Late last week, rumors began circulating that two of the most active members of Full Tilt, Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen, are losing their positions as Full Tilt Pros. There was plenty of skepticism surrounding the reports, but the growing speculations were enhanced by the fact that The Professionals – the name chosen by the daunting duo of high-stakes poker pros – no longer appeared on the online poker website. Alas, Full Tilt has confirmed the story, stating that the site’s contract with Blom and Hansen “has expired”, while offering no interest in renegotiation.

Validation of the reports was provided on Tuesday via a spokesperson from Full Tilt who said, “We can confirm that Full Tilt’s sponsorship of Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen has expired. We would like to wish Viktor and Gus all the best in their future endeavors.”

When the popular online poker room rolled out a completely revamped version of its website last week, linkage was no longer provided to view the Full Tilt Pros, known as The Professionals. It was first thought that perhaps an error had been made, because searching within the parameters of the Full Tilt poker site for their names on Google immediately brought up the existing web page. As we know now, the omission of Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen was no mistake.

Just a few months ago, Tom “durrrr” Dwan was listed alongside Blom and Hansen as a member of The Professionals, but he chose to remove himself from the team. Perhaps that got the new heads of Rational Group to thinking about new ways to promote the online poker room. According to the spokesperson, the judgment “follows a year-long review of the Full Tilt brand and a decision to move away from pro-centric advertising to focus on the experiences and stories of the vast majority of our players.”

Despite the fact that the company assessed the situation as a means of altering the focal point from a few high-profile poker pros to a much broader range of more common player types, one has to wonder if there was more to the decision than that. Realistically speaking, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Gus Hansen haven’t played their best poker lately.

Hansen may have just under $10 million in live poker tournament cashes, collecting 1 WSOP bracelet and 2 WPT Championship titles along the way, but since mid-2009, he’s lost over $20 million in high stakes cash games and his last significant live cash was more than two years ago. Likewise, Blom has 7-figures in live event cashes, and while he’s always been known for his intense upswings and downswings on the virtual felt, he’s dropped below the negative $3 million mark this year alone. He also declined to participate in the 2014 World Series of Poker, doing little to increase his luminary status among the profession.

Obviously it doesn’t do an online poker room much good to sponsor a pro poker player that is no longer performing up to their former merit, but Full Tilt’s decision to sever professional ties with these high-profile players is even more justified from a fiscal standpoint. The online poker operator has been supporting these guys for years now, paying 100% rakeback to their accounts. With thousands of hands played on a regular basis at nosebleed stakes, just imagine the profit Full Tilt (or any other online poker room they play at) would make by collecting rake from their endeavors?

Whatever the case, Full Tilt seems to have major plans for the future, as the spokesperson then alluded to. “Full Tilt will celebrate the excitement, fun, and intrinsic enjoyment of playing our poker, blackjack, roulette, and slots games. A new TV campaign will launch imminently, representing this new approach,” he said, promising more details before the week is out.

If we take a step back in time to 2011, when the Black Friday of Online Poker struck in the US and American players were scrambling to find new, trustworthy online poker sites, Lock Poker was at the height of its game. Thousands of players could be found gathered around the site’s virtual felt at any given time. The poker room’s reputation escalated, the promotions were affluent, games were juicy; why go anywhere else? But everything changed in late 2011 when player’s first started complaining of delayed payments.

Lock Poker’s reputation began to take a slow but steady dive as more and more online poker players criticized the site’s sluggish cash outs. What started as an annoyance, with no payments coming for a few weeks, turned into a plethora of irate customers who had been waiting months, and eventually years, to receive their money. By 2013, it was estimated that Lock Poker owed around $1 million in unpaid cash outs to customers in the US, as well as some in other regions of the world. Now, a new calculation has tripled the amount to approximately $3.2 million, including the funds held in accounts by players who have not yet bothered to request a theoretically futile withdrawal.

One avid poker player has taken upon himself the task of tracking Lock Poker’s extensive debts over the last few years. Known at the popular online poker forums of TwoPlusTwo as “IHasTehNutz”, he gathers information from players who have and have not received due payments from the longsuffering poker room and keeps an updated tally of all funds paid and owed (with many, many more being owed than paid). According to his computations, Lock Poker potentially owes a lot more money than originally believed.

