WSOP Day 7 & 8 - The Brits Are Here

As a fellow Brit I was pleased to see Matt Perrins take down Event #9: $1,500 2-7 Draw Lowball after Jake Cody won the $25k HU event a few days ago.

Much has been made of the fact that he didn't know how to play the game until watching a few clips on YouTube a couple of days before the event. But here's the thing, Matt is clealry a good poker player. The rules of the game in nealry all forms are fairly easy to pick up. It's the aggression, reads, the thinking part of poker that takes time to learn and if you can do that for Hold'em, PLO or any other game there's a good chance you can adapt those skills to another game. Not everyone can do it of course and the better you are at adapting and poker in general the better you'll be at making the transition to another game.

There would have been some mistakes along the way, and almost certainly some run good involved, but it's still a remarkable achievement. The Brits have already made a mark on the WSOP this year after a great WSOP in 2010, let's hope we can take a few more bracelets down by the time the main event rolls around in July...

We're down to 3 in Event #8: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em with another well known online pro Jon Turner up against two more Brits: Sadan Turker and Sean Getzwiller for the bracelet. Turker carries a strong chip lead into the final day with nealry 8m against Getzwiller on 3m and Turner on 1.7m. Still plenty to play for as Turner has just over 20 BB's.

The next of the 'rebuy chip' events started yesterday with Event #12: $1,500 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold’em underway with 1,340 players starting. 165 made day two as the chips flew after most players decided to use all three bullets from the start. The chip leader finished the day on 124k - in the space of 10 levels that's some serious run hot. Randy 'Nanonoko' Lew posted a good blog on his thoughts on the event here.

Event #11: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship is in the money with 22 players remaining. Jason Mercier went deep but only managed a min-cash after making the money with less than 2 BB's. Notables returning tomorrow to battle it out for the bracelet and $465k include Shaun Deeb, Mike Sexton and the short stacked Josh Arieh.

David Vamplew continues his great run going into day 3 of Event #10: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em / Six Handed - 15 players return today to play for the bracelet.

Event #13: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout and Event #14: $3,000 Limit Hold'em get uderway later today.

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WSOP Day 6 & More Black Friday Stuff

The 2011 WSOP has 3 new bracelet winners:

Allen Bari somewhat inevitably took down Event #4: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em with his epic chip lead going into the final day with 4 left. Maria Ho put up a valiant fight heads up but Bari emerged the victor, earning $874k in addiiton to the coveted bracelet. Nice round up of the event from Jess Welman over at Bluff.

Event #7: $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Championship concluded with Amir Lehavot taking down a bracelet and $563k for his efforts. Nicolas Levi also made the final table adding a 6th place finish to his 5th place in the WSOPE main event in London last year. If anything players in these event deserve at least a medal for playing 10 handed PLHE for as long as they did...

...but not as much as those making the final table of the even more painful Event #6: $1,500 Limit Hold'em - Harrison Wilder took down the bracelet and just over $200k for first. Scott Clements was among those that made the final table, eventually busting in a tilt-worthy 9th place.

The WSOP isn't all serious business of course, Wicked Chops have a superb 'Girls on the rail' post that is well worth a look. Great work!

Aaron Wilt (DC Coach WiltOnTilt) has posted a great blog about some of the conversations he's had with senior officials. He's also mentioned that he intends to contribute to the Quad Jacks radio show which contunues to be a great source of information (and entertainment) for online poker players.


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WSOP Day 5, Black Friday in Mainstream Media (again)

Many a 'player to win their first bracelet in 2011' bet was off to a quick start with Eugene Katchalov winning Event #5: $1,500 Seven Card Stud and a not insignificant $122,909. I'm sure Katchalov would have been a popular pick (he went early in both of the drafts I participated in) so a few people will be paying up already. Katchalov is a NLHE specialist by trade, making the win that much more impressive. I might have to put him on my multiple bracelet in 2011 list...

The hugely popular Maria Ho made her first WSOP final table in Event #4: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em which is now down to 3 now after 4 started the final day. Allen Bari has a huge chip lead with over 9m chips to Ho and Sean LeFort's 2m each. It would be nice to see a woman take down a bracelet this earlier, especially if it's Maria!


