Groupe Bernard Tapie lawyer Behnam Dayanim dropped a major bombshell today as he traveled the poker world to deliver some grave news. In essence, during the due diligence process on GBT?s end, they found that the company had several outstanding debts with some professional players, both inside and outside the Team Full Tilt group. This story was reported on first by Pokerstrategy (by my co-host Matt Kaufman no less), then promptly re-confirmed by other sites such as Pokernews later, and twitter went into the usual mode of exploding at the people responsible for ?killing? the deal. One particular site, whom I won?t name because I don?t want to give them pageviews for their hyperbole, said in their title that Phil Ivey is blocking the FTP deal. Now, if you look at the title as it is, it sounds exactly like Chris Ferguson?s debacle, where he was ?threatening? to block the sale in order to recover some of the money he lent to the company, a concern that was proven false by Laurent Tapie himself just a couple days ago.

No, this issue stems from the fact that most players have not paid up and, up to this point, have not indicated they plan on doing so. Such names include recent winner of $2 million AUD Phil Ivey, prolific poker backer Erick Lindgren, and, oddly enough, Team Pokerstars Pro Barry Greenstein. I have to ask though, just how much of a poison pill is this debt?

Much Ado About Nothing

I won?t pretend to know exactly how much GBT is willing to pay for the assets of Full Tilt, but the raw numbers already put the sale at a sizable sum. It?s $80 million for the purchase of the assets from the DOJ, and $150 million (roughly) for a player fund so non-US players can get their money back. They are already getting a discount of $150 million in US player assets that they don?t have to pay back, but I assume they may have walked out if they had to pay that, so whatever.  You are talking about a sale price of over $230 million, and that?s just on day 1. I?m sure the costs of getting the site running, making it profitable again, etc, are going to add to the final price tag.

So you have to wonder, just how much of a danger is this $10-20 million? Dayanim states that he doesn?t want his client to deal with litigating all of these individual liabilities post-sale, and wants to get it all sorted out before the sale concludes. I, for one, think that this is entirely correct and is very likely GBT?s honest opinion of this situation. However, I do not think that this is a ?deal killer? that they are very cleverly suggesting that it might be. Even if they found additional liabilities that Full Tilt Poker has that they have to pay after the fact, I can?t imagine using the players as the reason for the backing off is the real reason. Now, they might see these player debts as a means to an end, an ability to close off some of these debts so the sale price doesn?t continue to go up, and of course I?m not going to start rattling off non-existent sources, because Tapie?s lawyer stated he can?t comment about it right now. But it does make you wonder, why did they bring this up now?

Tinfoil Hats?Activate!

Remember last week when Subject: Poker released that investigative report on Chris Ferguson?s bank accounts? Remember how angry you (likely) were that Chris might be holding up the deal? Yea, I get the feeling GBT saw that reaction, saw the debts during their due diligence, and a light bulb had to have gone off in one of their heads. As stated earlier, Laurent Tapie said that Chris Ferguson couldn?t do a damn thing to stop this deal, and I?ve conjectured that he wouldn?t follow through anyway because he?d be Satan, not Jesus, in this instance (yes, the irony of Ferguson being an atheist while using this example does not escape me). Well, if I?m looking at these debts, and I?m looking at the public reaction to the words ?deal stopper? and ?<insert player name here>?, what should I do to convince some of these recalcitrant players to cough up their money? Yea, I?d probably take to the media waves and say that these player liabilities are a ?serious obstacle? to the deal as well, it just makes rational sense. Couple that with the amusing timing regarding Phil Ivey coming out from the darkness and winning A$2 million and you have a recipe for Chris Ferguson-like reactions from the poker community.

OK, so the question is, did they do this on purpose? Without knowing when they found out about these player debts, I?m going to say yes, they probably did. Something strikes me as off that all of the sudden a maximum of $20 million is going to keep GBT from completing a $250 million transaction on a risky investment. Similarly, anyone worth their salary is going to pay attention to how the press is handling this, and when you see a reaction like we did last week with Chris Ferguson, you can?t help but put some of these players on trial in the court of public opinion. Some very specific names were dropped here, some we knew (Ivey and Benyamine being the two prime examples), and at least one we didn?t see coming (Barry Greenstein?!). Now, it?s worth noting that these debts are considered FTP assets (if FTP?s accountants had a lick of common sense), so I don?t know exactly what GBT is thinking is an issue here, unless there is a problem with the debts being dissolved as it goes through the liquidation process. This brings me to my conclusion on this:

In essence, I think that GBT really does think the player debts are an issue, but it?s not a deal breaker by itself. That said, if they can get the players to pay back their Full Tilt debt in some form before the transfer of ownership by putting them up to public scrutiny, then its win-win for GBT.

OK, so not really tinfoil hat, because I do acknowledge GBT has a point, but still, this wasn?t an ?out of the dark? press spree, this was done knowing how we would react, and I can?t help but feel a little off as a result.

Barry Responds

Up to this point, Greenstein has actually taken to responding on 2+2 about this matter, and, it being 2+2, there has been a?uh?lively discussion on the merits of this. Here?s the post directly from the site as of 7:06pm ET:

I have been inundated with calls from all the poker media sites regarding this, so it’s easier for me to respond in one place. Obviously, 2+2 has become the main place where people discuss online poker so I’m posting here. It would be nice if everyone who owes money discusses it openly so there is a better chance that they will make good on their debts and the money will end up in the pockets of players with balances on FTP.

