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There is no question that the effect of online poker has been widespread and immense. Online poker rooms were first established in the late 1990’s and since that time there has been a steady rise in players and revenue within the industry. There has been such an explosion of interest that it has been estimated that online poker revenues increased nearly 3000% in the four years leading up to 2005. This of course can be attributed to many factors but the most important is the television coverage of poker tournaments like the World Series of Poker.

In 2003, ESPN expanded their coverage of the WSOP from a highlight show to the whole tournament complete with feature tables and even included the “pocket card cam”, allowing viewers at home to see what cards the players had. The 2003 broadcast was also significant because a Pokerstars.com satellite qualifier and poker unknown, Chris Moneymaker, went on to claim the World Series of Poker Main Event title. He beat out the largest ever field at the time of 839 players to win the $2.5 million in prize money. Moneymaker’s win had an enormous effect on the entire poker industry. Every player realized that even they could be a poker world champion and be an online qualifier like Moneymaker.

Since that momentous year, the WSOP has seen a rise in the number of players and prize money. 2004 saw a massive increase in players with 2,576 entrants into the main event. In the years following, the numbers of entries grew and finally peaked in 2006 with a whopping 8,773 players entering the WSOP main event and a first prize of $12 million.

Legislation in the US would have its effect though, with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), passed in 2006, stopping financial transactions for US banks to online gambling sites which effectively put a stop to many US players playing poker online. The legislation did have an effect on the WSOP in the following year, seeing only 6,358 entries and a first prize of $8.25 million in 2007. The WSOP rebounded a bit in 2008 with the 2nd largest ever prize money offered and 6,844 players in the main event and winner Peter Eastgate taking home $9.11 million.

Though the UIGEA has dealt a blow to online gambling, it seems that live tournaments are alive and well and popular as ever.

For the second year in a row, Everest Poker has been awarded Poker Operation of the Year at the annual eGaming Review Awards ceremony in London.  Everest Poker is the exclusive “felt sponsor” of the World Series of Poker and is one of the world’s most popular poker sites, serving poker players in Europe and around the world.

“Everest Poker continues growing the industry’s most trusted and exciting brand, and the favorite site of players worldwide. We are honored to receive this recognition for the second year in a row from the online gaming industry.” stated Bob Cahill, chief executive officer of GigaMedia’s gaming software division.

The award shines a light on the remarkable growth and quality of Everest Poker. Everest Poker burst onto the scene in 2005 with its innovative world class poker offerings.  As the first truly multilingual poker room and with nearly a decade of online gaming experience in international markets, Everest Poker quickly amassed a huge following with a series of wildly successful online and offline poker tournaments in continental Europe.  Today, the overwhelming response to Everest Poker promotions hasn’t changed and has in fact grown to include the 2008 World Series of Poker, the largest, richest and most well known tournament which Everest Poker is now the official “felt sponsor”.

The 111th Congress will reconvene in Washington DC to delve into its work which includes looking at all of the bills that were introduced to the 110th Congress will have to be reintroduced once again. There are several bills that are amongst those that were introduced and, had they passed would have changed the entire picture of Internet poker in the United States, which will expire with the 110th Congress in a few short weeks.

All of the proposed bills concerning poker and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that were introduced in 2007 and 2008 will be reintroduced when the 111th Congress convenes according to John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

Efforts are already underway by the PPA who is working with the lawmakers who originally introduced the bills to adjust and reword the bills so they might pass the Congress more easily. Pappas already has a meeting planned with lawmakers next week to hammer out strategy.

Over 7,000 plus bills were introduced during the 110th Congress but never made a final roll call will have to be reintroduced. Lobbyists including the PPA are flocking to Washington DC for the chance to work with politicians to rework those bills and give them a new chance as passage with the next Congress.

Below are three important bills that will be reintroduced that online poker players would be interested in:

S. 3616 — The Internet Skill Game and Licensing Control Act

This act was introduced September 26 by Senator Robert Menendez but never stood a chance of being considered due to how late in the session it was introduced. If passed by the 111th Congress, it would “provide licensing of Internet skill game facilities,” with poker being front and center.  The bill defines a skill based game as one “that uses simulated cards, dice, or tiles in which success is predominantly determined by the skill of the players, including poker, bridge, and mahjong.”

H.R. 2610 — The Skill Game Protection Act

This bill was introduced by Representative Robert Wexler on June 7, 2007 and proposes to name poker as a skill game on a Federal level which would prevent it from being targeted by the anti-gambling UIGEA. If poker is considered a skill game, it is not gambling and would be given the same protection as chess and even fantasy football.

