In reality, it was most likely the precedent of the Rennick case and subsequent appeals that the big wigs were waiting on, to see if they had a chance to skirt prosecution if anything were to happen. The bucketloads of cash the make on Online casinos would far outweigh any legal expense if they thought they could win. But with the Rennick guilty verdict being upheld after this last appeal, they’re pulling the chute.

All in all, this shouldn’t cause the industry to collapse, certainly most regular online poker players have had experience jumping through a hoop or two already trying to deposit or cash out, so most people know the ins and outs of the bizz, but that’s not to say that it wont scare away a LOT of current and potential customers. June 1st 2010 is going to be interesting.

So yes, today in “It has to be true because its on ESPN” news, the North American Poker Tour announced 3 tour stops, the first being PCA, then the Ventian in Vegas and then the Connecticut Mohegan Sun.

Pokerstars also confirms the hostessing duties will be Joanna Kruppa, an that they have a guaranteed “Top Tier” broadcast partner.

When and during which sporting season is still to be determined, but this is a great opportunity to solidify some serious American Poker celebrities. For me, poker tours and TV became popular from the folks that go bonkers for televised darts. So, ya. Also, playing online poker or even casino games in an online casino takes a lot of the hassle away from getting your gambling fix, so if you don’t have the skills or the stones to get on tour…just hang online.

It’s attention deficit disorder poker. I like. I can now have my online poker AND Red Bull!

Check out more at FullTiltPoker.com

Not quite the “man of the cloth” we’re all used too is it?

Heres what the honorable(?) Rev. Andrew Trapp had to say about his participation in the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge:

“At the very least, even if I didn’t win any prize money, I was hoping it would help people to see that priests can have fun and be normal people and hopefully get a little bit of a fun twist on the image of the priesthood,”

The Assistant pastor (Ass Pastor….anybody?) hoped to at the least raise awareness of how the modern priesthood conducts itself, and winning the money for his church was simply a bonus.

Contrary to (hundreds of years of ) popular belief, Trapp says the the Catholic church no longer takes issue with playing card games or drinking a few beers, as long as its within reason.

I frankly, am heading down to the local chrch this Sunday to see if I can’t wrangle up a few worshipers for a game on the weekend, I’ll call it “Tithe Night”

But one former advisor by the name of  Steven Begleiter is hanging out at the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event at the Rio Hotel on Nov. 7th.

He outplayed more than 6 thousand other poker players, and now gets to sit at the final table with the likes of Phil Ivey and Jeff Schulman.

Not bad for a “loose cannon” rookie, and it gives another nod towards former finance and math professionals having increasing success transitioning from recreational to high stakes poker.

“Begs”, as they call him, likens his poker instincts to that of the financial world, out bidding and posteuring during asset acquizition negotiations on Wall Street.

Damn, makes me wonder why I skipped math class so much in high school.

And there is certainly some validity to McSmith’s claims too since he pitched the same kind of idea to a company called Poker Productions two years ago.  Unfortunately for McSmith, his seemingly good idea was rejected by Poker Productions which would have made one think that the idea was dead in the water.  However, the idea was not dead at all since we now have Face the Ace and the show was created by none other than Poker Productions.

But whatever the case may be and no matter who wins the lawsuit, both sides would have been better off forgetting this idea altogether.  The ratings for Face the Ace have been horrible (a re-run of Finding Nemo beat the show in ratings) and the prospects are bleak for things getting any better in the future.

As far as McSmith asking for $85 million in reparations, he might as well be asking for a gazillion dollars because this show isn’t hauling in shit money-wise.  Maybe Poker Productions has a decent amount of money or NBC would somehow be liable for some of the assumed damage - I don’t know.   The only thing that I do know is that this show has been nothing but trouble for all parties involved.

The 6th season of Poker After Dark will feature 12 new episodes where the players will be involved in a series of high stakes cash games.  The buy-in for the cash games is a total of $100,000 and the blinds will start at $100/$200.  Now this may not seem like a whole lot for high stakes cash games since many people in the Bellagio’s famous poker room - Bobby’s Room - play for as much as $8,000/$16,000.  But according to the Poker After Dark producers, the blinds will be tripling at some point during the show which will put them at $600/$1,200.   

The players that will be competing in the 6th season of Poker After Dark include Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Eli Elezra, Patrik Antonius, llari Sahamies, and Howard Lederer.  Almost all of the players which will be featured in Poker After Dark have appeared on other poker shows so this is nothing new to them.  Sahamies is the only player who is relatively new to the poker TV scene, but he should have no problem fitting in with these great players since he is one of the top online cash game players.  He plays under the name “Zigmund” and often competes with Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey in the Full Tilt Poker high stakes games.

Loving your hand a little too much

AA, KK, and QQ means jackpot in pre-flop play!  However, this doesn’t necessarily mean jackpot later on down the line as the flop and turn come around.  Still, many players will fall in love with their premium hands just because they jammed so much money into the pot pre-flop and this is a huge mistake.  If the hand goes down to the river, these hands are still just a pair if they’re not improved so it can be dangerous to put so much stock into a premium hand.

Treating drawing hands like made hands

We all like to get flush and straight draws when there are a lot of people in a hand and the pot is under control.  However, a flush or straight draw is still exactly that - a drawing hand.  So you definitely can’t be treating these kinds of hands like they’re made ones, and that also means you can’t be committing too much of your stack to the pot for a drawing hand.

Being blindly aggressive

Some people take the advice that aggressive players are better players and run with it.  But the truth is that aggressive players are only as good as their experience and skill level dictates.  So, if you’re not an aggressive player from the outset, you need to slowly cultivate this skill.  In other words, don’t be aggressive just because you’ve heard this is the way to go.

Patrik Antonius - also known as one of poker’s biggest heartthrobs (if there is such a thing haha) - is the poker player in question who’s being stalked.  However, it’s not by some crazed woman who’s looking to get a piece of Antonius, but rather it is a person who’s posing as Antonius on Twitter.  This goes beyond just posing as Antonius though since the person is also following Antonius’ movements very closely so they have something to twitter about each day.

What’s kind of funny about the situation is that a lot of the posts are trash talk aimed at fellow pro Doyle Brunson.  Some of the posts mention stuff about how Patrik supposedly bluffed Doyle all night and there is even one post which says that Brunson is too senile to play against Antonius anymore.  Understandably thinking Patrik sent the texts; Brunson was a little angry about the situation and said something to Antonius about them.  Luckily, Patrik Antonius didn’t actually send the texts so he has nothing to worry about in that regards.

Still, it has to be annoying to have somebody sending out texts like that and pretending to be you.  I’m not sure about the legality of this situation or if the person who’s doing the twittering can be prosecuted, but hopefully for Patrik this thing comes to an end soon.

But at least I’ve heard a semi-good reason as to why the money is being withheld now - although it’s not that good of a reason.  A refuted money launderer named Douglas Reddick is at the forefront of the case and, for some reason, he is the main reason why the money won’t be unlocked.  I haven’t heard the full details of the case, but I’m still wondering why charges against the Canadian Reddick is the reason why over 20,000 players had to have their money frozen.

The one good thing about the case is that Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars really took the brunt of the money being seized.  That’s because, when players’ checks started bouncing, both sites reimbursed their players for the cash that was frozen.  So from what I’ve heard, Full Tilt and PokerStars are the ones who are eating the costs of the money that’s been seized.

Still, I think it is ridiculous that New York could potentially hold on to this money for years because of a pending case against one man.  I know the UIGEA has a lot to do with this as well so maybe once it’s repealed, states won’t be able to do crazy things like this with online poker money in the future.