“The proper role of the federal government is not that of a nanny, protecting citizens from any and every potential negative consequence of their actions. Although I personally believe gambling to be a dumb waste of money, American citizens should be just as free to spend their money playing online poker as they should be able to buy a used car, enter into a mortgage, or invest in a hedge fund. Risk is inherent in any economic activity, and it is not for the government to determine which risky behaviors Americans may or may not engage in.” - Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)

In our last post, we discussed the newly pending legislation in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. In this post, we would like to discuss the lobbying activities of organizations interested in legalizing online poker in the U.S.

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“Americans ought to be free to do what they want with their own money” - Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass)

Congressman Frank summarizes the feelings of many Americans with his support of Internet gambling in the United States. He has been a staunch supporter of officially legalizing, regulating, and taxing Internet gambling, and he has recently received support from many very big power names in the worlds of gambling and politics. Over the next several posts, we are going to provide an update on the state of Internet gambling in the U.S., what attempts are being made in Congress to regulate and tax Internet gambling, what these efforts might mean to online poker, and what you can do to help out the cause.

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SPOILER ALERT:

These are some of my comments about the WSOP final table. The heads up part won’t be played until tomorrow night, and then it will be on ESPN on Tuesday. If you don’t want to know anything until you see it on TV, read no further.

Bring-Your-Own-Posse

The four month break gave everyone a chance to take some poker lessons. More than that, it gave them a chance to round up a posse. Several of the November Nine had large, very vocal cheering sections. Fights were even breaking out, and spectators were being ejected. I’m not making this up! But the rest of the audience – I mean everybody – was for Phil Ivey. Even when Ivey just took down the blinds, the crowd would roar with approval. But it wasn’t meant to be…

Phil Ivey

At one point Ivey lost a key coin flip to Joe Cada (who went on to make the final two). Then, there was a short break around 8PM, and upon the resumption of the game, Ivey went out on (I believe it was) the first hand. It was the dreaded AQ, but this time Ivey didn’t have it, he had AK. Darvin Moon had AQ. The crowd went wild, everybody was going absolutely crazy. Then, a queen came on the flop, and with no help on the turn or river…it was over. A lot of the crowd started to leave shortly after that. Phil Ivey takes home a lousy $1.4 million.  J

 Stamina

It’s one thing to talk about the stamina needed to win a major tournament. But the human body just isn’t meant to sit in a chair for 17 hours, with the cameras and lights and the knowledge that any misstep could cost you millions in real money. Playing until 5AM just gives a huge advantage to the younger players, or the players who just happen to be night owls. (Hey, I’m one of them, so I’m not complaining for my sake). Anyway, the winner should be determined by skill, not who can pop more no-doze. I suspect we might see a change next year, perhaps we’ll play down to 6, then to 2 the next day, and then play the heads up the following day. Either that, or just have a time limit – after 10 hours we call it a day and pick it up the next morning.

So what are we left with?

Joe Cada came from nearly being out, to doubling up time after time and now going into heads up play with $135 million chips. Darvin Moon started the day as the chip leader, and finished the day with almost exactly the same number of chips, roughly $60 million. He had some very strange plays along the way, and I can’t wait to see if they show these hands on ESPN to see what the heck he was holding. By the way, Cada is only 21 years old. If he wins he’ll claim the title of youngest World Champion ever (Peter Eastgate was 22). 

So, as I indicated in my last post, I’m going to be reviewing one hand from the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table, primarily to demonstrate that the hands shown are not necessarily the best-played hands. I believe this was the second hand shown on ESPN. Amateur Dennis Phillips entered the final table as the chip leader, lost some chips on the first hand, and was in second place to Russian professional Ivan Demidov when this hand came up. Phillips was first to act, Demidov was near the button. I’m going to jump right into the hand, and evaluate each action. I’ll indicate some thought on how I think the players should have played each action too.

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Now that everyone has gotten to watch the World Series of Poker Main Event final table several hundred times on ESPN, I thought I would post some reflections on the success or failure of this new method of waiting 4 months to hold the final table. As many people have commented, waiting this long totally changed the dynamics of the table, because it gave the players months to get endorsements, sell percentages of themselves, hire personal coaches, etc. From a TV standpoint however, the public has spoken and they like it. Viewership was up almost 50%.
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