H.R. 6870 — Payments System Protection Act of 2008

This bill was introduced by Barney Frank, a powerful House member who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. Frank has been a very outspoken critic since the passage of the UIGEA and the reintroduction of HR 6870 will be his second attempt at weakening the UIGEA by defining exactly what online gambling activities should be stopped.

In short, HR 6870 would take online poker off the list of what the government considers illegal gambling activities. If the bill gets reintroduced and passed, that list would be reduced and would only prevent the UIGEA from stopping anything but sports betting transactions.

There’s always a media type somewhere that’s writing about “the death of poker” and that fact that the games popularity is bound to dip and now is the time, yada yada yada. Bucking that trend for the 115th time this year, the World Series of Poker broadcast on ESPN attracted the largest audience in two years. According to George McNeilly from ESPN, “The viewership and interest we’ve seen this season tells us that the World Series of Poker still has a very strong following”.

Viewer ratings for the Main Event this year were up 10% over with well over one million households watching the first broadcast of the show. This doesn’t even take into account the number that will watch the planned 8 reruns of the event. Better yet, the episode leading to the November 9 had a massive 44% increase from last year. Harrah’s and ESPN like to take all of the credit for this due to the new format this year but the sustained interest in Online Poker clearly has played a role as well.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that this years show had deep runs (and quite the display of idiocy) by Phil Hellmuth. Mike Matusow also went deep this year but viewers didn’t get to see any Matusow Meltdowns. There are arguments that the WSOP fields are too littered with unknowns but so long as the occasional pro makes it deep, the great ratings that ESPN is enjoying should continue. At the very least, we can be rest assured that the expanded coverage of the event will continue for the 2009 World Series of Poker.

Continuing his streak of solid finishes at WPT events, Season Six Player of the Year Jonathan Little took down the World Poker Tour Foxwoods World Poker Finals title and the $1.1 million dollars that went along with it. He had “Little” trouble taking down a few of the big names en route to his victory. Mike Matusow was a victim at the final table when his Ace Jack didn’t connect to beat the pocket nines of Little. Matusow was the short stack coming into the final table and didn’t hesitate to put his chips all in with he peeked at the Ace Jack hole cards.

When heads up play was reached, the battle reminded many of the epic battle with John Juanda and Stanislav Alekhin at the WSOP Europe earlier this (although that battle ended only after a 21 hour war). The heads up fight between Little and ultimate second place finisher Jonathan Jaffe took 5 hours as the players played seesaw on many hands. The hand that concluded the action? Little raised to 850,000 on the button only to see Jaffe push all of his chips in the middle. Little only thought for a second before calling with his Ace Queen and was elated to see Jaffe turn up the Ace Ten. The flop and turn brought no help for either player but the Queen on the river gave the solid victory to Little. Jaffe pocketed $670K for his efforts.

The quiet, unassuming Dane named Peter Eastgate is now the youngest World Series of Poker Main Event winner ever. In a command performance he moved with stealth, didn’t make any mistakes, and was able to pick off a few bluffs to move up in chips. When the final hand went down against Ivan Demidov, Eastgate held a near 7-1 chip lead –

After calling the blind holding Ad 5s, Demidov checked his Big Blind holding 2h 4h. The flop came 2d Ks 3h and Eastgate bluffed with the straight draw and tossed out 1.25 million in chips. He was smooth called by Demidov holding bottom pair. The worst card for Demidov came on the river when the 4c hit, giving him two pair but completing the straight draw for Eastgate. Eastgate fired out 2 million after it was checked to him, only to be check-raised by Demidov to 6 million. When the seemingly harmless 7s came on the river, Demidov announced all-in and was called by Eastgate holding the wheel straight.

With the stunning victory, Eastgate is now the youngest player to win the title since Phil Hellmuth won his first WSOP bracelet 19 years ago. To put it in perspective, Peter Eastgate was just 4 years old when Phil won his first WSOP Championship.

In addition to the 300 person strong entourage that followed Dennis Phillips to the WSOP Main Event this year, there was another element that helped root Dennis along to his third place finish – a truck horn. You read right, some of his friends and family somehow managed to get a complete, working truck horn powered by a battery into the event. Surprisingly, the WSOP officials let it slide and despite the repeated use of the device, never shut down the honky tonk operation.

Unfortunately for Dennis, it didn’t help him much when he made an ill-timed buff holding only ten high against the flopped set of threes held by ultimate winner Peter Eastgate. No miracle runner-runner cards came for Phillips and he was sent home packing.

There was also a strange chant that the Danish contingent would fall into anytime Eastgate won a hand. Apparently an effort to emulate the popular “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oy! Oy! Oy!” chant from Joe Hachem and his crowd a few years, the Danish effort didn’t quite have the same endearing affect, sounding more like ducks being run over by a truck.

