle, except for this: The highly regarded Jim Albrecht, who obtained personal ownership of the wsop.com domain name, was a loyal and important member of the Jack Binion camp. And as the "Becky" era began, anyone loyal to Jack either left on his own or was quickly shown the door.
One is tempted to assume that Jack Binion was the evil force in all this, but the poker world clearly took his side in the bitter war against Becky Behnen --- and in large part, that story is far beyond the scope of this tale. Numerous people knowledgeable about poker in the earlier days of the WSOP refer to Behnen and husband Nick with descriptors such as "stupid," "evil" and, of course, "hated;" one even referred to Nick as the "devious Nick Behnen." Such epithets are included here under no pretense of accuracy, but instead to illustrate the depth of ill will touching all those involved. Nick was not even a casino official, but his proclamations carried authority, even if they were later overtuned. People in the know universally use the word "dysfunctional" to describe Binion's Horseshoe at the time.
Did Becky Behnen demand that Jim Albrecht turn over the wsop.com site to her, free of charge? Or did she blow the matter off in its entirety? At the very least, Albrecht would have been due the nominal amounts he spent to register the name and house the site, which was originally set up through a Blue Diamond, NV web-design startup called The Internet ADvantage.
Albrecht had control of the wsop.com name, and he wasn't going to allow something that he owned, at that point without formal challenge, to serve Becky Binion's purposes. In December of 1998 the original World Series of Poker content was pulled down, and a full-screen banner was put up its place. It looked like this:
Perhaps, for Behnen and Schiavio, the fact that wsop.com had been owned by a loyal Jack Binion executive made it all the sweeter.
Link to Introduction
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
Link to Part 3
Link to Part 4
Link to Part 5
Link to Part 6
Domain Information
wsop.com
* Status: Expired
Registrar: NetworkSolutions, Inc.
Expires: February 21, 2003
Created: February 20, 1997
Registrant InformationRegistrar: NetworkSolutions, Inc.
Expires: February 21, 2003
Created: February 20, 1997
Name: Jim Albrecht
Address: ....
What's curious is that Albrecht acquired the domain in his own name, rather than under the auspices of Binion's Horseshoe. Perhaps it was a light-hearted experiment, or perhaps there was an open question among the movers and shakers at Binion's Horseshoe at the time as to the viability of "this Internet thing." This was 1997, remember, not 2006. A 1200-baud dial-up modem was quite acceptable, and the World Series of Poker was also only a small shadow of what it has become today. 1997's Main Event, the unlikely third and final Main Event championship captured by Stuey "The Kid" Ungar, had 312 entrants.
A second update was done in June of 1998, when a few of the site's components were updated; one such update announced the schedule for the 1999 Series. The site, though, was largely the same. Here's the central graphic that greeted visitors on the home page:
The war for control over Binion's Horseshoe was bitter beyond all comprehension, quite literally recalling the days when a mobbed-up Vegas settled its disputes by "disappearing" people out in the desert. By July of 1998, Becky Binion Behnen had assumed legal control of the casino, even as the real battle continued. James McManus, in his seminal poker shosetsu Positively Fifth Street, recounts Becky Behnen's first-person account of how a contract was placed on her head, then later rescinded. Another part of the tale for control touched on the "chocolate chip caper," involving a huge number of illicit, chocolate-colored $5,000 Binion's chips, reportedly created by Jack and Ted Binion in an attempt to break the casino and force Becky to resell to her brother. All this happened in the short period between the July takeover and Ted Binion's untimely and unconnected murder on September 17, 1998, one of the most famous crimes in Vegas history.
Were the $5,000 chips real? Fake? Those who would know, don't say. But what did happen was an episode where a handful of the chips, some $300,000 worth, were attempted to be redeemed by one of Jack Binion's closest friends, flamboyent gambler and erstwhile politician Bob Stupak. Stupak repeatedly tried to cash the chips and was just as repeatedly denied by Binion's cashiers, under the direct orders of Becky and husband Nick.
