Terrence ‘Unassigned’ Chan announced on his blog recently that he will compete in the Legend Fighting Championships (LFC) in Hong Kong in two weeks. The mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting series invites the top talent from the Asia-Pacific region to compete for supremacy.

The next LFC fight card takes place on March 30th. Chan will fight Muay Thai fighter Alex Lee on the under-card. Said Chan about the pending matchup, “Make no mistake, I am probably the underdog here. This is going to be a tough fight. Doing a quick search, my opponent is a veteran of over 20 ring fights in Muay Thai, boxing and karate.” He continued, “So I am fighting someone bigger, stronger, taller (by about 5 inches!), more experienced and who, being HK born-and-bred, will likely be the crowd favourite too. Do I care? Not in the least. I’m full of confidence and being the on-paper underdog is only going to make this win taste sweeter.”

Chan is known to the poker world for his track record in limit hold’em tournaments. In 2009, he won not one but two Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) titles in six-max limit hold’em tournaments in one night. Later that year, he won a WCOOP bracelet in a tournament of the same format. The Canadian also has over $900,000 in live tournament winnings according to the Hendon Mob database.

Chan has been training in Muay Thai boxing and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighting for nearly a decade. His debut as a professional MMA fighter will be aired live on YouTube.

Following nearly a year of failing to make a public statement to the poker world in the wake of Black Friday, Full Tilt CEO Ray Bitar ended his silence in an interview with PokerStrategy.com. The entirety of the three-question interview is below. For the impatient, we have included a tl;dr version of the interview after its conclusion.

PokerStrategy.com: Ray, there has been public outrage surrounding the fact that you have been silent since the Black Friday shutdown and indictments. Can you say why you haven’t made any public statements?

Ray Bitar: There are two reasons. One is the ongoing legal process which has precluded me from providing any relevant information surrounding the on-going investigation, and of course, I have not wanted to jeopardize the process in any way. While I could have made general statements throughout this process, they would not directly relate to the issues under investigation. Any such statements would be so general in nature that they would not provide answers to the many questions people understandably have.

The second reason is that, along with others, I have been working every single day since Black Friday to ensure players are repaid, which has been my top priority, as well as working on the future plans of FTP. This work had to be done out of the scrutiny of the public eye. And so while it might satisfy people to have specific information about those ongoing discussions – and it would certainly take some of the heat off myself – I am convinced that such public statements would diminish the likelihood of a successful outcome, which is what we need to be focused on.

My love for the sport and the poker community has made it very difficult to keep silent, particularly in light of the many angry sentiments directed at FTP, myself and others, in newspapers and blogs. Given the lack of information that has been made public, I can certainly understand these sentiments. My primary focus has been and continues to be working towards getting us to where we want to be – the repayment of the players and the survival of the company. I have been fully dedicated to this cause and am doing everything possible for a beneficial outcome.

PokerStrategy.com: What’s been happening since Black Friday?

Ray Bitar: My life has drastically changed since last April. As a manager of Tiltware, I have been cooperating fully with the DOJ so they can complete their investigation. Beyond that, I spend a good deal of my time making sure that FTP survives and that the players get repaid. I know that these events have hurt a lot of innocent people and it’s my main job to make things right. I continue to work on these issues, day and night until we resolve them.

PokerStrategy.com: Is there anything you would like to say to the online poker community?

Ray Bitar: I would like to offer my sincere apology to all who have been affected by these events and to clarify that my silence was not an attempt to “hide,” or “ignore,” the situation. It was done out of necessity to ensure the focus remained on the continued efforts to reach the best outcome for the players. My entire focus is on obtaining a successful resolution for the players. I hope that before long I can provide some good news for all of the players involved.

tl;dr version:

PokerStrategy.com: Ray Bitar has graciously offered us some of his time for a brief interview. Ray, what’s up?

Ray Bitar: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah.
blah blah.

Basically the CEO (who should have been long ago fired) of a company who owes $200 million+ to online poker players around the world is silent for 11 months then decides to reassure everyone that he genuinely is “sorry” and is working to get people their money back. Also, really, PokerStrategy.com? He “graciously” offered you his time? It might have been reasonable to skip the niceties when publishing this highly belated statement from a man who did next to nothing within that statement to grant the poker world the explanation and answers they are owed.

A recent picture tweet by Gavin Smith from the Bay 101 Shooting Stars event taking place right now shows poker pro Dan O’Brien sporting a signed “I busted Howard Lederer” t-shirt. The annual WPT event designates some pros as “shooting stars”. If you knock one of those players out, you receive a cash bounty and a one-of-a-kind t-shirt which, presumably, many of the pros autograph for you. Have a look at the shirt Dan O’Brien is wearing today in the tournament. Presumably, he received this shirt in 2010 when he finished 3rd in the event for $293,000.

