2012 saw the poker community go through a number of ups and downs, highs and lows, but as 2013 approaches the poker industry could bed at its strongest point since 2010. Black Friday is firmly in the rearview mirror, and legislation to regulate online poker is being introduced all over the world, including the United States. So before we turn the page on another year let’s reflect on the year that was.
In this installment I’ll take a look at the lowlights from 2012.
The Lederer Files
With PokerStars bailing out Full Tilt Poker it was inevitable that some of the most serious offenders in the former ownership of the site would try to do as much damage control as they possibly could, and the first person to make the media rounds was Howard Lederer.
Lederer started his ill-fated media blitz by agreeing to a seven-hour sit-down interview with PokerNews which was released under the name “The Lederer Files”. Needless to say, the interview produced more questions than answers, and after a second follow-up interview with the 2+2 PokerCast Lederer decided to call it a day and cancel an interview with Poker Blogger DiamondFlush, and simply take his chances by remaining silent from here on out –after all silence couldn’t be any worse than what opening his mouth was doing!
The lackluster WSOP final table
After a dynamic 2011 WSOP Main Event final table the 2012 version probably could not have been crafted to be any more boring; in terms of storylines, popularity of the players, and of course the painfully slow execution we had to endure at the marathon final table. As it stands, the 2012 WSOP final table will go down in the annals for all the wrong reasons.
Epic Fail for the Epic Poker League
Early in 2012 the poker world was greeted with perhaps the least shocking bankruptcy announcement in the industry’s history, when the short-lived Epic Poker League went belly-up, leaving players out in the cold when it came to the promised $1,000,000 freeroll tournament that was scheduled to close-out Season 1.
Now the Epic Poker League is gone, with the Global poker Index the only reaming vestige of the league’s short existence.
Online poker industry goes berserk in December
It’s been a wild December for the online poker industry, particularly the US online poker industry. We’ve seen several rooms go offline and a number of networks consolidating their skins. We’ve also seen bwin.party sell the redundant OnGame Network, but hang on to the sizable player base from bwin and merge these players with Party Poker.
Perhaps the biggest shakeup has been in the US where several skins have closed at the Merge Gaming Network, Hero Poker and RPM Poker, not to mention the lost of prominent skin Black Chip Poker, which jumped ship and landed at the Winning Poker Network.
US players still waiting on the DOJ
Here we are, heading into 2013 and the US poker community is still waiting for their Full Tilt Poker refunds from the US government. HOPEFULLY we will see the remission process completed in early 2013, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
