As was hinted in last week's blog, I was hoping to share my new poker position with you this week but that needs to wait another week. I did fly down to Las Vegas for four days to meet the team and do some training. Besides the job aspects that I'll get into next week, the highlights of the trip were the culinary outings. I also got to check out some Vegas properties I hadn't seen before; The Cosmopolitan, the Aria, Sunset Station and Red Rock Resort.

Highlights of my culinary adventures:

Lotus of Siam - Considered by many to be the best Thai restaurant in Vegas. Although the ambiance is a bit lacking, I met good friend Jeff218 for a nice spicy meal. Be wary of your selection along the 1-10 scale of hotness as the next day it sure 'cleansed' my system. The strip mall Lotus of Siam is found in had two different cop cars attending to two different incidents and it is extremely lively with gay and swinger bars.

I Love Sushi - Although it is less well known amongst the younger poker pro set compared to places like Naked Fish and Sen of Japan, the Henderson-located I Love Sushi is a long time favorite amongst established poker players like Mike Matusow and Phil Gordon. I can honestly say from a sophisticated flavors standpoint, it is the best sushi I have ever eaten. I Love Sushi features fantastic complex sushi dishes with hilarious titles like "screaming orgasm," "I like my ass," and "Your Stomach will hate you later."

China Poblano - Jose Andres' Chinese and Mexican eatery in the Cosmopolitan was a funky lunch meeting place one day. I highly recommend the Shrimp Mojo with poblano chiles. The Cochinita and Carnitas were intensely flavorful, but on the very small portion side as was typical of most of the menu.

Green and Proteins - This chain-looking health food and smoothie/juice bar offered up some tasty, light and uber vegan options for lunch one day. I had the Greek pizza, with the hummus, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, basil and feta spread on wafer thin crisp lavash crackers.

Hougan's Racing Sandwiches - A hole-in-the-wall place with little ambiance or professional signage, but they serve up some amazing hot sandwiches that were reminiscent of the best of east coast Philly steaks and the like.

In and Out Burger - Not a burger chain that has reached the Portland area, so grabbing a burger here on the run is an enjoyed tradition. The fries were on the dry and dull side (yes, I forgot to 'animalize' it)

Zaba's Mexican Grill - A fresher and better ingredient alternative to those who enjoy Chipotle. We had some tasty fish tacos.

I, like many Americans, jumped off the online poker horse 18 months ago as a result of the Black Friday shut down and indictments of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Ultimate Bet. In the previous five or six years, I had played almost every single day for at least a few minutes. I felt very connected to the game and I enjoyed railing the high stakes games or supporting friends nearly as much as playing my low stakes PLO games. With the largest and most reputable sites shut down to U.S. access on April 15th, 2011, I chose not to venture into the even shadier smaller poker sites that continued to offer real money playing. My time and efforts shifted elsewhere and my desire to play waned as the months passed.

Last week, I saw a Tweet about Winamax that caught my attention. The popular French poker room was now offering freeplay online poker to the U.S. market with the intention of transitioning to real money offerings once they became licensed in regulated areas of the U.S. Although numerous sites have offered freeplay, Winamax intrigued me more due to some positive reviews and my never previously having contact with them. On their website, they feature an amusing promo video (linked example isn't in English) that emphasized that it's not the cards you're dealt, but how you play them that matter. I downloaded their software and was immediately impressed by the design, organization, lobby and interface. Their quick seat option headed me swiftly to playing with my 50.00 default play chips.

All the memories came flooding back of playing with loose passives, maniacs and nits. Okay, who am I kidding, I didn't really find any nits at PLO. Still a prisoner to my sense of proper bankroll management, I worked my way up quickly through 2, 5, 10 to 20 buy-in levels before I saw play improve markedly. Then a funny thing happened. I played someone heads-up that was every bit as good as any player I had played on Full Tilt Poker in the $50 or $100 games. They too were playing play chip poker, but with an aggression, range awareness, and unpredictability that I had rarely seen amongst freeplay circles. Credit to Winamax for their software, design and interface. This felt every bit the same as playing for real money.

Without the payoff of making real money, I doubt I will continue to invest a ton of time playing. But I will say I quickly fell back into similar patterns of play of years gone by. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to outwit players and watching my stack grow. With the launch of Nevada regulated online poker only months away, the dream of playing legal real money online poker again in the U.S. is no longer an endless pipe dream. Time is coming for me to get my game in gear.

After an intense week of digesting lots of videos, interviews, articles and forum reaction, it's time for me to give my conclusions on the lengthy Full Tilt Poker saga. On September 7th, @taylorcaby tweeted "As I get older I've realized that people do seem to 'get what they deserve.' A lifetime is a long time." I found the comment intriguing and responded that I thought it would make a great blog topic to expand further on his thoughts. Although he didn't respond, I found his comment to be very apropos regarding my thoughts on what to take away from the entire FTP experience. These thoughts have simmered for months and only recently were reinforced by the Andy Bloch and Howard Lederer Full Tilt Poker interviews. This will be a lengthy blog, but one with a goal of trying to gain some closure.