At present, there are 394 members of Lock Poker awaiting a payout. Those combined withdrawal requests total $941,270.96. That’s where the original debt of about $1 million came from. However, IHasTehNutz recently calculated in the amount of money those same players still have in their accounts – the amounts that were not yet requested for withdrawal due to limitations per payout request – and that total came to a staggering $2,236,160.52 across 205 player accounts.

Ostensibly, if ever the 394 players who are owed $941k receive their funds, the 205 of them that will still have money on the site will want to withdrawal that amount as well. Thus, adding them together, Lock Poker potentially owes $3.2 million to its players. And if the operator can’t afford to pay $1 million, what’s to say the other $2.2 million will ever be dispersed?

It certainly doesn’t help that Lock Poker’s reputation has plummeted to well below sea level. With thousands of regular visitors a few short years ago, the online poker room’s spiral into ill repute has left the site with an average of around 30-35 concurrent players. At that rate, it doesn’t seem feasible that Lock Poker will ever make enough money to pay back the existing arrears, much less the inevitable future liabilities from players who still hold balances.

Realtime Gaming video poker games are found in 73 online casinos which accept players from the United Kingdom and cater to English speaking gamblers. Because the parent company for RTG is based out of the Netherlands Antilles, you’ll find many of these casino operations are licensed in that small Caribbean nation. Several others are licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, while the local jurisdiction for some of these casino sites are the United Kingdom, Cyprus, and Costa Rica (where RTG is headquartered).

RTG is one of the five large and widespread software development companies for Internet gambling, so their menu of games includes all of the famous video poker games you’ll want to play, along with a few of the obscure gaming options. Most of the games are based on some version of wild card poker you may have played around the kitchen table as a kid, though a few appear to have one-off game mechanics that no one is likely to have played for penny-ante. This may be getting ahead of ourselves for those who are brand new to video poker in either live settings or the Interent, so let me lay some groundwork.

Video Poker Explained

When you first stroll into a gambling establishment, you might confuse video poker row with slots row. Both are gaming machines with bright lights and funny sounds. Both have gamblers grinding away at the machines, hitting “Spin” or “Deal” over and over. That’s where the similarities end. Slot machines have some of the worst odds in casino gambling, while video poker offers some of the best odds this side of blackjack. Furthermore, strategy enters into this game, while the one-armed bandits are low impact, no-strategy propositions.

The game itself is much like 5-card draw. You’re dealt five cards in a hand. Then you’re given the choice to keep any of those five dealt cards. When you make your decision, you click the button and a re-draw is given to you (if you so choose). After this refresh, you compare your hand against the machine’s pay table to see what you won–if you won anything. In the basic game, you’ll need a hand with a pair of jacks or better to win. If you hold two 10s or less, you lose outright. If you hold a pair of queens or three 2s or any other hand which is better in the standard poker hand ranks, you win.

The better your hand, the more money you win. Usually, the royal flush is the big jackpot hand. Other video poker games have different scoring systems, often with wild cards. In the games where wilds are allowed, you’ll often have to build better hands than the basic game. Also, you should know that (as an example) two different Deuces Wild machines might have different payout schedules for certain hands, often the full house and the flush. If you get paid 8/1 for a full house and 5/1 for a flush, this is called the 8/5 version of the game. It can get tricky finding the best version of a game, because many times, payouts on other hands are increased when the flush and full house are decreased, but those are the key hands to notice on most variations.

Comparison of Game Selections

Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s take a look at the RTG video poker types you’re likely to find in the electronic casinos. I’ve chosen a couple of the best Realtime Gaming casinos to highlight a few points: Win Palace and Casino Titan. These websites are both featured on Casino-City and are ranked 4th and 15th out of the 376 Netherlands Antilles sites listed. That means these are big, well-known, legitimate casino operations.

