PPA should disassociate itself from scandal ridden CEO Poker tour

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Greg:

I received an email from Maria Gomez the president of the CEO Poker Tour about 90 minutes after you made your post. In it she indicates that tomorrow (7/19/07) the PPA will issue a statement that will address these concerns and

[ QUOTE ]
will hopefully help turn a new page for CEO POKER TOUR, where players regain trust in our company.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let you and others comment as to what this might mean.

Best wishes,
Mason

[DoubleDealDecker]

I certainly trust them. As much as I trust the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

[doublejoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi all,

I am a board member of the PPA. I really didn't know anything about the CEO poker tour before I read the thread here on 2+2 about the fiasco at the Venetian a couple of weeks ago. I was also unaware until I read this thread today that the PPA was working with the CEO Poker Tour in any way. After reading this thread earlier today, I emailed Michael Bolcerek and the rest of the PPA Board, and provided them with links to both threads. I stated that we needed to look into this quickly, and if the negative facts about the CEO Poker Tour were accurate, that we should quickly disassociate ourselves from the CEO Poker Tour.

We are now investigating the situation. If the CEO Poker Tour really did take the huge vig in the Venetian tournament, and did so without adequately informing the consumer, then the PPA will sever all ties. Or, at least, that is the way I'm going to vote as a member of the board.

Responding to other random comments. Yes, the PPA really does have 100s of thousands of members, and we're hoping to reach 1 million members this year. And we are not impotent, as we do have some great lobbyists who are spending time and money getting members of Congress to see our position, and to enact laws that will help poker players everywhere. The more all of you support the PPA, financially and otherwise, the sooner we will be able to remove the burden of the UIGEA, as well as get other things done to benefit poker.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[/ QUOTE ]

Greg, thanks for taaking the initiative in this. You are one of the most respected players in the industry, and I'm sure you will do what is in the best interest of the players....

[Cornell Fiji]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Greg:

I received an email from Maria Gomez the president of the CEO Poker Tour about 90 minutes after you made your post. In it she indicates that tomorrow (7/19/07) the PPA will issue a statement that will address these concerns and

[ QUOTE ]
will hopefully help turn a new page for CEO POKER TOUR, where players regain trust in our company.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let you and others comment as to what this might mean.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]


Greg,
I implore you that, unless Maria returns the money from the hidden vig to all players who have played in their over raked events, that the PPA takes a stand and disassociates with with CEO Poker Tour.

The CEO Poker Tour's acts have been outright shameful. They stole money from the prize pools and then Maria came on these forums and tried to wave her hands and hope that she could make the issue go away. When that did not work she falsified documents and continued to mislead our community.

I do not care if in the future the tour does not steal money from the prize pool with the use of fine print or invisible ink. They have been in existence for 1 year and have already begun cheating players.

Unless they refund every single ill gotten dollar (that is to say every dollar that was taken from the prizepool beyond the 3% payment to dealers and staff that has become standard) to the players whom they cheated they should not be forgiven. If your organization continues to associate with them after a hand in the cookie jar apology then it would be evidence that we should not have faith in the PPA.

Thank you for your continued presence and activism in these issues that we find important.

All the best,
Steve

[doublejoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hi Greg:

I received an email from Maria Gomez the president of the CEO Poker Tour about 90 minutes after you made your post. In it she indicates that tomorrow (7/19/07) the PPA will issue a statement that will address these concerns and

[ QUOTE ]
will hopefully help turn a new page for CEO POKER TOUR, where players regain trust in our company.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let you and others comment as to what this might mean.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]


Greg,
I implore you that, unless Maria returns the money from the hidden vig to all players who have played in their over raked events, that the PPA takes a stand and disassociates with with CEO Poker Tour.

The CEO Poker Tour's acts have been outright shameful. They stole money from the prize pools and then Maria came on these forums and tried to wave her hands and hope that she could make the issue go away. When that did not work she falsified documents and continued to mislead our community.

I do not care if in the future the tour does not steal money from the prize pool with the use of fine print or invisible ink. They have been in existence for 1 year and have already begun cheating players.

Unless they refund every single ill gotten dollar (that is to say every dollar that was taken from the prizepool beyond the 3% payment to dealers and staff that has become standard) to the players whom they cheated they should not be forgiven. If your organization continues to associate with them after a hand in the cookie jar apology then it would be evidence that we should not have faith in the PPA.

Thank you for your continued presence and activism in these issues that we find important.

All the best,
Steve

[/ QUOTE ]

When is this statement from Maria expected today?

