The LA Poker Classic is finally winding down, but the last few days should be quite a cap to what has already been a very exciting series. 681 players turned out for the $10,000 LAPC Main Event, which is down from last year but that can be attributed directly to Full Tilt not running direct satellites to the tournament. The winner will probably not be complaining though, as the top prize in this event is over $1.6 million. At last check, there were 34 players left, with James Carroll leading and David “Bakes” Baker not far behind. Other notables still in the field include Allen Cunningham, Joe Hachem, Jason Senti, Kathy Liebert and Lauren Kling. If you’ve got a second, be sure to check out the live video stream from the Commerce Casino. 5 players are left at the $25K high roller event final table, with Elky leading the pack.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Greg Pohler is the brother of Parks and Recreation star and SNL alum Amy Poehler, but thanks to a Google search, movies.yahoo.com says that she has a brother named Gregory, so I’m gonna run with that (despite the fact that they’re spelled differently). Pohler won almost $30,000 in Event #46 at the LAPC, but the most interesting result from that tournament may be the 17th place finisher. I haven’t heard the phrase “Parts Unknown” since I watched WWF back in the early 1990s.

One of the more impressive final tables has to be the $5,100 No Limit Hold’em event that took place last week. Randy Dorfman topped an impressive final table that included Shannon Shorr, Nick Binger, Jon Turner and French Pro Nicholas Levi. Dorfman took home $163,270 for this win, one of the biggest prizes awarded at this year’s LAPC.

The last of the unique events that Matt Savage runs at the LAPC was the double-elimination format Heads-Up tournament. The $5K tournament got 48 players, and the six making the money were an impressive group. John Racener, Erik Seidel, Justin Young and Fabrice Soulier all found their way to the money. The final match was between Nicholas Rampone and Scott Seiver, with Rampone coming out of the Loser’s Bracket against Seiver, who had not lost a match on the way to the finals. Rampone had to beat Seiver twice to capture the title, which is exactly what he did. He got $81,480 and a $10,000 seat to the Main Event, which was added to this tournament as well as a handful of others during the LAPC.

A Pair of Swedes Invade To Denmark, One Captures (EPT) Crown
EPT Copenhagen – Copenhagen, Denmark

Another week, another €500K first prize on the EPT. After playing down from a final eight that included Juha Helppi and American online wiz Kevin Iacofano, two Swedish pros battled it out for the EPT Copenhagen title. Michael Tureniec and Per Linde battled for more than three-and-a-half hours heads-up, with Tureniec vindicating himself following a previous second place finish on the EPT by capturing this title. Tureniec won €496,271 for this effort, but no word on how Scandinavian relations are following this brash invasion.

Former Corrections Officer Lays Down the Law, Becomes First Female Poker Champion in Florida History
WSOP Circuit, Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

The young history of tournament poker means that we’ll be seeing a lot of first-time events in the coming years. This past week at Florida saw the first woman crowned as champion of a major event. June Amer, a retired corrections officer in Dade County, won the biggest prize of this circuit stop to date, banking over $65,000 in a $550 event with 664 entries. After cashing in Event #2, Amer overcame what looked to be an insurmountable chip lead in this tournament to lock up the Circuit ring, as well as put herself in position to contend for player of the series.

Quite a few familiar faces showed up to play at this WSOP circuit stop, including Team Pokerati member Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider. He found his way to the final table of an Omaha 8/b event, but with less than one small bet when the final table began, Schneider could not improve his position and finished 9th. Also at this final table was “Captain Tom” Franklin, but he too fell short of this title, finishing in 5th place. The winner of the event was Timothy Burt, a veteran who served for three years in Iraq, who knotches his second WSOP circuit ring, the first coming in a HORSE event in Biloxi last November.

Mark Benasa Wins Record Red Dragon in Macau; Hannibal Lector Unavailable for Comment
Macau Poker Cup, Grand Casino Lisboa – Lisboa, Macau

509 players turned out over two days of the Macau Poker Cup Main Event. Known as the “Red Dragon”, this tournament shattered the previous record of 321 players, and created a prize pool of over HKD $5,090,000. Mark Benasa won the title, becoming the first Filipino player in the tournament’s history to do so. Benasa took home a first place prize of HKD $1,100,000 ($140,000) and now leads the APOY race, with a one-year sponsorship from PokerStars Macau on the line.

