Jim McManus appeared on All Things Considered the morning the November Nine was getting underway, to offer a little cultural (and presidential) history of the game, based on his new book, Cowboys Full.

Not to be a spoiler, but the closing line features a sound clip from Darvin Moon, with weekend host Guy Raz saying, “That is Darvin Moon, and he’s about as far away as you can get from poker royalty.” That is a funnier line than Raz even realizes, considering Moon’s resistance to all things sponsorship.

Raz does a follow-up the next day, just on Darvin Moon:

For more academic intellect surrounding Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, check out our favorite new older-than-25 Betfair blogger Shamus’ interview with McManus here.

And for a little low-brow historical perspective on McManus from a pre-Darvin Moon era, here’s my interview with the author of Positively Fifth Street from 2004.

(Yikes, 2004!?!)

I went to Bellagio yesterday for free danish a little poker suit ho-down to learn more about the PartyGaming-World Poker Tour merger/acquisition/absorption … and was thinking how this meeting that included outgoing WPT president Steve Lipscomb and incoming new boss Adam Pliska might be kinda like George W. Bush handing the keys to the White House over to Barack Obama — you know, peaceful transition of power, new regime, new direction … change … then I thought, nah, that comparison might not be fair, and might be stretching things a bit.

But then, upon meeting Pliska a few minutes later …

Hmm … White House, WPT House, WPTE House … Party Politics … workshop … but still, there might be something there.

Click below to read the corporate bio of a guy who stands to be rather influential in shaping poker’s future. But first, here’s another pic (taken at the actual White House) of the new WPT president, who was in town to talk about plans for what he believes will be a major poker stimulus:

I have a feeling Party Gaming’s (PRTY.L) stock will go up sharply this morning. I dunno — total stocks donkey here — but I like what Obama had to say about the importance of generating revenue, and I suspect Canary Wharf (I think it’s also called The City?) will, too.

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Let’s see if I’m right. I’ll be checking it in the morning. Party stock opened today at 2.53 (and I started writing this post before the London bell rang). It’s at 2.60 now.

Full disclosure: I own a teensy-eensie-weensie sliver of PartyGaming … I think I bought the company a few sleeves of coffee cups post-UIGEA. This post contains forward-thinking statements that are not my attempt at a pump-and-dump.

UPDATE: Boo, Boo! C’mon, get up there!

UPDATE: Closed at 2.59 … up about 2 percent. So I kinda win, but not really.

Barack Obama is in Montana today — where he’ll be cavorting with Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)*, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and therefore has to come up with ways to fund any major health care reform. A daunting challenge to be sure, but a good time to float the possibility of floating Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) online poker bill as a potential source of much-needed revenue.

An op-ed in today’s Missoulian — titled “Fund reform with Net poker tax” — does exactly that:

Instead of raising taxes during an economic slump to pay for these programs, what if Baucus and his colleagues could collect revenue that’s currently going to other countries from an industry that’s ready and willing to be taxed?

That industry is Internet poker, and Baucus can help make this a reality by supporting his colleague from New Jersey, Sen. Bob Menendez, who recently introduced a bill to license and regulate online games of skill such as Internet poker.

According to recent economic studies, tax revenue from licensing will add billions to the U.S. Treasury. Projections have shown that as much as $3 billion annually could be raised through Internet poker, which can be used to help fund key domestic priorities, like health care.

If the Dems are serious about passing Obamacare, then they should have a hard time turning their back on a few billion to pay for it annually. Of course, as we know, politics is seldom about what makes sense.

* Not to be confused with the strongly anti-poker Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL).

Interesting article in today’s New York Times about the Pentagon’s plans to set up bases in cyberspace. Though you gotta think it might be pretty cool to follow the next #war via twitter (@evilgeneral firing missiles @TankGuy. boo-ya!) — deployment of a digital military might be quasi-related to online poker and current anti-UIGEA legislation. Why? Because in addition to militarizing the internet:

(emph. added)

Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.

Clear global banking transactions? Seems to me like the USA is fixin’ to rake the internet … and the framework currently being set up to regulate online poker would put some of the necessary mechanisms in place.

Then all we’d need is for the Pentagon to get its act together and we could shoot colluders.

