Official Skatz 10 Million Views Thread

[PokerNewsDaily]

This week, the Poker News Daily web series “The Showdown with Jon Friedberg” welcomes Kathy Liebert. As you might expect, Black Friday takes center stage, as Liebert and Friedberg tackle a variety of topics, including what’s next for the online poker industry, whether we’ll see more indictments down the road, and the extent to which Howard Lederer is in command of the Full Tilt Poker ship.

Watch Part 1 and Part 2.

Liebert bluntly summarized the fallout from Black Friday, which occurred on April 15th and saw the U.S. Department of Justice indict 11 members of the industry, including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker: “It seems pretty clear that Full Tilt, PokerStars, UB, and Absolute Poker are not going to be operating in the U.S. for the immediate future.”

Liebert forecasted, “The poker industry is going to be hurt by this. The brick-and-mortar tournaments… are going to be hurt because people count on the online sites to get them in cheap. There were 3,000 entries [in the Main Event] from online entries last year, so there’s going to be a big drop in the Main Event of the World Series.”

We’ve heard estimates as low as 2,500 for this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event attendance, although our guess is around 5,500.

Moreover, players who rely on sponsorship deals in order to play in five-figure tournaments like the Main Event may find their coffers dry. Liebert explained, “I can’t imagine the Red Pro deals will remain in effect when there are no online sites for people to play on, so that’s going to hurt those people who would normally play in the World Series and be sponsored.”

The Department of Justice indicted 11 individuals on counts that included operating an illegal gambling business and bank fraud. Liebert gave her take on the accusations: “The Department of Justice’s job is to go after crime. They have indicted the people that were involved in these sites. They believed they were committing a crime and that’s why they got shut down… If you look at the indictments, there are a lot of things on there that, if proven to be correct, were the wrong things to do and it cost us all.”

What about Howard Lederer? The Full Tilt Poker front man has been noticeably absent from the poker scene since Black Friday. Liebert admitted she was surprised that Lederer’s name was not listed on the indictments: “There was a Bluff Magazine article recently that listed Howard Lederer as the most powerful man in poker. Why is he so powerful? Is it because he is a poker player? Is it because he’s big? I think it was fairly widely assumed that he had a lot of power in Full Tilt.”

This week, PokerStars began processing cashouts for players from the United States. Meanwhile, Full Tilt Poker inked an agreement with the Department of Justice to regain its domain in order to process U.S. payments, but has not begun doing so. Absolute Poker and UB.com, which make their home on the CEREUS Network, have not yet solidified an accord with the U.S. Government.

“I’m not really worried about getting my money back,” Liebert confidently told viewers of “The Showdown.” She continued, “I have money on all three of those sites… I think it’s very likely I will get it… I don’t have my whole bankroll online, so it’s not going to affect me as much. If it takes a year, it’s too bad, but it doesn’t affect my lifestyle or my ability to play these tournaments, whereas unfortunately for some of my friends, it does affect them.”

New episodes of “The Showdown” are released every Tuesday on Poker News Daily.



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[PokerNews]

A recap of Day 1b of the PokerStars European Poker Tour San Remo where Ruben Visser has taken the lead over the entire field heading into Day 2.

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[BluffMagazine]

Day 1b of the PokerStars.it European Poker Tour €5,300 Main Event at the Casino San Remo featured a field of 549 players taking to the felt Thursday afternoon. The start time for today’s action was delayed a couple of hours in an attempt to avoid the registration snafus that caused a lengthy delay to [...]

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[WickedChopsPoker]

Royal Flush Girl and MAXIM Hometown Hottie Melanie Iglesias is having more fun in Florida at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown than we are having writing this post.


WARNING: We’re on cruise control on this post.

After two days of play, Todd Terry leads the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown.

The dual first namer is stacked at 296,400. He’s followed by Chris Wiper with 273,100.

A total of 147 remain. Among them include Annette Obrestad, a woman (213,500), James Mackey, a ginger (205,100), Mike Sexton (135,000), Adam “Roothlus” Levy (118,700), and Lauren Kling, a woman (95,200).

Hiren Patel has 28,000.

Elián González did not play.

Get full chip counts here. Be sure to watch the Jess & BJ Show here. A little T’Pau “Heart and Soul” here.

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[CardPlayer]

Day 2 at the World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown no-limit hold’em main event saw the size of the field grow to 433 players and by the end of …

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[Carl Culture]

A cool behind the scenes image while filming the classic, second Trek film.



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[Carl Culture]

This month's (April 2011) weekly winning pictures.

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[Hillbilly Jim]

Kathy Liebert Talks Black...

huge fucking let down after seeing this in the forum

[NASA]

The space shuttle Endeavour sat on Launch Pad 39A as a storm passed prior to the rollback of the Rotating Service Structure, Thursday, April 28, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Endeavour launches on the STS-134 mission on Friday, April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and the STS-134 crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

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[Carl Culture]

Robin on his work:

My paintings are essays of observation, born from a relentless examination of my milieu. Rather than shout, my paintings speak softly. Their messages, both personal and profound audible only to those who make the effort to listen. By documenting time, I attempt to slow its quickening pace; such that for the briefest of moments there is just the viewer, my painting and the space between.

Themes of impermanence, aspirations and failed ambition underpin carefully constructed aesthetic elements of composition, texture and the interplay of warm and cool. Inspired by history, I extract from the present. Artifacts and textures that reflect the beauty and nobility of decline and question the modern obsession with perfection. While my subjects and technique are intentionally very real, the context in which they are painted is less defined.

By transcending the confines of specific place and time, my messages, personal in their inception, become universal in their application. As I move through life, I am confronted by questions of doubt, isolation and anxiety. And for these many questions, painting is my only answer.








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