« April 2007 | Main | June 2007 »

May 25, 2007

End of an Era

I find it odd and somewhat disheartening that Paradise Poker is switching to Boss Media's network. It sort of marks the end of an era in online poker, just like Kmart going bankrupt did for retail. I remember playing on Dise back when it had first opened and the only real competitor was Planet Poker. Their software was so much better, even for those of us who didn't know that Planet Poker's shuffle had been taken advantage of, that it was practically in a different league. It was what made me believe that some day online poker might be almost as good as the real thing.

Their marketing must have had just as much of a lead, because Paradise always had far more action than anyone else. Until Party Poker got the bright idea of advertising on the World Poker Tour it seemed as if their dominance was insurmountable. You assumed they'd always be the biggest site much the way you assume Wal-Mart will always be the biggest retailer.

In retrospect their biggest mistake was not adapting. They didn't advertise enough during the early boom year(s). They didn't get tournaments until years after PokerStars and Party. They never did make it easier for Poker Tracker to import hands, and their servers would crap out during peak hours. It's a pretty textbook example of a company being put in multiple evolve or die scenarios, and I guess who ever ran that site must have been a creationist.

I haven't used Boss Media's software since I propped there in their early days, but it was atrocious then. And it wasn't improving. I get the impression from their site that they're powered by software from someone called St. Minver (new idea, name gambling sites after religious figures. Next up, virginmarypoker.com) which also does Yahoo's poker site, so maybe this one is better. It appears to be Flash-based though, so then again, maybe it isn't.

Do any of my Euros have any experience there? I'd love to hear opinions on it.

Posted by themaroon at 5:05 AM | Comments (4)

End of an Era

I find it odd and somewhat disheartening that Paradise Poker is switching to Boss Media's network. It sort of marks the end of an era in online poker, just like Kmart going bankrupt did for retail. I remember playing on Dise back when it had first opened and the only real competitor was Planet Poker. Their software was so much better, even for those of us who didn't know that Planet Poker's shuffle had been taken advantage of, that it was practically in a different league. It was what made me believe that some day online poker might be almost as good as the real thing.

Their marketing must have had just as much of a lead, because Paradise always had far more action than anyone else. Until Party Poker got the bright idea of advertising on the World Poker Tour it seemed as if their dominance was insurmountable. You assumed they'd always be the biggest site much the way you assume Wal-Mart will always be the biggest retailer.

In retrospect their biggest mistake was not adapting. They didn't advertise enough during the early boom year(s). They didn't get tournaments until years after PokerStars and Party. They never did make it easier for Poker Tracker to import hands, and their servers would crap out during peak hours. It's a pretty textbook example of a company being put in multiple evolve or die scenarios, and I guess who ever ran that site must have been a creationist.

I haven't used Boss Media's software since I propped there in their early days, but it was atrocious then. And it wasn't improving. I get the impression from their site that they're powered by software from someone called St. Minver (new idea, name gambling sites after religious figures. Next up, virginmarypoker.com) which also does Yahoo's poker site, so maybe this one is better. It appears to be Flash-based though, so then again, maybe it isn't.

Do any of my Euros have any experience there? I'd love to hear opinions on it.

Posted by themaroon at 5:04 AM | Comments ()

May 22, 2007

I'm Glad We All Calmed Down

Thanks to everyone who participated in TwoOuts this week. It's building slowly but surely. I'm working on partnering with one or two well-known poker bloggers to drive more traffic to the site. I'm also looking into some custom software that's more Reddit-like. I'll probably wait a little while to see if it gains some traction first.

I have been reading a lot of poker blogs and news articles lately. One thing I've noticed is that my assertion that we all needed to calm down a bit was correct. I should have taken the bet in the comments there. On that day, January 21st, PokerStars had peaked at 12,499 players according to PokerSiteScout. On May 18th, it peaked at 15,587. Both were Sundays. If you look at the chart it shows steady growth.

Full Tilt showed similar growth, going from 5,604 to 7,217. The number of people who Play Online Poker at Bodog Poker Room (<-shameless product placement) actually seems to have dropped a very slight bit from 2,436 to 2,257, though I hear for those willing to Western Union the money in, the games are better than ever.

Most interestingly to me, Party Poker, despite giving 85% of their customers the boot, is still the second largest poker site, though just barely. It really seems like poker is going through a boom in the rest of the world like it did here 5 years ago. They've been smart to focus their marketing efforts more overseas, which they were doing even before the UIGEA.

