Online Poker News - August 2005

August 20, 2005 - Sorry I haven't updated the news in a while. I promise I'll start doing better this week. Got wrapped up in some other projects this week.

Phil Hellmuth has a poker column called Hellmuth's Holdem, and it actually gets published in mainstream news publications like the Miami Herald. His latest column discusses the Fox Sports Net poker tournament, and it's a pretty good read, like most of Hellmuth's stuff. (Caveat: I know many poker players have no use for Phil Hellmuth, but I think he's funny, clever, and a self-promotional wiz kid.)

Great article about Celebrity Poker Showdown in the Olympian. Talks about Angie Dickenson flirting with Jeff Gordon, among other tidbits. Seems like this show has been on for even more than six seasons, to me.

More on Excapsa and Ultimate Bet - They've just added a site called PokerShare to their stable, and the site's unique selling proposition is this: every hand you play wins you a percentage of the company, which is then awarded on a quarterly basis. Seems to me like the entire company would be owned by poker players pretty quickly unless they were giving very tiny shares of the company away.

August 9, 2005 - Updated the site and added reviews of two more poker sites, Bodog Poker and also Paradise Poker. Enjoy.

Shares of Cryptologic Drop 25% - Betfair has announced that they might develop an in-house poker product and stop participating in the Cryptologic poker network. Cryptologic not only powers Betfair poker, but also Interpoker and Caribbean Sun Poker.

Playing Poker with Darth Vader - Hayden Christensen played a poker tournament for charity. I knew he was good at pouting and turning to the dark side, but I had no idea that he knew how to play poker. Wonder if Obi-Wan showed up?

August 8, 2005 - Student Newspaper Questions Whether or not Online Poker is Fixed - This was an interesting article. Someone just scanning the article might think that online poker was fixed based on all the negative comments at the beginning of the article, but the assertions are refuted later in the article by a college professor. I for one thing that the whole, "Online poker is fixed" mantra is not only nonsense, but tired and boring. But a quote from the article really stuck in my mind: "These days Texas Holdem is to white suburban kids as crack-cocaine was to them in the 70's". An absurd and ludicrous assertion, in my opinion.

Bodog Poker Sponsors "Support the Troops" Poker Tournament - One comment - the best way to support our troops is to oppose the war in Iraq and see to it that they get to come home soon. I'll be posting a review of Bodog poker soon too, since I played there for the first time last week and actually have some comments now.

Absolute Poker Affiliate Program Goes In-House - For as long as I can remember, the Absolute Poker affiliate program was run by the fine folks at Income Access. They've decided to take their affiliate program in-house. So far I'm less than impressed with their affiliate customer service, but maybe it will pick up a bit.

August 6, 2005 - Unknown Poker begins reviews of some of the Vegas cardrooms. Not sure if this is really what I'd consider newsworthy, but it's news, at least around these parts. See our new review of the MGM Grand poker room.

There's a Newsweek article about the popularity of online poker and how it related to investing and investors. Fairly well-written, although the blanked assertions about online poker being illegal in the USA seem awfully misleading to me. No one's ever been convicted of playing or promoting online poker in the USA.

And another possible poker IPO, this time from Pokerstars. They're currently based in Costa Rica, but Pokerstars is planning to move to the Isle of Man in preparation for their float. Pokerstars is controlled by the Scheinburg family in Israel. They're the 2nd largest poker site online, and one of my favorites.

August 4, 2005 - Nevada Radio Station pulls Poker Ads This kind of thing always disturbs me, because I see it as more unnecessary government intrusion on the people's lives, and in this case, I'm not entirely sure that the government has a legitimate leg to stand on legally. In a nutshell, Party Poker had been running ads on Nevada's biggest radio station, and the government insisted they pull the ads, and the radio station, not wanting to incur the wrath of the state, pulled the ads. I first heard about Golden Palace on the Howard Stern show, and I remember when they pulled the ads from there last year. But the online gambling sites keep coming back by advertising and promoting '.net' versions of their sites which make free games available to play and don't allow online wagering. And of course, anyone can remember that PartyPoker.net is related to PartyPoker.com.

Shana Hiatt is Getting Married - This will be a big disappointment to thousands of fans, judging from the amount of ooh-ing and ah-ing that goes on about Shana Hiatt on the internet. For those of you who have been living under a rock over the last couple of years, or those of you who are new to poker, Shana Hiatt was the sexy and smart host for the World Poker Tour until she recently quit to pursue other career opportunities. She is now engaged to Hollywood producer Todd Garner, who produced 13 Going on 30, among others. Best of luck with the wedding, Shana.

Cryptologic's Earnings up 47% - Cryptologic is the software that powers Interpoker and a few other online poker sites. They're a public company, and their stock has been doing very well indeed. If they can maintain earnings growth like this for a few years, then they will be a company well worth buying and owning. Heck, I think they're probably worth owning already, along with Party Gaming and the upcoming Ultimate Bet IPO.

Empire Poker has acquired Noble Poker - Empire has bought Noble Poker, including their intellectual property and their player database. Empire Poker is a well-known super-affiliate, or skin, of Party Poker, and they're pretty popular. (I didn't review them here because I don't know that I have much to say about them that wouldn't already be covered in a Party Poker review.) I don't know how this will affect their bonus offers or my review of the site, but I'm sure I'll know toward the end of the month when the new management gets involved.

Click here to go to the July 2005 Online Poker News Archive.

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