Event #9: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball, a triple chance (players get two add on chips) event gets underway with a half decent 275 players in the field. Jimmy 'Gobboboy' Fricke and George Lind have enough chips to make the biggest stacks to end day one. Hopefully Jimmy can make a deep run, I'm a big fan of his work on Pokerroad and behind the scenes on the Pokerstars Big Game.

Interesting article on the Fox News website about the effect Black Friday has had on families who rely on online poker as the main source of household income. It;'s great to see a few more 'real' stories come out of Black Friday instead of the 'oh no, I can't buy another $2m apartment/Bentley/$50k watch' type stories. The stories in the upcoming BOOM documentary seem to focus on the same issues, which should get people thinking about some of the more heartwarming stories.

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WSOP Days 3 & 4 + Other Stuff

The WSOP is really in full swing with events 4,5,6,7 and 8 all in progress currently.

Day 3 is underway in Event #4: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em with 42 players back to fight it out for the bracelet. The 2009 winner of the equivalent event Brian Lemke has 1m chips, almost 300k more than second in chips. Still a long way to go in that event though.

Jake Cody wins Event #2: $25,000 Heads-Up Championship for $851,192 and becomes only the third person to achieve a triple crown. Cody has now won an EPT (Deuville), WPT (London) and a WSOP bracelet. He took his time though, 15 months to win all three, and, oh yeah, he's 22 years old...

The first $1k mega donkaments of this years Wold Series, Event #8 starts today and so fare there are over 2,700 players in the field (including those registered for day 1b, which starts tomorrow). I guess poker isn't dead just yet - that's going to be an epic field. I have seen some crazy things playing poker but never anything quite like this.

Bluff Magazine will be taking care of the WSOP player of the year system for this WSOP.

I don't mind a bit of light entertainment and I think the WSOP rematches were just that. Chan and Moneymaker were victorious over Helmuth and Farha with the Chan v Seidel matchup postponed as Seidel was probably winning a few million dollars elsewhere and was unable to play.

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WSOP Day 2 Round-Up

It would be hard to follow the drama of the first day of the WSOP this year but here's a round up of the various goings on at the WSOP and the wider poker world:

The WSOP has announced a $1 Million buy-in tournament in aid of One Drop, an charity started by Guy Laliberte of Cirque du Soleil fame.

It looks like a few well known businessmen/poker players are on board:

Bobby Baldwin
Phil Ruffin
Andy Beal

In addition to the professionals everyone would expect:

Doyle Brunson
Patrik Antonius
Gus Hansen
Tony G

I think we can add Ivey to that list depending on how things go over the next year (the event will be in 2012). There is some serious value in there from the businessmen so I'd be surprised if we don't see a few lesser known pros selling action and getting involved - even if there is a big rake for the charity.

3 million chip starting stack, not entirely sure that is needed, although it is in line with the chip value of other WSOP tournies. There is a 48 player cap and if reached it would create a $40m prizepool and somewhere in the region of $17m for 1st..

Cue arguements about buying a bracelet (assuming there is one) and the all time money list which currently only requires $16m to take the top spot, although one would guess Seidel will just win it anyway.

2+2 poster ncpokeresq offers a half decent legal analysis of Ivey v. Tiltware which can be read here. It's posted in NVG so take it for what it's worth...

Titlware's response was clearly written by an angry hormonal teenager:

“Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets. In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited -- and has declined -- to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site. Tiltware doubts Mr. Ivey’s frivolous and self-serving lawsuit will ever get to court. But if it does, the company looks forward to presenting facts demonstrating that Mr. Ivey is putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help.”

Rapidly losing respect for the team over at Full Tilt, the knives have come our from some of the better known pro's - looks like that story has a long way to go.

Event #2: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdem Championship is about to kick off with day 3. The final 8:

Matt Marafioti vs Gus Hansen
Jake Cody vs Anthony Guetti
David Paredes vs Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Nikolay Evdakov v Eric Froehlich

Some interesting match ups there. Hansen sent Dwan packing in the last round and Timoshenko is just a monster. The structre is interesting too, players get an inital stack, then two 'rebuy' options which they can use at any time.

We'll probably start to see some players multi tabling as Event #4: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em kicks off today with what looks like a huge field for a $5k - Negreanu, Binger, Shulman and Liv Boeree are among the early chip leaders. Live updates can be found on Pokernews.