Epassporte is still taking Americans, as I predicted. Click2Pay seems to be in some goofy sort of limbo, where they won't accept new American customers but will service ones they already had, though it's been a couple months since I've used them so I'm not sure that's still the case. YouTeller still hasn't launched, but is saying in the summer at the latest, though under what name is still apparently a topic of debate.

Poker sites have been pretty lax in offering new payment methods. I would say that was surprising, but this is the same group that didn't bother to spend even a tiny fraction of the billions they raked in on lobbying while the far right attacked. A wise man once told me you don't have to be very bright to make money off of gambling.

 

Posted by themaroon at 11:47 PM | Comments (7)

May 17, 2007

Err, Make That 7 Easy Steps

As an addendum to my last post, I did forget that there is an additional form of verification they ask for. Sorry about that. They ask for a utility bill. What you should do is change your address with the bank to the Canadian one you got from the UPS Store, then call back a couple days later and ask the bank to mail a statement (which goes to the Canadian address and then is forwarded to you). Voila, you have a bank statement with the Canadian address.
To further require a utility statement would be silly for them to do. Those are ridiculously easy to forge. Anyone with Photoshop and Google could do it, just by finding a sample bill on the utility company's website and doctoring it. Of course I don't recommend that as it may be illegal, I don't really know. I'm just saying, it's a ludicrous safety measure on their part.

Posted by themaroon at 8:50 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2007

How To Get Your Money From Neteller In Six Easy Steps

  1. Go to Canada, set up a checking account at Bank of Montreal (I had to talk to a lot of banks to find them, they're the only one that does it to my knowledge) and a mailbox at The UPS Store there as well. Tell them to forward all mail to you back in the states.
  2. Buy a Canadian virtual phone number from ITP . It costs something like $5/month (you'll only need it for one) and forwards directly to any phone number you want it to. I'll be using that number for business cards and such in the future anyway, since it's much better than giving out your cell phone.
  3. Call Neteller VIP services at 1 (877) 288 4545, tell them you moved to Canada. Give your mailbox address as your home address. Their only verification will be calling your phone number. They asked about the number because it appeared to be from a far away province. I told them it was a cell phone and they bought it.
  4. Look for a Canadian web hosting service that offers Virtual Private Servers (VPS). I used webserve.ca, they even have a 30 day free trial so you won't have to pay.
  5. Remote desktop into the VPS, log into Neteller (they may lock your account even though your IP appears Canadian, if so just call them and get it unlocked) and request a check. It will be sent to your UPS store account. Note that you can simply do this from a WiFi connection at a coffee shop in Canada after you've set up your UPS Store account.
  6. You can deposit the check in a U.S. bank but you'll pay a hefty fee and it will take weeks to clear, and I'm not even sure it will at all banks, so I'd recommend depositing it into the Canadian one. Not sure how you'd do that without going there, but you might be able to mail it in or put it in an ATM. Call them, they'll help you with that.

And there you have it. I made the mistake of putting the check in a U.S. based bank, but it worked out in the end. I wouldn't even have told you this except I talked to the bank this morning and the payment has now fully processed (this was over a 2 month process) and can't be taken back. Neteller told me they actually tried to stop the payment (I requested it when I thought there was no chance of it cashing here) and failed. So I figured what the hell, might as well help y'all out too.

Ship it.

[edit] Additional info on verification here

Posted by themaroon at 7:05 AM | Comments (9)

May 13, 2007

Introducing TwoOuts.com

I had mentioned earlier a little poker project in the works. I don't know if it's quite ready for prime time yet, but the people who tested it and responded seemed to like it. You can find it at twoouts.com. It's based on some open source software that I'm modifying, so it should be pretty stable unless I mess it up too bad. I've been mucking around with some of the php a little and am going to try to add in some features.

It's a social news site, like Digg or Reddit, meant solely for poker. You can submit news articles, blog entries, forum posts, tournament results, or pretty much anything else poker-related. You can also vote on the ones you like. As a submission gets voted up it moves up the page, as it ages it moves down, keeping a mix of popularity and novelty.

There's only one rule, which is all submissions must be of interest to poker players (not necessarily poker-related, but not too off topic) and not blatant advertisements. You can vote without registering for now, though that may have to change later, but you have to sign up to submit something. Please feel free to do either and tell me what you think. The easiest way to add a post is to add this link to your bookmarks (just drag it there) and then click it whenever you see something you want to submit. It will automatically submit whatever is on the page you were on when you clicked.

There's also an RSS feed here so you can see all of the latest stories. So what do you think? Is this potentially helpful, or will it die a slow, userless death? I'd like this to become an efficient news source, and if you have any ideas as to how to improve it they'd be greatly appreciated.

