I’ve just read the latest bulletin from the Association for Poker Rules International.
They have come up with a number of changes to the rules of poker which they say could overturn the recent court judgement which stated that Poker is a game of chance and not skill.
These have been submitted to the Dept. of Culture, Media and Sport for them to consider. They have said they will decide whether any or all of these additional rules will introduce enough skill into poker to allow cash games and tournaments to be played not only in casinos, but also in private members clubs.

The proposed new rules include:

All-in bets allowed in a limit game if a player can correctly divide the pot size by 4.
Players to correctly spell out their bets; e.g. R-A-I-S-E, C-H-E-C-K, P-O-T, etc. 
River cards which match in two hands give half the pot to first player who says SNAP.
Individual tables in tournaments to have quiz questions during breaks, which earn chips.
Losing bets returned if the player can correctly multiply the amount bet by 13. 
Fines of one big blind for clumsy players who drop chips or knock over chipstacks.
Omaha games to allow up to 3 hole cards in the final hand.
Outbursts after bad-beats to cost one big blind (unless all-in)
Listening to music during games to be outlawed. (except classical)

More information at: www.apri-list.co.uk

Some of theses ideas seem to have an element of skill, but not all of them.

What do you Blondites think?

Richard Gryco at wsop with

 

re-raises chip leader Gold all in for 900k before the flop

Gold has 

Gryco out 50th

To be honest - if you're a News of the World photographer you should throw yourself in 

A NOTW photographer - and I know one - would have pushed him in earlier.

Hello Graham

I agree with other posts that you should have seen the flop. You were in dealer position with 6k chips and able to react to any bet to the ace as you see fit.

However KK lurgi is prevalent right now. Here are two examples 5 minutes apart.

 
Jun 25 23:40:39] : Hand Start.
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 1 : zimBRABIM has $2,440
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 2 : noirsheep has $580
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 3 : YYZ Tower has $5,550
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 4 : Kvn87 has $350
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 5 : JustBettor has $590
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 6 : el seamus has $20,350
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 7 : lono1 has $5,860
[Jun 25 23:40:39] : Seat 9 : casualone has $2,250
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : Kvn87 is the dealer.
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : JustBettor posted small blind.
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : el seamus posted big blind.
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : Game [53] started with 8 players.
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : Dealing Hole Cards.
[Jun 25 23:40:40] : Seat 6 : el seamus has
[Jun 25 23:40:46] : lono1 folded.
[Jun 25 23:40:49] : casualone folded.
[Jun 25 23:40:52] : zimBRABIM called 400 and raised 2,040 and is All-in
[Jun 25 23:40:52] : noirsheep folded.
[Jun 25 23:40:54] : YYZ Tower folded.
[Jun 25 23:40:54] : Kvn87 folded.
[Jun 25 23:40:54] : JustBettor did not respond and is folded
[Jun 25 23:40:55] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 8 min. Break in: 15 min. Players : 48
[Jun 25 23:40:59] : el seamus called 2,040
[Jun 25 23:41:00] : Showdown!
[Jun 25 23:41:00] : Seat 6 : el seamus has
[Jun 25 23:41:02] : Seat 1 : zimBRABIM has
[Jun 25 23:41:02] : Seat 6 : el seamus has
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : Board cards [ ]
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : Seat 1 : zimBRABIM has
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : zimBRABIM has Full House : full of
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : Seat 6 : el seamus has
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : el seamus has Two Pair: Kings and
[Jun 25 23:41:11] : zimBRABIM wins 5,080 with Full House : full of
[Jun 25 23:41:15] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 7 min. Break in: 15 min. Players : 46
[Jun 25 23:41:21] : Hand is over.
[Jun 25 23:41:21] :
[Jun 25 23:41:21] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 7 min. Break in: 15 min. Players : 46



