Poker News Round-up

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Poker News Round-up: Week #06

By Adam Noone, 08/02/2008

Since the introduction of the UIGEA in 2006, the act has been affecting people’s lives in ways that nobody thought possible at the time it was passed. In America many poker players who might have had little interest in politics previously now find themselves in a position where the forthcoming presidential elections mean more to them than ever before. To some of the more informed voters, the right to play online poker may not be a matter that ranks as highly as a candidate’s views on the situation in Iraq or the wobbling US economy. However many other votes will be cast based on such whimsical factors as the way a candidate smiles or their hair style (which might sound silly but bear in mind the huge influence in Russian elections on having an alternating succession of bald and hairy presidents.) So if there is one particular issue close to someone’s heart, that will often be enough to secure a vote whatever other policies are part of the package. With this in mind the Poker Players’ Alliance has been raising awareness amongst American poker players as to who stands where on the subject of online gambling. It appears that of the candidates with a realistic chance of making it to the White House, the poker players’ friend is Barack Obama who is happy for it to be known that he enjoys playing poker for money. To what extent he would back totally repealing the UIGEA is unclear, but if it is ever going to happen it seems it would be most likely under the presidency of Obama.

Even sales of the nation’s favourite soft drink might be affected as a result of the UIGEA following an advert run by Coca-Cola during the Superbowl. The creepily cheesy advert stars hate figure Bill Frist with a political opponent, promoting the message that they should all just get on and share a drink of Coke together (an attitude not exactly endorsed by Frist in previous years when he was a member of a racially segregated country club.) Frist, who used to trick animal shelters into giving him cats as pets only to then perform medical experiments on them, has given people plenty of reasons to dislike him but it is for the introduction of the UIGEA that poker players remember him best. Having his face pop up to spoil their enjoyment of the Superbowl, as well as the realisation that money spent on Coke is ending up lining Frist’s pockets has sent some poker players into a spin with many deciding to boycott Coca-Cola products. Whilst this protest might seem futile to some in that it would not make much of a dent in their profits, the Coca-Cola company is very protective of its image and it’s not impossible that a few more complaints could yet prompt an acknowledgement that Frist was not a particularly great choice.

Mike McDonald

For the past few years at the WSOP the record for the youngest ever bracelet winner has been repeatedly broken, then last week Gavin Griffin became the only player in the world to win EPT, WPT and WSOP titles at the age of just 26. Further evidence of the strength of young players weaned on endless hours of internet poker came this week at the Dortmund leg of the EPT. Young Canadian Mike McDonald had a big stack from a long way out which he used to good effect, ending up knocking out five players at the final table en route to winning the title. That added another €933,600 to the 18 year old’s bank account, which was already in pretty decent shape after first, second and eight places in events at the Aussie Millions last month. It seems the youngsters are taking over at the moment and there is even a rumour doing the rounds that an 11 year old has just won a WSOP package at an online site.

And finally, a group of online players who discovered a flaw in the Betfair software are now facing the possibilty of legal action after they decided it was a glitch they couldn’t help but exploit. It was discovered that six handed sit n goes on the site were paying out the second place prize money to those finishing third, fourth, fifth and sixth if all players went all in, meaning it was impossible to lose if you knew how to exploit the situation. A surge of players then hit the highest stake games as the prospect of free money was too good to refuse. By the time Betfair caught on to the problem and froze accounts, vast sums of money had already been withdrawn from the site and now Betfair wants its money back. It has sent letters to customers who benefited from this stating that their actions are tantamount to collusion and that if the money was not returned by the given deadline, they would be taking the matter further (in a Mark Strahan stylee.)

That deadline has now passed with some customers vowing that they have no intention of giving the money back. The total loss suffered by Betfair during this operation is unclear, with different reports variously quoting the sum at between £100,000 and £4 million. If the figure is anything remotely close to the upper end of that scale it would appear that these players are not going to be able to call Betfair’s bluff on this and legal action would seem to be the likely consequence.

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