Poker TV "Face the Ace" Producers Targeted in Lawsuit

Was the concept for the new poker show “Face the Ace” an illegitimately borrowed idea? So claims Brandon McSmith, who says that he pitched a similar concept to “Face the Ace” production company Poker PROductions in 2006, only to be told that his concept, including star players emerging from a series of doors, lacked merit. McSmith seeks $85 million in damages, with no hearings held as yet. “Face the Ace,” which features a number of Full Tilt-sponsored pros, has struggled in the ratings to date and has already undergone one concept “Face”-lift as well.

UltimateBet Adds Poker Pro Player Adam Levy To Its Team To Help Quell Cheating Rep!

UltimateBet has added Adam Levy, a well respected poker player with more than $1.6 million in online poker tournament winnings, to its team. According to Annie Duke, who has more or less become UltimateBet’s spokeswoman, Levy is an online poker player with the utmost integrity, and both she and Levy have expressed their wishes that lost players who were either victimized by the site’s giant $60 million insider hole-card reading scam or quit the site because of it will return to UltimateBet’s games and tournaments. As far as Levy goes, I do not have any information suggesting his involvement in any poker cheating scams, online or off, although I cannot vouch for the integrity that Duke has assigned to him. In any event, if there is another major online poker scam at either Absolute Poker or UltimateBet, I am going to contact them and ask them to sign me up as a member of their team! LOL!

Cheat Weary Italians Legalize Online Poker!

Italy has now become the latest country to legalize online poker, despite the Italian government's concern about online poker cheating. The country had new laws go in effect and yesterday cash games began being played legally throughout the country.

The situation in Italy has been similar to the one in the United States. People were already playing poker online, only now, they will do so without having to worry about the government going after them.

In fact, now that online poker is being regulated in the country, residents can now take comfort in knowing that companies who enter the market must be licensed. That means the Italian government will ensure customer protection against cheating or not getting paid.

Already, two million Italians have been to an online poker site at least once, and that was before the new laws. Now that it has become legal, the popularity of online poker will only grow in the country.

On average, Italian card players spent $881 a year playing poker online. That figure is sure to skyrocket now that players no longer have to worry about negative government intervention.

Mansion Poker Makes Move To Combat Cheating

Mansion Signs With Ethoca

Leading fraud management firm Ethoca Limited has announced that online casino Mansion.com has joined its global community of companies intent on reducing scams and increasing revenues. This seems like a good move to me in light of the continuing the seemingly nonstop barrage of online poker scams.

'The online gaming industry is strongly on board with the idea of collaborating to stop fraud with four of the top five and many more of the top 50 already committed to working together through Ethoca's community,” said Andre Edelbrock, President and Chief Executive Officer for Ethoca.

“As the rapidly emerging de facto standard for collaboration in this industry, we are very pleased to add Mansion.com as the newest member. Most fraud management is about reducing risk but Ethoca is unique because we're also about increasing revenues.'

Dublin-based Ethoca stated that its partner firms now include financial providers, Internet-based retailers and online gaming operators and that it increases profitability by distinguishing between reliable and unreliable transactions, which reduces losses and non-payment. It said that recent research discovered that better fraud management could result in e-businesses recovering more than $30 billion in previously foregone annual revenues.

"Offering the best value in online gaming means we must continue to stay at the cutting edge of fraud prevention to offer the best possible protection for our members,” said Guy Gussarsky, Chief Executive Officer for Gibraltar-based Mansion.com.

“Ensuring our players have an enjoyable, safe and worry-free gaming experience is our priority. Ethoca's innovative platform for anti-fraud collaboration is unique and allows Mansion.com to benefit from the payment experiences of other companies. It is a real breakthrough in fraud management."

IS 2008 WSOP FINAL TABLE DELAY CAUSING SHEER PARANOIA?

If you read this article that appeared in the UK Guardian, you´d have to say YES! Aside from all the cheating and collusion articles that I and many others have been talking about, now there´s mention of blackmail...and even worse...death! With each passing day more probabilities and possibilities, all of them sordid, are popping up and being bandied about. I mean, it´s getting a little bit out of hand. I highly doubt any serious blackmail threats are going to breed from Harrah´s decision to delay the play of the final table 117 days after the qualifying players are determined. And as far as what would happen if one of those players died during the interim?...Well, what would happen if there were no delay of the final table play and one of the players died the night before? I don´t know, but I guess whatever decision was made to fill that void (pardon the pun if it is one) would be the same if a player or players died during the 4 month interim.

In any case, let the cheating and scamming begin once the players for the 2008 WSOP are determined!

