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What Makes Good Online Poker Sites?

There are a lot of websites dedicated to poker. Online poker sites have gained popularity in the recent years and have become the largest moneymaking revenue for casinos. What is it that makes online poker sites so addictive and appealing to users today?

Online poker sites are essentially poker rooms that not only provides information on how to play the game but it also allows the user to enter their website and place bets. In a sense, online poker sites are “electronic gambling houses.” With thousands of Internet traffic online, it is by far the most effective medium to reach players worldwide.

What is the attraction of these online poker sites? First of all, it offers accessibility. Before the online poker sites, a man living in L.A. will have to travel all the way to the Las Vegas just to participate in a poker tournament. Now, all he has to do is go online and play poker in any city he likes without leaving the comfort of his house.

Second, online poker sites make it easy for beginners to learn about the game without feeling like an idiot. There are software tools like a Flash tutorial or free downloadable games from where he could study and practice playing poker. When he is confident enough to play with other players, all he has to do is sign-up and start entering tournaments.

Third, online poker sites are easy to navigate. This is important especially for those who are first time Internet users or the ones who hate technology. This quality of online poker sites can attract more novice players and even professional ones.

Fourth, online poker sites give a lot of incentive to their players. Among these are the sign-up bonus, the promotion program, the loyalty and rewards scheme and many others. These incentives vary from each online poker sites. That is why it is important to know what are the important qualities that make popular online poker sites.

· Online poker sites must have a catchy and easy to remember web address. Poker.com or Party Poker is direct to the point and unforgettable. Names like Royal Flush Poker Rally.com is too long and will be forgotten in seconds.

· Online poker sites must have a good source of information for all levels of poker players. The site must assume that people who pass by their site can be come potential users if they use the right keywords and provide good articles and resource materials about poker.

· Online poker sites must be easy to navigate. This means the links must be correct and the icons or buttons used are attractive and functional.

Joining only requires a few steps. The faster and easier it is to join, the higher the possibility of getting new users.

· Online poker sites must have a great game variety. There should be games for beginners and high stake rollers. Or at least there should be enough variations of poker to keep your target poker age group interested.

· The graphic must be attractive and clear. High-resolution graphics are great but if it requires quite some time to load, members will most likely abandon the tournament.

· Online poker sites must be very secure. This means that the assets of both the house and its players are protected from hackers, viruses and fraud. These sites must ask for insurance to avoid any untoward incident concerning lawsuits.

· Online support must be readily available to the users.

Online poker sites have a definite advantage of the real-life casinos in the form of multi-table games. In the traditional casino, the player can only join one table at a time or a single table play. It is impossible to physically monitor and focus on two or more games since the player will have to move from one table to the other.

With the multi-table games provided by online poker sites, a player can now join three to ten games and watch the all in windows all in one computer screen. This is also a great way to increase the player’s winnings. The more games he can get into, the greater the possibility for him to double or triple his winnings in the shortest period of time.

When you get bored form having to travel and spend that much money on expense instead of just playing poker, then maybe it’s time to give these online poker sites a chance. Who knows? It might just be your lucky day.

Online Poker Bots – Threat or Not?

