After a very busy week at work and almost 54 hrs of overtime,I sat down yesterday and started to read the forums and the clips posted regarding the Absolute Poker debacle that is still continuing.

I have told all my readers in past blogs I believe in my friends. They are my friends because I pick and chose them carefully and I will support them to the very end. I know most of you would do the same thing for a friend,so you understand where I am coming from regarding friendship.

We in America are blessed at times to have the Bill Of Rights assisting us and protecting us in our lives.Sometimes the interpretation of some of our rights are put to the test,but all in all, we have the freedom given to us by our forefathers that some countries do not and will not ever have.

Freedom of Speech, a remarkable gift to the American People. However as most good things in life it is often abused by some and misinterpreted by others.

As I sit here and read these forums I am just as anxious as everyone else to see the final report and who is to blame for the worse event ever to hit the Poker community.. “The Scandal” as some are labeling it,as well they should.

I watched my good friend’s video statement yesterday on Raw Vegas TV. As I stated in previous posts I spoke to Mark and he assured me he had no knowledge of any wrong doings going on at Absolute Poker and I whole heartedly believe him.

I have met DanDruff through some mutual acquaintances and he is a very respected player,has a very wonderful girlfriend who I know better than him,through acquaintances and is well liked in his circle of friends.

We all have reputations,some good,some bad and some just down right deplorable! I for one know how important reputations are because every time I go to work or step into the courtroom your reputation as a good cop comes into play all the time. After 20 years of doing my job you can be looked at as a disgrace to the job or a solid individual with integrity and respect. As of now, I am the latter and have fortunately never had to defend what I have accomplished or done in the Law Enforcement community. Word of mouth, just like in any job,or as in Poker, is in the Law Enforcement Community as well.

I thought Mark’s interview was good. I didn’t read between the lines of what Mark was saying. I have not spoke to him since it posted, but I believe he was just telling his fans in a Video Blog instead of writing his thoughts on what has happened. His friends and fans could see him instead of trying to visualize him as they were reading his words. For those of us who know Mark,I am sure they will agree with me. There was nothing unusual about Mark at all in this Video.

If people were hoping this video was a place for Mark to announce his severance from Absolute Poker and are upset because he didn’t,they have the right to speak about it because it’s their right.

Sure Mark is a representative of Absolute Poker and I am sure he has forged some friendships there. Everyone at one point believed Mark was a part owner in the Company and therefore attacked him viciously.As we found out recently he is not a part owner.

My thoughts on this……Higher ups in Absolute Poker probably had some secret meeting and said to one another,”listen guys we are a multi million dollar a day company,yeah we like Mark Seif, he’s an all right guy. But look at what everyone is saying. lets just sit back and let Mark take the heat for us as we feed him some more bullshit”.

Far fetched,maybe but it is possible a meeting like this could of happened after all its my freedom of speech to say this.

I also believe that DanDruff has the right to speak his mind also! For Pokers sake, I just wish it was not so out in the open. Poker is under a big microscope right now. We all have to ban together as Poker players to keep the integrity of the game intact. There is enough negative publicity on the Poker World today and I do not want to see the game we all love fade away.

I am not a big fan of playing online, I have not had a lot of success and it really frustrates me how the game is so different then at the B&M casinos.My specialty is being able to look the person up and down before making tough calls. Even though I have seen some crazy play live,it does not compare to what I have seen on line. I do not know how people continually win BIG money in online tourneys.

I would most definitely defend my honor if it ever came into question, if I was accused of something I did not do. The truly good people in this world have worked hard to become the quality people they are today. Sometimes when we are in the spotlight we must make public statements. Others not so important in the world do not have the availibilty to go on a national webcast and voice how they feel. Others do not need to.

I am a cop and proud of it. I have seen and been involved in things that no one should ever in their life have to see. But I took an oath and am Proud to wear the badge. This is why I want to see justice over this Absolute Poker scandal. The culprits must go to jail behind this, but I am not sure what jurisdiction has control over the Thief(s). This is where the focus has to be right now, as well as all of those scammed getting their money back with intrest, which seems to be happening.

