That’s about all we know, but who knew, and glad to know … the US Men’s National Team striker has been recovering from injuries suffered in a major car accident. To help his healing, he’s been playing some $5/$10 no-limit hold’em at Bellagio.

It’s starting to occur to us that a lot of poker players out there might have a keen interest to bet some international football gamesin the coming months. Bear with us, and we’ll see if we don’t know anyone who can help that cause.

ALT HED: Phil Ivey, the Ronaldinho of Poker?

Meanwhile, Nick Geber, formerly the multimedia guru at Bluff and a Sirius Radio soccer analyst, is back in public action … just in time for the World Cup — over at The Ref’s a Wanker.

Funny … as Brazil accelerates efforts to ban online poker+gambling, Argentina is going completely the other way — looking to legally regulate it. And in a hurry, no less …

From Dow Jones via NASDAQ:

The Argentine government is working on plans to allow online gambling throughout the country, presidential Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez said Wednesday.

“We’re working so that this will become law within two or three months,” Fernandez said, adding that it could take notably longer and possibly up to two years.

Fernandez said the main aim behind the project is to combat illicit gambling that’s already occurring.

Wow, just a year ago Argentina was looking to ban online gambling — looking to force ISPs to block citizen access, threatening jail time for offenders, and shutting down a site run out of Buenos Aires ( FormoApuestas.com.ar ). So why the change of heart? Common sense, and money of course. But supposedly also soccer.

In what was a controversial Argentinean political issue this year, the government basically ran a hostile takeover of soccer broadcast rights from private cable operators (to the tune of $154 million) in an effort to bail out the AFA (their version of the NFL), which had several major clubs owing tons of back taxes and unable to pay their players. Though the government will neither confirm nor deny the connection, conventional wisdom south of the equator says that online gambling is what will bring in the revenue to pay for that.

Last November, Argentinean futbol got a taste of what the sites they want to regulate could bring to the table, when PokerStars (dot-net variety) — as part of its aggressive move into Latin America — signed on as a (very warmly received) sponsor for River Plate (pictured above).

… for USA vs. Mexico!

It’s 1-1 in the second half. Great game, from Estadia Azteca, where the Americans have never one. Supposedly Pauly put some big money against the Americans when we were bigger favorites. Click here for info on watching the game live online (en Espanol). And here for info on real television viewing. And, of course, @Soccerati @Pokerati has some micro-coverage, too. We will be back to regular programming shortly.

You should be taking this same brief pause from poker, too. It’s good for you.

We’re always doing a little technical clean-up around these parts — especially around this time of year, you know, when there’s not much to write/read about. Anyhow, in making some repairs recently, we I broke our RSS feed. Now we Scott and Ed have fixed it, but you may need to resubscribe if your Pokerati posts have not been showing up as regularly as usual in the RSS reader of your choice.

It’s a pretty fancy URL you need to click to make things right in the poker blogoverse once again:

http://pokerati.com/feed/

If that doesn’t work, try this: http://pokerati.com/feed/rss2

(I admittedly don’t understand the difference, but also get the same results when I click either, so …)

And if you like soccer and/or Sangyfarha, click this: http://soccerati.com/feed/

Semi-related to poker … was working on a post over at Soccerati (our baby brother site), about how an online gambling op (188Bet.com) has come in to buy up the jersey space on two English Premier League teams. It just seems kinda funny to me — considering that the NFL is so anti-online gambling, and the EPL is so pro. Soccer in general seems to have totally embraced the online gambling biz. Such a clear distinction between American football and European football.

In fact … check this out … you have very major teams across the pond (and a few minor ones) that have direct links and betting pages on their official sites. The Spurs, for example, are supposedly working with their sponsor Mansion to develop a Tottenham skin, and already host weekly freerolls for game tickets.

The people making money off Peyton Manning jerseys hate online poker; meanwhile the other kind of football teams proudly support it — or are being supported by it.

Now you know I’m not much of a boycotter — really, I generally think they’re stupid and ineffective — but it does occur to irk me how much “free advertising” poker players give NFL teams by wearing their jerseys. Considering that American football gives nothing back to poker, and in fact subtracts from it … maybe it might be time for poker players to hang up their lucky Tony Romo jerseys, ya know? Just sayin’ … all it takes is watching a little soccer to realize how wearing any NFL promotion at the WSOP wouldn’t be too different from wearing a Bill Frist or Jim Leach campaign button un-ironically.

It’s becoming less and less of a secret that I get excited about most things soccer-y … and since moving to Nevada from Texas I really miss Mexicans. (We have Latinos here in Las Vegas, but the food, the music, the lawn care … not the same.) So you can imagine I was quite delighted to see PokerStars getting in bed with Mexican Futbol’s Primera Division.

This development actually probably has more to do with recent WPT World Championship-casher Boris Becker and “sports” in general than it does poker-and-soccer specifically, but still … here’s a sample of the ads they’re running on Mexican TV, this one featuring CD Chivas’ Luis Michel:

More at 2+2.

