Some pretty strong rumors hit the online poker world early this morning. It takes into account that the biggest online poker site in the world, Pokerstars, purchased the deceased rival Full Tilt Poker.

Everything began this morning with a post on the famous TwoPlusTwo Forum, where new user “PS<3FTP” posted the following:

“PokerStars has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to buy FTP. The things I heard:

* All players will be refunded 100%
* Both sites back online
* Both sites have promotions
* Employees remain in both places

Expect more news today.”

After being deleted, the thread came back up, since trusted mod NoahSD added the following: “I don’t know if this is actually true or not, and I’m no longer in the business of researching this stuff. However, I got unsolicited contacts from a number of old sources saying that this thread is worth keeping open, so I’m keeping it open.”

You can view this possibly legendary thread here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/big-news-pokerstars-purchases-ftp-1197424/

Also, out of the blue, CEO of ChiliPoker, Alexandre Dreyfus tweeted the following: “Pokerstars buys FullTilt for a consideration of $750m, including settlement with DOJ and full balances of players (330m). I’m impressed.”

The French news portal igaming France had this to say through their twitter account: “Just spoken to Laurent Tapie re Stars-FTP buyout, no comment, he’ll put out a release later today…”

The whole thing can be a big hoax, but there are some elements that make us believe that this can actually be true news. First, the fact that a long time mod of 2p2 putting himself out there saying that a lot of old sources told him to undelete the thread gives a lot of credibility to the news.

Also, Alex Dreyfus tweeting about it make is more credible, but it is hard to guess what was Tapie’s group role on all this and how involved they are, if involved at all.

And I remembered Daniel “jungleman” Cates tweet on very exciting news about FTP, two days ago: “Recently heard some very promising news regarding full tilt. Can’t share it because it’s confidential, but things looking very good ”

Honestly, this makes too much sense and can be very true. I’ll keep looking for more info and post as soon as I hear more about it.

Update: Well, it seems like the deal is probably on. The Tapie Group, that was linked with the acquisition of Full Tilt Poker has withdrawn their bid. It is being said that when it came to the time of closing the deal, Bernard Tapie couldn’t sign the check.

Meanwhile, if it is indeed PokerStars the buyer of Full Tilt Poker, this might be the best corporate play ever done. It is commonly known that PokerStars would have a really hard time to re-enter the sought American market, if that ever happened again. But likelihood of a change of mood of American politicians will be high, since they are willing to pay $330 million to customers that had their account frozen on Black Friday.

On top of that figure, $750 million would be spent in the acquisition, a lower figure than previous bids, but in the current scenario, a pretty good number for Full Tilt Poker’s board. There is still more to come, but I wouldn’t be surprised that PokerStars releases a statement still today about the acquisition. More to follow.

Update 2: Nothing really big happened since last update, but PokerStars released a corporate statement on their blog, as it would be expected after all these rumors. Also, it is being said that the DoJ will drop charges against PokerStars in case the deal is on, which is of course, the main reason why PokerStars would buy Full Tilt Poker. I don’t believe they care about the brand or the operation itself, but being able to be good in the eyes of government by paying players back is more than enough for them to make this move. Let’s see what else develops from now.

Update 3: Bigger news agencies started to report that PokerStars is in talks to acquire Full Tilt Poker. All bring the same line of thought, as the acquisition being PokerStars plan to settle once for all with the American government. Having their business allowed to operate in the American market will bring much more money than whatever they can spend in this deal. This is what the Wall Street Journal has to say about it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304723304577365080089824216.html

Update 4: This update should have been here before update 3, but in the middle of so much information, it ended being forgotten. It is a quite important one, since it comes from “shaundeeb”, the legendary online poker player. This is what he posted on 2p2 forums:
“Anyways the deal is already done by what I am told;

Players will be paid within 90 days
FTP will be open in the US market
Isai [Scheinberg] will be stepping down from the company

If these statements are true I feel that Isai deserves all our thanks + business in the future with his company he is bailing out the igaming industry’s tarnished reputation”

It is important to note that even though Shaun is a respected and well known player, these information might not be true, but should have some value considering the person that made the post. More to come.

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Yesterday night (CET Time) the online poker world was shaken by the announcement that founders of the three biggest American poker sites were indicted. PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, AbsolutePoker and Ub.com were all seized by FBI and have “lost” their domains to the Bureau.

