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PokerStars Team Online Takes on Two New Players

The PokerStars Team Online roster has expanded to include two new online poker players. Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara and Caio “pessagno” Pessagno have joined the PokerStars online team. These two will be participating in live and online poker events while representing the PokerStars brand.

Kihara is the first Japanese poker player to score a WSOP bracelet after winning the $5K 6-handed LO event and more than $500K in winnings. He plans on attending the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure next January and can be found online at PokerStars as well in the meantime. Kihara stated, “I want to be a top poker pro who every poker player knows and can be proud of. To be a member of Team Online is a really big step.”

And Pessagno has an impressive background in poker himself. He’s been playing for years at PokerStars mainly playing tournaments at the mid- and high-stake level. He’s amassed more than $1.8 million in cash outs from PokerStars and plans to play online and live as well. His next live appearances will be at the Latin American Poker Tour and the the Brazilian Series of Poker, as well as the PCA. He says of his new venture, “Being part of this team is a dream for any professional player, and for me this is the beginning of a new stage in my life. I sacrificed a lot to be here, and I feel very accomplished to have followed this path.”

Black Friday Indicted Poker Exec Pleads Guilty

Former Full Tilt Poker payment processing director Nelson Burtnick pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of concealing online poker payment transfers in an effort to evade US anti-Internet gambling laws.

Burtnick was one of the 11 individuals indicted on Black Friday when the DoJ and FBI decided to take down the online poker industry in the US by seizing the domains of the three biggest online poker sites servicing US poker players.

Burtnick is a former head of payment processing at both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. He admitted at Wednesday’s hearing that along with others, he used third-party payment processors at both companies to hide US online poker payments from banking institutions, so that the payments wouldn’t be red-flagged and would go through as non-gambling related transactions. Prosecutors say that billions of dollars were transferred from US gamblers and masked behind non-existing merchant transactions for such items as flowers, jewelry, golf balls, and other various merchandise.

After pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy with allegations of laundering money and two counts of receiving funds in connection with illegal online gambling, the Canadian now faces up to five years per charge in prison.

Quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Burtnick said, “I knew what I did was wrong.”

Phil Galfond Suing Bluefirepoker

Bluefire Poker, online poker coaching site, is being sued by US poker pro Phil Galfond, who had contributed to the site as a lead instructor until the two parted ways in 2011. His videos being the most popular on the Bluefire Poker site at the time.

Twenty-seven-year-old Galfond is one of the most successful Internet poker players in the history of the industry, profiting more than $7.8 million on Full Tilt and then is currently up nearly $2 million on PokerStars, and is advice on poker is well revered in the poker community, so it was a shock to many when he announced his separation from Bluefire in a post titled, “A Sad Day.” He explained in the post:

“As of today, BluefirePoker.com and I are parting ways. It’s very hard to walk away from something I helped build from the ground up. Please know that it was a very difficult decision that I struggled with for a long, long time. I’m sorry that I can’t elaborate further.”

Now, the reason for the breakup is more apparent as Galfond has announced that he is suing his former partner William F. Murphy, who Galfond alleges did not pay him his rightful part of the profit shares from Bluefirepoker.com.

When the site launched in 2009, Galfond apparently agreed to a joint partnership in which he would be paid up to 38.33% of Bluefire profits in return for video postings, blogging, and assisting the overall operations of the company by offering input on major decisions of the company. Galfond has revealed that he was paid $179K for 2009 and more than $238K for 2010 by Murphy, but has yet to be paid for last year. Furthermore, Galfond claims that he was not even shown any accounting history or tax returns to verify the amounts he was paid.

Galfond’s claim states:

“Blue Fire has been immensely successful, having thousands of members who pay an initial enrollment fee of $100 in addition to a subscription fee of $30 per month. Upon information and belief, the defendant Murphy has misappropriated and converted to his own use and possession the assets of MGH.”

Online Poker Bill Draft in Circulation

A draft of the “Representative Joe Barton’s Bill in the House (Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2012),” a bill supporting online gambling legalization including Internet pokier, is now in circulation. Originally proposed by Harry Reid (Nevada) and Jon Kyl (Arizona), the bill suggests the regulation of the online poker industry and the legalization of the online poker, and proposes to toughen up some existing poker legislature.

First of all, this bill will revoke the DoJ’s recent announcement that the Wire Act of 1961 doesn’t apply to online casino and online poker betting. In addition, it recommends amendments to the 2006 UIGEA, the Wire Act of 1961, and the IGBA (Illegal Gambling Business Act) of 1970.

