Ultimate Bet seriously blows and I can only imagine they tossed in free hooker service to get Joe on board.

I know you actually believe what you just wrote, but puh-lease: To say that this move requires "guts" or represents some kind of desire to "do something for the community" is a total joke. He did it because he wants or needs the money (which is fine) and has probably convinced himself that the cover story that the PR people have devised is an acceptable context in which to move forward.

The "poker community" (a disingenuous concept to begin with basically) does not need help. Poker is a self-interested game, including the arena of online site sponsorships, so it's really just insulting to everyone's intelligence to validate a viewpoint that since Joe is involved it MUST be in the name of "what's good for the game." The chances that Joe is being lied to, or lying to himself to some degree, is greater than the possibility that anything good will come from this to anyone in poker besides UB's business partners.

In any case, the "poker community" does not need assistance in the form of re-legitimizing the single most corrupt and fraudulent site in the history of online poker.

I think it'd be much more gutsy for a new UB sing-up to say, "I feel comfortable representing a site that was once involved in the most virulent and blatant cheating scandal in the history of the game."

Shane with the truth.

I like.

After the way UB handled this even if Seebs gets the HH's released I don't think I'll ever believe that there aren't more superusers/hand histories that UB is hiding.

Seebs got himself into a no win situation, no matter how much info UB shares I KNOW WITHOUT QUESTION that there is more they are covering up.

I've already unsubscribed from all PR podcasts, I'm done with 'em.

Shane

and LOL at caby. guts my a$$

and btw how much do u have to love the fact that joe currently cannot advertise the site he now endorses on the website he supposedly "owns" because his daddy wont let him. funniest thing ever.
you know how you get out of the shadow of your famous father? it's called "be successful as your own person" - see todd brunson. but he got doyle's genes.
seems as tho sebok vs todd is a pretty good argument for nature over nurture.....

With all due respect... the industry is trying, by trying to deal out the harshest penalty. The withholding of our business. And Joe is now actively promoting a company many of us believe is corrupt or inept.

If I'm a marginal poker company right now, I don't see a huge downside to stealing my customers money. The players tend to forgive & forget. It would be different if UB/AP came out and really said "Hey, we ****** up. Here's exactly what happened, here's what we did to rectify the problem." I am far from satisfied so I will withhold my business from them and hold anyone who supports them in contempt.

It seems a lot of us agree.

-------------Kitty

Cliff Notes: What Shaniac said.

ThisX100

The online poker community are the players. They are the ones who uncovered the cheating and they are the ones who will determine the penatly. The KGC does not regulate UB, or penalize UB, online poker players do.

In order to 'move forward' as an online poker community it needs to be announced loud and clear that if you ever steal from your players or devise software that is not secure enogh that untrustworthy employees can steal from your players, then you are done. Moving forward with UB still in business is the most dangerous decision to make because the only message it sends is that is it is OK to steal.

Since the UB scandal, UB is
a) still dealing poker hands
b) still being endorsed and promoted by well-known players
c) allowed to advertise by many poker media sites
d) allowed to parade their logos throughout the World Series Of Poker
e) allowed to have their logo plastered on ESPN
f) allowed to host a charity tournament with the WSOP

If the Bellagio poker room stole milliions of dollars from poker players with hidden cameras able to see hole cards, lied about it, covered it up and then when finally caught red-handed tried to blame on a former employee they would have no more Nevada Gaming License and there would be several people in jail by now.

Moving forward as an online poker community means ensuring that every poker site knows that if you dare try this and we catch you, you will never deal another hand of online poker again. That is moving forward.

That means the battle is sort of lost already right? No matter how much reasonable indignation we have here, the fact is that the "poker community" has essentially said "UB is ok with us."

Players who were cheated have gone back to play there and pay them rake, and the site has brought a diverse group of players into the fray for endorsement purposes, which will do nothing besides solidify and legitimize the brand moving forward.

UB got away with it, and the "poker community" allowed them to. I suppose there is nothing we can do about it, really. Personally, I just don't want to hear this phony, ignorant crap like how "impressed" Joe is with UB and the KGC.

To be fair, being caught stealing tens of millions and managing to stay in business is fairly impressive.

I think this is what upsets me the most about the whole UB thing. I didn't play at UB and obviously didn't lose anything to the cheating.

I did, however, wholeheartedly believe that something like that would totally crush a site should it ever happen.

It didn't -and the whole online poker world got a lot less safe for everyone.

And getting one of the bigest poker media sites to stfu by signing the owner is even more impresive.

We really screwed ourself. I remember when we knew that no company would try to steal, beacouse they make so much money and they dont wanna risk losing all their customers. If when they steal we do not stop playing on their site, there is no reason not to cheat.

The only thing UB really did wrong here is saying that no cheating was going on. What they should have done is say "there is an ongoing investigation, we r certain all the cheaters have been stoped, but we can not tell u the name off the cheaters beacouse that would potentially ruin our investigation" Later when they r asked about the investigation they should give the same answer.

And start doing what they do know buy peoples credibility.

I'm a big PokerRoad fan. That said, I'm still not going to be playing on UB anytime soon.

Yep, the battle is kinda lost. We haven't been able to declare victory, but we can continue the fight. I now refuse to listen to PokerRoad, won't buy any Hellmouth / Duke books (not that I would anyway ), didn't watch the Apprentice and will never play on UB/AP, etc. And I won't for a long time.

I still won't have anything to do with ZJustin, even though it's close. I know, does anyone care about Kitty? Yep, each one of us has a vote and every vote counts.

How do you place a value on a poker site? Usually something like 5 times yearly profit. I pay ~$10,000 in rake a year, so UB not having a shot at my business could cost them ~$50,000. (The 5 times figure is a wild guess, but shouldn't be too far off.)