WinPalace Casino Video Poker

This site has a 19 game selection and multiple versions of the most popular games. This is where you need to be careful in choosing your game, because the wrong choice means you’re throwing money away. Many new players tend to be confused by all the variations with “double double” in their title, though this only refers to the fact that all four 4-of-a-kind combinations come with different payouts. Not only will you find two types of Jacks or Better, you’ll find two Loose Deuces, two Joker Poker titles, and two Deuces Wild variants. These are the most popular games, but you can also play 7 Stud Poker, Bonus Deuces, Jackpot Poker, and several of those aforementioned double-double and double-bonus variants.

Casino Titan Video Poker: A Comparison

Casino Titan has fewer games (12) than WinPalace Casino, but it also has a few selections you won’t find elsewhere. Notice games like Aces & Eights, Sevens Wild, and All American Poker are listed, while you won’t find these at many of the other RTG casinos. Keep in mind these are two excellent online casinos and they each have the same selection of RTG games to choose from, but their make totally different decisions on which vp games to feature. It really does pay to shop around when you’re searching for casinos.

Realtime Gaming Video Poker Games

This is how you’re going to need to shop for the latest RTG video poker offerings. I wish the official RTG site had a comprehensive list of titles, but many of the software design companies have incredibly sparse official sites. I’m guessing it’s just a good policy to stay under the radar. You’ll need to do some online casino shopping to find the full scope of the video poker games Realtime Gaming has to offer. Since most virtual casino operations advertise their games prominently with no need of a download or a deposit, it’s all window shopping.

In the last two years, California’s drive to regulate online poker has been a virtual roller coaster of multi-million dollar lobbying efforts, bill propositions, amendments and subsequent rejections. It seems that no matter how hard proponents try, California simply isn’t destined to attain the legal framework for intrastate online poker. Amidst the mounting rubble, Senator Rod Wright has once more breathed new life into the notion with the proposal of SB-51, yet another bill to legalize, regulate and tax online poker in California.

SB-51 – or by its garrulous name, “The Internet Gambling Consumer Protection and Public-Private Partnership Act of 2013” – is a reintroduction of former bills that repetitively failed to make it into law. Those collapses were mostly due to their leaving too many issues unresolved. Sen. Wright not only attempts to settle any and all feasible issues in the literature of SB-51, but also introduced the bill as an “urgency statute”.

Any bill with an “urgency statute” label requires a 2/3 majority vote, but if approved, is enacted immediately into law. Advocates believe that this will work heavily in favor of the bill due to California’s current state of severe budget crisis. According to Wright’s estimates, the licensing fees and taxation will generate $200 million in the first year, with another $100 million to follow annually.

There weren’t too many significant amendments to SB-51. The most prominent were the exclusion of all other gambling amusements. Online poker would be the only online gambling activity legalized in the state. Licensees would be required to put up an application fee of $1-$5 million, plus a $30 million fee to cover future taxation upon reception of a license. Operators would be taxed 10% of all gross revenue, which comes from tournament fees and cash game rakes. Players would also be taxed, thanks to the software tracking all client activity and requiring SSN#s upon registration. Net tournament winnings of $600 or more would be taxed at 5%.

The new bill would require licensed online poker operators to abide by a series of distinct regulations. Support must be supplied 24/7/365. Responsible gambling programs must be promoted. Self-exclusion forms must be available. Players must have the option to set limits on daily play and losses, and must view an hourly pop-up message revealing the amount of time they have been playing and their win/loss ratio.

One intriguing facet of the bill refutes the possibility of any licensee ever entering into a business contract with any online poker operator that supplied real-money online poker games to US residents after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. In laymen’s terms, don’t expect to see PokerStars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker, UB, or any other operator that disregarding the US legislation to ever appear as a California-based online poker room.

Proponents had originally hoped to see the bill under review as early as January 19th, 2013, shortly after legislatures reconvened in the new year. However, since no hearing date has yet been set to observe the definitions of the SB-51 online poker bill, it is now projected to take three more months at least before the committee can evaluate and eventually vote on the proposition.

In September of 2011, Howard Lederer was one of four ex-members of the Full Tilt Poker board of directors named in a civil suit by the Southern District of New York. The US Attorney’s Office pursued a penalty of $42.5 million – the amount Lederer received from the online poker company – for allegedly defrauding players in a “Ponzi scheme” that cost Full Tilt members $330 million.

