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The Garden City Group (GCG) has issued three important updates to the Full Tilt Poker remissions process that impact thousands of players.

The official site for Full Tilt remissions information, FullTiltPokerClaims.com, recently added critical information relevant to those who confirmed their balance, players tagged as affiliates and players tagged as Full Tilt Pros.

This follows the GCG’s announcement on January 25th that the DoJ had approved FTP payouts totalling some $82mm to over 30,000 players.
Confirmed balances with outstanding federal debts will be garnished

The GCG FAQ for Full Tilt remissions has long indicated that players with debts collectable through the Treasury Offset Program will see their repayment amount reduced to some degree.

Now details of that process are available. Cliffs:

Players who fall into this category were notified via email by the GCG on January 29th. I don’t believe there has been any additional notification.
In order to receive the remainder of your balance post-collection, you must fill out the form attached to the email notification within 30 days.
You cannot dispute this debt with the GCG. The debt is handled by the Treasury Offset Program.

What if I haven’t confirmed my balance with the GCG?

Only players who confirmed their balance with the GCG received these notices.

So if you’re disputing your balance, you would not have received this notice even if you do have a qualifying debt.

Affiliates can petition, but a serious balance calculation issue exists

The GCG sent another set of emails on January 31st to roughly 8,400 players who have been tagged as affiliates of Full Tilt Poker.

At one point in the process, affiliates were excluded from remission; that policy shifted and the GCG announced that affiliates would be able to petition for the amount of their balance unrelated to affiliate activity.

But the method by which the GCG is separating affiliate activity from playing activity is drawing criticism, and for good reason. As Aaron Wilt noted on TwoPlusTwo:

In my case, GCG is summing all of these Affiliate to Player Transfer columns regardless of which affiliate is sending them – ie, they make no distinction between rakeback earned from another affiliate and “affiliate income” from players signed up under you.

In my case, I had only a handful of entries where I got actual affiliate revenue, that added up to a bit over 2k. Instead, GCG took out ~30k from my balance.

That’s a massive flaw in the process that needs to be corrected immediately.

Affiliates should have received an email on the 31st with credentials for creating a petition and additional instructions.

If you believe you have been tagged as an affiliate and did not receive this email, contact the GCG immediately.

The deadline for this class of players to file a petition is March 2, 2014.
Full Tilt Pros still in limbo

While affiliates seem on track to a resolution – albeit a seriously flawed one at this point – the picture for players identified as Full Tilt Pros remains muddled.

Per the GCG update:

Please be advised that a review is still underway concerning those players who were flagged by FTP as Pros. Once this review is complete, a separate notice will be sent to Pros who are deemed eligible to file a Petition for Remission and they will have 30 days from the date of the notice to file a Petition.

The remissions process for FTP players tagged as affiliates

First, a bit of background.

On January 31, 2014, Full Tilt Poker accounts marked with an affiliate tag were sent emails by the Garden City Group (GCG) stating they would be eligible for remission based on the balance of their account less any affiliate income.

Players were marked with their tag because the GCG believed that part of their balance was derived from affiliate activity, specifically commission payments on customers these players referred to Full Tilt Poker.

These users were sent Petition and Control numbers used to log into the GCG website in order to verify contact details and account balances.

But upon logging in, many users – including myself – ran into unforeseen problems.

As reported in this thread on TwoPlusTwo, many users found their account balance was significantly lower than expected.
The massive flaw in the GCG’s balance calculation formula

To attempt to deconstruct why there was a difference, I began investigating my player account history spreadsheet that was downloaded from the Full Tilt Poker website.

I quickly realized that the GCG was using an overly simplistic formula to determine account balances that resulted in some player rakeback payments being mistaken for affiliate income.

Looking at the player account history spreadsheet, GCG was taking the final account balance found in Column H and subtracting out the sum of all transactions with Transaction Type equal to “Affiliate To Player” found in column C.

The problem with this methodology is that legitimate personal rakeback payments were labelled with this same Transaction Type prior to July 2010.

Personal rakeback payments are essentially bonuses paid to players as a direct result of their play and are not in any way connected with affiliate commission payments.
How to tell the difference between rakeback and affiliate income

To differentiate between legitimate rakeback and affiliate income, we must look at the column D, the “Details” column. Inside column D, each “Affiliate to Player Transfer” transaction type will be marked with the details of who the affiliate was.