With Lederer’s current status as a fugitive from U.S. law whose company, Full Tilt Poker, owes the poker world tens of millions of dollars, one can’t help but think about how much that t-shirt could potentially yield in an auction. Think about it. A world full of degenerate gambling poker players with money in their pockets to burn. Surely someone would pay $1,000 for that shirt. But how much would O’Brien be willing to sell it for? I asked him just that on behalf of PokerTips. In a tweet, O’Brien said, “I’ll sell it for $10k now, but I’d prefer an auction for max value.”

At that price, the shirt is likely to remain O’Brien’s!

One of the fastest growing online poker rooms recently had a television ad banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the United Kingdom. The ad promotes 888 Poker’s PokerCam tables where webcam technology enables you to see your opponents. The ad depicts a man playing at the PokerCam tables and receiving the pleasant surprise of facing an opponent sitting in a bikini poolside. The voiceover states, “you never know who you might meet at a PokerCam table.”

Have a look at the ad:

It’s extremely nitty of British authorities to ban this ad which seems innocent enough. If they were going to ban it, it should not be on the grounds of being sexually suggestive but rather for being just downright misleading; I’ve never seen anyone but ugly European dudes at the PokerCam tables I’ve sat at!

In a message posted on their website today, Federated Sports + Gaming, the parent company of the Epic Poker League, announced they have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The highly-promoted, invite-only poker league is currently in its first season. The Epic Poker League was created by Annie Duke in hopes that it would be come the “PGA of poker”. Players can earn membership cards based on their performance in major tournaments from around the world over the past several years.

Three events have taken place in the inaugural season of the Epic Poker League. The fourth event as well as a $1 million end-of-season freeroll, which were both slated to be held weeks ago, were postponed allegedly due to player complaints about scheduling conflicts. League commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said today in a statement that, “it is our full intention to complete, as planned, Season One of the Epic Poker League. However, we do not yet know when Event 4 and the Season One Championship will be staged.”

In August, we posted a blog with thoughts on why the EPL will fail. That prediction came true a bit quicker than we could have expected. Here’s one more prediction so long as we’re on a hot streak: that $1 million freeroll EPL members were promised… it’s probably not going to happen.

High-stakes poker pro Matt Glantz recently took to his blog to share some whispers from Full Tilt. The revealing blog includes details of conversations he has had with “a number of FTP shareholders”. According to Glantz, “most of the insiders seem to conclude that there is almost no chance of [the deal between Full Tilt and Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT)] going through at this point.” He also advises players with money on Full Tilt to, “move on as if the their funds are gone.”

While Glantz admits the blog entry is opinion pieced together from various conversations with members of Full Tilt, it is about the closest thing the poker world has had to hearing from the Full Tilt camp in months. The company has remained almost entirely silent since the U.S. Department of Justice called their operation a Ponzi scheme last September. Glantz shares his belief for the reasoning behind this silence:

The common theme is anyone making a public statement from the inside will be “at risk” in being blamed for the Tapie deal falling apart. This is why nobody is speaking publicly. Let me clarify: It is not because they are worried about the deal falling apart. It is because they are worried that if they say anything they will eventually be blamed for the deal falling apart. Even though most of the insiders seem to conclude that there is almost no chance of this deal going through at this point, they don’t want any perception that their words caused the deal to fail.

Glantz said he believes based on his conversations with Full Tilt insiders that, “it is inevitable that Tapie will be backing out.” He gave an example of how players could receive some of their Full Tilt money back one day by saying, “I expect the company to shut down and for the US Government to eventually disperse the assets under its control. A reasonable expectation under the circumstances is for the players to receive between 20%-40% of their account balances back from the government somewhere down the line.” But Glantz also speculated that, “There is also a remote chance that the U.S. does not treat this situation like a poker site and sticks with its original assertion that it was just a Ponzi Scheme. In this case the account balances won’t matter. You would only get your deposits back. Any money won on the site would be fake profits from the government’s perspective.”

Finally, Glantz advised players to, “move on as if the their funds are gone. Think of any money you may receive back from the FTP debacle in the future as found money.”

Last fall, Michael DiVita won a $20,000 seat to an Epic Poker League (EPL) Main Event through a $1,500 Pro/Am satellite. Before he could participate in the tournament, DiVita was confronted by EPL Standards and Committee Chairman Stephen Martin and informed he would not play the Main Event due to a prior sex offender conviction. DiVita initially refused the deal and stated he wanted to play but, as his side of the story goes, was told he would be stopped from playing in a very embarrassing and public fashion. He then demanded his $20,000 seat be awarded to him in cash, but the EPL refused and gave him just $1,500 as a refund for the satellite. DiVita claims Palms security was used to intimidate him into taking the deal.

