Have you been thinking about buying an iPad? Do you want to help the PPA in its mission to restore your Internet poker freedoms? Well, now is your chance to kill two birds with one stone, by taking this new poker survey. Working with U.S. Gaming Survey, the PPA has created a poker specific survey to help us better understand the playing community and in turn help us better advocate for your interests in Washington DC. Once you’ve fully completed the survey, your name will be entered into a drawing for a brand new Apple iPad2. The survey is completely anonymous, and your personal information will not be shared with anyone. Click on the button below to begin the survey and help the PPA help you! The survey will remain open until December 30th noon EST. The iPad2 prize winner will be announced on January 3rd, 2012.

Phil Ivey recently dropped off ESPN’s admittedly subjective player rankings, The Nuts. ESPN’s was the last of such lists to still include the self-exiled Full Tilt Pro in their Top 10. (Homers.)

I found this out via PartTime Poker, which seems to be doing a pretty cool monthly bit over there — breaking down player standings across four different ranking systems, each with their own calculation biases and level of subjectivity in determining the best poker players in the world.

Perhaps surprisingly, I still recognize most at least half of the 21 names comprising the four different Top 10s … but I’ll bet the rest of the world surely doesn’t. There’s a reason, after all, Jason Mercier doesn’t even have a Q-score.

So with subjectivity in mind … best player, winningest player, field strength, skill measurement, tournament luck, run-good ratios, late position likability, backer’s credit score …

Poker is back in the state-level Supreme Courts … this time in South Carolina, with five appointed justices set to decide if playing Texas Hold’em in a private residence is a crime.

The decision, which will likely reverberate throughout the Carolina underground and beyond, will rely heavily on matters of skill and chance involved in poker, as gamecock law calls for a “dominate factor test” to determine whether or not a game violates South Carolina gambling statutes. Like we saw in Kentucky and Washington, the SC SC will just be hearing arguments tomorrow, for about 30 minutes from both sides combined, and not issuing a ruling for a few months. But when they do … well read below for what’s at stake beyond a few misdemeanor convictions.

In the meantime … we know there’s skill in poker, but how much is often debatable. Where on the continuum do you draw the lines for these different “games”?

More…

Jess, Huff, and I had a small-group Poker Beat pow-wow on Sunday, where one of the topics was who we like for the Hall of Fame in 2010. I probably shoulda looked at the actual ballot before the show. Knew there were some changes but didn’t understand exactly what was different …

The revised 2010 scoring system gives each of the 33 voters 10 points … to be designated however seems fitting among up to 3 nominees. The two highest point totals get inducted. Definitely like the improvements, but have sent an email seeking clarification on how the mysterious “governing council” Seth and Alan taking the interns out for beers might handle ties. Also curious how someone like Henry Orenstein would ever get considered in the future.

Rules Are Official, Mock Ballot Is Not

Below are rules from the official ballots, which went out Friday to the 16 living PHOF members and 17 on the “Blue Ribbon Media Voting Panel”. Take a look … (interesting to me the stress put on “this year”) … then cast your own Pokerati Mock Hall of Fame ballot to see how you like the new system, and where we line up with final results.

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History of the World (Series of Poker)

Yep, it’s now time for the WSOP main event numbers game … if entry numbers drop significantly, my ghad what a disaster … whoa is poker! A small drop, as we saw last year, no worries, Team WSOP can spin it accordingly … If they grow slightly, cool, we are right on track since the UIGEA … see, all is fine in the poker world. If they grow TREMENDOUSLY and come anywhere near Jamie Gold-year numbers, holy fugk, the entire world is a better place, starvation has been eliminated, and Osama bin Laden has been captured!

I’m going with “slight increase” … but wouldn’t be surprised to see “slight decrease” or even “slightly bigger than expected increase”. The WSOP’s official fan page on Facebook ran a poll — How many people will you have to beat to win the 2010 WSOP Main Event? — and here were the results:

under 5,000 – 5%
5,000-6,000 – 5%
6,001-7,000 – 25%
7,001-8,000 – 29%
over 8,000 – 36%

Guaranteed: unless we cross the 8k barrier, a super-majority will be wrong.

Fact: They didn’t have these kinda off-base poll results back in the days of Friendster.

From Moss to Moneymaker:
The Early Decades

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Don’t quite know the details, but it happened again. Apparently two men entered yesterday’s ladies event at the Venetian Deep Stack series. And at least one of them went relatively deep.

