Now Who's A Weasel ?

US Congress has approved the Internet gambling bill that's been going the rounds for a while. It's not quite law, but it will be. What I want to draw your attention to, if you didn't know, is the way this bill was introduced :

" Negotiators from the Republican-led House and Senate reached a deal on the legislation Friday and attached it to unrelated legislation to bolster port security, which the Congress approved."

To spell this out, the people pushing this bill had no intention of allowing it to be debated on its own merits. It was tacked onto the end of a "must pass" security bill. The key point being an unrelated security bill. Now we happen to have our panties in a bunch about this bill because it affects us (even non-Americans) directly as online poker players. I'm sure other blogs will debate how this relates to us at length, but all I want to say is that this practice of attaching unrelated legislation to must-pass bills, which is by no means uncommon in the US, is a crock of shit. It's cowardly, it's a travesty of democracy and all in all it's a fucking joke. And these people call the French weasels.

Read It And Weep, CardPlayer

Back in the day, if I was tasked with some particularly odious nerd-type work (writing test plans I especially used to hate), I would become so bored that I would resort to reading live blogs of poker tournaments. I did have to be pretty bored, and usually 10 minutes of the antics of top pro Nordstrum Scortwig and internet qualifier Chip Wankoff would be enough to start me thinking "actually, yes, I could run a series of tests by introducing a generic UT subroutine, let's do that instead".

Now that the world is my lobster, I have found some better things to do, most of the time. Until Pokerstars took their eye off the ball by entrusting their EPT London blog to the brilliant Jo Haslam. Highlights so far include an early picture of Tooting Bec tube station (of course) ; the blasphemous statement that "We're only on level 2 with 50/100 blinds, so it's far too early to make any real fuss about chips" ; a description of the Vic as "this world of traditional English poker misery" and my favourite at this early stage "Many of these old guys will marvel that Frequent Player Points won players these seats, when their frequent play has only ever earned them a bad back and a failed marriage."

Stay tuned over the next three days, and Jo, please please please don't change a thing. We'll pass the hat round if you get sacked :-)

The Smoking Gun

Here's a fairly convincing explanation as to where those extra two million chips came from in the main event. If you can't be bothered, the executive summary is that the dealers gave everyone too many chips when colouring up the 5K chips into 25K. As a general rule, it is dangerous to attribute something to foul play when it could just as easily be attributed to incompetence, as seems to be the case here. Although I have to say that the authors needn't go on as though they've solved the Kennedy assassination :-)

Chips Roy !

An interesting development in the London poker scene ; Roy Houghton is opening a new club in Cannon Street. If you check that link, and the website, then you'll know as much as I do. Unless you don't know Roy that is - Roy is a legend. His stewardship of the Stakis Russell Square, affectionately known as "The Dungeon" was, well, legendary.

More to the point, Roy is someone I would trust, and it's interesting to note the terms of this - it looks like there's a fixed membership fee and no charge at all for the games, as agreed with all the relevant authorities according to the article on UK Poker News. Of course the problem here is how to kick start the whole thing and build up a player base. No doubt they'll have some ideas - it's one to keep an eye on for the moment. If I find anything more (there's a promise of an interview with Roy on UKPN) I'll link it here.