Introduction
Online games from chess and backgammon to 1st person shooters are rife with people who use computer assisted play or computer robots – even when there is no money at stake. With the appropriate program any player is able to play at a world championship level ruining the game for honest players. What makes online poker different, given that there are huge amounts of money at stake?
In this article I will explain how I developed a poker bot and what I learnt from this experience. My conclusion is that although it is possible to construct a poker playing bot the threat from poker bots to the online poker player is extremely small to non-existent.
“Games” Theory
For interest and college courses I had previously written computer playing programs or bots for games including chess, Connect 4, Othello, backgammon, bridge and various others. For games such as Connect 4, Othello, chess and backgammon where all players have the same available information about the game state, the theory on how to construct expert bots is well known. Deep search techniques, looking many moves ahead, are used for games such as Othello and chess. Recently (10 years ago) it was discovered neural networks could be taught to play backgammon better than almost any human player. Games such as poker and bridge contain hidden information where the players can see their own hand but not that of the other players. The published theory behind writing expert computer bots for these incomplete information games is decades behind the complete information games and there are doubts techniques will be developed so that computers can play at expert or world championship level. At present the best techniques for these incomplete information games seem to involve some form of simulation and opponent modelling.
Anatomy of An Online Poker Bot
There are 3 basics parts to a poker bot.
1) Data Gathering – observing the game state and history
2) Data Processing – using the information from the data gathered to determine whether to fold, call or raise.
3) Output – Pressing the appropriate button on the poker room client.
My Poker Bot
My program was written in early 2004 with Microsoft .Net C++ and was developed to play at one online room only. For the technically minded the program relied heavily on MFC and the Win32 API.
1) Data Gathering
My bot gathered information about game state and history from online poker tables by taking repeated screenshots and analysing the image. To begin with I just observed games, taking screenshots automatically so I could gather data on the position of the cards, chips and button. By determining the color of a certain few pixels I was able to gather all this information about the state of the game.
Eventually I was able to gather data from multiple poker tables (4 at a time) by repeatedly bringing each window to the foreground and taking a screenshot. From this screenshot I was able to determine my cards, board cards, button position, who was left in the hand, pot size and player bet sizes.
2) Data processing
This is the component that eventually bought my poker bot project to an end, unable to develop a strong enough strategy to win consistently. I tried various rules based, neural net and simulation techniques. At best my bot was able to make a very small profit at $1/2 and $2/$4 limit hold’em, but nowhere near the thousands of dollars a week I envisioned earning when I started the project. In the end it just wasn’t worth my time to continue to put resources into developing my poker bot further.
3) Output
This was the easiest component to write. This involved programmatically moving the mouse pointer to the appropriate screen co-ordinates and then sending a mouse down/mouse up command signalling a left-click. I did give consideration to adding the ability for the bot to use chat but never progressed that far.
Conclusion
Although you might run into a poker playing bot whilst playing online the odds are it plays very poorly. At any level of play you are much more likely to run into an expert human player than an expert computer player.

The World Series Of Poker

When you mention casinos the first thought that goes through your mind is poker. Poker is the one of the most popular casino card games. Mention casino poker and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) jumps right out. What are the stakes and who are the players of these high profile casino poker games?

The world series of poker started in 1971 and today it attracts more than 5,000 players from around the world competing for more than US$ 7,000,000 in prize money. Although it began with only one main event, that being No Limit Texas Holdem, it has evolved to include many more new events over the years. Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha High/Low, and Seven Card Stud are the four most popular forms of poker today. Depending on the rules and the game being played at the casino, two players will place money into the “pot” and the casino dealer will shuffle and cut the cards.

The casino dealer will then deal each player at the casino poker table their cards face down. After each round of dealing, the players at the casino table will place additional bets in the “pot” as the casino dealer hands them additional cards or replace existing cards. Each casino poker game has its own rules. Poker has grown faster than any other casino game with the introduction of online casino poker websites. With such large amounts of money being played for in the WSOP it has drawn more people to online casino games.

With a hole card camera, poker is now also a popular spectator sport and moving out of casinos and into your home with cable broadcast. Casinos in your corner of Internet will continue to grow as online casino poker evolves in cyberspace. Therefore, over the course of time and as the interest in poker continues to skyrocket and expand to different parts of the world, you should be on the look out for new casino poker games!

The Deal with Free Online Poker

The saying that all good things comes for free seems to be applicable in free online poker. Before the revolution of technology particularly the internet, poker games are played in a very dramatic scene and an amateur in the tables of poker games are a real treat because the professional ones see them as opportunity for wealth gain. Now, let us fast forward a bit to the period when the internet revolution is starting. There! In the world of internet, some things come for free and this is what free online poker offers to ordinary people like us.

There are many sites which offer free online poker to people, the only thing that you have to do is download their software, which is free by the way, and after that, you are on your way to playing free online poker. There are many reasons why people are using free online poker as a stepping stone in playing a much more professional game of poker.

Some people might start playing free online poker just for the fun of it. Look at this, you have internet access, a computer, and of course, time. Once you have stumbled in the course of free online poker, all you have to do is click to the left then type to the right and viola! Free online poker is now in your monitors, staring back at you and almost daring you to take your first move. It’s free, convenient, and very fun to play which is why many people are now addicted to free online poker.

Being a professional poker player entails a lot of practice and time therefore; free online poker is the best way to make sure that a person has sufficient practice in playing poker. Some people utilize free online poker as their stepping stone to becoming a professional and experienced poker player.

Let us now proceed to the details of free online poker. As I said earlier, downloading the free software would be the best way to utilize free online poker therefore; a person must have internet access and computer (of course), windows 98 or higher. Running time for downloading the software is usually 15 minutes for 56 kpbs. and the software takes up 6.2MB of storage in a computer’s memory.

