Viktor Blom, aka Isildur1, is finally beginning to put together a string of impressive finishes in both live and online poker. In the past few days, he has put together one of the more impressive runs in recent online poker history after winning two Spring Championship of Online Poker event at PokerStars.

Isildur1 has won two SCOOP in the last week.

His first victory came in SCOOP 2-M, the $200 NL Hold’em Event that has a $1 Million guarantee. When day 2 of the event began, he was 16th in chips with 89 runners left in the event. By the time the final table was reached, he was the chip leader with 16.8 Million in chips. By the time everything was said and done, Isildur1 finished on top and took an impressive $247,200 for first.

A day later, Isildur1 entered the final table with the chip lead in the SCOOP 3-H event, the $500 NL 6-Max with Rebuys. He quickly extended that chip lead before charging to a dominating victory and taking down another $160,000 for first place.

This year has been a strong year for Blom both in the live and online poker worlds. Prior to this year, Blom had only $51,806 in career live tournament winnings, but that quickly changed when he took down the PCA Super High Roller event in January for $1.2 Millio. He has added close to $100,000 to those totals as well as the two SCOOP events.

It appears that Blom has moved past his somewhat swingy history that plagued him since his storied beginning a couple of years ago. After winning Millions off Tom Dwan, he proceeded to lose all those profits plus Millions more to the online poker community. He since then has experienced numerous major swings prior to signing with PokerStars as a featured pro.

It now appears that Isildur1 may be finding his stride, and just in time. With the WSOP less than three weeks away, he may now have the momentum to take down his first WSOP bracelet.

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Last week we reported on how the deal between Groupe Bernard Tapie and Full Tilt Poker failed and that it is now rumored that PokerStars is looking to purchase the now defunct online giant. Now, it appears that GBT may be trying to one up Full Tilt Poker by stealing their entire staff.

Tapie asks Pocket Kings employees to leave the company and join him at Gamed Cubed

In a leaked email, Bernard Tapie spelled out what happened in regards to the failed deal for Full Tilt Poker and his plans going forward. He first claims that the deal failed primarily due to a demand from the US Department of Justice that the company repay players outside of the United States within 90 days.

GBT claimed that this demand was unreasonable and had instead planned to pay back players over the span of five years. The majority of players would have been paid back on the first day, but those with higher balances would be paid back over a longer period of time. The 90 day repayment demand resulted in GBT backing out of the deal.

Later in the email, Tapie spells out his concerns over jobs with Pocket Kings and then presents his plan to open his own online poker site under the umbrella of his own company Gamed Cubed. Tapie then states that the only way that he would be willing to do this is if the entire staff of Pocket Kings joins him with the new company.

Employees of Pocket Kings that choose to join Tapie would retain their senority, salary, and benefits. They would then be required to sign both a non-compete and a non-disclosure agreement with GBT.

At present, there has been no word whether or not any Pocket Kings employees have accepted the deal, but they only have a short amount of time to do so. Tapie required that those interested in the proposal accept the deal by the end of this week.

We should find out soon whether or not there will be a new online poker player on the scene and we will provide updates regarding this story as new information is provided.

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For months now, the poker world has been waiting for a conclusion to the deal between Groupe Bernard Tapie and Full Tilt Poker. Now, at the last moment, not only will GBT not be purchasing Full Tilt, but it now appears that PokerStars may be purchasing the company.

Rumors began to swirl around the internet on Tuesday that the deal between GBT and Full Tilt had failed and PokerStars was buying the company. GBT later confirmed that the deal had indeed failed and issued the following press release:

“Groupe Bernard Tapie regrets to announce that, after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.

Ultimately, the deal failed due to two major issues.

The parties could not agree on a plan for repayment of ROW players.

GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site. All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9% of ROW players would have been fully repaid on day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players– a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.

The legal complications surrounding the deal – specifically, questions surrounding the legality of the forfeiture under non-US laws – also proved unresolvable.

All of the key assets of the FTP companies reside outside of the United States. A non-US court well might regard the purported forfeiture as a “fraudulent transaction” and declare it invalid or deem the acquirer of the assets responsible for all of those creditor obligations.

Given the $80 million purchase price, and the substantial amount of cash needed to relaunch FTP, those issues ultimately proved too substantial to overcome.

GBT is very conscious of the hopes it has created – among FTP employees that they will retain their jobs, among FTP players that they will recover their balances, and among the entire poker community that the world’s finest poker platform will be relaunched and bring a needed added element of competition to a world market that today is fully dominated by a single operator.

GBT cannot accept the end of those hopes.

For that reason, unless a concrete and legally viable solution is found in the very coming days to save the employees and repay the players of FTP, we will move to our own plan of action.