At this very moment, what most people are failing to realize (mainly because of how the affected sites and people related to them are reacting to it) is that this is a measure against illegal actions taken by these companies in order to run their business and not a direct attempt of blocking the game of poker itself, even though that is the final immediate consequence.

As a part of this industry, I believe this is very good, since these sites knew they were against the law and tried to go around it anyway. That should be the first step for a regulation of online poker in USA, since it wouldn’t be fair to come up with the rules for it and the said companies take 5 years of profit into their pockets plus the advantage of having the whole customer base already built.

Now that the worst part of the turbulence is gone – at least on the weekend, since I’ve got some news from Costa Rica saying there is still much to happen – competitors of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and AP/Ub.com are coming with exclusive promotions to players that are leaving the indicted rooms. As it looks now, many players from everywhere in the world are cashing out their funds when possible to be on the safe side regarding this matter.

From the inside, seems like bwin/Party are the ones enjoying this the most, with the tip of the weekend being to buy shares of this company once the stock market opens tomorrow. Once this market is regulated, they should be the ones taking the big profit, since they (alongside with companies that never offered poker there) that will be able to offer it to the American public. There is still more to come, stay with us. (Last update)

Here is the timeline of events, which is being updated as you read it – all times are CET and approximated times:

Friday, 15/04 19:00 – An article that is to be published by the Courier Mail about former PokerStars and Full Tilt payments processor Intabill and its owner Daniel Tzvetkoff triggers indictments of 11 people connected to PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolut Poker and its main payment processors. Link to Courier Mail’s article - http://lnk.co/GS753. Link to DoJ’s charging document, containing all indicted names and full details on the measure - http://lnk.co/GS8XF.

19:30 – Awareness about the case starts to appear and pros like Tom Durrrr Dwan tweeting about the case.

19:35 – From PokerScout.com is possible to see the decline on traffic of PokerStars.

19:40 – PokerStars closes the client for US players.

19:45 – The hyped Onyx Cup seems to be in danger after the latest news. At this point all major news websites have already published extensive articles about the matter. Some as follows: Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg,ESPN, CNN and Forbes.

20:15 – Twitter trends skyrocket for PokerStars and Full Tilt. Most of players worried about what will happen to their money.

20:55 – PokerNews.com tried to talk to all sites and only AbsolutePoker replies with no comment made on the subject.

21:30 – Real money transfers for US are blocked, as seen on the picture below:

21:45 – The biggest online forums related to poker, like 2+2, have hundreds of users speculating about the future of online poker.

22:25 –  The PPA issues a statement, former Senator Alfonse D’Amato and chairman of the Poker Players Alliance with the word: “On behalf of the millions of poker players across the country, we are shocked at the action taken by the U.S. Department of Justice today against online poker companies and will continue to fight for Americans’ right to participate in the game they enjoy. Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such. We are currently gathering all of the information around today’s announcement and will offer detailed analysis when the full facts become available.” – Once again, the parties connected to these rooms (since PPA is mostly funded by PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker) attack the measure saying that poker is a game of skill, when in fact the DoJ is going after illegal transactions and other crimes committed by these companies.

Saturday, 15/04 1:00 – Full Tilt cashier stops connecting and players can’t do any transactions even outside USA.

1:30 – Cashouts are not available on PokerStars for US players. At same time, Bodog, Merge and Cake still accept players. That’s a reminder that this is an attack against crimes and illegal financial actions of accused sites and not online poker itself.

1:40 – PokerStars.com is now PokerStars.eu. Other domains still have the FBI warning as shown below:

2:30 – According to WSJ reporter Alexandra Berzon, both Wynn and Fertitta pulled out their recent agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt.

3:40 – At this point, all US clients of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker were left with no response whatsoever. Angry tweets aim both companies and their sponsored pros, which were told to remain silent.

4:00 – Full Tilt releases the first statement pictured below:

9:30 – PokerStars releases their statement (pictured below) and @PokerStars twitter account starts to answer questions vaguely.

10:00 – As reported by PokerScout.com, traffic on both sites fell over 40% during  the “no comment” period.