After learning the technicalities which is boring yet essential, let us now dwell in the fun side of free online poker. There are many features included in the free online poker software and once you acquire it, you would also be able to utilize these features. One of the features here is that you have the option to play in public tables or private tables. For private tables, one must first ask for permission or a request to join the private table. You could also have the option to create your own private table thus making you feel rich and powerful. Aside from these features, free online poker also offers different types of games. These games are Texas Hold ’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo, and 5 Card Draw. Any player could use from these different types of games from free online poker. These different options for games make the free online poker package even more attractive and tempting for people.

Just a reminder though, free online poker does not give out money just like in a casino because the amount that you see is not real. Though that is the case, the top winners of the free online poker would receive a gift from the web host like a t-shirt or other give-aways. So there you go folks! Enjoy the deal with free online poker.

Playing Video Poker

Video poker is organized by chip software that is programmed to deal the player with random supply of cards from the deck in the monitor. A varied combination of random cards is generated in the monitor for every new player based on how the programming has been done. There is not just one standard form of video poker; there are multiple thousand variants of video poker games. Most of such games were initially played with inserting coins worth certain dollars for a particular game. As soon as the coin is inserted in the machine, the program deals random sequence of cards after which the game proceeds. Video poker is slowly getting replaced by online poker games.

Betting for these video poker games is done by either paying direct coins to the machine, or in some machines with betting some allotted credit points or presenting the machine with a ticket that has some bar codes on it.

Pay table in a video poker gives a tabulation of the credits or money that a player would win for each symbol. Based on the progression of the game, the pay table will list out how many credits or coins the player can win with a particular move.

A typical video poker has:-
• A score icon that lets the player read scores as the game progresses.
• A credit icon that lets the player read credits or bonus acquired during the game
• A start icon that lets the player to start with the game when pressed
• The bet icon denotes the credit value, score or money value that is placed as a bet
• The result icon declares either the win or lose of the game

This is an outline of the basic structure of a video poker; however, there are likely to be variations of the icons in different machines. There is yin and yang with video poker too. It is not all fool proof. There are several strategies to be mastered before anyone can make any real money out of it.

Expert video poker players stick on to playing with select machines. Playing with all and every machine has less chances of winning. All machines do not give the same result. Different strategies apply for different machines.

Jacks or better is the most famous of the video poker games. Before starting out to play any game, it is wise to be an audience to any player and watch the applicable rules, strategies and probabilities before you can act to bet in these games.

Poker Freerolls: Paradise for Beginners

Poker freerolls do not require any membership payment for playing. These games are a good start for those who have just started to expand their poker skills with tips from uncles, friend and books. Several online poker sites offer poker freerolls, which are entirely without any charge to play. Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Wisconsin are some states in the US that completely prohibits online gambling. Some Poker Freerolls sites too may not be accessible in gambling prohibited states.

Poker freerolls can be especially appealing to those who do not wish to invest money for playing poker. These games do not require money, but there are prizes offered for the best players by the site that is hosting the online poker freerolls site. While there are some other poker freerolls sites that do not offer any money for the prize, but they just allot points and scores!

The sponsored prize money in poker freerolls in most cases can be based on a sponsorship from any company that is promoting its product. The sponsorship for the poker freerolls in most cases could be a part of the marketing plan of the sponsoring company. The sponsorship for prize pool by websites would also be motivated to just attract more traffic to the website. Whatever, be the reason behind, you need not pay any money to play in poker freerolls.

Poker freerolls are extremely useful for beginning players to just find a right style to win through the crowed poker games traffic. One can learn the tricks and nuances of the game without investing any big money for it. These poker freerolls are also good for those experienced players to just experiment some moves for tourneys that are yet to come without spending any money for the practice of suffer any loss due to betting in practice rounds in casinos.

Most of the poker freerolls can be played online form your home or from any internet connected laptop or computer. You can improve your poker skills by playing the many poker freerolls which are like real tournaments. Titan poker, CD poker, Poker stars, Pacific Poker, Players only poker, Full tilt poker, Poker Stars, Party Poker, Sports book poker, Bet fair Poker, Mansion Poker are some of the many listed best poker freerolls online.

If you are practicing poker freerolls to develop your skills you need to choose the poker room based on the traffic to the a particular site, the number of tourneys in the site, the complexity of the games etcetera.

