Fulltilt

   My wife and I went to play in the Friday night game last night, but it didn't happen. Some of the regular players had gone out to dinner and they hadn't turned up by 9.30, so we went back home. At least my wife had fun; she had a good win on the pokies.
   While I was sitting at the bar a couple of guys came in to ask about the poker game. I got talking to one of them and he told me that he'd lost about $500 when the Fulltilt poker site was shut down. This made me thankful that I'd only had $US43 in my account when the shutdown happened. This is the first time I've met someone else who got ripped off by Fulltilt Poker.
   I still don't really know what happened with that site, and I've never gone to the trouble of trying to get the full story. All I know is that the American FBI closed the site down and that I was unable to get any reply from the Fulltilt website in the brief period when it re-opened with a UK URL. From the little that I've heard from various poker websites I gather that the local Gaming Authority revoked their license after that and nobody got paid back.
   My understanding is that the US authorities shut the site down because they were admitting American players. Apparently they were getting around financial transaction regulations related to online gambling by channelling the money through shell companies and by making false declarations  about the origins of the money. Or something like that. All I know for sure is that I ended up out of pocket.
   This is the reason why I stick with 888poker, despite the problems that I sometimes have with the software updates. Fulltilt Poker was the first poker site I played on, so after that experience I went looking for the safest site I could find. I checked out a few websites that rate the different poker sites and 888 seemed to be the best option. Not only is it a licensed online casino but it is also (apparently) listed on the UK stock exchange. Or something like that. In the end you can't really tell how reliable any information that you get from the internet may be. After all, anyone can get published online. Even me.
    Anyway, the wife and I went home and, even though I'd been drinking, I played in a couple of Sitngos. As everyone knows, playing poker and drinking is a sure way to lose.  Just to prove that there's an exception to every rule, I came third and first in the two games I played, so not a bad night after all.
   Maybe one day I'll look into the whole Fulltilt thing. Then again, maybe I'll just move on.