Legitimate player rakeback payments will have the rakeback provider’s name in the details column. Affiliate income will have the user’s Full Tilt Poker account name in the details.

As an example from my own spreadsheet: on November 7, 2007, I have an entry with the “Affiliate to Player Transfer” transaction type. In the details column it shows my player screen name (wiltontilt) in the amount of $62.43.

This was affiliate income earned from a friend signing up under me. According to GCG and the DOJ’s terms, I am ineligible to receive these funds for remission.

Two rows under this transaction, there’s another entry on November 8, 2007, showing an “Affiliate to Player Transfer” with the Details column showing “RAKEBREAKcom” for the amount of $489.86. This amount was rakeback earned from my rakeback provider as a result of me playing poker.

GCG is treating both of these “Affiliate to Player Transfer” amounts as affiliate income even though the second transaction is completely unrelated to my (paltry) affiliate income.

I can prove this by doing some conditional sums in excel such as this:

=SUMIF(C1:C44907,”*Affiliate to Player Transfer*”,F1:F44907)

… where C1:C44907 represents all of the rows in the “Transaction Type” column, “*Affiliate to Player Transfer*” represents the transaction types we want to find, and F1:F44907 represents the values to be summed. (If you are doing this on your own spreadsheet, you will want to change the 44907 value to the last row of data in your spreadsheet).

By taking this summed value and subtracting it from the final account balance showed on the last row of Column H, you will see the exact same balance that is displayed after logging in on the GCG’s website.

This proves that the GCG is currently making no distinction between rakeback payments earned by playing poker and affiliate income earned from referring players to Full Tilt Poker.
Some affiliates asked to enter their balance

Other users have also reported having no account balance displayed to them upon logging in with the petition and control numbers provided by the GCG. Instead, those users were asked to enter in their account balance.

It is currently unclear why some users had their remission balance incorrectly calculated and other users had no balance calculated.


Full Tilt Poker Balance Formula Flaw Could Cost Players Thousands

PokerStars received the ‘Online Poker Operator of the Year’ award for the second consecutive year at the prestigious International Gaming Awards held in London.

"Run it twice! We're proud to take down this award for the second straight time" said Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications for the Rational Group. "And we'll be doing everything we can in the next 12 months to make a strong run at a three-peat."

During the past year PokerStars has maintained its position as the market leader by continuing to improve its product and introducing innovative new features, including:

• PokerStars reached its 100 billion hands milestone in June 2013.
• PokerStars received a Guinness World Record for organising the largest online poker tournament featuring 225,000 participants.
• PokerStars.NET on Facebook Beta was launched in February 2012 as an extension of free-play PokerStars-net site on the social media platform.
• PokerStars signed former Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo as a brand ambassador, joining tennis superstar Rafa Nadal, in a continued effort to introduce poker to new audiences and increase consumer credibility and confidence in online poker.
• The World Championship of Online Poker and Spring Championship of Online Poker continued to be the two largest online poker festivals of the year, with a total of more than $137 million in prizes awarded to players.
• Four new Omaha poker variants were added to the PokerStars software – 5 Card Omaha, 5 Card Omaha Hi/Lo, Courchevel, and Courchevel Hi/Lo.

PokerStars joined a prestigious group of 2014 award winners at the International Gaming Awards, which included:

• The home of PokerStars LIVE Macau – Melco Crown Entertainment City of Dreams – (Casino VIP Room of the Year)
• PokerStars-net APPT Aussie Millions venue – Crown Melbourne (Casino/Integrated Resort of the Year)
• EPT Season 10 sponsor – Skrill – (Corporate Services Supplier)
• Rational Group online payment provider – Optimal Payments – (Payment Solutions Provider)

In addition to winning the ‘Online Poker Operator of the Year’ award, PokerStars was also a finalist for the ‘Mobile Gaming Operator of the Year’ and ‘Gaming Industry Fair Play’ awards.



PokerStars named 2014 'Online Poker Operator of the Year' | Isle of Man News :: isleofman-com

The big partypoker Sunday $50,000 Guarantee was the most successful of the Sunday majors on New Jersey sites. The field crushed the guarantee by almost 40%.

On WSOP-com “sizzlinbets” final tabled their big Sunday event two weeks after winning the WSOP-com Online Championship.

The partypoker Sunday $50,000 Guarantee pulled in 378 entries to generate a prize pool of $69,930 – nearly $20,000 over the guarantee. The top 64 players earned a cash for their $200 buy-in. “Papo353″ walked away five-figures richer after taking down the event.