[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Hand Start.
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 1 : YYZ Tower has $5,550
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 2 : bluffrhuntr has $11,140
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 3 : kutty has $12,375
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 4 : chewy561 has $7,485
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 6 : MissHoolie has $9,000
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 7 : el seamus has $17,710
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 8 : outbound has $150
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 9 : bri-fin has $15,525
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : 'Dead button' is at seat 4
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : MissHoolie posted small blind.
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : el seamus posted big blind.
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Game [64] started with 8 players.
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Dealing Hole Cards.
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : Seat 7 : el seamus has
[Jun 25 23:44:39] : outbound folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:44] : bri-fin folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:47] : YYZ Tower called 400
[Jun 25 23:44:48] : bluffrhuntr folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:48] : kutty folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:48] : chewy561 folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:55] : MissHoolie called 200 and raised 800
[Jun 25 23:44:57] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 4 min. Break in: 11 min. Players : 41
[Jun 25 23:44:58] : el seamus folded.
[Jun 25 23:44:59] : YYZ Tower called 800
[Jun 25 23:45:00] : Dealing flop.
[Jun 25 23:45:00] : Board cards [ ]
[Jun 25 23:45:06] : MissHoolie bet 800
[Jun 25 23:45:07] : YYZ Tower called 800 and raised 3,550 and is All-in
[Jun 25 23:45:13] : MissHoolie called 3,550
[Jun 25 23:45:13] : Showdown!
[Jun 25 23:45:15] : Seat 1 : YYZ Tower has
[Jun 25 23:45:16] : Seat 6 : MissHoolie has
[Jun 25 23:45:17] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 3 min. Break in: 11 min. Players : 41
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : Board cards [ ]
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : Seat 1 : YYZ Tower has
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : YYZ Tower has Two Pair: Queens and
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : Seat 6 : MissHoolie has
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : MissHoolie has Pair: Kings
[Jun 25 23:45:21] : YYZ Tower wins 11,500 with Two Pair: Queens and
[Jun 25 23:45:25] : MissHoolie : vn
[Jun 25 23:45:31] : Hand is over.
[Jun 25 23:45:31] :
[Jun 25 23:45:31] : Stakes: 200/400 Current level: 6 Level up in: 3 min. Break in: 11 min. Players : 41

I took a blonde suggestion (who was it?) for Klose @ 23:1 on betfair - then laid my stake @ 5. Thank you.

Take a look at the FIFA website. The voting in the english lang. section shows top man to be Ali Karim of Iran with 145k votes - 22% of total.  >:?

I'm in Tightend's boat - saving them for when I have enough time to go through them properly...

Me too.. I've been following your policy though (matt's) in re-buy tourneys of no-rebuy and for me no add on. Tried a couple of stars $50 and $100. - No draw yet, but it doesn't half help the prize pool. 

 - I'm toying with the idea of bounties coming as points for the league.

Hello Aaron

I was lucky enough to hit 4 bounties in the last tourney and it was correct that I didn’t receive points. I think tournament points should reflect overall play and final positions in individual games is the best measure of this. There might be a case for points distribution to follow a payout percentages format. 

world economics play some funny games

And it will be fun fun fun all the way - while it lasts.

I’m an amateur ‘China watcher’ and their long-term approach to their development is interesting. Shangai town planners are already anticipating a 5m rise in sea levels for new developments.   

Moving factories is not really original.

during the dismantling of the uk steel industry the clydesdale tube mill was dismantled in its entirety by imported chinese workers and shipped bit by bit to china where it is in full operation....rumour has it the guy that slept on the nightshift was shipped too.

Allegedly we were a bit more clued up when this kind of ‘technology transfer’ began.

In the 50’s a Japanese company ordered a ship from Tyneside and insisted on copies of the plans ‘for servicing requirements’. Apparently they immediately set about building one of their own using the same plans and on completion they proudly sent it down the slipway. When it hit the tideway it turned turtle and sank.

I was saying that nobody actually thought it would reopen so not too many hopes have been dashed here.
I live in Birmingham and had a few friends at Longbridge.

Hello ifm

I am sure your friends at Longbridge are pretty sick at the way thing turned out.
Shafted springs to mind.