Here´s the UK Guardian article:

When Harrah's, the giant hotel-casino chain, took over the rights to the World Series of Poker a few years ago, they moved the tournament from May to July. This was a bad result for the players: July is too hot in Las Vegas, there are no good shows, and it's a nasty clash with the school holidays for anyone who prefers not to expose his children to quite such a rich seam of sunstroke and prostitution. But it was a good result for Harrah's, who can now fill their hotel rooms with World Series contestants at a time when nobody else is dumb enough to go there.

Having established July, Harrah's have just announced that they are going to delay the final of the main event - which would normally be on Day 13 - until November! This will "maximise coverage", which I assume is code for "increase the revenue Harrah's get from TV".

Never mind the players, eh? Never mind that a four-month gap after naming nine people, one of whom will win at least $12m, throws open the door to possible blackmail or cheating scams. Never mind that a player might be unable to return in November due to an illness or family problem - or even die - during that time. Never mind the thousands of punters who used to enjoy, having been knocked out, sticking around to watch the final.

Harrah's are messing with the very definition of a poker tournament. It is as though the Chinese Olympic committee had decided to stage the first three legs of the 4x100m relay, then do the last leg four months later. But they wouldn't; compared with Harrah's, China looks like a soft touch.

Is Soft Playing in Tournaments Cheating?

Almost everyone will say that soft-playing in poker is downright cheating, at least at first take. But upon further delving into the definition of what it means to cheat at poker, there are still those who believe that the practice of soft-playing one's friends or family is perfectly acceptable in poker, since it takes place because of personal beliefs and emotions that are just as legitimate as the ethical values of players who would refuse to soft-play anyone. Is this hogwash?

One argument that supports the allowance of soft playing in poker is that poker's uniqueness as a gambling game in itself deems soft play allowable. Their stance is that since poker is a game of multiple betting rounds, and the position of strength and weakness varies with each round and turn of a new card or cards, players should be allowed "varying" strategy tactics and that soft play is nothing but a combined tactic that ultimately becomes individual strategy at the end, when one or more soft players at the table no longer participate in soft playing. With blackjack, craps and other casino games, they argue, you make one bet on one decisive outcome, either win or lose, while second, third and fourth bets are optional and not intrinsic to the first. Only in poker does the amount of money at risk to each player accumulate with the deal of each round, therefore, those people who are not overly bothered by soft play feel that two or even more players involved in a pot have the right to "blanket the hostilities" at a certain point. Since any pair, set or group of players can do this, they claim, and that soft playing is not open or "active" cheating, they take the stance that soft playing should even be tolerated.

I, as certainly an "active" cheater (to say the least!) wholeheartedly disagree.

When soft-playing players have an ongoing agreement not to bet into each other once the action becomes heads up or reaches a certain point, they are tearing the innate competitive threads of the game. Whatever the reason, this arrangement amounts to a private deal that is more than just an ethical violation of the game. It not only gives those making it the chance to curb losses at several key junctures of play but also negatively impacts those not involved in it. In tournament play, soft playing can make or break the final table, leaving one player who might have been eliminated in honest, non-collusion play with just enough chips to survive and eventually go on to win the tournament. What soft play is, no matter how you cut the cake, is collusion, and, in my opinion, no less form of collusion than outright collusion players signalling the values of their hole cards and whipsawing opponents at the table. The fact is that these actions give those who are soft-playing in tournaments the edge over those who are not.

To illustrate the point, imagine that you're in a seven-card stud game, and you're the low-card bring-in on third street. Two soft-playing partners, A and B, enter the pot on either side of a fourth player who completes the bet. You call, player A raises, and you, Player B and the fourth player all call. Fourth street brings overcards for everyone, and gives you a split pair to go with your three-card flush. Player A bets and the fourth player folds, leaving just you and the soft-playing partners A and B. Now Player B raises. Your pair is smaller than their fourth-street cards, and since you don't like the odds you're getting for your draw, you fold. The moment you do, Players A and B proceed to check on fifth, sixth, and seventh streets. It's pretty obvious just how advantageous this arrangement is for them. By fourth street, they had locked up eight bets, half of it strange money, plus the antes. But the problem isn't only the pact to eliminate risk on betting rounds five, six and seven; it is the looming prospect of it that appears on round four, which offers incentive for two players who are soft-playing to bet a third player off his hand. By doing so, they are acting as a collusion team, converting the already invested chips of the uninvolved player into dead money. Clearly, this puts players who don't have soft-playing partners at the table at a distinct disadvantage against those who do.

Soft playing at poker is nothing short of cheating.