Time to muscle up

Waffles sense of urgency in the weight loss department has spurred my interest in losing the some lbs. Obviously he is doing this because his wife wants to leave and he needs to be in shape in order to have any chance at even a middle aged hottie.

I've been riding the bike, working out at the gym a little, but I realized, having spent the better part of last month in a Casino, that watching not just what you eat, but how much of it is paramount to any success in health. Not just losing weight either, but general health over all.

I need to make a ton of changes. Stopping the chewing tobacco, quitting the late night meals, actually eating breakfast, and no more eating 4 dinners because the kids didn't finish their plate.

So, I was speaking to a few people about this during some down time while covering the tournament series. It was really unbelievable to me the amount of folks who are on this seemingly endless journey. Everyone seems to be really hunkering down and moving on their plans to become healthier.

So speaking to a few of those people, and some others while I'm here at the Borgata, I got some advice. In the end - What I found was a really cool site that offered the products I thought would fit me perfectly and my lifestyle, as it is today. That is being on the go, 57 kids, playing poker, etc, etc.

This site right here offered me some very cool products and information to help me along my journey. Not only do they have the products, but you get help. Coaching is available, and all sorts of things not only for losing weight, but general health benefits overall.

I know Kelly. She's a server here at the Borgata and told me about this stuff. She's very knowledgeable and is going to work with me. When it comes to stuff like this, sheer will power isn't enough. I need a plan, nomenclature, and a coach to plug me along. With these products, and her help, we'll see what can happen. I predict huge success.

BORGATA SUMMER OPEN MAIN EVENT

Today is the $3k Main event for the Borgata summer open. They got 415 registrants and play is under way.

Some real silly things happening so far, but the field is thick with pros and should be a very good tournament.

Check out the coverage here

My Favorites -

RIP Farrah and Michael









RIP Michael

Kickin' it Old School

Last night we were looking up old youtube vids of Michael Jackson. As well as the rest of the computing world, I guess. But in my travels along those searches I ran into some PHAT old school raps.

For your enjoyment:

Poker Song

BODOG MINI SERIES

Bodog is again making good for the poker bloggers out there with the Bodog 2009 Mini Series, starting Friday, July 3rd. Be sure to keep up with the action and full details over at Smokkee's site. His latest post offers more details, but I'll go ahead and give you the mini scoop...


The top 9 leader board finishers receive:

• 1st place: A 2010 WSOP Main Event seat and a 2010 Team Bodog membership (valued at $12,000).
• 2nd and 3rd place: A Bodog Poker Open IV Prize Package (or a buy-in to all BPOIV events to be hosted in the fall of 2009).
• 4th and 5th place: A Bodog Flight Club Semifinal seat (valued at $270).
• 6th thru 9th place: A seat to a Sunday $100,000 Guaranteed Tournament (valued at $109).

I'm hoping to play all of the 13 qualifying events and, if things go well, the semifinal and final as well. I hope you'll join me along the way. With 13 events over 13 days and a total of 15 events over 21 days, it is sure to be a crazy time. Of course you don't have to play them all, but the more you play, the better chance for pay!

Also, If you are looking for action above and beyond the Mini Series, don't forget about the 2009 WSOP Main Event props and odds available at the Bodog Sportsbook.

So there you have it. Again, be sure to visit Smokkee early and often if you have any questions or comments regarding the series.


*Recopied without the express consent of Tripjax :)

Borgata $500 short handed event

I'm shredded. This is grueling, and I even had 2 days off. Back at it again.

Today is the final day of the $500 deep stack with 160+ players coming back, and the $500 6 max tourney.

Go HERE for coverage.

That is all

CONSPIRACY!

Sitting here in the poker room and having folks come up to me and say they found and read my blog is kinda, well... gay.

OK, I'm kidding. It's kinda cool, and most stated they found it through following the Borgata blog.

The funny thing is that most wanted to talk about Online poker. Apparently one guy who was playing in the tournament was talking about how all Online sites were getting shut down as soon as the end of this week.

Sounds pretty standard. Idiot hears one sound byte about the government seizing funds and that leads him down the path to believe that all online poker sites will be shut down. Without doing any research, he then states as fact in public that it will happen.

