[BarryLyndon]

For once, the internet really is serious business [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Look, UCLA, an article isn't going to do a goddamn thing, and while I hate reading stuff from Adanthar or Evg like "my EV will hurt by change and while I think it's wrong, my EV is looking good as we speak, so...," all a widespread read article accomplishes is this:

1. Some editor will think it's great that something "hot" and morally questionable about online poker is published. That will rile up the only debate the mainstream public has about online poker - "Is it rigged?" and "should it be illegal?" The article will gear more general animus against online poker. We don't need that.

2. PokerStars will publish a statement, which will be [censored]. It will say it does what it can to secure things and blah blah blah. What do you think they are going to do? Actually invest MONEY because there is a general animus? They don't care about the general animus - all they care about is EV dwellers like Adanthar and Evg (or the -EV dwellers), who come by the thousands and pump money
into the site by the day. Some are addicts, and some can handle the small degree of variance hurt by cheaters, and none of them really care about an article. And if they don't care about an article, and they are the one's giving pokerstars $$, then pokerstars really isn't going to care that much either.

There was an article a few weeks ago about how some kid was using a new banking system to play online, and the article ended "he has never tried to take money out of the account yet." Now, what was that vapid [censored] bitch implying by that? Well, I think that it's fairly obvious, and it goes to a greater point - whatever you publish about poker in the public will be, by default, looked at even more negatively than it is now by the general public.

What needs to happen, honestly, is Pokerstars needs a shot in the arm. Good internet players, if they have a problem with Pokerstars in particular, need to take their $$ out of the site and start explaining why to the rest of the poker community. The major money pumpers are around each other live month by month at tournaments and are on 2+2 and pfives etc. Something can be done within the community. A windfall needs to happen WITHIN THE POKER COMMUNITY EXCLUSIVELY - people who care about online poker, respect it, and want it at its best possible level.

Get enough people to stop feeding the site both money and positive publicity within the community exclusively, and it will learn it's lesson and take more action (if they can).

And, UCLA, if you can't get enough members of the community to do this, well, then it's not really a problem to the community yet. And that, as unfortunate as it sounds, says something about today's poker community more than it does about Pokerstars.

Barry