My statement to the press and the poker community:

I borrowed $400,000 to play on Full Tilt a few years ago, before PokerStars had high stakes games. I didn?t pay it back, hoping that some people who owed me and had money on Full Tilt would pay me there so I could use that against the debt. (I’m only owed about $150,000 now). I have assumed when this case is resolved, the DOJ will allow methods for dealing with debt to FTP.

Tapie Group contacted me last week and asked if I would pay them directly. Their attorney offered me the opportunity to pay in installments so I could have a chance to use money owed to me. He even offered me the opportunity to discount my debt if the US players don?t get paid in full. I told him that I have never paid less than I owe on any debt and I would rather wait until the DOJ establishes a fund for the US players. I don’t believe my debt has any impact on the sale to the Tapie group as they have alleged. I was concerned about taking money due to US players and giving it to the Tapie Group because it is understood that the Tapie Group won’t be the one paying the US players. On the other hand, I realize that the total debt counting other players is substantial, especially because I would include in that tally any money taken from FTP once it had become insolvent.

Here is an excerpt from the letter I sent to their attorney:

?The consensus in the poker community is that all money owed to Full Tilt or taken by investors after the company became insolvent should be used to pay back player?s funds. If I were to make a deal with you it would look like I had turned my back on the best interests of the American players.

Even though the terms are easier for me if I deal with you and it will fulfill my legal obligation, I have to see how things work out with the DOJ and try to make good on my moral obligation to the US players. I assume at some time in the future the DOJ will establish a pool of funds from Full Tilt?s assets that will be used to pay off some percentage of the player balances that are owed.?

Now, its worth stating that Barry is the first, and thus far, only pro to address this issue, really at any point. Ivey had this thrust in his face after he filed his lawsuit back in May, but he never really had to respond to it. Now I have a problem or two with both sides of the issue. On the one hand, why is the Tapie Group asking for direct payments: they haven’t even taken control of the company yet. If anyone should be getting paid back, it would be the dried husk of a company that is Full Tilt Poker, or an individual at the company as the case may be (some suggested the money came directly from Ferguson, but that’s not confirmed). Is Barry right in holding off? Well, so long as Full Tilt is in Tiltware/Pocket Kings hands, yea, he at the very least shouldn’t be paying back GBT for it. I’m not sure if Barry could get the money to go into a DOJ pool, but if he was actively looking for a way to make that happen I’d be willing to throw a couple brownie points his way. The thread is ongoing and going quite strong as of right now so I’d head in that direction (if you can sift through the noise) to see what the general consensus is, but not paying GBT seems like the obvious move here. He should be paying back FTP only, at least at this stage. I think that the fact that Barry was even willing to respond says a lot about the man, and if he’s got a debt with FTP, he will eventually pay it back. How he does it though, seems to be open for debate.

I’ll put the tinfoil hat back on for a second and consider this. Again, these debts to the players should be considered assets, and anyone that’s going to go through the liquidation process as a trustee is going to see this and try to work out a plan to get that back. GBT stands a good chance of not being able to dictate the terms of that repayment, to the point where they may get a raw deal. In this particular case, GBT loses value on the company, and the worry is that they may lose significant value just by having someone in the US government dictating the terms, not their own lawyers. Thus, GBT is hoping to get the money themselves without having to go through liquidation via a seperate process, and again using the shame of block the deal that pays (if the DOJ cooperates) $300 million back to poker players. It strikes me as a tad dishonest, but they are taking a massive loss (hopefully) to give players their money back, so I have a tough time nitpicking if that money was going to go to paying back players. Seeing as I don’t know, all I can say is they are trying to get the cash before the DOJ has a chance to mess with it.

Conclusion

GBT is looking out for itself in more ways than one, and I don’t expect a business, particularly one that deals with acquisitions, to do anything differently. This is a complicated sale on a risky investment that is going to involve liquidating assets, giving them to the US Justice Department, then re-selling them to GBT with the hope that the DOJ won’t screw it up. When faced with a $10-$20 million asset that could get trimmed at a whim, GBT tried getting ahead of the problem by appealing to the masses to have the professional players pay that money back. But as Barry Greenstein has pointed out, he shouldn’t have to pay back GBT, and any money out of Full Tilt’s debts should, in theory, go toward paying back the massive debt on the players. I won’t say that either side is strictly wrong, but both sides are playing the angles, and we may have more to hear about this in the days to come.

It seems every week I declare someone a winner, they just flip back down to loser the very next week. I say this now because I did it to Phil Galfond in this week’s column due to his monster downswing. He captured the “no literally he lost this week” market while Chris Ferguson captured the “found guilty in the court of public opinion” market. Given this week’s news that Chris Ferguson isn’t the one to blame for the GBT/FTP/DOJ deal being held up (turns out its someone else), it kinda says something about how kneejerk reactions still exist for anything Black Friday related. As such, one of last week’s winners, Phil Ivey, is bound to come crashing down, but at the very least I note his accomplishments behind the felt.

Epic Poker - Winners & Losers: Aussie Million Winners and Online Poker Losers

Our tradition of missing big news by a day continues on the Rabbit Hunt. We covered all the news related to Full Tilt before today’s GBT bombshell, so at the very least you can get caught up on that front. Needless to say, we will likely be talking about today’s news next week. Still, there were other things to talk about, from Ivey winning the Aussie Millions SHR (apt timing at that), to changes in the WSOP schedule and Pokerstars rake, we have a packed program this week as always.