Party Poker Review - Download Poker Software - Online Poker








Online Poker: parypoker Dominates New Jersey Sunday Majors

Last year’s Pokerfest, with over $4m guaranteed, suffered technical problems, with the first five events being cancelled.




Partypoker’s Pokerfest tournament series returns from March 2 to March 16.

This edition features 67 events with over $1m in guaranteed prizes. There will also be three Pokerfest missions which can be completed during the 15 days of the series.

Each week, PokerNews brings you an insight into the goings on at partypoker in the partypoker Weekly. Featuring the best promotions and the most popular blog posts, the partypoker Weekly is your one-stop shop for all partypoker related matters.
Nine Online Poker Tips

In order to improve your poker game and outlook, it is always beneficial to hear tips from the top professionals in the game. This is true regardless if you are a recreational player or someone that plays a bit more seriously.

The partypoker blog has nine of the best tips in the game from some of the biggest online poker names out there including Sam Grafton, Richard Trigg, Mathew Frankland, and Matt Ashton. Some of the nine tips are reminders of things you might already know such as paying attention and never playing tired. However, it never hurts to be reminded again since some of the best poker pros feel these tips have contributed to their long-term success.

Read more about the some of the best tips to online poker success on the partypoker blog.
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With their popular PokerFest series just around the corner, you can use this to enter many of the tournaments in this series or you can opt to try something else on their exciting tournament schedule. If you aren't much of a tournament player, you can also try to grind it up in their low buy-in sit-and-gos.



partypoker Weekly: Nine Online Poker Tips | PokerNews

As Italy’s economy keeps being one of the most troublesome in the European region, the latest numbers show that the country’s online poker industry is still far from recovery.

Right now while the House of Representatives votes for Italy’s 63rd government in 68 years, welcoming former major of Florence Matteo Renzi as the country’s youngest Prime Minister, industry data from newsagency Ansa / Agimeg show a significant decline both for cash and tournament poker.

During 2014’s first month, cash games Gross Gambling Revenue (GGR) generated €12,200,000, showing a 20% decline compared to January 2013, and an even more impressive 50% decline was witnessed when compared to the same month in 2012. The same negative trend is also seen in tournament poker, where the GGR generated by players was €73,000,000, marking a 26% decline compared to the €100,000,000 generated in January 2013.

PokerStars Controls Over 50% of Italian Poker Market Alone

Both cash and tournament poker numbers show also how PokerStars keeps dominating Italy’s legalized poker market, as the room accounts for over 50% of the total revenue. As it can be easily seen by the two charts below, PokerStars has managed to confirm itself as the industry leader, bringing home €228,000,000 of the total €455,000,000 generated by Italy’s global cash poker revenue in January.

The poker room kept the leading position also in tournament poker, where in January the room controlled over 60% of the market.




PokerStars Dominates Italy

I do like Pokerfest. Last year it was a little bit of a disaster and I wasted a bunch of money on satellites but I like the variety of tournaments so will be playing this year as well.

A court-appointed administrator announced the distribution Friday of $76 million to roughly 27,500 U.S. customers of the defunct poker site. Their accounts have been frozen since 2011 due to a criminal case.

The Poker Players Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group, applauded the action, but said there are still "several thousand" ex-Full Tilt players in the U.S. who have yet to receive their money. John Pappas, executive director of the PPA, estimated that there are between $50 million and $60 million in unclaimed or disputed funds that have yet to be distributed.

Prosecutors accused Full Tilt and two other sites -- PokerStars and Absolute Poker -- of circumventing federal laws against Internet gambling by deceiving banks and credit card issuers into processing payments for U.S. players.

In July 2012, the Justice Department announced a $731 million settlement with PokerStars and Full Tilt to resolve the allegations. Full Tilt also settled allegations that it had operated a Ponzi scheme, failing to maintain sufficient funds on deposit for players to withdraw.

Under the settlement, Full Tilt agreed to forfeit virtually of all its assets to the government, with PokerStars acquiring them. Former Full Tilt CEO Raymond Bitar pleaded guilty last year to multiple gambling and fraud charges. He faced a substantial prison sentence but was released because of health problems.


Online poker players get $76 million back after site's 2011 closure - Feb. 28, 2014

Last Thursday, PartyPoker released a new Android compatible version of its New Jersey poker room and casino.