Before I jump into my observations, let me say I'm no expert on Full Tilt Poker. I never worked for Full Tilt Poker and I have no inside sources. The perspective I share is from someone who was a former player, a former affiliate, a former poker content manager responsible for reporting on industry news and mostly in my personal blog capacity to bring my experience and common sense to different elements of the poker world.

"It's only weird if it doesn't work." - lyric from Stevie Wonder's "Superstitious"

We live in a world dominated by those who come out on top. Your results dictate our perceptions. Successful companies and successful people generally revel in the adulations of the public regardless of the technique they took in achieving their goals. But if that dynamic changes and you fail or go broke, the tides turn and everything is scrutinized.

The story of Full Tilt Poker is a complex one and yet very simple at its core. Some notable poker players began an online poker business to leverage their live success. Much as they did at the poker table, they were strategically looking for edges to exploit so they could build a business and enrich themselves further. Instead of trying to incorporate a diverse set of experienced business professionals into their ownership and management team, they chose members from the clubby and informal poker community. That same poker world that is rife with non-conformists, big risk-takers, and slackers. It is also a world full of stories of making it rich, being cheated, overall degeneracy, and money changing hands without much if any literal or moral collateral.

The leadership structure of Full Tilt Poker was kept simple; calling for a yearly election of five Board of Directors (BoD) to guide the company. As Howard Lederer admitted very early on, after Phil Ivey resigned from lack of interest and Perry Friedman resigned due to troubles working with CEO Ray Bitar, Full Tilt Poker never held any yearly elections or ever filled all five seats (the same 4 members served every year until Black Friday). Poker industry commentator Bill Rini noted in his insightful interview reaction blogs (1 and2), that despite upgrading their technology, facilities and numbers of employees to handle their increased success, FTP never prioritized improving their professionalism and oversight of their business from a systems and oversight perspective.

According to Lederer, the BoD played a loose hands-off advisory role; unlike most boards that emphasize outside members with experience and expertise to enhance the company skill set and contribute important strategic decisions while holding management accountable. The essential checks and balances necessary to manage a business doing hundreds of millions in business were never put in place. Howard Lederer confirms this when he admits his greatest regret was that Full Tilt Poker continued to operate with an outdated California LLC start-up geared Operating Agreement despite the company moving to Ireland (with sizable Canadian operations), leaving the largely American ownership very much removed from daily operations.

In spite of this shortcoming, three key decisions propelled Full Tilt Poker to become the second largest online poker room in the world. First, early on they seized on the idea to recruit and promote the best and coolest poker pros; encompassed in the classic slogan "Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros." Secondly, Full Tilt Poker invested heavily in their software, features and promotions to create a great atmosphere and playing experience for poker players of all levels. Lastly and most importantly, when the United States passed the UIGEA in 2006 Full Tilt Poker chose not to stop serving the U.S. market, largest by far in the world, unlike many of its competitors. That risky decision helped them gain tremendous market share and revenue giving them momentum for years to follow. Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars both became the elephants of the online poker world using their quickly increasing revenues and marketing to largely marginalize the dozens of online poker room competitors.

With their improved financial situation after the UIGEA, Full Tilt Poker began ownership disbursements of roughly $5 million a month starting in April of 2007. Those monthly ownership disbursement eventually grew to roughly $10 million a month all the way up to April 1, 2011, two weeks before Black Friday. Over those four years, roughly $444 million was distributed to the 23 owners despite poker industry analysts asserting that Full Tilt Poker was largely insolvent the last 12-18 months leading to Black Friday.

The reasons for Full Tilt Poker's arguable insolvency all relate to the decision to skirt UIGEA legislation. The U.S. Department of Justice was pressuring payment processors seen as doing business with online gambling companies. When firm cases were established, large sums were seized. In the face of increasing commercial success, Full Tilt Poker chose to consider it a cost of doing business and kept finding new riskier payment processors and depositing methods. Although no definitive report has been made public, there are some indications that $115 million was lost to government seizure pre and post Black Friday. Another poker reporter, Diamond Flush, claimed that three seizures alone in 2009 amounted to $100 million in lost customer/company funds. Then there is the 2008 case of third party payment processor, Intabill (run by Daniel Tzvetkoff) who stole $42 million of Full Tilt processed funds. In a cruel taste of irony, Tzvetkoff was fingered to the FBI for his malfeasance by Full Tilt Poker with Tzvetkoff then turning the tables to provide insight and evidence that helped build the eventual DoJ Black Friday case.

Around November 2010, in the face of a deteriorating operating environment, the decision was made to start crediting player accounts despite the charges not going through to player's bank accounts. In the following six months 130,000 customers would be credited with deposits of over $134 million. The collection backlog was eventually worked down to around $100 million when Black Friday shut down American operations. Lederer later claimed that the eventual cash coverage report determined that only $10 million of that money was ever possible to recover.