A second amended civil complaint was issued in September of 2012, wherein new charges were brought up against Lederer and his fellow board members. The amended allegations called for the forfeiture of assets purchased with the ill-gotten gains. The evidence presented included 5 years’ worth of significant purchases (2006-2011) with documents proving that he used ‘illegal proceeds’ to fund them. Such purchases included exuberant vehicles, mortgage payments on affluent dwellings, payment of property taxes and a retirement package.

Last month, on November 15th, Howard Lederer filed a motion to dismiss all claims against him. He denied all of the accusations, stating that he had no idea that any underhanded activity had occurred at Full Tilt Poker and that, as such, he should not be held accountable. However, the paper trail clearly linked the expenditures back to Full Tilt Poker.

On Tuesday, December 18, 2012, a Stipulation and Order of Settlement was filed in the NY Southern District. According to this document, Howard Lederer has settled his case. He made a point to attest that his actions involved no deliberate wrong-doing, persisting that Full Tilt Poker ran a “legitimate business providing services to its customers within the bounds of the law, and that prior to April 15, 2011, he was unaware of any wrongful activity at Full Tilt including that the company had become unable to satisfy its player account liabilities.”

Despite his insistence of innocence, Howard Lederer agreed to a settlement that would require him to forfeit the following:

-One of Lederer’s Las Vegas homes located at 309 Kingsclear Court, Las Vegas, Nevada
-All traceable proceeds from the sale of Lederer’s Las Vegas property located at 2735 Twin Palms Circle, Las Vegas, Nevada.
-$30,000 in traceable proceeds from the sale of Lederer’s Las Vegas property located at 5426 Fawn Chase Way, Las Vegas, Nevada.
-All funds and liquidateable assets in Lederer’s Isle of Man accounts at Lloyd TSB International.
-All funds from Lederer’s accounts at LPL Financial, including his 401k Profit Sharing Plan and Trust accounts.
-Lederer’s prized 1965 Shelby Cobra Roadster
-$1.25 million towards the “forfeiture of the Money Judgment Funds for disposition according to law, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 981, without admitting any liability thereunder” (i.e. judgment penalty for money-laundering).

Howard has exactly 36 months – 3 years – to settle all above mentioned debts with the Southern District of New York.

According to the second amended civil complaint, Howard Lederer was also required to forfeit two other Las Vegas properties and a third property in California, three Wells Fargo bank accounts and numerous other vehicles. In the settlement, however, there was no mention of these assets.

Howard Lederer and Rafe Furst are the only two of four former members of the Full Tilt Poker board of directors to settle their civil cases. Chris Ferguson is still negotiating with the government over his impending settlement, while Ray Bitar’s case remains in pending status.

When Full Tilt Poker re-launched on November 6th, 2012, the masses gathered round to see if the online poker room’s new owners were able to breathe new life back into the one-time favorite. At its highest point since re-launch, Full Tilt was pulling an average of 8,000 real-money players. As that new car smell begins to wear off, so has the enthusiasm of players worldwide.

According to poker traffic reports from Poker Scout, FTP’s ativity has plummeted a staggering 53%, leaving the poker room with a 7-day average of 3,850 active players. On the bright side, even after the considerable loss of traffic, Full Tilt Poker is easily maintaining its current position as the second largest online poker site in the industry.

PokerStars continues to uphold its top position on the totem pole, and that doesn’t look to be changing anytime in the near, or distant, future. With a 7-day average of 23,400 grinding the virtual felts of PokerStars, Full Tilt would have to see a sudden 600% increase to even come close to matching the popularity of Stars. Then again, now that PokerStars’ parent company owns FTP, the rivalry between the two card gaming sites just doesn’t seem as exciting as days past.

As many of you know, PokerStars made the acquisition of Full Tilt Poker during its settlement agreement with the DOJ to pay off the disgraced site’s incredible debts, as well as its own recompense; a grand total of $731 million.

The most intriguing query, in my opinion, is what has caused the significant drop in activity at Full Tilt Poker. It certainly could be that the craze has worn off. Countless players were owed millions of dollars. After logging into their accounts and making their withdrawals, perhaps many decided to sever ties, ending their relationship with the anterior ignominy. Despite its new ownership, some may not be able reconcile the fissure of trust.