Could this ever happen again at another site, I truly believe it can and will.There are to many intelligent people out there trying to make a buck. Years ago someone figured out how to pick up your cell phone signal off of the repeater and clone your phone. Someone made a machine to duplicate your magnetic stripe on your credit card and start charging. People have hacked into national security computers as well as banks and stolen valuable information. So could this happen to online Poker at Full Tilt and Pokerstars as mark stated. I agree!!!!! it can,but hopefully for Poker players and the future of Poker it never will,but people are smart and if theres a will, theres a way.

Take Care all….

Hey guys, going to make this quick, because its been a long day, my brain is fried and I’m damn tired. That said, I just watched the press conferrence given by Dana White and his partners in the UFC regarding their problems with now-former star Randy Couture. You can see it over at ufc.com.

The thing that struck me while watching this (other than the fact that White and co. are brilliant guys) was how similar this all felt to the lawsuit filed by Annie Duke, Greg Raymer, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, Joe Hachem, Chris Ferguson and Howard lederer against the WPT. Like trhe UFC, the WPT had a major hand in helping its game grow, like the WPT, the UFC took their fighters from making peanuts to millions and like the WPT, once they got there, the fighters wanted more. Not that I blame them.

There’s a lot of money floating around with these pop-cultural phenomenons, and granted, the companies that give them their initial boosts are the ones taking the risks and are therefore deserving of their rewards, but at the same time, I could never blame the players (or fighters) for grabbing as big piece of the pie as is humanly possible. That’s just supply and demand.

Thing is, White and co. have handled it better than the WPT. They saw a problem and met it head on, making their math public for the world to see in order to prove some of Couture’s statements erroneous (I’m assuming there was a basis to what White and co. were saying. of course, if not, someone will report it soon enough). In doing so, they re-established their credability with the observer.

The WPT lawsuit is still pending. It’s been stuck court for around 18 months now and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, unless you count thre WPT’s downgrade to GSN as a sign of its personal apocalypse, which would just be a bad thing for the game. Still, you have to think it would have been better for all involved if the WPT had come out and stated the facts if they were on the irght side of the discussion, or made the neccessary concessions if they were in the wrong (i still don’t know which it is) it would have been best for everyone; the stars of the game would have been playing on TV, and the culture of the game would have been maintained.

kudos to the UFC for taking steps in that direction. or maybe I’ve just been fooled with the masses.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

This might sound dumb to some of you, but I just achieved one of my proudest accomplishments. I am a big fan of 6 max nl hold’em sit-n-goes and have been pretty successful at them. When I play them, I normally play two at once just to keep me busy. Well, tonight right as I started my first one, my head just about smoked the top of my desk. Every drop of energy was suddenly sucked out of my body. Despite this, I kept tradition in signing up for a second one, which was probably a really foolish move.

Nothing big ever happened to me in either of them. No big hands and whenever I got a good starting hand I got zero action. Regardless, I found myself in the final three of both as the low-stack. I basically just hung around even on both and got to heads up as a decent underdog on both. I consider just getting to heads-up in my current fatigued state amazing. With the dead cards I was getting I easily could’ve pushed and either doubled up or lose and go rest.

The first heads-up battle I entered I believe I started with a whole 800 chips, which means my opponent had 8,200. I clawed my way to even only to fall back down to maybe 1,800 chips. This process then repeated once. I broke to even one more time and got my opponent to double me up when I had him crushed. A min raise to move him/her all-in on the next hand and I achieved a hard fought victory with my tank nearly on empty.

At this point I got heads-up on my second table after the other two kept gambling with each other while I was low. I chipped-up slightly and picked up a couple ladies and made a standard raise. My eyes widened when I saw that I was re-raised all-in. I insta-called and was up against A3 off for the chance to take roughly a 2:1 chip lead. An ugly ace came on the flop and I was done.

Despite the second place, I was still proud that I was able to sit back patiently and battle it out despite the sudden and drastic fatigue I encountered. Now, if you fine people don’t mind, I am going to go relax.

Today was supposed to be the day I finished the Absolute Poker article. Thing is, I just didn’t have it today.

