Over Almost Before it Began

It wasn't long ago that I posted about becoming the new co-host on the Internet radio show Keep Flopping Aces.  I was looking forward to putting my stamp on the show and adding something to an already terrific show.  In my brief time on the show, I brought on a friend, fellow poker writer James "compncards" Guill and had the chance to interview PPA executive director John Pappas and WSOP media director Nolan Dalla.  Tonight's guest is Martin "short-stacked shamus" Harris, who I knew from my days at Poker News.  I thought this was the beginning of an exciting ride combining meeting new people and catching up with people I've worked with in the past.

But, alas, the Department of Justice has its own plan that has changed the lives of many of us in the poker industry.

Turns out that Rounders Radio, which carried our show, received its money as an affiliate of one of the indicted big three poker sites.  When that money dried up, they had to quickly change gears.  Their new business model is not to originate live programming, but to offer links to poker podcasts.  So the days of live internet radio are over for Keep Flopping Aces.

Here's the article that Lou and I published today at http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/, as we added ourselves to the ever-growing list of victims of Black Friday:

We’ve been bringing you all the news about Black Friday and its effect on various segments of the poker world since the event first occurred only two short weeks ago. We’ve even brought you a segment on “Winners and Losers,” in which we listed those poker elements and institutions that were harmed by the Department of Justice’s declaration of war on online poker, as well as a much shorter listing of those who appear to have benefited—it’s a much shorter list, indeed—from Black Friday’s unintended consequences.

And we were able to do this objectively, since we were among a precious few left unscathed by these events … or so we thought.

Until two days ago, we had a weekly radio show called Keep Flopping Aces that aired every Thursday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Time (6 p.m. Pacific) on www.roundersradio.com. We discussed poker strategy, interviewed poker players, poker writers, people involved in the politics of poker … you name it; we covered it.

But no more. Rounders Radio took a big hit with the disappearance of the Big Three online rooms from the US market. And with that big financial hit, came a hard decision. The station could no longer afford to produce live shows, and we became a victim.

So tonight, April 28, 2011 marks our last live broadcast. In its place, Rounders Radio will become essentially a podcast library and repository. Their newly redesigned web site says, “We are here to bring to the best directory of poker podcasts from around the net! Please have a look around and enjoy all the great poker content. You will find poker shows that cover the news, teach poker, pro interviews and everything else.”

We will try to keep our show alive by doing podcasts on a weekly basis, but it’s probably not going to be the same as live radio. We’ll miss the interaction with a listening audience, and the fun of doing a live show—complete with bloopers, silly comments, questions and insightful comments from our regular listeners around the globe, and everything else that goes with it.

Still, if we can contribute to the poker community by podcasting what otherwise would have been a live show, we’re happy to do it. Many of our listeners may not even recognize a difference at all. Most Rounders Radio shows had more listeners who downloaded them as podcasts after they were broadcast live than listened to it in real time, and ours was no exception.

But it won’t feel the same. And until things change, you can add our names to the list of those who lost out as a result of Black Friday’s terribly misguided efforts. ::sigh::

Sigh, indeed.