Mathew Parvis, the PokerNews Chief Creative Officer who interviewed Lederer,reinforced the notion of an overwhelmed company. "Full Tilt Poker grew to levels that nobody, including the owners themselves, could ever have imagined. Everyone, with Ray Bitar leading the way, was in way over their heads but were all too stubborn to realize that the company would have been much better off in the hands of successful, qualified executives. The whole group of 23 was making a killing with distribution checks, so with so much money coming in, even with all the red flags and questions in regard to Bitar and others qualifications to lead the board, and the membership simply turned a blind eye. This was their biggest mistake and what Full Tilt Poker customers and the poker community should be appalled by."

"It's easier to believe the bad stuff." Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman

My biggest reaction after having watched the seven Lederer Files interviews, read Andy Bloch's interview and the poker community reaction was that I had witnessed the ultimate blame game in action.

For those unfamiliar, there is an actualBlame Game. I've condensed the rules for your enjoyment.

1. Anyone playing is never allowed to take responsibility for anything that ever happens.
2. Someone else or multiple others must be given the blame for what has gone wrong, regardless if they are actually responsible, or even involved in the situation.
3. A motive or reason for the behavior of the recipient of the blame must be created; whether its based on facts doesn't matter.
4. Mixing in indignation and vitriol can add points to your blaming score for its intensity..
5. Blame can be attributed through any convenient communication medium: interview, Twitter, blog, article, telephone call or email. Each medium has its advantage in speed and inability to respond or debate the blaming.
6. Getting other players to join you in assigning blame, gets you more points. There is power in numbers and your new blaming community can commiserate at their collective misfortuned to to the blamed. The community will help you avoid introspection or the misfortune of taking responsibility for your actions.

In the wake of the indictment, eventual collapse, settlement and sale of Full Tilt Poker, people are looking for who to assign blame. Most people profess outrage and disgust as they attribute blame. My desire is to highlight the main players who deserve our scrutiny. In my conclusion, I will share my own thoughts on responsibility.

According to Howard Lederer, there are 23 owners of Full Tilt Poker. We can start there:

Chris Ferguson - Largest owner and founder (19.2%). He earned $87 Million in distributions, but eventually only received $25 Million. He was good friends with Ray Bitar from before FTP's creation and Chris was the main reason Ray Bitar was named and remained CEO the entire life of FTP despite stiff opposition at times. He is said to have never wanted distributions, insisting they would only weaken the company. He preferred living humbly and gave most of his eventual distributions to his African charity. After Black Friday, he gave back $14 million of distributions that were in transit to help the company's cash flow. He loaned Erick Lindgren $2 million right before Black Friday.

Howard Lederer - Board of Directors/Owner/Former President (8.6%) He received $42.5 Million is disbursements. He owed FTP $700k and paid it back after BF. According to Lederer and others, Howard was extremely involved in FTP until the move to Ireland and professes ignorance of all fraudulent activity leading to insolvency and Black Friday. He painted the picture of being the most passionate owner to see that some positive resolution came after Black Friday. Outwardly, he chose not to focus on blame, but seeking a solution to the predicament. His interview deflects much personal responsibility while shedding light and blame on Ray Bitar, the CFO's, and other owners (Phil Ivey, Phil Gordon, Perry Friedman, John Juanda, Erick Lindgren and others).

In his lengthy interview, Lederer tried to communicate a clear narrative of not caring who was at fault for making FTP break, but that it was a terrible situation that had to get fixed and that he invested himself fully in seeing it done. Although a believable narrative, that doesn't begin to address how FTP arrived at that point. Many assert that Lederer, as a BoD member, sizable owner , and former very involved President should've been more aware and accepted more blame, rather than doling it out to everyone else. Few doubt the intelligence of Lederer, but very intelligence undermines many of his "I Don't Know" interview answers (I Don't Know parody video,Who's On First parody video, Lederer Confesses parody video). Except for a couple minutes here and there, Lederer seemed to lack the humility, culpability or apology that most felt the situation deserved. As Lederer's harshest critic, Daniel Negreanu insisted that the poker world didn't deserve Lederer's silence, but instead found it "unconsionable[sic], no excuse, they deserved their money and explanations."

In Lederer's words "I was the owner of a company that got itself into a really bad situation, but I didn't actively create that situation. I didn't ever approve any fraudulent reports that were sent off to Alderney or our customers. I went to Dublin on April 17th to try to figure out what was going on and when I found a problem I committed myself to trying to fix it. and I made a decision on that day, the 21st, the only thing that mattered to me until i was either successful or completely unsuccessful that I was gonna try to use the assets of the company to affect a deal to get our customers paid. It wasn't all up to me, but I knew whatever I could do I would.

As an owner of Full Tilt Poker, I took and take full responsibility for what happened. It wasn't right and it caused a lot of pain and suffering and in some cases inconvenience for 3 million customers. That wasn't right. For that I'm truly sorry."