Regardless, it didn’t seem that Peter needed much help as he plowed through the last two players to take home his massive nine million dollar payday.

Ylon Schwartz is the prototypical gamer. He’s played them all practically and in most cases, it was for money. At the ripe old age of 13, he was introduced to the game of Chess. This was a very popular game where he spent his younger years, right in the heart of Manhattan, New York at Washington Square Park. He quickly took to the game and thanks to a few lessons from a mentor that he shared his early profits with, he was beating some of the best in the area. He went to play professionally before tiring of the game, and then he found poker.

Hindsight being 20/20, it’s pretty clear that poker has been a more profitable venue for Schwartz than Chess. With career winnings topping one million dollars (including the minimum ninth place money of over 900K from the WSOP final table), he’s made quite a splash so far.

He’s well known online as one of the best Multi Table Tournament (MTT) players in the world. He’s run deep in the PokerStars Sunday Million too many times to count as well as the Sunday Second Chance tournaments. He says that he tries to stay away from cash games due to the variance.

When he’s not playing poker he’s a very “earthy” type, to say the least. He enjoys Yoga and meditation and says that if he wins the World Series of Poker, he’s going to disappear somewhere for a long time and drink a lot of fine liquor. He’s even been quoted as saying that if he cashes big in the event, he will likely disappear for a long time in Guatemala or Brazil, anywhere so far as he’s out of the limelight. Up to this point, he’s made an effort to stay out of the press as much as possible for such a high profile poker player playing the largest event in the world.

If you’re reading this, you very likely play poker on the Internet. Before you finish reading this, please take the time to act and using the link we’re going to provide and ensure your voice is added to the chorus of poker players that want our game to remain legal (and available).

In a last minute move similar to the way the original bill was passed, lawmakers are attempting to do the same thing with UIGEA. Representative Bill Frist was able to pass the original bill by attaching it to the US Port Security Act by arguing that online gambling aided terrorists in moving money in secret. While the bill has been amended many times, the UIGEA is very clear in its efforts to ban all financial transactions between US banks and gambling sites.

The PPA has issued a statement that says, in part, “It’s really remarkable that this administration would try to push this out given the burden it would place on financial institutions at this time of financial crisis.”

Use this link http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/ElectronicCommentForm.cfm?doc_id=R-1298&doc_ver=1&name=Prohibition%20on%20Funding%20of%20Unlawful%20Internet%20Gambling&date=20071001a to make sure your voice is heard. Here’s an idea of what you should say (courtesy of the PPA, this is an email that will be sent to the membership tomorrow morning):

Just one week after a historic election the Poker Players Alliance is pitted in a fight to keep anti-Internet poker regulations from being enacted and we NEED YOUR HELP!

The current Administration is hastily finalizing a number of “midnight rules” before they leave office and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) is on the list. See the 11/06 story in Dow Jones. Just like UIGEA was snuck into legislation in the dark of night in 2006, our opponents are again trying an 11th hour sneak job. We need you to help us expose and stop this reckless rulemaking.

Please call the U.S. Federal Reserve and tell them not to approve the UIGEA regulations — Consumer Complaints, 888-851-1920 or Public Affairs, 202-452-2955.

Tell them:

• The federal agencies responsible for our nation’s economy should not be focused on Internet poker regulations.
• Finalization of the UIGEA rules will add additional burdens on our already crippled financial systems.
• Internet poker is a game of skill and form of recreation for millions of Americans; it should be exempted from the UIGEA.
• Please do not finalize the UIGEA regulations until their impact on our banking systems and average Americans has been fully studied.

Your call will make a huge difference and will add the public’s voice to these last minute policy decisions our government is poised to make. We can’t stand idly by while they make decisions that will impact our right to play America’s card game. PLEASE CALL TODAY!

There’s a rumor that’s not been busted that the WPT has cancelled the Borgata 10K scheduled for January 2009. Instead they will make two episodes of the September 2008 Borgata event to fill up the extra television slot. In light of recent events surrounding both the Borgata and the World Poker Tour, this comes as no surprise to many insiders and the public alike.

The Borgata recently announced the lay-offs of approximately 400 employees due to the slumping US economy and has tightened spending for the immediate future. Following suit, the WPT has also announced that have pulled out of the online poker market for real money players. Further compounding the issue for the World Poker Tour, they were notified by the NASDAQ that their listing may be pulled if they are unable to pull their stock out of the tank and reach the $1.00 mark in the next six months.

While this is a rumor and has not been confirmed or denied at this time, there are sources at the Borgata that claim all of the above is very much true and that alternate arrangements have been made. They didn’t elaborate so no further information is available at this time.