The much anticipated launch comes approximately two months after PartyPoker first released an iOS version of its NJ software.

And while WSOP and 888poker beat Party to the Apple store, Party is the first major player to boast a native application for Android smartphone and tablet devices.

I had a chance to download and peruse the poker version of the app, with decidedly mixed results.
Getting up and running is a bit of a chore, but Party not entirely to blame

Unlike Apple’s App Store, Google’s Play Store weighs hefty restrictions on real-money gambling applications.

Thus, Party’s mobile app is only available for download directly through the mobile version of its site.

Luckily, downloading the app is a fairly intuitive process.

Simply visit nj-partypoker-com from any Android version 2.3 or higher device, and click on either the Poker App or Casino App, depending on your preferences.
Do note that in order to download the app you will first have to go into your settings and enable non-market apps. Again, this is due to Google’s restrictions upon wagering software .
Once the application is downloaded, players are advised to deselect the non-market app checkbox.

Players who do not already have an account are permitted to create one directly from the mobile app’s main menu. Returning players can simply log in.

It’s at this point that I ran into some minor difficulties:

After enabling wifi – 3G or 4G won’t cut it – and punching in my username and password, the software informed me that my log-in credentials were invalid. Convinced that my personal details were in fact correct, I looked elsewhere for inconsistencies.
Apparently, I was connected to the “guests” setting of my network. After resetting the connection to the proper network, I was allowed to log in. Party was correct to inform me of an error, but the description of the error was misleading.
After one disconnect and one geolocation error, I was recognized as being in New Jersey. I wish I could say that was the last time I experienced trouble logging on, but it was far from it.

PartyPoker NJ’s Android app: Player experience

From the main menu, players are permitted to select: “Real money,” “fastforward,” “Play money,” and “Preview.”

To my dismay, the “Play money” option was not yet functional, so I found myself forced to get my feet wet in a real-money setting.

Also noteworthy is that the app does not make use of the Android’s tilt feature, rendering it difficult for users who prefer the larger keypad.

Selecting your preferred stake, game type and your preferred maximum number of players is handled via radio selection, and is executed as well as one could reasonably expect. However, players are given no prior knowledge as to who and how many players will be seated at their table.

Case in point: Oftentimes, I would be seated at an empty table. This is an issue I have with Party’s main poker room, one that proves even more cumbersome on the mobile version.

On other occasions, the software would inform me that my seat was lost before I had the opportunity to sit down. This occurred more than I was comfortable with. Even worse is that the app provided no indication as to why I kept getting bounced off the table.
Lack of features for PartyPoker NJ Android app also disappoints

In addition to the lack of a working play money alternative, Sit and Gos and MTTs are noticeably absent from the Android version of Party’s NJ app, much like they are on its iOS offering.

Unfortunately, despite high demand no word on when the aforementioned features will be implemented has come. But if history is any indicator, players will be waiting for quite some time, evident by a similar dearth of features on Party’s two month old iOS app.

Also missing are Omaha and 7-Stud games.

Non-Hold’em games account for approximately 10% to 15% of cash game volume on Party’s main site and would undoubtedly attract more patrons to the app. Again, no announcement has been made as to when and if an update will be made.
At least it looks good

Players that manage to circumvent the app’s failings will be treated to a delightful mobile poker playing experience. The interface is sleek, efficient and modern, in most ways resembling that of Party’s main poker room.

Player notes and chat functionality are absent, as is the option to multi-table. Given the limited amount of visual real estate present on mobile devices, Party’s decision to not include these features is acceptable, as they would likely clutter the interface.

Betting is handled via touch buttons and a bet slider, both of which function quite well, although the bet slider is a bit sensitive and will take some getting used to. Card and hand value are easily readable, even on smaller screens. It would be nice if the app included a preferred seating option, or really any options at all, but it’s by no means a game-breaker.

Alerts sound when it is your turn to act – another nice little touch that enhances the overall playing experience.
The verdict

Server stability and geolocation issues plague an otherwise clean, if not minimal, mobile poker playing experience.

Should Party work out the kinks and add a few more features, namely MTTs and SNGs, then its mobile app will become a force to be reckoned within the regulated iGaming space.

Until then, players may be better off sticking with Party’s main NJ-based poker room.



PartyPoker NJ Android Online Poker App is Out - Here's Our Take

The partypoker New Jersey Sunday Major, $50,000 Guaranteed, was canceled over the weekend due to technical difficulties. The site refunded all eligible players and issued a statement on their official blog.