We understand from press reports that the DOJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars pursuant to which PokerStars will acquire the FTP assets. 
If accurate, we can only assume that PokerStars determined that it was willing to accept these legal and financial risks in order to resolve its own legal situation with DOJ.

 If a PokerStars acquisition of FTP means that all FTP players will be fully repaid immediately, we are very happy for the players, as their final and full repayment has always been our priority.

We only regret that such a deal would signal further consolidation of a poker market already dominated by a single player – an outcome that may raise antitrust concerns and that, in the long run, is probably not good for players and for the whole online poker industry.”

The rumors regarding the purchase of Full Tilt by PokerStars have as of yet been unconfirmed by either the US Department of Justice, PokerStars, or any source of any validity.

According to reports based on anonymous sources, the deal between PokerStars and the DOJ for the purchase of Full Tilt Poker will see PokerStars pay $750 Million for the company and part of that money will be used to repay the $390 Million owed to players worldwide by Full Tilt Poker.

At present, these are still rumored and should be treated as such. If reports are true, chances are we should hear much more from all parties involved in the upcoming month. As always, we will keep you updated on this story as developments occur.

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The plea deal between John Campos and the United States Department of Justice is now official. Campos had entered into an agreement on March 28th that saw him plea guilty to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge and in addition Campos agreed to not work in the banking industry for the rest of his life. Campos was the former Chairman of SunFirst Bank and partnered with both Chad Elie and Jeremy Johnson to process payments for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

District Judge Lewis Kaplan accepted John Campos' plea deal on Thursday.

US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan accepted the plea agreement on Thursday after reviewing a letter from federal prosecutors outlying their reasoning behind allowing Campos to plea out to a charge that would see him only serve up to six months in jail.

According to the letter, the reasoning was five fold. First, they claim that the charge that Campos pled out to was directly targeted at his offense of tricking an FDIC insured bank to accept online poker payments.

They also felt that it was sufficient because by the time that he plead guilty to the felony charges he was facing and his lack of criminal history was taken into account, chances are he would have received up to 6 months in prison, which is the same as with pleading to the misdemeanor.

Campos’ agreement to accept a lifetime ban was also a point of contention by the DOJ. They said that the FDIC would not have necessarily banned him for life for the felony’s and that the agreement guaranteed his ban.

Next, Campos’ overall involvement was small compared to the other indicted on Black Friday. Campos received just a mere $20,000 for his services and in the end only kept $4,000. Also, Campos lost ever penny he ever invested in the SunFirst bank, which is estimated in the Millions.

The last point the DOJ made was that since Campos had received numerous opinions from the online poker companies that online poker was legal, this may indeed give him grounds for a “good faith” argument and a jury may be confused and side with Campos.

With the agreement now in place, the DOJ now has convictions against every payment processor in connection with Black Friday. Campos is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27th.

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When playing online poker for money, you try by all means to find ways to double or triple your investment and at the same time applying risk management. I bet during game play, there is a time when you say to yourself, ‘I wish if I had played that hand’, or ‘why the hell did I fold that hand?’ During game play, situations do arise and the more you are dormant, the chances of winning become less. In this guide, I will do a comparison between Tight Aggressive and Loose Aggressive game play as well as giving out the best profitable style of play.

Where do you fall in this chart?

Definition

Tight Aggressive (TAG): This is a style of play at which a player will only play with strong starting hands. For instance, A TAG player would only play with hands such as T/J, K/K, K/Q, K/J, J/Q or any hand that consist of high cards T, J, Q, K, A.

Loose Aggressive (LAG): This is a style of play in which a player plays any hand that is connected, suited connected, or suited. The player does not give a damn whether the hand is low or high, as long it’s within the range of connected, suited connected, or suited, s/he will play the hand. Examples of starting hands for LAG players include T/J suited connected, 7/3 suited, 8/4 suited, 9/8 connected, etc.

Many people fail to differentiate between Loose Aggressive and a Loose. Loose players would play any type of hand dealt to them at which they tend to base the game on luck. On the other hand, a loose aggressive player tends to select certain hands and base his/her game play according to luck and strategy.

Comparison between TAG and LAG

TAG players tend to play only with high hands. For instance, if a TAG player receives a hand such as an 3/4 they would rather fold the hand but unlike Lag players, with the same hand 3/4 they tend to see it as profitable and would play with it anticipating to hit a straight. However, TAG players tend to play a strategic game with the use of high starting hands. For instance, a hand such as a 3/4 to a TAG player is meaningless and unprofitable or a waste of money.