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WSOP Day 1 - Phil Ivey not playing WSOP, Bord and Juanda have a scrap

Well, the first 24 hours or so of the WSOP haven’t been without event, that much is for sure.

One thing I forgot to mention in my opening post yesterday was the stick that Full Tilt and other pros who represent sites who are yet to return player money would get from other players.

It was a pretty big oversight, because clearly those who have significant amounts of money tied up in these sites are going to be emotionally charged and in an environment where they are able to confront well known associates of the sites face to face.

It looks like first to create a scene was James Bord, who politely waited around for Jon Juanda to finish his match in the $25k HU event before launching into what appears to be a tirade of abuse at the Full Tilt pro.

Rio security were seen in the lobby giving Bord a hard time about his actions afterwards. Let’s hope there isn’t a hard penalty for his actions despite the fact that they were clearly not the best way to approach any situation that may have occurred.

After the words ‘thieving’ and ‘disgrace’ were heard it sounds like he made a physical threat which I’m sure the Rio security team will have to take seriously. It’s worth noting that Bord is British, so while it’s unlikely any of his own money is held up it’s possible he does have a significant interest in any horses he may have or money owed he’s not getting. There is some speculation that it may not have anything to do with Full Tilt paying out US players.

If Bord and Juanda’s tiff at the Rio was a warm up, then clearly Phil Ivey’s announcement on Facebook was the main event…

To cut a fairly long story short: Phil Ivey isn’t playing in the WSOP this year, and he’s files a law suit against Tiltware, the company that operates Full Tilt Poker.



Phil's statement from Facebook (page can be found here):

For many years, I have been proud to call myself a poker player. This great sport has taken me to places I only imagined going and I have been blessed with much success. It is therefore with deep regret that I believe I am compelled to release the following statement.

I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm.
I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

My name and reputation have been dragged through the mud, through the inactivity and indecision of others and on behalf of all poker players I refuse to remain silent any longer. I have electronically filed a lawsuit against Tiltware related to the unsettled player accounts. As I am sure the public can imagine, this was not an easy decision for me.

I sincerely hope this statement will ignite those capable of resolving the problems into immediate action and would like to clarify that until a solution is reached that cements the security of all players, both US and International, I will, as I have for the last six weeks, dedicate the entirety of my time and efforts to finding a solution for those who have been wronged by the painfully slow process of repayment.

The news came by way of Facebook with conformation seemingly from Wicked Chops Poker first after speaking to Phil's agent.

Without the slick PR machine of Full Tilt behind Phil I guess we can forgive the strange medium and approach of the announcement, including the 'PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIAYE RELEASE' on his website.



While some people are complaining about Phil's own self interest or some other agenda he might have I personally have a lot of respect for Phil and this really only cements his reputation as a stand up guy in my opinion.

Tom Dwan has publicly stated (by way of his Twitter account) that he will return all of the money he's made from Full Tilt in the event that players don't get their money back and that he'll be playing the WSOP.

In other news, Joe Sebok arrives tomorrow, that should be interesting...

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...and so it begins

With the Casino Employees event already underway and the $25k HU NLHE starting in a few hours the 2011 WSOP is underway.

Who will win their first bracelet? Who will win more than one bracelet this year? What prop bets will be won and lost over the coming weeks? Will Black Friday have a significant impact on prelim event field sizes? How about the main event? Will a well known pro make the final table in the main event?

All this and more to be answered in the next six weeks...

I'll be updating at various points on interesting events, prop bets, results and anything else I find interesting. It's unlikely I'll be in Vegas this year due to work commitments so I'll be updating the blog to help me cope.

BOOM - Poker Documentry Trailer

More great work from Ryan Firpo, Jay Rosenkrantz and Taylor Caby.

From what I understand there are a number of high stakes cash game players involved in the project, both in content and in financing.

You can see the trailer here:

They started producing/filming this before Black Friday, so my hat goes off to them for adjusting the content and coninuing with the project.

AP/UB File For Bankruptcy

Well, I can't say I'm surprised.

I never really played at either site, mostly because when I first tried back in 2007 I didn't really like the software and beyond that everything that was widely reported on various news sites and forums put me off for good. Other sites had great software, great games and great support, so there was no reason to play at either.