In the aftermath, DiVita filed a complaint with the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB). The team at QuadJacks.com acquired a memo from the NGCB to George Maloof, President of the Palms Casino Resort which hosts the EPL, dated January 12th of this year. In the memo, the NGCB decided that the EPL wrongfully barred DiVita from play and ordered the Palms Casino to award him $18,500 to compensate for the value of the seat he lost.

This seems like a suitable outcome to the dispute. If the EPL and/or the Palms Casino had an issue with a sex offender participating in their poker tournament, they should have prohibited him from registering or even entering the premises in the first place. Once he won a seat to the Main Event, the $20,000 cash value of the seat should have been credited to him upon the decision to bar him from the tournament. By mishandling this, the EPL and Palms Casino have now allowed a child molester to come off looking like a victim.

In his most recent blog entry on FullContactPoker.com, Daniel Negreanu didn’t pull any punches regarding his thoughts on the trio of men chiefly responsible for the downfall of Full Tilt Poker. His aim was to set the record straight on some ways in which he feels Poker Player UK misrepresented him in a recent interview. One thing the poker publication allegedly did was tone down the sentiment he shared towards the Full Tilt Poker kingpins. Negreanu clarified that by saying:

They edited down my comments about Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, and Chris Ferguson, but they definitely got the gist of my vitriol towards them. I’m disgusted by them and what they’ve done to smear the game with putrid decision making. Ray is a buffoon, Howard is arrogant, condescending, and incompetent, and Chris is a liar and has the warmth of a snow pea. These were never my friends, I never cared for any of them. I never trusted them for a second, and my “read” was always that these were not my kind of people. Why are they different from the rest of the group? These three were on the board, admittedly making all the decisions, and jeopardizing millions of dollars worth of players money that still hasn’t surfaced. You guys suck. I hope to never see any of your faces at the WSOP anymore, and I hope you live with the shame you deserve for the rest of your lives. Your own personal, private hell. You deserve all the wrath you’ve received from the poker world, and much more. You are scum and each of you absolutely deserves a few swift baseball bat swings to the groin area, old school Vegas style.

Classic Negreanu shock value delivery. But it’s hard not to appreciate someone of his visibility speaking their mind about the Full Tilt crooks. He’s right: they suck.

Speaking of those guys… don’t they owe some people some money? In our Weekly Shuffle column for this upcoming Sunday, we’ll recap the latest drama behind Full Tilt’s efforts to sell their assets to Groupe Bernard Tapie in order to repay players worldwide.

Poker pro Will Ma is teaching a three week course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) titled “How to Win at Texas Hold’em Poker”. The for credit course is graded on a pass/fail basis. To pass, students need to earn 10 points in play-money online poker tournaments. In the slides for the first lecture, Ma states that he does not wish to fail anyone and that anyone unable to earn 10 points can submit a report explaining how they “attempted many tournaments but got unlucky” and they will be passed.

The course consists of eight total 90-minute lectures. Topics to be covered include myths of poker, preflop ranges, bet sizing, implied odds, variance, and risk management. All slides from the lectures will be available here at the course homepage. Additionally, it appears Ma will be posting the lectures to YouTube. A video of the first lecture is already available.

Mike ‘timex’ McDonald is slated to guest lecture next week during the seminar’s final two sessions. The students who perform near the top of the class in the online play-money standings will be awarded prizes ranging from private coaching from McDonald, Cole South, Tom Marchese, and others to copies of poker strategy books.

In an interview with CardRunners, Ma stated that upon completing the course, he hopes students will be proficient enough to beat $3 SNGs and $.05-$.10 no-limit cash games.

The U.S. Department of Justice has secured a conviction in their Black Friday indictments against 11 men. Ira Rubin, who worked as a payment processor for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, plead guilty to nine counts of conspiracy charges in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Rubin was arrested on April 15th when his plane from Costa Rica stopped in Guatemala. He chartered that flight that day with an eventual destination of Thailand in mind. His plan was to stop in Guatemala to acquire a fake passport before authorities arrested him.

Rubin could face up to 80 years in prison on the charges, but because of a plea agreement with prosecutors, he is likely only receive an 18 to 24 month sentence. Additionally, since Rubin’s request for bail was denied last June, he is likely to receive credit for time served. He could be out of prison within a year.

This is the second conviction the DOJ has made in their Black Friday case. Absolute Poker co-founder Brent Beckley plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy last month. Before his plea deal, Beckley faced as much as 30 years in prison. He is now likely to receive only a one and a half year sentence.