Cardrunners - Rabbit Hunt: 84

The word “independent” got tossed around in earnest back in mid-2011 when coverage of Black Friday, at least at first glance, appeared to be way less critical than it should have given the circumstances. In fact, many outlets proceeded to plug the wares of sites that hadn’t been indicted mere days after April 15th, and while I understand there was no other way some of these sites are going to get ad revenue, it still struck some as a tad irresponsible. As a result, several media outlets cropped out around the ashes of Black Friday, as well as at least one member of the old guard that still is sticking around in spite of (or partially because of) their stance on online poker. While I have nothing against the Bluffs, Cardplayers, and Pokernews outlets of the world, it doesn’t hurt to get a fresh perspective. Here are 5 that I think, if you haven’t been checking them out before, you definitely should. (The list is in no particular order, so don’t read into it anymore than you should.)

Pokerati (http://www.pokerati.com) – Disclaimer #1: OK yes, I know, I used to write for the site so I might be a tad bias in placing it on this list, but the blog gets read by thousands of people a day and remains one of the best “insider” blogs out there, certainly when it involves the Las Vegas poker seen (have you heard of the Pokerati game at the Palms?). Dan Michalski, the longtime EIC/owner/boss man over at the site can be credited with helping me maintain my CR position, get me the job over at Epic Poker, and still says I am a capable writer, which means a lot to me because that means even though I left for greener (read: paying) pastures evidently I do deserve what I get. Likewise, the man and his team of bloggers know what they are talking about, and I’d always recommend Pokerati for a read to those that want to learn more about the inner workings of poker.

Quadjacks Radio (http://www.quadjacks.com) – Disclaimer #2: I have shit on Quadjacks in public. I just have. I used to complain about the way they go about doing things, and am annoyed when the conversation turns into what amounts to a populist 2+2 rage. With that complaint out of the way, I can’t see a poker landscape without these guys. Brought in by their 24-hour coverage of Black Friday (of which I definitely participated), the site grew from a small interview site to one of the bigger independents out there. They do cater to the 2+2 crowd as I said, but that is perfectly fine, and they are really good at what they do. Before this sounds too much like a backhanded compilment, I will say this, for daily poker needs, give these guys a listen. Recently they’ve been giving specific timeslots to others for shows (such as Jared Tendler getting his own show based on the mental aspects of poker), and I think that will work very well for them. I would say these guys are filling the gap that Pokerroad created when they went into hibernation post-BF, and Quadjacks is doing a hell of a job carrying that torch.

Subject: Poker (http://www.subjectpoker.com) – Created almost in direct response to the wave of unsubstantiated rumor-mongering in the post-atomic horror, Subject: Poker is the brain child of 2+2 poster NoahSD and others. They focus more on investigative journalism more than anything else, opting to release quality articles infrequently rather than the normal stories every day. Thus far, its worked really well, although they haven’t been without their own missteps too (Merge to be indicted last September anyone?). While I would love to find out how they get some of the information they get, I am content with just reading what they have to offer, and given the fact the rest of the poker media eats up the articles they write, you probably should too.

Pokerfuse (http://www.pokerfuse.com) – Disclaimer #3: These guys actually have some nice things to say about my podcast, so I may have formulated my opinion around that. Still, this is a general poker news site that does really well at what it does. They are trying to start up a profitable business without resorting to the affiliate model (per their FAQ), and while that is going to be difficult in the current climate, it is by no means impossible. As with many of the other sites, they have something unique to offer in what they write about, so they definitely make the list as well.

Wicked Chops (http://www.wickedchopspoker.com) – I’m just doing this because..well..they are Wicked Chops, and to round out my five sites to go to. They are definitely in the “old school” category but always have decent stuff posted, and even have decent summaries for their paywall articles, which I give a big tip of my hat for.

I strayed from individual blogs (Pokerati is far from that at this point), but you get the gist. I’m sure, even if you have heard of one, two, or even three of these outlets, there is at least one you haven’t checked out yet. Give the indie sites some love.

Unlike last week, the Winners and Losers column didn’t have any “dangerous” topics to cover this time around. I can’t help but feel I’m getting what’s coming to me, because I managed to have news to report on throughout the holidays but now, in the middle of January, interesting news is becoming harder to come by. Still, stuff did happen, from winners over at the Aussie Millions to a couple more law-related nonsense being kicked around the world of poker. Some of it is good (Iowa may be the next state to legalize online p…wait…Iowa?!) and some of it is bad (the superuser scandal looms large again). Oh, and I would hate to think that mentioning Phil Galfond slightly late (but not that late) isn’t warranted here, the man (who has sense lightened his bankroll considerably and will probably make my “losers” end next week for the over $600k hemorrhage) has a few good ideas on where online poker should go if it wants to remain viable.

Epic Poker - Winners & Losers: Australia and Iowa Win, More Online Poker Losers

Its the podcast that keeps on giving. We managed to record a mere two hours after the Subject: Poker Chris Ferguson story popped, and we were able to give our knee-jerk analysis. We actually concluded that while there was clearly a moral failing if he went after his money (hold up $300 million in payments for your own $14 million…what?), legally he might not be on such shaky ground, and objectively he might be entitled to that money. Key word there is might because neither Matt nor myself are lawyers, but the best part of owning a podcast is that we can sound smarter than we really are. We also put a “bet” on whether Phil Ivey would win the Aussie Millions made event (he busted 12th), so I might be digging up a thing of two Matt had said last week.

I had someone tell me we have turned into a decent replacement to The Poker Beat, and while I would argue we will never come close, I appreciate the sentiment. You should check out the show to see what you think.

