Lukas M. Willems

$1,720,328 and Prestigious Title up for Grabs in Poker Player's Championship

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:58:00 -0500

This piece appeared on the front-page carousal of WSOP.com on July 4, 2011.

Day Three of the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship is underway at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.

The day began with 74 players all battling for the first place prize of $1,720,328 and the coveted WSOP gold bracelet.

The tournament is decided over an eight-game mix of poker variants and is regarded as the truest test in poker.

The total prize pool for this event is $6,144,000 generated by 128 players entering the event, a 10% increase over last year.

This presitgious event drew the world’s best poker players. The Day Three chip leader is Ben Lamb. Lamb won his first bracelet earlier this year when he bested a field of 361 in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship.

Starting the day second in chips is the Great Dane, Gus Hansen. Hansen is looking to follow up his WSOP Europe No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up victory with a win here in the States.

Michael Mizrachi was unable to defend his title as he was eliminated early on Day Two. Other notable Day Two eliminations included Tom Dwan, four-time bracelet winner, Daniel Negreanu and 10-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Doyle Brunson.

The tournament is scheduled as a five-day event with the final table being played Wednesday, July 6 and streamed live on ESPN3.com and will later be aired as part of ESPN’s 2011 coverage of the World Series of Poker on Tuesday, August 9th from 8-10 pm ET.

Visit the WSOP.com tournament portal page HERE to stay up-to-date on the action from this event.

Online poker's #BlackFriday a sign of better of things to come

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:49:00 -0500

This opinion piece appeared in the May 5, 2011 issue of The Fourth Estate.

Much of the online poker community has taken the position that the Department of Justice’s actions against the big three signals the end of online poker as we know it. The concern is understood, but it’s clear online poker has a bright future in the United States.

Let’s think about the arguments for legalization of online poker in the U.S.: regulation, job creation and tax revenue. With that in mind, locking out the big three is an obvious avenue for the Department of Justice to take prior to legalizing online poker.

Online poker has been around for just shy of a decade. The U.S. did not have the proper laws in place at the time of its inception, so companies like Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet took their business, their jobs and their tax dollars overseas. At the time, the future of online poker was unclear. In the years since, entire industries have been created around online poker. On top of that, it has become a MULTI-BILLION dollar a year industry, and the U.S. missed the bus.

With our country $14 trillion in debt, government officials are scraping the bottom of the barrel for untapped sources of tax revenue. So legalize online poker, regulate it, tax the players, tax the sites. Done, right? Not so much.

If it were legalized, what incentive would there be for sites like Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet to uproot their home bases overseas and move to the U.S.? None. With the influx of new players, these companies would go about business as usual and make money hand-over-fist. Money the U.S. likely would not get a sufficient share of because of the company’s locations overseas.

Nevada Sen., Harry Reid, has proposed multiple drafts of a bill to legalize online poker. But what chance will a new online poker site stand trying to compete against three established Goliaths like Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet? Almost all of Reid’s drafts include some sort of a blackout for current online gaming sites after legalization. What this does is allow new companies to penetrate an otherwise impenetrable market. Do you see where this is going?

Undoubtedly, the U.S. will have the proper laws in place at the time of legalization and these new companies will likely set up shop in the States. This means the new player’s winnings AS WELL AS the income of the new companies will be taxed. And let’s face it, the biggest piece of tax revenue pie, the piece the U.S. really wants, comes from the profits of these host sites. They only receive that piece if the sites operate within the U.S.

Sure, the idea of the government intervening is concerning. But in reality, the blackout of the big three is simply the first step in making the online poker world better than ever.

As Caesars CEO, Gary Loveman, said in an op-ed piece for CNN.com, “One day, we’ll look back at 2011 and laugh at the folly of a ban on Internet poker — just like we now think about Prohibition. The sooner that day comes, the better.”

Motivational speaker to visit UW-Green Bay

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:06:00 -0500

This fictional press release was written for ‘PR Writing’ at UW-Green Bay in spring 2011.

Good Times Programming
Lukas Willems
920.421.1463
lukasmwillems@gmail.com
www.uwgb.edu/goodtimes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 5, 2011

Motivational speaker visits UW-Green Bay to uplift students

GREEN BAY, WIS.—Good Times Programming is bringing nationally-known motivational speaker, Larry Desch, to UW-Green Bay on April 8. He will speak from 7-9 p.m. at the Weidner Center on UWGB’s campus.

Desch tells a story he says provides unique insight into the obstacles young adults may face. His main talking points include his lack of motivation in college, his brush with the Vietnam draft, a near death experience and how he took advantage of every opportunity presented to him to overcome life’s hurdles.

Some of Desch’s awards include 2004 Journalist of the Year as recognized by the Small Business Administration of Green Bay and his newspaper, The Business News, was voted Business of the Year by the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce.

Other upcoming GTP speakers include Mariane Pearl, widow of Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered in Pakistan, on April 18 and Madeleine Albright, the country’s first female Secretary of State on April 25.

Admission is free for UW-Green Bay students and $25 for the general public.

For more information contact the UWGB Ticket Office at 920.421.1463, tickets@uwgb.edu or visit www.uwgb.edu/goodtimes.

###

CHOU! LLC brings a voice to Green Bay subculture

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:41:00 -0500

This press release was written for ‘PR Writing’ at UW-Green Bay in spring 2011.

CHOU! LLC.
Lukas M. Willems
920.421.1463
lukasmwillems@gmail.com
www.choullc.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2011

CHOU! LLC brings a voice to Green Bay subculture

GREEN BAY, WIS.—Daniel Chou, a self-proclaimed gamer, has moved his T-shirt design and manufacturing company from Illinois to Northeastern Wisconsin. CHOU! LLC opened its doors in December of 2010.

The company divides its brand into three separate clothing lines. The first, CHOU!, includes designs centered around what Chou calls an unrepresented culture; video gamers.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average gamer is 34-years-old and has been playing video games since they were 12. Chou believes this group is rising in numbers and spending power. With a slogan of “Free the gamer within,” he hopes to give a voice to and grow with the demographic.

“The fashion allows this sub-culture to announce its inner self and not be embarrassed or apologetic as popular culture has long demanded,” Chou said.

Chou hopes to use connections made through his fiancé, a residence hall advisor at UW-Green Bay, to help reach the younger market and expand his business.

CHOU! LLC also creates general humor, ready-made garments for young adults under the CHOU! Limited brand, and custom clothing for small groups under the CHOU! Prints brand.

CHOU! LLC is based in the Small Business Incubator Center at 2710 Larsen Road. For more information, contact Lukas M. Willems at 920.421.1463, lukasmwillems@gmail.com or visit www.choullc.com.

###

Graduating when you're 22 is like leaving the party at 10 p.m.

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:25:00 -0600

This piece was written for the October 8, 2009 issue of The Fourth Estate at UW-Green Bay.

Roger Hirst graduated from UW-Green Bay in 2000 at the age of 77. He has since passed away, but remains one of the oldest students in the UW System to receive a diploma.

After high school graduation, Hirst was drafted in World War II. When he returned home he had no time for school because of family and work obligations.

It was 1987 when Hirst discovered the Extended Degree Program at UWGB. Since then the program has gone through many advancements and a name change. Today it is known as the Adult Degree Program.

The program is designed to allow degree-seeking adults with busy lifestyles the convenience and flexibility they need in a schedule while pursuing an education.

“We know we are working with very busy people,” Eric Craver, director of marketing and recruitment of the program, said. ”They’ve got families. They’ve got jobs. They have other things going on in their lives. We work hard to meet students where they are and to create schedules that fit their hectic lives.”

Jim Van Dornick, a 1992 graduate of the program and current CEO of Community Memorial Hospital, said, “Since I was a working adult with a family to support, it would have been nearly impossible for me to attend college and obtain a degree. I certainly could not have created an on-campus schedule that would allow me to enjoy my family life while working and seeking my education.”