Swim Instructor Sinks Competition To Win HPT Title
HPT, Downstream Casino Resort, Quapaw, Oklahoma

27-year-old Michael Jensen is a part-time poker pro, but definitely someone who has his priorities in order. In an interview before the final table at Downstream Casino, Jensen said, “Whether I finish sixth or first, I’m teaching swimming lessons to little kids tomorrow afternoon.” If I were Jensen, I would be pulling a Scrooge McDuck following those lessons, as his $100K payday for first place could definitely fill a pool full of coins to swim in.

The Poker Edge:

Fresh off his trip to the Bahamas for the PokerStar Caribbean Adventure Andrew Feldman and Phil Gordon join forces to discuss the biggest hand of heads-up play from the PCA Main Event. Jeffrey Pollack and Annie Duke join the podcast to discuss the details of their new poker league. You can listen to the entire podcast on ESPN.com, or download it directly via iTunes.

The Poker Room Radio Show:

Want to know what is going on in the Florida poker scene? These guys from the Jax Poker Room bring you the latest happenings in Florida along with some other discussion. This week the guys discuss the upcoming Chad Brown NLHE Championship and the tourneys leading up to the Main Event. They close out the show discussing table pet peeves, one of which is eating at the table. You can catch this weeks show online at The Poker Room Radio Show site.

Gambling Tales Podcast Show:

This is a fairly new podcast out there that has a no frills approach. They get right to the subject on hand without all the normal banter and poker news that can be found on most other podcast. This week “Short-Stacked Shamus” joins the host to discuss the the novel King of a Small World by Rick Bennet. Shamus reads a passage from the book followed by the crew having a short discussion. If you are looking for a short podcast to get you from home to work this would be a great addition. You can either listen to the show on the Gambling Tells Podcast site or download it directly from iTunes.

I think that … a Tournament at Palm Beach Kennel Club on February 17 – March 1 would be a great Idea. Maybe its not a rumor?!! I would gamble and book a room.

Ah yes, it all makes so much sense now, doesn’t it? (That is, of course, assuming Sommerfeld doesn’t get canned before WSOP-Choctaw, in January 2011, for running his yap ahead of any official press release.

Not only would a WSOP-Florida series further support America’s favorite citrus-bearing peninsula as the juiciest destination in poker since France, but also, it would confirm Harrah’s willingness to take unprecedented steps in an effort to keep up with the new-and-improved WPT/Party/Bwin.

The above dates, if true, would run it right up against the WPT-LAPC, btw.

Florida, as we know, is in the early stages of a mini-boom thanks to sensible new poker laws (allowing higher stakes play) that emerged after five years of legislative tweaking. On a recent episode of The Poker Beat, we were discussing the new Florida market … and specifically the WPT’s deal with the Seminoles to put their brand in casinos and card rooms throughout the state.

I suggested (flippantly?) that we’d obviously be seeing a WSOP-Circuit event there soon … but BJ brought up a good point (lol): Harrah’s owned no property in Florida, and all other Circuit events had been at Harrah’s locales. Hmmm, I was not aware … off-air we had a good chortle about whether or not we might see Harrah’s buy up old rundown jai alai frontons.

But lo and behold our self-inflated windbaggery would turn out to be all for naught. (BJ was wrong, I was right, what’s new?) … with Harrah’s making their plans to venture into new territory plenty clear in a subsequent press release announcing WSOP-Choctaw. Check it out … 5th graf down:

The Choctaw Casino Resort stop also marks the first time the WSOP has stepped outside the Harrah’s-affiliated properties to offer a WSOP-branded event.

That was the real hedline in that WSOPress Release. With maybe a snarky subhed about challenging claims to NAPT sovereignity.

So again, no official confirmation about the a WSOP-Circuit event in Florida at the Palm Beach Kennel Club February 17-March 1 to be TD’d by Jimmy Sommerfeld … but we do know for certain now that Harrah’s is willing to take unprecedented steps — whether it be with Indian tribes or brick-and-mortar non-Harrah’s card rooms — to take the battle for tour dominance to new places.

The Choctaw announcement — surely not coincidentally, right? — came in the middle of the big annual River series at Winstar, an event hosted by PokerStars patch-wearing pro-dot-net Greg Raymer. PokerStars also established a small presence in the northern part of OK with the Heartland Poker Tour event at the Downstream Casino in Quahpah.

In the Heartland event, Stars (dot net) only sponsors the TV show, not the tournament. Likewise at WinStar, Raymer is just a player who happens to wear PokerStars gear.