My refusal to go to the PokerRoad website and/or listen to the podcasts will cost Joe & company some $. Not much, but some.

--------------Kitty

FYP

Come on - how does anyone seriously still hate on Bonomo? He's probably one of the most upstanding guys you can find in the poker world (though I don't know him personally). Whatever he did, he's "paid for" a dusin times over and what he did do was really not much more than being made the scape goat for a practice that was pretty common back then.

some questions for UB: where the superusers coordinated? did one play on each high stakes table? were there more than one superuser per table? if all the high stakes tables were covered by a superuser did they drop down to the next lower stake?
just a suggestion that everyone who received or will receive HH send a copy to a central clearing house like Odathunkit or someone and do a compilation and comparison of all HH - it may reveal some secrets and get some answers UB does not want to be discovered
how about it Joe can you be of help???
will UB money taint your decision process?

Excellent post Shane. Was never a big fan of Sebok to begin with and now with this it would be totally unbearable for me to listen to pokerroad with Joe's spin on it. I'm most likely done with pokerroad as well.

I guess everyone here who has posted there opinions does not believe in any form of rehabilatation?

I would like to see any one of you have something happen to you and once you have paid your debt to society be kicked around like your doing UB and Sebok and the others who have signed.

What UB did was wrong by trying to hide what happened. The company itself was not stealing our money, it was an individual who they had put their trust in. Their wrong was trying to protect him for their own sake.

UB payed ALL the money back, not Hamilton and or the other's involved and they have now tried to fix what was done by other's.

All of you instead of bashing and criticizing should be putting your effort's towards having a regulatory committee or On Line watch dogs so no one intrusted by these sites or the sites themselves ever does anything to take our hard earned dollars in an illegal way again!

How are you 100% sure they have paid all the money back?

There needs to be a c*ck icon on here.

I can't believe I am responding to someone who put an apostrophe in "efforts," but suffice it to say it's extremely doubtful that everyone who was cheated has been paid back.

And everything else in your post is either wrong or illogical.

Wat?!?!?!

--------------Kitty

Hello,

As a casual player both live and online and a long-time follower of this scandal, I just wanted to add my 2 cents.

This Joe Sebok guy probably means well but what an "absolute"-ly naive kid he is.

There are several points made in this thread which I must agree:
1. Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker is not a trustworthy entity period. Never was and never will be. Companies owned/run with bad intent do not change their stripes, just their names.
2. This KGC regulatory body appears to be a single fat drunk Native American sitting by himself in a server room in the middle of Canada. All the layers of shell corporations cannot conceal that these guys are all in bed with each other. Oh, and they're not on your side either.
3. This guy Joe Sebok or Joe Serock whatever his name is is being used so badly yet he apparently has no clue. Wow, I would've liked to seen the Dog & Pony show they gave him. His comments about being impressed by them make me cringe, even though I never played nor lost money on that site. I feel bad for those who did and how they must feel. His signing is clearly nothing but a sad and pathetic attempt to try and BUY BACK credibility. Anyone with half a brain can see through these tactics.
4. It is true that he could've POSSIBLY looked good if he had issued a Press Release stating that he "WOULD" sign with UB once his 3 conditions HAVE BEEN met and not a day before. Then once all 3 were met, he could announce his signing as a RESULT of their so-called coming-clean.
5. If they really had changed their stripes, then why did REPUTABLE people like JohnnyBax and Rizen etc recently announce the same thing about UB as Joe did, then subsequently QUIT literally weeks later? Probably not a good sign.


As a casual player on Full Tilt and PStars, if I joined a new site, it would probably be DoylesRoom as they are signing awesome online players like Moormanl and Traheho, not players who I never heard of like this Joe Sebok guy. The only thing that EVER attracted me to UB was not their sleazy front-men, Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke but their Bad Beat Jackpot.

I read a thread today about Phil Hellmuth wanting UB to team up with PStars and FTP to form a rival organization or poker series to Harrahs/WSOP. When it comes down to it, the real question I have is this:

WHAT DOES UB HAVE THAT MAKES IT VALUABLE?

In trying to understand and value businesses, I simply dont understand what they have to still even be a player in this space. FTP has top-name pros that you can play against. PStars has an enormous number of players. Yet UB has nothing I can see other than a bad name and 2 complete clowns as their front-men. Other than being licensed via the KGC, what do they actually offer of value that players cannot get on other sites? Or is it just simply a head-start on dominating certain marketing channels?

I just find it ironic that Phil Hellmuth thinks his UB "brand" is so valuable that he thinks he can rival Harrah's/WSOP. Perhaps with a partnership with FTP and Stars, they could, but FTP and Pstars simply DONT NEED him or UB. He needs THEM, they dont need HIM. Again, what does UB offer other than a known-corrupt website, a known-corrupt regulatory body and 2 of the biggest egomaniac douchbag clowns in poker, PH and AD?

While people here seem to not think much of DoylesRoom, it seems to an outsider like me that they could supplant UB very quickly with the right marketing and affiliate connections/efforts. What makes UB "better" than DoylesRoom? If it is just the software, that is something money can fix.

In conclusion of this rant, Money can buy back a lot of things, but NOT reputations. And I genuinely feel bad for this Joe Sebok guy as he appears to be well-liked and a "nice guy" but man, this dude is NAIVE! UB could do EVERYTHING right from here on out and yet to actual adults like me, who take the time to think for themselves, I would NEVER play on that site no matter what.

That Joe Sebok guy needs to simply look at WHO represents this great UB website and realize now he is a permanent part of THEM: a who's who of CLOWNS: Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Tiffany Michelle LOLOLOLOLOL and now no matter how hard he tries, Joe sock-puppet muppet.

Poor kid