Poker Guru Blog

The poker community has been in the past week or so all about the “Girah Scandal” – which is not at all about ’Girah’ any more. The true principles have become Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi and Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates, the career of both in ruins and not a word they say believed any more. Although it took them this much to eventually come clean, at least finally it seems they did.

Haseeb 'dogishead' Qureshi

In a recent blog post on 2p2, before retiring entirely from poker, or at least saying so, Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi felt the need to once again, finally clarify everything he had been dishonest about. A few contributions later, Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates also confessed, as a follow-up to his recent interview with Subject: Poker. Some excerpts of interest are as follows.

Google Plus, the latest pretender to Facebook’s throne, has made yet another step in the competition against the social media giant. They have introduced games, undeniably an integral part of the online community experience, and hit big doing so with titles like Angry Birds and Zynga Poker.

Zynga Poker is an online free-to-play poker game with arguably the biggest community among its kind, even surpassing the trademarked WSOP game. It has been speculated that Zynga, the developer of popular online applications like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Treasure Isle, might be the biggest winner of a future regulation of the US market with its player base consisting of over 36 million users, many of whom possibly willing to become a real money player if Zynga offered such an option.

Bluff Magazine has interviewed the two high stakes players who seem to have the most suspicious relationship with the scammer José ‘Girah’ Macedo. Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates and Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi were asked a couple of more or less pressing questions and here are some of their answers.

Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates

Currently there seems to be no end to the recently surfaced Girah Scandal, as 2p2 forum members and the whole poker NVG community continues to unearth and prove newer and newer details by the day and come up with even more conspiracy theories and suspicions. So far, Qureshi has more than once tried to clear his name but apparently he only succeeds in going deeper down with each of his posts and statements, admitting to actions that had been proven and denying others.

Full Tilt Poker reportedly paid the £250,000 license fee to Alderney, which they were reluctant to do so during the July 26 hearing. They also sacked many of their U.S. employees in order to sort out the company. Many sources reported not long ago that Full Tilt Poker has let go of many of its employees. According to such reports, mainly U.S. persons were fired, who worked in their offices since the Black Friday. Pocket Kings Ltd's employees in the Irish headquarters of Full Tilt Poker are still working and receive their salaries, but it is unsure for how long.

18 years old Jose Macedo, the Portuguese Poker Prodigy as he is much better known, confessed that he cheated his coached students during a teamviewer session. He won over $30,000 from them, which he promised to pay back, plus he would give a $30,000 compensation per player. Lock Poker has cut his sponsorship, and he is also out of PokerStrategy's coach team.

Jose Macedo, already a Lock Poker pro was caught cheating this May, when he took down Lock Poker's Pro Challenge, but a few days later, it was discovered that he was multi-accounting; therefore, he was disqualified.

"Jose is young and he has made a big mistake here. We wanted to make sure that regardless of being a Lock Pro he won this fair and square. After doing an audit of his account, we have found that he broke some rules, and that will not be tolerated by Lock," Lock Poker CEO Jennifer Larson stated in a press release.

Of course, 'Girah' admitted to be at fault, and explained himself: "I’m deeply sorry for having broken the rules, but I truly had no intention of circumventing the rules in any way. Though it is no excuse, I want to be fully transparent at this point to let the poker world know what has happened and why. The computer in question was my backer, who logged into my account to check my balance and ended up playing some $25/$50 PLO while I was asleep and lost some money. Though on the merit of my own legitimate play I had enough winnings to win the Bluff Challenge, in light of the way things appear, I fully support and respect Lock’s decision to disqualify me and hand over the challenge to the second place winner." - Macedo told in May.

The Portuguese pro's reputation survived that mishap; his friends, Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates and Haseeb 'INTERNETPOKERS' Qureshi (who just turned out to be his backer at the Bluff Challenge) were en route to Portugal to live with Macedo, because they were no longer allowed to play online poker in the United States; however, this plan quickly fell apart as news broke yesterday.

