I said regulated because it doesn't matter, IMO. I was speaking about live poker too and the downfall of the general social appeal in poker. We are speaking about 120 milion of people and it's a good stat sample for the entire world. I know that UK and USA culture is more gambling & wager related, but I don't think it make difference. Poker will never die, obv, but after the boom the road is every day more hard.

Poker revenue in Italy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

Pokerboxing ?

Wait, what?

This is not an either / or situation between GPL style poker and existing poker. Poker as it exists today continues on its current path. This has the potential to promote poker to more people in new ways. Also has potential for new money flow into existing game ecosystem. Maybe a little new money, maybe alot.

How can potentially reaching new markets for poker help kill it?

You wrote originally as if "regulated" was a problem - or at least that's the way it read to me. If all you are saying is poker isn't di moda [or is it alla moda?] well I can't argue with that - no matter what we do poker will never have the mass appeal of football. Even when poker was hot it was still only a fringe activity & I like it like that.

PokerMMA obviously. Octagon fits nicely in the cube. Terrence Chan would be number one draft pick, imo

Come back on this thread in 2 years

You need to see with your own eyes how treat poker as a sport will be terrible for poker

this is why i got into poker

How is Fedor not on top of this ranking?

Twitch could be the game changer. It's easier than ever to generate the critical mass.... With that said not easy but we are getting to the point where these ultra niche concepts can be viable.

Alex - with the continued terrible changes at poker stars you should consider creating a mini platform for cash game challenges for the GPL. That INCLUDES heads up tables!l

A low raked site supporting the GPL or even a play money site (with escrow service to pay out the winner) to start with seems like it would be an interesting step. You could control the entire production that way, add other elements for entertainment value etc.

Of course tourneys would have to run through larger established sites, but that could change if you heaviness traction.

hi Nik, thanks for the thoughts. I've been an online operator with my company, Chilipoker, for 6 years and sold it in 2012. Believe me, this is the last thing I want to do There is no room for new operators.

Having said so, GPL is NOT played on Pokerstars or others, to allow us to create the best viewer experience, but we will never be a real money operator, as its not our job.

If anyone hasn't seen Tristan Wade's timeline from yesterday, I highly recommend the following link. https://storify.com/Kevmath/tristan-...layer-contract.

Alex, you've come across as extremely shady from the beginning to me. What your real intentions are with the GPL might not be known, but it's starting to come forth and looks like the ones that thought you were shady from the beginning are being proven to be correct.

At the least, if your intentions are truly pure in the interest for poker as a whole, you need to get out of the public's eye. I think you come across as extremely shady and not someone I would trust whatsoever. I'd hire a PR team or someone else as the face of the company, even if you are pulling the strings behind the scenes. You seem very self-unaware of just how un-trusting you come across IMO.

If I'm a manager already involved in the GPL, I'm hiring a lawyer right away and trying to find a loophole to get out of my contract. A few of the managers involved have already been on my radar of people not to trust in the world of poker. The others, I'm now questioning as well because of this relationship with GPL. If you're a player, I'd stay as far away as possible from this league.

I was confused that the poker in a box idea got so far in the first place tbh

Thanks for posting the link, interesting read. I presume contracts are generally like this when it comes to poker sponsorship? and the little guy gets screwed? but most of the redic clauses are never enforced?

On first reaction, I suspect there isn't anything THAT shady going down. To be fair to Alex, the contract is up on the GPL site, which is quite transparent and if he locks players into "player favorable" terms then they have to get paid regardless of if the league makes a dime or not, which makes things harder to get the whole thing out the gates and get to a point where a player getting signed on for one season is worth say $500K per season.

All that said, I admire the tweets for putting this out there. People can be very vulnerable when signing contracts - moreso young "poker players" who generally speaking may not have much life experience, if their in the top 15% of pros, never had a job, never defaulted on a loan bought a house, etc.

The key question for me would be are all player/manager contracts identical.

Hahaha this is gold!

hmm

That surprises me to hear. I feel the market is ripe for a Poker Site that cares to offer true forms of Poker Formats for reasonable rake. (and sees that as their place in the world) Seems to me that Poker Stars is taking advantage of its virtual monopoly status and initiating all sorts of changes aimed at extracting every inch of a Players Deposit into eventual rake and calling it all - "In the name of the Poker EcoSystem"

They don't want winning players !

Getting rid of Heads up ?

Wow !

When I 1st tried your Alpha version of HoldemX, the 1st thing I thought was how cool that would be if it was just a pure form of Holdem, but in a match play, heads up, player ranked setting, for real money !!!! Some players win, some lose.

I could see that being huge !

But you say, you won't be offering real money platforms ?

I have to admit.......I don't see your endgame

I didn't say that HoldemX will not be real money, just that GPL will not offer online real money

Soooooo, will HoldemX be for real money ?

It is likely, that HoldemX will have a real money element on some specific online operators yes.

So you want to sell the HoldemX mechanics to other operators.

There is different scenarios on the table, will see end of year.

>> https://www.facebook.com/notes/alex-...54581534329816

You'll see that we presented to all of them in October already.

Hi Alex:

I just noticed that your awards this year doesn't have a Poker Ambassador of the Year for 2015. And as you know, we in Two Plus Two Management strongly objected to your choice last year. So am I correct that this reward was dropped?

Best wishes,
Mason

HI Mason,

We do not indeed.

Alex.

Hi Alex:

Have you considered apologizing to the poker community for the selection that you made last year?

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason,

First of all, not sure this is the right thread but that award was a public award, made by online vote, not by me or a awards jury Happy to discuss by email or skype or any other medium if you want.

Alex