Read The Blog

I too am back from a fun-filled blogger Vegas weekend, though unlike my Pokerblog counterparts, I picked up a cold along the way. Who knew Tuaca wasn't a good preventative??

• What I liked most about this article was the advertisement placed right in the middle of it. It has of course changed since I first saw it, but you can view the page as I saw it here. Alternatively, you can hit refresh a few dozen times and it'll pop up for you again... but who wants to work that hard for a joke?
  
• Our own PokerShrink has been reviewing the Vegas card rooms over at PokerNews.
  
• Chris Fargis gives a lesson in Triple Draw and Badugi.
  
• Philadelphia may soon legalize poker in the state's casinos. Don't everyone move at once!
  
• Hayden Christensen has been tapped to play a young Phil Hellmuth in an upcoming movie about his life. You probably know Hayden best for his role as a young Darth Vader in the Star Wars prequels. I'm worried by taking this role he's typecasting himself.

And cleaning out the starred items in Google Reader, I point you to:

• Tilt and Flow by Dr. Pauly
  
• Sophism by Dr. Pauly
  
• Form Letter to a Young Internet Pro by Absinthe
  
• Iggy has the list of blogger trip recaps all in one handy post for you
  
• The Bible of Rigged Online Poker - presented without comment

Visit them all and show some blogger love!

Some reading material to destroy your Monday work productivity...

• Dr. Chako takes a look at a serious, hard-hitting issue affecting all poker players.
  
• While not getting a lot of mention in the poker world, there is a new very important poker book out - The Mathematics of Poker. Terrence Chan reviews the book and says fear of equations shouldn't keep you away.
  
• Lou Krieger points out the need for an online gaming PAC (you know, a real one).
  
• While we turn online gambling in to a crime, the Brits are making it easier than ever for you to gamboool.
  
• The Daily Kos has a fantastic analysis of the brick and mortar casino money trail. [Thanks to Bill for the link]
  
• From OnePennyGame comes an anti-gambling ban clothing line.
  
• Last but certainly not least, don't miss the Pokerati election guide, and most importantly, don't forget to get out and vote!!!

• Any of our readers know Hoa Mahn Nguyen, from Sunnyvale, California? Paddy Power Poker is looking for him.
  
• As we've seen, try to take away a poker player's right to play online and you'll encounter little resistance. But try and take away a geek's right to strip a female night elf naked and dance and there will be hell to pay.
  
• A year ago, I sat on a friend's porch during a beautiful South Carolina night and talked poker. One of my favorite people in the world was leading the discussion, and he's written a brillant-as-usual piece about the brainstorming process we went through.
  
• The infamous Dr. Pauly was quoted in a recent BusinessWeek article about the online gaming ban.
  
• Our pal Bill Rini offers his analysis of the ban and makes a new friend in the process.
  
• Dan points us to a great podcast with Nolan Dalla.

• In all the hoopla over the online gambling ban, we've focused on how it affects us individually - completely ignoring the plight of hundreds of poker bots who will now find themselves out of work.
  
• Wicked Chops Poker underwent a transformation this week and will now focus on good, wholesome, completely legal state lotteries.
  
• Busy the first weekend in November? A march on Washington is planned for November 3-4 to protest our recent loss of freedoms.
  
• Check out this post from RGP entitled "Ode to Party":
  

  O Party, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!
  With thee, I spent a thousand sleepless nights,
  In ecstasies of pleasure and of pain,
  So splendid were thy succulent delights!
  Thy epic tournies, rife with jousting donks,
  Did rescue me from abject destitution;
  Now Dubya and his idiotic wonks
  Do invite my bloody retribution!
  How dare they say with whom you can transact,
  And cordon you from he who loves you most?
  I swear this day a solemn, sacred fact;
  Election Day, those fuckers will be toast.
  But if that fails, there's but one thing to do:
  To Canada! Where we begin anew.

• Now that your online poker options have been limited, perhaps some of you will turn to professional Rock-Paper-Scissors. The World RPS Society has a fun profiler quiz that will identify the type of player you are.
  
• The folks over at Card Squad have been turning out some fantastic strategy pieces.
  
• Oh, and we're all going to hell.

Despite my liquor bribe last week, I still find myself title-less for my weekly link round-up column. Dan has the best one (InstaPoker) over at Pokerati, and my original idea was simply not going to work. The simple solution then is to swipe something from somewhere else - in this case, myself. It's a phrase my co-blogger and I have used for years, as code for "something big/cool/funny just happened to me and instead of telling you directly, I'm telling you to read my blog and find out all about it." Cause we're dorks like that. Here it'll point you to web gems you might have missed.

Understandably, the number one topic around the web this week is the online gaming ban. You've no doubt been keeping up-to-date with most of the news on the topic, but here are some sites you might have missed: