Five Thoughts: Bovada Becoming a Force, Chad Batista's Passing, and More
When Black Friday hit in April of 2011, it rocked the poker world like never before. Money was seemingly lost forever into the abyss of Department of Justice confiscation. The game that was our beloved hobby – for some, a living – taken away without warning.
Fortunately for me, I had stuck with school while I was beating small-stakes cash and tournaments online and I was set to graduate in short order. I had already pulled most of my bankroll off PokerStars and dialed back my volume immensely in order to focus on finishing college. Not coincidentally, I turned in the most productive semester of my life and graduated.
Not everyone had such a readily available plan. Something of a frenzy ensued as poker players scrambled in response. Some put the sunglasses on (or not) and transitioned into live poker. Some moved outside the country, often to Mexico and Canada, and continued to grind online. Some turned away from the game and sought a different course in life.
Some players, seemingly unperturbed by the DoJ's forcefully announced presence, turned to unregulated sites, and continue to grind online domestically to this day.
1. Bovada Now No. 3 Site on Poker Scout
I interviewed one such player, Dave Stefanski, when he ran deep in the Main Event this summer. He ultimately busted 16th for $325,034, the largest score of his career. I enjoyed speaking with Stefanski, who seemed like a swell guy, and his story was an interesting one to me, not having met many who acknowledge grinding heavy hours on Bovada, though surely many do.
That's never been clearer than it is now. Tipped off by a tweet from Brian Balsbaugh, I glanced over the online poker traffic rankings at Poker Scout and saw that Bovada has indeed risen to the No. 3 poker site after PokerStars and 888poker.
I've played a little on Bovada myself. The software can be grating and there's no doubt it's a poor man's version of high-quality interfaces we all grew used to over the golden years of online poker. Still, it's there and we can play on it.
I have a friend who plays often on Bovada and has done very well for himself in recent months. Every time we discuss how things have been going he enthusiastically mentions two things – how soft the play is and “I'm telling you, Bovada is growing.”
Clearly he's right, but what does that mean? If it continues to grow, Bovada will only find itself a bigger blip on the watchful radar of the DoJ. After what happened with other sites, I'm not comfortable keeping any amount on Bovada that I'd bat an eye at losing.
If things go sour at Bovada, what happens then? Where there's a market, there will always be a supplier willing and ready to meet demand. More than likely, another site will pop up and hoard the U.S. money until the DoJ swoops down on them, turning into an eternal game of whack-a-mole with American players constantly in fear. All this is telling me is what we already know: we need regulation and we need it ASAP.
2. Tim James Show Debuts, Goes After Sheldon Adelson
The main opposition in the fight to get online poker legalized and regulated has of course been Sheldon Adelson. Most everyone with a clue knows that the “arguments” Adelson has espoused in opposition to internet gaming amount to a pile of crap as big as the one Dr. Sattler plunged her hands into in Jurassic Park.
Here's to hoping the right people find their way to your show and see Adelson for the farce he is.
Well, one man has taken it upon himself to expose that manure to the world. Tim James, who identified himself as a professional high-stakes gambler, has created The Tim James Show and focused his first episode on systematically dismantling Adelson's faulty reasoning piece by piece. He even provides video of an underage gambler infiltrating Adelson's supposedly secure Venetian.
In an interview on the PokerNews Podcast, James said his ultimate goal is “to be free as an American to sit at home in my birthday suit and gamble.” You and me both, Tim, although I'd prefer to be clothed. Here's to hoping the right people find their way to your show and see Adelson for the farce he is.
Go check out the first episode of the show, and as James said on the podcast, it's also available on iTunes.
3. Somerville Signs With DraftKings
One of the biggest stars in the industry just expanded even more as Jason Somerville has inked a sponsorship deal with daily fantasy sports site DraftKings.
Somerville's personal brand has really taken off in 2015 with a PokerStars Team Pro sponsorship and a new deal with Twitch, which has already hosted another season of Run it Up!, Somerville's ultra-popular stream.
His new deal with DraftKings should be a match made in heaven for both the player and the DFS site. Somerville – a well-known mixed martial arts superfan – now has another outlet through which he can engage fans, playing fantasy MMA with them via DraftKings, which hosts fantasy contests for each UFC event. DraftKings will also host satellites into Somerville's live poker events, as reported by Legal Sports Report.
DraftKings, in turn, will get a presence on a platform that draws millions of eyeballs, and it's not hard to see by now that there's a significant crossover market between DFS and poker.
Congratulations to Somerville, whose hard work and creativity have paid off handsomely.
4. WSOP National Championship Airs
I'm a little late to this party, as due to my cable cord-cutting I hadn't until recently been able to watch the World Series of Poker National Championship coverage that aired last week. I finally fired up the two-parter, which I mostly enjoyed.
On the plus side, it was great to see some of the circuit grinders get some national TV spotlight. Guys like Alex Masek who have faithfully followed the circuit from stop to stop and grinded out a living get lost in the shuffle when it comes to poker media, which mostly focuses on the biggest stars. Of course, one of those stars – Daniel Negreanu – made a final table appearance and got plenty of coverage despite an early elimination. I covered Loni Harwood's first bracelet win in 2013 and it was cool to see her career continue to ascend. The heads-up duel between Harwood and Masek getting a relatively large chunk of the coverage was also a plus for me.
I do wish they had told more of the back story of the circuit and highlighted some of the different stops, as that would be a great way to expand the circuit's reach to a wider audience. I mostly enjoy Norman Chad and Lon McEachern as commentators, but I definitely grew weary of some of the repeated name puns. Finally, I agree with Negreanu's tweet that poker shows should shift more of the focus to player stories.
5. Chad Batista Passes Away
I first started seriously grinding and having some success playing online poker in 2008. I preferred to play cash games but dabbled in some tournaments as well, and along with a few friends – who were more successful tourney grinders than me – I signed up for an account on PocketFives and eagerly followed both my state and overall rankings.
The king of the mountain around that time was Chad “lilholdem954” Batista, who passed away last week.
I didn't know Batista personally, so I can't speak to what kind of person he was. I can only speak of the player I remember, who was a true legend of the online tournament scene in his prime, one of the most successful players in the world for a long time. Batista was the type of player and character who made following the online game as a fan a fun thing to do.
All the best to his family and friends as they try to recover from this loss.
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