Poker – The game of the decade

Poker has been around for hundreds of years, frequently shown as being played in saloon backrooms in Western Cowboy films. The romantic perceptions of these card sharks moving from town to town ‘Maverick’ style and cleaning up at the poker table occurs in so many famous films. Coincidentally these guys also happened to be the fastest gun in town and always got the Lady. The game has in the past had a reputation for being played by hustlers in the back rooms of pool halls and other similar places of ill repute. Most people have played poker in one form or another from the kitchen table games on a Friday night with the family to the regular ‘boys’ nights and those college funding games at School or University.

2003 was the year that Poker started its growth to worldwide fame as the most popular game of the decade. Internet poker and Television became the driving factor for the fastest growth of a sport since the Snooker explosion in the 80’s. The advent of televised poker such as Poker Million on Sky Sports and the WPT tour on Challenge started growing a cult audience. Under table cameras and pinhole cameras allowed the viewers to see the players cards. Therefore, we could now see how the pros played and how they bluffed. John Duthie, a TV producer was the first player to win a million pound on Television in the Poker Million event.

Internet poker exploded as it now allowed people from all over the world to play against each other night and day and fed the demand of TV poker. Players can now find a game at any level 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Games start as small as 5cent/10cent games where the minimum buy in is $1 or $2 and go up to $100/$200 games where you need a minimum of $1,000 to sit down. Online poker also allowed these players the opportunity to qualify for the big TV tournaments through online satellite tournaments. There was now the opportunity for players to win millions of dollars on TV tournaments via satellites for as little as $10. 2003 saw Chris Moneymaker win the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and $2,500,000 from a $40 satellite.

Poker tournaments online went wild with hundreds of players entering tournaments and creating huge prize pools. This now meant that you could sit at home and play in big tournaments and win thousands of dollars. In 2004 the WSOP saw the impact of online poker players as 2,500 players entered a $10,000 entry tournament. 50% of these players were from poker sites. The winner, Greg Raymer, took home $5 million dollars.

All of these factors resulted in a new breed of poker player, young aggressive and with lots of money. 24 year old kids were winning over a million dollars a year by playing high stakes poker online. The experienced poker players now had a place where they could earn a living without leaving home. The online poker professionals flourished and the new players grew and learned the game. Now it is common place to see games online where the players have $10,000 each in front of them and the average pot is $2,000. Tournaments online regularly have guaranteed prize pools in the hundreds of thousands of dollars with the winners taking home $25,000 to $50,000 in a night. This boom in online tournaments and cash games has meant that the land based tournaments have been flooded with entries. The 2005 WSOP had a record 5,600 players generating a record prize pool of $56 million. The winner Joe Hachem, took home a massive $7.5 million dollars. This was one of the biggest payouts in any sporting event ever. Now million dollar, or million pound tournaments are becoming commonplace all around the world. Poker on television is available 24 hours a day, with a plethora of poker books hitting the market giving everyone expert advice on how to become a successful player.

New players joining a poker site can sit down on practice tables and play for fun with free chips whilst they learn how to play the game. The International Poker Network employ Professional poker teachers who sit down for 3 hours a day on the practice tables to answer players queries and advise them on strategies.

Poker is now the “in” game and as such has attracted a lot of media attention. Celebrities are now commonplace both online and in live tournaments. Ben Affleck recently won a major poker tournament in LA taking on the best in the poker world.

Online you can regularly see celebrities such as Lou Diamond Philips, Delta Goodrum and Brian McFadden playing in normal poker games (quite often for high stakes). Celebrity TV poker tournaments are commonplace and sportsmen and TV stars are all competing for the prize of beating their peers in the ultimate game of skill and strategy. Sportsmen have utilised their competitive edge and ability to handle pressure and are thriving in poker games with Steve Davis, Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens and Phil Taylor some of the notable successes in the poker field.

Not only have celebrities and sportsmen been attracted to this new pastime but also women haven taken to online poker in their thousands. Now they have a game where they don’t have to go to a male dominated card room alone, they can now sit in the comfort and security of their own home and pit their skills against all other players regardless of their sex. And they are getting good, maybe they are natural risk takers. Current estimates put the number of women players online at 25-30% of the total players, and it is estimated that 2 million players are online each year.

The high stakes games have now gone even bigger with the corporation, a group of 16 of the best poker players in the world taking on Billionaire banker, Andy Beal. Andy Beal is a maths wizard, a billionaire and a very good poker player. He challenged the best players in the world to play him heads up (one on one) for the $10 million dollars he brings with him to Vegas. This game runs with blinds of $30,000/$60,000 or $50,000/$100,000. The “game” is becoming a regular event in Las Vegas. Last time Beal left with $10 million dollars of the corporation’s money. Now they are back playing again. The talks are now about increasing the sit down money from $10 million to $40 million.