11:00 – All spokespersons for PokerStars are working on changing the focus from a matter of financial crimes to an attack to online poker and it seems to be working in some level, since they are still being able to keep half of their regular field playing.

19:00 – PokerStars starts reducing their guaranteed tournaments. Most of them are being cut by half.

22:00 – According to Bluff Magazine, ESPN’s shows on the Mohegan Sun, with Jason Mercier’s and Vanessa Selbst’s back-to-back wins are unlikely to be shown. Also, online sponsorship’s from PokerStars on ESPN’s website have been pulled out. In the meantime, the Onyx Cup has been cancelled, as its major sponsor/supporter, Full Tilt Poker, is one of the indicted rooms.

Sunday, 17/04 01:00 – Former US attorney call for federal, state probes of PokerStars political activites. Link http://lnk.co/GX9IS

01:35 – PokerStars gave away huge sums to lawmakers, constitutional officers in Nevada. Link http://lnk.co/GX9M1. Follow reporters @howardstutz, @RalstonFlash and @AlexandraBerzon for inside information on the case.

02:00 – The Independent from UK takes a gambling expert to explain what is the likely way that this whole case will take. And trust me, doesn’t sound like a good one. Read the original article from the Independent.

Monday, 18/04 17:00 – AbsolutePoker closes cash games for US players. UB.com still offering it. Below, AP warning:

More news on the whole story about the major online poker seizures will be posted here as they happen. For playing alternatives, please visit this link.

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Globalization has changed almost every single aspect of our lives. Some for good and some not. If you are from my generation (myself born in 1980) you will remember how hard it was to get information about anything, even for simple school or universities tasks. Nowadays, the biggest case of how globalization did us well is on the internet itself. I would need to write for a big media company to be able to get some readers, thing that happens today without much effort.

It has brought us some bad stuff as well, which I won’t spend my time speaking of here. My focus point is football, so the attempt here is to make an accurate analysis of the impact of globalization on football.

To start with, think about the absurd amount of money paid to players nowadays. Naturally they are being overpaid, but if that happens it is because they bring the investment back in some way. Advertisers are every day keener to close huge deals, since when Messi scores a goal in Japan, his shoes appear above the fold in the biggest Mexican news website. That’s a fast and simple example.

Of course, for companies that is a great factor, but it might ruin the game, with overpaid players that won’t give the expected return and relax seating on their millionaire contracts. And this is just the money topic. (If you are interested on that, don’t miss the great article by Leander Schaerlaeckens for ESPN about how bad European clubs are financially). A lot of lines could be as well written on this matter, but now I’ll turn to what might be a consequence of the concentration of money in top clubs/players or even their overpaying habits.

The title of this article says “Football goes global, and why we only have to lose with it.”, I’ll mainly write about the part where we have to lose with it and here is why: not only football, but also supporters are going global.

My thoughts about it started with a take on my home town team in Brazil, a traditional, yet small club that was in the first division from 1995 to 2006. It was the only club that didn’t come from a state capital playing amongst the Brazilian monsters. In the state, there are two major clubs from the capital, which get 99% of the media attention. With the club falling from the 1st to 4th division in 5 years, the percentage of citizens from the city that supports both major teams is higher than the supporters of the two major teams that represent the town.

Not only their very good performance but also the media attention made them “owners” of the state. The ones that were once medium sized, nowadays struggle to stay alive. The smaller ones, which you grow up watching your club play against, are almost dead if not already. Clubs performing well on the regional stage are only those that became “farms” for agents to place their youngsters. These clubs get the money from the people that own the rights of players and want to show them to the market and get the investment back.

And that’s how the Brazilian phenomenon works. I can still talk about small countries in Europe, where same thing happens. Citizens of these countries simply forget their own home leagues to support the major teams in the continent. Imagine all the money spent by this people in merchandise. It could help transform the league of their own country. Take Sweden as an example. They have one of the highest life standards, are crazy about sports and still, their top football league is very weak. TV Networks there pay more for the rights of the Premier League than for the Allsvenskan (the name of Sweden’s top league). Again, all about media attention nowadays.

How can the clubs grow facing this amount of competition from top leagues and major clubs?