Ray Bitar - CEO(7.6%) $40.8 million in disbursement. Bitar ran a day-trading business before FTP. Generally considered overmatched with the skill set necessary for running what Full Tilt Poker would become. He was seen as passionate, a hard worker, who was willing to do what others weren't to grow the business. All sources indicate he is most responsible for the fraudulent decisions that brought FTP to Black Friday and its eventual collapse, closure, and sale to PokerStars leaving all owners with nothing. Charges of nepotism follow him for having hired numerous family members to positions at Full Tilt Poker. Even after Black Friday, Bitar continued to collect roughly $200k+/mo.

Phil Ivey - Owner (?%) The most popular pro on Team Full Tilt. He owed millions to FTP in loans as of BF. Considered lazy by other owners. Tried to bring in a buyer after Black Friday, then sued when his frustrations grew at not being released to work with another poker site. Despite a very negative portrayal by Howard Lederer, Bill Rini notes that Ivey's name being associated with Full Tilt brought in far more money than Ivey took out of the company (e.g. most popular/used pro, best click thru ads).

John Juanda - Owner (3rd biggest %). Disbursements are explicity stated but should be north of $40 million compared with other sizable owners. He owed $250k to the company. He belonged in the anti-Bitar camp who felt he should be replaced and wasn't to be trusted.

Andy Bloch - Owner (?%) In June 2011, he joined those seeking to replace Ray Bitar and the board, but felt deceived and overwhelmed by the position.

Perry Friedman - Owner (?%) and on the early Board of Directors. He was also an early developer on the site. He was the first to resign after having doubts and problems with Ray Bitar. He took a very hands off approach in resulting years.

Rafe Furst - Owner (2.6%) He received $11.7 million in disbursements. He was one of the Board of Directors until resigning after Black Friday and FTP losing the Alderney license.

Phil Gordon - Owner (?%) He belonged to the anti-Bitar camp and attempted to oust Bitar post Black Friday while vehemently trying to ferret out who was to blame for FTP's predicament.

J.K. Scheinberg - Small non-poker player owner member in the anti-Bitar camp. In June 2011, he assumed the very short lived CEO role when Phil Gordon's group temporarily removed Bitar from office. It last five days before he capitulated and went home.

Gus Hansen - Owner. Hands off until after Black Friday where he demonstrated his acumen and passion to see the players repaid.

Tom Dwan - The newest and youngest owner. He wasn't involved in the operations, but heavily in promotions due to his popularity with younger players. Early on, he infamously promised to give up all his earnings from FTP (over a million) to help pay back players if FTP didn't eventually make good. He owed FTP around $1.5 million and agreed to pay it back in August 2012 if FTP was still having difficulty finding an eventual buyer.

Erik Seidel - Owner (?%) John Juanda asserted and Howard Lederer confirmed that Full Tilt Poker stole $5.4 million from Seidel at some point. Despite that, Lederer insisted that Seidel was a consistent quiet advocate seeking that all customers get paid.

Erick Lindgren - Owner. Fun-loving but troubled gambler. Chris Ferguson loaned him $2 mill April 7th, days before Black Friday to help him settle another debt. FTP accidently wired him another $2 mill, that he has yet to pay back. Lindgren has garnered a very troubled reputation as a welcher of sports and fantasy sports bets.

Allen Cunningham - Owner (?%) No mention is made of his ownership role.

Patrik Antonius - Owner (?%) Heavily used in promotions and popular amongst players. No mention is made of his ownership role.

Full Tilt Poker

CFO's - The Chief Financial Officer of any company is largely responsible for reporting the proper accounting and financial health of the company. As such they are critical in overseeing any key decisions made to weaken or compromise the health of a company and deserve significant responsibility in the failure of Full Tilt Poker. While I don't have much information on the history of several FTP CFO's, I'm told that Gil Coranado was influential and largely responsible for setting up many of the systems and may have helped perpetrate the various financial frauds. There is also brief mention by Lederer of Alan ?., a previous CFO mentioned as likable and competent.

FTP Management - I have no knowledge of what other key executives were aware of the various company frauds and abuses, although some would have to have been instrumental in carrying out actions dictated by upper management. Nelson Burtnick, head of Full Tilt payment processing, is an example of an employee who was complicit with some of the fraudulent actions. Management and employees always seemed to struggle in the face of ownership directives that 'big names' were to be treated differently.

Outside of FTP

FTP Loanees - Despite Howard Lederer's insistence that there was a 'culture of poker' which included regular loaning of money to notable pros. The cavalier way in which Full Tilt Poker handled and tried to collect loans it gave various poker pros was highly unprofessional and irresponsible. Sizable loans by a company shouldn't be authorized by staff, the CEO Ray, or even the board, but rather be authorized by shareholders who bear the ultimate responsibility. With that in mind, I mention a few of the non-owner notable poker pros who reportedly owed or still owe FTP money: (I'm told the list is much bigger)

David Oppenheim - owed money
David Benyamine - at one point owed millions
Barry Greenstein - owed $150k, intending to pay back the new owner PokerStars
Mike Matusow - was known to have owed FTP money at various points.