Every time I looked at the screen, my instinct was to look anywhere else. I got around 1,000 words done, but that wasn’t nearly what I needed to get the whole thing completed. Even writing this now is tough to do. I’m just feeling distracted.

The article is due to go up Thursday, which means I really want to get it done tomorrow in order to get the principals a look at it for proofreading purposes. I’m not so much worried about the flavor as I am the facts. I want to make sure nothing’s left out or innaccurate, and in a 6,000-some word article, that’s a lot of fact-checking. i don’t usually have my subjects read over my work before it’s posted or published, but this feels like a special case. I want to do justice to these guys who have worked so hard and so selflesslhy in the name of keeping online poker clean.

i got the answers to my Absolute questions back along with notification of the assorted public statements Absolute has made (most many days after I’d first seen them) i think Absolute is going to be surprised at how much I know about the story when they see the piece, even though I can’t publish everything I know. ESPN’s journalistic standards require hard sources for everything I publish; that means the things I’ve been told off the record can’t go into the piece, and I’m not going to risk lawsuit by publishing them here.

See? This blog is rambling and disjointed, with no real direction. I’d better be in a better way tomorrow; I’ve got some very serious writing to do. I’m going to bed early to get a good jump start. I hope everyone’s having a good night.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

The research for my AP story is finally almost done. I’ve done interviews with Nat Arem, Serhe ‘adanthar’ Ravitch, Mark Seif and a host of others and now I’m only waiting on one more thing before all of my data is collected.

That one thing is some answers from Absolute. espn.com/poker editor Andrew Feldman finally managed to get them to agree to answering some questions on my behalf. After sending me out a three-day old press release, I informed them i had some more in-depth questions to ask. here’s what i sent them;

- At present, who is in control of Absolute Poker?

- Will more transparency be made available regarding the company’s managerial structure in the future given the recent developments?

- There have been a number of contradictions in the various public statements made by Absolute Poker, ranging from claims that there was no cheating on October 12th to a rogue “geek” looking to prove a point in the October 19th MSNBC article to the more recent admissions of wrongdoing. Why have those contradictions occurred?

- With the evidence produced by the online community, why has Absolute taken so long to come forward with full disclosure of the facts of this story?

- Absolute had begun compensating players who sat with the suspended accounts. What range of dates will the compensation be made for?

- Has AJ Green signed any kind of confidentiality agreement ensuring he will not be prosecuted by AP?

- For how long will Scott Tom be removed from his post?

- One statement issued by AP suggested Scott Tom has not been involved with the company in over a year, insisting he’s been living in Panama throughout the duration. Yet, he was reported to have been involved with a plane crash in Coast Rica this past September 4. Additionally, multiple sources have confirmed he’s been working out of AP offices in the past year. Why the discrepancy?

- Recent reports on points-spreads.com have suggested the indiscretions by the ousted parties have gone on as long as three years for as much as seven million dollars. How does AP respond to these allegations?

- How much money was taken by the perpetrators all told?

- In looking to clear his name after being accused of having access to a super-user account, Mark Seif promised hand histories would be made available before it became apparent that AP doesn’t keep hand histories beyond two months. Kahnagawe Gaming Commission rule #245 states that all hand histories must be kept for five years. Why were these hand histories not kept? (This question is slightly modified from the original)

- What are Absolute Poker’s prospects for the future?

I’ll be curious to hear their answers. I told them I needed them by tomorrow night.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

I was really looking forward to Gary’s interview this week with Joe Sebok. Joe is one of the people who was pretty instrumental in getting me introduced to many in the Poker World,which helped me get my Charity Event off the ground.

It has been a very long week here in Southern California and although Los Angeles County had its share of disastrous fires,it has no where near been as devastating as San Diego County.

I spent the day with my girls yesterday,all day. They love going in the truck with me even if I am just going to the corner store to buy a lottery ticket or to the gas station. We had a full day and when my wife got home she really wanted to go to the local Indian casino,San Manuel,and play the slots with some of her co-workers and she asked me to have dinner with them. There is a great buffet there,so I told her I would go. My oldest daughter who is living with us while her new husband serves another tour in Iraq took her sisters to Macdondalds so they were happy to go with her.