Cardrunners - Rabbit Hunt: 83

I’m obsessing about a talk I’m giving at one of my favorite conferences, code4lib.  My talk proposal is about how we deal with whatever metadata comes our way.  For those of you not inside my head at this moment, “we” is where I work, part of which is in developing software for and maintaining a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS).  A digit asset is just a computer file, or set of files – often a picture, sound file, PDF, or video – that you have some desire to promote beyond just sitting on one person’s computer, unmanaged.  We all have computer files coming out of our ears, but we know there are some that are more “valuable” than others that we’d like to give special treatment.  So we call them digital assets and get then moved into some sort of management system beyond the random file systems on our desktops.  This system is a DAMS.

I see a DAMS as a secure, reliable file system set up with good organization rules, and a goal of making the assets easy to find.  Here are some of the rules I like to see followed:

Good Organization

• Describe the assets as thoroughly as possible and/or practicable.  This is your metadata.
• Save this metadata and keep it associated with the assets.
• Keep the metadata in a system that is flexible enough to be able to accomodate attributes that you didn’t know about when you started – people change their minds about what they want all the time.  We chose RDF for this and this is what my talk will be about.
• Create unique identifiers for the assets.  We chose the ARK spec for this.

Reliability

• Store the assets as simply as possible – don’t create a new file system because no one is going to understand it 30 years from now.  We chose the Pairtree spec for this.
• Back your assets up – think like an IT person and have a data lifecycle plan.
• Preserve your assets and metadata – think like a Librarian/Archivist and store the assets in at least three, geographically separated places.  We use Chronopolis for this.
• Export your metadata to the file system on a regular basis – this way the metadata becomes a digital asset/computer file too.

Discoverability

• Put all that lovely metadata into a full text search index.  We use solr for this.
• Tie all of the metadata to the unique identifier for the assets.

As I noted above, I’m only talking about RDF and metadata at code4lib.  What I’m obsessing about is that the talk is only 20 minutes.  I usually talk about our DAMS in about an hour, and I’m only getting warmed up in the first 20 minutes.  So I’ve got to empty my head of all this other DAMS stuff and laser down on just the RDF and metadata part.

We didn’t choose RDF because of the newish Linked Open Data (LOD) movement. Our (now retired) architect, Chris Frymann, was aware of the possibility but this was nearly ten year ago and LOD was barely a twinkle on the horizon.  Previous to this job, I had been working in industry for years, so this approach looked silly and academic.  Once Chris had me drink the RDF Kool-Aid, we envisioned a system that embraced flexibility from the start.

RDF is so simple and so terrifyingly different from the fixed database world that I was used to.  Instead of a well defined table, or tables, we had millions of triples.  We didn’t even have a triple store, just three columns in an SQL database.

What is wonderful about this approach was that each triple is somewhat self documenting.  A triple is made up of a Subject, a Predicate, and an Object:

We use our asset’s unique identifier, the ARK, as our Subject.  Now we needed to describe the assets with their metadata – so we started creating Predicates that could hold types of metadata.  Three years later…. no really.  This was probably one of the hardest things to do, and I’m not sure we’ll ever stop doing it.  Some of our original assets had MARC records, and there were ways to convert MARC to RDF.  Lots of deep discussions among metadata librarians, asset owner librarians, and the tech folks came to the conclusion that we wanted to cast our metadata into specific namespaces, namely MODS, PREMIS, and MIX.  This was way beyond the Dublin Core defaults that other products were using, but we knew RDF was flexible enough to accomodate just about anything, so we just did it.

Guided by the head of our Metadata Analysis and Specification Unit (MASU - lots of great detail at that link), Brad Westbrook, we started specing out what the metadata needs were for each asset.  Ok, that’s a lie… We did it per “collection” which was how we actually received assets from the librarians.  Our DAMS works at the asset level, but our librarians normally think at the collection level.  This was just another layer of translation that the MASU group stepped up to play a liaison role in getting the assets ingested.  Over time, this became a workflow where:

1. Collections are identified/approved for ingestion into the DAMS.  (The project management and institutional buy in on this process is another talk!)
2. MASU creates an Assembly Plan that maps the assets into collections and specifies what namespaces the metadata pieces are placed in and hand it off to IT Development
3. IT Development creates mapping scripts from what the Assembly Plan calls for into RDF.  This is done in XSL.
4. IT Development ingests the assets into the storage system and parses the metadata into RDF in the triple store.
5. Profit.

Ok, someone tell me how to get all that into 20 minutes…  The Assemble Plan alone is an intense spreadsheet and text document that explains what is needed.  Then the translation scripts are another challenge to present without everyone going cross eyed.  Not to mention this thing of beauty!

That’s all of the metadata and relationships of one asset.  Maybe I’ll just put that on the screen and take questions for 20 minutes…

My Epic Poker column is getting some extra attention this week because I called out (I guess) Steve Brecher for his blog post about the Bike being unfair. The point I was trying to make was that there was enough notice out there that he may have been able to just not show up, thus avoiding the situation. As such, I called the idea that the Bike wouldn’t be doing this “silly” because there were several locations to get this info, including 2 press releases, the structure sheets, and the site that was hosting the broadcasts. I thought, whatever, throwing a little jab at Mr. Brecher for causing a stir at The Bike didn’t make him one of my Losers, just worth mentioning. Well, apparently, “silly” is synonymous with “fucking stupid”, because people pounced on that word like there was no tomorrow, and the arguments are WELL beyond my point and have strayed that way pretty much the whole time. The discussion has gone all over the place, from twitter to the post itself, so you can check it out if you want to weigh in. But really, there isnt much to it, and even if the Bike had made a mistake its not likely to repeat the error, and other casinos will take note, so its not likely to become a real issue (again, if there even is one).