But think Harrah’s isn’t essentially saying in Oklahoma and probably Florida to the NAPT/PokerStars, nuh-uh, don’t even think about it!?!

We can see now that the WPT and the WSOP have a new heads-up battle on their hands, and with both ops showing up in two different states with the bulk of their poker in Indian-controlled territories, you gotta think both have a strong corporate interest in doing whatever possible to keep PokerStars from establishing a foothold on American soil … even if they were thinking they could just change the N in NAPT from North to Native.

Though we have no proof of actual collusion, the similar interest of both Harrah’s/WSOP and WPT/Party/Bwin suggests the fight to keep out the NAPT — even in non-Harrah’s locales now — is pretty much two against one.

Donkdown vs. Coolio

Donkdown Radio :: The always-NSFW working-class Vegas grinders at Donkdown went to war with Coolio last month before moving on to better things (like hunting down @asianspa). This feud started a few weeks back with an on-air story about how the aging rap star, a recent relo to Vegas, showed up at Binion’s during BARGE … allegedly to buy drugs from a player attending Barry Tanenbaum’s keynote address … only to end up with pictures of himself passed out butt-naked (literally) on the Donkdown forum. Coolio even came on their show and sang a few bars of Gangsta’s Paradise before getting hip to Brandon and Micon’s game a few days later, at which point they allege he began threatening to retaliate … right after the next season of Ultimate Big Brother. [Link]

Laak Extra-Whack

The Strip Podcast :: A worthy leftover from the summertime WSOP … Vegas culture blogger and New York Times stringer Steve Freiss’ talking to Phil Laak 114 hours into his record 115-hour poker-endurance run. If you thought Laak ever said weird shit before, listen to the twisted gems Freiss pulls out of him (or stumbles into) tableside during his final hands. [Link]

Hurricane Poker

Ante Up Pokercast :: Chris Cosenza and Scott Long were professional newspaper guys in Tampa who had an “award-winning” podcast long before The Poker Beat existed. Then they quit their day jobs to podcast full-time and turn their show into a magazine … mostly about Florida poker. They now cover more than a dozen states but still hold their spot as the poker-media of Florida — just as the state kicks into its mini-boom. The current episode takes you on a road trip through some other emerging markets in live poker — Pennsylvania and Delaware — shortly before Earl arrived to follow a similar path up America’s East Coast. [Link]

Her Big Blonde Life

My Big Blonde Life :: Low-stakes Vegas grinder Hannah Elisabeth has a pretty unique shtick — intelligent, funny stuff, with 21st-century bawdiness set to a 1930s dial. The show kinda reminds me of Shamus’ Hardboiled Poker Radio Show … if he were a loud, sassy Vegas broad with a sharp tongue and bombastic tatas regularly hitting various $1/$2 tables on The Strip. (Facebook fan page for the liking, or … ) [Link]

Also …

Two relatively new podcasts from our pals at CardRunners :: Poker Law Round Table, commandeered by Lana Maier, Verneer, and Matt Matros, with guest experts joining the cast for a Meet the Press-like confab.

And Rabbit Hunt, which the best I can tell is like a JV version of The Poker Beat, but geekier — hosted by Tyresias and Spartanfox, whom you may have noticed is currently auditioning as “Mark Gahagan” for the job of Pokerati’s Chief Executive Intern. (We’ve got him waiting for a callback.)

Oh, and … the Wicked Chops podcast is back. Didn’t Howard Stern already try that naked chicks on radio thing? Whaddya mean no SFW naked chicks? TV writers making mainstream cop shows with poker episodes midseason? But there’s no online poker conversions in that?!?

Florida Is the New France

(Apologies for not sharing this important insight with you readers. Just busy, ya know?)

It was the place a lot of WSOP dealers were saying they were headed after the Series … and some of them were already there, forgoing a summer in Vegas to set up shop near the beach early. These Pokerati card-carrying dealers began reporting near-immediately that indeed, the games were “sick”, and as a dealer it was nice to finally find a place where dealing actually paid well again.

All this because Florida passed a law legalizing poker some five years ago, and now, after a few revisions to the relevant statute, with betting limits and tourney buy-ins uncapped officially as of July 1 (and poker rooms now allowed to be open 24/7) the state has finally put itself in a position to realize the game’s potential — for them and for poker.

