By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Joe Sebok at the 2006 WSOP
Happy Mother’s Day. It’s Monday night, so if you haven’t called your mom… you’re in deep shit.

Anyway… here’s a few things I read over the weekend and I thought you might be interested in, and here’s a few nuggets from today’s news cycle…

UB Cheating Scandal: First of all, congrats to Haley for a book deal! I’m thrilled she’s finally going to get paid for her diligent and relentless investigative reporting into the UB cheating scandal. She did all of that OUT OF POCKET after she got fired from Poker News. While thousands of players bitch and moaned about UB in forums, Haley rolled up her sleeves dug through shit pile after shit pile to unearth small nuggets of truth and fragments of evidence of a massive cover up, scandal, and flat out fraud. By the way, here’s an index of her Just Conjecturin’ series. And don’t forget to read her latest installment Volume 35: Norwegian Exposure. (Haley’s Poker Blog)

Black Friday Fallout: Speaking of UB… they axed all of their sponsored players. (Bluff)

More Black Friday Fallout: Speaking of sponsored UB players… Joe Sebok, the whipping boy of 2+2, posted his final statement about his time with UB. (Poker Road)

Live Poker: Ed Miller penned a couple of posts on trying to beat different types of players you’ll encounter in Las Vegas… Beating the Tourists and Beating the Locals. (Ed Miller)

Online Gaming Legalization: David Scwartz sounded off on Black Friday and the future of online poker… Online gaming will come; Nevada should lead it. (Las Vegas Business Press)

Skill v. Luck: My mom of all people mentioned this piece… Poker as a Game of Skill. (NY Times)

Fear at the Movies: Check out Change100′s new beat titled Hollywood Apocalyptica. (Tao of Fear)

That’s it. You know the drill. NGTFOOMO!

Tags: black friday | business | happy-mother | know-the-drill | Link Dump | movies | online-gaming | online-poker | poker | posts-on-trying | press | tao of fear | tourists

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

In case you were last few God-fearing Christians on the planet who were the only ones who saw any goodness in the cold, blackened heart of Paul Leggett, perhaps the latest post from Haley — Just Conjecturin’, Volume 34: Behind the IDS Closing — Olman Rimola vs. Paul Leggett — might sway your opinion and you can join 99% of the rest of the poker world holding the general consensus that Paul Leggett is a scumbag.

I haven’t seen a cover-up orchestrated this poorly since Enron.

Yes, Blanca Gaming (which owns UB/Absolute) filed for bankruptcy in Scandinavia of all places. Over 95% of the support and marketing staff, mostly based out of Costa Rica, has been given their pink slips.

Kudos to Haley for being a pitbull and never giving up on investigating the UB cheating scandal. Even though UB is about to be officially RIP, I’m positive that Haley is going to continue to keep digging until she can connect every single dot of the cheating scandal.

I’ve spewed enough anger this week. I sincerely hope your weekend is full of rainbows, unicorns, never-ending kegs, and straight flushes.

Tags: blanca-gaming | costa-rica | indie-writers | leggett | pauly | poker | sincerely-hope | spewed-enough

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

In case you were last few God-fearing Christians on the planet who were the only ones who saw any goodness in the cold, blackened heart of Paul Leggett, perhaps the latest post from Haley — Just Conjecturin’, Volume 34: Behind the IDS Closing — Olman Rimola vs. Paul Leggett — might sway your opinion and you can join 99% of the rest of the poker world holding the general consensus that Paul Leggett is a scumbag.

I haven’t seen a cover-up orchestrated this poorly since Enron.

Yes, Blanca Gaming (which owns UB/Absolute) filed for bankruptcy in Scandinavia of all places. Over 95% of the support and marketing staff, mostly based out of Costa Rica, has been given their pink slips.

Kudos to Haley for being a pitbull and never giving up on investigating the UB cheating scandal. Even though UB is about to be officially RIP, I’m positive that Haley is going to continue to keep digging until she can connect every single dot of the cheating scandal.

I’ve spewed enough anger this week. I sincerely hope your weekend is full of rainbows, unicorns, never-ending kegs, and straight flushes.

Tags: behind-the-ids | blackened-heart | business | cheating | gaming | opinion | sincerely-hope | support

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Happy Monday. Are you having a March Madness hangover? Did the SuperMoon cause spooky things to happen in your neighborhood, like the dogs howling and a superfluous number of methheads passing out in the parking lot of Taco Bell?

Anyway, while you slowly get back into the sync of the work week, sit back and munch on these heady nuggets of poker-ish news…

Haley’s posted the latest installment of Just Conjecturin’, her thorough investigation into the UB cheating scandal. Here’s the skinny…

“When I started the series, I didn’t have much for facts on the UB side, and some of my early theories turned out to be wrong. As you’ll see later in this tale, there was indeed a “jam” of some sort going on, but it appears the jam was Greg Pierson’s, not Russ Hamilton’s, and the solution to the problem was to enable the superusing and scrape tens of millions of illicit dollars into various endeavors or off the site in its entirety. Now comes the sordid dirt, and the part I’ve really put off writing about because, well, it’s sad and disgusting. But it cannot help but be the key to it all, and so it must be dug back up.”

