hi guys,

good show, great music choices.

You touched on Isai stepping down, but no one seems to make a big deal about it. Isn't it a pretty huge deal? Given the sites that are out there it seems that there's only PokerStars and PartyPoker that were handled by responsible business people. His stepping down is an extremely not good thing in my mind.

90% Congrats to Renodoc and 10% congrats to MJ.

Great show and being an old married guy with a kid and busy job that can't wade through NVG most weeks, I love the commentary and speculation.

I didn't expect much else from any guest and was happy to hear what was discussed.

Keep up the good work.

Think they said his son is taking over which prolly means its more of a lateral move than anything else.

Two points of note that I came up with listening to the pokercast:

1. I believe it was said that FTP could not pay U.S. players directly because it is illegal to operate a poker site in the U.S., but didn't the DOJ allow pokerstars to pay u.s. players directly?
2. Is anybody worried about pokerstars having a monopoly on the online poker industry and do all the things monopolies do: price fixing, poor customer service, poor product, resting on laurels, etc.

It's a minor concern in the short-term, but long-term not really. They only have a monopoly because they do things the best. They already have plenty of competition from other sites. If they start doing stuff like that, there aren't barriers-to-entry to prevent the competition from stealing their customers.

Great show guys. Loved the debate and the exhaustive explanations bout the whole deal.

Can't wait for you to get Dwan on the air, would be interesting to turn the "we robbed the player part" (not that he did himslef) while their getting their money back.

Exactly. There are other sites out there. I have accounts at 888 and Party, and while these are both currently a far worse offer for me than Stars, they are still good enough to keep stars in check even now.

Still, poker is a weird market. A few years ago, I played on 888/Pacific exclusively, and only because of the incredible amount of fish on that site (I am a serious recreational player). I had a reg I played and conversed with a lot, who was playing a cool 45/11 style (I sat to his immediate left often and won a few k$ off of him alone). It dried up as others found their way to it.
Things will always balance out in poker because of the dynamics.
Currently Stars have a BIG advantage because of
(1) They are the biggest
(2) Best software -- I played a bit on Party again tonight and boy does it suck.
(3) Reliability -- many people, even those not so much in the know, will have picked up on the fact your money may not be so safe on poker sites. Stars has an aura of reliability that is unmatched.

Mike mentioned going to www.justice.gov to fill out a form for victim compensation for Full Tilt repayment. I don't see the link anywhere on the page.

Can you post the link??

I'll confess that I haven't yet listened to the episode, and have no idea what was said there. But I'm pretty sure the victim compensation form is not yet available.

I also find it less than democratic and just that one person who heads the victim compensation fund, asset division or whatever gets to decide if, when and how u.s. players get paid back.