Also says something about the WPT’s continued effort to reclaim significance in the poker world. Can only imagine the WSOP will have a big circuit event there soon, too. In fact, might be willing to bet we’ll see one of those before we ever see an NAPT-Florida.

Below is the World Poker Tour press release about their partnership to put branded poker rooms throughout multiple Seminole casinos, and host a big televised $10k event at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida in late April/early May of next year. Early read is that this could become one of the big US tournaments of the year.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

world poker tour® and seminole gaming Strike groundbreaking poker Partnership

Changes in law lead to WPT televised events, branded poker rooms and more at Seminole Casinos across Florida

LOS ANGELES (August 10, 2010) – World Poker Tour® (WPT) and Seminole Gaming today announced a multi-year alliance, adding a televised stop in Florida to the current WPT Season IX tour schedule, several additional WPT branded events and the development of official WPT Poker Rooms inside select Seminole Casinos. For the first time, players in Florida will be able to participate in a televised $10,000 buy-in WPT tournament. WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood from April 27 – May 3, 2011.

“A WPT tournament at a Seminole Casino in Florida is a perfect addition to our television season,” said Adam Pliska, WPT President. “With the recent changes in its poker laws, this is a momentous time for the evolution of poker in Florida and we are proud to join forces with the Seminole Tribe to finally bring high-stakes poker to Florida.”

Recent changes in state law have removed caps from poker games, including tournaments, and have relaxed rules on hours of play. As a result, Florida, the fourth most populous state in the U.S., appears destined to become one of the hottest poker markets in the nation. In addition, Seminole Casino poker rooms will now be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They offer 1,360 poker seats at six Florida casinos, far surpassing other card rooms in the state.

”World Poker Tour will bring a new level of sophistication and excitement to poker rooms at Seminole Casinos,” said Jeffrey Hook, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Seminole Gaming. “We look forward to combining the WPT partnership with no-limit poker and 24-hour play to maximize the action for our players.”

The basics:

Preface
You might wonder why there is this page. Well, I also have the services of Michael Schuett, alias adopted USAG24 Inc. and has been cheated a lot of money. Meanwhile, there are quite a lot of people who feel the same way.

The people who have resisted and have published their case as the Internet, were then put massive pressure from Michael Schuett and most have agreed to the cancellation of their websites. This of course happened after agreeing a settlement, for example, was paid some money from Michael Schuett so that the matter is created from the world. Most of these people have only received a fraction of the lost money again and had to return the sites to take from the net.

Thus Michael Schuett is still continuing its Betrügerein. I will not comment on such a comparison and the money had already been written off as dearly as I will have to deal with this person any more. However, I would keep everyone else from dealing with that person and any company business.

Your USAG24-dupe

Now for all we know this is just one disgruntled ex-colleague. But he’s had a twitter feed set up for the past three months just to track the whereabouts of this one person. @usag24betrug has three followers.

And here’s a half-hour lifestyle documentary on Michael Schuett, apparently chronicling his move to Florida:

Very strange. Might online poker sites be a victim of a fraud here? Or just tangled up with the wrong guy? I’m still not sure what to make of it all, but I do get the sense now that this situation may turn out to be about more than online poker …

Go Massachusetts Skillaments, but elsewhere, far more is at stake for states that could care less about the nuances of what is and is not technically gambling amongst avowed gamblers. Thus, PPA Executive Director John Pappas has been crisscrossing the country addressing states considering intrastate online poker, trying to persuade them not to muddy the online semi-gambling waters with legislation that comes to the table inherently flawed, legally and from a competitive market standpoint.

Pappas was in Florida last week, addressing a Senate committee on regulated industries. Florida, as we know, has been working on more and more legal poker for the past five or six years with much success, so why not extend that to the internet? Well, Pappas explains, because problems needing fixin’ at the federal level first. Without it, anything any one state creates, he says, automatically will exist in a a legal gray area that could be challenged in a variety of federal ways. And because of this gray area, and the way poker works, regulated “state monopoly” sites will struggle to compete against the unregulated likes of Full Tilt and PokerStars. (He doesn’t mention those sites by name, but players know that’s who he’s talking about.)

It’s an important argument to begin honing, because right now we have California and Florida moving aggressively in the intrastate direction — supposedly with Iowa and Wyoming about to jump on the bandwagon. Legislation can be a rather cut-and-paste enterprise these days, so if those four states go, then it’s only a matter of time before some 40+ others follow suit, which could undermine, or at least complicate, years of work on by poker’s favorite grassroots advocacy group.

