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Poker On The Down Low

As I type this, I'm playing in a $3 + $0.30 no-limit hold-'em tourney over at Full Tilt Poker. And I'm going down fast--we're up to 150/300 blinds and I've got only about 1000 chips left. I'm currently placed 176 out of 197 players still alive (started with 566), and the top 99 will cash.

Why am I telling you this? Well, first, I want to see if I can finish this post before I get blinded out. (I've just been dealt three straight 4-hands--4-3, 4-5, 4-2, all off-suit. Thanks, dealer!) But next, I just want to make sure everyone's fully aware of how easily some douchebags in Congress--hey, 4-9, getting higher--can disingenuously wrap themselves in "patriotism" and casually screw millions of people. Last year, several sleazes in Congress attached a midnight rider to a port security bill that chokes off most sources of funding for online poker. Since Congress wasn't going to halt the port security aspect of things to protect poker, boom--online poker players suddenly found themselves having to leap tall buildings just to keep playing their games.

(Disclaimer: this is in no way comparable to the ways that people really get reamed by the government--see Katrina, Iraq, et cetera. It's just a dismaying, disheartening pain in the ass, is all.)

(Oof. And I'm out. Had a 4h-Qh--fours were on me like stink on Tara Reid tonight--and got beaten by a guy who flopped a set of Aces. Ah, well. Finished in 159th place.)

Anyway, if you're a poker player, or a fan of individual liberty, or--or just an American, dammit--you ought to consider throwing a couple bucks to the Poker Players Alliance to help get this horsecrap bill overturned--and, potentially, make it fully legal to play poker online in the United States.

And if you don't know how to play poker, by all means, let me teach you. Won't cost much.