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April 3rd Poker news ... Gambling Poker Blog at gamblingpokerblog.com
MATTRICK RESIGNS AS C.E.O. OF ZYNGA
2015-04-09
San Francisco-based social gaming giant Zynga has announced the resignation of CEO Don Mattrick after just short of two years in the CEO hot seat; he will be replaced by Zynga founder Mark Pincus at the helm of the troubled company.
The publications Verge and GamaSutra reported Wednesday that Mattrick felt it was time to leave and make way for Pincus's vision for the company.
In a company statement Pincus praised Mattrick's leadership in getting the company more securely into the mobile sector, and revealed that going forward he intends to concentrate on the Action Strategy category and strengthen the focus on Zynga's core capabilities.
Although analysts have accused him of some serious mistakes along the way, Mattrick probably leaves Zynga in better health than he found it, when players and managers alike were bailing on the company and revenues were in decline.
He is particularly acknowledged for increasing the group's mobile penetration, which has seen contributions to the group rise from 27 percent to 60 percent.
His cost cutting was extensive and ruthless, but necessary, observers say, and included moving the company away from real-money online poker.
Although he was unable to restore Zynga to its peak he arrested its decline in large measure and strengthened its position in the international social casino vertical.
It is not known where Mattrick, a Microsoft and Electronics Arts alumni, is headed for next.
INSPIRED PARTNERS WITH FANTASY AUTHOR AND ENTREPRENEUR
2014-08-06
Inspired Gaming Group has entered March Madness Challenge into a game development partnership with English fantasy author and entrepreneur Ian Livingstone.
Livingstone is the co-founder of the popular series of Fighting Fantasy role-playing gamebooks and the author of numerous books within that series. He is also one of the co-founders of British game production and retailing company Games Workshop. He, along with his partner, is attributed to bringing Dungeons & Dragons to the European market.
I am both personally and professionally excited to be working with Ian Livingstone," said Luke Alverez, founder and chief executive officer of Inspired. "Convergence is a key trend in our industry at the moment. Our partnership will uniquely focus on leveraging the convergence between console gaming, mobile and gambling. We have some great ideas in the pipeline and we look forward to launching these hit games together.
The vision and ambition of Luke and his team at Inspired is impressive," added Livingstone. "This is a new design challenge for me, and Im looking forward to collaborating with Inspired on new projects, applying video game mechanics and gameplay to server-based gaming products.
THAI PLAYER VICTORIOUS IN SOUTH KOREAN POKER TOURNEY
2014-04-08
The 2014 PokerStars.net Asia-Pacific Poker Tour main event in Seoul, South Korea concluded over the weekend with Thai professional Chane Kampanatsanyakorn claiming the trophy and a main prize reduced after a three-way chop to $142,200.
When the action reached final table stage it was US player Sam Cohen comfortably in charge with a chip lead of almost a million over closest rival Chris Haggert. At that point Kampanatsanyakorn was around the middle of a pack that included four Japanese players in aggressive mode - Keiichiro Umano, Shinya Umano, Makoto Yoshimichi and Kosaku Akashi.
By the time play reached the three-handed stage it was Kampanatsanyakorn, Cohen and Haggert who had survived, with Haggart leading on 2,655,000 in chips, Kampanatsanyakorn on 1,965,000 and Cohen trailing on 900,000.
A three-way chop was agreed which left $28,000 and a HK$ 100,000 seat in the ACOP main event on the table for the winner.
Moments later Cohen was eliminated by Kampanatsanyakorn, departing with a third place $82,000 ticket and leaving the heads up struggle to Haggert and Kampanatsanyakorn, with the latter holding roughly a million chips more than his opponent.
Building on his lead, the Thai pro finally managed to send Haggert to the exit after around 90 minutes, making the final table duration around 15 hours from start to finish.
Haggert's runner-up prize was a useful $123,240, and Kampanatsanyakorn took home $142,200, the trophy and that free seat to ACOP in November.
Other pay-outs on the final table included:
4th: Shinya Umano US$47,155
5th: Winfred Yu US$39,022
6th: John Marshall US$30,889
7th: Keiichiro Sugimoto US$24,389
8th: Makoto Yoshimichi US$19,511
9th: Kosaku Akashi US$14,646
PROTECTION FOR ONLINE POKER PLAYERS
2013-09-27
Online poker security is very much front-of-mind with players following the recent laptop tampering scandal during EPT Barcelona tournament (see previous InfoPowa reports), and that perhaps presents a good opportunity to launch a player-focused protection product.
The online poker information site Pokerfuse is about to seize that opportunity, collaborating with software engineering and network security consulting firm SeNet International in an open source project designed to increase player protection.
Branded PokerShield, the result of the partnership will be made available free of charge to players as a "....complete bootable computer operating system that can be run from a CD, flash drive or installed on your computers hard drive."
The software is designed to protect players from the dangers of social engineering attacks, phishing, keyloggers, hole card viewers and other attempts to compromise the security of the online player, and is locked down to mitigate the risk of malicious software being installed on players computers.
Gus Fritschie, chief technology officer of SeNet International, says that the new product is based on a custom hardened and secure Linux Ubuntu operating system which hosts two Windows virtual machines: One is secured and locked down with its only intended purpose being to play online poker; the other allows players unrestricted access to the internet.
Any attacks made against the unrestricted VM - or even the host computer - will not compromise the security of the poker-playing section of PokerShield, he claims.
PokerShield is still in development, but readers can famailiarise themselves with it, and sign up for updates, at Poker Shield.com.
MORE PLAYER SEGREGATION AT MERGE POKER NETWORK
2013-05-16
Although there has been no official statement from the operator, reliable reports indicate that the PlayersOnly and SportsBook poker rooms on the Merge poker network have segregated their players from the main Merge pool, presumably in an attempt to improve the "poker ecology" by encouraging more recreational player action and less "shark" activity.
Initial reports indicate that the segregation is being applied across all cash and sit 'n go tables, although it appears that MTT action is still open.
There is speculation that Jazette, which owns the PlayersOnly and Sportsbook brands, along with a slew of sports betting sites that also offer online poker, is extending the segregation to its new private poker network.
MORE NEVADA ONLINE POKER LICENCE APPLICANTS TO BE HEARD (Update)
2013-03-01
The next applications for online poker licenses in Nevada will be initially be scrutinised March 6 and 7 by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and will involve well-established land and internet companies Treasure Island Casino and 888 Holdings.
Treasure Island wants to offer intrastate online poker on the 888 poker platform, and hopes that following initial approval by the NGCB it will be awarded a licence by the Nevada Gaming Commission at its meeting on March 21.
888's other US online poker partner, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, already has a Nevada online poker licence and is well advanced in preparing a WSOP-branded site for the advent of internet poker in the Silver State (see previous InfoPowa reports).