I sat down at a $4.00/$8.00 table with a $100.00,one rack of dollar chips. Here in California this game is like a 4cent/8cent game, the way people chase, but I have been itching to play some poker, so I headed over to the Poker room only to find out there was a small crowd. Annie Duke was in town and they were playing a free roll in the Main Ballroom and most of the people were upstairs getting a glimpse of Annie and some of the other celebrities who joined her.

I had read an article that was written by the chief editor of Bluff Magazine,Matthew Parvis. It is “THE” best poker article I have ever read and I am thinking about having it framed and hanging it on my wall, so I can read it or tap it with my hand before going to play at a tourney. Just like the athletes who hit their favorite item in the locker room before a big game.

Matthew,thank you for such a fine article!!!

When people ask me why I do what I do,and why I love Poker,it’s a tough question to answer.Poker is a way of life. It is something so ingrained in us that it is impossible to describe to someone who doesn’t have those same feelings. Poker is funny that way;you either have it,or you don’t.There is no in-between.Of course,you can somewhat enjoy the game,but if that’s the case,you don’t really get what makes Poker so special to those of us that love it. What is it that makes the game so special? “PASSION”. Only those with a real passion for the game can truly understand it. Sure, there are people out there who say they were born to play poker,but we all know it takes a lot more than that to succeed. It takes grit,determination,skill,heart and a whole lot of tears. True poker players have dedicated their lives to the game. Every bit of literature on the game is read, every hand played is analyzed and the agony of every bad beat lingers with us into the wee hours of the morning. Of course, there is a table full of new opponents to beat each day, but the real battle occurs within our heads. It is the drive to constantly overcome our own obstacles that keep us playing this wonderful game.

I really related to this article for a couple of reasons. Before I won my first big tournament in Las Vegas last December, My wife told me “Either you have it,or you don’t”. I found this to be very ironic that I was reading the exact words she had told me. Also I have read and watched almost everything related to poker and the re-runs of poker on TV are getting to be monotnis and even my girls say “DAD” we have seen this one too many times! I think about how I played every hand when I go to sleep and I dream of flopping quads and hitting the Royal Flush in a big pot all the time. I have endured some terrible bad beats this year on the river, just as J.C. Tran has and I tell myself if J.C. keeps coming back stronger every tournament I can do the same thing. I am not putting myself in the category of J.C. I am only relating to the bad beats we both have taken.

It is a drive to over come my own obstacles and keep playing. I have been so very competitive my whole life in sports and poker has taught me so much patience its amazing.

So yes Jennifer,Jasmine,Mia and Bianca daddy is tired of watching the re-runs also,but that’s all that is available to us right now. The new season of the WPT has yet to broadcast on GSN and ESPN is not filming any other events now except the WSOP. Whats a poker junky to do? I even watched rounders with the girls this morning for about the 50th time.

So I played for about 3 hours and walked away with $480.00. That is pretty amazing for a 4/8 game. But then again the way people chase in that game it was not that remarkable. I hit a lot of straights and flushes last night and made a couple of good reads on some drunk kid who sat down.

Thanks to my new quote I will read every day from Matthew, my confidence and attitude has been renewed. I was going to tell my wife how well I did when she approached me before leaving the casino,but she was very excited. She hit a 5K jackpot on a dollar slot…So instead I taxed her 300.00 for coming with her and her friends and today she is buying lunch……I am going to give her the money back at lunch…lol….Take care all and have a great day.

last night’s show was middle of the road as far as I’m concerned.

Joe Sebok is always going to be a fantastic guest on radio; he’s smart, quick and well versed in the art of conversation. Tuan Lam was obviously new to the the process, but that wasn’t as much of a problem as my running out of things to ask him, which was inevitable considering he was a last minute replacement for Victor Ramdin.

Thing is, i really can’t complain about Victor’s absence. He was one of the professional players in Washington lobbying for regulation, an idea that’s more important now than ever in light of the Absolute Poker superuser scnadal. Poker players need to be protected by their governments from potential predators, and Regulation is the best way to do that.

