Well it's been quite a week! Black Friday saw PokerStars, Full Tilt and UB indicted by the DOJ and their .com domain names seized, causing widespread panic and paralysis over the weekend (no doubt the intended effect) as US players were blocked and people struggled to comprehend what was happening, plus what might happen to their money, and the sites were flooded with cashout requests and panic emails. Manic Monday saw Eurosites stock prices soar and the big sites still swinging back into action to try and counter the confusion with statements and press releases. Then by Whew Wednesday it all looked like a storm in a teacup (in relative terms) as the domain names were returned and the DOJ announced US players would be allowed to cashout promptly, signalling the start of a process that will likely end in some sort of plea bargain and fine (probably in the high nine figures), and could well be the first stage in the scramble for legalized online poker in the US. It almost happened in December in a more orderly fashion and insiders say there were a couple of eleventh hour saves in the intervening period, but it's here now and things are happening fast so who knows where we will be in a month or two.

For me personally as a UK citizen it was still pretty scary, as it makes getting Supernova Elite harder and i had decent amounts on both PokerStars and Full Tilt, though of course one of the points of playing there is that you trust your money is safe in such a situation. Even here it sort of felt like the aftermath of a disaster but that only took a couple of days to clear and by Thursday I had some nice withdrawals in my account, a SCOOP reload bonus, and also a trip out around town on PokerStars with the dream team of hosts Dustin and Serena! This consisted of a limo ride around town to pick everyone up, champagne on the London eye at sunset (cue Champagne Supernova jokes), and a nice meal at Las Iguanas on the Southbank. In attendance were TJBentham, Wazz, Gavz101, Gakn29, and myself among others (although one person simply wasn't in when the limo turned up!) and a good time was had by all. It was also filmed for PokerStars.tv and should hopefully be up in the coming week, in conjunction with other events around the world. It was, all agreed, a good end to a bad week, and may even be available for you to have a similar experience through the VIP Store at some time in the future if Dustin and Serena can swing its inclusion! Pictures below...

As for the future it seems the whole poker industry is in wait and see mode as the ripple effect works its way through every aspect of it from sponsored pros, to the staking forums and the training site industry. I'm currently on 270k VPPs which is close to pace without too much effort, so I'm probably going to take a few weeks off and play EPTs whilst the dust settles. It's going to be an interesting few months, and most of the last week has been putting out fires for the sites, so I'm sure they will now be moving into planning for upcoming events - I already got a questionnaire about changing the starting times for SCOOP today, and I'm sure all other issues will be dealt with equitably (Personally I'm hoping for some sort of changes in the VIP scheme to compensate for lower volume, and tougher games as the pros move abroad but the recreational players don't). I can't speak for Full Tilt, and who knows what's going to happen with UB, but I've known people at PokerStars since about 2004 and I can say that they've been planning for this sort of thing for almost as long (the EPT was a big party of outreach in the pre UIGEA era) and that they are smart peoples, so my recommendation for most people would be to get back to business and get on the SCOOP bonus!