So some of these guys came over and asked me questions based on the post I wrote about it here. I admit, I wasn't very thorough about my explanation because of the time I had to write it, and it was off the top of my head as I did.

Most asked very intelligent questions. Which I answered to the best of my ability with the caveat that some things were pure supposition by me, based on my experiences, conversations, and opinion.

One guy who was standing by overheard my conversation with the others. He said he heard what I was saying and that he knew more. He was convinced that it was a pure conspiracy on every level. In fact, he would ask a question, or state an opinion rather without letting me get a word in edgewise. He would say "I swear man, they're all to get us. I know there's some faction somewhere that thinks all this money is just theirs, and they intend to keep it." He even went as far as to say that he knew about a euro who had won over $500k online and when he went to try to collect they gave him issues. Before he got it, he was mysteriously "murdered" in a car wreck outside of Caans! He was truly convinced of this.

Well, I couldn't resist. I was tired, a little bored, and the day was dragging. So I went with it. This is what I told him. Almost verbatim.

"Dude! Keep your mouth down. Don't think there isn't people in here connected with this thing. You keep talking the way you do and you're next on the list. I know exactly what you're saying but I've been afraid to speak up for the same reasons as that Euro guy." I conspicuously looked around and motioned for him to come closer. "This is 50 times bigger than even you can imagine".

His eyes widened. "Look, do you really think it was necessary for the US Government to pass a law that said online poker was illegal?". "Of course not man! I never understood it", he replied.

"Think about it man! The sites were making a ton of money. PILES! They weren't cooperating with the government. Which by the way is not really the government. You ever hear of Illuminati?" "YEAH DUDE, That's what I thought!!!" He almost came out of his shoes.

I told him to quiet down again. I said, "listen cuz, the law was passed because they needed a way to hurt the industry. They needed a way to tell them that if they wouldn't cooperate and let them get their cut, they would find a way to take it how they saw fit." He was intrigued. "This seizure of $30 million is just the beginning. Oh, and don't think the whole UB/AP thing wasn't rigged either. Russ Hamilton is a known member of a group connected to Illuminati. He was only taking what was his.... or "theirs" rather.

This guy is racing now. He's totally in agreement with what I am saying and can't wait for the next tidbit.

"Listen man, I could go on 100 levels deep here, but you have to understand that this is a dangerous game we're playing. Poker is about money." "And money is about power!" he interupted.

"Now you see what I am getting at. If you want to be behind the glass, make sure you're keeping this to yourself". "Behind the glass?" He questioned. "Yeah man, protected. Look, I can't say anymore. Just know that there are people out there who think all of this belongs to them, and they will do everything to take it, keep it, whatever."

"Just watch your back, and don't tell anyone what I just told you".

He shook my hand and left in amazement and concern of what was just told to him.

One of the players was standing by and watched him leave. He came over and asked me why I was talking to him. I said he just asked me a question. The guy giggles a little and says that he's been hanging around the poker room just watching all week. Talks to some but mostly everyone thought he was just a piker.

I told him what I said to the guy and he looked on in horror. "Do you really think so man, cause I've been wondering myself". I looked at him and hesitated. Then I said, "Stop fuckin' with me". We both laughed and went on our ways.

Today's events at the Borgata is the $300 O/8 tourney, the $300 NLHE and the final day of the $500 deep stack.

Check it out here for the action

Funny thing happened on the way to the chop

Blogging the Summer Open I've seen a ton of funny, stupid and pretty smart stuff. The $1k offered something to consider.

Usually these things start discussing chops when there are around 15 people left. Sometimes earlier. Sometimes later. But this tourney was different. It was only a 15k starting stack but the levels were 45 minutes and then bumped to an hour when it got to the final table.

I would tell you that by covering these things that there's usually a sweet spot for chops. That is to say the best time to offer and make them. That occurs usually when there's 4 to 7 players left.

Anything before 7 and it just gets stupid. Anything after 4 and it becomes a mess. Especially when someone has the lion share of the chips. Heads up isn't always easy either because both see the light at the end of the tunnel. But usually they're so tired from playing forever, that they come to an agreement. But 3 left is almost impossible unless you have 3 like minded people.

So today, during the 1K we had three players left. Levels were 10k/20k with 4k antes and an hour long. The next level was going to 15k/30k with the same 4k antes.

