Is poker a game of skill? A South Carolina judge thinks so

A South Carolina judge by the name of J. L. Duffy stated it so in the middle of the trail of five men arrested for running a weekly game of Holdem.  He was very clear in his surprise statement that Texas Holdem was obviously a game of great skill and he had no doubt about it.  The defendant's attorney was very surprised by the comment and also said that it sounded very good for his clients.

This group of poker players pulled out all of the stops by binging in a real poker player as an expert witness.  Any one that watches the WPT on TV would recognize their expert witness as Mike Sexton who is seen every week commenting on the play during the Weekly WPT tournament.  You may have also seen him playing very well in some live tournaments this last year.

Since this trial is still going on, the verdict is not known yet and both parties state that no matter who wins there will be an appeal to a higher court.  The violation of the law is in dispute as gambling or betting on a chance outcome is illegal.  A game of skill would seem to go in the face of this law, but it is up to the judge how this case will be settled.   Other states, California for example, have used this logic to make poker rooms and the game itself legal using the game of skill logic. [Read][more...]

Third Way to Poker Tournaments and The Satellite game

There have been two ways to get into poker tournaments up to now.  A player could pay the full price and enter the tournament of their choice.  The other way was to win a seat in a satellite tournament that you paid an entry fee of say $100 and won first prize in a tournament which was an entry fee of $10,000.  This has been the only way a player could get into a tournament up until now.

The third way is to pay the high bid for a seat in the auction that is being held at www.WebMoneyAuction.com.  A player can get a seat in some very desirable tournaments according to the release for the auctions that start on Feb 28.  If this works out for the website and the players who win the auctions this could be a way for some non-moneyed players to buy their way into a tournament.  The promoters of this idea say that they expect some of these auctions to go for as little as 5% of the tournament entry fee.  If this comes down this way, the winners of these auctions could have one extremely good parlay if they end up winning the tournament in question.  The promoters are also going to auction off poker chips for some online poker rooms and other valuable entries to lower poker games. [Read][more...]

Tags: online poker, poker, poker players, poker rooms, poker tournaments, WSOP

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