Yes, the Poker Zoo returns amid the poker crisis, but not the one you think. Previous guest Fernando is back, troubled by developments on the casino floor caused by the lack of top-notch dealers. That doesn’t keep me, having restrained myself from much commenting during the most heated days, from getting his thoughts on the Hustler “cheating” scandal. Manager, please!

We touch on all the aspects of the dealing issue, from the bomb pot explosion to the bigger economic picture and the labor shortage.

When we move to the “cheating” blow-up, Fernando focuses more on the “marketable” aspect of the issue. It’s a touchy subject, one that is different from “marketing,” because looking more at the spectacle itself can seem to minimize what actually happened. However, when we accept that there was never more than a one-hands sample, and that there are no clear answers, we realize how wise this view is. The poker community leapt on the scandal and in most cases, not in good faith: a marketable moment, a moment for popularity and comment. We discuss this and few other aspects of the uproar, including the noxious “PokerKaren” account and others making scurrilous claims while riding the unending wake of the scandal.

Sometimes we really do need a manager, it seems.

Fernando’s blog, “Embrace Risk” is quietly one of the best remaining in poker. He focuses on the intersection of the market and our game, usually in very short form. Fernando also has a piece published on OOP.

Fernando’s nascent Youtube channel is an introduction to options trading.

The podcast people holler and whoop for blood, but that is not justice. The idea of punishing people on any side of the struggle, whether Kade, Bilzerian, or Kenney, for taking Nagy’s money, for watching poker streams but demanding the participants all file quarterly with the IRS and salute the flag, is on its face preposterous. Where does the money come from, after all? What feeds the beast? Yes, it’s from you, from the players who support everyone they shout down. From every scummy tournament grinder that ever chased down the dragon, every self-medicated bum-hunting buzzard, every upstanding bot-owner who avails himself of the ACR watering-hole. From every chatpro, every Twit, full of dread, who slavered over some outclassed woman abused by everyone else for some unknown and brief personal putsch.

Public stream games exist because the economy has a gray zone: who do you think benefits, who is finding games, who is advertising their eligibility for the games that really matter? And who runs those games? – from “Higher Love”

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