Player one had 2.3 million in chips, player 2 had 1.1 million in chips and player 3 had 600k

The offer came up and it was 61k to the chip leader, 50k to second and 29k to third.

First actually paid 73k, second paid 44k and third was to get 23k.

So third is looking at 6k more to call it quits.

He asked me my advice and I told him to tell them to shove it.

Now, I'm usually a big advocate of chops. I think they make the most sense in terms of equity, especially when the structure leads to push and pray type poker and variance will play more into the outcome.

But with this structure and the ability, or chance even, to double up and grab a whole lot more, I thought that the extra 6k was not worth the opportunity to grab another 21k.

Here's why I thought he should not chop.

1. the structure was way to favorable to be able to sit there and wait it out.
2. The 6k extra wasn't enough to entice him to give up on another 21k or 50k even if he caught lightning and went on to win.
3. 6K to this guy is like a tank of gas. It plays into the scenario.
4. He asked for 3k more from the guy who was taking 50k, and he refused to relent stating he had twice the amount of chips.

I offered to calculate the chip equity via ICM but it never got to that. He refused to chop and it played out as I wrote on the blog. Which you can read here.

He took third after getting sucked out on after 4 bet shoving pre flop, but I still think it was the right decision. Based on the structure, the offer, and his situation. Not to mention the desire to keep playing.

This guy was a first timer, and he plays for fun. He's not a tournament grinder. He wanted to take his shot, and he did. Unfortunately it played out to his disadvantage, but he had no regrets.

Feel free to post your thoughts, and rip me for costing a guy another 6k.

There's a lot more action this month here and tomorrow is the $500 deep stack. Considering the field, I'm sure the chop action will get a whole lot more interesting. I'll be sure to post updates.

Blogging the B

I've been down here a few days now and it is a total grind. Playing would actually be easier than running around listening to bad beat stories and taking chip counts.

But the play ranges from really good to really surprising. They are long days that start at 11am and don't finish until 5am sometimes.

The B has some really good events coming up and I suggest that you get down, up, or over here and stake you claim.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of daily tournament players that have come back from Vegas to play this series because of the better structure and smaller fields. But they are still big enough to offer an awesome value and return on your investment.

If you do come down, stop by the media table and say hi.

You can follow the action along here

Online transactions - super long uber post

There have been some articles floating around about online transactions and who has not paid their debt to sites, who has gotten the funds seized, and how long will it take to get those funds back.

I used to work in that industry, and actually had Party as a client doing ACH's for them for some time. Before the shit storm that is. I've been hit up on the girly a few times as well, so I figured I would give you my take on the situation.

To do that, we will start with the law. That is the UIGEA. Which stands for fuck everyone in the ass multiple times because we can. I think. The background on this law is very familiar to me. I was a week away from flying to London to sign a very lucrative deal with a certain online site. That law was passed over the weekend on a saturday. Monday morning I was made aware of the companies intentions to ditch operations in the states, therefore, killing our deal. Or at least putting it on hold.

The law was hidden, or stuffed, into the Port Security Act. How this made any sense is quite interesting. Because in fact, it made all the sense in the world. From a legislative stand point. The Port security act was meant to give the US Government more freedom to attack and stop terrorists. How this relates to poker usually seems to be the head scratcher. But in all actuallity, it had nothing to do with poker, and everything to do with financial transactions.

See, the government learned that terrorists had an edge. That edge was being able to move millions and millions of dollars around to fund their little operatives and their operations. After 9/11, all investigations pointed to the fact that terrorists had a vast infrastructure of ways to move money undetected. That was a massive failure on the part of US intelligence. Follow the money was always a creedo of the CIA. But in this case, they couldn't.

Example:

Credit card companies enacted a policy a few years back, mandated by the Treasury that said they could not allow a negative balance on any card. What this means is that if you owed $200 on your card, and charged a $50 purchase to that same card between the pay periods, AND sent a payment in for $250, before that second purchase hit, the CC company would have to send you a refund.

What the terrorist were doing were opening up 6 and 7 figure credit accounts, and making payments without charging anything. They could then use the card to make whatever purchases they needed, or take cash advances. This was a very clean way to launder money.