Stupak's increasingly hilarious attempts to cash the chips included bringing a camera crew to the casino, hiring the entire UNLV football team as bodyguards -- would that pass NCAA muster? -- and eventually, Stupak even donated one of the $5,000 chips to the church of Rev. Jim Grey, a strident critic of gambling (quite literally the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion), who was in Vegas to monitor the findings of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which was then holding its hearings at the MGM Grand. The chip was forwarded to Rev. Grey, who tried to cash it, and he was denied, too.
One is tempted to assume that Jack Binion was the evil force in all this, but the poker world clearly took his side in the bitter war against Becky Behnen --- and in large part, that story is far beyond the scope of this tale. Numerous people knowledgeable about poker in the earlier days of the WSOP refer to Behnen and husband Nick with descriptors such as "stupid," "evil" and, of course, "hated;" one even referred to Nick as the "devious Nick Behnen." Such epithets are included here under no pretense of accuracy, but instead to illustrate the depth of ill will touching all those involved. Nick was not even a casino official, but his proclamations carried authority, even if they were later overtuned. People in the know universally use the word "dysfunctional" to describe Binion's Horseshoe at the time.
Did Becky Behnen demand that Jim Albrecht turn over the wsop.com site to her, free of charge? Or did she blow the matter off in its entirety? At the very least, Albrecht would have been due the nominal amounts he spent to register the name and house the site, which was originally set up through a Blue Diamond, NV web-design startup called The Internet ADvantage.
Whether Behnen made an attempt to purchase the wsop.com domain from Albrecht, demanded it free or charge, or remained all but clueless abut the potential value of the name is unknown. What is known is simply that the domain remained in Albrecht's hands. It's highly unlikely that the two could have reached any sort of amicable deal or were even on speaking terms as 1998 neared its close. Yes, Jim Albrecht had paid a nominal fee to register the domain for a few years, perhaps a couple of hundred dollars, and what was a piddling sum like that worth in the context of the greater Binion-Behnen war? Despite that, though, some extreme personal nastiness must have occurred, enough to drive the highly respected Albrecht to an act of retaliatory spite.
. . . . . . . .
It must have been frustrating for Federico Schiavio, who reportedly joined Becky Behnen’s operation in early 1999, to recognize the viability of the Internet, to see that there had been a wsop.com web site, and to see that the opportunity had already slipped away. Becky had the files and the old content, but Albrecht claimed title to the domain. And there wasn’t any interest on the part of Behnen to do a new site immediately following the split from brother Jack, since there were far more important concerns on the board. Jack Binion's high-rolling friends had deserted the Horseshoe in droves, and the Horseshoe itself was in Vegas's struggling downtown, miles away from the bright lights of the Strip.
True, the Fremont Street Experience was still a fresh draw, but as the casino's owner, Behnen was on the hook for some of that as well, to the tune of more than $3 million. With no high rollers and a losing battle for the average Joe's gambling dollars, the Horseshoe entered a long, slow slide toward financial oblivion, or as a famous poker name described it, she and Nick "ran it into the ground." Jack Binion never needed to make those bogus chocolate chips, if in fact he did; the house was going broke, regardless.
One bright light remained in the Horseshoe's lineup, the annual pilgrimage to the Horseshoe by the world's best poker players for the World Series of Poker. A few big names boycotted the event during what became known as the Becky Years, but spurred in part by the explosion of online poker, the World Series still skyrocketed in growth. Yes, Chris Moneymaker's 2003 victory drop-kicked the WSOP into the mainstream, but the WSOP was already on the Autobahn, just not necessarily in the fastest lane.
After a hiatus in 1999, it became clear by 2000 that a web presence for the poker world's largest extravaganza was mandatory. Perhaps burned by the previous experience, and with that faux wsop.com porn site still in easy view, Behnen had no intent on letting another non-Binion's-owned site promote the World Series of Poker. Beginning in 2000, the official WSOP information on the web was found on the binions.com site, a development that Schiavio even refers to, obliquely, in his own public defense against Harrah's: “For a variety of reasons, Binion's Horseshoe did not want to own any domain names other than Binions.com and Horseshoe.com.”
