Thursday, July 28, 2005

Dedicated to Mariah, white hair and self-portraits:
Ultimate Bet's IPO, Kahnawake, Foxwoods' Online and WPT's lame smackdown
(Best nite in ages, thanks!!)


I.found.a.white.hair.today.

Now, this may freak some ppl out, but this is my first ever. I think its *so* freaking cool. I would be more than happy to have a head full of white hair, and think it'll look rad.

A pic in memory:



And of COURSE I didn't pull it out! (Sorry I resized; follow the strand btw my fingers up towards the middle.) Weird, rare hair down pic.

While we're having fun w/ self-portraits:




I was inspired by the MS Paint thread on 2p2...




Love to see some self portraits, please. :) (I'm a cheeky monkey tonite, looking at softporn pics when I shouldn't and reliving speakerhumping days, all apologies...)

So I'll penance myself with Mariah (no, shes been undone tonite already, vicariously at least) poker...

So, UltimateBet has made it official and is going to go public. w00t, join the club. Like I told a member of the poker illuminati the other day (they do exist, be afraid)-- I think this is a good thing. I think that the more online poker rooms get listed on stock exchanges alongside already acceptable bookmakers the better. Legitimacy is money, and everyone having their hands in your honeypot means that everyone is going to defend tooth and nail their dividends and pound of flesh 23% part-ownership stocks stamped "sit back and don't say anything" bought for seispence on the LSE.

I'd like to be the first to publically wonder:

Will Kahnawake's "grey" legality affect Ultimate Bet's ipo? You have to wonder if they're thinking of abandoning their server space in Canadia in order to offer a more solid offering to the hawks looking to snatch up a piece of the £145 to £200 million apple pie... Party Gaming removed its servers from Kahnawake before its ipo (and perhaps the evil amount of server downtime Party has suffered recently has been karmic retribution or a tribal curse because of it...) and now that the Law Commission of Canada has released a report that states that Kahnawake is allegedly violating the criminal code of their jurisdiction by licensing and providing space for online poker servers for some of the major poker rooms online (PDF!), we may see UltimateBet pulling out of Canadia or making a very public announcement about the precarious position of their server space in Canada in their prospectus, detailing the possibility of the hammer falling on the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. At least I'd hope-- as much as Party Gaming was honest in theirs, I'd expect another skeletons-tumbling-out of the closet annoucement from UltimateBet too. (Some of my more hardcore readers are enjoying the shaky Annie Duke and/or Big Steve allusions there.)

And never one to abandon a tribal curse segue, Foxwoods Casino will relaunch its online gambling no skill, no luck, predetermined online keno game after being told by CT's attorney general that it was a no go-- "stop violating the Wire Act!" and shut down! A week passed and its arisen as a weaker, uglyduckling phoenix from the cyberashes...

Now that they've relaunched as a "keno only," no-chance no-gambling-here-ossifer site (where earlier, the site was offering: "Enjoy your favorite games-- slots, poker, blackjack, and so much more-- at home! Win big cash payouts!" a la online gambling) you have to wonder where they're going with this switcheroo. Perhaps they realized they cannot win the Wire Act challenge as easily as they thought, so they decided to scale back quite a bit and test the waters with this (lame) keno crap. Maybe they're onto the next big thing, predetermined scratcher-like keno plays that can only be activated by an offsite computer with tickets that can only be cashed in at Foxwoods. In Connecticut. Like, that's even further from me than soubay is.

Hm.

Either way, this massive scale back isn't so rosy for GameLogic, the mental giants who created the software powering Foxwoods' offering. Or as they like to call it, the mind control device "casino experience persist[ing] outside the casino walls." Goosebumps, and its not even b/c I'm flirting with my doppelganger in another window. :)

And of course, its not big business and poker if we don't talk about the World Poker Tour. Or, "wpt" as they like to lingoize. ;) WPT has apparently won several intellectual property suits recently, defending its watery brand from the likes of a free, ProBoards based poker forum and the "mid ohio super satellite no limit championship" (from Ohio, natch.)

And they say lawyers have too much guano time on their hands.

Perhaps this shill of a press release gone plop is meant to divert attention away from the fact the SEC is looking very closely at the WPT-Brunson bid for possible market manipulation, and has set its crosshairs double on Lakes Entertainment's Lyle Berman, owner of the controlling company of WPT and already under SEC investigation.

But who knows, maybe WPT is really sleeping easier by putting the smackdown on the world's smallest poker forum and gets its jollies with weak public displays like this.

I know I do, so there you go.

And here I go, off to have promised dirty dreams modeled after my dadaist cyber session tonite. (jinx!) Nite all.



aK
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