Speedyfold Poker Blog

Full Tilt’s ironman rewards scheme must be one of the worst explained I’ve ever seen. How difficult can it be to explain this things in plain English and make them appealing to it’s players. Most poker players are inherently a little lazy when it comes to reading large chunks of text. Lets remember we stare at images and click buttons for most of the day ; Most of us want to glance at something and understand the gist of it within the first paragraph.

Full Tilt’s Ironman explanation though is a long ramble that doesnt really tell you much. What the hell is an Ironman Chip for instance, and how about Ironman Medals? And they have these very vague tables which imply you need to accumulate a certain number of points every day. However it doesnt explicity state that. Then they add more layers like Ironman Plus levels, and the need to opt-in and decide in advance what you want to use the points towards.

Language such as “You could receive bonus medals at the end of the month if you reach at least Bronze status and earn at least 500 points in a day. ”

It is the sort of information page that has just been repeatedly amended over time, and no-one has actually taken the step of sitting back for 2 mins and considering how it looks to “fresh eyes” to the page. I say all this not even really in personal frustration or anything, just more the fact that it such a poor use of an incentive scheme and marketing tool.

There was an interesting thing in the news today. In the UK Annette_15 was being used by Betfair to advertise their site. However there was a complaint. Not only is Annette quite young looking, but it was suggested that her actual screenname “Annette_15″ suggested she is younger than she actually is (she is currently 20 btw).

Whilst reviewing this complaint it was declared that there was in fact a law banning persons below 25 from being used for gambling advertising. Betfair seemed unaware of this law. They have therefore subsequently stated that they wont use Annette_15 again in the UK in any advertising compaigns.

It seems a little harsh considering that Annette won the WSOPE main event in the UK, making her a prime advertising asset. I guess I can see both sides of the argument, and hopefully it wont mean that Annette’s Betfair sponsorship is not renewed.

The WCOOP on PokerStars is well underway. In previous years this has been a tournament series that has got me licking my lips in anticipation. Large field, large buy-in, large stack, long blind levels, etc. OMG what was not to love. However this year’s WCOOP has been somewhat of a disappointment. Gone are virtually all of the 30 min blind levels. The stacks have frequently been a reduced size, and the starting blinds often have come in at a higher level. It is difficult not to think the series has been cheapened somewhat. It just doesnt feel that special.

Lets take tonights $320 HORSE event as a case in point:

There is a regular $33 HORSE tourney on Stars with 3000 starting chips, 12 minute blinds, and first levels of 20/40, 30/60, 40/80, 60/120, and 80/160. Regular, run-of-the-mill, ordinary HORSE tourney.

So, how special was Event 25 of the WCOOP I here you ask? A HORSE event with a $320 buy-in and 1180 entrants? I will tell you how special: 10 min blinds!! 5000 starting chips and first levels of 50/100, 50/100, 60/120, 60/120, and 80/160!!

It is a major disppointment that this has happened to virtually all events. God did I used to love playing this highly skillful series, where you’d still be pitting your wits 17 hours deep. Now it feels like so un-very-special in comparison.

All I can do is pray enough poker players moan in order that Stars re-instates the former glory of this series next year.

Every poker player on the planet must at some point in their career pay a visit to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is truely unique. It is like no other city on earth. Out in the desert rises up some of the most fantastic and elaborate buildings you could ever imagine. A visual bombardment of extravagance and more entertainment than you can shake a stick at.

Here is a map of the strip to give you a general idea of getting around and where some of the most major hotels and resorts are located. Enjoy your trip

If you are looking for one particular time to go, then around June time each year is WSOP season. Although the action is very much 365 days a year, so you’ll always find plenty of games going on whenever you choose to go.

Full Tilt first introduced synchronized breaks in tournaments, a great help for multi-tablers to actually get a proper break without having to sit out.

PokerStars followed suit in their tit-for-tat battle of feature development and enhancement, and they now have sychroniszed breaks fully operational too.

Gratefullly PokerStars did the right thing and married up their break time with Full Tilt’s much to the delight of cross-site multitablers, myself included.

Now at 55 mins past every hour, it’s all stop in MTT land of the 2 major sites, and those much needed trips to the fridge or WC can be looked forward to and completed without a sprint.

Liv Boeree is becoming an established face on the poker scene, as a player and promoter, and reporter. She started off in a poker experiment in the UK, taking people who’d never played the game before and matching them up against one another and a guest player. They got some coaching from Phil Hellmuth along the way. Academically orientated Liv managed to win the show, and his since developed a love for the game and got heavily involved in the poker scene. She is currently one of Absolute Poker’s sponsored players, and can be seen at most major tournaments around the globe.