On the back of that little scheme, they could, and did, do the same thing with online gaming. Deposit small amounts under seprate accounts, transfer to one, and take out a huge sum. Money cleaned. This is one reason why multi accounting is prohibited. And you thought it had to do with only concealing ones identity, therefore getting a bigger edge in a game. HAHAHAHAHA!

Now, the political benefit that the senators got from saying they were outlawing an immoral game came along with that bill. But was clearly secondary.

Stay with me here, it get's better....

The online POKER industry, not gaming, had an estimated gross of 80 BILLION in 2006. That's right! 80 BILLION. It was estimated that 80% of that came from the states alone. Seeing that none of that money becomes a realization without a processor of some type means that providers of money transfer, and transactions made a percentage on all of those dollars. All 80 billion of it.

Now, lets get back to the transactions. A quick run down so you can better understand how it works.

If you wish to skip the credit card processing history, scroll down to the next star.

You have a credit card and the merchant has a merchant account to process that card and receive funds from a bank that BELIEVES he actually just sold you goods or services (end run on sentence). The bank who underwrote that transaction (which we will refer to as tx's fom here on out), will send that bill to your credit card company, or issuing bank. They in turn will hit your card, and charge you interest until you pay it off. *Waffles should be reading this.

What's missing here is the process of information from the merchant to the underwriting bank, and back to your issuing bank. Plus, who the hell knows if your card is any good?

Visa and Mastercard are two competing associations. These association work independantly of each other, and actually can't stand each other. Each has their own rules and guidelines but work together to protect market share from Amex and others. Obviously it works. But trust me they hate each other.

The Merchant account:

To obtain a merchant account, you have to satisfy several requirements. The first is credit. Applying for a merchant account is like applying for a mortgage. Think about it. As a merchant you are basically purporting to the banks when you swipe a customers card that you are providing him with good's or services that he wants. You get paid by the underwriting bank. And you will be paid before the customer gets his bill in the mail, so there is a good faith effort on the part of the ubderwriting bank to pay you those monies. Fraud is very rampant in this industry, no matter how diligent the processors are. In the early days, people used to open up merchant accounts, swipe 100's of stolen cards out of their bedrooms, and collect thousands, if not more from the banks before they even knew what was going on. This is why today, part of your application, if in fact you have a brick and mortar business, requires the sales rep to include a photograph of your place of business.

Some companies will require that you put up a deposit of escrow to obtain an account. All companies will want a personal guarantee. It's not at all easy to get one. This is why you see people using pay pal quite often as an aggregator of tx's. People would rather use them, or a company like them, instead of going through the hassle of obtaining an account.

The processor:

The processor is the company that sells you the technology that enables you to take transactions. This is where it gets confusing, and I won't have the bandwidth to be absolutely complete, but I will try to sum up as quickly as I can. Some of these companies are nothing more than sales organizations that sell for several tech companies. These independant sales organizations, or ISO's, will sell the services of several different tech companies. Ones that actually own the rails that the information rides along. Processors make their money by grabbing a percentage of each tx, monthly fees they charge to the merchant for the provision of service, and any other hardware or technology they will provide. Such as a machine or gateway.
A gateway is a piece of software that enables tx's to be transferred securely via the internet. There are companies out there which all they do is provide gateways. Some processors require that you provide your own gateway, and some assign one to you. These gateways have a monthly fee attached to them, but recently, some banks have included them to be more competititve. Verisign is a gateway.


The transaction:

There are two categories of tx's, and hundreds of sub categories. Card present, and Card not present are the two categories.. Obviously they are self explanatory. The sub categories have to do with what you are selling. Products or services, what type of products, and what type of services. How you are charged as a merchant depends on what category and which sub category you fall into.

The formula on the cost of the tx is pretty obvious. Card present = less risk, so it will be inherently cheaper. Supermarkets are very high volume, and very low risk, so their rates are the cheapest in the industry. Usually around 1.5-2%. But online porn is super high. Obviously you are not there to sign, and the product itself can be a very embarrasing purchase. So if the wife finds it on the statement, the chance of her disputing it and getting it charged back, because you denied ever purchasing it is very high.

Not too mention that Visa and Mastercard have rules about not allowing those purchases through. But it happens. And it's not becuase of the moral issue. It's because those charge backs cost a ton of money. Porn companies usually get charged in the 30% range. So it's not Jenna Jameson or vivid who is making the lion share of the money in that industry. It's the processors!