Online betting exchange Betfair, in a wave of thorough revision of their sport sponsorship activities, has ended its sponsorship contract with UEFA Champions League 2010/11 winner FC Barcelona and signed four sport stars for brand ambassadors. Marketing magazine reports.

Alasdair Wright, former Head of Marketing and Strategy at BSkyB and Head of Customer Marketing at AOL, was appointed Global Head of Customer Marketing and Loyalty at Betfair two months ago and it is his duty to oversee the marketing activity of the company. Hence the shift from a tendency of deals and contracts with top European soccer clubs, including Manchester United and FC Barcelona, to introducing retired sport aces as brand ambassadors. Nevertheless, Betfair remains the official betting partner of the 'Red Devils.'

The 9-hour-long Friday Night Podcast of Quadjacks saw Daniel Negreanu, Matt Savage, Mike Matusow and Tony G talk extensively about the current issues in poker.

A lot of interesting topics have been discussed, including the WSOP 'No Talking' rule, the Epic Poker League, Full Tilt's current situation and Subject:Poker's article.

New data has surfaced indicating that Phil Ivey borrowed money from Full Tilt poker on many occasions and it seems like he has not paid it back yet.

Subject:Poker has recently published a report that contains all the player transactions made between Ivey and Full Tilt. This data shows that he owes the poker room more than $5 million. It is important to note here, however, that we do not know anything about other possible transactions which would be necessary to tell what the truth is.

It is a fact, though, that Phil Ivey filed a lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker (more specifically Tiltware, its operator) in early June, to which Full Tilt replied that Ivey owes a large sum of money to the site.

The report that has just been published states that between June 2009 and April 2011, Phil Ivey borrowed money from Full Tilt at least eighteen times (making $10,715,000) and repaid money at least five times, totalling around $5 million. So the assumption is, that Ivey still owes Full Tilt around $5 million.

Full Tilt Poker's AGCC hearing is underway in London, Victoria Park Plaza Hotel, but not publicly as it was announced: Full Tilt lawyers managed to take the case private. Full Tilt Poker owes AGCC £250,000 in license fees, and wants to adjourn the hearing, as they are still in talks with their alleged investors.

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission revoked the operational license of Full Tilt Poker on June 29. The reason for this decision was that Full Tilt Poker was unable to pay their U.S. players since the Black Friday (April 25), which is clearly a breach of their AGCC license agreement. They owe $150 million according to reports. FTP is offline for all since their license has been revoked.

A few days later, the Los Angeles Times reported that Full Tilt Poker has struck a deal with European investors, who are willing to buy the majority of Full Tilt Poker, backing them financially to be able to pay the $150 million to players. This news, however, proved to be premature, because as we now know it, no deal has been struck, only negotiations were underway.

Phil 'OMGClayAiken' Galfond, one of the most popular online poker players and instructors, cash game specialist thought it was time to get back to his loved online poker; according to his recent tweet, he moved to Canada to be able to play.

Rakerace.com wrote about Cole South, former CardRunners coach and Full Tilt Poker pro, who decided to move to Canada after the United States Department of Justice seized the domains of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, making playing online poker impossible in the U.S.

Phil Galfond

Phil Galfond seems to have followed suit as it was rumored; the pro already expressed his intention of moving this April. 3 hours ago he tweeted:

PhilGalfond
"Really happy to be back playing at @PokerStars. They've been extremely helpful and responsive with getting everything setup again."

A new website has been launched, under the name fulltiltscrewed.me. The owners of the site are collecting petitions from those who have their bankroll stuck on Full Tilt. The petition will be handed over to the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) at an open trial on the 26th July.

AGCC will sit down to negotiate with Full Tilt Poker representatives on the 26th July in the Park Plaza Victoria Hotel in London. Here, all the documents will be presented that played a role in the shutdown of FTP. This is when AGCC will receive the petition from fulltiltscrewed.me.