[GaryTheGoat]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hi Greg:

I received an email from Maria Gomez the president of the CEO Poker Tour about 90 minutes after you made your post. In it she indicates that tomorrow (7/19/07) the PPA will issue a statement that will address these concerns and

[ QUOTE ]
will hopefully help turn a new page for CEO POKER TOUR, where players regain trust in our company.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let you and others comment as to what this might mean.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]


Greg,
I implore you that, unless Maria returns the money from the hidden vig to all players who have played in their over raked events, that the PPA takes a stand and disassociates with with CEO Poker Tour.

The CEO Poker Tour's acts have been outright shameful. They stole money from the prize pools and then Maria came on these forums and tried to wave her hands and hope that she could make the issue go away. When that did not work she falsified documents and continued to mislead our community.

I do not care if in the future the tour does not steal money from the prize pool with the use of fine print or invisible ink. They have been in existence for 1 year and have already begun cheating players.

Unless they refund every single ill gotten dollar (that is to say every dollar that was taken from the prizepool beyond the 3% payment to dealers and staff that has become standard ) to the players whom they cheated they should not be forgiven. If your organization continues to associate with them after a hand in the cookie jar apology then it would be evidence that we should not have faith in the PPA.

Thank you for your continued presence and activism in these issues that we find important.

All the best,
Steve

[/ QUOTE ]


Great. Now I know that the "industry standard" of the house raping the poker boom has more than started down a "slippery slope". What's next? House charging $2 for a banana!

If pros and CEOs can be "duped" like this, what chance does the necessary fish have? The fish, as always, will only notice when s/he runs out of money, but the money won't be with the pros. It'll be with the house.

Thanks Bobby "We make money on EVERYTHING" Baldwin.

Edit: I guess "tierd"/"name" pros will have money, but it won't be from playing poker. It will be from endorsements, sponsorships, commercials, etc. I guess that's why the player advisory boards, PPA, etc. don't care about the blatant rape of the game itself.

[doublejoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Greg:

I received an email from Maria Gomez the president of the CEO Poker Tour about 90 minutes after you made your post. In it she indicates that tomorrow (7/19/07) the PPA will issue a statement that will address these concerns and

[ QUOTE ]
will hopefully help turn a new page for CEO POKER TOUR, where players regain trust in our company.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let you and others comment as to what this might mean.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Still waiting....

[ceopoker1]

CEO POKER STATEMENT
JULY 19, 2007

I wanted to make an official statement regarding the postings on CEO POKER TOUR at the Venetian that have been made on the Two Plus Two forum this last week.

First, let me say that we regret that some of the elements of our tournament have caused such distrust in the CEO POKER TOUR. It was never our intention when we held the tournament at the Venetian Casino with our structure and charity element that we would upset the players. This was the result of inexperience, not malice.

The forum postings, talks with the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), and World Poker Association (WPA) to discuss their concerns and suggestions, as well as, player emails we have received, have also made us realize that there are elements of our tournament that we need to change for the benefit of the player and the game.

Please know that we are sincere in our attempt to address and rectify those elements of the tournament that forum members and others have brought to our attention. After speaking to the WPA, we want players to know that we intend to support the WPA professional standards, and want to abide by WPA rules and regulations. To this end, we are addressing player concerns, concessions to players, as well as, changes in CEO POKER mission and policies going forward in this statement.

Many on the forum have suggested that we updated the structure sheet after the event of July 2-10, but I can assure you that the structure sheet was last updated on June 28th, before the event, and after we realized that satellites were not going to be able to be conducted during the tournament week because we would be limited by table space. At that time, we updated the structure sheet and deleted the satellite dates and times, as well as placing more detailed information about the charity connection because we wanted to make it clear to those that decided to register for the main event that there was a charity component. That said, we recognize that we could have done even more to make sure that it was extremely clear to all players that there was a charity component at the main event.

There have also been concerns over the amount of the rake that was on the structure sheet that was downloaded and posted on the site. We do acknowledge and assure players, that even though we did post the rake on the online structure sheet, that the rake was printed for 11 days on the printed materials at the event, and that it was approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission, in the future, the rake for any CEO POKER TOUR event will be lowered to a percentage between 3-5%, the norm in the poker industry. At no time will there ever be a higher rake charged for any tournament, for any reason. The CEO POKER company acknowledges that keeping the rake and registration fee to industry standards is necessary and for the good of the player and game.

The guarantee that the rake will also be low for every event we coordinate will not affect the chip stacks or tournament rounds. We will continue to provide minimum $10,000 or more chips for the $500 buy-in, $10,000 or more chips for the $1,000 buy-in, and $15,000 or more chips for the $2,500 buy-in, with rounds of 40-60 minutes, and the same amount of trophies and bracelets. This structure was welcomed by players.