So if you want to take part in this phenomenon, take a look at www.ipnpoker.com the home of The International Poker Network. It is an aggregated room comprising some of the biggest sportsbooks and media brands. Games and tournaments are played in a choice of currencies – dollars, pounds, euros and there is a large choice of languages available including English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and Greek.

Every day you will find over 30,000 players across all different types of games giving you plenty of choice as to when and what to play. At peak times there will be over 7,000 players across all the different games.

Do you fancy playing in the ultimate game of skill for high stakes? As the quote from the movie ‘The Color of Money goes, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned” and it is especially true in poker.

Online Poker Games in Pacific Poker

Players who play Internet poker games are no strangers to Pacific Poker, an online poker room supported by Casino On Net, the biggest online casino.

Some of Pacific Poker’s features include 24-hour customer support for its clients. Players can choose the poker room that can fit their skills and their budgets. Aside from this, Pacific Poker clients all over the world are assured that they are playing against real people.

Pacific Poker offers download or no-download poker game software to its clients such that a player has a free option on this. This software is guaranteed to make navigation easy and includes a feature that saves the “seats” of players disconnected from their dial up connection while playing the game.

Aside from all of these, Pacific Poker offers online poker tournaments each day where players can participate. Players can also choose low or high limit games in their monthly free roll tournaments. Promotions such as free rolls and money added are also some of what Pacific Poker offers to their clients.

Should a player wins in any of Pacific Poker’s games, Pacific Poker allows the winner (from any country) to choose the form of payment he wants this to be received.

Some of the popular poker games that can be found in the Pacific Poker website are Texas Holdem, Omaha High Low, Seven Card Stud, Texas Hold Em and 7-Card Stud.

The most popular game in the Pacific Poker room and in the world of online poker is the Texas Holdem game. A maximum of 10 players can play this game of the standard 52-deck card. Each player is given an equal chance of handing cards with the use of a dealer button. In Texas Holdem Poker Games, the player who assembles the best five-card hand, out of the seven possible wins the pot.

Another game that can be found in Pacific Poker is the Omaha High Low game. This game is a form of Texas Holdem. It is a bit different from the latter with the move prior to the flop. The initial starting hand is composed of four hole cards dealt face down. Aside from this, 5 board cards are dealt face up in the center of the table and are considered as community cards. Most of the time, players who are used with Texas Holdem get confused with some of the rules in Omaha High Low which are reverse to some of the rules in the former. But once they get past this stage, they can already enjoy playing. Pacific Poker’s Omaha High Low is usually described as an exciting game and has bigger pot money for players to win.

The third game that can be found in Pacific Poker is the Seven Card Stud Poker Game. There are five betting rounds for each game of this and a maximum of 8 players can play this game. The game starts with the dealer dealing 2 cards face down, four cards face up and the last card – the final one – face down for each online player starting with the one seated on the left of the dealer.

The winner in Seven Card Stud Poker Game in Pacific Poker is the one who gets the best five of the seven cards dealt. He has the best hand and gets to win the pot.

The fourth online poker game in Pacific Poker is Texas Hold Em. It is played with the standard 52-deck card and 2 up to a maximum of 11 players can play it. It is one of the most popular poker games in the world and is usually portrayed in television shows and movies. World Poker Tour and World Series Poker are some of the tournaments devoted for it.

Texas Hold Em is played in Pacific Poker starts with the players dealing their two hole cards faced down. This is done by each player starting with the one seated on the left of the button. The player, who can make the best-ranked five cards using the community cards with his hole cards, wins the game.

The fifth and last game found in Pacific Poker is the 7-Card Stud game. It is a game where players have one or more face up cards. It is described as the most played poker in public card rooms. This has three versions that can be played in Pacific Poker. These are High, Low and High-Low Split games. In 7 Card Stud Low, the player who obtains the lowest hand wins the pot while one with the highest hand wins in the 7 Card Stud High. In 7-Card Stud High-Low Split, if no one among the players qualifies for the low, the entire pot is given to the high hand.

A complex nature of poker generated in poker community a discussion on what dominates in this casino game: skills or success. Most of the people believe that poker is a casino game the outcome of which depends on skills of a casino player and only a small probability is given to a chance. This thesis is confirmed by facts. For instance, legendary poker players have won WSOP poker championship for many times independently on a number of participants. Thus, Johnny Moss has triply become a poker champion (in 1970, 1971 and 1974), a three-time poker champion is the greatest player of the 20th century Stew Ungar, he won WSOP in 1980, 1981 and 1997. Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chen have twice tried on Gold WSOP winner bracelets. In poker as in any other kind of sports there is an elite of poker players who win great tournaments every year or take prize places. Just sport compound of poker let make poker player rating, every year the first places are occupied there by the poker the casino and poker rooms community.