Posted by themaroon at 10:54 PM | Comments (3)

May 10, 2007

Pokernomics

The guys over at Freakonomics have been talking a lot about poker lately. Unfortunately, a lot of what they are saying is just plain wrong. They blogged on the topic of whether poker is a game of skill or chance which, as you know, I think is dumb because it's obviously both. And so are most games at a casino.

There's this passage that really made me laugh:

The gist is this: forget about winning at poker, and think for a moment about losing. Is it possible to intentionally lose a poker game?

The answer is yes, of course. Is it possible, meanwhile, to intentionally lose a game like Baccarat or roulette or craps?

No, it's not

Umm, yes it is. Take roulette. I can make a wager that would be 100% likely to lose. All I have to do is bet 18 on red, 18 on black, one on zero, one on double zero. No matter what happens, I lose 2. No luck involved whatsoever.

In craps you could just bet pass and don't pass, and you'll either tie or lose. I suspect there's a combination whereby you'd lose every roll, but I'm too lazy to figure it out. In baccarat you could bet both player and banker if they let you play two hands. I'm not sure if that's ever done, but I'm sure they'd be more than happy to let you.

Craps, and baccarat both have a skill element anyway, in that some bets are better than others, just like poker. How you play does, in the long run, affect your results, just like poker. It's a hell of a lot harder to sort the good bets from the bad in poker, so I won't argue that the other games have anywhere near as much skill involved, but they do have some. I'm not sure how the mark of a game of skill could be the ability to intentionally lose, and I smell a logical fallacy there, but even if it were, that doesn't separate poker from most games in a casino.

And then there's the Freakonomics Poker Stocks, on StockPickr. The idea of that one seems to be to make a portfolio that will make money if poker should be exempted from the UIGEA. I like it for the most part, except for the hate list, which they presumably recommend shorting. They include MGM because "more people playing online poker means less people playing in the Bellagio." Obviously whoever wrote that hasn't been to the Bellagio in a few years. You can't get a seat there during prime hours, and couldn't even before the UIGEA.

How many thousands of people went to the World Series last year because they won their way in online? That's a cash cow for Harrah's. Between the hundreds of dollars in juice and the thousands in hotel, restaurant, and merchandise expenditures, Harrah's is undoubtedly making a small fortune off of the main event alone, due largely to PokerStars and company. MGM has the WPT events, which, while not as big, are still doing well and still have plenty of online entrants. They've proven in the past that they want in on online gaming, as soon as they have the chance they'll do it again.

MGM and their competitors would start their own online poker sites, which are enormously profitable. Party Gaming was pulling in nearly a billion a year in profit, and MGM would have tremendous advantages over them. They could comp online players, advertise the website in their casinos, allow you to add or withdraw funds from the casino cage, etc. The opportunities for synergy are tremendous there. Just as the advent of Atlantic City only drove more New Yorkers to Vegas for vacations, online gaming would be a tremendous boon for the brick and mortar gambling outfits.

And as for their buy list, I'm not so sure that WPTE (and therefore Lakes Entertainment) stands to gain much from online poker being legalized. They'll get some more entrants in their tournaments, but I'm pretty sure the casinos keep all of that profit so I'm not clear as to how WPTE would benefit from that. They seem unlikely to gain any traction at an online card room of their own, given that they'll be facing competition from much better funded, more established players. Party poker has a market cap of over 18 times that of WPTE, and will use their enormous advertising budget. So will PokerStars, Harrah's, MGM, etc. WPTE is just a poorly managed company that has upset pretty much everyone who has done business with them (players, television networks, and casinos). I didn't like their long term prospects long before the UIGEA, and I definitely don't see how legal online gaming will help them in any way.

Posted by themaroon at 9:26 PM | Comments (4)

May 9, 2007

Remind Me Not To Major In Psychiatry At Stanford

A friend sent me a link to Phil Hellmuth's Wikipedia page and said I'd get a laugh out of it. At first I failed to find the humor, but then I came across this passage:

Hellmuth resides in Palo Alto, California with his wife Katherine Sanborn (a psychiatrist at Stanford University) and two sons, Phillip III and Nicholas.

That's right, his wife is a psychiatrist. This guy has had more people recommending therapy to him on ESPN than Terrell Owens, and his wife does that sort of thing for a living.

I can't imagine their home life. I wonder if she was really just doing an intense case study on insecurity and compensation for an underdeveloped ego, and then the guy won millions of bucks at poker.

Posted by themaroon at 4:22 AM | Comments (1)

May 7, 2007

New Projects

Apparently one of the house games I was banned from for my writing here (also run by a person who I'm told banned me from Vegas Nights) was busted. Good thing I wasn't allowed to go. Not that I would have had time for it lately I guess.