Ack … I hate that I wrote a hedline that sounds like something out of a PokerStars press release, but not sure how else it could turn out when Italian soccer star Christian Vieri announced his intention to play in the upcoming EPT Championship at Monte Carlo.

The deeper he goes, the better I gotta think it is for (European) poker.

Thanks, Craig, for the link!

I don’t think this has much to do with poker directly, but I’m trying to pimp a new blog indirectly it does because ESPN suddenly finds itself with a little extra programming cash on hand — not to mention some extra air time — having lost the rights to broadcast the Champions League in the US to Fox Soccer Channel.

Perhaps Fox got the funds to outbid ESPN from all those Season 7 World Poker Tour/Full Tilt infomercials they’ve been running? And what do you think the odds are that this could mean raises for Norman Chad and Lon McEachern more poker on TV?

Keep Floppin’ Aces, on RoundersRadio. Lou Krieger’s guest will be none other than my own podcast co-homie, Dr. P. He tells me:

Our topics will be the WSOP final table and November Nine in Las Vegas and if we have time, we’ll chat about my experiences in London and Budapest.

There’s also a call in number if you want to ask any questions…. 810-496-3428.

Usually I don’t listen to these things live — I generally let Shamus direct me to the best episodes and download the podcast. But I happen to be in front of the computer right now, and the Chicago-Columbus MLS Cup playoff game is plenty exciting with just the video, little sound. (Currently 1-0 Chicago in the 40th minute; great uniform match-up, too — bright red vs. bright yellow.)

If you are seeing this after the fact, you’ll be able to find the full episode for your podcast pleasure here a couple days from now.

UPDATE: Chicago 1 – 2 Columbus in stoppage time. Great game — so many beautiful shots and tackles — but doh!

Soccer is more dramatic/difficult/painful (to watch) than poker. Sigh.

Manchester United has their own official poker chips:

Go Owen Hargreaves!

The final table of the $5k main event at the WSOP-New Orleans goes down tomorrow at 2 pm central. Semi-live video coverage at worldseriesofpoker.com.

Click below for all the official details after the jump. I’ll be paying attention to Marc Fratter, from Clonie’s hometown of Murphy, TX. (Kinda near where my folks live, too.) He seems to have his game on these days, and if so seems well-seated with a medium stack:

Fratter

SEAT 7: Marc Fratter
HOMETOWN: Murphy, TX
CHIP COUNT: 311,000
Marc Fratter is a 36-year-old attorney from Murphy, TX. He has a three-year-old daughter named Kate who loves to play poker with her dad. Fratter was the co-champion of the 2007 Caesars Indiana Poker Championship. He won $117,000 in that tournament. He also cashed in the 2007 Red River Roundup. This is his third time to cash in a major tournament.

Miles

Go Mark! I mean Marc!

He’s going up against Timothy “TK” Miles, who won a $1,000 WSOP-Circuit event in New Orleans this past winter and has the chip lead.

Drogba

The WSOP-Circuit final table, however, is in a tough time slot tomorrow — going up against the UEFA Cup finals, being broadcast live from Moscow. (Bluff Media video honcho and former Fox Football Fone-in host Nick Geber is presumably ocnflicted.) Honestly, the soccer game will probably get most of my attention even though I’m not sure whom to root for — Chelsea vs. Manchester Utd. — since I usually just root against those two teams. (Go Liverpool/Wigan/Blackburn Rovers!)

Rooney

Chelsea, of course, is are the bad-ass team from the yuppity side of London, loaded with great players, most notably Drogba from the Ivory Coast. Man-U are the working-class faves from Britain’s Second City, with bratty high-paid hotshot Wayne Rooney … who likes to gamble (badly) and used to play Texas Hold’em in a rough-and-tumble Man-U home game.

Again, click below for details on the poker event going up against what is essentially, worldwide, the Super Bowl:
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Troy in Las Vegas writes in with a question about bankroll management that I’m going to attempt to answer: (Stop laughing.)

Dan,

I have a quick question for you… in your opinion what is the best for me to do w/no bank roll…. just able to spend about 200-300 every other week…

a. small (50-60) buy in tournys

b. play one larger tourney (say the venitian) once every two weeks

c. invest my 200 in a ring game some where

or d. none of the above and save my cash til i get enough

if the answer is d…. what is “enough” to play? I have a VERY hard time not playing, but, have been on the roller coaster of up down small amounts til i get felted in cash games (can’t seem to stay away from getting my money in w/the best and not fairing well…. or… when i do well in one session i don’t do well in the next two and get felted)

Just wondering your opinion… thanks!

Troy, you pose an interesting question, because I suspect a lot of folks are in your position, where they have money to spend on poker, but they don’t have a real bankroll. We all hear that you should have $2-3k to play 1/2 — and it doesn’t take long playing to realize those numbers might not be a load of shit — but how many 1/2 players actually have a few thousand bucks in a non-interest bearing poker account?