I really don't think people should have been playing there. I understand that many of the players may not have known, and not everyone reads ITH/2+2 or other sites they would have seen the news and details on but many people played there simply because it was soft and the games were better than they were elsewhere.

I don't believe that these people deserve to lose thier money in any way, because nobody does, but if you were educated on the matter (and you have to assume that most people with big balances were) then you really should have known better.

Sadly, for those with large balances trying to sell at ~15c on the dollar: I don't even think your funds there are worth that.

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'Federated Sports' Poker League Season 1

The roster for the first season of the Annie Duke/Jeffrey Pollack has been announced and it's actually better than I expected.

While I still don't agree that someone can just decide to set this up and call it what they have, it's clear they have put a significant amount of effort into the writing the criteria to get the players they want.

Criteria as follows:

The 5 Year Card was awarded to 27 players who met the following criteria:
- At least $4.0 million in adjusted lifetime earnings, with the single largest win capped at $2.0 million
- At least 3 major lifetime titles
- At least 9 cashes since January 1, 2008, for a total of at least $600,000 won

The 3 Year Card was awarded to 55 players who met the following criteria:
- At least $2.5 million in adjusted lifetime earnings, with the single largest win capped at $1.5 million
- At least 1 major lifetime title
- At least 9 cashes since January 1, 2008, for a total of at least $500,000 won

The 2 Year Category A Card was awarded to 36 players who met the following criteria:
- At least $2 million in adjusted lifetime earnings, with the single largest win capped at $1 million
- At least 1 major lifetime title
- At least 6 cashes since January 1, 2008, for a total of at least $300,000 won

The 2 Year Category B Card was awarded to XX players who met the following criteria:
- At least $1.25 million in adjusted lifetime earnings, with the single largest win capped at $750,000
- At least 9 cashes since January 1, 2008, for a total of $600,000 won

It is of course a shame to see no consideration of cash game play or online tournament results but adding either of those means a lot more work (if it's even possible in the case of cash game play) so I can see why they have restricted it to live tournament results.

From the Bluff article:

'For a tournament to qualify it must have been an open tournament with a buy-in of at least $1,500 and the field had to be a minimum of 21 players. The event must also have been publicly announced for at least 30 days prior to starting.'

So none of those 18 man SNG's with $100k buy-ins that get announced a day before are going to count, which is definitely a good thing.

It will be interesting to see how many players will actually turn out to play in these tournaments. I think we can assume that a field of some of the best players in the world with none of the casual and non-professional players that make live tournaments actually worth playing might put some players off.

We may end up with fairly small field tournaments with someone like Mike Matusow or Men Nguyen able to claim to be the 'best in the world' after beating a field of 50 players, which would be a shame.

Personally I think the best talent sits in the '2 Year Category B Card' list which contains people like Christian Harder, Jimmy Fricke, Andrew Robl and Peter Jetten. I'll take them over the Phil Hellmuth/Howard Lederer type players any day.

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Seiborg (feat. Erik Seidel)

Just in case anyone hasn't seen this yet, excelent work from SrslySirius, DRybes and the team behind The Micros:

Seiborg

Looks like Erik Seidel has been a great sport in helping create this. I'm not sure if this is the only/main video but I'm surprised it's only been viewed 25,000 times since April 29th.

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US Players Starting To Get Money Back

Great news that PokerStars has started to pay out to US players who are no longer able to play on the site.

Reports are that withdrawals are processing with little or no problems.

This should ease some of the concern around smaller numbers at the WSOP this year and give lots of players hope that funds from other sites will be recovered.

I wonder what all the players with huge balances will do with the money? I'm sure we'll hear some great tales of degeneracy in the coming months.

Fingers crossed for those with money in Full Tilt and AP/UB.

This is a great boost to me personally as the majority of the players I back play on Stars (In addition to non-US facing sites) so while I still face some interesting transfer issues now that 'ship it to me online' is no longer an option I'm glad the money is back in safe hands.

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Online Poker Advertising

It's really weird seeing adverts from poker rooms like Sky Poker, Betfair and some other smaller sites on forums and other poker related sites. They were so much a part of the furniture that they really jump out at me, I'm so used to seeing the same banners and logos everywhere.

