Many of you who play the tournament circuit know Steve Hall.

He is the English guy with the nice camera that takes photos of all the final tables at the Bellagio and is often at Caesars as well for their higher buyin events.

His living is derived from people going to his site to view pictures, and he often sells very high quality photos to players from the final table.

His site Pokerfolio.com had a listing of hundreds of photos with various categories along with a Poker gossip section.

A few months ago, he decided to switch from his hosting site to GoDaddy.com.

During the switchover, apparently Duth Boyd squatted on the name during the time that it was being moved.

Steve's livelihood and all his pictures now are relegated to another site name that is not getting nearly as many hits as before, and Dutch Boyd is receiving all the traffic from the Pokerfolio.com website.

Can the poker playing public please put some pressure on Dutch to give Steve his website and livelihood back?

Uh, wat?

I don't know the story here (and maybe there is just some epic loophole in domain name registry and ownership that I'm unaware of) but how could this possibly happen unless he was irresponsible and let his domain lapse past the reup grace period?

If you seriously derive your livelihood from one site, there is absolutely no reason to not have that domain on a 10 year registry...

Dutch also has his own personal website and if you google his name I am sure it will come up.

Dutch states his view in a blog about this. You may want to read it. It is written very well and also is very informative.

Can you link his response or cut and paste it here>

Wow, that really sucks for Steve. Hopefully they can work this out without some crazy legal battle.

A funny thing happened to me today. I got a call from my mother who said I got a big package in the mail from an attorney out in Chicago, which she opened (gotta love moms . It turned out to be a UDRP complaint from PokerHost.com.

You can visit PokerHost.net and read the rest of the story and my battle to keep Poker Host Inc. from reverse hijacking my domain. If you want to help me out and protect the rights of domain owners against lame companies like PokerHost.com, you can help me out by posting a link to PokerHost.net

Dutch being the intelligent individual he is bought alot of domain names. Now people are coming after him for them. I saw 3 instances where people want a name he has registered. There his.......This is just a part of a story to give you an idea....

This is a different situation. Steve was running his business from Pokerfolio.com and Dutch somehow got the name while he was switching hosts for the site.

Once a domain name is registered in cannot be used again. It looks like who ever can prove they registered it first, will get it. This should be easy since you have to pay for the Domain name at the time you request it.

A comment from Scott Hall (as foiledcoup) back in October at Pokerati.com:

A certain poker radio show asked Dutch in an interview to give back his domain, Dutch said that he would, guess he's kept forgetting or something.

The pokerfolio.com site means nothing in the grand scheme of things to Dutch but was another mans prime source of income.

Can someone explain the nuts and bolts of what happened?

Did Dutch exploit some angle and 'steal' this guys domain name, or was this guy an absolutely epic bonehead and let the domain name that was attached to his livelihood lapse and Dutch wound up snagging it?

If it's the former, I'd be very interested in learning what happened and how it was done (as an owner of a few domains). If it's the latter, sorry, 0 sympathy. That's how the game is played. You just cannot let critical domains lapse.

That is incorrect. If you fail to renew the domain it can be purchased by anyone.

edit** I guess there is a slight chance that under US Trademark laws that if the domain is the same name as the business and is very well known he could get it back, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Odd, I get "Sorry - no matches" when I search for posts by foiledcoup.

But if, as he reportedly said, he let it expire: tough luck. If I let a domain expire I can't get it back because I say it was a mistake. If it's worth more to Hall than Boyd, they should settle on a price.

Domain industry blog covering the story.

http://domainnamewire.com/2008/11/21...fudging-dates/

The above story has nothing to do with Pokerfolio.com, that's Dutch and Pokerhost going after each other over his registering of Pokerhost.net

it's impossible to lose a domain name in a server switch without you changing ownership to someone else. If Dutch bought it up as soon as it expired, i'm guessing the only way Steve is getting it back is to pony up some cash for his mistake. If a domain gets traffic, it lasts about 10 seconds after it expires before it's registered by someone else. I'm guessing Steve should just spend his money promoting his new website name and remember not to let it lapse

In Steve's position I would rather spend $3X on promoting my new site than give $X to Boyd to buy the domain back. I'm just sorry to hear this because Steve's a really nice guy.

oh, dutch boyd is an a-1 dickface, i'm so surprised

edit: i wasted my 4000th post on this ****

Dutch needs to do something, i saw some of his auctions and he's selling domains he's probably paid for 5-6 years of renewals and selling some of them for under a $1

Agreed...unless there is some angle involved then its the guys own fault.

If it just expired and dutch was the first person to snatch it up...guess what that happens every time any domain name with any amount of traffic expires.

http://www.pokerhost.net/

also, dutch has a ton of poker domain names. steve's expired and dutch picked it up. not sure if dutch even knew if it was steve's or not.

i do think dutch should give it back, but i also think steve should pay a fair price for it, but shouldn't have to pay a premium or anything.

On NWP Radio in October, Dutch said he'd give it back to Steve if he paid $60 for it (the price Dutch paid to acquire his domain).

If any of you think Dutch is going to just 'give' a domain he registered to someone who had it before him, then you have to be out of your mind. Do you really think you can batter his reputation any farther then it already is? Steve apparently made a mistake and now he has to pay for it.

Nobody has even mentioned where DB did anything abnormal. If you don't keep your domain registered and you don't have a trademark for that domain, then don't expect it to stay unregistered.

this is so stupid. dutch is a friend of mine but i'm also friends with steve. i've known both for a long time and both are much better people than people give them credit. i'm mainly speaking of dutch on that aspect of course... but whatever, i can't change your view on him at this point in time.

if steve didn't renew his domain in time i have no sympathy. it's just laziness and i'm so lazy i can't sympathize for even a friend who lost something they had complete control over.

if dutch bought it up in spite of steve just to make a profit, then dutch kinda sucks, but i doubt he did that. it was most likely dutch at 4am searching domain names with the word poker in it, as he already owns a billion poker domain names. it was available and he bought it. i just don't see how dutch is in the wrong here.

now, again, if steve is being extorted for some sick amount of money, then dutch is definitely in the wrong.

I hope this happens:

I hope this does not happen: