This Featured Doyle Brunson, Gabe Kaplan, Howard Lederer, Dee Tiller(?), Eli Elezra and Patrik Antonius.

As many people know there is a scandal involving UltimateBet and cheating on their site.  Most of the scandal predates the current management and as a consultant for UB at the time I decided to contribute some thoughts.  And then wow! So let me start from the beginning and maybe that will help.  At no point in this discussion will I ever condone cheating or cheaters.  As far as I am concerned I really hope they catch whoever it is behind all of this.  I have told this story many times in this blog and elsewhere but just for ease I will retell it.

In the 2nd year of the WSOP I played in the Aruba event after winning 3 aruba seats.  I played poker locally for many years but this was the first time I had ever had some success in tournaments.  This started my online bankroll and I met many of the people I still call friends today.  That next year would see me winning I believe it was 10 Aruba seats, I am not sure the number really matters at this point.  Once you had one the rest were given to you in cash so that was 90k.  I was also a bit ahead of the curve of the cash games but I was certainly no super baller, at that time I played a lot of 15-30 limit (6 tables and such) on Party and had some really good runs.  In the 2004 WSOP I went fairly deep (about 150 or so), when I busted out I was invited to a party where I met Annie Duke.  Let me back up a bit.  After Aruba I was doing well online, enough to see that something very promising could happen for me in poker.  It was also clear that the business side of things would need some people to help manage things.  As such I pitched a system to PokerStars first (on the Poker Stars cruise), Full tilt second (in Reno of that year) and ultimately to Annie Duke at this party.  Annie was very intrigued about my ideas on how to treat the best customers the best and many of my ideas regarding tournament structures and how the games might be a bit better.  It was also obvious that UB would have an overlay in their Aruba tournament that year and so I proposed that I would take a number of seats in exchange for my ideas and because I was playing most of the WPT and WSOP at this time I would become an affiliate of UB, essentially investing all of the proceeds from the seats I would sell to well known players into promotions for this program.  The idea was a monster hit, this was the early days of rakeback when no one really even knew what it would be called.  I certainly did not invent rakeback but I was on the ground floor on what would be a trend of good value to poker players for the future.

From the time I met Annie to approximately May of the following year it was a series of disasters.  The big games on UB were filling up and that was a direct result of a lot of my hard work with my affiliate stuff.  Politically though within UB there were a ton of issues that were unrelated to my success, also players did not just want to play UB they wanted to play other sites and wanted to know if I could get them similar deals at those places.  When it came time for UB and I to come to another agreement their was not an overlay in the upcoming tournament and I think secretly people did not see a point in paying me as both a consultant and an affiliate any longer.  At this point I hardly knew anyone at all other than Annie Duke, I only met Russ Hamilton once in Los Angeles.  So for about 9 months to a year I helped out with the tournament schedule and some general promotion ideas.  Meanwhile I knew virtually no one and I certainly had no inside access to anything really.  I did not need any of that, my players were generating a significant portion of the rake for UB and already that was providing me with a decent income.  Adding additional rooms would only help that, they were not crazy that I would not be exclusive to them anymore but without paying me as a consultant I was essentially a free agent.

One thing that has come up is “did Beanie have success at other sites”, the two other sites I have had success at are Party Poker and Bodog, with Bodog being by far the bigger of the two.  I also won my 2004 WSOP seat on PokerStars.  UB and Bodog were my main sites, Bodog for limit poker and UB for tournaments.

Another thing that people are misunderstanding is when I said that I send multiple transactions a day to people I do not even know.  Which of course is a reference to rakeback and the fact that most of these customers are not people that I have met.  So I hope that helps on that particular part.  I do in fact trade with a lot of players online but likely not much more than any other high stakes player.  I think for the average guy my transactions would be wild but to a rakeback affiliate or another high stakes player it would be very normal.

Over the course of the next 3-4 years I got to know Russ Hamilton, not so much regarding UB but more poker deals in general.  You have to remember that I had little access at this point, I was just a guy from Minnesota.  Russ has become a good friend within poker, we have really never had any significant business dealings, I sort of use him as a mentor within the poker business.  When I quit consulting with UB that virtually ended my relationship with Annie Duke and we have hardly spoken since then. 

Over time UB went from my biggest program to 4th or 5th which was just based on customer demand.  I now maintain a relationship with the new management but I have very little access.  This was brought up because I mentioned that I visited Costa Rica to see UB in May.  So did about 20 other affiliates including Nat Arem.  I am not trying to throw Nat Arem under the bus because in my eyes Nat is an online poker superhero for what he did with the AP scandal.  I just point it out in an effort to say that I was not on some covert mission or part of some monster cover up because I understand that for most people this whole world of online poker is a bit foreign.

Also I quit posting in the thread on 2+2 because there really is no benefit for me (and also people in the thread asked me to stop, so I did).  I will post a link to the thread at the bottom. 

Some other tidbits:

I know nothing of the account -Fred- and have no idea who the owner is, at the WSOP I met Fred David but I never recieved a transfer from that account, my understanding is the same as Freddy Deeb’s that it is just a management account.  I have no information on that account at all or Fred David’s role at UB at the time, or if he even had one.  Whether that is all just big a coincidence or not is not something I have information on but I will be happy to share whatever comes to light.

dont-trust-paul-nobles.com was a site put up by someone that I had a business dispute over.  It was covered a bit on p5’s and within days of that site being put up the matter was resolved and the site got taken down.  It is sort of a long uninteresting story, I am pretty sure the guy that put up the site regrets dealing in that manor as he has become very successful in other endeavors.  I was supposed to get that URL and a few others as part of the agreement we settled on but I have been lazy about transfering them over.

In closing I will still follow the thread on 2+2 and try to address people’s concerns and if anything comes to light maybe I will pass it on to Nat or post it here.  There is really no equity for me in coming to the defense of anyone, even people who have treated me well because people want answers and I can not give them.  I had very little access back then and even less now.  For me to be viewed in any way shape or form as condoning cheating or trying to divert people’s attention from the scandal was never my intent, so to any extent that happened I would like to sincerely apologize.  Here is the link to the thread on 2+2.

Today I will be live blogging the $1500 tournament at the WSOP on twitter at www.twitter.com/beaniepoker.  I have 46,500, average is about 35k.

So first let me say that I was the guy that knocked out the bubble guy with 6c7c.  He had about 20k and I had about 40k.  He raised 5k into the BB that was openly saying that was openly saying he would fold with Aces.  Figuring that he heard that and needed to chip up I put him on a steal and hit a straight on him.  Do not ever believe the updates, they either write what they are told or reconstruct the action but common sense would tell you that I did not call with 6c7c, which is how pokernews wrote it up. 

OK, so to the Layne Flack part.  I was at the Bellagio and was cashing some chips when I see a friend (Greg Pierson) in the high limit section.  After I get my money from the cage I tell my dad "let me just stop by and say hi for a sec".  Greg is having a few drinks with Layne Flack and both seem to be having quite a good time, it looked like Layne was playing 100-200 Limit Holdem and Greg was just sweating him.  As I was leaving I acknowledge Layne by giving him a little head nod like "hey, how is it going".  Layne looks me dead in the eye and says "fuck you", I smile at him and just walk away.  I hear Greg say, do you even know who he is and Layne goes "yeah I know who the fuck he is", kind of loud like.  My dad is dumbfounded and says, "man that unabomber guy is a real dick".  I then explain to him that he is thinking of Phil Laak, and then also have to explain who Layne Flack is.

Socially I have had a few interactions with Layne, nothing that super stands out, so here is what I have nailed it down to:

[ ] Laynes mom bought a Royal Blue Peanut from me when it was 6k and now it is 2k.
[ ] After Layne won Aruba he played a lot of 25-50 on UB.  I was playing a lot at that time and did quite well.  My buddy list consisted of three people that I would always play, Layne was one of three.
[ ] Once in chat, he was sober at the time, he got upset at me about something silly and I told him he has lost his sense of humor now that he is no longer drinking.
[x] Layne was 8 o’clock drunk.

It did not really bother me but it has been a while since someone has said "fuck you" to me so it was a bit shocking.  Equally as shocking was it happening in front of my dad.

I moved to Minnesota when I was 18 by 19 I met the woman I would eventually marry and I took her on a roller coaster ride that is still going on today. My first business was simple, there was no fresh shrimp in Minnesota and I thought I would be the man to deliver it. So off I went devising a scheme that involved ice chests and overnight delivery from Northwest Airlines (with a little help from some friends in La. where I am originally from). The idea was good enough, I went to the farmers market and I always sold all of the shrimp but often it was at cost to the farmers at the end of the day. Now that took some hustle but it did not take me away from having to work for someone else.

I am going to skip a few minor hustles but they are all similar to the shrimp idea. Low cost, easy to decide whether or not there was a market. Which brought me to sportscards. I was never really into sportscards as a collector, I was a speculator and I seemed to have a knack for micromarkets that not everyone has. For instance, I was into the business about 3 weeks before I figured out that promo cards were a big thing and they were cheap. All you really needed to do was be in the location they were being given out. So when I went to Chicago (3 weeks into this particular adventure) I saw people selling promo cards for $30 that people got for free when they came into the door. That was a bingo moment. I would go to the next big show and become one of these guys buying cards for $5 and selling them for $30. Then I got a little lucky, fact is, my idea was not spectacular, so I needed a little luck. On a hunch I drove to San Francisco to reap all of these promo cards that I was going to make a killing on. I had maybe $1000 on me, at the most $2000. As I went through the door they were handing out a hockey card, which greatly disappointed me, there was no way I was getting rich off of this thing, and that is when it occurred to me that this was not all that would be given out that day. Randomly they inserted Chris Webber limited edition autographs, I figured that out on instinct and nothing more. Now if I was an idiot I would have seen the hockey cards, got disappointed and went back to working for someone else. I turned about 50 of those cards Chris Webber cards into about $30,000 and that started me off on a journey that eventually saw me in debt over $100,000. A magnificent failure that has made me millions of dollars over the years. The lessons you learn in failure stick with you.

My next business was Beanie Babies as you have imagined by now (given the name). All of these examples have great and colorful stories of a time where I was willing to do anything or go anywhere to make a few dollars. I did not have a real good concept of a time/value equation, I just figured I was making good money and it was not like I had anything else to do with my time. My business partner and I came up with the idea to establish stores to buy Beanie Babies considering that the market was so hot that wholesale and retail were blurred, blah blah blah. While Beanie Babies was a great success I was still in a hole when it started so I did not break the bank, but I did well.

If you are still reading this you might be wondering what the hell this has to do with poker, after all this is a poker blog, right? Stick with me and I think I can make the connection.

Right around Beanie Babies was when I read Advanced Texas Holdem by David Sklansky. So as I was traveling the country opening up Beanie Baby stores I was also playing decent stakes even back then. Pretty much every card room I visited I was playing the highest games available, which usually maxed out at about 30-60 Limit Holdem. There really was not a lot of No Limit Holdem when I started and there were very few tournaments. I mostly was treading water paying for vacations and televisions and such, poker was a hobby but I wanted it to be more, there just were not enough games, not enough suckers and I was not good enough to quit what I was doing daily.

That took me into mortgages during the last mortgage boom, with the money I made from Beanie Babies I was buying a house and needed a small mortgage. I eventually began working with the company I got my mortgage from. I peaked at about 30-40 mortgages a month and it was really the first legitimate thing that I could talk about without feeling awkward. Though it was infinitely uninteresting it was based around markets and numbers and really worked to my strengths. I loved it. In fact, there really is not one thing that I can look back on and say I disliked because almost all of it had me dealing with people and that is what I like to do most.

They say that fortune favors the bold, well it sometimes helps to go broke too. When mortgages began to get slow I started playing more poker. Poker was on television now and I became obsessed with tournament strategy, if anyone can recall there was virtually nothing written on the subject at the time. Since I was a little ahead of the curve on new poker players I took to it well. So well that I quit my job. Folks I am going to tell you right now that is a tough conversation to have with your wife no matter how much money you are winning. Not to mention I had to let go of staff and have other mortgage guys wonder why the hell I would quit when I was doing so well.

Fact was the potential for poker just offered me more and I knew it was something I was passionate about so I would be able to give it my all. I wrote on a piece of paper that I would become a professional poker player before I was 50 and gave it my wife, who was then my fiancee just so she really understood what she was getting into. I have been doing this for about 5 years now. In that time I have moved from micro stakes to the highest limits available and then back to the middle. I have won a lot of tournaments at all levels. I am no huge baller but I am no sucker either. Along the way some people noticed that I had a bit of understanding of how business works and that has afforded me some consulting opportunities, which have been nice. It is a way to not be forced to play poker and as many of you know that is what I spend most of my time doing these days.

All along the way I tried to keep with a forward moving motion. My hustles now have respect for my time and family. I can not for instance just drive to San Francisco for 2 weeks on a hunch. I would challenge everyone playing poker today to consider whether their hustle is dramatically better than it was when you started. Have you plateaued? Or are you maintaining a forward moving motion?

No matter who you are or what you do, you should be getting better. Better does not have to mean you are making more money but it should factor into the equation. Most importantly any hustle is easier when you are passionate about it, if you have lost that passion try and regain it by doing what you like most. Trial and mostly error come easy to me, I am very forgiving to myself. For everyone that is not the case so try and see what works best for you. Your poker game should evolve in a way that has you waking up early because you are so excited about the opportunities that the day presents for you.

One last thing, taking extended breaks can do wonders when it comes to poker. Poker players have not figured out what a lot of people have that burn out is real and that time off from something can help you remember why you enjoyed it so much in the beginning.

By in large the news about the WSOP delaying the final table until November has been received poorly, which shocks me on multiple levels.

1. I realize people are averse to change but it should not take a brain surgeon to realize that ESPN has some clue of what they are doing.
2. Start of football and end of baseball, or WSOP. Pass the potato chips I will be watching football and the real World Series.
3. One of the biggest complaints I am hearing is the coaching factor “some idiot could make the final table and suddenly get better”. Guess what that idiot could have also gotten lucky and won, you do not need me to give you examples I would assume.
4. The sponsorship money could be huge for these final 9, I believe Jerry Yang was 8th in chips when he won last year. The deals these people will be able to negotiate will be unreal and it does not stop there. If I were a betting man (and I am) I will bet that card rooms will be jockeying for position, if you make the top 50 you may just find yourself sponsored on the off chance you hit the final table.
5. If ESPN is making this dramatic of a change you can best believe they are working on the brand. Which likely also means that they are going to be able to market it differently. Different does not always mean better but once again I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I often talk about the fact that I think there should be less poker on television. The simple fact is most of it is bad. Taking some time to raise the quality of the broadcast is going to be a good thing.

Now if it has not occurred to you already it should have, you are going to see more slice of life segments about Johnny’s dad dying or whatever but guess what casual poker players like those. If they did not ESPN would not make them. So expect more chip tricks, more fruit cut with the dealer button but most importantly more viewers excited about poker.

And that my friends is a good thing.

Won 38k!! Had a really good Monday(45k) but lost today (-7k).  I played a lot of 25/50 cap and some 50/100 PLO as well.  I leave tomorrow for Louisville and I am excited to get back to playing some live poker.  The games should be pretty good the next few days because of the Kentucky Derby.  I talked to Robert Willaimson who said him and Phil Hellmuth will be in town and want to play some big PLO Saturday night maybe.  If so, then I will have to take it easy during the race so I will be ready to play some high stakes PLO that night…. I guess there are going to be a lot of celebs and poker pros in for the derby and they are also hosting a charity poker tourney at the casino.  Wish me luck…

Matt Humphrey

Humphreyin@hotmail.com

They say at least 8 billion dollars is wagered on the Super Bowl every year. Too bad most of it is illegal. With the ridiculous gambling laws in effect it makes a leisure activity seem shady and in fact wrong. The laws that are in place probably incite the exact opposite they are supposed stop.

By making it illegal, people go places they shouldn’t and do things they wouldn’t do just to place a bet on the biggest game of the year.

These days we only hear negative press surrounding pro athletes. Acts like this one seem to be overlooked by the fans and media. Regina and her son Reggie can finally buy a house that was eluding them so long.