I guess if you remove the two biggest sites everyone else can afford to enter the market where advertising is concerned.

I wonder if we'll see a bunch more sites putting patches on players at the WSOP this year? Could be a nice opportunity for a site with a decent marketing budget to get some great exposure.

US Facing Poker Sites

I have received a number of emails in the last couple of days offering great deposit bonuses and other deals to encourage people to play at the poker sites still able to accept US players.

I'm not American so it makes no difference to me, but for anyone who is I'd strongly advise that you don't deposit on these sites. While some of the bigger sites have been able to cut deals to potentially release funds, I can't see the smaller sites negotiating the return of players money.

The sites emailing these offers really don't have your best interests at heart, as they'll get a percentage of your rake or a one off sign up bonus when you sign up and deposit through them.

They have nothing to lose, you do.

DOJ Gives Domain Names Back

Good news from the DOJ press release, looks like FTP and Stars are getting domain names back to facilitate the return of funds to US players.

The document suggests there was an agreement, looking forward to hearing what that was.

UB and AP not named, as much as I dislike the sites I'd prefer for people who have money there, however silly that might have been, to get it back.

Info from Kevmath on Twitter.

The Fallout and the Future

Over the last could of days I’ve read various blogs and forum posts about the ‘Poker Apocalypse’ and I agree with most of what’s being said. I think that in some cases people may be over reacting a bit (on Friday people were suggesting a worldwide shutdown was coming within 48 hours) but overall players and the poker media have been fairly objective and relatively calm given the situation.

However, the one thing I have to disagree with that I’ve seen written in a number of places is that the removal of PokerStars and Full Tilt from the market (temporary or otherwise) could be a good thing. I understand the angle people are coming from, if you remove the two biggest sites you remove the fact that they have somewhat of a monopoly on the market.

The problem is that these sites are where they are because they are good at what they do. I’m sure everyone has had their problems with support at these sites over the years, but they are generally very quick to respond and helpful when they do. These two sites have set the bar in almost every respect, from tournaments and cash games to new concepts like rush poker, multi entry tournaments and double or nothings. Their size, profitability and volume of players allows them to try new things, develop new concepts and invest in the software, support teams and players.

Also, it’s not like there is the pool of players knocking around online and they just so happen to pick FTP or Stars. In most cases it’s one of these two sites that actually got people online to play poker on the internet in the first place. They run TV shows as headline sponsors, they run adverts in traditional media, magazines, websites and they have done a great job of adopting social media.

They also do a great job of retaining players with their frequent player programmes and rakeback. While I’m still bitter at the fact that I don’t get rakeback at FTP, Stars has kept me playing there with frequent deposit bonuses, VIP instant rewards and FPP bonuses.

Let’s not forget that they have had competition in the US (and continue to do so in Europe and the rest of the world) and Doyles Room, Cake Poker and the like have failed to capture enough of the market to make them anywhere near as competitive.
It’s also important to note that they have always had major competition, each other. When FTP decided to try to break the world record for the number of entrants in a tournament, Stars decided to beat them the week after. When you’re lucky enough to make a feature or final table in a big live tournament you do have at least two options most of the time on who to represent.

I have no affiliation with these sites, don’t have an advertising interests and the reason I’m not talking about UB/AP is because I don’t play there, and haven’t since all the original superuser details came out.
I’m all for competition and healthy competition clearly has its advantages for players and the poker media, but let’s not get carried away with what we want to see in the future.

After all, nobody was complaining when they were still around.

PokerStars Big Game Canceled

I'm sure there will be more shows and other media axed as I said in my post a few days ago, but I've just read that the PokerStars Big Game might not be back and that makes me sad.

It's a real shame because it was a fantastic concept and I liked the range of players they had on. I really enjoy High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark but they do feature a lot of the same players. It was great to see some decent online high stakes pros mix it up with the old guard and the loose cannon.

I'm a huge Huff & Stapes fan and I have to admit I actually quite like Gobboboy too, so I'm gutted to see such talent come off TV so soon after it got going. Hopefully they'll land on their feet and find something else soon.

It's a sign of things to come unfortunately.