If we compare the percentages of traffic at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, rather than the actual traffic rate, we find that the top seed also realized a considerable decline in traffic since last week, 10% down. However, PokerStars just finished dealing its 90-billionth hand, a promo that attracted an astonishing 93,000 players to the poker room on the day it awarded more than $68k to a highly fortuitous “m1sspiggy”. It’s understandable that the traffic would decline after that point.

Full Tilt Poker, on the other hand, lost its traffic in the midst of the FTOPS series; nearing its end, in fact, when individual tournament prizes hit their utmost value. The FTOPS XXI Main Event came to a close yesterday, awarding nearly $3 million across the vast prize pool – $453k to 1st place winner Yan “yadio1111” Dion – but the numbers had already declined at that point.

Only time will tell why the new Full Tilt Poker lost half of its player base so rapidly. Unless this regression continues, Full Tilt Poker does not appear to be under any threat of losing its 2nd place spot in the online poker industry. The third place belongs to the iPoker Network (Will Hill, Titan Poker, etc.) with a 2,750 week-long average, shadowed closely by Party Poker with 2,650 in the fourth position.

There are literally hundreds of casinos in Nevada; major brands and small time players alike. Caesar’s Palace is certainly one of the better known names, not just because of its central Strip location, famous thematic or the sheer enormity of the establishment, but because the casino is the home of the most prestigious poker tournament across the globe – the World Series of Poker. Now Caesar’s is using its renowned girth to push for a branded WSOP online poker room in Nevada.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has been reviewing, approving and rejecting a heap of applications for licensing. Already, 17 licenses have been granted – 12 going to casino operators and 5 to other related companies, namely online poker software providers. The stack of licenses yet to be reviewed is innumerable. Realistically speaking, Caesar’s is just another face in a massive field of wanna-be players.

A more pretentious deduction, however, would have to give Caesar’s a moderately higher outlook for overall success in such a market. There isn’t a poker player in the world who doesn’t acknowledge and appreciate the significance of the WSOP in the realm of tournament play. To possess the one and only WSOP-branded online poker site would certainly connote indubitable success. Not just success, but an automatic position on the highest rungs of the ladder.

Caesar’s has already teamed up with 888, a prominent leader in online poker software development industry. It could be a glorious union of two outstanding trademarks, except for one possible snag. Caesar’s received tentative licensing from the Nevada Gaming Control Board less than 24 hours ago, while 888’s licensing continues to hang in the balance. It is indeed likely that 888 will go on to receive approval from the board, but the length of time that could take is immeasurable, and if for any reason 888 is rejected, Caesar’s will be left back at square one.

Working in favor of the Caesar’s/888 partnership and potential branding of a WSOP online poker site is the timeframe at which the Silver State is now expecting to be able to launch it’s real-money card games to residents of Nevada. Not long ago, operators were preparing for an early 2013 launch, but due to an exacerbated completion of regulatory framework, officials are now projecting online poker to become a reality in the second half of the coming year.

While it is certain that Nevada will be the first to proffer real-money online poker on an intra-state level, it is also apparent that most operators are looking at a much bigger picture for the future. Andrew Zarnett, an expert gaming analyst with Deutsche Bank and member of the National Center for Responsible Gaming board of directors, published a recent research study in which he projects individual US states to legalize online poker in 2013.

Zarnett said that the passage of an online poker bill on a federal level is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, thus investors need to push for regulatory licensing on a state level. He believes that once Nevada’s online poker sites go live, others will inevitably come tumbling after. “This market will fast become the economic test case for analysis of revenue size, cash flow generation and cannibalization impact as it comes on line.”

If Zarnett is correct in his conjecture – and there are plenty of acclaimed industry analysts who agree with him – this could mean top-dollar revenue for Caesar’s Palace. The recognition of the World Series of Poker name alone could be enough to draw players from all over the US to a branded WSOP online poker room.

If there’s one thing poker pro Theo Jorgensen is known for, it’s his inability to turn down a prop bet. The 36 year old Danish poker star is also known for his elite tactics on the European Poker Tour, many of which helped to earn him a live poker tournament career total of more than $2.8 million. But the prop bets make for much more interesting stories.

