Full Tilt Poker in the News

There has been several articles as of late about Full Tilt Poker. The first is a Poker News article calling Full Tilt a ponzi scheme. Here is a link. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/09/u-s-attorney-claims-full-till-poker-a-ponzi-scheme-lederer-f-11058.htm This article makes the whole thing look very fishy. They owed 390 million in payouts to players but only had 60 million in the bank. Did they see this coming and take as much money out as possible or was it just a poorly run company with owners that were used to big paydays. The 3 owners that were added to this suit are very well known in the poker world and well respected. I hope that they will do the right thing and try and make amends. My guess is for now they are stuck in silence because of pending trials or lawsuits. Did they actually know what was going on at Full Tilt? We may never even know. As someone who has been involved in a messy lawsuit, the only real winners are the lawyers that will make a lot trying to sort it out. The big loser continues to be the people that put there faith in playing the game that they love along with some of their hard earned money. I personally am out about $25. Small change in the whole scheme of 390 million and am sure that I got more then $25 of entertainment value from their site. Here is another link to a blog by someone that I respect talking about the above article. I think he has a real perspective on the whole mess. http://pablosplace.com/2011/09/21/the-full-ponzi-poker-scheme/

Next I would like to give my opinions on the state of the Epic Poker League. They have recently announced a deal to be on CBS, which in this current online poker situation is quite a feat. But, it seems all they are doing is getting negative publicity by almost weekly banning players from playing their events. Every professional poker player has some sort of skeleton in their closet. If you ban them all who will be left for us to watch. I have no interest in supporting their endeavor or plan on watching until they get their act together and figure what they are going to stand for. Here is their article on current suspensions http://www.epicpoker.com/news/blog-pages/2011/09/standards-and-conduct-lederer-ferguson.aspx. I thought in America you were innocent until proven guilty. I guess not!

Road to Milacs Finals

Yesterday was the road to milacs finals. I dealt most of the way and it was a very sick tournament. My table was relativly tight except when they did get into a hand it seemed to be a big one. Early on there was a raise by one player, a reraise by another and then an all in by another. the first bettor jumped out ocf his chair to the the all in, so I was pretty sure he had queens. He finally folded after much debate. Then it got to the reraiser, who is a player that could have reraised with about anything. About this time the all in guy starts in on the guy to fold because he is behind trying to say I got aces. After a long debate he folds and shows queens. The all in guy turns over KK, so he had the best hand by far and had both QQ's almost drawing dead and he is talking them out of calling him. If that's me I want a call from both and a chance to triple up. He makes a lame excuse about now wanting to see a flop with Kings. Wow! Really dude you have the second best hand and you don't want to get as many chips as possible. Big surprise that you didn't finish in a top spot. A little later we are on the payout bubble and my freind Dustin moves all in preflop, which on the bubble is strange move unless you have a big hand and just want to take down blinds. He ends up getting a call by Aces and then rivers a queen to win a big hand. The very next hand someone else moves all in with a big bet and Dustin calls for all his chips and turns over aces. The other guy has kings and rivers a king to take Dustin out on the bubble. It was to of the sickest rivers in row I have ever seen. This was a major hand as the guy that won the hand ended up winning the tournament. It was a fun day, except I didn't get to spend the day at the lake!