The program currently offers three degrees including a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Applied Studies in interdisciplinary studies, as well as a Bachelor of Business Administration. Areas of emphasis include human development, organizational communication and emergency management. Students can also customize an area of emphasis that fits their needs.Still pending approval are the additions of corporate communication and environmental policy.

The program works directly with the business administration department on campus and offers the same degree a student on campus earns. The hope is other departments on campus see the success of this partnership and work with the Adult Degree Program to provide flexible schedules and class times that work around the busy lifestyles of working adults.

“We try to minimize the impact on their jobs and family responsibilities,” Craver said. “When it gets down to it, we’re not the most important thing in their lives. They have jobs, spouses, children and other things going on in their lives. We understand that, and have for quite some time.”

The program offers adults a comfort they are less likely to get on a college campus; being in class with other adults.

“There were students in the same situation as me; having been away from organized education for nearly 20 years,” Van Dornick said. “That could have been intimidating if I were joining classes of 18 and 19-year-old students who were fresh out of their high school education process.”

According to Craver, the average student of the program is in their mid-30s, married or with a partner, has children and is most likely working full time. However, it is not uncommon to have students in their late 60s or early 70s. Despite the name, there is no age requirement for admission.

“One thing is for sure, if you have an 18 or 19-year-old that is working 35 to 40 hours a week and maybe has a child, that person is definitely a non-traditional student,” Craver said. “We seek to serve people that want a UW degree, but have other things going on that make it difficult to come to class during traditional hours of the week.”

Lombardi's Influence Impacts UWGB Athletics

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:50:00 -0600

This piece was written for ‘Feature Writing’ at UW-Green Bay in fall 2010.

Vince Lombardi brought greatness to Northeastern Wisconsin when he revived a Green Bay Packers’ franchise from shambles in the late 1950s. It was unknown to the city’s residents that his reach spread farther than the front office of the Packers.

While Lombardi’s most publicized achievements came as head coach and general manager of the Packers, his career in the NFL started years earlier, and continued after he left Green Bay. However, his most lasting contribution to the city may be a decision he chose not to make.

Lombardi was a special athletic adviser to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s founding chancellor, Ed Weidner, and he recommended the university forgo the addition of a football team. It was his football resume that qualified him to make the decision.

In 1954, Lombardi accepted a position as offensive coordinator for the New York Giants. He inherited a team coming off a 3-9 season. The former college head coach had his work cut out for him. In the coming years, Lombardi would take the 3-9 squad and turn it into a championship team, beating the Chicago Bears for the league title in 1956.

It wasn’t until 1959 that Lombardi came to Green Bay. Like in New York, the road ahead was a difficult one. In 1958 the Packers went 1-10-1, a franchise worst. After one year, the Packers improved to 7-5 and Lombardi was named coach of the year. The team improved again the next year, making it to the NFL championship game where the Packers would suffer Lombardi’s one and only postseason loss. Lombardi spent nine years in Green Bay, and when he stepped down as head coach he had a 106-34-6 record, including three-consecutive NFL Championships and two Super Bowl victories, an accomplishment that would later go on to be recognized by a trophy etched with his name.

After Green Bay, Lombardi became head coach of the Washington Redskins. While his time there was limited, he led the team to its first winning record in 14 years.

Even with the NFL Championships, Super Bowls, unmatched playoff records, exquisite regular season records and the naming of the Lombardi trophy, Lombardi’s greatest contribution to a city could be the advice he gave to Weidner.

“Most people don’t know this about Vince, but he was very oriented toward universities,” Weidner said in a 2002 interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “He loved the schools he came from. He always thought it was wonderful that we were establishing a university in Green Bay and was perfectly willing to help.”

Weidner had a board of athletic advisers, but Lombardi was separate from that. While he was an official adviser to the chancellor, Lombardi did not run his ideas by anyone but him. Dave Buss, one of the final three candidates to be the first men’s basketball coach, had to be interviewed by Lombardi to get the job.

“I don’t know how often they met, but they met enough,” Buss said. “Once in a while they got together. I think it was more one-on-one, and I think that it was probably by the phone some of the time. When I saw those two together, they seemed pretty relaxed. That’s why I think it was more than just a professional relationship. I think they were friends.”

