I agree that regulators should (and largely do) have strong enforcement powers over operators they license.

I disagree that a "heavy stick" should be swung at will or whim. We've seen too much of that in the US.

It took about 10 years for DOJ to reign in its anti-poker policies, before admitting the Wire Act did not outlaw online poker. No State was willing to move ahead, even intrastate out of fear of federal retribution until December, 2011.

(Medical marijuana, legal in many States under State law, similarly still labors under a "heavy stick" DOJ might decide to "swing at will" against payment providers, for example.)

Just be careful when you wish for someone to swing a "heavy stick at will" is all.

I don't understand what you're getting at.

A handful of guys rose up through the stakes, and once they reached the top they turned around and effectively burned everyone grinding below them.

A lot of doors closed for many players out there, and those same opportunities have been shrinking ever since.

Why would any winning player think cr is a good thing? Interestingly enough, if BH had been in the other side (someone else sold out first) preventing him from moving up or w/e, he'd be bitching about training sites himself.

Teh guy prolly made moar in his 5 years of poker than u will in ur entire life doing w/e. 100k? U talking about his quarterly earnings? So best just zip it u muppet

Poker is as easy as ever here in America. I'd say VPNing into Stars has had way more of an effect on the games than training material.

Best US players still playing but none of the fish, ldo.

Play any of the American sites for 2 hours and report back on how dead things are.

(Not to say training sites didn't effect things, but most are too dumb to even apply the concepts correctly)

I saw this same accusation elsewhere but can't find an original source. Are you sure Ike played cash games versus NH after finding out it was actually BH, or are you just repeating someone else's speculation?

Yeah ,but you forgot to mention that only 2 sites pay, wpn, and bovada. Come to think of it the games on wpn suck. So we have one site that pays in a prompt manner, on this site we are limited to 4 tbles,no rb, no bonuses, no nothing.You get 225 hands per hour on bovada and have to play on anon tables, what a dream.

fyp

you might have noticed looking at my linkedin that i have an undergraduate degree in econ and a masters degree in entrepreneurship, so let me explain to you my thoughts from that perspective:

a lot of people have hot takes on what poker needs, how to get the next poker boom, etc.

the reality is that poker is an awesome game that stands on its own merit. ESPN created possibly the most positive exteranlity product possible for the poker economy: televising the WSOP. but they didn't randomly decide to do it out of the good(or maliciousness) of their own heart - they realized that there was something unique about the game that captured people's imagination (and also august is a completely dead month in american sports, so it was a great thing to put on TV.)

a lot of other positive externality products/personas are capitalizing on opportunity. negreanu, hellmuth, and esfiandiari have gained a ton of value by being marketable. kevmath, everyones favorite reporter at the WSOP, has a genuine love for the game, and seems to be genuinely happy covering it. i mean TV shows made howard ****ing lederer and chris ferguson into icons. the game has the it factor.

what i'm trying to say is this: there isn't necessarily anything that is "good for poker", poker is what is good

thus we mostly need to avoid bad things, of which there aren't too many.

poker needs:
1. a safe place to play (i.e. no cheating and safe places to play both live and online)
2. a subculture where scalable strategy is scorned
(when i say scalable strategy i mean selling a vid subscription or book to 10,000 people instead of doing 1 on 1 coaching, helping a friend out, or simply explaining a new player the rules to a new game)

so when brian wants to write to his congressman in order to help online poker, it's a completely absurd because he is one of the least qualified people in the entire world to do so.

That has nothing to do with the skill level of the competition.

Poker was an inefficient market. As more intelligent people figured out they could make easy money the market adjusted. Not only that, but BS laws forced a big chunk of the rec market out.

Then BF happened and shut out 100% of the recs from the US (biggest and fishiest market in the world) and the very best players kept playing, either by relocating or VPNing to the ROW sites.

Obviously that is going to drastically effect the games. Blaming training sites is an excuse. They didn't help the cause, but they aren't nearly as big of a deal as the othet things mentioned.

I'd actually venture to guess training sites helped everything but the highest stakes. Nothing better than someone emulating CTS at 100NL.