Oh yea, and I talked about actual Winners (Duhamel for instance) and Losers (Duhamel’s ex for instance) as well.

Epic Poker - Winners and Losers: PCA Winners, Criminal Court Losers, and Rebellions (sort of)

Things are at least a little bit tamer on Rabbit Hunt. This week we have started to release permanently on Thursdays, if only because Tuesday nights were getting harder for me to fulfill. We talked about Phil Galfond’s blog on the state of online poker and needless to say, for a couple guys that can’t even play right now, we sure had a lot to say about the issue. In the second segment we remark on karma working in Jonathan Duhamel’s favor, a new UB lawsuit from the Superuser Scandal era (doesn’t that seem quaint now?), and Ira Rubin is (probably) going to prison for Black Friday related charges.

Cardrunners - Rabbit Hunt: 82 - (iTunes Download Page)

Pokerstars recently attempted to change the rake as well as the VPP distribution method, and as a result, poker forums such as 2+2 have been in crisis mode ever since. As was stated on my podcast by Joss Wood earlier this week, Pokerstars is effectively the “lone superpower” in the online poker industry, and as such they have the ability to dictate policies that help both players and the industry as a whole. While the discussion on how the 2+2 representatives to the Isle of Man are in the early stages, signs that Pokerstars is listening to players can be seen in their recent concessions to French players. And while these concessions still leave high-volume players in a worse position than in 2011, its at least something. But over the last few months poker rooms across the industry have been limiting options for winning players in an effort to “level the playing field”. This has taken various forms:

• Bodog (Anonymous tables): This was probably in part to combat the data mining efforts of sites like PokerTableRatings, but Bodog also stated that this combated bum-hunting and leveled the playing field. Never mind that I think anonymous tables are anything but poker, but Bodog made this an implementation across every table on the site. There was a (rather easy) workaround that allowed people to get user ID numbers from the client, which was a huge security risk in its own right, but that wasn’t by design.
• Everleaf Network (restricting access based on winnings): If you play on Everleaf (and yea I know there aren’t many of you that do), then you have to be careful about how much you win. If you win more than 750 euros in a given week, you are subject to being restricted from tables because “your player rating is too high.” Everleaf claimed it affected only a minute percentage of their player base, and would allow for “easier” games now that the sharks have a limited allowance. The cap was reset weekly, and it didn’t limit Everleaf players from playing on all tables, but it was still pretty bad.
• Pokerstars (Lower VPP generation, changes to rake): This one we know about, as it is the most recent occurrence of a site getting “back” at winning high-volume players. Addressed in the intro, the Pokerstars changes included a shift from the dealt method to the weighted contributed method for determining VPPs for a given hand. On top of that, Pokerstars moved to switch to a more linear system of getting rake, rounding to the cent instead of 5 cent increments like in the past. The latter was removed shortly after protests were getting louder on forums, but the fact that high-volume players are seeing a 10-20% drop in VPPs has, to date, not been resolved. Unlike the last two, Pokerstars does seem amenable to hearing player concerns, and 2+2 is sending people to the Isle of Man to put forth their proposal.

As you can see though, many sites are tightening their grip on winning and high-volume players one way or another. Players are concerned that with win rates being what they are, it’s hard to maintain a presence in the big games if the sites are going to make it harder for them to stay in business. From the site’s perspective, with Black Friday effectively cleaving the player pool by 30%, there is a bigger desire to keep afloat with what they’ve got left, and certainly in Pokerstars’ case you have to acknowledge they are probably gathering quite the legal bill.

I think though, at this point, is that many sites are following the same path that another industry I follow does, the video gaming industry. Yes, its a vice, but I play a lot of video games, and particularly ones that involve playing with others (read: MMOs and first person shooters). Like clockwork, a wave of complaints always occurs when the content is perceived to be “dumbed down” in order to create a level playing field. “Hardcore” players deride this as making the game more suitable for “casuals” and I can’t help but feel similar statements are being used in the fight 2+2 posters are making here. Which, is a shame, because it ignores a key reason video game and online poker companies alike do things like this: they are trying to make money, and its better to appeal to the 99% than the 1%  (to abuse a OWS cliche). In gaming, everyone pays a static amount into the system, so raw increases in subscriptions or sales is going to drive this push toward the recreational gamer.

The analogy breaks down, admittedly, when discussing online poker businesses and their changes to make games more “recreationally” friendly. Sure, more players is a good thing and all, but if all they are doing is playing 25NL because the rake is too much and winning is, for all intents and purposes, punished, then you probably aren’t going to make more money as a site in the long run. Subsequently, you know that a certain percentage of the players you are attracting by “punishing” the sharks will then themselves become sharks, so it punishes the successful players at the expense of the novices (to abuse some sort of Tea Party cliche, just to show I play both sides).

What is the answer to this? Given the number of players on sites like Bodog and Everleaf, I doubt anonymous tables and restricting winnings will ever truly catch on, so I am not too worried about that. What I am worried about is the kinds of changes Pokerstars is making. They are the undisputed ruler of the online poker world right now, and usually being the superpower causes you get a bit arrogant at times. Fortunately, Pokerstars has shown they are willing to give a little, it just depends on how much they will listen to the 2+2 crew when they arrive in the Isle of Man for a discussion on rake.

Its an odd balance that sites like Pokerstars have to address. How do you make your high volume players (which arguably contribute more rake as an individual) happy while increasing your business by making your tables friendly to new players (which will increase revenue as a collective group). The War on Winning that poker sites was starting to get a little ridiculous, but it may take a poker titan and a ragtag group of forum posters to try to put a stop to it.

