Another Blogger Tourney

Mac Poker

The Nice Folk over at PokeronMac are having a great tourney for Us Bloggers.

SO check em out.

peace
Billyb

No Wsop this year for me.

Well I gave it my best shot on sunday playing both the interpoker tourney and the stars 230 seat tourney. The Interpoker tourney I am very happy with the way I played But after the 2nd break I had NO cards, NONE ZERO ZIP NADA got it?

i made it down to 206 out of 940 and I didnt play a hand for the last 50 min or so.

so the stars tourney 150 seat guaranteed tourney had 7700 people with 230 seats awarded.
I played ok except for one hand where I caught Bottom 2 and lost 3/4 of my stack to top2.

Its not like I have any real notion that I could win it But it sure was fun last year, And if the level of my starting table is any indication then there are some terrible terrible players there.

I want to congratulate Zeem and Ryan on winning a ticket to the big dance.
If I had any money I would Buy a piece of Ryan since he is a Hawsome Player.

Peace
Billyb

Party Poker Blog

We all Know that our Goverment is here to protect us from ourselves But I still thought we lived in a democracy But I guess not.

"Read this while it's still legal"

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist

As most of us toasted liberty and pursued happiness last week, Jim Harvill opened his mailbox and learned these rights are not as unalienable as he thought.

On July 3, Harvill, an affable operations manager for Sprint PCS near Spokane, got the following letter from the publisher of two magazines he has subscribed to for years. "It is with deep regret that we must inform you ... " it read, "we must cancel all subscriptions to Washington State."

The magazines are "Casino Player" — a monthly review of U.S. casinos and hotels — and "Strictly Slots" — a guide to one-armed bandits, video poker and other mechanized means of gambling.

Hardly classic literature. But Harvill liked them. And now he can no longer read them, thanks to a twisted reading of the state's new law against Internet gambling.

The state says placing bets online is against the law. Fine. But the state goes on to say that even writing about Internet gambling in a way that's promotional is "aiding and abetting" an illegal industry.

So now two print magazines consider themselves banned in this state. It's not clear whether the publisher pulled them on his own or was asked to by the state. The letter vaguely cites "new state laws regarding the legality of online gaming."

Mind you, no actual betting occurs via these magazines. People like Harvill buy them just to read about gambling.

"It's completely surreal," Harvill says. "My government is saying there is something I'm not allowed to read. I've lived in this country for 60 years and I can't remember anything like this happening to me before."

Well, it has certainly happened to others. Ask Larry Flynt. But it is almost never allowed to stand. Has to do with all that stuff we heard ad nauseam last week about independence and the freedom to think and speak as we want.

The nation's birthday week was a dark one for the most unruly and inconvenient of our freedoms, expression.

We learned that a high-school band in Everett had been barred from playing "Ave Maria" because the song is too religious. This is as baffling as if an art class were not permitted to study Michelangelo.

And then a Fort Lewis Army officer, who was properly accused of refusing to ship out to Iraq, was inexplicably charged for saying "contemptuous words against the President of the United States."

Lt. Ehren Watada had said the president misled us into a war that, in retrospect, was a mistake. Shocking! Even in the military, how can stating the obvious be a jailable offense?

I realize there are arguments for all these clampdowns. Still, it ought to give us pause that in one Fourth of July week we had two magazines banned in the state, one song muzzled in a school district and a slew of words outlawed in the military.

Would a confident people do this to themselves?

Oh, well. So we can't read up on Internet betting. Students can't play songs about Jesus' mother. Soldiers can't call the president a charlatan.

If we all get really bored, at least we can still burn the flag.

Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.