After traveling for 17 hours to get here, I crashed. I barely slept the night before my trip either. With the 4 hour time difference, I am waking up at 5 am. Other than that, so far, I absolutely love this place. It’s been less than 2 days, but I’ve got some big blisters on my feet today, from all of the walking I did yesterday. I planned on playing poker yesterday evening, but when I got to the strip, I just started walking, doing the tourist thing.
I did play some poker. Yesterday morning, I made my way to the MGM Grand for my first Vegas tourney. It was a $65 buyin that allowed for rebuys in the first 4 20 minute levels. I think there was a total of 80 buyins. I just made the one buyin. Early on I doubled up with AA vs KK, when the guy tried to slow play me. I was amazed at how bad some of the players were. I didn’t get to many hands after that, and was down to $2200, when the blinds were at $400, when two stacks similar to mine went in, I called with my AJ off and nearly tripled up. After that I just pushed chips around and built myself up to above average, just by taking blinds, or raising late and continuation betting.
The final table was supposed to be 10 players,but only 9 made it, with the final 7 getting paid. We discussed a chop, with I think 9 players each receiving around $440. We all agreed except for 1 guy, so we had to play it out. The blinds were now 1200, and I had a little under 11000, when I looked down at 33. I don’t play to squeak into the money, so I shoved. I got called by AQ, and flopped a set. That put me into second in chips, and a few hands later the guy that wouldn’t chop, got cold decked when his A7 was outkicked by the A 10 on a board of AA8. It was fitting. We all had a good laugh at the guy, and because of some shortstacks, top 4 got $580, and bottom 4 got $400. I’d say my first day in Vegas was great, except for the blisters.

This is a something I wrote because I get irritated by the online poker isn’t illegal argument. It’s mostly a rant, but when 60 Minutes ran the UltimateBet Scandal story people all over the forums were going crazy because online poker was called illegal. With Greg Raymer recently appearing on Fox Business News the argument has surfaced again. It seems that it’s the majority in the poker community that think online poker is legal, and feel the need to correct you if you don’t.

60 Minutes Ultimate Bet Scandal story

Greg Raymer on Fox Business News

Online poker is illegal. As far as anyone actually getting in trouble for playing, it hasn’t happened, yet. A minute fraction of a percentage of people involved will ever be prosecuted for anything, but online poker is illegal. I wish it wasn’t and am all for it becoming legal ( I’m also not as affected in Canada), but until it happens, even though it is in a grey area, it is not legal. Listen to any UIGEA discussion and someone has to bring up the point that online poker isn’t illegal. You can make a strong argument for the legality, but if you are speaking to a regular person, who cares. The online poker isn’t illegal argument is one of the most ridiculous arguments you can use if you consider that as a whole, the entire UIGEA fight is all about making online poker not illegal.

If you really want to know how legal online poker is, go ask Howard Lederer or Chris Ferguson how much of full tilt poker they own or where the full tilt office’s are located. Anurag Dikshit paid $300 million to the US Justice Department, as a plea for illegal internet gaming. This upset some people in the PPA, believing admission of guilt is most likely hurting their cause. If rumors are true then Calvin Ayre, former BODOG owner, is not allowed to enter the States, and there’s some discussion he may not be allowed in Canada either. Its true the average player really has nothing to worry about. The government wants the big boys, they want who is taking the rake. They can’t get the people who have companies that work around the laws, but I guarantee one plan the companies don’t have is moving the offices to downtown vegas, legally. Why do they advertise the .net sites and not .com?

This is in the PPA’s letter to congress they are asking people to copy and send. “Explicit legalization with sensible regulation will allow the Congress to mandate rigorous safeguards” Explicit legalization? It doesn’t matter what adjective you put in front of legal, it’s still asking for legalization. Greg Raymer, who I felt did a great job on Fox Business news, corrected the interviewers when they brought up poker being illegal. When someone brings up this point, the automatic response is “online poker isn’t illegal.” Next is the technical explanation of why it isn’t illegal, which boils down to nothing more than no one has been prosecuted yet, so it can’t be illegal. Taking the stand that something you are fighting for legalization of, isn’t technically illegal is a very confusing stand to take.

John

I guess a good place to start would be with an introduction. My name is John MacLeod, and i’m from a small town on the far east coast of Canada. Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. If you walk out my back door, and walk strait for 15 mins you would hit the Atlantic Ocean. If you turn right and walk for 5 minutes, you’d be drowning in it. I can’t say there that it’s a very exciting life, but I wouldn’t want to be from anywhere else. I suppose most people would feel the same. With that said, I’m on the edge of starting a new career. I’d love to tell you that it’s professional poker player, but alas, i’m settling for the poker reporter. Settling is actually a terrible word in this case. I’m excited. I had a career for over 10 years that I “walked away” from last summer, could never honestly say I came home from work and felt good about the job I did. I’m more proud of this paragraph than anything I have ever done all those years selling eyeglasses and I was good at my job. My apologies to any Opticians.

Since then, I had been trying to figure out what to do. The best plan I could come up with was go back to school. I need a profession thats going to be able to provide for a wife and kids,(I don’t have a wife or kids) but also one that’s going to give me enough money to travel and play poker.I know I’m playing in the Main Event at least once, sometime. This year I can’t think about anything but going there, watching it and telling people all about it. I haven’t even submitted an application anywhere yet, but I know i’ll be applying for every spot that’s available. If it wasn’t for BJ Nemeth starting a thread over on PokerRoad , the biggest problem I would be having would be whether or not I can get the government pay for school. Since getting invloved with that thread, (which anybody who has any interest in reporting - poker or not -should read), i’ve a new enthusiasm for things I forgot I loved.

Poker, is something that i’ve always loved. My mother tells me my grandfather ran a card game back in the day. I guess it’s in the blood. The one problem with living where I live, is the only legal card games I have access to is 1 or sometimes 2 1-2 tables at the local casino 5 days a week for 7 1/2 hrs, filled with regulars. The next closest games are 5 hours away, and forget about tournament poker. I did have some small success in one the 3 live tournaments i’ve played in a casino. I finished 2nd in Canadian Poker Tour rebuy event in Halifax a few years back, when I was first getting into hold em. I got $10,810 and a small trophy. I still have the trophy. It was also taped for local tv, not a lot of people can say they have a tape of themselves pulling off a valu-bet bluff on the river. I play alot of online poker too, for a long time only at party poker, where ive won roughly 25k, not profit, lol tho i did pull a modest one out of there. As it stands now, I’m online busto. I should be getting my fulltilt account back online in the next week or so, and I will probably starting with 200 or 300. I play mostly tourneys $3-$55 and i like heads up sit and go’s. Small stakes.

I’m not too sure on what i’m going to be writing about all of the time, but while I was following the EPT Dortmund online on the weekend, I signed up for a pokerstars account because a $1000 freeroll was starting, for anybody watching the broadcast. Over 7000 players started, and I managed to hit a couple miracles, and a straight flush along the way to finishing 12th and $22 cash. It was fate, lol. I’m gonna blog about starting a bankroll from nothing, and whatever else happens to be on my mind that day. That’s it for now, hope it wasn’t too boring.

John