Have a listen. In addition to bringing the California arguments to Florida, for the first time we hear the PPA start to lay out some of the details on how internet poker taxation would work under either the Frank or Menendez bills — with provisions included for individual states to receive their revenue share from the federal regulatory system. We also learn of a new organization — the Poker Voters of America — that has effectively brought the idea of intrastate online poker to the Florida legislature. On its surface, the PVA doesn’t look too different from the PPA. But strategically, they’re fighting the UIGEA in a much different way. Well-meaning but misguided is the gist; can we have your donor list?

I’m not sure I’m making the case here any better than Pappas is. We know what he’s saying, of course … no, man, don’t go the Italian monopoly route … go poker, but that’s no good!

But you can see how statewide advocacy groups could be hearing, “Yo, don’t fuck with our shit dudes! This is our turf here!” To which the Floridians would say, You’ve had long enough and gotten us nowhere. Our state needs money now, so we’re gonna go it alone while you figure your federal shit out. PokerStars.Fl.gov. Yeah, I like it. Do you know how much our state could make just as an affiliate!?!

Ultimately, the reason to eschew the intrastate model is the same reason a guy like Ron Paul supports the PPA-backed federal bills … because we believe in free markets and open markets. Anything else is detrimental to the American economy. But with the kinda money at stake and shady people we’ve all smelt at the table, we can’t have financial anarchy. So the way for us to make this work in a way that protects American freedoms and makes fiscal sense is to have the PokerStars/Full Tilt model … all the people in the world able to sit at the same table and play a game. (I like to think of it as the online poker=world peace model.) But you simply can’t have it with any state trying to limit the behavior of its citizens within its borders as if it were China or Kentucky. If I’m in Florida and want to play legal online poker, why can’t I play against a guy in Swtzerland looking to do the same thing? And it’s downright unAmerican if I can’t compete against a Texan!

ALT HED: Something about the Commerce Clause #nottobeconfusedwithCommerceCasino

“We had 115 different countries have players represented this year,” said Seth Palansky, a World Series spokesman. “It’s just an astonishing amount — more than the Olympics.”

To be fair, that’s only more than the Winter Olympics. Poker still has a bit more work to catch the Summer games.

Ha ha. Burn on Palansky.

The story continues:

Not everyone is happy with the poker boom. Gambling critics like the Florida Family Policy Council say the game’s greater social acceptance is largely a result of aggressive PR efforts.

“It’s being promoted as something that’s sexy and adventurous and cool,” said council President John Stemberger. “All the big money is on the side of promoting it, not on the side of educating people as to why it’s not a smart thing.”

True enough, Mr. Stemberger, but the same thing could be said about religion, right? You think our activity can be harmful — and indeed it can — and I think your activity can be harmful … and indeed it can. But that’s where living in the wonderful US of A comes into play … As an American (and Floridians are Americans, even the ones who are Cuban) I have the personal freedom to pursue my happiness, just as you do … even though I can show you example after example of people pursuing the activities Big God money is pushing doing tremendous harm … usually with a lot more blood and death, in fact.

Trust me, when it comes to potentially addictive products, poker is much closer to Starbuck’s than Marlboro … even though financial advisors have shown time and time again how quitting a $5 a day Starbuck’s habit can equal millions of extra retirement dollars in the course of life.

Meanwhile, here’s another Herald story about Florida’s longtime wagering culture as the state considers it’s biggest expansion of gambling in history.

First off, I just get pissy — because why can’t Texas see what we are missing by being so anti-poker. I mean sheeot, the state of Texas is building what may well become one of the biggest non-Vegas casinos in all of America right across the border in Oklahoma … because of the belief that poker offends Republican primary voters’ moral sensibilities. I mean either we don’t believe that, and just are stupid for letting OK make all the $$, or we do believe that, and therefore are being pretty unneighborly (at least from a Christian perspective) by letting our good friends to the north destroy themselves — and our people — with poker.

But I digress … this tournament reminds me why poker is different from so many other similar political issues — and it’s stuff “our side” should remember when trying to push through our political agenda.

As far as “alternative” political issues … the one most in line with poker right now would seem to be marijuana. They too are flooding Washington DC with supportive letters — and are making essentially the same plea: regulate and tax us, please!

While I’m not so sure potheads are the best company to be in, politically — they’re making moves, but it’s taking decades, because you know, potheads are seldom in a hurry — there is such a clear difference here. And that is you would never see a group of cops hosting a “bake” sale to raise money for a comrade-in-need … as good of an idea as that may be.

