Crap is King

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It's easy to throw punches when someone's already down. It's easy to call people names when you know with almost near-certainty they're not going to, or can't, say anything in return. It's easier to point a finger than it is to look in the mirror. KnowImSayn?

I should probably just stop here and link to Jesse May's September 2011 Feel the Shame post, because he, as an insider, says it all so much better. But, I won't, because there are some things I just don't get and, well, yes - it's easy to sit behind a screen and give an opinion that no one gives two shits about.

Also - and let's be clear - I'm not a poker pro and I didn't have anywhere near $35k+ stuck on FullTilt. I did lose money in their tits up fiasco, but I'm just one of thousands of players to which that happened. I guess you could say I'm one of those players all you pros WANT in the online game because, on average, I'm donating money more often than I'm withdrawing it (or I was...). So before you go dogging me for this viewpoint, just recognize that without people like me in the game - all you're doing is shuffling money back and forth between the pros among you.

In reading the back and forth between Matt Glantz, Daniel Negreanu, and Doyle Brunson, I pick up on what I think is a real generational gap between perspectives. But first, let's point out - the only person of these three still wearing a "patch" from/for an online real money poker site is Negreanu.* And while it's certainly fair to say that in the grand scheme of things, PokerStars handled things a kajillion times better than all the rest of the online players, the fact of the matter is that they, too, are still under indictment by the DOJ for their activities in the US pre-Black Friday. Just like American players flocked to FT because of players like Ivey, Durr, and Jesus, they clamored, too, to PokerStars** in part because of players like Negreanu. I know I did.

But back to this generational gap perspective. In Doyle's time out on the road in back alley games, cheats were handled differently than they are today. Poker, and how one made a living at it, was a much different ballgame then than it is today. So while I get Negreanu's anger and his use of language harking back to those old-time methods for handling cheats ("baseball bat to the nuts", etc), it's just rhetoric, because that method cannot fly in today's multi-billion dollar industry. It plays to the justifiably angry masses, but it's just theater and nothing more.

As the epitome of much of what's right in today's industry, after all he's a product of today's game, Negreanu likely gets this better than anyone. Sure, he's the Regent of Real Talk, but he's also an accomplished player and, as he puts it in his most recent vlog, able to cast stones because he is without sin. I hope that will always be the case, but I ain't holding my breath because I'm from Texas and I know it's a long snake that doesn't turn.

A while back, I took Bill Rini to task for his Who's to Blame for Black Friday post, in which he articulately opined that "players, journalists, employees of the poker rooms, site owners, affiliates, regulators, or whatever" (all of us) were to blame because "we didn’t demand better. We didn’t demand more transparency. We didn’t ask the right questions." I argued then that it wasn't fair to lay blame at the players' feet for a multitude of reasons. In looking back, especially in light of these recent questions/vlogs/blogs from Glantz and Doyle and Negreanu, as well as re-reading Rini's post - and May's -  I have to say I now think he's right. I think I made some good points, initially, as to why I didn't think it was fair to blame players - and some of that still holds true - but all of Black Friday and the total FT meltdown has disabused me of any future naivete when it comes to online poker. When it comes back around, I'm going to - we're all going to - have to do our homework if we elect to get back into the game.

And that's what irks me about these bat to the balls vlogs from Negreanu, and some of the posts from others, insiders, piling on the bash FT bandwagon. The derision is absolutely warranted, people, I get that 100%.

But what good does it do us AFTER THE FACT to have blogs asking the indicted to answer questions the answers to which would likely be direct admissions against interest, or encourage bats to the balls?

Instead of piling on the rightfully persecuted (and soon to be prosecuted), why not come with some ideas? Some possible solutions?

Here are some for free -

Instead of bitching at the cowards in hiding, why not band together as insiders and pros and players to demand that the prosecutors (the DOJ) start answering some questions? They started this mess. Does the PPA have any leverage or not? Does the poker industry have any lobbyists or not? Do the pros and players have any balls or not?

Which one of you insiders or long-time paid poker bloggers/journalists or paid poker lobbyists or paid PPA members or sponsored poker pros or poker regulators is drafting - right now - the Poker Player's Bill of Rights (akin to the Patient's Bill of Rights) or creating a Player Advocate Foundation for when online poker comes back around (to the US) to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?...Bueller?...Bueller?

Aren't these the type of questions we should really be asking?

I'm disgusted. We're all disgusted. But it's too easy to sit back, after the fact, and cast stones and bitch and say woulda coulda shoulda.

It's much harder to actually do something...to come with solutions and ideas that actually create change and/or get something done.

I'm not an insider, and I certainly have no clout, but I'm willing to help and would be glad to work with any other like minded individuals on solutions. But if all you're gonna do is sit there and point fingers, call names, throw stones, or ask for answers to questions that no sane indicted person would ever answer, you're not part of the solution. You're part of the problem.

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* Glantz appears to be a sponsored player of/for Epic Poker but to my knowledge they are not (currently) an online real money poker site.

** It may well be that when all is said and done that PokerStars walks away from the indictments completely unscathed due to their internal accounting, policies, and procedures. I hope that will be the case

Responsible for Black Friday...who me?!

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On Tuesday, Bill Rini wrote a great piece entitled “Who to Blame for Black Friday?” In it, he illustrates the “**wink, wink, nudge, nudge**” proposition that online poker has allegedly been from its inception and argues that, technically, you and I are to blame for Black Friday and its aftermath “because we didn’t demand better. We didn’t demand more transparency. We didn’t ask the right questions.”

