What They’re Talking About on Poker Radio

By Rob “McVegas”

PocketFives.com

Former PokerStars VIP Guru Scotty Yeates

The PocketFives podcast recently featured a behind the scenes look at the online poker industry, through the eyes of former PokerStars VIP Manager Scotty Yeates. He was hired by PokerStars in August 2005 and co-created the original VIP program at PokerStars. After all of the craziness in the industry over the years, Yeates told listeners about the PokerStars VIP program’s origins, the site’s reaction to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), the funds frozen on Full Tilt, and more.

For example, he was asked how the PokerStars VIP program came to fruition, and what were the goals back then? Yeates answered, “One of the big models we tried to base it on were the airline programs. The airline program has VIP programs where your rewards keep increasing the longer you stay with that customer. The other reason we stayed with that was because if a businessman flies American, he always flies American, so we wanted to achieve that same thing in online poker.”

Team PokerStars Online pro George “Jorj95” Lind was one of the first people to take advantage of the new VIP program.

“One of the first memorable stories was Jorj95, who came out of the blue. We had a double VIP Player Points month and all of a sudden, this guy comes out of nowhere and earns 500,000 VPPs.”

Yeates began his career with PokerStars six years ago, and even in that relatively short time he has seen many changes, including many sites that have since closed their doors and ceased operations, long before Black Friday.

Yeates commented, “The players have far fewer choices because of this consolidation, but that’s true of any business, whether it’s computers or software or anything. The dominant players are going to take over and dominate the business, as we see today.”

When the UIGEA landed in 2006, Yeates said, “It was about as bad as it gets” at the PokerStars offices in the Isle of Man. “We didn’t know what the future was going to be. We didn’t know which direction we were going. We had to get information from lawyers on how we were going to proceed. It was just a really dark time in PokerStars’ path.”

Unlike publicly traded companies like PartyPoker and 888, PokerStars chose not to abandon the U.S. market following the UIGEA’s passage. Yeates commented, “The lawyer opinions we received were positive on continuing because we were not offering gambling. We were offering a skill game much to the effect of backgammon today in the United States. You can play backgammon for money in the U.S.”

So what does Yeates think about Black Friday?  Yeates shared, “The U.S. market is going to be dominated by three players. I don’t know who those three players are going to be, but PokerStars wants to be one of them.”

Many in the industry have speculated that Caesars and MGM would be two of the biggest beneficiaries of pro-online poker legislation in the United States. Yeates, however, mentioned two other companies when asked who a few of the big players could be: “I would be worried about the Microsofts and Zyngas of the world because they have the Internet down. Caesars – they have the World Series of Poker, but they’re going to have to partner up with the right person because they don’t know the Internet world…All of these companies that are doing it have a huge start, a huge lead on the companies that aren’t in the internet world.”

ESPN – The Poker Edge

Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee…eh?

Podcast co-host Andrew Feldman welcomed 2010 EPT Berlin champion Kevin “ImaLuckSac” Macphee, who has run over the online tables for more than $4 million in earnings over the last few years, and has often been ranked one of the top ten online players in the world.  Kevin has made the move to Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, to continue to play online poker.

He talked on “The Poker Edge” about some of his recent life changes as a result of Black Friday: “I had just paid my taxes, emptied out my bank account and I was in London playing online with Liv (Boeree) when it happened (Black Friday), and all of a sudden I couldn’t register for (online) tournaments. And I was freaking out…and yeah, it was pretty bad, anyone who made their living from playing online poker – there were a lot of professional poker players from America who were just devastated. You had those who paid their taxes fairly like they should, and were punished…and then your bankrolls were confiscated, and I had the majority of my online bankroll on Full Tilt Poker.

“It’s been pretty devastating for me and a lot of friends and right now it’s not about piling up millions of dollars, it’s about surviving and seeing if we can continue in this game as a profession. It’s going to be difficult but we are going to have to see how it works out,– hopefully somewhere down the line somebody will be able to give us back our money.”