When you need to classify an opponent whether s/he is a LAG or TAG player, you can easily observe the number of hands played as well as the number of times that player reaches the showdown. It has been observed that LAG players tend to play several hands and they allows aim to reach the flop. Unlike TAG players, if their starting hand is not good they would immediately fold. However, it is one of the setback caused by TAG players at which they tend to be too confident in a hand especially when new to TAG poker whereby you receive an A/A and you go all in.

On the other hand, LAG poker can be very costly if not applied properly. You should be able to control your bet size during game play and over calling can lead to bankruptcy. The more hands played can become profitable if you are to limit the amount you ought to play per hand as well as analyzing what type of opponents you are facing.

Therefore, which style of play is profitable? From my point of view, LAG poker tends to be very profitable but it should be applied appropriately. In tournaments, LAG poker tends to dominate because there are greater chances for you to win more chips than TAG players but you should be careful not to go all-in as this can easily get you eliminated from the tournament.

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There appears to be actual news regarding Full Tilt Poker. While the rumored deal between Full Tilt and Groupe Bernard Tapie has not been made public as expected, there still have been a couple of potentially big steps towards the company becoming live once again.

Full Tilt is hiring customer service agents. Looks like a reopening is just around the corner.

First, one of their subsidiaries has filed for a new license with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. Orinic Limited filed paperwork on March 23rd for a Category 2 gaming license with the AGCC. The company held a category 1 license with the AGCC previously and was the only company associated with Full Tilt Poker who did not have their license fully revoked last year. Instead, they received a six-month suspension based on the fact that they were not currently trading at the time.

The application is currently in the two week challenge period established by the AGCC and should a challenge not be made and the license issued, the company could then offer full online gaming.

In addition, there was a job posting announced yesterday on jobs.ie with “urgent need” for multi-lingual customer service representatives as well as supervisors. This ad is obviously for Full Tilt’s customer service team once the site officially reopens.

While an official announcement has not been made, reports claim that Groupe Bernard Tapie is ramping up to reopen the company soon. As such, it appears that the deal between GBT and Full Tilt Poker will indeed go as hoped.

However, this still leaves the question as to when and if players will be repaid in the United States. Per the deal on the table, GBT will repay worldwide players and US players must be paid through the US Department of Justice.

After nearly a year of hype and cryptic press releases that gave former players at the site little information, there finally seems to be progress towards the reopening of the site. Hopefully all former customers will soon be able to be repaid so that they can begin to move past a very dark chapter in online poker history.

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Big news broke earlier this week regarding two Black Friday defendants. First, Chad Elie pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy on Monday, followed by co-defendant John Campos entering his own plea deal on Tuesday. The two had been schedule to go to trial in April, but many expected a plea deal to be struck well before that time.

Chad Elie and John Campos both entered guilty pleas this week just a couple weeks shy of their scheduled trial.

Elie was the first to plea out on Monday when he told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that he knew that his conduct was wrong. Elie was facing multiple charges including violations of the UIGEA as well as conspiracy commit both bank fraud and money laundering. As a result of the deal that he struck, he will have to forfeit $500,000 that he had earned while processing payments for online poker companies. He also is looking at up to one year in prison.

On Tuesday, John Campos plea guilty to one misdemeanor charge of conspiracy and forfeited the right to ever work in the US banking industry for life. In addition, he is looking at a six month prison term in connection with his plea. Campos was the former chairman for SunFirst Bank and was partners with Elie in processing payments for online poker companies.

However, Judge Kaplan threw a bit of a curveball regarding Campos’ plea deal. When presented with the deal, Kaplan asked prosecutors why that he should be so lenient on Campos. He also asked whether the prosecutors were walking away from prosecuting Campos. According to prosecutors, they felt that the jury would have problems with Campos’ assertion that he was given legal advice that online poker was legal and that was among the reasons they gave such a lenient sentence.

Judge Kaplan will delay his decision on whether he will accept the plea deal until June 27th, the day that Campos is to be sentenced. Should he accept Campos’ deal, that would officially give the Department of Justice convictions on all payment processors in connection to Black Friday. Brent Buckley, Ira Rubin, Ryan Lang, and Bradley Franzen have all entered plea deals to give the DOJ convictions in six out of the 11 defendants listed last April.

We will continue to update you on all developments regarding Black Friday as details arise.

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Daniel Tzvetkoff, 29, is set to testify in the trial of Chad Elie and John Campos. All three men were caught up in the aftermath of Black Friday. Tzvetkoff processed over $1 billion dollars in online poker transactions.

Tzvetkoff is the DOJ's top informant in their indictments of PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker.

Tzvetkoff, originally from Australia, made a plea deal after being arrested in Las Vegas and threatened with 75 years in jail. Reports state that he tuned over a massive amount of material, including incriminating emails between himself and other payment processors. He is now a star witness against two of the men behind the online poker payment-processing world. Tzvetkoff is set to testify on April 9.

