[richardamsu]

I have not been involved in anti trust litigation but I have been involved in various commercial litigation actions.
My experience my be atypical but my questions for Greg and the other attorneys are:

Greg - You may be correct in saying that your relationship with Pokerstars is not relevant to the case. But, if you are deposed by the WPT, can't they ask these questions anyway? Maybe the rules are different in Federal Court than State Court, but in State Court they attorneys can ask anything they want. You can choose not to answer or refuse to answer on advice of counsel but you can't force them to abandon that line of questioning until you get to court.

Also - What are the discovery rules? Even if you refuese to answer questions about PS as not relevant, won't all your financial records, including all of your correspondance with PS be discoverable? Not just for you, but for all of your co defendants. Again, you may be correct in that it is not relevant to the narrow question you ask but if I am the WPT, I am going to make sure I understand every nuance of the relationship with the online sites. The potential "exposure" of the details of these relationship is what seems to be most troubling for many in this discussion. I would hate for legitimate business arrangements to be taken out of context to harm poker overall. To not think this could happen is naive.

For the WPT - What is the harm in allowing the players to have some say on how their image is marketed? For example, if a poker chip manufacturer wanted to pay a licesing fee to use Greg's likeness - Why not give Greg the opportunity to 1) Approve the deal with some % coming back to him 2) Veto the deal by paying the WPT the license fee the poker chip manufacturer would pay? 3)Give him some length of time to get a matching/similar offer from a competing chip manufaucturer?

Also, the players are paying a fee to enter these tournaments and getting none of the upside from the images. They are only splitting the prize pool generated by entry fees. I understand the fee they pay does not pay for broadcating equipment, talent, etc.. but it would seem fair to me if you licesne the images obtained during the tournament for anything other than to sell the broadcast (say for a video game), you should at least consider kicking in some of the revenue into the prize pools at WPT events. Then at least the players are potentially earning something for their images.