Here’s what I was able to glean from Facebook:

Annie LePage Bleeeehhhh… A freakin guy who crashed the ladies event and was totally rude to all of us at the table had to be the one busting me. I am sooo Mad!

Stacey Nutini yea well i was pretty pissed too busting in 16th and there was still one guy in…..i think they’re complete frickin morons to participate. and when you ask them why, their reason is always the biggest bullshit you’ve ever heard in your life.

The day before the Venetian ladies event, the Las Vegas Sun ran a story (with awesome art, btw) about the men who played in the WSOP ladies event. They’ve got a poll asking whether or not men should be allowed to play. Currently 40 percent say yes, and 59 percent say no.

OK, so it’s settled: the no’s have it … we can move on now, right? No?

Anyone got an over/under on how long before ladies events are eradicated completely? Because I sure can’t see — based on the above split alone — why this trend would eventually subside … not until the minority gets their way.

I just voted for the Maven Awards. Not usually my bag to give out all my confirming email data (in a time-consuming way) that lets someone else plausibly sell or profit from my internet ID. In fact, many know I consciously chose not to vote for the WSOP-TOC because I couldn’t help but see that as an email harvesting operation for WSOP.com, done in a way that trivializes the value of sites like Pokerati when it comes to someday sending players to the WSOP for online poker play.

(Also, by standing on such principles, I didn’t have to tell Tom he had a more promising future in selling pants than trying to qualify for the TOC.)

However, because the Maven Awards presumably isn’t looking to open an online poker room in the near future, and because, frankly, I was feeling bad for women in poker after the punk-bitch episodes in this year’s WSOP-Ladies event … I decided to give up my IP address to support the cause … somebody’s cause … in a way that seems like a good step toward someday negating the need for a separate Women in Poker Hall of Fame.

Much to my plausibly noble delight, it turns out The Maven Awards has an anonymous voting option that still does a decent job of preventing blatant ballot stuffing. (I tried; would require too much work for me to vote twice.)

I’m not sure when their voting deadline is, but it’s gotta be soon … so I encourage you to get your votes in, too, by voting here. Below are whom I voted for in each of the 14 categories and why:

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Check it out … the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a story on the possibility of legalizing online poker in 2010. (Nice quotes, Lavigne.)

Nothing earth-shattering in the story … just the non-poker populace continuing to be educated on the basics of our issues at stake. And the mainstream media letting said populace know that indeed, these issues will be dealt with in some capacity this year. Also interesting — the ST’s running a poll with that article, looking for essentially a thumbs-up-thumbs-down referendum on the matter of online poker. Our side is in the lead (as usual), but a stronger than usual 39 percent have voted so far to say that instead of legalizing and taxing online poker, the government should crack down.

Also in the Star-Telegram: Police are cracking down on cock fights.

That’s what we wanna know … do you think this UIGEA enforcement deadline is gonna pass with out much ado? Efforts to delay this by a year seems to be the current push … though that’s essentially running it through the executive branch … a lotta different interests in play there. And, of course, Congress is still in session … do you see any chance that anyone can close the deal through legislative means? Barney?

Here’s the PPA ED John Pappas giving a little more insight on what this date means to the folks in Washington DC, and what the PPA is doing to fight it. But damn, with the clock having been called, will it be enough?

Don’t forget to vote — right over there, on your right. I mean sheeyot, if you can’t click a button a couple inches away … then maybe we’re due to get exactly what we deserve?

Look for tells on Pappas’ face for any reads on how he might really see the situation.

photo: WSOP.com

That’s what we wanna know … after Saturday/Sunday’s marathon 9->2 session … how long do you think the heads-up battle between Darvin Moon and Joe Cada will go?

They’re currently in Level 39, with blinds at 500k/1000k + 150k.

Moon has almost the same number of chips he started with, 58,850,000, while Cada, who started with just 13,215,000, now has all the rest — 135,950,000.

What they’re fighting for, essentially: $3.36 million in cash, and then everything else that goes with being WSOP champ.

NOTE: In our previous unscientific poll, Moon got the second-most votes … Cada fourth-most.

The record for WSOP heads-up battles is 7 hours 10 minutes, set by Chip Reese vs. Andy Bloch in 2006. Before that it was 7 hours, in the 1983 main event … where after Doyle Brunson busted out in 3rd on a semi-bluff, an unknown from Michigan, Tom McEvoy, beat Rod Peate for $580,000:

BTW, for a fun historical perspective, watch the start of the television coverage of the 1983 final table here.

