Macau is hosting it’s first poker tournament ever, so the local dealers had to be trained from scratch.  The following online report is about one of these poker dealers.  

“During the $300 mega-satellite on the first day, we had a dealer at our table who was new and pretty nervous as it was his first time dealing. He collects the cards from the previous hand. He riffles them, strips them, cuts them. He says, “blinds please” and the small blind posts.

He pitches a card to the small blind, and then to the big blind. Then, with mounting horror, he sees that the big blind has not put out his blind yet! He has an expression of sheer panic on his now weathered visage. After being frozen in his deer-in-headlights look for two seconds, he composes himself.

He sticks his right arm up, ramrod straight, and yells out, “FLOOR!” Big blind has now posted his blind. One of the tournament directors runs over, expertly avoiding people along the way. The director asks the dealer what the problem is. Dealer says, very seriously, “I dealt a card to him before he posted his blind.”

The director keeps a perfectly straight face and says, “No problem, keep on dealing.” The dealer’s relief is evident to all. He keeps dealing.”

Frank Desena, 55, of Wayne NJ was murdered Thursday night Nov 1, during an 11PM  robbery at the just re-opened Straddle Club at 28th and 5th. 

I heard about this tragedy from a friend of mine named Steve, who had played poker with Frank at the old Mayfair club in NYC.   Frank was one of the small group of Pot Limit/No Limit players, at a time when Limit Hold-Em was still the game of choice.  Steve remembers Frank as “a decent and intelligent guy, not one to lament or chirp at the table.”

This poker tragedy makes me wonder about whether the NYC police deparment has some sort of indirect responsibility.  Their decisions about the tolerance of poker are made on a precint-by-precinct basis, and this leads to inconsistencies in how poker laws are enforced throughout the city.   Might this in part explain why NY state poker clubs operate in a gray legal area, and have gone “underground,” where it is less safe and secure?   

As soon as I started thinking about this, I sent the story about Frank to Sean Webb, who is making a documentary film (”Underground Home Game“) about how the game of poker is under attack in the US, and someone who PokerMoments will be interviewing in the near future. 

Neteller used to provide payment services to online gambling Web sites.  I used the company to transfer money in and out of online poker rooms.   After the American government cracked down on online poker and Neteller’s two founders were arrested, Neteller stopped dealing with online poker rooms.  They also froze the deposits of American players, which meant that they had about $300 of my hard-earned money.  And I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see this money again.    

Today I found out two interesting things about Neteller. 

First, Stephen Lawrence, one of the co-founders of the company, pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy.  And he agreed that he is partly responsible for the 100 million dollars that the goverment is seeking in restitution.  [I'm not sure what this restitution is for.]  It’s not clear whether he will serve any time in jail. 

Second, there is some reason to believe that I will eventually be able to withdraw MY money from Neteller.  Neteller says that it has developed a distribution plan to return US member’s money.   It is not decided when this distribution plan will be implemented.  But according to Neteller’s website, it may occur no later than July 13th.  When it does occur there will be 180 day period for poker players to make their request for the return of funds. 

I feel sorry for what happened to Lawrence.  I think he’s gotten a raw deal.   Neteller wasn’t placing any bets.  They were just being middlemen for something that should be legal.  I’m hopeful that I’ll see my money again.