Feldman asked MacPhee about the process of getting back online and setting up shop somewhere outside the U.S., and MacPhee responded, “I went up to Canada where my Dad is from, and I am from Northern Idaho, so I have friends up in Canada and I went and sublet a place and stayed up there for a couple of weeks, got my accounts back and I’m going to be heading back there later on in the year. The process itself was relatively simple, you just have to get out of the country (U.S.), establish residence, get a bank account, get a utility bill in your name so you can prove you are living outside of the country and get your poker accounts back…it’s very expensive and hard to do but the people who are dedicated to poker are doing it and my hat’s off to them.”

When asked what he thought of the player pool online in terms of skill level, MacPhee commented, “There are still a lot of good players online, I mean, there are so many fantastic players from Europe, but generally speaking, it’s a bit softer – you don’t have the real top players like “Gboro” and Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis and some of the guys I respect the most.”

Pokerati.com

DoJ Releases PokerStars Money (sort of…)

According to eGaming Review, The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has released an unspecified amount of money from a frozen PokerStars account. The money had been held in the Hapoalim Bank in Luxembourg, one of the financial institutions named in the US$3 billion civil complaint accompanying the Black Friday indictments and tied to PokerStars’ payments company, Sphene International Limited. In total there were three named accounts tied to Sphene, one with Hapoalim Bank and two with Credit Agricole (Suisse).

As far as eGaming Review is aware, the latter two have not been affected by the latest DoJ decision. The amount of money freed up has not been specified, but a release from the Department states that “[T]he Government and PokerStars have reached an agreement pursuant to which PokerStars consents to the restraint of US$5.5 million in the Account…and the Government agrees that it does not object to PokerStars’ use of the remaining funds in that account.”

That $5.5 million figure is – according to the release – “derived from online poker play for real money in the United States,” a fact that the government accepts has been represented by the operator. In May of this year it was believed that one of Full Tilt Poker’s frozen accounts had been freed up by the United States government, although it later transpired that the account in question had been voluntarily frozen by the Bank of Ireland. PokerStars had been able to pay out more than US$100 million to players by mid-May, and has continued to pay out player funds amounting to around $125 million; however, U.S. players with money on Full Tilt have so far been unable to recover their balances. Lawyers tied to Full Tilt maintain that the ongoing negotiations with potential investors would require the repayment of players.

The government’s possession of the $5.5 million that Stars must leave untouched in the Hapoalim Bank account will continue until the conclusion of the United States vs. Pokerstars et al case. The government has said nothing more concerning the other accounts named in the civil suit.

Another World Poker Record Broken?

Recently, the Delaware Park Poker Room made an attempt to shatter a world record in poker. The poker room hosted a $500 buy-in poker tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000 and was trying to hold the longest continuous poker tournament…ever. According to a press release, the Delaware Park Poker Room didn’t exactly get its Guinness World Record, but it did set a new world record for Longest “Documented” Continuous Poker Tournament. The tournament lasted 31 hours and 58 minutes, but fell short of the 36-hour Guinness Record benchmark.

“At one point, there were 177 people streaming the live video and 1,700 people following the live updates through www.twoplustwo.com, in addition to the 40+ people in the crowd around the final table,” said poker room manager Kevin Castora. “We are constantly trying to innovate the game of poker by creating new and exciting events. I want our players to always feel welcome and be a part of special events such as this.”

He added: “Although extremely fatigued, the players never lost their good spirits, which made for a positive atmosphere throughout the entire event.”

The total prize pool reached $182,360, and Hieu Tran of Essex, Maryland, took home the winner’s share of $43,761 for outlasting the 376-player field.

Rob “McVegas” is an avid writer and poker player. You can usually find him playing at The Great Blue Heron Casino in Port Perry, Ontario, and you can also follow his poker ramblings on Twitter @Rob_McVegas.