There are also other tx's such as ACH's, better known as electronic checks. (ACH = automated clearing house). These are usually charged by the piece and not a percentage of amount. Same as debit.

The issuing bank:

The issuuing bank is quite simply the one who underwrites your MBNA or Capitol one card. They are the ones that assume the debt that you are running up everytime you fill the tank up, or buy shoes.

The settlement/ underwrting bank:

These are the gods of all tx's. These are the guys who actually receive all the money being sent in and manage the disbursements of all tx's. Most of these guys don't even have a processing company. They just say wether or not a merchant is worthy of such an account.

They also mandate restricitions and requirements based on federal guidelins. Such as x amount of funds to back whatever they might be shipping in the que. So if FT says, we have 2 million in withdrawls this week, the underwriting bank says, we can, or can't cover it.

Most of the time those funds are really all just on paper. Sure, the fees and commissions are transferred so people get paid, but base premiums are all justs sitting in a big account somewhere waiting for their disbursement back to consumers, issuing banks and merchants.

Ancillary aspects:

Now there are a million other things I could talk about but to get into the meat of how a tx works it goes like this. You swipe your card. Immediately there has to be an authorization, or pre-auth as so commonly used in the industry. That pre-auth is obtained only one way. Visa and Mastercard each have a point of entry. It used to be called a MIP (Mastercard Internet protocol) and VAP (Visa access point). There are only about 3 of each in the world. And are owned or "leased" by 3 organizations each. Everyone else who provides this service must rent those locations from those banks that own them. As I had said before some processors don't own their own "rails" so they must rent from others that do. Such as Trans Union, or some other giant. What this shows is how many people must get paid on any certain transaction. I think the average last I counted was 15. Once the auth is obtained, the transaction goes along the rails from the merchant to your issuing bank, back to the settlement bank and then closed.

And one little tidbit which I find interesting. Just to show you how monsterous Walmart is... They built and own their own processing, issuing, and settlement bank. They did this because they wanted to save money on tx's, and well, because they could. To date, they use it privately. This was not done with the blessing of either Visa or Mastercard.

*****


I'm trailing off as I am trying to work as I type this, and I'm sure I fucked it up a little, but let's get back to where we started. Which is my take on this little article here and how it relates to people getting their money off of sites.

To determine the validity of the seizure, you have to breakdown the law. Which is the UIGEA. This law is bogus on so many levels, it's almost comical. For one, it does not outlaw, or ban internet gaming. It doesn't make online poker illegal. It does however, make it illegal to transfer monies for the purposes of online gaming. However, it is almost unenforceable.

The siezure becomes applicable if the government can show that the only way to get them out is to wire the money back to its depositors. Which is entirely the case. How does that effect those that have money coming to them then?

Well, for one, it's going to be a while til you get your money. Unless of course, FT or Stars has a slush fund somewhere that hasn't been seized. Or, if they can find another processor. I'm working on that btw :)

With the advent of Franks proposed bill, and several conversations I've had with some folks, I would guess that this is nothing more than a money grab happening before the bill gets turned around. Once it happens every cent will be taxed. So why not hang on to it before they an make that happen? Make sure that nothing gets transferred out before they lose the ability to tax it?

The other possibility here is that the site themselves are making interest on this money. And it's a huge number. I'm sure the sites have no issue with not having to pay. Of course, the underwriting banks could, and probably do have verbiage in their contracts that disposes of earned interest in the event of government interferance.

Even without the interferenance, logistically, it's always been an issue for getting money out and in to these sites. With the above explanation of how these tx's actually work, you can see the dilemna. That is, the underwriting banks have to guarantee these payments while they float into space. This is why a year ago, the new processor put a two week hold on all payments. The issue there was that there was too much in the que, and they just didn't have enough to cover the liabitliy.

So they had to wait for the first batches to clear. Kinda like a bottle neck of liability. So if they have enough to cover say 30mil, that's about all they can let out at any given point. With 90 million people playing this game, it's very believable to think that the threshold could be reached on a weekly basis.