You can read more at Volume 30: Naming Names — Greg Pierson. (Haley’s Poker Blog)

Full Tilt Poker (their pros in suave suits) announced the Onyx Cup, a super high roller tournament series that competes with both Jeffrey Pollack’s newly formed Federated poker league and PokerStars’ various international tours. (Full Tilt Poker)

F Train asked Three questions about the The Onyx Cup, meanwhile, Shamus offered up his two cents in Another Level: The Onyx Cup Series. (Riding the F Train, Hard-Boiled Poker)

One of the better poker-themed documentaries I’ve seen in a while… Randy Lew brings “nanonoko” from behind the curtain (PokerStars Blog)

In the most recent edition of the SuperStar Showdown on PokerStars, Daniel Negreanu took on Isildur1 and… lost $150,000 in 1,400 hands. I think they are gonna play again next Sunday. Anyway, here’s a creative summary of the Negreanu vs. Isildur1 showdown by a poster on 2+2. H/T to KevMath. (TinyPic.com)

For some political analysis, check out gamingcounsel’s Thoughts on H.R. 1174 (the #CampBill). (Pokerati)

The collective known as Anonymous recently declared war on the Fed. (Tao of Fear)

That’s it for now. You know the drill. NGTFOOMO.

Tags: boiled-poker | cheating | daniel-negreanu | isildur1 | Link Dump | lost vegas | naming-names | news | poker | series | superusing | train | Vegas

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Happy Tuesday. Four more days until the weekend. Oh, and Happy March while we’re at it. Congrats on surviving the first two months of 2011. You can celebrate this momentous occasion by getting shitfaced at work, or if you’re looking to keep your job and not bodacious enough to start drinking at 9:30am, maybe you can just sedate yourself with a happy pill (or happy coffee-flavored beverage) and read a couple of poker news-worthy items…

Bluff Magazine’s Power 20 has been the source of blog fodder. Read for yourself at… Kim at Infinite Edge Gaming, Bill Rini at Bill’s Poker Blog, F Train at Riding the F Train, Shamus at Hard-Boiled Poker, and Shamus again at BetFair.

And the Power 20 spawned a podcast from los hombres and Bluff Editor-in-Chief Lance Bradley. (Wicked Chops Poker)

A trio of posts… Timtern’s This Week’s Big Winners, Mark Gahagan’s Winners, Losers, Coinflips, and Michalski wrote about the Gold Coast closing their poker room.(Pokerati)

Haley posted the latest installment of Just Conjecturin’, her series investigating the UB cheating scandal… Volume 29: Inside the Makar Email (Haley’s Poker Blog)

This made me howl… an animated version of Charlie Sheen’s rant on the Alex Jones show. You know you’re in trouble when Alex Jones is the more sane person of the two in a conversation. (Tao of Fear)

Change100, the resident fashionista for Tao of Fear, recently broke down everyone’s favorite Libyan despot in Dictator Chic: Moammar Gadhafi. (Tao of Fear)

For all you music enthusiasts, crank up the volume for The Funky President Mixtape! (Coventry)

Did you read everything in a British accent? The news sounds more important and classier that way.

That’s it. You know the drill. NGTFOOMO!

Tags: 2011 wsop | been-the-source | boiled-poker | cheating | funky-president | moammar-gadhafi | phish | Podcast | source | train

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Rigged.

Sonny Liston took a dive in his rematch against Muhammad Ali. Some boxing historians say Liston owed money to mobsters. Others suggest that he was afraid of the Black Muslims. Still others say… both Mobsters and Black Muslims were two powerful reasons on why he went down (and stayed down) after a phantom punch from Muhammad Ali.

The first time that Ali and Liston squared off in the ring, Ali was known as Cassius Clay, the challenger seeking a title shot at Liston, who held the world championship. The match was not without controversy: 1) A chemical substance got into Clay’s eyes causing him to go blind during a middle round but instead of attacking, Liston eased off on him, and then 2) Liston never answered the bell at the start of the 7th round. Shortly after their controversial first meeting, Clay announced his support for the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

Thanks to YouTube, the public can view the disputed evidence and weigh in on the Phantom Punch for themselves. I’m waiting for the Zapruder film to be released so we can tell if there really was a shooter from the grassy knoll. Anyway, watch the video (again). The clip (in the video player above) isn’t very long because the fight lasted less than two minutes.

What did you see? Did Ali connect or not? If he did connect, was the punch powerful enough to put Liston down? And how about the shenanigans with the knockdown count?

Even with the visual evidence, it’s difficult to to determine the ultimate truth — which went to the grave with Liston.

Liston died 40 years ago at his home in Las Vegas in 1971. Even his death was surrounded with controversy — overdose, suicide, or foul play?

Which brings us to 2011.

The locales have shifted away from boxing and into the internet poker realm, but there’s still something not right about what we’re seeing.

Although some secrets about the UB cheating scandal will go to the grave with some of the participants, a couple of folks have been trying to unearth the real story. Enter Bryan Micon and Haley Hintze. Special kudos for Haley for sticking with the story since Day 1.

Check out Haley’s recent post from her Just Conjecturin’ series: Volume 28: The Brainwashdodo Correspondence.

Addressing a Few Rumors is an official response from COO Paul Leggett, who denied any role in a cover up. Take it for what it’s worth.

Micon recorded another episode of DonkDown Radio last night. He had Russ Hamilton’s former IT guy, Travis Makar, on the show again, along with Brad Booth (one of the players pilfered by a Superuser).

I doubt that we’ll ever get all the details behind the UB (and Absolute Poker) cheating scandals. And if we get close, that’s when bodies start piling up and more people go mysteriously missing.

Tags: 2011 wsop | absolute-poker | black | cheating | download-poker | islam | las vegas | participants | phantom-punch | pokerstars | radio | Vegas | video | zapruder