Implementing the UIGEA
note: cross posted from Andrew's blog at http://www.thinkingpoker.net/Blog/
It's been nearly two years since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act snuck its way through Congress as a rider on a port security bill. The UIGEA criminalized not the gambling itself but the facilitation of financial transactions for the purpose of gambling online. In other words, you could play, but banks and other financial institutions were not supposed to help you put money online to play with.
The immediate consequences were disastrous: numerous poker sites, including industry giant Party Poker, stopped accepting American business and saw their stock prices plummet. Third party "e-wallets" also closed their doors to American customers, and in the case of Neteller huge sums of money were stuck in limbo for months. Games grew scarcer and tougher, though frankly not to the extent that I feared they would.
That was a dark time for internet poker, but not much has happened since. Federal agencies and US banks locked horns over who would bear the responsibility for identifying transactions intended for unlawful internet gaming. Though a shot over the bow that scared many major players out of the US market, the UIGEA has been without teeth or content since its passage. The games aren't as good as they were in the "Golden Age" but plenty of us are still making plenty of money.
Yesterday (Nov 12th), however, the Treasury Department finally announced its rules for implementing the UIGEA. Like the bill's original passage, the rules come into being via a relatively underhanded political maneuver. They are among the many "midnight" regulations that the Bush administration will sneak under the wire before Obama takes office on January 20, 2009.
The new president will of course be free to reverse Bush's last-ditch orders and regulations, and I certainly hope that Obama will do so in this case, but inertia is a powerful force in US politics. Bush has the tremendous advantage of no longer facing re-election and thus accountability for his actions and decisions. What really needs to happen is for some enterprising politician to discover how much money could be made in tough economic times by legalizing, regulating, and taxing internet gaming. Howard Lederer is optimistic about the prospects for this in an Obama administration, but I'm not holding my breath.
Still, I was glad to come across a very reassuring analysis from prominent gaming law scholar I. Nelson Rose, who concludes that:
"the federal regulators charged with making regulations to enforce the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act ("UIGEA") simply gave up. They were supposed to make rules forcing financial institutions to identify and block money transfers for unlawful Internet gambling transactions. But they were defeated by the difficulty of defining what was unlawful and the impossibility of tracking individual transactions. So they told credit card companies to come up with some additional code numbers for gambling transactions and everyone else can basically continue to do what they are now doing – oh, and financial institutions have to send a notice to all their clients telling them not to be involved in illegal gambling."
If he's right, it sounds like this new pronouncement should have very little effect on the current state of internet poker. In any event, financial institutions will still have until December 2009 to put their procedures into place. So I will postpone panicking for a while at least.
ur running so hot dude
note: cross posted from Andrew's blog at http://www.thinkingpoker.net/Blog/
I was feeling so on top of my game the other day. I was just really alert and creative, picking up on a ton of spots where I could steal pots if I applied enough pressure in the right way. This was the best one. Unless they have exactly Khxh, most people aren't going to check call a flush draw on the flop. I bet the flop just to set up an opportunity to steal the pot later. When the flush came in, it was just a matter of pouring on the pressure:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hero (UTG): $2,697.85
CO: $937
BTN: $2,296.05
SB: $2,240.30
BB: $344.80
Pre-Flop: 7d 9d dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $21, 2 folds, SB raises to $72, BB folds, Hero calls $51
Flop: ($150) Th Ks 6h (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $88, SB calls $88
Turn: ($326) 2h (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $377, SB calls $377
River: ($1,080) Js (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2,160.85 and is All-In, SB folds
Results: $1,080 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked 7d 9d and WON $1,077 (+$540 NET)
The best part of the hand was what my opponent said after he folded:
Villain: aa ur running so hot dude
An Interesting River Bluff
note: cross posted from Andrew's blog at http://www.thinkingpoker.net/Blog/
Here's another random brag, this one from the Stars weekly $500. Sorry was having trouble with the converter, basically I had an open-ended draw on the turn and overbet shoved when a flush card came on the river:
PokerStars Game #21709641365: Tournament #116152197, $500+$30 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (100/200) - 2008/11/02 18:23:05 ET
Table '116152197 23' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: nofingclue11 (11900 in chips)
Seat 2: tiger76 (9370 in chips)
Seat 3: jesseluke82 (5480 in chips)
Seat 4: berra86 (13699 in chips)
Seat 5: lowlife039 (13250 in chips)
Seat 6: Mia_121 (9276 in chips)
Seat 7: Joao M. (10835 in chips)
Seat 8: foucault82 (8390 in chips)
Seat 9: Psychout (8600 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Tc 9s]
nofingclue11: folds
tiger76: folds
jesseluke82: folds
berra86: folds
lowlife039: folds
Mia_121: folds
Joao M.: folds
foucault82: calls 100
Psychout: checks
*** FLOP *** [Qc 8s 7c]
foucault82: bets 299
Psychout: calls 299
*** TURN *** [Qc 8s 7c] [5d]
foucault82: bets 666
Psychout: raises 666 to 1332
foucault82: calls 666
*** RIVER *** [Qc 8s 7c 5d] [2c]
foucault82: bets 6559 and is all-in
Psychout: folds
Uncalled bet (6559) returned to foucault82
foucault82 collected 3662 from pot
foucault82: doesn't show hand
He pretty much can't have a flush because he's not min-raising a flush draw on the turn. It just doesn't make sense to minimize his fold equity and re-open the betting, giving me the opportunity to blow him off his draw. So it's a great bluffing opportunity when the flush comes in. The only problem is that people are stubborn, especially when they have pretty hands (which the min-raise suggests he does), so I made the only bet that I thought I could force a tough lay down. I expected it to work damn near 100% of the time, though, which is why I found it interesting.