Alderney (AGCC) As the main licensing body for Full Tilt Poker, they had responsibility to ensure proper capital and financial health to maintain their gaming license. Some claim they didn't maintain proper oversight, while others insist that Full Tilt Poker falsified and forged records to create a healthy business picture. Should they have dug deeper or done independent verification? Howard Lederer claims the AGCC was responsible to indicate if FTP was financially solvent for their licenses, but in post-Black Friday negotiations even the AGCC seemed unsure of their own standards by initially stating $300 million and then $150 million in capital was acceptable for customer responsibilities. It remains unclear what was the proper role and responsibility of Alderney.

U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) The DoJ was charged with enforcing the 2006 UIGEA legislation. Their uneven investigations, seizures and enforcement caused havoc for online poker rooms. Their efforts made players feel criminal when only payment processors were strictly illegal. Their actions ultimately held hostage poker players money. Representing a law that was sneakily passed and mostly unpopular, The DoJ ultimately got a large settlement of $731 million from PokerStars.

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." - Jean-Paul Sartre

The title of this blog sensationally claims we all deserve responsibility. It is an unpopular message in a culture and society that prefers to deflect blame. The blame game is a big and serious one. But if we are to ever learn from the past, we must accept our role in it.

- The 23 owners of Full Tilt Poker who received great wealth but didn't actively participate or question deserved what they got.

- The 23 owners who refused to communicate clearly or accept deals shortly after Black Friday out of greed deserved what they got.

- The Board of Directors who took a hands off role, not monitoring, questioning, or leading appropriately, deserved what they got.

- FTP Management and employees who followed orders or put out statements that may have been illegal or violated business ethics deserved what they got.

- Red Pros who profited and enjoyed the benefits of status deserved what they got.

- The AGCC who didn't insist on segregated funds or audit carefully enough deserved what they got.

- Around 130,000 players who deposited over $130 million but weren't debited from their accounts deserve what they got.

- Three million customers/players who played on a poker site that was in violation of UIGEA, documented funds seizures, and poor customer service, deserved what they got.

As history has indicated, what devalues people and companies the most is not their actions, but their resulting cover-ups and lies. Humans have an amazing capacity for forgiveness. They also have an amazing capacity to avoid, lie, and deflect. As Bill Rini and vocal critic Daniel Negreanu have stated, FTP mishandled so many aspects of their misdeeds.

Rini's suggested FTP statement that was never made "While the board and I had no knowledge of Ray's actions, we are the board of directors and that means that the moral and ethical responsibility falls on us. We didn't do a good enough job protecting the company, protecting the investors, protecting our employees, or protecting our customers from the actions of a rogue executive who violated every principle we stand for."

Negreanu's suggest FTP statement to players "I'm terribly sorry for those players who haven't received their funds yet and while I'm unsure what will happen at this point, I can assure you that FTP will do everything it possibly can to make the players whole."

Rini's suggested follow up statement "We realize we've made some statements after Black Friday which we have since found to be untrue. We relied on information provided by members of management who did not provide us with an honest picture of the company's finances. Those people have been removed from their management roles, we have a new team of people auditing the company, and we are getting to the bottom of this."

In the end, I'm not saying that all injustices that occur are our fault. It isn't our fault if someone tries to lie or defraud us (e.g. your funds remain safe and secure, funds are segregated, our company is financially healthy). If we accept their words without questioning, then we also accept partial responsibility. It is our responsibility to be more vigilant. Ignorance is no excuse. If we profited, we are complicit.

If I drive to the local store to get some groceries and a drunk driver hits me, am I at fault? It is easy to blame them, but we live in a world where every action we take has inherent and potential risks. We need to be responsible for putting ourselves in situations where harm can come our way.

In that context, I got what I deserved. We all got what we deserved. And we deserve better.

I'm back; both from my longest blog break in years (3 weeks) and my family vacation trip out east which took up most of it. As usual I took my laptop along, but in a first in years I didn't open it once for work. Even when I used my smartphone to try to stay connected, many of our destinations didn't receive regular or reliable reception so I accepted and embraced the idea that my time was meant for family exclusively.

We covered a lot of ground, flying from Portland to Philly on our way to Spring Lake on the Jersey Shore. We then visited Short Hills, New Jersey. We next drove down to Charlottesville, Virginia on our way to pick up our daughter in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We drove back to Charlottesville before heading to Williamsburg, Virginia for a few days. The last few days were spent in Charlottesville before flying out of Richmond back to home. The family get-togethers were wonderful and chaotic as only can be expected when three generations of a family of 15-17 people gather.

After a long busy day yesterday of unpacking, cleaning, mail/bills, shopping, mowing, laundry, watering etc., I was ready to re-integrate myself into the connected online world. And what a day it was with the major announcement of a resolution for Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars in their indictments with the U.S. Department of Justice.