“We experienced brief technical issues on 03/08/2013 and 03/09/2013 as players on a few tournaments were disconnected and could not resume the tournaments because their log-in credentials were not accepted.

The issue has been resolved, all the tournaments affected were cancelled and eligible players were refunded in accordance with our cancellation policy. We apologize for the inconvience. Questions about refunds van be clarified by contacting Customer Care.”

One week after 27,000 online poker players in the United States saw the return of $80 million to their accounts, following the first phase of the Full Tilt Poker payout, it was possible to track how this process impacted the country’s online poker traffic. It was shown that traffic grew around 5% in the first weekend of the payouts, with numbers checked at regulated and unregulated US-facing online poker sites.

Editor Note: If you live in Nevada, New Jersey or Deleware you can now play for real money at Play Online Poker with the World Series of Poker. For out of state residents, we recommend Online Sports Betting, Casino, Poker & Horse Racing at Bovada.

According to statistics tracker, PokerScouts, “very little of that increase was seen in the regulated markets. Almost all of the impact occurred among unregulated sites, most of which rose 3%-10%.”

The numbers were disappointing for online poker rooms operating in regulated markets such as WSOP-com, which launched special promotions to lure paid-out former Full Tilt Poker players. However, it may be early days yet, as this was just the first part of a multi phase process which will see many more millions paid back to poker players. As such, it is still too soon to see exactly how the entire remission process will impact the US online poker industry.

It may be that some players are not even aware that the money has been returned to their accounts, and haven’t yet spent it on poker entertainment, while others may have simply decided to use the money for other things in their lives.

In late February, the Garden City Group, selected by the government to run the remission process, sent some – but not all – players a letter stating: “The purpose of this email is to inform you that your Petition for Remission has been approved and you are entitled to receive a distribution from the assets forfeited in connection with United States v. PokerStars, et al., pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“A payment in the amount of $x will be paid electronically via ACH to the bank account that you specified in your Petition. This payment represents the full amount of your Full Tilt Poker Account Balance, which you confirmed on the Full Tilt Poker administration online filing site. Payment will be made within the next seven business days.”





US Online Poker Traffic Grows After FTP Payout

Party Poker recently announced their new online poker series which will begin in April in New Jersey. This series, which is known as the New Jersey Online Poker Championship (NJOPC), will include 10 events from the 19th to 27th of next month.

Party Poker is a leading online poker provider in New Jersey and their new online poker series offers a guaranteed $200k Main Event as well as a freeroll event valued at $50k.

Players will be able to access this new online Poker series on Borgata Poker as well as Party Poker NJ. The series will kick off with the $50k freeroll, while the other nine events, which will be no limit hold’em, will have buy ins of $50 to $200.

One of the tournaments in the series will not be a freezeout while the 7th one will be the Players Choice event. That is, this tournament is currently being discussed with Party Poker’s players via their customer support forum who will decide on the buy-in amount and the format of the game which has a $15k guarantee.

It will definitely be worth getting to the Main Event which has a guarantee of $200k of which $50k will be for the winner of this new Online Poker series. The buy-in for this event is $200.

Over the next few weeks, Borgata and Party Poker sites are expected to announce qualifiers and satellites for the series. Meanwhile, according to Pokerfuse, Party Poker is hosting this event in order to see the response and interest from players regarding the format and buy-ins of this latest online poker series.




Party Poker to Host Online Poker Championship in New Jersey

PokerStars’ parent company Rational Group won a dismissal last Friday against a class action lawsuit aiming to reclaim money lost by Illinois players stemming from illegal gambling.

According Ifrah Law, Rational Group’s legal council, the dismissal by District Court Judge David R. Herndon “likely spells end of [the] class action” brought by plaintiff Kelly Sonnenberg.

“This is a major victory for PokerStars and instructive for other online gaming providers facing similar attacks from plaintiffs seeking unjust windfalls,” said Jeff Ifrah, founder of Ifrah Law.

The class action aimed to recover gambling losses of PokerStars’ customers in Illinois. Under Illinois statute, third parties can reclaim money lost in the case of illegal gambling from the winner, as long as the gambler themselves failed to make such a claim within six months.

Sonnenberg is claimed to be the parent of an Illinois online poker player who lost money online on PokerStars.