It's so sad really. They bring in the SWAT team to bust a bunch of old ladies. Why? It was a $10/$20 game, not a meth lab. They've done the same for stakes as low as $3/$6. It's ludicrous. Nobody is going to shoot. The worst anyone might get is a misdemeanor, nobody is going to get violent over that. They've busted these things periodically for as long as anyone can remember and I they've yet to run into a single problem.

I haven't played poker now in quite some time, probably about a month. I don't miss it. The thought of doing other things for a living has made me a much happier person. In the relatively near future I might take it back up as a hobby though. Playing a few tournaments a week might be enjoyable.

I've actually been able to read some poker blogs again. Not many, but some. It's been a long time since I could stomach that. I even tried looking through a copy of Bluff magazine (I'm sure going to be sad when all of the magazine subscriptions I got for free from Party Poker run out) but it's still too soon. Maybe next issue.

I haven't had time to play even if I wanted to. Preparing for the YCombinator interview took a lot of work, and since we got accepted we've been getting in shape for Boston. Between working on The Project, preparing for the wedding, and getting the house ready for my absence, I haven't had many spare moments. They have dirt cheap busses and trains from Boston to Foxwoods, so maybe if I'm in need of a break and feeling frisky while out there I'll take a day trip over, but that will probably be about all the poker I play this summer. The WSOP is definitely not going to happen for me.

I've also done some work on Rakesucks (have a redesign going live in the next day or two) and TheStarsExchange. Stars threw us a curveball with the latest update, but we've redesigned to compensate. And it's w$ season now, with the WSOP about to start and presumably the WCOOP shortly after.

The day before I went out to Mountain View I had an idea for a poker-related side project. I slept on it, talked more about it with Chad on the plane ride out the next day. I've thought about it more since, and actually started working on it because it's so good. I worked on it a bit and now it's almost ready to launch. Any long-time readers who I've corresponded with that are interested can email me about it and I'll show you the beta. I'd love opinions from people who regularly read poker blogs/forums.

 

 

Posted by themaroon at 2:42 AM | Comments (2)

May 3, 2007

Skill Or Luck? It's Both, Morons.

The Freakonomics guys talked today about whether poker is a game of skill or a game of chance. Why do we keep having this debate? Anyone with a thought process and a rudimentary understanding of the game knows it's both. Let's stop trying to lump it into one category or the other because you can't do so any more than you could fit the square block through the round hole in preschool.

Most gambling games involve both skill and luck really. A good craps player will do significantly better than a bad one in the long run, though both will lose. That's true of almost all non-slot machine games in a casino. Even in baccarat, which is pretty much the most brain-dead form of gambling known to man, one bet is better than the other.

Poker isn't really even unique in that you can win over the long run. It's probably the most profitable for top players given a reasonable bankroll, but there are certainly other legal ways to make a living in a casino. It's not the only game in which you can win in the long run without cheating.

So let's drop this argument because it gets us nowhere. There are a hundred good reasons why online poker should be legal (because people will play it anyway, which is the only one you even need to know really, it makes all others immaterial) so let's just talk about them. And let's all talk about the positive experiences we've had so the 99% of us who didn't lose our mortgage drown out the small degenerate minority that did. Let's talk about the valuable life skills we've learned, the friends we've made. But please, let’s stop flogging a dead horse here. Poker is game of skill and a game of luck, and in the long term more of the former, but in the short term more of the latter. That's it. There's nothing more to that debate. Q.E.D.

Posted by themaroon at 1:30 PM | Comments (5)

May 1, 2007

Tournament Marketing

I've often laughed about how little thought poker players give to tournament structures, even ones who really should. I got an extra chuckle over it today. I'd heard a lot about how the World Series was drastically improving their tournaments this year by doubling the chips in all of the smaller events. I must have had three people tell me that.

But talking to Matros today I found out that they are doubling the starting blinds too. I guess that could make for a little better of a structure, but it's marginally different at best. Yet none of the people who told me about the doubling of the chips bothered to mention the second fact that makes it almost irrelevant.

If I ran a big poker tournament, I'd just give everyone a million chips. Then everyone would go around saying how great the structure was. It wouldn't be hard. I'd just do the same old structure but make each chip worth 100 times what it was before. I guess I would incur a tiny printing cost adding two zeroes and occasionally an extra comma onto every chip, but the tremendous amount of morons wanting to play in the tournament with the best structure ever would more than make up for it, even I started the big blind off at 100,000.

In fact I just might do that. Anyone want to play?

Posted by themaroon at 2:53 AM | Comments (8)