Well if you haven’t heard the news, the US Congress has solved the most pressing issue in the US today, online gambling. At 1am Saturday morning, the US Congress finished attaching “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement” act, to a Port Security bill. This bill bans finanical transactions with “illegal online gambling” businesses, but really doesn’t define what “illegal online gambling is”.

In response, Party Gaming, 888/Casino on Net/Pacific Poker, Cryptologic, Boss Media have all announced that they have closed or intend to close all US real money accounts, either immediately or following George Bush signing the bill. This means that millions of Americans will soon be prevented from playing real money poker online.

For millions who lose their money playing, this may be good new financially, but really screws up a fun hobby and our dreams of playing poker for a living. For those who make their living playing online poker, it’s time to find a land based game or a new career.

One player was quoted as saying:”This Sucks!”

Well after travelling to Las Vegas 3 weekends in the last 5 weeks for the WSOP, i have a lot of gripes about Harrahs, the owner/host of the event.

Let’s start with the venue, the Rio Hotel. I stayed at the Rio 9 years ago, when it was news and it was a nice hotel. I have friends who’ve stayed their more recently and were happy. Well, i stayed in 3 different smoking rooms during my 3 stays. The rooms were ok, but all had numerous large burn holes in the carpet. This 3rd stay, began with my room A/C set to 65, but the temperature reading 76, with it rising to 80 within the first hour. Now, is it really that hard for the housekeeping staff to notice the room was too hot? Well they fixed the A/C sufficiently that evening, but every day, the temperature rose to about 74, despite the thermostat being set at 68. Not a horrible problem, but an annoyance. I called room service on Sunday and was told they were running late and my order would take 45 minutes, it took nearly 1 hour 20 minutes. Finally I called housekeeping on monday about 10am and asked for maid service after 2:30pm (while i would be at WSOP tournament), when i returned to my room at 1:30, the maid was there and had not been told of my request. Conclusion, the little things tend to slip buy.

The Casino Table Game Minimums

The disappointment keeps on coming, when you walk down the casino. It’s evening and the lowest minimum on the blackjack or craps tables are $25, with only 1 $25 table for each game, yet there are empty/closed tables in the casino. It’s obvious that because Rio is off the strip, management has decided to use their “monopoly” like power to bleed the gamblers, but most are just not playing to avoid the high minimum. As for myself, i hope in a cab and spend $10 to get to the center strip where the Bellagio has more $10 blackjack tables, then Rio has open blackjack tables.

The Big Things

Real WSOP problems - a lack of dealers and those that are there, very unhappy. Dealers at the WSOP take a lot of abuse when they make a mistake. This is unfortunate, but not totally unexpected. What is unexpected, is that they don’t find the pay worth the grief. The dealers walked out for 2 hours during the HORSE tournament and i’m told many dealers leave immediately upon receiving their paychecks. The pay for dealers suck, most dealers/croupiers make 50%+ of the earning from tips, poker players don’t tip during the tournament (there are no real chips) so at the WSOP, it’s the responsibility of the “house”-Harrah’s to ensure the staff is properly paid. We assume that Harrah’s generates in excess of $40 million in revenues, not including room rates, gambling in the casino and restaurant sales. I base this on last year’s $100+ million in prize money with harrah’s taking about 8% of the pot, Party Poker paying over $10 million to sponsor the 2006, ESPN buying TV rights, plus other sponsors, hospitality suites etc. Now take 200 tables needing 500 dealers (a lot more than usually needed) for 40 days, requires 400,000 dealer hours, which at $10 per hour (possibly more than they get paid) would cost Harrah’s $4 million, a small percentage of their overall revenues.

So Harrah’s bought the World Series of Poker, a virtual license to print money. They are working at wringing every dime of profit out the event, but maybe they should approach there strategy from the player point of view. If people feel that the tournament isn’t being run well (dealers and floor people) or the casino has artificially high minimums, they may find some descreased interest in future events.

Read this with Nancy Sinatra’s “Boots” playing in the background!

Well i wasn’t the first player knocked out at my table, but i was the second. This time i made it past the first break: I lost on the first hand after the break, betting and getting raised “All-In” on with pocket 8’s losing when my opponent caught his 2nd queen on the flop.

So, my 3rd WSOP game, my 2nd crappy finish. That’s it until next summer. In the meantime, i’ll keep reading and playing some smaller tournaments. More WSOP stories later.

The city is filling with poker players and it’s a bit out of hand. As the main event comes closer the town and it’s hotels are filled with poker players, virtually all of them here to play the main event next week. Last night i met up with a half a dozen South Africans, part of a group of at least 20 who are here to play the main event. These guys are hardcore. I stepped into their room at the Wynn and one was online at Full Tilt trying to win some $$$, while 2 more where playing heads up, on the bed, for $100 a pop. I’d call that hard core!

Here at the rio, the poker room was still half full at 11:30pm, with a ton of folks playing satellites and in the 2nd chance tournament. There are at least double the number of players that were here when i played earlier in the month. Poker fever has hit vegas. Hell, every cabbie in town is talking poker and is either a prospective player or just a big fan of poker on TV. On Wall Street, they often say “when your cabbie is talking about the top stocks to play, the bull market has peaked.” Well, i don’t think poker has peaked yet, in fact it seems that every day it’s getting bigger and with the anticipation of the largest WSOP main event in history (over 8000 players are being predicted by some), poker may grow even larger over the next year as men (and some women) from around the world watch this year’s WSOP games on TV.

I’ve bought into tomorrow’s Limit Shoot-out and am looking forward at making my 3rd WSOP tournament of the year, my best finish ever. In the meantime, i’m off to the strip for some craps, blackjack and the new Cirque “Beatles” show tonight. I’ll try to post again before the start and hopefully late last night, that i’ve won my table.

Till then, don’t play any crappy hands!

Yes, I’ve gone and done it again! I’ve reserved a flight to Vegas and a room at the Rio and I’m buying into Monday’s Limit Shoot-Out. Undetered by my previous failures to win a bracelet, I shall try again.

If you are unfamiliar with what a Shoot-Out is, you are not alone. Which ever side you take on gun control, don’t let it color your feelings about the Shoot-Out format: No Guns Are Involved! Simply put, a Shoot-Out tournament is one where tables aren’t broken and players aren’t moved, until a single player remains at each table. Much like “Mad Max - Thunderdome” - 10 (maybe 11) go in, but only 1 come out. So, at the end of the first day of the shootout, the winners of each table are assigned to new tables, given the same number of chips and left to play day 2. The 3rd day, final table, involves the table winners from day 2, once again, starting the final table with the same number of chips.

Haven’t I learned my lesson yet? No! I’m going to keep playing until it becomes clear that I don’t stand a chance. I want a WSOP Bracelet and my game is Limit and i’m pretty sure the Shoot-Out format is the best for me.

I’ll report in from the tournament and will hopefully have some interviews with the folks from Party Poker and one of the Poker magazines.

Have a great weekend, I intend to!