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Calvin funny business

Thursday, October 25, 2007

If you haven't heard, a company called 1st Technology recently took Bodog to court over a supposed patent infringement.

The judge ludicrously awarded 1st Technology some of Bodog's domain names as a settlement. I'm not even sure how that can happen? How does a judge just give away someone's assets without even giving them a chance to pay the settlement or plead their case? The US legal system continues to amaze the rest of the world...

I've tried finding our EXACTLY what the patent in question covers, but even the court documents lodged don't seem to explain the technology in dispute. All I can find is that they have "patents to deliver high quality multimedia for online gaming products". What multimedia? Which products? It's very vague.

Wikipedia claims that "software patents are more susceptible to patent trolling because patent examiners find it difficult to determine whether a software patent is truly innovative, leading to many overly broad patents of dubious validity, that are often purchased inexpensively then used to pursue settlements against large companies."

To me, as a complete layman in this field I must admit, this seems to be what is happening here. If there truly was a case to answer wouldn't the patent in dispute be explained everywhere to illustrate that Bodog was clearly in breach? As it stands, 1st Technology's company history illustrates no innovation or explanation of their technology except in the field of extorting money from online gaming companies - with several previous settlements having been made by other brands to make them go away and avoid expensive court costs.

But anyway, whilst Bodog is battling to get its domain names back, their billionaire founder Calvin Ayre is having some fun with the company described by Ayre as 'Patent Trolls'.

He has challenged Scott Lewis, described as the chief patent troll, to a mixed martial arts contest, Bodog Fight style. If defeated in the ring, Ayre will give 1st Technology $1 million. If he wins, all he wants in return is his domains back. Seems like a fair deal to me.

Whether or not the physical duel will commence remains to be seen, but the reaction 1st Technology's Scott Lewis provides to the challenge itself is sure to be entertaining.

All we at Poker.com are thinking is why can't we all just be friends? Put your silly little patents away Mr Lewis and download the Bodog Poker software and just have some fun. I'm sure even patent trolls like poker too right?


Posted at 10:46 PM Permalink | 4 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


When the sun comes up

What is going on? Where is all this blogging coming from? Well the answer is I've gone from being a night person to a morning person. I've made the transition back from being a creature of the night...

I used to stay up late every night, playing poker, working, watching bad TV - not being all that productive. It started working graveyard shifts in Casinos, then as a customer support worker - but I used to like it. For all my youth I was a swimmer getting up at dawn to train, and when I stopped swimming sleeping in was the greatest pleasure ever.

Now I'm almost back to the hours of my swimming days - dead tired and asleep by 9pm, getting up at 5am and getting a good start to the day. It used to be a struggle to get to computer by 9am to do some work, but now I've exercised, had breakfast, answered email and am sitting down working by 7 o'clock.

It really has made a big difference in my life, and now I'm keen to start blogging again. It's like I have discovered twice as much productive time!

The same principals apply for your poker play. If you are well rested and healthy you will be able to focus on the game at hand and make better decisions. There's been a lot of poker energy drinks etc launched recently, and I'm sure they will prove to be popular. But in reality nothing can better prepare you for a tournament than the basics. Chemicals will only make things worse in the long run.

So make sure you get;
  • Sleep - don't play big tournaments when you're tired
  • Hydration - drink plenty of water
  • Nutrition - eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and don't ignore carbs - they're your energy food!
  • Exercise - it will increase your energy levels, not make you tired
Anyway, that's my news for the day and a tip for helping you perform better when you play some poker. It's sure helping me feel a lot better and enjoy life more.

I'm off to PokerStars to try and qualify for the APPT event. There's an event in Sydney in December and they've just announced one in Macau in November. How awesome is that? A poker tournament in China's Las Vegas! I've got to try and get there...


Posted at 1:35 AM Permalink | 1 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


So many tournaments...

Monday, October 22, 2007

Play Online PokerThese days there seems to be a big poker tournament happening every week. It's hard to keep up sometimes.

It's gotten to the stage where I have to plan my online play around which tournament I'd like to try and qualify for.

At the moment, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker still seem to offer the best satellite packages, with Bodog always remaining a favorite too.

