Land of the Free? Not for Poker Players

In 2006 the Bush administration allowed Bill Frist to slip unwanted and unwarranted language into an unrelated anti-terror bill designed to make it harder for legitimate foreign businesses to operate here in the United States.

The language in question made it very difficult for US banks to process transactions involving online gambling sites, including poker sites, yet oddly offering a loophole for horse race better.  Even more odd when Frist described his rationale in the context that gambling 'destroys families.'  Anyway this piece of law finally took effect recently, and now American banks are forced to spy on account holders and report 'suspicious' activity that may be related to online gaming to the authorities.

Last month all this came to a head when the Department of Justice and the FBI, presumably bored having solved all the crime in this country, decided to seize the domain names of the major online poker sites including Full Tilt and Poker Stars, effectively shutting them out of the US market, perhaps for good.

Online poker players, some of whom had tens of thousands of dollars held with these trusted international companies, found themselves unable to play and unable to access their money.

The fall out from this move was dire to say the least.  Millions of people all over America lost their hobby, many lost a valuable source of income, jobs were lost, accounts were frozen, and once again the United States government wasted valuable tax resources for no good reason, all while telling us we are so broke we have to lay off teachers and cut health care benefits from seniors.

After some negotiation Poker Stars obtained permission from the Department of Justice to release players' funds, and as of right now Full Tilt poker has failed to return money to American players.  And that's where poker legend Phil Ivey steps in.  As a paid spokesperson for Full Tilt, he has received some flak for their lack of effort to pay out.  Yesterday Ivey released as statement via Facebook that he was going to sue Full Tilt for failing to return his money, and he was going to sit out of the World Series of Poker this year; a huge sacrifice for a professional poker player.

It's a real clusterfuck, I tells ya.  While Republicans talk about less government interference, the fruits of their overbearing right wing crazy now comes back to bite us in the ass.  Like so many stupid Republican decisions, here we are paying the price for their ineptitude once again.

It is time to license, regulate and tax online poker.  Allow Americans to play the game they invented (okay so sure it's not entirely an American invention, but there is no question poker would not be as big or available in this format if it was not for American inventiveness!).  Tap into the real tax revenue available here to help our budget crisis.  And for the love of god, stop wasting tax dollars with stupid busts like this, if we are broke as the Republican party would have us believe, conserve money and spend it where it will do us some good, rather than harassing millions of good honest tax paying Americans.

Finally, thank you Phil Ivey for using your celebrity to draw attention to this asinine situation.

What Is The (Poker) Matrix?

I just played the latest kind of game offered by Full Tilt Poker, and I loved it!

The game in question is what they are calling a Matrix Tournament. It's basically a single table sit and go. Nine players start, and you play tournament style no limit Texas Hold'em until one player has all the chips.

However, what makes the Matrix Tournaments different is that you and your eight opponents sit down and play poker simultaneously at four different tables. So you are playing the same eight people, four different times. Different cards, separate starting stacks at each table.

Half of the prize pool goes to traditional prizes, for finishing first, second or third at any of the tables.

The other half of the prize pool is awarded based on points you earn during the tournaments. You earn one point for outlasting another player at a table, two points for knocking a player out, and two more points for winning a table.

When all four tables have finished the three players with the most Matrix Points win a share of the Matrix prize pool. However, if a single player wins all four tournaments, he becomes what Full Tilt are calling a Dominatrix! The Dominatrix not only wins first place money on each table, but scoops the entire Matrix prize pool too.

I just finished my first Matrix Tournament and cashed in three out of four of the tables, and also came third for bonus Matrix points. So I earned my buy in back, plus about 50%. Not bad for a first attempt. It will take some practice to get used to playing four games at once.

Certainly if you are the kind of player who gets bored with just sitting there folding your junk hands, this is a really innovative and more intense way of playing. Pressure is on to make lots of correct decisions, and because you have four games going on, there's a lot to look for. But because you are playing the same people at each table, you can acquire tells on one table and translate that to another table.

As well as all those benefits, you are getting a better value for money in my opinion. Variance will often cost a good player money when a bad beat robs them of a cash they deserved. But here you have four chances to cash, and a little bad luck doesn't cost you everything.

I was always a big fan of Poker Stars, and I still am. But Full Tilt Poker has just about tied up the race in my mind as to the best online poker site.