[BluffTHIS!]

D$D,


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Do the current board members deserve to be there?

Your premise is in effect an attempted proxy fight. You think the board sucks. I get that.

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The right question and yep that's my answer.


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But what do you usually need in a proxy fight to win?

You have to show that the current board and management are unfit and its actions have hurt the organization.

Other than expressing your dislike of the current board, or demanding certain people be replacing by your own personal slate or possibly one chosen in this forum, what exactly are you getting at?

You have yet to show any harm to the poker world done by the PPA to date. You might have a mismanagement claim, which I might have supported before the board made the changes it has recently.

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And yes that's the standard for judging, and yes the recent improvements are indeed just that. But doing too little too late, being reactive instead of proactive, and having a board that lacks the type of expertise one would expect with a wide range of releveant experience, not just in *certain* segments of the poker industry, but also in politcs, fundraising and the law (yeah I know one is an attorney), are many reasons for judging this current board unworthy. Add to that, until the Engineer joins, a total lack, let alone a sufficient representation, of the base membership (which could and should include some state directors), the very evident *conflicts of interest* that DOMINATE the current board, and there the membership has all the reason in the world to judge that a serious shakeup, and not just a tweaking, of the current board membership is in order.

Besides the members of the actual board, the PPA should have various advisory panels on various topics. And they could easily use their forums with private such ones to facilitate getting such needed advice. There are many industry and politics insiders who post here who can't publicly be affiliated with the PPA, but would be willing to provide valuable advice and counsel in a private setting, *if the PPA asked them to*.


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Where is the damage? What would your dream board do differently or what would you have them do differently, that is much different than is currently underway?

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The damage is that the recent changes took far too long and fall far too short of what is needed. The PPA should have been addressing the broader range of goals that the majority of members have, like B&M poker, intra-state online poker, neutering the regs, and especially, being proactive in fighting on the judicial front as opportunities presented itself instead of just focusing on legislation. This doesn't mean of course that at any current moment some goals don't deserve more focus than others, in this case being the pending legislation. But it does mean that at least minimal efforts needed to be made to lay the groundwork for other goals, *all of which would work together with a synergistic effect*.

Also, even though none of us think the PPA some type of scam, it also has done too little in the way of financial and operational transparency. They finally last year after much criticism here posted the previous year's financials. But where is last year's now that this one is mostly gone? Such transparency should be a required best practice of any such organization.



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You act like there was a secret conspiracy to keep certain poker interests off the board. Do you have any proof of this?

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Well let's see. Do you see any members who are average poker players, but with needed expertise in the law, politics or fundraising? No is the answer. Do you see any representatives of B&M poker? No is the answer. The plain fact is that the current board precisely represents the vested interests of certain business models in the poker industry, specifically current and former online sites, advertising media dependant on same, and affiliate interests. All of whom have zero interest, as is plain from the PPA's actions (or rather lack thereof), in furthering other forms of poker.


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You act like the interests of certain aspects of the poker industry are being harmed by the PPA; can you point to specific actions?

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They are all actions of omission with one *flagrant and gross* exception. Which was their short lived advertising campaign (until they yanked same after criticism here) that took the party poker line that the UIGEA outlawed all the sites staying in the US market, contrary to the legal interpretations of the privately owned sites, and which was solely a move to harm the business and legal interests of those private sites, in line with the *very bitter* criticisms of same directed at them by Mitch the Bitch Garber, CEO of Party Gaming. Errors of omission can not only be as great, but can be greater than errors of comission.



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Can you show me other than through past mismanagement where the interests of any portion of the poker world was disserved or one portion given special favor over the competing interest of another?

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I have answered this above, but note how casually you dismiss past mismanagement. That is HUGE. Too little too late won't cut the mustard.



And here's a different and very good way to look at things. If the board, other than its chairman Sen. D'Amato whom I currently have no problem with (but will if his buddy Fred comes out explicitly against us after he endorsed him), were being picked by all of us here today, what kind of persons would be looking for to fill it? Would we be looking for 4 members who are owners/past owners/writers of one specific poker publication, two of whom are domestic partners and a couple of whom are also invested heavily in the affiliate business that depends on one certain business model? And then would we round it out with only 3 others who represent various poker sites? Or would we be looking for at most one or two from each of those groups and seeking other non-industry members with better and greater experience in the law, grassroots politics, fundraising and business? If we had such a picture of the "ideal board" and then compared it to the current one, I think most here would find the current one severely lacking.