Regarding the charity component of the event, CEO POKER TOUR connected with the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation earlier this year. No one questions the legitimacy of the charity, who has helped many Nevada families. However, many have raised the issue of the percentage going to the charity coming from the prize pool. The percentage to the charity was disclosed in the structure sheets during the 11 day event, as well as various places on the website, but the additional percentage that was taken out of the prize pool to pay the charity turned a positive into a negative, which was never our intention. We also agree that the charity component could have and should have been done in a better way not to affect the prize pool.

In the future, CEO Poker is making a commitment to support charities directly through the company, and never as a percentage of the buy-in/prize pool for the tournament. This is a promise that CEO POKER as a company is making to the players, the WPA, and the PPA.

We understand that at this point trust in CEO POKER is an issue for many of you but I sincerely want you to know that we will be making substantial efforts going forward to prevent these issues from ever happening again at any of our events and we are backing this promise with action.

We will contact the Venetian Casino and request a list of all (234) $2,500 main event players and mail them a $100 refund check from CEO POKER TOUR with a letter explaining in detail the reason for the refund. We will send this letter to the WPA for review before mailing the checks.

We have invited a WPA representative, at our expense, to attend all CEO POKER EVENTS in order to assure players that their rights are being considered and concerns addressed on the casino floor at all times. An objective individual, with no direct connection to CEO POKER, in order to ensure that player’s needs are being taken into consideration during the events.

We also would welcome and invite a few members from the forum to directly participate on a newly established CEO POKER Board, to assure that going forward all that we have promised is done and that we continue to improve all the elements of our tournaments for the benefit of the players. Board members would have access to all player materials, marketing pieces, and structure sheets prior to events. Board members would also have direct input into tournament elements.

As we stated to the WPA and PPA, we are serious about making changes to the company that will earn back the trust of the forum and players.

Many of you do not know me personally, and others are judging me based on personal comments made about me through out the forum. I understand that is the way of a forum, and I would never want to stifle free press, however, I do want to address at least one of the comments.

Many have mentioned that I have another site that encourages those that have lost land in Cuba to reclaim it, as if I where scamming people in some way. Please know that I was born in Miami, Florida from Cuban immigrants who came to the US in the 60's after their land was stripped from them by Castro. My father was forced to move his family to Miami, Florida, when Castro’s soldiers met him at his front door step and told him to get out of his property because it was now owned by the government. My partner’s family faced the same situation when his family business was taken away by Castro’s regime. This is not an unfamiliar story for children of Cuban immigrants and it was the reason I created the portal StateofCuba.com.

The portal was opened to give Cuban Americans the ability to reclaim their land, so if and when there was a change in the Cuban government, the list of individuals that posted, with the details of their claims, would be handed over to the Justice Dept. and the new government of Cuba. There is no charge for this, it is clear, on the site. The Justice Dept currently has a list of companies that want to reclaim land in Cuba, that include names from Palmolive, to Bacardi, but not many individuals even understand that they can try and reclaim land in Cuba. Those that have not experienced having their property simply taken from them by force can not understand the premise of the site. The site is a personal project that is important to my family, partner, and me.

Regardless of the personal comments, I want to make sure that all who read this statement understand my commitment to see CEO POKER TOUR take a course of holding tournaments that maintain low dealer and staff rakes and registrations, and that at no time will add any additional fee for a charity or otherwise, as part of the prize pool.

I ask you to read this statement and give CEO POKER an opportunity to make good on the promises that we have made to address your concerns and coordinate tournaments with WPA involvement that you can be proud to play in.

As a new tournament company on the poker scene, with not enough years under our belts, we acknowledge that there were elements of the event that we could have done better. We want players to know that we understand that players had concerns and we are doing our best to address and learn from them, as we work with the WPA going forward to assure the poker community is satisfied with the outcome.

Believe me that I have read all your posts and understand your concerns. We can and will do better, all we ask is for an opportunity to improve and make the changes I have outlined in this statement.

I do want to thank the WPA and PPA, who have been extremely helpful and have worked on behalf of the players regarding this tournament issue. We also want to acknowledge and thank the Two Plus Two website, that provides poker players the opportunity to voice their concerns and be heard, while being a part of real change.



Regards
Maria Gomez
President
CEO POKER TOUR

[Emperor]

Maria,

I feel that you are probably going to get some harsh followups, and I wanted to interject that in my opinion you have made significant effort to clear the air and make things right. I'm not sure if it will be good enough, but in this one response you have done more than most. Including the PPA.

I wish you continued success.

[Dranoel]

Maria,

I too think that your posting is a big step in the right direction.

Hopefully the dialog that will follow will be civil & will go a long way to make ensure that the CEO Poker Tour will succeed.

I wish you well.