As to the opinion of the states on the nature of poker, here everything’s more complicated and sophisticated. As a rule, in many countries the authorities don’t make any difference between gambling games and poker. However such a fuddy-duddy approach has recently tried to break the poker community. Poker and casino games fans unite themselves in associations, public entities trying to prove to the officials that poker can not be put together with roulette or slot machines.

Sometimes the authorities themselves understand that. For instance, in the United States poker can be played not only in casinos but in special card rooms the activity of which is allowed only on the territory of the states where gambling business is prohibited. Thus, on the territory of California successfully work 91 card rooms, in Florida 16, in Washington 112, the state of Montana counts even 493 card rooms. The income of American card rooms (not including casinos) in 2006 made more than 1 milliard dollars. The activity of these organizations are severely controlled by the government. For instance, the legislation of Florida fully regulates the rate of the stakes in poker. This year in June got effect the law according to which the stakes in limited poker games are allowed to be increased from 2 to 5 dollars, in unlimited Texas Hold’em maximum allowed rate of buy-in makes 100 dollars.

However these states are predominantly exceptions. Unfortunately poker for most of American officials is a gamble. For most of them but not for everybody. In June 2007 a congressman Robert Wexler introduced to the House of representatives of the USA a draft law named “Skill Game Protection Act”. According to this draft law such games as poker, bridge, chess should not fall within the scope of the law because on the author’s mind they are games where skills dominate over a chance. A very serious political force acting on the side of poker is a senator Alfonse D’Amato who together with the organization “Poker Players Alliance” fights for a fair and objective attitude of the authorities to the favourite game.

But if in the USA the process of poker recognition as a skill game has just begun in some other countries poker scored off the conservatism of the officials.

Casino games: Poker recognition. Part two.

A complex nature of poker generated in poker community a discussion on what dominates in this casino game: skills or success. Most of the people believe that poker is a casino game the outcome of which depends on skills of a casino player and only a small probability is given to a chance. This thesis is confirmed by facts. For instance, legendary poker players have won WSOP poker championship for many times independently on a number of participants. Thus, Johnny Moss has triply become a poker champion (in 1970, 1971 and 1974), a three-time poker champion is the greatest player of the 20th century Stew Ungar, he won WSOP in 1980, 1981 and 1997. Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chen have twice tried on Gold WSOP winner bracelets. In poker as in any other kind of sports there is an elite of poker players who win great tournaments every year or take prize places. Just sport compound of poker let make poker player rating, every year the first places are occupied there by the poker the casino and poker rooms community.

As to the opinion of the states on the nature of poker, here everything’s more complicated and sophisticated. As a rule, in many countries the authorities don’t make any difference between gambling games and poker. However such a fuddy-duddy approach has recently tried to break the poker community. Poker and casino games fans unite themselves in associations, public entities trying to prove to the officials that poker can not be put together with roulette or slot machines.

Sometimes the authorities themselves understand that. For instance, in the United States poker can be played not only in casinos but in special card rooms the activity of which is allowed only on the territory of the states where gambling business is prohibited. Thus, on the territory of California successfully work 91 card rooms, in Florida 16, in Washington 112, the state of Montana counts even 493 card rooms. The income of American card rooms (not including casinos) in 2006 made more than 1 milliard dollars. The activity of these organizations are severely controlled by the government. For instance, the legislation of Florida fully regulates the rate of the stakes in poker. This year in June got effect the law according to which the stakes in limited poker games are allowed to be increased from 2 to 5 dollars, in unlimited Texas Hold’em maximum allowed rate of buy-in makes 100 dollars.

However these states are predominantly exceptions. Unfortunately poker for most of American officials is a gamble. For most of them but not for everybody. In June 2007 a congressman Robert Wexler introduced to the House of representatives of the USA a draft law named “Skill Game Protection Act”. According to this draft law such games as poker, bridge, chess should not fall within the scope of the law because on the author’s mind they are games where skills dominate over a chance. A very serious political force acting on the side of poker is a senator Alfonse D’Amato who together with the organization “Poker Players Alliance” fights for a fair and objective attitude of the authorities to the favourite game.

But if in the USA the process of poker recognition as a skill game has just begun in some other countries poker scored off the conservatism of the officials.