TheFly, tournament poker was a joke before televised poker. Only the WSOP ME was the only relevant poker tournament.

5k so that Allen can afford to play and min-cash

I'd still play in the even regardless if PS, FTP, Party didn't put sponsor the tournament and it was televised. It's the love of the game and money to still compete.

How are they going to fit everyone at the table?

Can you explain your position here? Do you think Stars wanted to back out of this sponsorship, wants less TV exposure, etc.? It's the gov't or the state of California you should have a beef with.

Furthermore, the tournament is still being held as planned. You can still go play it if you'd like.

This is the price we pay for the current "gray area" of legality for online poker. People should keep stuff like this in mind whenever they consider their position on future prospective poker legislation.

should rename it from NAPT to "Mohegan Poker Tour" imo

Do you think that Stars thought that they were perfectly in the clear as far as regulation was concerned and this was sprung on them at the last minute? Or do you think it's more likely that they knew there was a possibility of this all along and purposefully misled their players in order to drive up numbers?

They advertised, profited from, and simply cannot deliver what was promised. How can you not see that this is firmly planted in the 'ought to have known' category? It's not news to anyone here that a 'gray area' exists wrt online poker in the US. It is especially not news to Pokerstars and their legal team. I'm shocked and appalled that Pokerstars is not only offering full CASH refunds but further compensation for flights, etc. Their customer service/relations, in my experience thus far, is top notch/extremely reasonable and I can't imagine them not coming through with a better option ASAP.

i don't think any of us have enough information to say whether they "out to have known" that they wouldn't be allowed to sponsor the event. my guess is that it happened recently.

i'm not sure why they have decided not to offer cash refunds for everything. i am sure there is a good reason for it as this wouldn't be a decision they would make without carefully examining all of their options.

listen, i'm not some PS shill. i mean i am sponsored by FTP. i think the motivation for my post was that i think the poker community generally doesn't realize just how costly/bad the gray area we operate in is for poker. i hope that people at least start to think about the fact that this is the **** we are going to continue to face if things don't change. with that change might come some short/long term pain as well, but it might just be worth it.

I totally agree wrt your motivation for the post. However, it is any business' responsibility to be able to deliver 100% of what it offers. I would expect any organization, especially one like Pokerstars based heavily on trust and customer service, to not only deliver but to go above and beyond in an instance like this where they are not able to. Not knowing isn't an excuse for breaking contracts/laws....(equating this to a contract, not a law...but I'm sure you get my point)

Geez....i never realized so many poker players were so needy and demanding imo. I agree that this is not the exact thing that many of us signed up for...and i also agree that i think at this point Stars should let anyone that wants to unregister and get tourney dollars for the entire amount (tournament and hotel)...I think that would have gone a long way for stars to do that. However, the only thing that has really changed here is that TV cameras will not be around and numbers will be slightly lower due to people deciding not to play. IMO, that is the only beef i can see people having is if they decide not to play and stars won't give them the hotel back...besides that, i'm just not sure why everyone is so upset.

These two things in and of themselves does not change anything all that much. I mean personally, i didn't realize cameras were so important to so many of you..As green plastic has already stated, i'm more in the camp of people that are happy to have so many options to make a living in our career, instead of being so negative over NAPT branding and cameras not being present. I mean honestly, if players fight Stars so much on every bump in trying to put on events in north america which is already tricky for them, then they just might decide that its too much effort to do any events in the U.S....JMHO.

I'll be there playing the event...hope a ton of other sicko's are too pissed off and go home.

I think its silly that people are downplaying the significance here. Fish care about tourneys being on TV, they care about it being an NAPT and not just some random meaningless tourney. A non televised 5k at LAPC just got 101 people. It's a big weekend for online poker, fish and pros alike have been playing LAPC for the past 2 months. Do people really want to stick around in LA for an extra week after LAPC then play a non televised 5k that might just end up getting 350 people and suck?

If I was a satellite winner who didn't play a lot of live i'd be annoyed right now. You have a NAPT at Mohegan sun in 1 month that you at least assume is still going to be an NAPT, you know if it is a NAPT it's going to draw numbers and be one of the best events in the US this year. But instead of giving players the option to push the package to that after stars ****s up they just try to lock people into still going to the event by not refunding the hotel portion. They sure are coming off as a bunch of greedy pricks imo.

I don't get the complaints loads of you have. OKay it is no longer being televised which will affect some of the buy ins (no free entry for sponsored pros, though not exactly end of the world to have less of these), but there will still be all the people (read supposedly weak players) who satted in on stars playing. It just won't be televised. The structure will be the same.

+1

I wasted 2k on failed satellites I never would have played in without sponsorship/espn aspect. I'm ok with giving stars the benefit of the doubt given their history of good customer service, but I've found this whole thing very frustrating.

fyp

Why don't you guys just ship $10k to the poker site of your choice? Maybe they will sponsor you and you won't even have to go through the hassle of playing in a tournament.

How does a voluntary decision by PokerStars.net and the Bike relate to the matter of any future poker legislation? Is the tail trying to wag the dog?

Well, the decision is based on current poker legislation....If you want things to change for next year, this is relevant.

can you explain why we should be mad at CA when pokerstars won't refund hotel/travel expenses for people when they completely dropped the ball on this event?

don't understand how anyone could think stars isn't in the wrong here, they are refusing to refund travel expenses on ppl who choose not to go to the event lol. that's insane, they make millions in rake and can't drop the $ to pay all these players back who lost $ in hotel expenses.

Huh? You mean current law? I know of no law that would require voluntarily withdrawal of sponsorship by a play-money website from one of two events in a certain Californian card room. And if there was a law in play, such a capricious change of plans wouldn't be voluntary, DUCY?

It's also worth remembering that the Bike worked to defeat Barney Frank's bill during the last Congress, so who knows what their motivations were here? Perhaps they were laying a trap

Are you saying that PS is straight up lying to our faces on this one?

qft this is ridiculous

Those conversations should have happened sooner, or they should refund ALL of the package, hotel expenses included.

Why do these regulators approve of televising the shootout but not the main event

Also, why do they approve web streaming, which is most of the itme treated the same as TV.

To me it seems like the regulation has nothing to do with TV:

- Stars is not sponsoring the Tournament anymore
- ESPN loses interest in webcasting a "random 5k tournament" with a smaller field and not much importance
- ESPN, though, is still interested in broadcasting the BSO since most of the field are pros or people known to the masses. Stars is then interested in sponsoring this broadcasting, even without logos on the felt etc. Stars even adds another day for this event.

Makes way more sense than their "half-words-explanation"