This Week in Poker - 23rd October 2009

Poker is a perennial game with tournaments going on all around the world. Whether your thing is to play live poker or play online poker there are always interesting things happening that we will report to you each week. Here are some of the latest news stories to hit the headlines.

The Beta version of Deepstacks University has been launched after a long wait between the initial announcement and any further news on the project. The Dean of the site is none other than Mike Matusow, who has said he is very excited about the innovative coaching that will be on offer from Deepstacks. Other professionals involved in it are TJ Cloutier, Michael Binger and Adam Levy. The site is developing what they refer to as Reactive Technology where the videos are more interactive for the user. The University, as the name suggests, will be taught in a tight syllabus format allowing the students to progress through the learning as they would a standard course. This is different from the other training sites that upload more random material from their pros.

The University has pledged to offer new modules every week and early access offers can be viewed by visiting their website.

Well-known high Limit Poker player Todd “Dandruff” Witteles this week made public a problem he encountered with Bodog poker whilst playing online. He said an opponent went disconnect all-in and the pot was awarded to the wrong player. Bodog eventually agreed to refund the money to Todd but he said he had to fight for over one hour before getting the money returned to him. A former computer programmer, Witteles tried to point out the obvious bug in the system that caused the problem but said call centre staff appeared not to understand. Bodog have suffered in the wake of the payment processors finding it harder to transfer money to players and their status has diminished as a poker site in recent months. Witteles was instrumental in exposing the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet poker scandals and is active in policing online poker security issues within the poker community. There is no suggestion that the problem regarding Bodog was anything more than a software code issue which was not thought to be malicious in its intent.

Barney Frank has attempted to delay the implementation of the UIGEA gambling laws by submitting a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He suggests that by forcing the banks to comply with the new procedures necessary to implement the law it would be a use of resources that would be better served elsewhere. The letter was co-signed by eighteen congressmen and is supported by the PPA (Poker Players Alliance) who are fighting for the legalisation of poker as a skill game. The PPA supported the bill Robert Menendez tendered that sought to regulate the online skill based gaming industry. Poker has recently received favourable rulings in a variety of court cases suggesting its status as a chance game is no longer valid.

Franks letter is a clever piece of Political pressuring as it places the Treasury in a position to show that the implementation of the act does not have consequences that involve economic harm to America. Poker will be badly affected in the US market should the UIGEA changes come into force as it will make the cashing out of money even harder for players. This will be likely to cause many anticipating the changes to cash out of the poker sites resulting in less traffic on the sites.

Watch out for more news reports on various world wide poker happenings coming very soon.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: barney frank, dandruff, deepstacks, deepstacks university, Poker News, uigea