Here is the text of the petition:

We, the undersigned, demand that the Alderney Gambling Control Commission enforces it’s legal obligation to ensure it’s Licensee, Tiltware (trading as Full Tilt Poker), returns all player funds on deposit without further delay pursuant to the Alderney eGambling Regulations 2009.

(a) to an account with a financial institution in his name; (b) to an account with an associate of the Category 1 eGambling licensee in his name; or (c) by providing a non-negotiable instrument marked ―account payee made out in his name and forwarded to his address as recorded in accordance with regulation 227, pursuant to the terms and conditions governing the customer relationship and as set out in the Category 1 eGambling licensee’s approved internal control system.

Bwin has been offering an iPhone client to their Austrian and British customers, but now they opened up to an even bigger market: they released their client for Android smarthphones as well, which is available to all Bwin customers all around the world. The Ongame Network felt the time has come to venture into the mobile market. They now allow their poker rooms to develop their poker clients to smartphones. The biggest ongame room, Bwin reacted first, after the January release of their iPhone app, they rolled out the their app for Android phones as well. In January, Berthold Kao, head of product management RNG & mobile commented:

"At this stage we are just looking at making the best app we are capable of. We went for two legally safe markets [the United Kingdom and Austria] and it went through. Other operators have seen their apps dismissed in other markets but we do not know why. (...) This does not mean we’re not focusing on Android, but there are a couple of reasons why iPhone seemed to be a more mature solution."

PLO champion Ben Lamb is still competing in the Main Event, and with his current results he has overtaken Phil Hellmuth on the Player of the Year (POY) leaderboard.

Ben "Benba" Lamb is performing fantastically at this year's WSOP. The PLO and NLHE pro played his first final table on the 20th June and became second at the $3,000 PLO event behind Sam "KingKobeMVP" Stein. Then, on the 28th June, he could not be stopped by anyone and won the $10,000 PLO championship ($814,436).

Ben also got ITM at the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em - Six Handed event: he became 12th and won $56,140. Another final table came on the 7th July, when Ben finished 8th at the $50,000 Players Championship for $201,338. His total WSOP winnings so far this year make $1,331,832, but let us not forget that he is still competing in the main event. In fact, he is starting day 7 from teh second place where there are only 57 players left. If he became the first to get busted, he would already win $130,997, but we an surely count on him to reach a higher prize. A betting office would probably pay higher if you bet on Ben not making the November Nine than the other way around.

Here's an interview with Lamb after Main Event day 2:

At the start of the Main EVent, Phil Hellmuth was leading the POY list with five ITM finishes (threee of which were second place results). In order to take over, Lamb had to get into the top 138 in the ME, which he has confidently accomplished. With this, he became best player of the WSOP, but not yet Player of the Year, as, for the first time, WSOP Europe results will also count in the POY leaderboard, and these could still change POY standings. Hellmuth has already let us know that he will be there in France to take over the lead again.

Ben Lamb told interviewers that he intends to take part in the European tourneys as well. When asked about "his secret", he emphasized the importance of standing on the better side of variance, and he also said that luckily he is able to concentrate solely on poker this summer.

We wish Ben good luck at the final day of the Main Event!

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has recently issued a legal guide on how exactly Full Tilt Poker, UB and Absolute Poker players can try to legally retrieve their money.

The poker sites mentioned above have not yet taken steps to rebate players suffering from the events that have occured during 'Poker Black Friday'. The only site until now that has managed to settle the issue is PokerStars, and US players are raging and fearing that they will never get back the millions of dollars from these poker sites.

PPA informs us that it is impossible for them to enter court as an organization, but there exists a legal procedure by which the companies behind these poker sites can be sued by players.

It is definitely not an easy issue, but for those determined to take action, this might be something worth considering. US players are strongly recommended to read through the more-than-twenty-page synopsis, which can be accessed from here, and initialize a lawsuit if considered worthwile.