Though a few cops playing cards certainly isn’t any deal-maker on the political front, separating poker from other forms of “vice” seems to me would be an essential part of any plan to legitimize the game … so this helps. Save Captain Sargent!

UPDATE: SB 788 passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, now Gov. Charlie Crist negotiates with the Seminole Nation on a gambling compact which must be completed by August 31 The Legislature must then go back into session to pass the compact for the gaming bill to go into effect.

Dag Martin Mikkelsen (age 22, Norway) – 7,360,000
Matthew Woodward (age 26, United States) – 4,920,000
Peter Traply (age 21, Hungary) – 4,250,000
Mikhail Tulchinsky (age 43, Russia) – 3,605,000
Daniel Zink (age 24, Germany) – 2,570,000
Eric Qu (age 47, France) – 2,550,000
Alem Shah (age 51, Germany) – 1,520,000
Pieter de Korver (age 26, Netherlands) – 1,390,000

The 5-day, €10,000 main event drew 935 players (compared to 842 last year) and is paying €2.3 million to the winner. Click here to follow the action.

UPDATE: You can also watch live coverage at EPTLive.com, which I’m listening to in French to hear Benjo do the broadcast, who I gotta say is as funny in French (which I don’t speak) as he is in English.

Meanwhile, they’re concurrently playing the final table of the €25,000 “high rollers” event (a 3-day affair) — where the winner gets €720,000 … €434,000 to 2nd place. It’s apparently been quite the action game. They lost four players in the first level. Those remaining:

Randy Dorfman (age ??, United States) – 1,200,000 2,000,000
Tony G (age 35, Lithuania) – 900,000
Vanessa Rousso (age 26, United States) – 810,000 790,000 880,000
x- 4th place – Florian Langmann (age 26, Germany) – 1,180,000 220,000

Rousso actually started the day as the chip leader. I’m following her on Twitter, actually, where she has quite the hardbody avatar with a fake shark. Semi-interesting that both Americans remaining are both from Florida.

BTW, the current exchange rate:
€1 = $1.33
$1 = €.75

So that means the main event win pays: $3.05 million
The high rollers win pays: $956,000

Legalized poker rooms in Texas closer to a reality

And in Florida, which is in the midst of its own mini-poker boom after legalizing the game a couple years ago, is continuing to improve the game, pushing forth legislation to raise cash-game limits and allow for bigger buy-in tourneys:

Florida House plan raises poker stakes

What’s particularly interesting about Florida isn’t so much the poker, but the tax-tweaking related to it. And with that, the ussual opposition seems to be taking a different tack:

The House plans to expand poker and lower the tax rate are paired with an effort to shut down blackjack tables at Seminole resorts.

Fellow Republicans in the state Senate, though, have a different vision. To maximize revenues, senators want to authorize full casinos at Seminole resorts, complete with craps and roulette, as well as blackjack at South Florida tracks and bingo-style slots at facilities across the state. The Senate goes even farther than the House, allowing no-limit poker wagering.

Meanwhile, a pretty good summary of gambling-related initiatives in Texas comes from an email sent out by our opposition in the Christian Life Coalition. And the poli-blogger who subscribes acknowledges that while he is plausibly opposed to much that has to do with expanded gambling in the state, he still endorses Jose Menendez’s HB 222:

Of all the various gambling expansion options I’ve seen, allowing for poker seems to me to be the most sensible and least potentially harmful. Plus, as a bridge player who has had the chance to play for money legally, I think poker is a legitimate game of skill and should be treated as such. In fact, poker players in Pennsylvania and South Carolina recently won court rulings that agreed poker is a game of skill. As such, it’s not clear to me that the AG’s opinion would agree with the CLC about the inherent level of chance here. Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, and Lord only knows what Greg Abbott will do.

Yeah. People are starting to get it. Go Poker!

Fresh off her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover advertorial, followed by her GoDaddy spokesmodel deal (and Danica Patrick commercial), followed by her impressive run to a $250k televised cash at the NHUPC final-final table … Vanessa Rousso is back at her old stomping grounds, doing a monthlong, seven-stop, three-casino run through Florida — with lectures, seminars, charity tourneys, and a “series of instructional workshops grounded in ‘Game Theory’ and Sun Tzu’s teachings about The Art of War”.