After many twists, turns and delays, PokerStars shrewdly negotiated to assume the Full Tilt ROW assets and liabilities as part of their settlement. The goodwill that move created along with paying a sizable $574 million DOJ fine that U.S. players will be able to access for reimbursement is a large boon for the long suffering poker community.

Some initial thoughts as we move forward:

Petition for Remission - It sounds ominous, doesn't it? Unlike "rest of world" players who will get their funds back within 90 days or U.S. PokerStars players who saw their funds returned swiftly in the aftermath of Black Friday, U.S. players "shall have the opportunity to file a petition for remission with the U.S. Department of Justice, Asset Forfeiture Money Laundering Service (AFMLS)."How delayed and cumbersome will the DOJ process be? Will there be declaration, verification or tax implications that some players might fear?

Shot in the Arm - Will the collective $335 million that PokerStars and the DOJ, in theory, redistribute to the poker community on behalf of Full Tilt Poker be a big boost to the overall online poker economy? Will players re-invest those funds in the new Full Tilt Poker or its parent site PokerStars? Will a trickle down occur for affiliates and other sites that formerly depended on the relationships between marketing and recruiting players to sites return?

The Principles - While the August 1 announcement brings to a close the civil proceedings against Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, it doesn't address the individual criminal and civil complaints against the principals from Full Tilt and PokerStars who were responsible for putting their companies and their assets in harm's way. What will happen to Full Tilt's Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst, and Nelson Burtnick or PokerStars' Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate? Does the public care much what happens to them comfortable in the knowledge that they will be getting back their own funds?

Where do we go from here? U.S. poker players remain unable to play fully legal online poker in the U.S. Many established online poker pros have relocated and remain uncertain about their future. While there are both state and federal initiatives pending, hard timetables or secure concepts of fully licensed and regulated open online poker for U.S. players remains elusive. The European poker market is increasingly balkanized as individual states legislate and regulate online poker. Some recent discussions between Italy, France, Spain and Portugal regarding cross-border co-operation leading to possible shared liquidity is somewhat encouraging.

Short term, the reintroduction of hundreds of millions into the poker economy should come as welcome news, but the long term health and viability of online poker continues to be in doubt. As Isai Scheinberg indicated earlier today "We continue to encourage jurisdictions all over the world to introduce sensible online poker regulation." Long term, jurisdictions that are mindful of protecting players while developing steady growing taxable revenue will want to prioritize security and the inclusive customer experience.

Imagine your estranged adult son suddenly dies at the beginning of his latest European adventure. You halt your busy work life to bring his remains home. Arriving in the Pyrenees of France, you are informed of the historic 500 mile "El camino de Santiago" pilgrimage he had intended to walk that retraces the steps that Saint James took hundreds of years earlier. In honor of your son, you pick up his ashes and choose to embark on his journey. That is the premise of the inspirational 2010 movie "The Way" that I watched this weekend. It stars Martin Sheen as the father and was written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez.

Watching the movie play out, I saw so many parallels with the poker journey. Martin Sheen's character, Tom, was a very inexperienced trekker, but he had a strong and sincere desire to take this particular journey. He didn't really know where his journey would take him, but his drive and passion pushed him forward overcoming his various obstacles. Along the way, he encounters many people who are taking the journey each for their own motivations. Some seek penance, some solace, some meaning, and some to find a new identity. He finds some connection and commonality with fellow pilgrims, each of whom is struggling in some fashion. Their journey is made richer by the bonds they make along the way.

During the many adventures and meals that ensue, each are asked why they have made certain decisions. The characters often rationalize that they chose their life and thus must live with its consequences. The film's answer is that life is to be lived, not chosen. It is never too late to take a different path.

As they end their journey on the Atlantic ocean of Spain some of the characters achieve their goals while others do not, but all are changed and touched by having taken the journey. Each of us in our own way is on a quest to find meaning in our lives. No matter how insulated we feel or live, we are and can be citizens of the world with all its richness of offerings. Go out there and live it.

For any old school poker railbird, last Sunday was a fun night. Streaming live on WSOP.com were Phil Hellmuth going for his 12th bracelet and Phil Ivey, who was absent for last year's entire WSOP, going for his 9th bracelet in simulataneous events. What drives fans of poker are when big name pros go deep, adding drama to the event's conclusion regardless if you root for or against the particular pro. Although I bounced between the two streams, Ivey's table held more interest for me because it was loaded with established pros like Shaun Deeb, Hoyt Corkins, Matthew Marafioti, Ali Eslami and eventual winner Andy Frankenberger.

As the nearly live streaming coverage doesn't reveal the hole cards, much of the action and drama is provided by the commentary team. Host David Tuchman typically invites a number of the young lions of poker to help contribute analysis for the viewers. On this night, he was at a wedding and Bart Hanson hosted Ivey's Pot Limit Hold'em final table with poker pros Tom Marchese and David Sands.