The final numbers for the big $40K NLHE event were released just after the first break of the day:

Number of Entries: 201
Net Prize Pool: $7,718,400
First Place Prize: $1,891,012
Total Spots Paid Out: 27

The vast majority of big names seems to be here – Scotty, Phil, Jesus, Annie, you get the picture. But one player who was specifically invited by Jeffrey Pollack to come to the WSOP anytime to play any event was not in the field. President Barack Obama evidently had more important things to do than spend the day at the Rio, despite his ownership of a new personalized WSOP jacket. Pollack talks about it about around the 3:45 mark on this Raw Vegas video from the May 27 “Sucking Out on the Rivers” charity tournament hosted by Annie Duke.

Watch Annie Dukes Sucking Out On The Rivers Charity Poker Event on RawVegas.tv

[Speaking of Duke, is there a reason that her opinion about things like American Idol matter so greatly now? I'm not sure I like understand the trend.]

Air Force One just landed at McCarren airport. The President is headed to Caesar’s Palace, for apparently what is a semi-controversial “junket” fundraiser for Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). We can not, however, confirm the rumor that he is in town to give the WSOP Stimulus tourney a $1 trillion overlay, nor that he plans to satellite into a Venetian Deep Stacks event.

Poker players arriving in town for the WSOP (via delayed flights) are twittering about it.

@Ali_Nejad has a pic of the motorcade.

LOL: Evelyn Ng and Erica Schoenberg just got done with their bikini photo shoot (with Tiffany Michelle) for Knockout magazine, and they’re all pissy about being stuck in traffic on the Strip — presumably unaware of why things are extra-congested on a Tuesday afternoon.

UPDATE: @JeffreyPollack is off to meet @BarackObama right now. Pre-emptive conclusion: good for poker!

UPDATE: President now headed to the Caesar’s Palace poker room. (Seriously.) via @Andy_Bloch.

Leftover but good-for-viewing vid … PPA Executive Director John Pappas on CNBC … not just speaking on behalf of the latest Barney Frank legislation, but establishing the baseline for where discussion on these matters begins … it’s good to see the mainstream Wall Street press at least understanding the basics so they won’t have to waste their time filtering through the first line of crap the opposition throws their way:

via Wicked Chops.

Also … more online poker issues being laid out for the non-poker public in ESPN: The Magazine. And the Washington Post is letting people know that the American masses have spoken — directly to Barack Obama — and they want two things to get this country back on track: legal pot and legal online poker money transfers.

Thanks, Huff, for the latter link.

Doyle Brunson is on the grid, that’s for sure. In his latest blog post, which I read via Facebook, he tells us he’s really getting into Twitter. Here’s his address if you want to follow him: twitter.com/texdolly

In doing so, you’ll learn why he’s not playing in the WPT Championship, and that Phil Ivey lost $1 million in Bobby’s Room last night.

And then, back to his blog, he explains to all the Teabaggers out there why he thinks they should STFU!

I headed over to my CPA to get my taxes done and ran into a traffic jam. Hundreds of people were blocking the streets having what they called a “tea party”. I think they were protesting the current financial crisis our nation is going through, but some of the signs were ridiculous. “Impeach Obama”, “What comes after trillions”, “Stop spending our money” and other statements blaming our president. For Pete’s sake, let’s give the guy a chance to straighten this mess up. I got a lot of heat for voting for McCain, but I knew when I cast a late vote, John didn’t have a chance to win. I was just being loyal to the Republican Party. But now that the nation has spoken that they wanted Obama, we should all support him.

As Dan mentioned during his Poker Beat podcast debut last week, former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato is on the case of the UIGEA in Washington, D.C. He published a piece in Roll Call, the magazine of Capitol Hill, in which he points to online poker – and the billions of dollars in revenue potential – as a potential source of revenue for the economically-challenged U.S. government. It’s worth reprinting here, not because of the message that went out to the politically-minded last week, but because it shows that the Poker Players Alliance is working behind the scenes in D.C. It might be worth it to be patient with the PPA during this time of relative silence, as they may just have a few aces up their sleeves.

Here is the article in full:

The New Deal: Regulate and Tax iPoker
By Alfonse D’Amato
Special to Roll Call
January 27, 2009, 4:21 p.m.

As the Obama administration and the new Congress evaluate their policy priorities, they cannot ignore the significant challenge to fund these programs given our nation’s financial situation. Our new leaders have been dealt a struggling economy, and even President Barack Obama can agree that tax increases to pay for his agenda won’t reveal the winning hand, politically or practically. A possible solution, however, is not out of reach. Our new president needs only to look at his favored form of skillful avocation: poker.