Last week, Jorgensen admitted to an anecdotal prop bet on his personal Team PokerStars blog in which the Dane had aligned himself with a penguin in a hypothetical race on ice. How does one end up in such a position? That’s a great question, worthy of an obvious side note: yes, alcohol was involved.

According to the poker pro, he was attending a baby shower and ended up seated around a table of diverse characters, enjoying food, booze and varied conversation. As it turned out, one of his tableside companions was a zookeeper.

At one point, while discussing the zookeeper’s illustrious employment, the dialogue turned to penguins. Jorgensen found himself uttering the words, “It’s amazing how fast these penguins are in the water and how slow they are on ground.”

That was his first mistake. His second mistake was his manly inability to ignore the zookeeper’s response, which, to the Danish poker pro, sounded like a propositional challenge just waiting to happen.

“You would be surprised, Theo,” she replied. “I would bet you that our fastest penguin would outrun you over a short distance on ice.”

There it was. She used the word “bet”. Jorgensen was hooked. He noted in his blog post his perpetual incapacity to disregard any challenge of his manhood, and this certainly fell into that category. To deny such a proposition, in his undeniably quotable word: “I might as well have stood up and cut off my testicles right there at the table.”

Rather than dropping trou and disgracing his virility, Theo was compelled to do the opposite. He agreed to the bet, decreeing that he was more than capable of outrunning a silly penguin. The stakes; dinner for four. After all, what was the harm? If he won, he could boast that he had won yet another prop bet. If he lost, he would merely pay the bill of an elegant dinner for four. No big deal, right?

Wrong. Back at home, Jorgensen’s girlfriend made a logical point that not only is Jorgensen a terrible runner (his soccer coach said that “oil tankers make faster U-turns”), his challenger – the zookeeper – has no clue how bad of a runner Theo is, but did know a great deal about the speed of penguins. While the poker pro waved this off, she went on to indicate that losing meant more than a 4-person meal ticket. It meant that Jorgensen would become “the guy that was outrun by a penguin”.

With that notation, Theo began to prepare for the race of his life, visiting the local ice rink and hiring data analysts to track his progress in various pairs of running shoes. This was now a serious matter!

Fortunately for Jorgensen, the logistics of the prop bet turned out to be inconceivable. There was no feasible way for them to tell the penguin to run, nor in what direction to run, and more importantly, no way for the zookeeper to abscond with a penguin from her place of employment, at least not without the risk of becoming unemployed.

Alas, we will never know whether the Danish poker pro is faster than a penguin, but we do know this. If anyone has a ridiculous prop bet they wish to become reality, they simply need scour the tables at PokerStars to find Theo Jorgensen.

For all of you ex-members of Full Tilt Poker who reside in the United States, don’t get too excited just yet. While there are newsworthy developments in the eventual repayment of American poker player’s funds, the US government has only taken the smallest of steps in coming closer to that day, which is, at the least, something to be thankful for.

An update in the case was announced on Tuesday by the US Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Southern District of New York. According to the proclamation, they are now evaluating claims administrators to handle the reimbursements.

This is only the slightest step forward, as it was a full two months ago that the USAO posted a job notice to take applications for claims administrators to handle refunds in the ongoing Full Tilt case. As part of the announcement, Full Tilt’s players were told that the actual procedures of a potential claims administrator will not begin until, at the earliest, January of 2013.

Saying that this is going to be an immense job is a severe understatement. The employment notice requested inquiries from interested parties who would be responsible for numerous activities in the case, including things like the acquisition and evaluation of financial transaction records from claimants, and analysis of the entire Full Tilt Poker database of applicable user account records.

In order to apply for the colossal position, each claims administrator was expected to provide a complete resume, detailing their level of experience with claims and any relevant areas of expertise. If for any reason there might be a conflict of interest regarding an applicant’s ability to perform the tasks needed, applicants were required to divulge this information as well.

It is estimated that Full Tilt Poker’s American player base is owed a cumulative sum of $159 million dollars, to be allocated appropriately between roughly 1.3 million players. That’s 1.3 million claims to review, 1.3 million records to analyze.