I can’t say I have the formula, but there are some things that were tried and seem to work pretty well:

Investment on youth

All traditional clubs that recently came back from the ashes had their eyes on the youth base. And as an example of a well managed and established club, let’s talk Arsenal as an example. There are no big expenses with sign ups and the club still performs at top level. Exactly the case that should be followed by clubs that want to attain a great football and keep the cash balance up.

Stop overpaying players

Smaller clubs tend to believe that quality can only be attained by spending huge amounts on players. If they stop overpaying players and invest on youth as pointed above, they can have a great competitive team in the years to come, which takes me to the next point.

Long term thinking

This is the hardest part, but if both points above are taken into account, it makes sense. Problem is that in football clubs are dealing with supporter’s passion. It is not a regular business, it purely driven by the craziness of those that wear the colours and fight for the team. Might take more than courage to develop and execute such a plan, but seems to be to only real path to save smaller clubs from extinction and provide some true rivalry to the greatly industrialized clubs.

And for the good of football, that’s something I really hope to see happening.

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It was already a trend in UK’s Premier League. Gambling companies closing big sponsorship deals with clubs, looking after a huge potential market. But now, that legalized online poker is being played in Italy and France and more countries are looking the same way into betting, there might be a new round of big investments from online betting operators into the the biggest sport in the world.

Biggest change can be noticed on Ligue 1, the top French league. Major teams signed with biggest poker operators in France and this should be only the beginning. To mention a couple, Lyon now displays Everest Poker’s logo in their shirt, while Olympique de Marseille will have BetClic’s French division showing on theirs.

Checking how the gamblers “gamble”

Below I compiled a list of clubs that are sponsored by the gambling industry on all European Major Leagues and I added River Plate to it since it is the only one I remembered that is sponsored by PokerStars. Analyzing the list, there some important and curious facts to be noticed:

- Real Madrid probably holds the best deal since they have shouting loud and clear BWin in front of their shirt.
- Large investment from BetClic on the French First Division and total control of the Portuguese League.
- Unibet’s effort to spread into different markets like Hungary and Estonia
- In Italy, there’s a trend showing Better as the main sponsor/partner. That can be noticed in their specialized media websites as well.

Take a look at the whole list:

Now, thinking back, last season both Milan and Tottenham would make into this list, but had their deals terminated by BWin and Mansion respectively.

Where will all this lead to?

So, after reviewing all this data, the question that comes to mind is: Who wins with this? Probably the supporters, since more money is invested in football. Let’s just hope everyone can keep it fair with so much in stakes!

Don’t forget to comment about your take on this subject!

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After a rather long pause because of work reasons, I’m back now to talk about latest football transfers rumors and the done deals. This summer big transactions are still not happening as often as they used to, but many big names have accepted new challenges. Among them, we can point, Michael Ballack, that moved from Chelsea back to his home country to play for Bayern Munich. Meanwhile, Thierry Henry, that is not the same from Arsenal times, move to the weak MLS, to play for the NY Red Bulls. From Madrid, two surprising departures. Raúl and Guti, taken as sons of Madrid, went for Schalke 04 and Besiktas respectively.

Thierry Henry adventures himself at MLS.

From the “big” clubs, ones with buying power, all we could hear so far is Manchester City involved in many transfer rumors and two big signings. David Silva and Yaya Touré already joined the squad, while Balotelli is still a target for the Sheik owned club.

So far, we can expect a very good season from teams right below these big ones, worth to point here the Turks Besiktas and Fenerbahce and the Italian side Genoa.

But there is still a lot of time (and money) for the big guns to show their power. Chelsea should soon sign Ramires from Benfica. Barcelona already signed David Villa, but still chasing Cesc Fábregas. In the meantime, Madrid has its eyes in Milan, trying to bring Maicon to Bernabéu.

Below, a table with the biggest signings this summer for now:

In two weeks we should have news on some other transfers, so that’s when you can expect another update about it in the blog. Heartbeats are raising cause the season is about to start! Let it come!

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And it is finally over. Fortunately, Spain took home the prize and gave a little bit of beauty to this tragic tournament. As a synthesis of it, the final was a really bad display of football. Hopefully, next time in Brazil we get more “samba” to it.

