realistically I see it affecting a very small portion of online poker players... I mean check the live circuits their are not many Russian pros. I see this affecting the micro and low stakes games more than any
Anyone remember the time frame it took from DOJ taking control of websites to US players being unable to play? I was online when DOJ seized them playing at full tilt, and I remember I played all Friday night and I think the rest of weekend before account was locked
Maybe Russians are unable to go to the websites, but if you have the client installed their is little they can do as long as sites don't lock accounts... Most people think that when BF occurred the government took over sites and caused us not to be able to play, but they couldn't stop us from logging into clients and playing just stopped anyone from getting into websites... From the looks of the article Stars has no interest in stopping Russian players from playing which will mean Russian government would be hard pressed to stop players without some how stopping the players physically ( which I wouldn't put past Putin at this point)
because as of now Russian players playing on stars is no different then US players playing on Merge or WPN networks. Both are by law greyish illegal, but they can't really stop it without putting a major amount of effort into it....
IN MY HUMBLE OPINION