GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 14 - October 2010

That type of behavior pushes away new- comers to the industry (which impacts our growth and thus the bottom line across the board) and it gives the naysayers more ammunition to paint our industry in a negative light. In addition, it also hurts our growth of female membership. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather look at a pretty lady at the table than some guy who hasn’t show- ered in three days. Ladies don’t take kindly to juvenile behavior and thus don’t get in- volved in truly representative numbers in other communities because of these trolls. So right at the outset we led by example, working to retrain people who may have been used to other communities where that sort of behavior was the norm. Now we have a strong core membership that helps to steer newcomers in the right di- rection and we have a team of moderators and admins who are available to address issues if they arise. How did you discover the GPWA? How has it helped you and why is it important to you? When I came up with the idea for PokerNations I realized I was going to need to look outside of conventional player-based communities and began to research industry-focused ones, which is how I came across the GPWA. The GPWA has a ton of friendly and regu- larmembers, and I’ve built strong relation- ships even though I haven’t met many of them face-to-face. I love interacting with a community run in that manner. If you had to pick five keys to success as an affiliate, what would they be? Re- search, SEO, time management, ethics and passion. Aside fromrepealing theUIGEA,what one thing would you change about the online gambling industry? I’d ask for Howard Lederer to stop doomswitching me on Full Tilt. Howard, what did I ever do to you?! What’s your favoritevacation spot? My wife and I really enjoy Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s absolutely beautiful up there. What’s your favorite movie? I’ll pick an off-the-wall one. It’s called “Fear of a Black Hat” and it parodies the early 90s rap scene. It’s stupid humor but I enjoy the hell out of it. The closest movie to it would likely be “CB4,” which came out around the same time and has a similar approach. Are you still planning to move from Mas- sachusetts to North Carolina? And where are you from originally? I had lived in Massachusetts all my life, so that’s where I was from originally. I recently moved to Connecticut, but we still have plans to make our way to North Carolina – we’re just moving south slowly at the moment. If someone were visiting you, what’s the one place you would definitely take them to see? The Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun casinos so we could play some poker! If you could visit any five places in the world, what would they be? Australia be- cause I really want to check out the Crown Casino. Anyplace in the Caribbean because it’s the Caribbean! Norway, Denmark and other Scandinavian locales because I’ve al- ways wanted to check them out. Russia so I could sell some Levi jeans at a profit. And Japan because I am searching for Asian triplets (my wife is betting I’ll never locate any, but if I do, I have clearance from the tower, woo-hoo!). Hypothetical question: If you reached the final table of the Main Event, and a genie gave you the choice of accepting a second-place finish (and second-place money), or risking it to try to win it all, what would you do? I’d take the 100 per- cent shot at second-place money, rather than the likelihood of finishing worse for less money. Reaching the final table of the WSOP is no small feat. The payouts are also heavily weighted to those top spots. Back when Jerry Yang won the WSOP, if you look at that field of players and those payouts, finishing in 10th place for seven- teen years in a row still wouldn’t net you the same return Jerry gets from taking first just once and then busting for the next sixteen years. But it would take a lot more skill to finish 10th for seventeen years in a row; it’s just not rewarded as well. So defi- nitely take the money when you can! What are three things that nobody knows about you? I’m pretty much an open book with people, but I’m sure some of your readers won’t be familiar with these: I am only 5’1” in height. I would kill to be a “normal” short (5’4” maybe?). I am self-taught to build and overclock my own PCs (no, I cannot hack the Pen- tagon; hardware and software are two very different things). I only have one dance move, “the run- ning man,” but it’s the only move you need! 1. 2. 3. ContinueD from page 53 GPWA Affiliate Interview Series 54