It is a difficult task to negociate 6494 poker players, but if anyone can then Phil Ivey surly can. He is still going strong with just 19 players left. The final table is almost in touching distance. Lets hope Phil can make it. He’s already picked up 2 bracelets this series, so it’s proving to be an excellent WSOP year for Phil, who is one of a very few people ever to get 3 bracelets in one series (in 2002).

Another biggish name is also still alive in the tourney, that being Jeff Shulman. So, a slightly smaller cheer for Jeff too

PokerStars have introduced a late reg policy for the WHOLE of the first hour of a tournament. At first it seemed like very selective tournaments, but now it appears to have been rolled out to about half of the whole schedule. It produces some very wierd situations, such as playing for 3 hours and finishing lower on the list than someone who lasted 10 minutes. This is because when you bust you simply get allocated the finish position of NO. OF PLAYERS NOW LEFT + 1. At the beginning you might only have 2000 entrants and bust first hand and get placed in 2000th, whereas by the end of the late reg hour there might be 5000 entrants, with 3500 left in, meaning if you bust at that point you get positioned lower (3500th) than the guy who busted the first hand.

It is good from the sense of increased prizepools in your favorite tournaments, and less good if you like an idea of what you are letting yourself in for in terms of field size. I suppose if you’re late it’s also good too (if we take things to the literal max!)

In the picture below you see 13 tournaments with late reg…. most of the screen. Perhaps this is too much, the jury is out.

Poker has some unusual surnames, and it is surprising when you see 2 or more of the more unusual ones in the same tournament. What is more surprising is they often are unrelated, which makes the coincidence a bit spooky. Here are some examples:

Freedy Deeb
Shaun Deeb (no relation)

Howard Lederer
Rob Lederer (no relation)

Phil Ivey
Craig Ivey (no relation)

Nguyens and Trans - let’s not even go there. There are easily 8-10 top pros with the surname Nguyen, and a good 5-6 with the surname Tran. Virtually without exception these are all unrelated to one another, and you will often see 2 or 3 or 4 them all deep in the same tourney at the same time.

Dan Harrington
Richard Harrington (no relation) - ok, name not that rare this time, but I thought I’d chuck it in there as both are still alive in Day 5 of the WSOP 2009 ME :p

Joe Sebok
Joe Serock (not technically a match, but hey pretty damn confusing ;))

Ones who DO have a relationship

Tom Dwan
Thomas Dwan (father of Durrrr, and often refered to as ‘Tom Dwan’)

Joe Hachem
Tony Hachem (brother of Joe)

TJ Cloutier
Eric Cloutier (son of TJ)

Grant Hinkle
Blair Hinkle (brother of Grant) - they both won WSOP bracelets in the same year in 2008

Thierry van den Berg
Erik van den Berg - both players still alive at Day 5 of the 2009 WSOP ME

I thought I would cover the subject of who owns Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt is owned by the Kolyma Corporation based out of Aruba, and licenses it’s software from Tiltware LLC, based in California. It is regulated by the Alderney Gambling Control Corporation. Tiltware LLC moved to Ireland in Summer 2006 and was renamed Pocket Kings Ltd. This move was mainly motivated by the adverse online gambling situation in the USA; namely as a consequence of the UIGEA bill, to be specific.

The fees that Pocket Kings charge the holding company for the software licence are likely very high, meaning that the majority of what could be loosely deemed “gross profit” filters back to the founding stake holders and pros, with the actual owning company making a only a small net profit on their books.

Due to this structure, and due to the fact that many of the pros were involved from inception and foundation, it is reasonable to refer to some of the pros as the “owners” of Full Tilt.

Players with likely the highest shares

Howard Lederer
Chris Ferguson
Phil Ivey
Erik Seidel
Andy Bloch
Jen Harmen

Players with likely high shares

Phil Gorden
Erick Lindgren

Players who it is unclear whether they have high shares or only endorsement deals

John Juanda
Gus Hansen - it is likely he had higher shares at one point, but either sold his stake or reduced it (remember heavy involvement with PokerChamps)

Players with likely strong endorsement deals only (It is reasonably assumed that 1% profit share is a likely good guess on this front, as this is definately the percentage what Clonie Gowen got for her endorsement)

Allen Cunningham - came onboard in 2006

Mike Matusow - cerainly not part of the original team, as he has moaned about it previously as one of his worse decisions not to get involved.

Patrik Antonius - only came on board recently, so therefore certainly on an endorsement deal like 1% ownership

Non-Playing Stakeholder

Raymond Bitar