I usually find the commentary quite informative, as Tuchman or in this case Hanson elicits stories and strategy insight from his guest poker pro commentators. On this night, I found the commentary took on an overly negative tone. Both Tom and David found continual fault with most plays at the table, including Ivey. They derided what they saw as the overall passivity of the table. Any limp or check/call was dismissed despite its usefulness with certain stack sizes and blind structure. Unlike most other final table commentary I've seen this year, I found it so unbalanced and distracting, taking away from the listening experience.

Every day I read hundreds or thousands of top poker players tweets. I've been part of a respected poker training community for the past six years and for several years wrote in the industry. The Sunday poker commentary tone reminded me of what I call the hubris of the mighty. A certain breed of young, serious and successful poker players convince themselves there is only one way to play winning poker and then denigrate any player or play that deviates from those commonly accepted methods. I understand that these players have worked very hard to improve their games and play poker as optimally as possible, but in my personal experience observing the poker world the last 6-7 years, I've found that there are many attributes that contribute to being a winning player; strategy, discipline, adaption, reading opponents and a certain amount of luck regardless. Just this year, I've read or heard comments from the likes of bracelet winners Brian Hastings and Matt Matros that gave tremendous credit to the notion of "running well" (read luck) to take down their victories.

Put another way by former online cash game legend and repeated WSOP attention magnet, Prahlad Friedman, known for deep runs, questionable raps, and his encounters with volatile players "Poker is more luck then pros think and more skill than non pros think."

In the absence of hole cards and highly edited action and analysis I really appreciate the speculative analysis that the poker pros do on the WSOP broadcasts, but after watching Sunday night's broadcast I would urge them to take a more balanced tone when evaluating the play at the table. There is no one way to win at poker. Each must forge their own path.

It's been a while since I wrote a poker article, so in honor of the start of the 2012 WSOP here is an article on the dynamics and reactions to tilt.

Tilt is generally considered the most destructive force in poker. It can undo days or months of steady profitable play in minutes as we spew buy-in after buy-in in an angered and frustrated state that negates our most optimal playing ability. We lose objectivity and play from an emotional, non-thinking perspective that vents at the seeming injustice of our situation. Tilt trigger points can range from losing hands you were a big favorite, not catching cards for ages, dealing with aggressive or poor players, to other non-poker factors like fatigue, hunger or a host of irritants from your daily life.  Although I’ve been fortunate not to suffer from many instances of tilt during my time in poker, I recently experienced some life tilt that gave me some insight into the circumstances behind tilt and anger.

This weekend I finally got around to taking my 13-year-old son to see The Avengers. Of the team of disparate super heroes, the character that would most obviously be associated with the phenomenon of tilt would be the Hulk. The highly intelligent and mild-mannered Bruce Banner, in moments of anger, transforms into the raging behemoth of the Hulk. In the beginning of the movie, Bruce is found in the slums of Calcutta, India where he has successfully avoided turning into the Hulk for a year while helping cure lepers and other unfortunates. Reluctantly coaxed by Black Widow to join the Avengers team, his fellow super heroes seem to ‘marvel’ and fear the wrath of the Hulk.

As the film progresses the Hulk’s fury becomes more appreciated for its effectiveness in defeating their common enemies, but his fellow super heroes wonder how the transformation is controlled. Bruce Banner explains “That’s my secret, Captain...I’m always angry.” I found that comment very telling. Anger is always there. Every moment of every day in our lives provides the opportunity to find frustration, anger and injustice. Everywhere you turn are instances of madness and stupidity. They can be instances of frustration with the bureaucracy and hypocrisy of society, annoyance with drivers on the road, or not getting our way with friends, family or co-workers. How we manage those constant frustrations defines us.

The past couple weeks, I noticed my own threshold of frustration breaching. My son was unexpectedly cut from his classic soccer team he had played on the past year. I had been quite involved with the team as it often met four times a week and I attended every practice and game. The mid-thirties coach was aware of my soccer background, my focus on the team and consulted me on various aspects. Knowing the team as well as I did, it came as a shock when he was cut from this year’s tryouts.

I found that my resulting annoyance and frustration stemmed from two sources. I could accept if he was cut because he was amongst the worst players at the tryouts, but he wasn’t. He was one of the most regular, hard working players with good speed and potential despite his smaller frame. The coach chose to keep a handful of worse players due to a number of political and positional factors that made no sense to me if he really wanted the team to improve upon its mediocre results of the past year. Paired with the apparent injustice of his decision was a resulting insecurity from my son about his ability and future in soccer. He wrongly doubted himself and questioned whether he would continue to play soccer. Although I hustled to have him try out and catch on with another classic team where he’ll start at the bottom and have to prove himself all over again, I’ve been bothered by the situation ever since. I share this personal frustration because I found it gave me insight into the mechanics of anger and tilt and has direct parallels to those who suffer from poker tilt.