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Microsoft, we know, likes to fight … and the company fired their first shot against cheaters in their online Xbox Live community by conducting a little neighborhood sweep. They aren’t banning players, but instead dropping their player points down to zero and marking their profiles with the digital equivalent of a scarlet C. Not sure how that would work in poker … but it shows the relevance of poker issues in a non-poker world, and perhaps suggests some potential allies who have an interest our fights. Online gam(bl)ing and online gaming, after all, aren’t that far apart.

Online video game competitions for money are already in play — the Fifa Interactive World Cup, for example, awards $20k to the winner. And the shoot-em-up game Kwari has started offering real-money competition, where you win cash for kills and the house takes its cut by charging you for ammo. Bullets, chips … tomato, D’amato … Seriously, how familiar does this sound:

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And maybe Tom … and their nice friend from Phoenix whose name I forget:

Somewhere along the way to posting six losing sessions out of eight and after receiving a severe tongue-lashing from Robert G (with echoes of Tulsa in my head) I abandoned my soccer-shootout tally and quest for five wins in a row. Hadn’t given it a thought since then, really, until today, upon seeing the results of my past four sessions:

DATE — VENUE — HRS — GAME — BUYIN(s) — CASHOUT — EXTRA — NET
15-Mar – venetian — 5.5 — 2/5 nlh — 600 (2) — 776 — 2 — 174
21-Mar – paris — .25 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 249 — 2 — 47
22-Mar – golden nugget — 3 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1709 — 0 — 1509
24-Mar – venetian – 2.25 – 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1262 — 2 — 1060

I swear I won’t be thinking about it next time I play.

NBC Heads-Up Championship announcer Jordan Siegel, who may or may not have won the gig in a $1,000 Bellagio tourney.

The NBC heads-up announcer whom I was criticizing the other day for not acknowledging runner-runner possibilities and generally lacking a little excitement in his live play-by-play is Jordan Siegel, a semi-accomplished player in his own right, who seems to be runnin’ pretty good recently, too.

We’ll see if we can’t get a photo up here before it’s too late to be relevant so you know who I am talking about. I think he has been on TV once before.

Seriously, I wasn’t trying to pick too hard — a gig is a gig and we all want to do well, especially when the HD cameras are rolling — but this event, for all the excitement around it, is reportedly struggling in the eyes of NBC. And that has me thinkin’-bout soccer, which any real fan can tell you hasn’t quite taken off in America not because the sport isn’t exciting enough, but because the broadcasters and commentators don’t know how to cover it like not-basketball, or in this case not-golf.

ALT HED: I Hope He’s Not Related to Bugsy

One of Pokerati’s goals for 2008 is to re-introduce the phrase “in your kitchen” to the poker lexicon. (Basically it means “having someone’s number” — and the ability to play head games to the point that you have a specific opponent making all the wrong moves against you.) While we haven’t yet heard it much at all around the various tables in Las Vegas, we are delighted to see the whole kitchen concept starting to rear its head in England, where our good friends at PartyPoker have introduced the idea of “bageling” Phil Hellmuth.

Click below to read all about how its been shaking down in the Party Premier League in Leyton, where on non-poker days the Party-sponsored Leyton Orient have been kicking arse and are looking strong as they seek promotion from League One to the Champions League. Though things aren’t going as well for my beloved Wigan, the likelihood that they could be relegated as my second-beloved Leyton gets promoted, thereby putting them in the same league is kinda exciting regardless of all the great poker that is getting played overseas.

I still find it funny that the currency used in the Party Premier League is dollars, not pounds.
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Matt the tech-geekiest Batface sends along a Slashdot item about real-money video-game tourneys … a good example of how online poker’s current issues could have ramifications that reach far beyond just poker.

It’s a geeky corollary to online poker. Fairly similar in many regards, including the use/debate about Bots (read the comments) and of course the potential legal gray-area.

btw, FPS means ‘First Person Shooter’, in case you didn’t know. Pretty much describes any game where you kill/blow shit up.

Thanks for sending, Sommer.

Indeed, the video game industry has a major stake in the evolution of online gambling/gaming and the UIGEA. Already, you can play soccer online — the winner of the Fifa Interactive World Cup scored a $20k payday — and buy additional games on the XBox 360 for credits that you purchase at a brick-and-mortar store. (Interestingly enough, they have a Texas Hold’em game on there — and at a near-prohibitive cost of 800 credits … compared to, say, 150, for other games.) And even though video games are very arguably matters of skill, age-old concerns about cheating become a real issue. Just the other week I took on some punk from New Jersey who had a Ronaldinho with superpowers — like he could run five times as fast as any other player, and shoot missiles on-goal from anywhere on the field.

Now think about Second Life …

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