Ahh, now I see, her master plan kicked into gear with the PokerStars bikini shoot is all starting to make sense … she’s now got documented cred in looks, personality, skill … if only she could share her grasp of high-level contemporary mathematics and ancient eastern military philosophy with the troubled kids in her old hood!

(Isn’t 26 such a fun age?)

Click below for Vanessa’s Florida pokery homecoming itinerary:

· Friday, March 20th at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, where she will play in a charity tournament for her newly launched anti-poverty foundation, The No Limit, No Profit Initiative, as well as several other charities.

· Saturday, March 21st at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, Rousso returns for a short lecture on Game Theory and Poker tournament techniques. She will also play in an invitation-only tournament.

· Monday, March 23rd, Rousso will participate in the Pompano Beach’s Isle Casino ‘Battle at the Beach’ $300K guaranteed tournament. She will be available to sign autographs and take photographs during the tournament’s scheduled breaks.

· Saturday, March 28th at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, Rousso will give a short lecture on Game Theory and Poker and play in an invitation-only tournament.

· Sunday, April 5th at the Isle Casino in Pompano Beach, Rousso will launch her innovative poker instructional camp: ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

· Saturday, April 11th at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, Vanessa will teach another session of ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

· Sunday, April 26th at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, Rousso will close out her Florida tour with one final opportunity for Florida poker players to attend her out-of-the-box boot camp, ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

More details and registrations at BigSlickBootCamp.com

Online poker found itself in another brouhaha in the non-poker press last week — in Florida, where UF’s star point guard Nick Calathes (and prospective NBA first-round draft pick) was under investigation for NCAA violations over a $600 gambling debt. The investigation found he did indeed lose money playing online poker, but the NCAA only penalizes athletes who gamble on sports … or commit criminal acts. So Calathes is in the clear, and online poker, by the transitive property, is declared an acceptable recreational activity fully within the law. Yay-win! Go team.

It probably didn’t help, however, that one of the dudes hosting basketballer home games was a former walk-on who previously had been busted for allegedly hooking up the team and others with weed. (Though a friend with weed is a friend indeed…) probably not the kinda guy you want handling money transfers online.

An online-casino-biz response to situation and the suggestion on how his industry needs to work openly with the NCAA.

Alligator Army laments the nonsense online poker hubbub distracting them from the b-ball at hand.

About halfway through this episode of the what is clearly the best poker podcast on the Florida gulf coast, Chris and Scott conduct a phone interview with AJ Benza, who I gotta say is pretty damn funny when not in Gabe Kaplan’s shadow. With genuine Brooklyn candor, he discusses not only what he knows about his own show, but also “Doyle Brunson’s tits,” Dustin Diamond as “a misunderstood asshole,” David Goldhill (the new head of GSN), and what it is about High Stakes Poker that works: “Let’s get guys back on TV who drink, smoke, and punch people in the eye.”

Good stuff from Ante Up.

Click here to download/listen to the episode.

While account-sharing is hardly the worst offense when it comes to poker ethics, it is in violation of Full Tilt T&C’s for their pros. So Little, who’s FT stock was on the rise, is now out. Stupid kid Yo, bummer dude.

Confirmed by Full Tilt here.

When a player on Full Tilt Poker plays against and chats with a red pro on the site, it is imperative that they be able to trust that it is really the advertised pro playing the account. Given that Mr. Little violated that trust, we have decided to sever his ties to the site, and close his account.

The first well-known pro to get busted for online account-sharing was Phil Hellmuth (outed here, and confronted about it here).

After that, Howard Lederer reportedly sent out a memo to all the Full Tilt pros letting them know that if they ever did something similar, they would be canned immediately. Little wasn’t part of the team when that went down, so maybe he didn’t embrace the seriousness that Full Tilt places on its integrity. Gotta wonder if these sorts of indiscretions will occur more regularly as Full Tilt continues to sign up more and more pros. Also wonder how long Little’s FT page will stay up online.

Brick-and-mortar tournament success here.

The circumstances around this homicide are still a bit unclear … the masked men engaged in an argument with the host that escalated to the point of gunfire. If this was over an old debt with known acquaintances, of course, you gotta question why the armed bandits would be wearing masks. The man killed was a player who came to the game from a couple suburbs away.

Police say it’s possible this game was legal — if betting was capped at $10 per hand. That seems unlikely, however, since people came to play at this house multiple times a week, it was robbed a few months earlier for more than $30,000, and the owner even had cards painted on his driveway.