Yes, I said poker. While business leaders and politicians debate how much, or how little, we should regulate the business community, the online poker industry and the millions of Americans who play on the Internet have been crying out for regulation and taxation. The absence of government regulation, and in fact the quixotic efforts to ban Internet poker, has left U.S. consumers vulnerable and left billions in potential tax revenue on the virtual poker table.

More…

As many of you probably know, one of President Barack Obama’s first acts even before assuming office was creating a National Suggestion Box. And though I am concerned that they’ve already forgotten about it (they haven’t yet changed the header at Change.gov from “President-Elect” to “President”), an issue that’s jumped way up to the top of the list is repeal of the UIGEA. Though I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, the only folks who seem more motivated are the pot smokers.

Anyhow, you can see all the poker related posts at Change.gov via an on-site search for poker or UIGEA. Or just click “most popular” — where they’ve assigned a point system to all the ideas in America and poker has cracked the top 10. The list of issues attracting the squeakiest wheels, in order (with the number of comments in parentheses):

1. Ending Marijuana Prohibition (3,550)
2. Commit to becoming the “Greenest” country in the world (199)
3. Stop using federal resources to undermine states’ medicinal marijuana laws (17)
4. An end to the government sponsored abstinence education to be replaced by an introduction of age appropriate sex education. (158)
5. Bullet Trains & Light Rail (434)
6. The permanent closure of all Torture facilities. (Facilities such as: Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib) (119)
7. Revoke the George W. Bush tax cuts for the top 1 % (119)
8. Get the Insurance Companies out the Health Care (362)
9. Revoke the Tax Exempt Status of the Church of Scientology (545)
10. Bring Back the Constitution! (243)
11. Boost America’s Economy with Legal Online Poker (1,713)

UPDATE: We dropped off the front page, from #9 to #11, in the course of my writing this post. I’d say “damn Constitution!”, but that probably wouldn’t help our cause. You can still vote — here’s a link to page 2 of the list, though hopefully it will become an irrelevant link by Monday morn.

… from all the poker and politics to watch a poker player talk about politics America’s future:

We have online gambling news from the UK as Google loosens advertising restrictions for our industry. Also, what can US poker players do right now to help their cause?! Plus, we start to put the pieces of the Cardspike puzzle together!

And earlier in the week … Are we finally starting to learn the truth about Cardspike? Yes! But is it the whole truth? That’s still to be seen. See the latest “confessions” from those involved in the Cardspike scandal. Plus a visit to the Affiliate Summit and take a brief look inside!

Call it a rally cry or a jump on the bandwagon, but with the UIGEA hitting poker so hard over the past year, it is high time we see some hope on the horizon. That hope comes in the form of a new president taking office on Tuesday and the old one (and his sneaky midnight regulations) getting the boot.

President-elect Obama and his transition team established a website to give the people of America a voice. Change.gov has a section called Citizen’s Briefing Book, wherein with a simple log-in, anyone can sound off about issues that they’d like to see the Obama administration put on its radar. Poker players have stepped up and taken action, not only by posting entries about online poker and the UIGEA, but taking one post in particular and ranking it so high (second at one point) that the Obama administration will have to take a look at it.

The entry called “Boost America’s Economy with Legal Online Poker” didn’t use spell-check isn’t the most detailed, but sometimes short-and-sweet is all that’s necessary. By thousands of people logging in and hitting “vote up” next to the entry, it has become one of the most viewed on the site. It takes a few minutes, and each subsequent vote will push the issue that much closer to Obama’s desk.

Meanwhile, in Congress, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced the Midnight Rule Act in an attempt to negate – or at least call into review – the last three months of regulations put into effect by the lame duck Bush administration. That would include the UIGEA that, despite objections by financial institutions, will go into effect on Monday, January 19th with compliance required by December 1st. If Nadler’s bill passes and gets to Obama’s desk, all of those midnight antics would go through a review, and possible rejection, by the appropriate members of Obama’s cabinet. This is a chance to reverse the enforcement dates of the UIGEA and give us more time to lobby Obama to help us change it.

Get on over to the PPA website, where you can get in touch with your Congressional representative and urge their support of the Midnight Rule Act introduced by Nadler.

Not exactly, but close … this picture from Time magazine’s White House Photo Blog, taken in the Oval Office, caught my pokery eye:

Begs the question, of course, of who will make the next administration’s Presidential poker chips … because clearly he’ll have to have some, right?