I never thought I’d be cheering for Barney Frank, but the Congressman has introduced legislation that would make the UIGEA unenforceable. For those of you who haven’t been following this, the UIGEA is a law that was passed last year that effectively killed online poker in the US. The august Bill Frist snuck the UIGEA on the tail-end of a must-pass “port security” bill and thus it was passed without any discussion. What an ass-clown. So now Frank has introduced legislation that, if passed, would bring online poker back to the US.

Let’s hope it passes. I’m not sure how much of a chance it has, but it’s at least forward progress.

I played in 7 Sit-n-Go tournaments at Full Tilt Poker over the weekend. (These were play money tournaments, though Full Tilt isn’t tucking tail and running like PartyPoker and some others have following our worthless Congress’ sneaky passage of the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act” and the President’s signing of it…) Anyway, six of these tournaments had 18 people in them, and one had 9. In the 9-way, I donkeyed out at 7^th place; blech! In the other six, I had a 1^st place, four 2^nd places, and a 4^th place. Not too bad, I think. I love this game.

Once again, we get a shining example of why government is an impediment to pretty much anything good or productive in the world. This morning, all of the casinos in Atlantic City, NJ, were ordered to close their gaming floors. This is the first time ever that the casinos have had to close. Why did they have to close? Because the state legislature and governor can’t agree on a budget. Why should this cause the casinos to close? Because they can’t operate without state goons onsite to “monitor” what goes on. Since the state government has no budget, and is effectively closed down, there are no overseers to oversee the casino operations. Thus, because the state government can’t get its s**t together, the casinos have to close and lose millions of dollars. And there are those of you who want even more government.

MSNBC has the story.

Well that was fast… I lasted 49 minutes and finished in 1,687^th place out of 2,247 players.

I was doing quite well for a while. I alternated being table chip-leader with another player a few times. I picked up several small (< $300) hands and lost a couple of small hands. Then I hit pocket Kings and felt like I could bet. I bet and only one other player stayed in. She bet something like $2,200, and I called. The only thing she could have had to beat me was pocket Aces… and that's exactly what she had. I should have realized that and folded, but I didn't. There were precious few showdowns at the table up to that point, so not a whole lot of data to go on. Oh well. It was fun, and I'll be entering more tournaments. This was a learning experience.

Last night I went over to the Loafing Leprechaun to play in a free Texas Hold ’em tournament. This was my first time playing with humans who weren’t related to me, so I was quite excited. I’ve only been playing for a few months, mostly online, and I think I did pretty well.

The first table I was at was quite friendly. I won two pots at that table, totaling around $400 (play-money). After a while, the host broke our table and redistributed us to other tables that had vacancies. This new table was not as friendly. Everyone there seemed to know each other, and they mostly just talked among themselves. I’m not complaining about it, but it did make the table feel less inviting. And they all had sailors’ mouths, dropping F-bomb’s right and left. There was one girl there who was the worst. And three of them smoked, which was just disgusting. The first table was in a protected area, so there was very little smoke. At this table, I couldn’t get away from it. Nasty, vile, blech.

Anyway, at this table I kept getting garbage hands, so I wasn’t seeing much action. I did play one or two, losing them, but for the most part I kept folding. Finally, with the blinds at $200/$400, me the Big Blind and down to my last $400, I had to play what I was dealt: Queen-Four. Not good. Everyone folded except the small blind and since I was already all-in, we showed our hands. She had Ace-Jack; not good for me. The flop showed another Jack, which was worse for me. I don’t remember what came on the turn but it didn’t help either of us. On to Fifth Street and what should drop, but a Queen, giving me top pair. I was very excited, because I was still alive. I folded the next couple of hands, and then bet it pocket 9’s. The one guy who called went all-in, and I had to call. He beat me with trip Jacks.

I lasted for 2.5 hours, which was actually better than I expected. It was great fun, and I will be back.