My ‘grave turning’ reference was an attempt to illustrate yet another sad event in the UK’s engineering demise.

My own family was heavily involved in 19thC manufacturing in Wolverhampton.

Well seeing as there have been none built in the midlands for a year and the plant has been empty with no employees for that time and nobody actually believed it would reopen, none.

What is it that makes you think that a plant in the Midlands is necessary for the MG to make a re-appearance?

There must be some grave turning in the Midlands after the news today showing the wholesale shifting of the MG plant to China.

How long before we are being asked to put down our orders for the latest ‘Modern Gentleman’? Yuk!

We might have to have Tank checking for made up statistics though - "In Scotland only 600,000 people are in work".  C'mon!

Don't get me wrong, the public sector is far too influential in the Scottish economy, which is perhaps the general point you were making Seamus, but the public sector alone employs about 600,000 people in Scotland, with the private sector employing about 1.9m (government statistics).

Hello TenJack,

You are correct – I was quoting stats from memory – and must have fixed on the 600k public sector as the total.

The other stats. require updating also.

544 coal-fired power stations planned and 50 airports by 2010

Put simply. Inflation. Its rising again. We all know about Oil prices and commodity prices and how this has fed through to higher energy costs, fuel costs and has began to cramp the average consumer's disposable income.

For several years these rising costs were felt by companies in reduced profit margins but were not felt at a "countrywide" level in the official statistics because the Western World had spare capacity and companies had no pricing power...in effect they were unable to pass these higher costs onto consumers.

Now spare capacity is dramatically reduced and the consumer is beginning to feel the bite of the extra costs...eventually the same consumer will ask for higher wages to compensate.

The effect of higher inflation and higher wages will be to drive up interest rates. This in turn will decrease economic growth and whilst it might not actually cause a recession, the days of boom and bust being behind us it seems, it will cause a period of adjustment in company earnings and the valaution that the market is prepared to put on those earnings.

Lets take a moment to consider why Oil and Commodity prices are rising and potentially casuing us these problems. The simple answer lies in one word. China. China is as we all know moving towards being the next economic superpower. Its demands for energy and commodities are immense. Supply shortages in the metals for example mean that there is a classic supply and demand imbalance. For example Shanghai has sunk half an inch in the last three years because of the volume of building in the city...and global usage of steel, copper and aluminium has soared.

At last this is now impacting us.

Spot on!

The developed economies are awash with cash, because latterly it has had little effect on inflation. Interest rates stay low (virtually 0%in Japan)– fixed assets increase in value, but are not included in inflation stats. (e.g. your house) borrowing against these assets and more particularly spending, continue apace. Perfect - everyone gets a $million and prices for most things stay the same.

Inflation normally occurs when too much cash is chasing too few goods.

But we have plenty of goods for everyone. New products and services on the one hand, and cheap goods from China, India and other developing low wage economies on the other.

But can it last? Tightend’s comments about commodities are relevant here as the low cost sources of goods, experience their own inflationary pressures from raw material costs and their own rapidly rising internal demand. They have no requirement other than market forces to keep supplying goods to us at low cost and it is their inflation which will ultimately hit our economies, either as lower profitability or rising costs.

Note that China is currently building 500 coal fired power stations and 150 airports.

The UK government and the lenders do not really care about personal debt (10 billion unsecured, but probably insured and you can now go bust online apparently) as they themselves have to keep spending and lending – and at an increasing rate.

No problem as long as no one ‘rocks the boat’ – or should that be ‘bursts the bubble’?

Consider that 60% of the UK economy north of Birmingham is government funded. In Scotland only 600,000 people are in work. The two top ‘industries’ in the UK are financial services and tourism and PartyPoker is in the footsie 100!

What a fluffy world we live in.

Hello Aaron,
I thought the league was great fun, competitive and profitable! Congrats to b-strider who played consistently well.
The timing fits well for me on those days I can play. House quiet -dog's fed etc. The addition of omaha is a good idea. I don't play normally - or normally play, but others who do have their chance. I will join in if I can. The 5 best tourney points table is also a good idea.