However, the court ruled that—given that poker is a peer-to-peer game—PokerStars could not be considered the “winner,” but “more akin to a third party service provider that provides a forum for others to play the game,” the Judge ruled, adding that
that PokerStars “[did] not have a stake in how the game is decided.”

The court also ruled that the claimant failed to define exactly what was lost.

“The first amended complaint is devoid of allegations stating the ‘who,’ ‘what’ and ‘when’ of the losses she seeks to recover,” Herndon said in his dismissal.

Ifrah Law attorney Rachel Hirsch took the opportunity to call it “an incredibly high-stakes case,” with “millions of dollars were at stake.”




Case Against PokerStars in Illinois Dismissed | Pokerfuse Online Poker News

Anybody know anything about this system?
thepokermaster.com

Claimed it was a service that provides tips on how to succeed at the tables in Vegas, or Atlantic City. Took the dive and actually bought their ebook and can honestly say it's been an intriguing read. I would post it here, if not for copyright issues but if anyone else decides to take a wack at the Poker Master's service I'd love to get some opinions from you guys.

Salut..am o problema cu retragerea banilor..nu inteleg de ce..??mapoti ajuta?

Thanks for your imfomations, I think I could be play in your website.

Fulltilt poker has to be the worst poker site ever created.
And they have players who play for fulltilt so they win even more off you.
Flush never hits never had a straight flush of even four of a kind in over a year of playing and you get crap cards all the time like 83off 74off and if are lucky enough to get jj qq kk and they have an ace they always hit in 10 years of playing poker i have never come across such a crap site..........

Warning= do not play at fulltiltpoker aka fullovidiots.
You will lose and be depressed and bored in a matter of days after joining.

Do not play at fullcrapoker.

Full Tilt Poker may have two of the biggest names in the game as its official brand ambassadors, but they also happen to be two of the biggest losers in the online game with Gus Hansen currently showing a -$19,620,039 loss since May 2007, and Viktor Blom down -$3,445,408 since Oct 2009. Whereas Gus Hansen’s poker graph on highstakesdb-com shows a pretty steady decline, Blom’s has more ups and downs than the Grand Old Duke of York, with both players’ graphs a cautionary tale as to the volatility and potential pitfalls of playing high stakes cash games against the world’s best.

In fact, it’s now got to such a point that many in the poker community are wondering what it actually means to be a poker professional these days, and as one poster named Ben4 commented on cardplayer-com, recently:

“Funny that FullTilts 2 biggest sponsored pros cant win. You’d think from a marketing perspective they would dump these guys and go a different direction.”

To be fair, Gus Hansen has won $11,258,052 from live tournaments, although the past couple of years haven’t been so impressive with the ‘Great Dane’ having won $30,605 in 2013, and just $17,376 this year so far. Online is a different matter and one can only imagine the mixed feelings Gus experiences when contemplating how things may have been different if Full Tilt Poker hadn’t relaunched in 2012 and he didn’t subsequently go on to drop a further staggering -$16,413,305 (-$3.21m before Black-Friday).

Giving a clue as to the reasons for his spectacular fall, Gus Hansen admits to not using any HUD or tracking software, just like fellow ambassador Viktor Blom, and also to having “just about the worst game selection in the world.”

Meanwhile, Viktor Blom’s results since joining FTP have been a mixed bag as the following stats show: -$2,216,177 in 2009, -$414,053 in 2010, +$413,544 in 2012, +$542,796 in 2013, and -$1,771,518 so far in 2014. However, Blom often seems able to rack up huge profits at the beginning of the past few years, before spectacularly giving much of it away later down the line.

Having said all that, the online poker game continues to get tougher to beat at an alarming rate and even Phil ‘Polarizing’ Ivey hasn’t been able to work his magic and has lost -$1,842,390 on FTP so far in 2014. Therefore, maybe its time for Hansen to accept the reality of the modern online game, and profit from his own observation when he lamented:

“You just have to be better than the others at your table. Of course, people have been getting better and better. This is not 2003 anymore, and it sure isn’t 1995.”





Full Tilt Poker's Two Biggest Pros Can't Win!

The New Orleans Saints were quite possibly the most dismal franchise in all of professional sports. Despite their losing ways, they remained beloved fan favorites and were a unifying attraction for all of Southern Louisiana. Even though the team won just a single playoff game during its first 30 years of existence, the 80,000-seat Superdome sold out every time the Saints played at home. When the Saints went on the road, they almost always lost. However, the joke was that if they covered the pointspread, thousands fans would always welcome and cheer the arriving team plane at the airport.