Is this statement true and complete? It could possibly pass muster within the time frame of Schiavio's service at Binion's, but it is quite incorrect in view of the old history behind the wsop.com site. Binion's had never owned the wsop.com site, Albrecht had, and Albrecht's parting message on the site had almost certainly poisoned any thoughts on the part of Behnen to try to obtain and resuscitate the domain. Yes, Behnen could have probably launched a legal battle to obtain the site, just as Harrah's would do in 2004. Of course, the name was a whole lot less valuable back then.
Word travels fast within poker's inner circle, and it's likely that Schiavio was aware of Albrecht's deteriorating condition by, at the latest, early 2003. Dead men don't renew domain registrations, nor do dying ones, and Schiavio rightly guessed that the wsop.com domain name might become available once again.
Sometime prior to the end of February 2003, Schiavio put in a reservation for the wsop.com domain in case the existing registration lapsed. Albrecht had a far important struggle at hand than an old vendetta against Becky, and in the end, Albrecht succumbed, dying on October 16, 2003. At the time of Albrecht's death, Schiavio had owned wsop.com for almost five months.
Any assumption that Schiavio just stumbled across a vacant wsop.com name wouldn't be believable, not that he's ever made the claim. Schiavio, attuned to the latent value of the wsop.com name, was in a unique position to get to the front of the waiting line. In Schiavio’s words: “By early 2003, I registered WSOP.com for possible later registration with a service called SnapNames.com, if the domain later became available. On May 7, 2003, I received the domain registration for WSOP.com, and I immediately told Becky Binion Behnen about this registration and offered to transfer the domain name to Binion's Horseshoe. Ms. Behnen told me ‘you keep it’ as the Horseshoe was not interested in the domain name.”
In a separate legal document, Schiavio asserted that he was willing to make the transfer to Binion's for free, but was told "Good luck with it," declining further interest in the matter.
Yet the tale is oversold, and it's the point where Schiavio’s straw house of prior ownership claims in his battle against Harrah's begins to whistle in the wind. “Binion’s had never used WSOP as a trademark” is another way of saying that Binion’s never filed official trademark papers to register the acronym WSOP with the government. What it does not say is that Binion’s didn’t use the acronym WSOP -- because it had, and you'll see the proof in Part 3 of this series. Furthermore, not only was it used in conjunction with the World Series of Poker, but as just stated, the acronym WSOP was the series' original name of choice when creating an Internet presence.
The same sort of incomplete logic is used to sell the phrase “(Binion’s) did not want the domain name.” That may well be true, but it ignores the fact that wsop.com was already a property poisoned by those earlier events. It also ignores one other possibility: Despite being universally regarded as being uninformed on all matters Internet, Behnen may at least have recognized that allowing the domain wsop.com to remain in Schiavio's hands could well create an additional complication for Harrah's at a later date.
Becky Behnen likely hated wsop.com in the first place, but she still could have seen that outside ownership of the domaint as something that, if not exactly a poison pill, would at least be a thorn to that unwelcome suitor at the door, Harrah's. How else to explain the "Good luck with it" comment?
Because of this, the assertion that "Binion's saw no conflict" is not, on its face, believable. If there was no conflict, then Schiavio would have not needed to seek Behnen's approval in the first place.
Though Behnen may well have caused the animosity, the result was the same -- wsop.com was damaged goods. Either Behnen couldn't see through the old bad blood to understand that the wsop.com name would once again become a valuable, sought-after property of its own, or she did, but recognized that it could well cause problems to whoever assumed the World Series of Poker property, if that were to occur at a later date. If Behnen could hold on to the casino, then no problem -- Federico Schiavio was a faithful employee and something could be worked out. If not, and the WSOP went to Harrah's or back to brother Jack, then at least one small, last laugh was in order.
Next -- Part II: Cybersquatting 101
© 2007, Haley L. Hintze. All Rights Reserved.
Creative Commons Rights Superceded on this Material.
Creative Commons Rights Superceded on this Material.
Link to Introduction
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
Link to Part 3
Link to Part 4
Link to Part 5
Link to Part 6
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