PPA should disassociate itself from scandal ridden CEO Poker tour

[diddlysquat]

"Chris Raymer stated in the 2ND thread posted below that he is going to bring the matter up to the rest of the PPA Board Members."

Chris Raymer is my 2nd favorite player in the world. Bill Ivey is the 1st!

[Dranoel]

[ QUOTE ]
"Chris Raymer stated in the 2ND thread posted below that he is going to bring the matter up to the rest of the PPA Board Members."

Chris Raymer is my 2nd favorite player in the world. Bill Ivey is the 1st!

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. My bad. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Greg Raymer.

[rafiki]

LOL @ the nigerian

As an aside, can anyone rate Maria's looks out of 10 ? Because she's got little going for her otherwise, so I'm really hoping she's a solid 8.

[PITTM]

hahahaha. how on earth does someone become the head of a company when they are that stupid? "Wow, i bet no one will notice all the money missing from the prize pool and i will get off just fine...oh [censored] now im worried, better make another account to praise what i say, that will make everything alll better."

so funny.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

[ QUOTE ]
Paging Greg Raymer...

Board Member of the PPA & one of us (minus the ME Bracelet [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

What's the next move in handling the CEO Poker Tour fiasco?

[/ QUOTE ]

I just wrote and email to the Board stating that we need to either help the players who are going after the CEO PT, or we need to walk away from the whole thing (as opposed to our earlier published position of working with the CEO PT).

There is no doubt that helping the players correlates with our goals in the PPA. The internal question for the Board to decide is whether we should expend some of our resources on this issue, or instead spend those resources on something else that we think would be more helpful to the poker community.

I hope you will all understand this should the PPA choose not to actively get involved going forward.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[rafiki]

just an aside, I think Raymer is pretty awesome. Pretty down to earth cool guy.

ps: if you check this IP, you will find it's also Gregs.

pps: not really

[Cornell Fiji]

Greg,
I was just about to make a post saying that I think that it is the PPA's responsibility to help out with the legal costs of bringing the CEO Poker Tour to justice.

Just because Stephen Feraca has the resources to pursue this issue himself does not mean that the burden should be placed on his shoulders.

It would be one thing if you had no relationship with the CEO Poker Tour, in that instance it would behoove you to help go after them as it benefits all of us to get scammers out of the poker industry. It is another thing altogether that your organization had endorsed the CEO Poker Tour. In my mind your endorsement absolutely must be rectified or the word of the PPA will be in question in the future.

Please contact Stephen Feraca directly about supporting his legal siege on the CEO Poker Tour.

Please also post here with who I need to contact within the PPA to make my sentiments known.

Thanks again for being proactive on this issue and for your continued presence on this board.

Steve



PS- Greg your PM box is full.

[JaredL]

Greg,

Something you and the PPA board should think about is that (as far as I know at least) the PPA hasn't apparently done anything apparent and tangible to help poker players. That's not to say that the PPA has been worthless or anything close to that, but if I asked you what the PPA has accomplished, unless I've missed something big, it's going to be something along the lines of "we have lobbied congressmen and convinced a couple that are on the fence that the UIGEA is bad and a couple of our supporters that it's a more important issue than they otherwise would have thought."

If you help the players get their money back in this case it will be some good publicity for the organization and put a lot more weight behind other projects that may be more important to poker players in general such as making online poker legal. If people not in the know read say a newspaper article which mentions the PPA as a lobbying group that won't sound nearly as good as a group that is looking out for poker players and ensuring that the games they play are legit and that they are protected from being scammed. This is especially true since one of the arguments of the people in favor of the UIGEA is that playing online makes it a lot more likely that shady dealings are occurring.

As others have said above, I applaud your actions thus far in this matter. I think you should take the next step for the reasons above.

Jared

[Cornell Fiji]

Here is the press release from the CEO website about their partnership with the PPA. I have put comments that I found interesting in bold:

[ QUOTE ]
CEO Poker Tour Partners with Poker Players Alliance

May 1, 2007 -- The CEO Poker Tour (www.ceopokertour.com), where executives battle for the title of Chairman of Poker, is partnering with the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) (www.pokerplayersalliance.org), which supports poker player rights, by strategically including PPA in the year long poker tour.

The partnership will include a strong presence at every tournament location to include: placement of PPA items and information in CEO Poker gift bags, poker room banner, CEO Poker website insertion with link to PPA website, logo on direct mail pieces, and more.

"We are excited at the possibility of reaching more potential members through our inclusion in the national CEO Poker Tour," says Michael Bolcerek, President of the Poker Players Alliance. "The Poker Players Alliance is committed to defending the rights of poker players, and we search for opportunities, at strategic poker events through out the country, to further our message of protection of the poker game in the US and globally."

PPA's first strategic marketing presence will be at the CEO Poker Tour, at Trump Taj Mahal, May 19-25, where players will battle over the green felt of the poker table with buy-ins from $500-$5000.
"This is the first time that PPA will be included in a poker tournament kit and will mark an important step in furthering the support of thoughtful legislation to protect the game of poker," says William Peraza Jr. CEO of CEO Poker. "We see this as a long term relationship that will only grow over time."

PPA with over 350,000 members and counting is supporting poker player rights in a variety of ways, including partnerships with companies that believe in the importance of protection of the game.

Poker Players Alliance
The Poker Players Alliance is a nonprofit membership organization comprised of poker players and enthusiasts from around the United States who have joined together to speak with one voice to promote the game, ensure its integrity, and, most importantly, to protect poker players' rights

CEO Poker Tour
CEO Poker Tour is an Executive Games company that produces executive games and events, where players network as well as compete for titles, cash and bragging rights. William Peraza, JR., CEO of Executives Games, and Maria Gomez, President of Executive Games, developed the concept of executive entertainment event productions to give players the ability to release stress, have fun and network. Executive Games is the ultimate in player competition.


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It would be a huge black eye to the PPA if they did not front the legal bill for this fight.

It is already a black mark against them that they would endorse a company as suspect as this on and that they have not already offered to pay the costs to bring them to justice

[Emperor]

[ QUOTE ]
Greg,
I was just about to make a post saying that I think that it is the PPA's responsibility to help out with the legal costs of bringing the CEO Poker Tour to justice.

Just because Stephen Feraca has the resources to pursue this issue himself does not mean that the burden should be placed on his shoulders.

It would be one thing if you had no relationship with the CEO Poker Tour, in that instance it would behoove you to help go after them as it benefits all of us to get scammers out of the poker industry. It is another thing altogether that your organization had endorsed the CEO Poker Tour. In my mind your endorsement absolutely must be rectified or the word of the PPA will be in question in the future.

Please contact Stephen Feraca directly about supporting his legal siege on the CEO Poker Tour.

Please also post here with who I need to contact within the PPA to make my sentiments known.

Thanks again for being proactive on this issue and for your continued presence on this board.

Steve

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, this isn't going to happen. The PPA is a lobbying organization for the legalization of poker. Playing mediator or ombudsman or whatever isn't in their bag of resources.

Secondly, they cosponsored these tournies and could be listed as a DEFENDANT (coconspirator?)