On the plus side, all of the money to be repaid is already set aside, thanks to PokerStars, who paid a grand total of $731 million to the US DOJ to cover their own fines, repayment of US and international members of Full Tilt Poker, as well as acquisition of the Full Tilt brand.

Last week, it was reported that representatives of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) met with the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Division of the Department of Justice to examine the current status of player refunds. John Pappas, executive director of the PPA, called the meeting “cordial and productive”.

Pappas released a statement from the PPA that said, “Unfortunately, completion of a refund claims process is a long way away. The first step in this process will be the Department’s hiring of a third-party claims administrator, after a bidding process: there is no current date certain for that selection to occur. But it was evident that even when a claims administrator is hired, forfeiture and remission procedures require that a substantial administrative process be adhered to before players begin seeing their funds.”

While a date for actual repayment of Full Tilt’s American player base is surely a very long way from fruition, at least we can finally see miniature steps being taken, preliminary dates being set, and some type of actions being performed.

Last week, everyone’s favorite legend of the felt, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, announced to all of his fans via a Twitter post that he has been diagnosed with cancer, but made it clear his spirits were high, his confidence absolute, and that it is a curable form of Squamous cell cancer.

The news appeared on Brunson’s frequently used Twitter account when he posted the following message to all of his friends and fans:

“It was malignant. 4 times I have heard that in my life. Chilling way to start the day. Squamas cell cancer, nothing to worry about. #yeahright”

Numerous posts came in, wishing Texas Dolly the best of luck and health, followed by another tweet from the legendary 10-time WSOP bracelet winner:

“Tx 4 the support about the cancer. It’s a slow growth type that is usually ok But it’s something you had rather not hear. #beentheredonethat”

Squamous cell cancer is one of the most commonplace forms of skin cancer. Cases of this particular thread are reported an average of 200,000 times a year. Squamous cell cancer has the capability of showing up in several places around the body, but in Doyle Brunson’s case – and so many others – it is the skin that is targeted. Symptoms are generally easy to detect, appearing as a reddish, scaly or crusted patch of skin.

This form of cancer has a reputation for metastasizing, which may seem like a negative on one hand, but the spreading of the cells to other areas of the skin actually makes it easier to diagnose in its early stages. And because Brunson was diagnosed with a slow-growing form of cancer, the prognosis is often a very good one.

Brunson’s multiple tweets on the topic revealed that he has already had the malignant cancer surgically removed. It will take time to define whether or not the cancer has spread beyond what the doctors already removed, but according to his comments, Doyle Brunson seems to be in great shape, as always.

This is little more than a stumble in the extraordinary poker player’s 79-year history of multiple encounters with cancer. The most frightening battle of all occurred all the way back in 1962, as detailed in Doyle Brunson’s best-selling poker strategy novel, Super System II.

Just months after his marriage to Louise Brunson, who was carrying the poker pro’s unborn child, Texas Dolly found himself suffering from a terrible sore throat that would not seem to go away. When he discovered a small lump in his throat, he went to the doctor and was prescribed antibiotics. When the sore throat worsened, his doctor diagnosed him with a benign tumor that could easily be removed.

It wasn’t until Doyle Brunson was under the knife that his doctors discovered the worst. The tumor was not only malignant, the cancer cells had spread throughout his entire body. Texas Dolly was given, at most, a few months to live.

With a single goal in mind—to hold his child just once—Doyle Brunson began the fight of his life. He agreed to undergo a radical surgery that would possibly extend his life by another month or so. It turned out to be the best decision of his life; even better than playing his favorite hand of 10-2, which won him not one, but two, WSOP Main Event Championship bracelets. After 8 grueling hours of surgery, the doctors were astonished to announce that they could find no trace of cancer left in his body.

Just last year, Doyle Brunson was diagnosed with melanoma, another form of skin cancer, that appeared on his arm. He went to the exact same hospital in Houston, Texas that had miraculously cured him half a century ago and after another brief surgery, was deemed free and clear of cancer once more.

Our thoughts, hopes and prayers are with the everlasting king of the poker world, Doyle Brunson, as he works towards yet another full recovery.