Due to their positions within the community at that time, the two became friends and had a mutual respect, Buss said. So, when Lombardi advised that the chancellor consider not having a football team, he listened.

“Vince gave advice that the chancellor took,” Dan Spielmann, former legal counsel for Weidner and athletic director from 1984 to 1994, said. “A college football team in this town would struggle with the Packers. In other words, there is so much publicity, so much interest in football, that a college football team, particularly if you were going to be Division I, would be a difficult venture.”

Some theorize Lombardi didn’t want the UW-Green Bay football program to overshadow the Packers’ team he had worked so hard to bring back to the spotlight. Those close to Lombardi and the university do not consider this a part of his reasoning.

“First of all, Lombardi is much bigger than that,” Buss said. “To even think that a football team at Green Bay would be a threat to the Packers is just nonsense. That is so stupid. Goodness gracious. Is St. Norbert overshadowing the Packers at all? That’s such nonsense.”

Unlike Division III St. Norbert, UW-Green Bay would have to give scholarships to its athletes. Spielmann was the athletic director at Northern Michigan before coming to UW-Green Bay, and football is a million dollar a year sport he said.

“You look at football across the country, there are probably forty or fifty programs in Division I that make money,” Spielmann said.

“The rest all lose money. Of course everybody looks at Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio State and all the big names, but there are a lot of programs that struggle because of football. In retrospect, I think it was the right decision.”

Buss said it costs so much to run a football that it would hinder the development of any other sport.

UW-Stout and UW-Green Bay are similar-sized campuses with a large number of commuter students. UW-Stout has had a Division III football program for about 90 years, and while there are no plans to discontinue it, UW-Stout Chancellor Charles Sorensen can relate to the process Lombardi and Weidner had to go through during the founding years of UW-Green Bay.

“The program has its ups and downs, believe me,” Sorensen said. “There is an expense. We’re Division III, so we don’t give scholarships. If you were a Division II scholarship program, to be competitive you would have to raise a lot of private dollars to go out and recruit athletes.”

Expenses for football don’t stop at scholarships either. UW-Stout built a new stadium ten years ago, and there was a time when players had to buy their own shoes and helmets.

“There is a cost to it,” Sorensen said. “I don’t disagree with that, but I think it adds more to the campus than the cost.”

Lombardi recommended soccer take the place of football. At the time it was a good fit because it was coming into its own and didn’t require the financial support that a sport like football did, Spielmann said. Soccer was the correct decision financially, but some students feel that the lack of football may take away from their college experience.

Katie Sawyer, a junior communication major at UW-Green Bay, also attended UW-Whitewater, a campus with a traditional homecoming celebration that includes a football game.

“It’s really too bad we don’t have a football team here,” Sawyer said. “Having attended other universities, homecoming week was a really exciting time where the university put together activities for the students to take part in, and it all culminated with the big homecoming football game. It created a lot more school spirit and pride I think UW-Green Bay could only benefit from.”

Just because the campus doesn’t have a program right now, doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be one in the future. UW-Stout added a football program about 40 years after its founding. That same scenario is unlikely for UW-Green Bay though.

“If we had 20,000 students,” Spielmann said. “I think that’s the only way you could really support a team. Student fees would help support it. We’d have to go to a difference conference. I don’t think the Big 10 is going to be it.”

Weidner and Lombardi understood the importance athletics brought to a campus. Lombardi encouraged intramurals for those who were not varsity athletes, but still wanted to compete. Weidner envisioned a university that did only four sports, but had some excellence in those sports. Neither intended their decision to hurt the campus in any way.

“Ed was very smart,” Buss said. “He never put all his eggs in one basket. The athletic part of UW-Green Bay was always important to the survival and the selling of the school. He found funding because he knew how important that could be to the overall picture. There are a lot of presidents who don’t see it that way, but he knew. I think keeping it on track and eventually going over to Division I has added a lot to UW-Green Bay.”