Here are some of the destructive elements I experienced:

1. Weakened Resolve - I found myself more easily agitated in other areas of my life. My reservoir of patience and compassion was lessened.
2.  Instances of Anger - I noticed I snapped more easily at others. I found myself driving faster and more aggressively. I even cut off some drivers in annoyance at their driving under the speed limit.
3. Entitlement - I found myself rationalizing and justifying unbecoming behavior because I had suffered an injustice and this was my payback.
4. Revenge - A part of me wanted to return the hurt I felt, stepping up the stakes so it hurt him even worse. While I had always been supportive and diplomatic in my team contributions, I felt like telling him all of his weaknesses as a coach and why the team would suffer this season.
5. Internal Distractions - I found myself with this regular internal dialogue that replayed the circumstances and my reactions and comebacks to the original offending situation. I noticed that I became preoccupied with those thoughts losing my usual focus on being in the moment.

I consider myself a calm even-handed person, but the annoyance and vexation around the circumstances of his being cut had clearly affected me. To be honest, I’m still working through them a couple weeks later because I know I’ll run into the coach in the future. My son’s mood hasn’t improved despite making his new team and I resent the coach for being that catalyst.

The flashpoints for your own personal tilt may vary greatly, but the destructive reactions rarely do. In times of tilt, we feel a loss of control. It aggravates us to no end that things aren’t going our way. We want retribution and to up the stakes to make up for the current frustrations. Our emotions start to take over as we steam over the inequity.

The challenge becomes how to escape from our moments of tilt as quickly as possible. All of the most constructive steps to help you combat your poker tilt involve the simple concept of taking a break from the game.:

1. Focus on your breathing. Slow it down, taking deep breaths. Clearing your mind by meditating is also an effective method to combat tilt.  

2. Take your mind off of things by watching some TV or a movie.

3. Get some exercise. You can go outside and take a walk or lift some weights. You can even set up a punching bag type scenario to vent your frustrations, but preferably not your mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

4. Play with your children or a pet, which always helps to put things in perspective.

5. Talk to a friend, who might give you some perspective on your situation.

6. Constructive poker-specific steps might be to watch a poker video where some experienced player will share their reasoned thoughts on how to play solid poker. Another might be to go back and evaluate your tilt session in your poker tracker software to identify what moves you made that were tilt-induced and to focus on how you can avoid those in the future.

Once you can calm your body and mind, you can return to the table. Many poker players who aren’t in tune with themselves will return to the tables too soon still harboring issues from their previous frustrations. They will still press the situation, looking to recover quickly from their previous tilt and its damaging effects on their bankroll. In poker, it is often true that we can lose money faster than we can win it back. Only your best reasoned play will return you to profitability and recovery, so don’t ‘sit’ until you are sure your ‘tilty’ feelings are gone.      
       
If we accept, much as the Hulk acknowledged, that anger and frustration are always there, the key becomes our ability to manage our perspective. In poker that involves disassociating from the immediate outcomes. Poker is a game of making correct decisions that statistically play out in your favor over the long term. Sure, you can rage against the machine all you want, but unless you are infused with gamma radiation the likely result is only bringing down the house around you. We need to accept we don’t have ultimate control. The cards will fall as they may. In the short term, we can choose to reduce our variance by playing more conservatively, involving less bluffs and big moves, but the long term probabilities are there for everyone to master. I’ve found that the best option when you feel out of control is to take a break and remove yourself from the situation until you gain a different perspective. Poker will always be there, but will your bankroll?

Following on the positive news of our forums re-opening after being targeted for a couple months by spam bots, Poker Curious has moved to upgraded and speedier servers. We were unfortunately limited with a restrictive year long contract that greatly restricted the site over the last few months, but we are now back to the expected level of speedy navigation throughout the site. Thanks for your patience in the process.

I've noticed that non-U.S. Poker Curious members are still playing regularly on Minted Poker, so please indicate in comments if you would like me to negotiate a new Minted Poker freeroll league.  I am hopeful that the rumors of PokerStars' purchase of Full Tilt Poker, settlement with the DOJ, repayment of players and relaunch of the site could lead to an eventual resumption of our old very popular freeroll series.

I've re-opened the Poker Curious forums after a month of no spam attacks on the site. I'm not sure why they targeted the site, but let's hope they've moved on to other sites. I've noticed that Poker Curious members are playing regularly on Minted Poker, so please indicate in comments if you would like me to negotiate a new smaller Minted Poker league for non-US members.  I would be curious to see what comes of the PokerStars attempted purchase of Full Tilt as that was our original home for our popular freeroll series.

Hope springs eternal. After another period of inactivity and fighting the persistent spam bots, PokerCurious is evaluating the current signals in the online poker world. We see that non-US based members have been continuing to play on Minted Poker. So if you are interested in arranging a new poker league there I would like to hear from you.

There have also been a couple signs from Full Tilt Poker that their buyout by the French Bernard Tapie Group, settlement with the DOJ and relaunch of the site may be upcoming. As that was our original home for our popular freeroll series, (averaged over 1,000 players 4 times a week), there is the possibility with new ownership and players getting their money back that we could explore new opportunities there after they get relaunched. I would like to hear member's thoughts on whether that sounds like a good idea or not?