You can lead a horse to water.....

very well put. the game is and will be fine on its own save for the people and sites that dipped it in ****. i never bought that people got sucked in by the personalities for very long. the game stands alone.

allegedly, BH told Ike about the NoelHayes acct at beginning of SCOOP, which took place May 10-24

Here is a 6-handed PLO hand posted May 17th with Ike and NoelHayes at the same table.

I can't say that I disagree with your post plo.

IMO you have it backwards. i think it hurts everything but the highest stakes because video makers have a propensity to hold back on what beats their limits (galfond did this a lot).

also the numbers just don't work out. back when i started in 2008, there was this super OG reg called rennwurm who stretched a bunch of 20k months in a row. he was breakeven a couple years later, not to be heard from since. here is this YEARs biggest winners (for reference these winrates on the hole are 1/3 of what they were in 2008 with players with 10x the skill)


also of all the OG vid makers from say 2006-2008, do any of them still grind hold em (the game they sold the most info of)? the answer is no: they either quit or switched to plo (where fewer decided to make vids). i don't think a majority of those guys could beat 500zoom. look at nanos graph earlier in this thread. id actually be super curious to see CTS/Brian/whoever doesn't play NLHE as their main game anymore take shots there.

i don't think people are necessarily entitled to xyz amount of winnings or winrate. im just trying to describe the reality of the situation with nums/anecdotes as best as i can recall. and why brian probably costs the community more money than 99.99 percent of 2p2ers.

Sorry I did meant to clarify this in my post but somehow failed to do so. I have no idea if it is actually true and don't really want to jump on the Ike bashing bandwagon when it seems fairly obvious to me he cannot comment on it even if he wanted to. Just like Stars can't comment on any individual case.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this thread. Because this is under review by PokerStars, I need to include them in anything I say in public, which took more time than I had hoped.

First of all, I'd like to thank Bakes for having the courage to be the guy to start the public conversation about the NoelHayes account. That decision comes with risks and headaches that no one else was willing to take on. Anyone who cares about the integrity of high stakes games online should be thankful to him.

What he has said about me in this thread is true. In early May I became aware that Hastings was playing on the NoelHayes account and I didn't do anything about it. I was far from the first or only person who knew, but due to my relationship with Stars I had a greater responsibility to act and I was better situated to get something done quickly had I tried. I regret taking the apathetic and irresponsible route and if I find myself in a similar position in the future I will report the cheating immediately. I apologize to anyone who was adversely affected by my inaction.

Due to my relationship with PokerStars and the fact that there is still an ongoing review of the NoelHayes account, I will be somewhat constrained in what I can say in the future, but I’m happy to now be able to post this reply.

do you think your a cheater,ike? do you believe you had an unfair advantage ?

When is Hastings being banned from Stars? Or has it already happened?

Now what?

Thank You Isaac Haxton.
There may be more questions that need to be addressed but Thank You.

Amazing timing from myself. Oops.

Ike, can you explain why you sat in the same cash games as NoelHayes while knowing it was Hastings all along?

Do you not consider that a gross and unfair advantage over the other players at the table?

Especially the players who only accepted your presence at the table because a perceived 'whale' was also sat at the table.

Maybe it never went down like that. But could you explain your reasoning of thought if it did?

Wow!

Don't expect to get any thanks for this.

You just confirmed that online poker is corrupt, and that you (as a supposed ambassador who was lauded by and large) are a part of it.

I hope that all of the high stakes players who lost out get made whole.

I only play at PS for fun and only because they play mixed games, otherwise I'd be gone.

So sad!

Ikes are you sure you didn't say anything to Stars? Limon has 100% guaranteed us that Stars knew.

meanwhile (turn up your sound)

https://instagram.com/p/5wv26pLdBa/?...brianchastings

I wouldn't be too hard on him. I think his response is reasonable and easily the most honorable one yet. I mean, anyone else who knew and was involved has either said absolutely nothing or worse still has said it is no big deal and to basically shut up complaining. Haxton has said he knew, admitted he should have acted and vows to have learned going forward. He has shown a level of dignity. Contrast this to Stingers response and continued defiance and arrogance.

Stuff happens, stuff goes down, humans make mistakes etc etc but the defiance and arrogance and inner circle type cover up attempts that have been par for the course have really annoyed me personally. At least he has broken that trend.

Overall this is good and a small step forward imo.

pff lol