Congratulations to the Hendon Mob, who were picked by Pokerati readers as the clear favorite when it comes to looking up a player’s stats.

The Mob got nearly half the votes. CardPlayer got roughly half the remaining half. And an interesting 3rd-place finisher: PokerPages … which as we recently learned is going out of business.

Word on the electronic street is that at least two entities that didn’t make a strong showing in Pokerati’s unscientific poll are beginning the process of trying to buy PP’s player database at a fire-sale price.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out our new poll — sidebar, toppish-right — wondering: How many November Niner names do you know?

We’ve got a new highly unscientific poll up. I’m curious … where do you like to go for information on players — whether it’s to see how a well-known entity has done over the course of a career or to see just WhoTF some new-name is?

Cast your vote over yonder in the sidebar on your right.

Totally subjective criteria. And though there have long been accusatory murmurs about who steals data from whom, I’m looking at the thoroughness and accuracy of their records, ease of use, and any creative touches that make theirs different. Though I suspect others exist* sites I’ve visited for player stats and (live or online) tourney results include:

Bluff
CardPlayer
Hendon Mob
PokerListings
PokerPages

Trying to decide on one as my go-to source.

* and some I knowingly omitted, like WSOP.com and WPT.com, because they include only their own tourneys, and what use is that to me beyond summing up totals?

NOTE: I also removed PocketFives from the list (they had no votes) … because they, similarly, only have profiles for their own members … though if you are looking for data and results from serious online screen names, they seem to have the best info, well-presented.

UPDATE: Just discovered (in the process of doing this post) PokerListings’ online-player database — complete with their cool MarketPulse thingy — and theirs may be better than P5′s.

A bunch of PPA state directors and politically involved pros are already booking their plans for after the WSOP — they’re headed to Washington DC for an aggressive play by the PPA supposedly dubbed National Poker Week.

Should be a most interesting gathering — different from previous pokery political collectives in that there are so many legal issues playing out in real ways right now (Kentucky, Minnesota, Pokerstarzistan, etc.) … and all this with a pretty important-looking nuts-and-bolts online banking regulation bill in play … with non-pokery representatives finally aware of the online poker murmurs, and public opinion clearly leaning in our favor.

More…

Though extremely unscientific and, depending on when you’re reading this, possibly incomplete, an early look at current poll results asking what engaged, TV-watching Pokeratizens are planning to Tivo suggests something … about poker viewership:

vote percentage/show

53 / High Stakes Poker
19 / WSOP Europe
15 / Other (non-poker)
10 / Celebrity Apprentice
3 / WPT

Will be interesting to see how the shows compare in the ratings … and perhaps even more telling, for shows just getting their season start will be what the ratings are for week 2.

As Kevin points out, there’s a lot of poker TV Sunday today, March 1 … some of it competing against each other. Should be a telling day for ratings! With that in mind, and having taken a look at just how much poker is on TV that evening — seriously, flippers will be stumbling across it everywhere — I’ve put up a new poll earlier this week to see what you’re most interested in watching.

Here’s the breakdown of your pokery viewing options (all times Eastern/Pacific, new episodes in bold):

6 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker

7 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker

8 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker

9pm
NBC – Celebrity Apprentice
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker

10 pm
NBC – Celebrity Apprentice
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – World Poker Tour

11 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – World Poker Tour
FSN – World Poker Tour

12 midnight
GSN – High Stakes Poker

1 am
GSN – World Poker Tour

2 am
GSN – World Poker Tour

This doesn’t even take into account competition from new episodes of The Simpsons, King of the Hill, whatever that Brothers & Sisters show is, Saturday Night Live Short Films, and The Amazing Race, not to mention UFC Unleashed, reruns of From G’s to Gents, and a CNBC documentary called “House of Cards”, which really isn’t about poker despite the name.

SIDENOTE: Non-poker TV people are wondering if Season 2 of Celebrity Apprentice will be a flop, in part because of (or despite) Donald Trump’s casino empire going belly up. You realize there might be something to that when shares of his casino company (which bailed on a 5-year TV deal to sponsor the US Poker Championship a couple years ago, and was de-listed from NASDAQ this past week ) were trading for way less than shares of the WPT. Yikes!