Over the years athletic teams have become synonymous with Division I colleges, none more than the football team. From homecoming in high school to homecoming in college, schools rally around their sports teams. What many don’t realize is the decision behind implementing those teams often isn’t as black and white as it seems.

“If I were asked to start a brand new school I would look carefully at the array of athletic programs I would have there,” Sorensen said when asked about the decision whether to have football. “I think it’s a good issue. I think it’s a debatable issue. Especially for a school like Green Bay that doesn’t have it, would they want to start it? I would think about it thoroughly. There are pros and cons.”

Web 2.0: An immediate variety of user-generated content

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:38:00 -0600

This piece was written for ‘Information, Computers and Society’ at UW-Green Bay in spring 2011.

I was sitting on the couch in my apartment when my friend’s tweet came through. It was a message sent out by the World Series of Poker and it read,

“RT @WSOP Who wants to be at the #WSOP in Las Vegas this summer? WSOP PR Staff looking for a few good media interns. Apply at www.harrahs.com.”

I applied, got the position, and today I look back on those two months in Las Vegas as one of the highlights of my life. That’s what Web 2.0 can do for you.

I consider myself an active, high-volume user of Web 2.0. I’ve been on Twitter for two years and Facebook for seven. I’m registered on Hulu and pay $8.99 a month for streaming Netflix. I tweet from my phone and spend far too much time playing PlayStation 3 online. I use my iPod touch to FaceTime with my best friend who’s spending the winter in Australia. I’m an avid reader of poker forums and even try my luck on the virtual felt a few times a week. I haven’t tried online dating, but might resort to it. At the risk of being called a nerd, I’d go as far as saying Web 2.0 defines my life.

An improved version of its outdated older sibling, Web 2.0 is driven by user-generated content. Web 1.0 focused on providing information, primarily text, that the user wanted. The content was generated by an individual and offered little opportunity for consumer input. Web 2.0 is marketed to and produced by the consumer. They dictate and provide the content simultaneously. Leaving their comments at the bottom of a news article, blogging about their experience at the Super Bowl or surfing a friend’s profile on Facebook are just a few examples of user-generated content that define Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 allows the user a variety of media to access its services. Laptops, televisions, cell phones, gaming systems, PDAs and MP3 players, as well as the home computer, are all Web 2.0 compatible. The user is now able to literally take the Web with them. But not only is Web 2.0 accessed by new media, the content is also provided by new media. Video and pictures often compliment the traditional text of Web 1.0. Jake Nyberg, partner at Threevolts, a St. Paul based video production company, got in on the Web 2.0 boom early, and is reaping its rewards.

“Nothing signaled the evolution of the web as clearly as video,” Nyberg said. “Whereas the early Internet was too slow to treat web video as anything other than a novelty, today’s online experience employs video in robust, immersive and countless ways.”

Gone are the days when users hear the token screeching and scratching of a dial-up connection. Web 2.0 offers immediacy that its predecessor did not. Wireless Ethernet now defines the web experience. But never mind accessing existing information faster, Web 2.0 provides new information faster as well. Nightly blog updates keep people up to date on the latest events in Hollywood, sports or politics. Celebrities often fall victim to the rogue camera phone catching them at just the wrong moment and these photos turn into viral PR nightmares overnight. Hash tags on Twitter consolidate specific information from all 175 million of their users (Twitter) into one instant feed. Cellular technology allows score updates and emails to be received 24 hours a day in the palm of your hand.

Students were given questions to think about when writing this piece on Web 2.0. ‘Do you use any features of Web 2.0 on a daily basis?’ was one of these questions. I suspect all of your students will answer yes. Any student who has a data plan on their phone, accesses D2L or logs onto Facebook has used Web 2.0, and many likely do so daily. ‘Is it different from the early Internet of the 1990s?’ was another of these questions. To that I say, they’re different like a Boeing 747 is different than Henry Ford’s Model T. Sure, they have the same basic end goal; get from point A to point B. But the ways they go about it are completely different.

Web 1.0 offered information. Period. Web 2.0 offers, opportunity, insight, perspective, variety and collaboration. And it’s that collaboration that has changed, and will continue to change, the world we live in and the web we surf.