Ship it!

At some point I truly begin to question my sanity (i know none of you question my insanity). The point of the matter is that I have started to feel poker withdrawal.

And not the fun kind of withdrawal you make at a bank. We're talking about the blood-chilling, 48 hours without heroin, baby crawling on the ceiling type of withdrawal (Go see Trainspotting).

It's been almost 4 months since "Black Friday", i.e. the day that poker died, hit the US. Since then I have barely played a lick of poker. Thus, I'm rusty.

Some of you may know that I am currently working the poker beat. I'm lucky enough to be a part of the team that is putting together the Main Event episodes of the World Series of Poker. However, in the dark of night, while staring at my computer screen with nothing to do, I made a fatal mistake.

I decided to play poker, online, for play money.(Gasp!)

Long story short, it was a call-fest, everyone sucked, everyone sucked out, I folded a straight flush draw (god why!) and I was left like a fat kid who was promised cake and then given rice cakes.

Pissed. Hungry too, but mostly pissed.

Someone please give me a good reason why online poker should be illegal, while we can still gamble in casino and Granny can whittle away her food stamps playing bingo in church!

I hear crickets.

Finito. I'm tired of arguing

There are smart people in congress. There are also a lot of people who are horrible at games of skill. These people sadly seems to be one and the same. Seeing the Republicans, roll the democrats in debt ceiling negotiations was disgusting. Now our entire country will pay because why?

Because Republicans are better than Democrats at Poker! I mean lawmaking... no, I was right the first time. Poker, like chess, scrabble or monopoly, is a game of skill. You have to manipulate many factors in your favor in order to have the best opportunity to win and yes, occasionally luck will intervene.

Before I get more obtuse and incensed, I make a simple plea. Will Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson and the rest of the poker elite please take a break from poker to teach the Democrats how to "play Congress"? It would do wonders for this country and might speed up poker's legalization in the process. Thanks.