If passed, the bill will require a new government agency of the department of commerce to be called the Office of Online poker Oversight (OOPO) that will oversee all intrastate gambling as well as Indian gambling. This agency will also receive applications for licensure and then grant gambling licenses with the stipulation that any online gambling company that continued to operate within the US post-UIGEA will be denied a license. Fortunately for PokerStars, part of their recent Full Tilt Poker deal with the DoJ forgives them of any post-UIGEA US activity, so that they will be able to apply.

The bill furthermore proposes to prohibit all state-level gambling except online poker and horse racing betting and then suggests up to 10 years in prison plus fines if any other forms of bets are taken.

But even if passed, it would be a while before any legal online poker bets will be placed on US soil since the bill requires a 15-month waiting period before the regulated US poker market could open its doors. It’s been a long time coming, so what’s another 15 months? It’s been a long enough gestation period for the two senators to agree on the bill. US Senator Dean Heller (Nevada) had sent a letter to Reid that stated, “It would be best for the Senate to step back and let the House of Representatives act first on Web Poker.” Alas, we must wait even longer, but at least the ball is still rolling. It’s a good thing online poker players have the patience of Job.

WCOOP Still Happening

The 2012 World Championship of Online Poker, hosted by PokerStars, is in full swing with about five days remaining when the 2012 WCOOP champion will be crowned. The cumulative guaranteed prize pool amasses $30 million across 22 days and 65 action packed events. The Main Event alone will garner a $5 million prize pool with $1 million going to first place, along with the champion bracelet.

The Main Event will take place on September 23, 2012 at 12:30 p.m. and features a $5,200 buy-in, but there are still opportunities to qualify. Other opportunities to get in on the action include several more tournament events for which you can qualify for now including NLH, PL Omaha, HORSE, and 8-Game High-Roller events ranging from $215 buy-ins up to the $10,300 high-roller tournament, which offers a $400K prize pool.

Since 2002, the WCOOP has been the biggest online poker tournament series in the world with the inaugural WCOOP consisting of only nine events and a prize pool that totaled just under $800K, which doesn’t sound like much now, but at the time it was historical. Despite the ups and downs of online poker over the past 10 years, the WCOOP has survived and is obviously here to stay. In fact, the pre-Black Friday WCOOP of 2010 paid a prize pool of more than $63 million and the following 2011 post-Black Friday WCOOP paid just more than $47 million, and it’s looking like that number will be matched this year.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to take part in this massive online poker event that only comes around once per year.

Online Poker Pro Scammed for $140K

A recent online poker scam left high stakes poker pro “MicahJ” victimized after having his bank account and Lock Poker account infiltrated by a hacker. Unfortunately he lost about $140,000 in the two-fold scam.

Like most online poker stories and scandals, this one hit the popular online poker forum TwoPlusTwo, where player “FWHITNEYDOH,” a regular Lock Poker player, and recipient of an $80,000 loss by MicahJ from an Omaha 8 or better game, denied knowing anything about the scam. Whoever lost the $80,000 though wasn’t MicahJ. It was the hacker playing under his account. Not only did he lose the cash playing online poker, but he also transferred around $54,000 from MicahJ’s bank account into his own.

The hacker, “highgrind22” had contacted MicahJ with a proposition to buy some of his funds on Lock Poker. He also sent a screenshot of his bank statement to verify that he in fact had the cash to buy the funds. Unfortunately though, it was an .exe file that likely included a keylogger program that made it possible for the scammer to access sensitive data on MicahJ’s computer.

MicahJ explained what happened next in writing:

“The hacker had access to my account for 3 days. The first couple days he made small transfers out of my account, and played and lost small amounts (no more than 10-15k)..However, on the third night, he transferred significantly more (a majority of the 54k) and also lost ~80-90k playing 25/50 plo8 on the same night.”

By the third day when MicahJ finally noticed that something wasn’t right, it was too late.

TwoPlusTwo member “TyTy” has reported that the scammer texted him admitting to stealing the cash and losing the $80,000 in eight hours at Lock Poker Omaha tables.

It has been recommended that MicahJ begin using a different computer, change all his passwords, and wipe out his computer. Lock Poker is looking into the incident.

International Stadiums Poker Tour Gets Sam Trickett as Ambassador

A tournament series that will change poker forever, the International Stadiums Poker Tour, will make its debut in London in May of 2013. This series is picking up buzz in the poker world and many will be very excited to see it become reality. An estimated 30,000 players are expected to compete, and this number may actually increase.

The inaugural event will be held at London’s Wembley Stadium and this completely novel concept for a tournament that is both online and live is anticipating tens of thousands of players present and accounted for, playing online in the arena. The top 3,000 players who make it through the initial online preliminaries will then advance from the stands to the live tournament to be played on the field at Wembley.