Severity of DOJ Online Poker Charges

There seems to be growing speculation that the charges brought against the individuals involved in Stars. Full Tilt and UB/AP could have wider reaching consequences for the sites than initially thought, namely that they may actually end in the shutdown of all three major online poker sites.

It seems like a genuine threat, which is very concerning. The speculation is being lead by the money laundering charges. These are the most serious because regardless of your stance on online poker or gambling in general money laundering is a very serious crime. It’s unlikely that the DOJ would even have pursued the case if it were not for the money laundering part from what I’ve read.

So while we’re (and I’m referring to non-US players) all breathing a sigh of relief that we can still play poker and the games haven’t been effected in a devastating way, we could be in for a shock some time soon if this is pursued.

As I said in my previous post, sites like Party are in great shape at the moment, and even more so if the DOJ is planning to bring the hammer down. Only time will tell if their patience, and money, will pay off.

Post US Player Ban Fields Exceed Guarantees

I’m surprised at the field sizes online after ‘Black Friday’ as some of them were much bigger than expected in light of not taking US players.

It looks like a few players from the US did actually manage to play online yesterday. I think they have simply not logged out since before the ban, so I suppose they’ll be good until the reset servers.

While I can’t really blame them for getting in one last Sunday grind, I don’t think I’d continue to play in light of everything that’s happened. They might have been better off using the fact that they can still play to transfer money to other players who can get it offline for them, although there are obviously risks associated with that too.

Some of the bigger tournies had prizepools as follows:

Stars:

Kickoff ($75k Guarantee) $86k
Warm Up ($500k) $747k
Daily 40k - $106k
DNG ($200k) $251k
Storm ($200k) $301k

FTP:

Double Deuce – Multi Entry ($200k) $200k
FTOPS Event 1 – Multi Entry ($1m) $1.39m

With the reduced guarantees there wasn’t much chance of the overlay many people (myself included) were expecting. This is even more impressive when you add in the fact that French and Italian players no longer play on the main sites. It’s a mark of how far poker has come, as when the UIGEA came into effect Party dropped the Party Million to a $200k guaranteed tournament.

Stars and FTP have both done a great job at attracting players from around the world with sponsorship deals, TV shows and international marketing.

It doesn’t look like online poker is going anywhere yet. Hopefully it will be alive and kicking when US player get their freedom back.

New Online Poker World

The news that US players are no longer able to play online poker and that accounts are currently frozen is clearly bad for everyone involved in the industry, but what can we expect to see now?:

Online Marketing – It doesn’t look good for forums, poker podcasts, affiliate sites and anything that pretty much relies on two or three main sites as sources of income. I guess these types of income could be replaced by non-poker advertising for products likely to appeal to the poker player market, but with a potential reduction in traffic this might be a hard sell.

Player Sponsorship – Apparently Viffer was a couple of days away from signing a big deal with PokerStars. I wonder what will happen to all the ‘paid’ pros at FTP and Stars? The Red Pros at FTP have fairly basic rakeback type deals they they’ll simply lose out on those, but some of the deals must be fully contracted, monthly payment deals. I think we’ll see a few more players getting dropped.

Poker on TV – The PokerStars Big Game, Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker. The TV shows that bring poker to the mainstream on TV are on the whole sponsored by Stars and FTP. These shows were a key way for these sites to market to an audience that they don’t have access to via traditional marketing and advertising activity. I’m interested to see what happens to these now.

Live Poker - It seems likley that there will be an increase in live play in the US, but the WSOP should be interesting this year, as online sites were a common route to the Main Event. We could see a field of 5,500 or less this year. There may also be a knock on effect on the prelims if money in online accounts remains frozen. Many players would have been cashing that out to play this year.

Non US players - I think we'll continue to see a strong market, especially on Stars. Even tonight, the Daily Ninety Grand is running on Stars, with full guarantee, 2,244 players and a $112k prizepool. The Sunday Million has had $500k dropped from it’s guarantee (to $1m) but things seem about as normal as they could be, given the circumstances.

In all this is difficult to speculate on how long (if ever) it will take to get US players back online, but will people keep sponsorship deals, TV shows, training sites and other activity in operation in the hope that if they keep going they’ll be around and ready for a second poker boom if poker gets legalised?

Party Poker looks to be in good shape now. That $300m or whatever they paid to the US government doesn't look so bad now...