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POCKET ACES

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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

March 1, 2008

Interesting World Series of Poker Items

Just in case you didn't know, Harrah's has a Web site completely devoted to the World Series of Poker.

Two things of interest, besides the schedule and other tournament information, intrigue me.

First, as you know, the last two years saw an abrupt decision to ban dot com from the entire Rio poker room arena, where the series and the lifestyle show take place. The first Rio year saw the every dot com logo taped over with black electrical tape. The following year the parent company, we presume, decided to ban all dot com from the poker arena and so the poker lifestyle show became the men's lifestyle show with lots of T&A but no dot coms and no dot nets either.

So fine. Whatever their reasoning, it's theirs to work out and theirs to decide.

So, why is it that the first hyperlink on the World Series Web site is for an online poker room? Well, to be honest, it's for a dot net site that purports to teach you how to play poker, a site where you can compete against computer opponents. Still, the site has an associated dot com address where you play for real money against real opponents.

I solved the problem. I put a long strip of black electrical tape along the right side of my monitor to block out the ad.

Another interesting item is the use of the acronym WSOP. It's a fairly unpublicized story but there's some rather sticky lawsuit activity happening with those four letters. The domain name associated with WSOP happens to belong to someone who once worked for Becky Binion and Harrah's wants that name. I'll leave it to readers to google the mess.

I solved the problem by not referring to the World Series of Poker as WSOP but as WSP, which seems more logical anyhow.

After all, that little preposition with its lower case "o" doesn't really belong in the acronym, does it? It's USA, not USOA that stands for United States of America.

Another interesting note about the site is that you can now buy a lot, that's a lot, of logo items from the poker site including the ubiquitous chips and T-shirts and hats, shot glasses and mugs. But you might want to reconsider when it comes to laying out the cash for the video game version of this great event. Apparently this game, which works for all video boxes, including your PC, doesn't even measure up in excitement to the old Masque-produced item of a decade (or more) ago. Game Spot's online user reviews give this item a less than exciting 4 out of 10 on their ratings scale.

I solved the problem by sticking to my Wilson poker software that can help me figure out where my game weakness really is.

And finally, there's still no mention of the fact that Vera Richmond was the first woman to reach the final table of the championship event.

I haven't solved that problem yet.

Still, this is the World Series of Poker, definitely the most exciting weeks for poker aficionados, myself included. As I've done for many years, now, I will go as myself, not as a writer, not as press, and I'll enjoy the ambience (not the crowd); will smile as I overhead the bad beat stories; will step aside as some late-arriving youngster tries to get to the convention area on time to see his first two cards; and I'll attend the lifestyle show. (Who knows, maybe they'll have some beefcake for the ladies this year.)

If I get lucky, I might win a seat which I will put up for auction (privately, of course) since I know I won't stand a chance in, well, you know, of getting past the first few hours.

See you at the Rio, then, sometime between May 30 and July 7.