Chris "Jesus" Ferguson Takes Second Place in WSOP $2,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament

Friday, June 17th, 2005

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) -- Full Tilt Poker's team of professional players have proven once again that poker is a game of skill rather than chance. Playing in a field comprised of more than 200 of the world's best players, two representatives of www.fulltiltpoker.com reached the final table of the World Series of Poker's $2,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (with rebuys) tournament.

Full Tilt Poker's Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (nicknamed for his long hair and angelic appearance) posted a second-place finish, narrowly missing out on adding a sixth World Series of Poker bracelet to his collection. Ferguson's performance earned him $210,460. Ferguson, the 2000 WSOP Main Event winner, went into heads-up play with an almost 3 to 1 chip deficit and battled brilliantly – exchanging the lead with eventual winner Josh Arieh - for nearly two hours before finally succumbing.

"Since 2000, Chris Ferguson has been the most dominant all around player at the World Series of Poker. This result simply adds to that stellar record," said fellow professional and Full Tilt Poker representative Howard Lederer.

Full Tilt Poker representative Erik Seidel also turned in a memorable performance in the tournament, wasting no time in returning to a final table after winning his seventh WSOP bracelet in the $2,000 No-Limit Hold 'em tournament earlier in the week. Seidel finished ninth, banking $23,130 for his efforts.

Ferguson and Seidel represent one of the fastest growing online poker sites, www.fulltiltpoker.com, and spend several hours a week online helping amateur players learn the game by sharing their poker knowledge through real-time chats at the virtual tables. Along with Ferguson and Seidel, 25 other top poker professionals play exclusively at www.fulltiltpoker.com, where they have helped to create the best possible atmosphere for players who want to improve their games.

"Team Full Tilt" is a select group of the world's finest professional poker players, including Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon (co-host, Celebrity Poker Showdown), Clonie Gowen, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman and others. Full Tilt Poker offers players the unique opportunity to play, chat, and learn with the best in the game. The 27 professional players who play at www.fulltiltpoker.com have a total of 37 World Series of Poker bracelets, and are looking to add several more to their collection in the remaining events over the next four weeks.

Investment Bankers say a "fair" value on PartyGaming IPO is $8.85 billion.

Wednesday, June 15th, 2005

Nils Pratley
The Guardian

PartyGaming will today cut the value of its flotation after hitting deep scepticism among London fund managers about the original price tag of up to $10bn (£5.5bn).
City sources say the online poker company will set its value at $8bn to $9.2bn, leaving the final price to be decided after detailed presentations to institutional investors.

Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, the investment bank sponsoring the float, has been stung by fund managers' concentration on doubts about the legality of online gambling in the United States, home of most of the players on PartyGaming's website, Party Poker.

Analysts at ING - a member of banking consortium promoting the float - even failed to justify a $10bn price.

ING put a "fair" value on PartyGaming of $8.85bn and what it said were as many as six "main" categories of risk to investors. These included the standard concern about United States senators' attempts to ban online gambling but extended to worries about increased competition, collusion by online poker players and even the risk of money-laundering through the Party Poker website.

ING also attached a heavy qualification to its estimate: "We caution that valuing such a company is a difficult exercise, given its very high growth profile and the unstable regulatory environment."

Scepticism among fund managers runs deeper. The most scathing analysis was made by a manager who is generally regarded as among the top five most respected in London. As is usual, he did not wish to be identified. He argued that PartyGaming should not even be a candidate for flotation. "I wouldn't touch this float, not even with a very long and disinfected bargepole," he said.

"I have a real problem with investing in a company where 85%-90% of its revenues come from the US, where the legal status of online gambling is vague, or at least open to doubt and interpretation.

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POKER-FACED

Tuesday, June 14th, 2005

By Joseph Menn
LA Times Staff Writer

The opponent in the online card game might be a computer. 'Bots' are beatable because they miss human nuances, but they're learning.

Of the millions of gamblers who have rushed to play Texas Hold 'Em and other fast-growing poker games online, Roger Gabriel isn't the most intimidating.

The 30-year-old Newport Beach engineer started playing for money only a month ago. He lurks online at the tables for the chicken-hearted; even there, where the biggest ante is 4 cents, he can't win consistently.

But Gabriel has a potentially powerful alter ego. In his spare time, he's perfecting a computer program to go online and play the game for him.

His BlackShark software is still a work in progress, but Gabriel has no doubt that such programs eventually will be championship quality. "In the future," he said, "robots are going to take over."

Gabriel is one of an increasing number of computer professionals who design poker robots, or "bots," that pose as human gamblers but can play endlessly without tiring or losing concentration — for real money.

Though not yet good enough to beat skilled humans consistently, these programs are seen as a threat by online casinos — all based outside the U.S. and out of the reach of American laws — and the gamblers who spend billions of dollars chasing big pots.

"There are already lots of robots playing online, and that's definitely unethical. They should identify themselves," said Paul Magriel, a veteran professional poker player.

The march of the machines will be celebrated in Las Vegas next month with the world's first money tournament for robots — and the $100,000 prize is drawing a handful of coders out of anonymity.

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