Full Tilt are really offering an awesome package to the Aussie Millions in January. Not only do you get a seat in the Southern Hemisphere's biggest poker tournament as well flights to Australia and a room at Crown Casino, but you also get $3000 spending money, invitations to exclusive events (like golf) with the Full Tilt team of pros, AND you get to bring a friend!

It's without doubt the best online satellite offering ever - which is why I'm playing the satellites at Tilt trying to qualify!

If you prefer something closer to home - you're crazy because Australia is awesome!

But seriously for those who don't want to travel under, for the Europeans -PokerStars is still offering EPT satellites. And for everyone in North America, Bodog's players' choice tournaments let you choose a WPT or WSOP tournament to play, most of which are in the USA.

Now that the weather is getting cooler, it's time to snuggle in at night with your favorite drink and try and win your way to somewhere that's still sunny & warm to play a little poker.

Good Luck


Posted at 9:36 PM Permalink | 0 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


What a mess

You may have seen what is going on at Absolute Poker at the moment. Apparently one of their staff or a hired consultant has been caught playing & cheating in one of their tournaments. They have released an official statement on the matter, but it has obviously been written by lawyers and doesn't really explain much.

We've never recommended Absolute here at Poker.com, but have met a few of their staff at tournaments or other events and they seemed like nice, honest people. But their software development was outsourced to Asia and their offices were set up in a third world country - two factors that can sometimes spell trouble.

One of the major rules of running an online poker room is that staff do not play in your room - unless it is some sort of special event and they are clearly identifiable. Pro players that endorse a site are different - they do not have access to sensitive information - and it's fine for them to play whenever they want and are not classified as 'staff'.

I know that most poker rooms have very strict controls in place when it comes to their staff having player accounts and their software is written in a way that makes it impossible to cheat. Opponent hole card information simply is not sent to the client software until showdown, and some rooms will take the extra step of banning all IPs from the country where their offices are based. There is no such thing as a 'superuser' account on any of the software platforms that I have inside knowledge of.

What actually happened at Absolute perhaps will never become public knowledge, but it reinforces the fact that you should only play online at sites where you know the games are safe, and the site takes extra precautions to ensure game integrity. If you don't know this sort of thing yourself, trust the people that know - like us. And trust the public companies.

888 is a publicly owned company, and the software provider for Titan Poker is a public company. PokerStars is the largest and most trusted poker site online and Bodog have continually proven their integrity over more than 10 years in business. Full Tilt Poker is where the pros play (and invest just quietly) - they have the highest of integrity standards because they have laid their reputations and wallets on the line in developing Full Tilt.

That's why we recommend these sites for you to play. That's why if you play at a site not listed on Poker.com you run the risk of maybe not playing in the fairest game online...

We hate to think that anybody that ever plays in a game of poker would cheat, but sometimes people just need to learn lessons for themselves. We all have that inherent sense of right and wrong that speaks to us, that stops most of us from even contemplating cheating at anything.

But there will always be someone that needs to learn the hard way. In the wild west they were shot - I wonder what Absolute will do to the person that has ruined their reputation?

You can talk about this issue in the Poker Forum.


Posted at 2:20 AM Permalink | 0 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


On the road in Europe

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

What a great month to be a poker fan in Europe! Following on from EPT London which has just finished, there is EPT Baden in Austria, then a WPT event in Barcelona and then the EPT Dublin in Ireland.

I'm flying the Poker.com flag in Europe for the next few weeks, meeting with some poker industry types in Barcelona to make sure we can continue to bring Poker.com visitors the best online poker deals.

Going to try to make it to at least one of these live poker events. There's so many cool tournaments you can qualify for online these days. There used to just be WSOP satellites, but now places like Carbon Poker, Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars & Bodog will get you to just about live event you want to get to.

If you have never been to Australia, there is now two great tournaments that will get you down under. The APPT Sydney event in December and of course the Aussie Millions in January. You can win seats to both of these events at Carbon Poker, or Full Tilt Poker has awesome Aussie Millions packages available now - they'll even pay for a friend to join you!

So don't just sit at home bored this winter - get qualifying and win your trip to see an Aussie Summer!


Posted at 3:31 AM Permalink | 1 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum

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