Every week I do have obligations to various (read: two) media outlets for which I do media work about poker. It’s not much (compared to the people that do this for a living), but its enough to keep me informed of what’s going on in the poker industry while the Dark Ages of Poker (patent pending) persist in the United States. That said, here’s what we have for this week.

For writing I write for the Epic Poker League’s news site, and go over the week’s stories and distill them into a “Winners/Losers” format. Obviously there will be a heavy amount of bias, but that’s the point, its an op-ed as to what I would think people in the poker industry would consider the winners or losers in a particular news cycle. This week I took a look at various pros that were doing well at PCA and WSOP-C: Los Angeles, why some Nevada casino bosses need to shut up, and why I am glad some judges can deny bail.

Epic Poker - Winners and Losers: Tournaments Heat Up, Nevada Cools Down, Crime Doesn’t Pay

Cardrunners has been gracious enough to let me and my co-host Matt Kaufman rant for an hour a week about the latest poker news, and as the link below suggests, we’ve done over eighty of these things. This week we discussed how 2+2 was “fighting for the common poker player” after Pokerstars offered to fly people to the Isle of Man for discussions on how rake is generated for the site, and Joss Wood (username: xPeru), was kind enough to drop by to give us his take on the issue. He is one of the people that will be going to Pokerstars to address the issues, and it looks like they have a solid plan in place, we’ll just have to wait and see how it turns out. The second half is (admittedly) a bit of a rehash of my Winners/Losers column, but since I write on Monday and record on Tuesday, its not like there is much time for anything else to happen in the news, so it seems fair.

Cardrunners - Rabbit Hunt: 81

Saturday 12/31/11

So, I have an iPad – 64G, 3G, ATT.  It’s a work device that I use all the time, especially for travel and in the gym so I have something to distract me from 40 minutes of hell on the elliptical.  Over the holiday break, I committed to getting into the gym every other day.  Our YMCA was open until 4p on New Year’s Eve, and I was sweating my fat butt off right up until the place closed.  I took a quick stop in the men’s room, and hustled out the door as they were closing up.

Sunday 1/1/12

It was later on the next day that I realized that I couldn’t find my iPad.  I looked in all the usual places, scoured the house and car, and tried out the “Find My iPad” app on icloud.  Once it didn’t show up, I realized that I must have left it in the men’s room at the Y!    Well, the Y was closed all day, so I left voicemail there and told myself to get to bed early so I could hit their door at the 5:30am opening on 1/2.  I also changed all my passwords, and deactivated the device from all the important services.

Monday 1/2/12

I actually went to bed at 1am (damn Skyrim), but was up and out the door at 5:20a and at the Y at 5:30a.  My buddy Damon was also just pulling up for a very early swim class, because he is insane.

We walked in and I asked at the front desk if the iPad had been turned in, but nope.  I wasn’t surprised, as they’d been closed up solid since I left it, so I walked over to check the men’s room.  Uh oh, no iPad…  I went back to the front desk and I filled out a slip saying what I’d lost and the nice young lady said they’d talk to more staff as they came in later.  In fact it might take until tomorrow as there were people still out on the the holiday break.  I was upset, but mostly at myself for leaving it behind. I kept trying the “Find My iPad” app, but nothing.  I saw there was a way to send a message to the iPad, so I put my phone number in there.  I also noticed a switch that would send me an email when it was found – so I hit that too.  I printed some LOST IPAD signs, and went back and stuck them up around the Y.  Worried, but feeling like I’d done all I could, I went about my day, keeping my eye on my email and occasionally trying the app again.

Then at 9:29p:

Woohoo!  Someone at the Y found it and turned it on, right?!?  I ran to the computer and hit the location link, expecting to see a map of my neighborhood and the Y.  Instead, the device is showing up about 24.4 miles to the south, in a town called El Cajon!

I have a screen grab of the map with the green dot locating the iPad right on a specific address, but I’m not sure of I should post that.  I’ll get into that more later.  Basically, I KNEW where my iPad was, and it was nowhere NEAR the place I’d lost it.  Suddenly I had a theft situation rather than a dummy-lost-his-iPad situation.  So I did what a normal person would do and called the police.

I called the San Diego Police non-emergency line and explained the story so far to what sounded like a very overworked lady.  She asked if there was a police report, and I said no because I just now discovered that it was stolen.  She directed me to a web site to fill out a form to get the police report started.  I got a little panicked and said “but I can see it now!  Why can’t we go get it?!” to which I got more of a push toward the web site to fill out a report.  I’m sure those of you who know I run an IT shop and highly promote a central ticketing system are just laughing your heads off at this delay… but, to my mind, time was of the essence!  I pressed harder and she said she could give me the El Cajon Police Dispatch number, but wasn’t sure what they might do for me.

So I called them and they listened to the story, then asked for a police report.  Le Sigh – I don’t have one because… blah blah – go fill one out and call us back.  Ok, back to the web site, filled it out, grumbled about UI design, got the confirmation email and number, and called back El Cajon.  They said come on down and we’ll have a squad car meet you by the address and do a “Peace Call.”  It’s 10:30p by now, and I’m all amped up from the situation, so Elaine says she’s going with me.  We hop in the car and head south for the 20-30 minute drive.

On the drive, Elaine has the “Find My iPad” app going on my iPhone, but it goes red, meaning that the device is no longer on.  We’re committed tho, so we keep going – at or below the speed limit, of course.  We get to the arranged meeting spot at 11p, on the same block as the address that showed up on my map, and wait.  In a little bit of a sketchy looking place.  Surrounded by suspected iPad stealers!  At about 11:40p I call back to dispatch and they say no one is available, but they know we’re waiting.  About five minutes later, 2 squad cars pull up and I get to tell the story again.

