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I think it's good to finally have a charasmatic leader for the Poker Players alliance. Nothing against Michael Bolcerek, but he was a little hesitant sometimes in front of cameras. I'm sure D'amato will be completely the opposite and won't let anxiety get in the way of what he really wants to say. It's sad that we're even talking about this. The only comments you ever read on the subject are always negative. That's the problem though, the only people who pay attention or even care about the subject are poker players. The people who don't play poker could care less whether it was made illegal or not. Most people are sympathetic when you tell them the reasons it got banned, but hell they could care less. There was a glimple of an interview with D'Amato at Cardplayer about what he plans to do, yada yada yada. The first section didnt' go into much depth but hopefully the second interview has more of a plan of action for US poker players.

The only real way to make any dent in my opinion would to launch a campaign that showed how the bill was passed etc. Although the passing of bills in the same manner occur all the time, it's ludacrious if you ask me. I was talking to my friend at Cardschat.com about what most players were doing these days. Things slowed down dramatically after the Neteller incident but hell, people are beginning to play again and gain confidence in the new payment processors that come out.

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what comes out of this whole mess. You never know, this just might make the poker sites even more powerful as they expand into different countries and go global.

VIDEO poker != TABLE poker.

Lemme explain, as a fairly proficient card shark. (I missed WSOP by eight seats in a 150-man supersatellite this past Feb. Wired 7s, short-stacked, on the button, against a bozo with 9-10 off. He flopped a 9, I go home.)

Video poker is a game of chance. Granted, due to Gaming Board regulations, the chance of any card hitting is in line with actual probabilities, but, in the end, you are, like a slot monkey, looking for particular combinations of cards to get a payoff, usually starting at a pair of jacks.

Table poker, though, is an entirely different animal. Larger amounts of money are typically involved. Play is much more skill-based than in video poker. Knowing when to toss Big Slick (A-K), or when to hold Khan (A-Q) is a tricky thing to master. It's even harder to know what to do on a flop. Some flops it's damned obvious, some the right looking thing will kill you. (Ex: A-9, flop comes 9-3-3 with one caller. Too bad the &*#$ had J-3. Two pair is good. A set is better.)

Add to that understanding the psychology of the game. You have tight players, you have loose players, you have lunatics, you have masters, and quite often you don't know who's who until they've taken some of your precious pieces of resin. VP, you're playing a machine.

Probability is also a major major factor. Big Slick, for example, is a monster hand because (a) it is favored against any other non-paired hand and (b) against any paired hand that isn't kings or aces, it's a coin-flip. (7-3 dog against cowboys, 12-1 dog against bullets. Link to a great poker odds calculator)

But the most difficult part of poker - especially high-stakes tournament poker - is keeping it together when you're so nervous, excited, tense, and anxious at the same time. Keeping it together when you know you've got the nuts (the very best hand possible) and you've got a sucker betting into you.. or calming down enough to see if your set also made your opponent fill her straight.. It's tough.

I love it.

CardPlayer.com. Poker news, tips and discussions. One of the best of the best. Includes a really good online odds calculator you can use to double check your own math :)

TwoPlusTwo.com. Website run by some of the smartest guys in gambling, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Sklansky has an excellent series of highly-technical poker books for every skill level, including Hold 'Em Poker, Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, and The Theory of Poker.

Doyle Brunson's Super System. Regarded by many as the bible on poker. Much of the information is outdated about specific games (the nature of the game has changed) but any respectable poker player knows this book.

PhilHellmuth.com. Phil is a poker geek himself, one of the best players around (and the youngest to win the world championship). His recent book on poker Play Poker Like the Pros is the best "intermediate" book around in my opinion.

PokerPages.com. Best place to find a game, be it a tournament or local game. Great source of poker news.

There are also a great number of high quality poker blogs, including PokerBlog.com, GuinessAndPoker.com and ChrisHalverson.com.

Not to mention of course, the explosion of online poker sites, including UltimateBet.com,

CardPlayer.com. Poker news, tips and discussions. One of the best of the best. Includes a really good online odds calculator you can use to double check your own math :)

TwoPlusTwo.com. Website run by some of the smartest guys in gambling, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Sklansky has an excellent series of highly-technical poker books for every skill level, including Hold 'Em Poker, Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, and The Theory of Poker.

Doyle Brunson's Super System. Regarded by many as the bible on poker. Much of the information is outdated about specific games (the nature of the game has changed) but any respectable poker player knows this book.

PhilHellmuth.com. Phil is a poker geek himself, one of the best players around (and the youngest to win the world championship). His recent book on poker Play Poker Like the Pros is the best "intermediate" book around in my opinion.

PokerPages.com. Best place to find a game, be it a tournament or local game. Great source of poker news.

There are also a great number of high quality poker blogs, including PokerBlog.com, GuinessAndPoker.com and ChrisHalverson.com.

Not to mention of course, the explosion of online poker sites, including UltimateBet.com,

For a great convergence of geeks and poker, try the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling this summer, at which there will be a "pokerbot" competition. It's just what it sounds like, but if you'd like an overview (written for poker players), try my article from Card Player Magazine.

Probably the most famous example of a machine which taught itself, IBM's Deep Blue, which taught itself to play chess better than the human world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.

Poker is an excellent domain for artificial intelligence research. It offers many new challenges since it is a game of imperfect information, where decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty. Multiple competing agents must deal with probabilistic knowledge, risk management, deception, and opponent modeling, among other things.

If Chess is added to the Olympics, it's only a matter of time before many many other "mental" games are petitioning the Olympic Commission for admission to the games.

Poker is an excellent domain for artificial intelligence research. It offers many new challenges since it is a game of imperfect information, where decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty. Multiple competing agents must deal with probabilistic knowledge, risk management, deception, and opponent modeling, among other things.