The event will be televised and guarantee a prize pool of €20 million.

Joining Michael Mizrachi as ambassadors for the tour is Sam Trickett, high stakes British pro who has been quite successful in poker, namely in live tournaments like the ISPT. With more than $16.4 million in career earnings, Trickett is currently the all-time money earner in the UK.

Trickett announced his new title via Twitter: “I just want to announce that I will be an @ispt_poker official ambassador. Will be one of the Biggest tournaments ever held May 31, 2013.”

Trickett told Poker Channel Europe, “As a poker player, I have to be associated with such an enormous event. Being part of this tournament means being part of the history of poker.”

October Nine: Robert Salaburu

With just over 15 million chips, 27-year-old Texan Robert Salaburu has the seventh largest chip stack in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event final table which will reconvene in late October at the Rio All Suites in Las Vegas, Nevada. He’s already guaranteed at least $750K, which will be the largest win of his career.

Salaburu began playing poker at 16 and has been playing ever since. Like many poker pros, he began playing Internet poker in college and then dropped out of school to pursue a career in poker.

Salaburu started out playing live cash games early in his career and then eventually began playing online poker tournaments. Most of his tournament experience came from online tournaments (his online handle, “treadindank”) and not live tournaments, though he has played in the Main Event the past three years, which has to count for something. He will definitely be feeling the pressure though as he heads into the Main Event final table.

Unfortunately, his career was lulled, like so many others, after Black Friday, and he now plays live and has opened a car lot to supplement his poker income.

With less than $50K in live tourney cashes, this car salesman by day, may never have to work again come October.

When asked, “Why poker?” he responded, “I have never been good at reporting to people and taking orders from people, so I had to figure out something in a hurry. I guess I just kind of stuck with what I knew.”

This seemingly grounded guy has just as good a chance as any of the other October Niners at taking the title, outside of a few million chips.

PokerStars Hopeful for Theirs and Full Tilt’s Re-entry in US Market

Since Black Friday when PokerStars was jolted out of the US market in April of last year, the online poker brand has been doing everything right in hopes to someday re-enter the US market. The very recent three-way deal between the DOJ, PokerStars, and Full Tilt Poker (for which Stars paid $730 million) was one more foot in the US door. So it is not surprising that there’s already speak between Stars execs about a return in the near future.

PokerStars Head of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser recently said that the company certainly expected to be back on future regulated US soil. He further said that in the DOJ agreement, PokerStars admitted to no wrongdoing, put it in writing, and signed it, so that when the time comes that the US will be taking applications for online poker licenses, both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will for sure be submitting an application.

PokerStars clearly views the deal with the DOJ as a get out of jail free card. Hollreiser says, “We are the leading online poker site and licensed in more countries than anyone in the industry. We bring tremendous value, credibility and integrity to the marketplace.” He continues, “With our US legal issues now resolved, we are a very qualified candidate for a license.”

Some view the deal between PokerStars, the DOJ, and Full Tilt as a sign that regulated and legal poker will be introduced into the US in the near future. Poker Players Alliance (PPA) Executive Director John Pappas says, “The Justice Department could have very easily banned PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker from the United States forever. Yet it chose not to. It chose to clearly recognize that online poker can and should be a viable industry in this country.”

Joe Hachem in Hot Water

Recently Joe Hachem, Australian poker pro and 2005 WSOP main event champ, got into a bit of a pickle after posting a pic on Twitter of a baby that appeared to be smoking a shisha pipe. While the baby only seemed to be “teething” on the pip in the pic, his caption that accompanied the photo stated, “Go blues, shisha for all, can never be too young.”

He then got an overflow on anti-baby smoking activists when the Australian Herald Sun quoted Australian Childhood foundation spokesman Joe Tucci: “I don’t think that anybody in that photo intended to harm that child, but inadvertently they have put that child in some sort of danger. This photo minimizes the rights of a child.”

Hachem then followed up with another tweet, “Take a chill pill man as if it’s real, geez so uptight.”

And so the haggling continued for a few more days, and Hachem finally tried to make right by the world when he tweeted, “If my shisha tweet from Saturday has offended anyone I sincerely apologize. It was not my intention to offend anyone let alone condone underage smoking. I never have and never would do that intentionally. Once again my sincere apologies.”

And in other Aussie news, Aussie poker player Shane Warne was in controversy recently when ads for 888 Poker (his sponsor) showed up on a porn site, which may not be so bad, but Warne runs a children’s charity, so not the best choice of sponsorship/advertisement.

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