The cops were great, and offered to go knocking on doors, but that address is a 50 unit apartment complex.  Given that GPS can be +/- 25m, the dot on my map could encompass 6-8 apartment units in the 2 story building.  Added to that, the building is “known cop-unfriendly” and not a nice place.  As soon as they started asking questions, everyone would know about it, and I’d probably never see my device again.  And since the device was no longer responding to the app, I couldn’t make it sound off to make it easier to find.

At this point, I was frustrated to know that I was within a block of my iPad, but could do nothing about it.  The cops offered a few suggestions, such as sending a message to the unit offering a reward, and to watch Craigslist, – something I should have thought of myself!  They were both adamant that I NOT meet with anyone from Craigslist without the police.  They told me of someone who’d been killed in San Diego not long ago after confronting a Craigslist person.  They also suggested sharing the address with the people at the Y to see if an employee or member matched.  We drove back home, defeated and deflated.  I sent a lock command to the device, setting a password and with the reward message,  then we headed to bed.

Tuesday 1/3/12

On the way to work on Tuesday, we stopped into the Y and talked with a manager, telling her the whole story.  She happened to also be the HR person and said they had no one working in El Cajon, but that they contracted out their cleaning and they’d follow up with them.  I then headed into work and one of my guys suggested that I send a wipe command from our email server.  Even though I’d changed my email password, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to also wipe my work email from it, so I did.  More on that later…

Wednesday 1/4/12

In the meantime, I’d been watching Craigslist, and got a match!  64G iPad, 3G, ATT!  So I set up a fake gmail account and mailed the Craigslist email address.  I also mailed one of the cops for advice about how to deal with the mails I would send, and he got back to me with some thoughts.  I got a response back soon after I went to bed from the Craigslist person, asking how close I was to his asking price, and if I could come get it now.

The facilities manager at the Y called me on Wednesday, very upset about the whole situation, and said he was following up with the cleaning people.  I later ran into him when I was working out and he was very nice and concerned that the cleaning company hadn’t gotten back to him.  I could really tell he cared personally and as a representative of the Y.

Thursday 1/5/12

The Craigslist response back was from a hotmail account with a person’s name, so I passed that name on to the cops in email and with a call to the Y facilities manager.  It was probably a made up account, but it was worth trying.

I had to run out of town for a day for work, so I didn’t reply back to the Craigslist person until tonight, asking for more details about the iPad he was selling – as advised by the cop.   I got back a very short reply saying “Too bad, I sold it for $200″ and that was it.  I mailed back thanking him for the info, thinking that I might be able to squeeze more info later by being nice.

Friday 1/6/12

So, now we’re up to Friday, and nothing seems to be happening.

Saturday 1/7/12

On Saturday morning the phone rings at 9am.  It was a lady from the Y asking if I’d lost an iPad, because they had it at the front desk!  I said “very interesting!” and that I’d be in to pick it up.  I went right over and it was my iPad, grey cover and all!  I asked the ladies at the desk if they knew more about where it came from.  One of them said that she’d closed the night before and that it wasn’t there, but when she’d opened this morning, there it was on the front desk!

The device was all out of power, so I got home and plugged it in, trying hard not to touch it too much because I had some thoughts of trying to lift the fingerprints I’d see on it (this is a lot harder than you’d think… ).  I’d fully expected the device to be wiped to factory default – especially if it was being sold off – but it popped up with my background screen (which includes my name) and all my apps installed.  It also started syncing with my Mac over wifi, so I left it alone to charge up and get caught up.  I was a little worried that maybe it had some phone home software installed or something, then I remembered that I’m not that interesting.

I did not have a password on the device when I lost it, mainly because it’s a pain in the neck to use it all the time, and because my wife and kid use the device sometimes and I didn’t want to keep reminding them of the password.  I thought I’d dealt with this by sending the lock and password command when it was gone, but I was surprised that the device asked for no password when I turned it on.  In fact, I was able to play around with it for about 20 minutes with no problem.  I also noticed that my reward message wasn’t on it.  It wasn’t until I ran the “Find My iPad” app again from icloud that the lock came on and the message appeared.  I don’t know why the lock didn’t happen as soon as the device got power.

Another lovely feature was that work email wipe command I’d sent.  I assumed that it would wipe my email – but nope, it wiped the whole device!  The iPad had been prompting me for my email password, since I’d changed it days ago.  I went ahead and put it in, looked away, and when I looked back, the device was wiped and asking for a setup language!  So, no worries about spy software, but that was a surprise.  I ran a restore from my computer and it all came back in about 30 mins.

Sunday 1/8/12

Imagine my surprise this morning when it was wiped again!  I guess I needed to totally delete the device from my work email server’s awareness for it to stop trying to wipe it.  I’m afraid to put my work email password into it now tho!  ;)

By now the device is in full working order and I’m back on track!

Monday 1/9/12

But I’m left with a LOT of questions!  I called and left a voicemail with the Y facilites manager.  He called back, unaware that I’d gotten it back!  He was thrilled and I asked, “What did you do?!?”  He said he still hadn’t heard back from the cleaning company, but he was even more interested in talking to them now.  I am dying to hear what he learns!

