You can fool some of the people all the time

I'm looking at the March, 2009, Bluff magazine, in which are announced the "2008 Readers' Choice Awards." Most of them are pretty unremarkable (well, except that I failed to win anything in the "Best Poker Blog" category, which is completely inexplicable).

I was struck, though by the "Best Online Poker Software" award. They gave the gold to Full Tilt Poker and the Silver to PokerStars. OK, I would have reversed those, but that's a highly subjective call, so no big deal.

But the bronze went to UltimateBet.

Huh?

Presumably, we have the idiotic readers of the magazine to blame for this rather than the idiotic editors (though in past years there has been some evidence of funny business in how the votes are translated into awards). If so, is the average Bluff reader just so oblivious, so stoned, so tuned out of poker news that he does not know what has been happening at UltimateBet over the past year or so?

Of course, it doesn't help that Bluff itself has remained basically silent on the whole scandal. Hmm. I wonder if that journalistic oversight could have something to do with the multi-page ads that the magazine carries every issue for UltimateBlecch and its sister site, Absolute Puker?

For the gold winner in each category, the editors have put together a short paragraph extolling the virtues of the entity selected. They don't say anything about the runners-up. I'd like to make a small offering to remedy that deficiency in the online software category:

"Though smaller than either Full Tilt or PokerStars, UltimateBet has thoroughly beaten its competition in one key area: Cheating. No other online poker company has so skillfully merged software loopholes and criminally-minded site owners and operators eager and willing to exploit those back doors. This combination resulted in an unprecedented level of scamming and skimming, ripping off their highest-stakes players for yet-uncounted millions of dollars over several years without being detected. (We here at Bluff do not have a separate award for online sites' security departments, but we must give a tip o' the virtual cap to UB's for letting the thieves open multiple accounts, freely change screen names, and engage in unlimited and unscrutinized withdrawals and transfers between accounts in order to make the stealing harder for victims to detect. Nice work on the assist, guys!) And though it's not strictly a software feature, you've just got to love the balls of a company that steals tons of money from its customers, then handles the whole mess by portraying itself as the victim! Ha ha! Beautiful touch! We'd love to have given you the gold, UB, but our readers have spoken, and it's only the bronze this year. Suggestion: Get Russ Hamilton back in charge, and we think you'll be a strong contender for first next year."