Come on, Full Tilt!

I am still hoping that Full Tilt can pull out of this, and that all player funds are repatriated. I am doing my little bit by keeping their banner up on my site (right sidebar, bottom).

Poker Hall of Shame VII

Watch how 2011 EPT Grand Final winner Ivan Freitez shoots an angle.

Guillaume Darcourt

102 players left in the 2011 WSOP Main Event. I had the pleasure of playing a few sessions of $1-$2 NLHE with Guillaume Darcourt last July at the M Resort. The Frenchman, a very personable fellow, is currently 9th with 4,100,000 in chips. I hope he makes the November Nine.

FTP deal done?

Rumors are that the Full Tilt deal with the European investors has been completed and that the site will be reopening soon.

Thank you, Yahoo!

Now that I can't play poker online, I was looking forward to watching the tape-delayed Haye Klitschko fight on HBO at 6:45 PT (in about 1 hour).

Then I see this on my Yahoo! home page :



Generally Yahoo! and other sites have been pretty good in respecting East coast - West coast time differences (as well as American-European) when it comes to withholding spoiler results in headlines. This time Yahoo! fucked up big time.

LA Times: FTP to be sold to European investors

After Alderney pulled the plug, things were looking grim. Then this :

A leading online poker company shut down by federal prosecutors is set to be bought by a group of European investors in a deal that could allow U.S. players to recover as much as $150 million ...

Alderney suspends FTP license

Joe stumbled into the shelter at about 4:30 this morning and immediately headed for my bunk.

"The Alderney Gambling Control Commission has just suspended Full Tilt's license."

I threw down the 3-year-old Forbes magazine I was reading and let out a bloodcurdling yelp.

"Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!"

As I longingly thought about the $17.32 I have trapped on the site, I doused the candle and sought the refuge of sleep.

FTP developments

Subject: Poker is reporting that gambling icon Jack Binion is considering investing in Full Tilt Poker. While this has yet to be substantiated, it is certainly good news after all the doom and gloom we have been subjected to.

Are we close to capitulation?

Market capitulation is defined in Wikipedia :

Market capitulation refers to the threshold reached after a severe fall in the market, when large numbers of investors can no longer tolerate the financial losses incurred. These investors then capitulate (give up) and sell in panic, or find that their pre-set sell stops have been triggered, thereby automatically liquidating their holdings in a given stock. This may trigger a further decline in the stock's price, if not already anticipated by the market. Margin calls and mutual fund and hedge fund redemptions significantly contribute to capitulations.

The contrarians consider a capitulation a sign of a possible bottom in prices. This is because almost everyone who wanted (or was forced) to sell stock has already done so, leaving the buyers in the market, and they are expected to drive the prices up.

The peak in volume may precede an actual bottom.

Why didn't I buy stocks in March, 2009? Because, like everyone else, I was too scared to touch them. And that's when the big money was to be made.

Phil Ivey has capitulated. F-Train has capitulated and finally removed the FTP banner from his blog. TonyG has capitulated and PokerNews is not referring any more clients to FTP. Quadjacks have capitulated. Bill Rini is moving toward capitulation.

2p2 is full of threads harshly criticizing Full Tilt's management and team pros. The company is eulogized in every 5th post, with many US players having written off their funds. Non-US players are complaining about cashout problems.

I'm not sure if we have reached full capitulation, but what this all means to me is that we are closer to a surprise development in this saga. I've been wrong before, but if it were possible to purchase FTP shares, I would start buying now.

Justice for all

Wall Street bankers are still gallivanting around in their $1,000 suits. Not one of them has been indicted for the crimes that they committed in bringing the US and world economies to the brink. Yet the DOJ has finally managed to indict the heinous monsters responsible for polluting America with online poker. As long as we have our priorities right, the future looks rosy.

Following Black Friday, there is no doubt in my mind that the freedom-loving quartet of Frist, Kyl, Goodlatte and Leach will be rewarded with this year's Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Anything less than that, like a CNN Hero award, would be short-changing them.

RIP Spot. 1991 - May 28, 2011

We had to put the cat down today. She was 20 years old, a fighter to the end.

Your hand reading is atrocious

Young internet kid justifying a poor call : "I ran into the top of your range."

Back to live

Now that online poker is off limits, it's back to waiting lists, human interaction and 27 hands per hour. My last favorite venue was the Venetian, a spacious cardroom with good games and good staff. However, Xiulian, an accursed cooler-dealing witch, single-handedly wiped out 4 weeks of profits in 4 downs, so I have decided to try the Bellagio. The scenery is the same but for the extra addition of UIGEA refugees.

Poker face

Justice has been done

On the morning of September 11, 2001 at 8:30am, I was sitting at my desk in Queens, NYC, waiting for the NYSE to open. I had been trading from home for several months, but prior to that I had worked for a firm on the 45th floor of 1 WTC. CNBC's TV coverage was suddenly interrupted with shocking and unforgettable footage.

Fast forward to tonight, Sunday night, May 1, 2011 at 8:40pm. I am sitting at home in Las Vegas watching President Obama's address to the nation, reporting that Osama bin Laden has been killed.

"Justice has been done."

Norm Macdonald is also funny

I've always been a fan of Norm Macdonald and think he's doing a great job replacing Gabe Kaplan in High Stakes Poker.

2010 WSOP champ Jonathan Duhamel open raises with 88.
NM : "Jonathan picks up a pair."

Amateur Julian Movsesian calls with Kc2c.
NM : "Julian picks up a deuce with a big kicker."

Sigh

Black Friday

PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have been indicted for running afoul of the UIGEA, and arrests have been made. Both PS and FTP have ceased US operations as of today. A personal fuck you to Frist, Kyl, Goodlatte, Leach and the horses they rode in on.





"Unfortunately, as a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend “real money” play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States."

Coolered by Randomness

Most of you are by now familiar with my hysterical rants on the random number generators (RNG's) used by online poker sites. After an extremely brutal bad beat, I will often snap-post a short tirade lambasting all those remotely associated with the design, creation, testing and maintenance of the offending RNG. This is solely for my psychological well-being. Truth be told, I have full faith and confidence in the integrity of the RNG on the sites that I play on.

Poker multitabling

I am currently trying out the Peregrine gaming glove which allows you to trigger commands just by touching your fingers with your thumb. The glove has 3 Activator Pads – one on the thumb tip, another on the middle of the thumb, and one on the palm. It's a perfect fit for poker multitabling and I was mindlessly grinding 16 tables when the following hand came up :



I clenched my fist so tightly that a circuit in the glove must have shorted, and smoke starting wafting out of the USB port. I decided that if ever there was a more opportune moment to put my fist through the monitor, it was then, as the glove would prevent any collateral damage to my hand.

Fortunately I quickly came to my senses and instead opted to ram my forehead into the adjacent wall.