Poker News - #323 - The Full Tilt Poker Guide to Hannah Montana

#323 - The Full Tilt Poker Guide to Hannah Montana
Dear Uncle Tilty: I apologize for missing most of my regular Tuesday night tournaments. Although it has never been acknowledged, I'm sure Full Tilt appreciates the effort I make playing a lot of tournaments on what would otherwise been slow...

Betfair Seeks Return of Ill-Gotten Winnings from SNG Software Glitch
In hopes of recovering funds won in an ill-gotten manner after the discovery of a programming error, the Euro-facing site Betfair has sent emails to approximately 20 online poker players in an attempt to recover money that was quickly...

Costa Rica, Antigua File Additional WTO Arbitration Requests
With the recent EU/US settlement and the Antigua arbitration decision on record, many thought the World Trade Organization online gambling disputes were behind us. But in a somewhat unanticipated move, Costa Rica and Antigua both separately...

The New Yorker: James McManus on Barack Obama the poker player
Poker author James McManus has an article in the upcoming edition of The New Yorker that focuses on the poker-playing side of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. McManus, best known to many players as the author of the excellent Positively Fifth Street, does a ��...full article

Poker author James McManus has an article in the upcoming edition of The New Yorker that focuses on the poker-playing side of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. McManus, best known to many players as the author of the excellent Positively Fifth Street, does a quick writeup on Obama’s card-playing history and then wraps it up with a few presidential poker nuggets.

Excerpt:

Obama never played for high stakes. Only on a very bad night could a player drop two hundred dollars in these games, typical wins and losses being closer to twenty-five bucks. Link describes Obama as a “calculating” cardplayer, avoiding long-shot draws and patiently waiting for strong starting hands. “When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he’s got a good hand,” former Senator Larry Walsh once told a reporter, neglecting to note that maintaining that sort of rock-solid image made it easier for Obama to bluff.

Whole thing here.

#328 - FTOPS Contest Update - The Last Temptation of Mike
Michael Craig is Giving it Away is racing toward its conclusion. Remember, I'm giving away two entries into Event #1 of FTOPS VII, $200 + $16 NLHE for Tuesday, February 6. If you need reminders about the rules (though they...

Daniel Negreanu: JJProdigy “may grow up someday”
Daniel Negreanu concluded a recent blog post about cheater JJ Prodigy by saying, “It is a real shame that the poker world hasn’t advanced enough so that we can keep a kid like that from playing in live events. It’s a shame that we can’t ��...full article

Daniel Negreanu concluded a recent blog post about cheater JJ Prodigy by saying, “It is a real shame that the poker world hasn’t advanced enough so that we can keep a kid like that from playing in live events. It’s a shame that we can’t keep him from playing online. It’s a shame that there are no concrete penalties for what he did.”

In what reads as a personal and pondered reaction to the Poker Road interview in which JJ basically said he’d cheat in the future, Negreanu compared him to Justin Bonomo, another player caught cheating, who reacted by apologizing and changing his ways. Excerpt from Daniel’s post:

Let me start by saying this: I don’t know the kid. He may grow up some day and be an upstanding citizen, but he SHOULD have a lot of work to do in order to earn any kind of acceptance in the poker world. His ban at both FTP and PokerStars are totally just.

You see, this isn’t a kid who got caught cheating, realized it was wrong, apologized, and then turned a new leaf. No, this kid went balls to the wall and did it even more. He said that in the interview. To be capable of that, you couldn’t possibly care about “doing the right thing.” You couldn’t possibly have legitimate remorse for what you did.

Again, I don’t know the kid, but my instincts just from listening to him actually speak about the issue is that he is a liar that still has no idea what he is going to do about what he’s done.

2+2 take on it here

ESPN “cheating in poker” and what to do about it article here

“If that’s a bluff, I’m quitting poker.”
Peter Ling is not the most experience player in the world. That’s not to say he’s playing like a donkey, but he’s doing certain things that are a little transparent to the more experienced players around him. Take this hand...

#325 - Even Chris Ferguson?
I used to maintain an informal list of the worst tournaments on Full Tilt. My criteria mostly concern personal courtesy. My evidence is anecdotal but a few tournaments in particular seem overloaded with jerks. Unfortunately, my beloved Turbo Hundo has...