Yesterday, I wrote up the first half of my explanation/excuse for not turning myself into a terror on the poker circuit. What I’ve been up to since my return from Maui has led to some interesting and strange experiences, a few of which I hope you’ll be interested to hear about. This is the remainder of those items.
I have ambitions. I want to get back on the poker circuit, connect up with my friends there, and tell you about what’s going on – and why. I want to complete the reproduction of my 88 pages of notes from the epic heads-up match between Ted Forrest and Andy Beal on Valentine’s Day 2006. I want to collect and share my thoughts about the legal and legislative issues relating to the future of online poker.
I haven’t done any of that since I got back from Hawaii. I did, however, do the following, some of which I want to share with you:
Rule Number One: Forget the luau.
“Luau” is Hawaiian for “buffet,” and everybody knows to avoid those except when you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to be waited on. But there’s nothing quick about these gastronomic shows, unless the Hawaiians discovered some way to microwave a whole pig – apple, snout, and all. We met up with a couple who went to one of the big luaus and they said it reminded them of a bad wedding.
I knew from the start that it would be an uphill battle convincing my many, many bosses that Full Tilt Poker, a primarily ONLINE poker site, should create the Wailea Open Poker Tournament on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Hell, if Disco Stu violates the terms of his probation and ends up back in jail, my chances of even getting my five-figure expenses reimbursed are shot.
This will appear many days after I write this. I am sitting in a shaded cabana next to the pool at the Four Seasons in Maui, on official business for Full Tilt Poker. Why? It all goes back to Iowa, which in turn goes back to John Hennigan.
I returned from Maui at 5 AM Saturday. (Coming soon: The Poker Player’s Guide to Maui!) Rolling out of bed just before 3 PM, I checked to see how the Bay 101 WPT event finished. I was thrilled to see that Ted Forrest won it.
And now the pitch ….
That’s why you need to seriously consider joining the PPA. Politics is a dirty business and the PPA got a champion bare-knuckled brawler in Al D’Amato. Part of Al’s power comes from being Al D’Amato but part of it still comes from who he represents. The online poker sites could pour in all the money necessary if it was just a matter of money. But it’s not. The populist appeal of keeping legal an activity large numbers of Americans enjoy in the privacy of their homes is powerful, and D’Amato makes it more forcefully if the PPA has big numbers. (During his first meeting with the press, according to The New York Times, he referred to the PPA as a million members strong, though an aide had to correct him and say it was 160,000 and will someday be a million.)
III. Game On
I was playing a poker tournament at the Wynn a few weeks ago when I mentioned something about online poker. The old codger in seat two said, “Is that still around? I thought Congress outlawed that.”
In future installments of this series, I’ll discuss how the issue of whether online poker is affected by the new law (a battle that will be fought in the future in the courts). But for now, I need to make a vital point: THE LAW IS NOT SET IN STONE.
II. And We Still Lost 409-2
In the end, it didn’t make a damned bit of difference.
This is how politics really works. A couple of lawmakers behind the anti-online gaming bills already chose this as their pet cause. The reasons are myriad: honest belief that online gaming is evil, no one else was doing it and it was a way to be the leader on something, courting the right-wing/religious-fundamentalists.
This is the first part of an unscheduled, irregular multi-part series about the legal status of online poker. [Because “Mr. D’Amato Goes to Washington” is over 4,000 words, I have broken up Part I into four parts, all of which are being posted the evening of March 8.] The goal is NOT to tell you that the people who oppose the activity we enjoy so much are idiots and assholes. I’ll give you credit for already knowing that.