Elie was a payment processor and faces up to 85 years in jail. The charges against Elie include money laundering, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Campos was the vice president of a Utah Bank involved in payment processing. Campos is facing six charges and a possible 35-year jail stint.

Tzvetkoff has supplied the government with numerous email correspondences pertaining the movement of money. Much of this concerns Elie, a former colleague of Tzvetkoff. Elie’s lawyers have objected to the access they have had to this evidence.

Until recently Elie’s lawyers believe that they were being mislead about the amount of material Tzvetkoff has supplied as well as its quality. This led the prosecution to release over 90 thousand documents to Elie’s defense team. Elie’s team has stated that this has given them precious little time to prepare adequately.

Tzvetkoff has been in protective custody since he emerged as the star witness. His testimony is thought to believe to be the major evidence that will implicate Full Tilt, PokerStars, Absolute Poker, as well as a host of independent payment processors in illegal activity.

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Bodog has recently announced that they will allow players to request hand histories that will include all hole cards of all of the players at the table. The hand histories will be available 24 hours after the session. This delay will prevent players at the same table from knowing each others playing style.

Players on Bodog can now see whether the player had it or not.

Bodog made waves in the poker community when they introduced anonymous tables. This move was made to make the site more attractive to recreational players. HUD’s and other tracking software could no longer be used to let professional players single out and chase after recreational players. The idea was that anonymous tables would even out the playing field.

Criticism came from players who said that this would allow for easy collusion. Since the player identification numbers were never the same, two people could theoretically sit down and collude much more easily in an anonymous environment. In games where screennames were unique, a person could tell if two players were soft playing each other or acting in an unusual manner.

Bodog decided that the best way to handle this was to allow players to request their hand histories 24 hours after their session finished. This would allow people who were suspicious of something to see the other player’s hands. They could then send this information back to Bodog if they detected something suspect. The information could not be used to form a profile on any particular player. This was the aspect of HUD’s that many people found offensive.

The benefit of this option is that it will allow people to see if there were players who were colluding, or were acting in a suspicious manner. This information can then be sent to Bodog. The Bodog security team will be able to investigate. The player identification will only be available to Bodog. This will prevent professionals from building large databases and using them to gain an advantage.

The downside to this is that it will provide bot makers with an enormous amount of information. This information is incredibly valuable. It is not particularly valuable to the individual player and it can certainly not be used to gain an advantage over any single poker player, however it can be used to design a more sophisticated poker bot.

The manner in which people play particular hands from different positions is useful in programming the bots. Bodog will therefore have to be very diligent in implementing bot detection software. Even so, the information is useful for people designing bots for any online poker site.

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A couple of weeks ago, Federated Sports and Gaming announced that they were filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  This move was not surprising seeing that the company was virtually bleeding money from their running of the Epic Poker League.  The company then released statements that the move was primarily one of reorganization.  However, according to recent reports that reorganization plans may not come to fruition.

FS+G owes $5 Million but has about $15,000 in cash.

According to filings, FS+G owes more than $5 Million to over 100 different creditors.  In addition, the company had only $15,000 in cash at the time of the filing.  Some of the creditors owed are as follows:

• Pinnacle Entertainment – $2 Million
• All-In Production – Over $2 Million
• 411 Productions – $541,373
• Lawfirm of Kirkland & Ellis – $250,000
• Rogers and Cowan – $71,391
• Savage Tournaments – $33,333

Other creditors include several FS+G employees, independent contractors, and even the Disabled American Veterans.

In addition, it appears that FS+G failed to make any payments on their acquisition of the Heartland Poker Tour, a tour that the company acquired on June 20th, 2011.  The first payment of $1 Million was due to All-In Productions by September 30th, 2011, but the payment was never made.

There have been conflicting reports as to how the bankruptcy proceedings are commencing.  Some reports claim that FS+G’s reorganization plans have been rejected by bankruptcy courts while FS+G claim that the company’s plans have not been rejected.  In addition, FS+G claims that most executives are currently working for free with other employees only receiving a small stipend for their services.

The Epic Poker League is the main reason behind the company’s downfall.  It added $400,000 to each of the three tournaments it has held thus far and had to pay for TV time for their EPL Main Events.

The last events, including the $1 Million freeroll are currently on hold while the company tries to reorganize.  However, according to sources and from reports from EPL contractors, most of those working for the EPL are currently without a job and are awaiting the bankruptcy court’s decision as to whether or not they will be paid.

Right now, things don’t look so great for the once promising pro poker league.  Should the company somehow emerge from bankruptcy, the one thing that will be certain is that the league will have to change dramatically to be able to survive in the current tough economic climate.

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