I think that sounds good and is true in the sense that we each have to account for the decisions we make. But, I’m not sure it’s altogether accurate. And here’s why:

I’m a consumer. I’m not a marketing guru or a poker professional. I’m a mother who often makes purchasing decisions for my family on everything from what I buy at the grocery store, to clothes, cleaning products, entertainment decisions, and everything in between.

I’m not an expert and while I have the capability to research every decision I make, I generally trust what my local HEB is selling, as well as what’s marketed to me on the tube or radio, and in the newspapers and magazines I read. Even better, is when I get a recommendation from a friend. If it comes from someone I know, trust, and like, that’s pretty much where my business is going. It might not be the right way to make purchasing decisions, but it’s how I (and a vast majority of the US population) make such decisions. It’s also why marketing – like poker – is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Couple that purchasing behavior with the fact that I didn’t get into online poker in a real (serious) money way until 2009, well after the UIGEA made its big splash in 2006. The way I heard about where to play online poker was from sources like ESPN (marketed as “The Worldwide Leader in Sports”), where I could watch my favorite pros play in the WSOP and then see commercials for sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt. Not only were the ads shown on a respectable news channel, they were endorsed by the faces I’d see in those ads - my favorite pros like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey (among many others).

In the face of the UIGEA, the roster of pro players for those sites only grew, and came to include well respected “regular” people, like Orel Hershiser, Dennis Phillips, and Chris Moneymaker, and well known celebrities, like Jason Alexander and Don Cheadle. As noted by Phil Ivey in his lawsuit against Full Tilt, “the great poker players have become celebrity figures….The celebrity status attributed to these poker players is akin to the celebrity status of professional athletes.” Not surprisingly, such people sell product.

To top it off, the Poker Players Alliance, whose mission it is to “establish favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe and regulated place to play,” touted in a very straightforward fashion that the UIGEA “does not make it illegal for people to play [poker] on the internet.” (emphasis added).

So what’s a gal like me to do?

Rini argues that players like me “didn’t care.” Even in the face of scandal and fraud, “[n]umbers just keep going up.” He continues, “[a]s the money became more and more staggering in nature the online poker sites began to exert more and more power.” And everybody from the online sites, to the pros, to the television, online and print media in between rode that boom. And they rode it on the backs of people like me.

But here’s the thing – as Hunter Bick points out in this post for Drag the Bar – the UIGEA doesn’t even mention poker players. “It only mentions payment processing for financial institutions. It stipulates that financial institutions cannot lawfully process ‘unlawful internet gambling’ transactions. However, the law never defines what ‘unlawful internet gambling’ is, what games it applies to, nor does it provide any guidance whatsoever for what ‘unlawful internet gambling’ even means.”

I guess what I should have done was get a legal opinion before I played real money poker on the internet. Surely, that's what the PPA and the online sites and the pros (at least the ones with agents) did...right?*

As an attorney I’ve practiced municipal law, which in Texas often deals with open government and how governmental bodies deal with laws like the Texas Open Meetings Act. One important facet of the law deals with how such bodies make decisions. As you might expect, it’s often easier for a school board or city council to make decisions behind closed doors - less questions, and all that. But the law says, no, if it’s a matter of public business, then the public has a right to know about it.** To remain in compliance, the board or the city council will first ask their attorney for a written opinion before going into closed session. I would bet really good money that something very similar happened here for organizations like the PPA, the online sites, and likely many pros.

As just your everyday, average joe poker player, I didn’t know I should’ve been asking for one, too.

I agree that Black Friday will ultimately create a more regulated, and hopefully favorable, online landscape for players in the future. But, please don’t blame me and other players for Black Friday and its aftermath. A law was on the books and it was either not enforced by the Department of Justice, or it was not adhered to by the sites it sought to regulate, as it should’ve been.

Given all that, I believe blaming me for Black Friday is like blaming the mother whose child dies after eating an e-coli laced burger from the Jack and Crack dollar menu, or like blaming the owner of the 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid for the car accident on the I-5 when his brakes fail.

I don’t obtain a legal opinion before I buy a burger, much less a car. So please, Mr. Rini, don’t blame me.

If, however, blame must still be apportioned...the lawyers might be a good place to start.***
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[1]* Full disclosure, I looked for news stories, tweets, and/or other resources to support the assertion that sites like Full Tilt and PokerStars (and/or their shills) relied on such opinions from their hired guns. I did not find any. If you think it’s because there aren’t any, please leave your contact info in the comment section below because I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

[2]** Section 551.144(c) of the Texas Government Code provides that: “[i]t is an affirmative defense to prosecution…that the members of the governmental body acted in reasonable reliance on a…written interpretation of this chapter in an opinion of…the attorney for the governmental body.”

[3]*** To be fair, as I said at the beginning of this piece, we each are accountable for our own actions and the "I didn't think I needed a legal opinion to play" is overly broad/simplistic. The truth is (as most people know), ignorance of the law is no defense. The problem here is that the law does not clearly speak to us as players. It's for that reason that I think Mr. Rini's argument is somewhat misguided. Otherwise, I like and agree with much of what he has to say (particularly his thoughts on player apathy re cheating, collusion, and other player misbehavior).