I could talk about the seedy part of this as well. How the banks could collude with the sites to ensure x amount was earned in interest before sending off. It could also be that this time of year (think WSOP), most are pulling out to go and try to live their dreams. And the banks just can't hanlde the volulme. But the bottom line here is that you will not lose your money. You will eventually get it. It may just take some time.

I haven't necessarily been diligent in editing this post. I hope it makes sense. I have people here and I'm working!!! Give me a break! No time to proof read!

BBT, Borgata Summer Open, and Stoners!

Wow! What a finish to the BBT last night. JJOK, actyper (who has been on a tear), Ck, and some other karma person all cashed last night in the BBT freeroll!

JJ and Typer won their seats into the WSOP Main. CK and Karma won a $2k package each.

The question seemingly on everyones mind is, will the WSOP seats be used? Or will the cash go for shoes, oatmeal, and tuition?

Loretta put up a great post about who's really at fault here. It's a little of the don't bite the hand that feeds you, but I agree 100%. The monies given out as prizes here from FT aren't because they like us as a group. It's called advertising dollars. Ad dollars are an investment, and there are things you can do to boost the ROI of every dollar.

Loretta won last year, and didn't seem to get much help in the way of converting the 10k into a seat from FT. He states a great point. Go read.

And yes, the $10k should be used to play. Absolutely. But in JJ's case, I make an exception. For one, he has 137 kids to provide for. He has a job. Add to that a wife, and there are multiple obstacles to hurdle. Anyone in that position should be given at least a little consideration. For some it would be almost irresponsible to play.

But that leads to the question of whether you should even play if you don't expect to enter the Main if in fact you do win. I think that's a horseshit question. FT cannot enforce playing in the Main because they don't have an intermediary to make sure you buy in with the 10k. And since Harrah's won't allow third party registrations, it's tough to do so. In other words, it's not a use it or lose it proposition. Maybe it should be.

That would take the arguments about irresponsibility moot. Full Tilt should take some responsibility and provide for these players a real incentive for playing, rather than just taking the cash. And I'm not talking about a monetary incentive. They should take a general interest. That would be a good start.

As I'm sure you all heard by now, Stoner took 3rd in event 13 at the WSOP. Taking down just over $200k. Awesome Job!

As for me, I'm down at the Borgata covering the Summer Open. This goes until the 30th of June with plenty of events to choose from, so stop on by and say hi. It will certainly be a good month.

Borgata Summer Open

The coverage for the Borgata Summer Open stars tomorrow.

You can read it here...

I'll have a whole crew down there for the month blogging away. I will have interviews from all your favorite pros. Most will be coming back from Vegas to play in a some of the events.

I have Eric Lynch doing an interview, and I will have Lacey Jones talk about her new sponsorship of UB.

The Borgata puts on one hell of an event, and the structures are unbeatable. I will be putting about 15 players into some of the events. They won their way through my company, and I look forward to seeing them dust off, I mean, fight their way through the fields to win millions!

Waffles, Goat, Al, and others will be guest posting. Waffles might even stop on down for a few days. I'm hoping Astin makes the trip as well, bringing along some others with him.

It's going to be a good month!

Waffles is God pt.2

Yes, only so often does someone show up and just impress upon you something so dynamic. Often times these little things go unnoticed, and therefore unused in life. This is what defines the true meaning of the word tragedy.

Alas, there are things that people desire, and accomplishments to which they aspire. Waffles has opened up the world. All is clear. For that, I am eternally indebted.

to be continued...

Waffles!!!! Part 1

Waffles is GOD! Yes that is right! Waffles is the Lord of men. I lay down before him and offer my soul! Yes! I have sold my soul!

to be cont'd...

Running!

June is Reading Month!!

With so much going on this month in the World of Poker, there will be more than enough content to follow. The whole WSOP thing going on, Boragata will be hosting their Summer Open, which you can follow here.

My crew and I will be down there blogging away the entire month. This time around you will be able to see some vids, listen to some audio, and get a chance to read some guests posts from some very talented pros, writers, and over all goofballs!

After the Borg, I will be making my way out to Vegas for the lifestyle show (I think they are calling it Poker Palooza this year), and will spend a couple 4 days, or until business is wrapped up.

Good luck to all of those in the TOC and to those who travel to Vegas for any part of the WSOP. I'm short on content these days so I will leave you with a vid from the 80's. Very Very Busy... Just trying to get it done!