Tuesday 1/10/12

I’m gonna go ahead an publish, even though there are a lot of questions unanswered.  I’ll add more later as I know it.  I’ll also tack some other lessons learned on here, and more as I think of them:

• I should have put a password on the device.  Even if it’s a pain in the neck.  I could have reduced the stress of the situation by knowing that the data were safe.
• I thought that having a map with a green dot on an address would ensure I got my iPad back pronto.  Thank goodness, cops follow the Constitution and won’t kick doors in based on a map I printed up.  I REALLY wanted them to, but it would have been dumb.  Now, had the device been active and I could have made it make a sound, the cops would have done a lot more.
• Fill out a police report as soon as you can.  No one will do anything until you have that magic report number.  I learned during filling it out that I could have filed under “Lost Property” when I knew the device was missing.  I didn’t have to wait until I thought it was a theft.
• Don’t hold your breath waiting for the cops to do anything.  I have never heard from the San Diego police.  I just filled out a web form and it went into a black hole.
• The San Diego area has a lot of police forces.  El Cajon is a totally different jurisdiction.  I remarked to the cops I met how it seemed that they cared a ton more than the police closer to my house.  They said that while El Cajon is certainly underfunded for police (hence my 45 minute wait in the parking lot), SD City is decimated.
• Wipe means wipe!  Well at least from the Outlook web client.  And don’t forget to take the device out of the known list and re-add it later, or you’ll get wiped each time the devices talk.
• Customize your device if you can.  I had a known dent on mine, but think about the Craigslist picture and how you could help convince the cops that it’s your device that’s listed.  No, don’t dent the device, work people… But silly stickers don’t hurt.
• The folks at my Y are great and take member concerns very seriously.  Well, except for widening the entrance turnstile for my fat butt!  ;)
• Tweeting vague references to a big story you are going to write up really aggravates people.  Do it often!  ;)

I’m leaving San Diego in less than two weeks, so I’m starting to notice in the back of my mind that I’m doing certain things for “The Last Time”. You know, like, this is The Last time I’ll fuel up at the Chevron by my house. Or: this is The Last Time I’ll have sushi in San Diego.

Except I’m not quite that close to leaving, yet. Most things I do, I’ll do a few more times. It’s only The Last Time I’ll do some pretty obscure things.

Yesterday was The Last Time I’ll be held up at the train crossing? by two trains going opposite directions. Today was The Last Time I’ll fuel up at the Chevron by my house? when I was already going east? in the morning. Tomorrow will be The Last Time I go to my research meeting? to the Friday meeting? on my bike.

It feels like a suburban kindergarten version of the detachment process: Everyone’s drawing gets a gold star, whether or not they even picked up a crayon; every dumb mundane thing I do gets promoted to the ‘Last’ that dumb mundane thing.

Oh, I think I forgot to say in previous posts. I’m moving to San Francisco. Excellent location, vicinity of 15th and Market, near public transit, walking distance from Haight and Castro and Mission and their scads of wonderful bars. Come visit, we’ll test that theory, just to make sure it still holds, like they do in science. Yes of course you can crash on the couch.

I managed to get my hands on the Diablo 3 beta the other day, with the timing disturbingly similar to my finals schedule (only one more quarter of these things…). Not about to let that deter me I played through the monk class and played through to the skeleton king, and I feel it worth to give my first impressions after my first 3 hour playthrough of Diablo III. These thoughts are based on not pouring over new details when they happen or looking at prior beta runs, so if they seem intuitive to you well, congratulations.

Things I Liked

• The “mana” system: OK, so I only played the monk, I’m purposely saving some of the other classes for streaming because I haven’t seen very many of them (which means you wont see me play through with a demon hunter either…at least not at level 1). That said, I really liked the system of building using general attacks and then throwing out some burst damage for tougher/tight groups of enemies. One of the best parts of Diablo was being able to just spam your skills, and in essence that is all you do. Unlike Diablo 2 though, you arent starving for mana for the first 20 levels (I played a paladin, we ran out of mana fast in the beginning). A nice improvement
• The crafting system, as well as shared gold and stashes: Just from the standpoint that the game is all about scavenging for stuff all day long in the hopes of getting that one perfect item, and gold is trivial and always has been. This way, you can break stuff down to specific components and craft them account-wide. Makes it a lot easier to level alts, because until people figure out how to bot their way to inferno, you’ll have to do it the normal way.
• Quest selection: Thank you. For some reason this is awesome…and at least I dont have to start from scratch when running Skeleton King again.
• How the monk plays: I can see myself playing this class, very fluid, lots of AoE attacks (this is a Diablo game…so thank God for those), and high damage. My only caveat is why is my monk allowed to have dual-wielding swords?
• Achievements: There is a reason I have a TrueAchievements bar on my stream. I think this will help keep completionists in the game, as most of these achievements appear to be account-wide.
• New Follower System: Henchman were only customized by the weapon, their helm, and armor in Diablo 2. Here, while you are given even less to work with (jewelry, weapons, and maybe a shield) your “followers” are much more customizable. You can pick skills that complement your playstyle. We only get to try out the templar in the beta, but I like the idea of constantly being healed every second even if, at level 11, I’m already stomping the Act.

Today I presented & defended my final project, fulfilling the last requirement for the degree Master of Science. This makes me the first in my family to earn a graduate degree.

College has been a long, fun trip. I’m sad to leave, even as I’m eager for the next chapter to begin.

On 16 Jan 2012, I will join Apple as a Core OS Engineer. I’m excited, a bit nervous, and deeply honored.

I’m very thankful for everyone who helped me in ways large and small during my job hunt-I couldn’t have done it without you. Especial thanks to P.K. and A.P. I am in your debt.

Peculiarly, there are a few engineers on my team who also worked with my dad more than a decade ago. I hope he left a good impression ;)