Speaking of Absolute, my data mostly collected, I started writing the ESPN article today, and let me tell you, it’s going to be a doozy. I’m 2500 words in and its still feeling like the tip of the iceberg. i could see the final product being anywhere from 5,000-8,000 words. i just hope they give it a spot on the front page; it’s an important story and I’m proud of the work I’m doing and the word it could potentially spread.

It’s 3AM and I still have to write up some hands, so I’m going to finish this off now. Hope everyone enjoyed the show; we’ll have more good stuff after we come back from Halloween break. Later,

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

I would like to start out today by wishing everyone the best! I also would like to sum up the Absolute Poker fiasco with just a couple of words.

Those guys who did the investigation and showed us all what really happened should get a “PULITZER” for outstanding journalism and investigative reporting. I saw a post earlier this morning that said this investigation could lead to around 7 million dollars in FRAUD. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!

This would make alot more sense to me then the winning of a tournament for the 200k or so. I truly hope Absolute lets all of us know the truth.

They would be very naive not to think these guys who broke the story will let it die as it is now. Again fellas, Congratulations on an OUTSTANDING investigation.

Well as most of you have seen or heard Southern California is having one hell of an October again. I spent 22 hours yetserday fighting fires and eveacuating people from their homes.It was an exhausting day and those pilots who fly the helicopters and planes dropping water and fire retardant on the fires are now my new Heroes. I saw some amazing flying in winds of 80mph or More yeasterday.

We here in the LA area are really very fortunate compared to the people in the San Diego area where 500 homes were lost. We only had 12 homes burn down in about 10 minutes yesterday and these homes were each around 2,500 square feet and the fire just was wind whipped like a blow torch.

I have just been accepted into a poker crew. I am really looking forward to playing with this crew. It is made up of people from all walks of life and was started by an LAPD officer who I met last year at my charity event.

It is by invitation only and is made up of about 26 very solid poker players. They will be having all the great things poker crews do and will be sending players to big events here in the southland and also to next years WSOP. I will be writing about my adventures with the crew here as the first tournament for me is this coming Friday. Xterminators Poker Crew,thank you for allowing me to become a part of something soon to be great.

The Hollywood Park Poker scene has the $500.00 NL holdem event tonite. Other than the first event the crowds have been small and I do not know how many people attended the Seminar they had at Hollywood Park this weekend. The regular guys I play with all told me they were not going to pay $180.00 a day to listen to the speakers which included Jeffrey Pollack the Commish from the WSOP.

I am on standby today incase the fires in LA County kick up again. Here where I live the winds are still blowing very hard and all of the hard work my kids did in decorating the yard for halloween is now somewhere being blown over the pacific ocean towards Hawaii. I just cannot say I didn’t here the phone ring,so I am not going to go play any satellites today,going to take the twins to micky Ds for lunch and go sign 2 of them up for soccer.

Congratulations to Joe Sebok for getting his new site launched this weekend and glad to see Scott Huff back talking Poker. Take Care all,Be Safe!!!

Speculation amongst the investigators is that the $7 million and 3 year figures are exaggerations of the truth.

Sorry to be sounding like a broken record, but this Absolute story keeps getting better and better. After having interviewed the three principal ‘investigators’ today, i was pointed to this link:

http://www.point-spreads.com/poker/102207-absolute-poker-super-user-scams-7-million.html

As one poster on 2+2 said, this takes the story ‘from Freakonomics blog to 60 minutes’. An$800K-$1 million theft is a big enough deal, but for this to have been going on for three years to the tune of seven million dollars would be astronomical by any standards. I haven’t been able to get any confirmation of this aspect of the story yet, but while this is shocking in terms of the sheer size of the thing, it’s not a shock if it happened. These guys are some crooked sons of bitches. Guess I sound pretty convinced.

If you have money on Absolute, i urge you to get it out. They’ve started paying people back for tournaments they shared with the super-user accounts, but that was before this news. if they have to pay three years of theft debts,the world’s goign to know, they’ll lose the trust and that could lead to anything including a shut down of the business. between safe and sorry, I’d rather you be safe; get your cash out now, then wait and see how the next few weeks go.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com