With the lowly Saints coming off yet another losing season in 2005, when they were forced to play all their games outside the city of New Orleans due to severe damage to the Superdome, unanimous pessimism persisted about the city’s ability to continue supporting an NFL franchise. It seemed, people who had suffered such severe financial and emotional devastation had priorities other than football.

Early in 2006, Saints majority owner Tom Benson, who owned a sting of local car dealerships, contemplated selling his team. The estimated value and presumed market price was $600 million. Immediately, speculation began almost that some investor would buy the team at what amounted to a fire sale price, and then pack up and move the franchise to potentially far-more profitable Los Angeles, which hadn’t seen a pro football team in two decades. If Bob Irsay and Al Davis could move their respective teams, then the new Saints ownership could certainly do the same.

The question was — who would be the new buyer? Who had that much cash on hand and could strike a quick deal? Who could step in and make an offer? Well, lots of people, back then. The economy was booming, which is why we had to move fast.

Now, you have to remember these events unfolded just as the poker boom was reaching a crescendo. This was before PokerStars (actually owned by a parent company called Rational Enterprises) produced any television shows. The European Poker Tour had been going barely more than a year. It was before superstar Daniel Negreanu was signed on as a sponsored pro. It was was before industry rival partypoker.com had yet departed the thriving U.S. market, which meant PokerStars meandered in a highly-competitive market as the second-largest online poker site in the world, still distant from the prospect of being number one. I was among several marketing and public relations people who were brought in to try and close the gap.

Accordingly, we at PokerStars were always encouraged to be creative. While the company culture was extremely conservative (why take risks when you’re making a million bucks a day in rake?), among the inner circle and within closed-door marketing meetings, there was no such thing as a “bad idea.” We weren’t exactly Golden Palace, the gambling site that resorted to all kinds of shameless self-promotion. We had our standards.

Given company founder and majority owner Isai Scheinberg’s highly-competitive nature and drive to somehow surpass rival partypoker, we all knew such a leap would take something really huge to eclipse their massive numbers. Even though the PokerStars site offered the best software and customer service in the business, the softer games over at partypoker made them nearly impossible to catch. Hell, even many of the PokerStars staff, myself included, played almost exclusively on partypoker.

When I first heard the Saints were for sale, I discussed the prospect of PokerStars tendering an offer to buy the team with some of my closest colleagues within the company. This wasn’t about business, something I knew nothing whatsoever about. It was about generating publicity (at no cost). We all knew there was no way the gambling-skittish National Football League would ever approve such a deal to an offshore poker site. That didn’t matter. What we were after was fanfare, and the bonanza of legitimacy this kind of financial offering would bring to the company.

Here was the scenario: A press release was to be issued concurrent to an offer delivered personally to Mr. Benson, essentially stating: “Rational Enterprises hereby offers you the sum of $600 million for full ownership and control of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints.” Never mind what our main rival was doing on television on something called The Travel Channel. Our offer would be the lead story on ESPN’s SportsCenter — watched nightly by the coveted sweet spot consisting of 18-35 year olds. We’d make the talking heads' shows. I suspect it would even make mainstream news and expose us to an audience that didn’t know online poker even existed. It certainly would have been a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal.

Even though the deal would almost immediately be shot down by the NFL’s corporate office, what would PokerStars get out of it? Plenty. Try this on for size — perhaps $15-20 million in free publicity. Forget Mike Sexton raising a champagne glass and inviting everyone over to the “poker party.” PokerStars was about to be playing in the real major leagues of sports and business, and would be destined to get a whole lot of attention once the announcement went public.

And so, I typed up a detailed proposal, and forwarded it directly to Isai who was over in the Isle of Man. Then, that was followed up by a secondary campaign strategy designed to promote the notion of PokerStars’ general sense of goodwill. Not only were we offering to buy the Saints in a cash deal, there was more. We’d also guarantee the league and the loyal fans that we’d stay in New Orleans. That’s right. You couldn’t orchestrate a better public relations move, if a knight on a white horse was galloping down Tchoupitoulas Street. PokerStars was going to come out of this looking like heroes.

If all this sounds manipulative, it wasn’t. It was very real. I mean, a cash offer would actually be on the table for the taking. Who knows — with some creative organ