But, of course, there were those players that tried their best and produced some moments. Among then, I’d like to highlight the following:

	Wesley Sneijder – Holland This one is in my list not only for his appearances in the World Cup, but for the whole excellent season he had. Maybe he is not the most technique player in the world, but whenever he is playing you can be sure that he is giving 110% of himself for the team. An oustanding player to have in the midfield, for any club or national.
	Bastian Schweinsteiger – Germany My preferred one as best player of this tournament. Was the “lion” of Germany’s midfield. Every match (but the most important one) he dominated the surroundings of the big circle, both attacking and defending, leaving no space for opponents midfielders. Add to that his ability to reach enemy’s goal with ease and you have a close to complete player. A name to look for in the next years.
	Thomas Mueller – Germany Can’t say it was the biggest surprise of the Cup cause he was already having a great first season as pro with Bayern Munich. But was for sure the youngster of the tourney. Germany was really missing his plays in their key match and that was probably the reason they are not the champions right now. Great passing and finishing, plays with no fear and seems to have the experience of a veteran when on the field. Marvelous player and probably a big hit for Brazil 2014.
	Andrés Iniesta – Spain The blessed one. Like it happened last year when Barcelona when through with his shot in last minute, he was the saviour once again and took Spain to the title when all expected already the penalties shooting lottery. At the moment, he is playing some awesome football even tho he wasn’t being decisive as most of us wanted to see in the Cup. There should be more to come next season from his side.
	Diego Forlán – Uruguay A name I always despised, but proved me wrong the whole season and to put a cherry on the top of the cake, became the best player of the tourney, named by FIFA. Scored every possible goal this season, against the weakest and the strongest opponents. Took Atletico Madrid to the top of Europa League and Uruguay to an unforgettable fourth place. Shoothing hard with both legs and great vision of play, he is now mature enough to become one of the greatest players of his country’s history.

I could also mention a few other players like Podolski, Oezil, Lucio, Dempsey among others, but they failed at key points of the tournament and that’s way I couldn’t say more about them. So many big names failed to deliver quality this time, like Ronaldo, Rooney, Messi (not a surprise) and Kaká. But all is over now and nothing else can be done.

Congratulations Spain! See you in Brazil 2014!

*photos by FIFA.

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Hello! Thought that it would be nice to make an analysis of how both Spain and Netherlands got to this surprising final. Will try to point as well weakness of both teams, key players and their opponents strength. So, let’s roll!

Group Stage
Theoretically, the Dutch group was supposed to be far more difficult than the Spanish one but it proved to be as weak as the other. With Denmark, Japan and Cameroon, it was expected that this group had exciting matches and both qualifiers would be unpredictable. What it was showed instead, was a lost Denmark, a good Japan and a messy Cameroon. None was a real threat to the Dutch.

Meanwhile, in Spain’s group, with only Chile being a real menace, they managed to lose to the Swiss, in a match that 1×0 could be 3×0. Then they had a walk over against Honduras (how is this team playing a WC?) and finally, a LOT of luck and ref’s help to beat a strong Chilean side.

Last 16
Holland played a much less willing Slovakia and passed with no problems, as Robben had his acting working well already. Spain got extremely lucky, in a match they held possession but Portugal shot more dangerous balls to the goal.

Quarters
Spain plays Paraguay and again, with the luck that football Gods sent them this year, they were able to go through. The Dutch passed through Brazil, in a match where they managed to shot once and score twice. At this point, Robben already deserved his award as tourney’s best actor and refs buying it.

Semis
And Spain wasn’t done with the luck part (still believe they take the final because of it). They played the best team of the tourney, in their worst match and without a key player, Thomas Mueller. Any other day, the result would be different, but not on this one. In the other side of the table, Uruguay played a good match, but the ones with luck and ref by them went through again. And so we have a final!

Key Players
Can’t find a key player on the Dutch side. They’re all regular and have amazing weakness. Maybe their biggest strength is the team play, which is quite good. Will take as best player Mr. Sneijder, since he has been scoring and playing fairly well. I’m a big fan of his football, but he fits far better on Inter’s team for example.

On Spain’s side, I’d take Iniesta which is playing some exquisite football. Besides him, if you take Xavi, Villa and Piqué, this team is worse than Cameroon or something like that.

Well, that’s it for now. Will take some time tomorrow and write about the best players of this tournament. Today is final day and let’s just hope it will be good football wise, which I highly doubt. And after that, see you in four years! =)

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