I'm not going to opine much on this; but rather, open it up for full discussion by readers...

Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari has apparently decided to form his own posse, or "Crew" as some in the poker world call it. This posse of friends has annointed themselves, "Rocks and Rings," or "R&R" for short. In the interest of openness, he's also decided to post all the detailed info about this "secret order" on his website.

But it's not just a posse, it's a way of life...as the site says:  "So what is Rocks and Rings? A boys' club? An attitude? A way of life? An excuse to, as the Beastie Boys put it, "Fight for your right to party?" A swarm-and-conquer strategy for meeting women? All of that, and more, much more. If you want to be Rocks and Rings, all you have to do is make style your watchword, strike an attitude of invincibility and never put a price on anything."

And there are things to learn, such as:

Find out for yourself, right here. 

Will we see a third-straight World Series of Poker Champion from online site PokerStars.com?

George Cariveau hopes so. The East Grand Forks, North Dakota resident recently outplayed nearly 1000 Stars players to grab a spot in this year's WSOP on a $27 play. As I say every time...not too shabby!

George also derserves props for getting his local paper to pump him up and write an article about it. He just leaped into elite territory among those who will qualify for this year's event - all 3000+ of them.

While Stars has a decent shot to score another winner this year, the best bet is on "any internet qualifier" vs. the field. It's going to be an absolute minefield for the established veterans. Mr. Hellmuth should really enjoy himself this time. That spot on the all-time money list is in serious jeopardy.

Allied Domecq PLC has signed 2003 World Series of Poker Champion Chris Moneymaker to an endorsement deal in an effort to help revive their Canadian Club whisky line. Moneymaker will sport the Canadian Club brand logo, while also assisting the British company in exposing the brand by helping to host poker tournaments at sports bars throughout the United States. Canadian Club will sponsor a five-event regional tournament that will have winners qualifying to face Moneymaker in a $2.5 million event in Las Vegas.

Chalk one more up for players cashing in on endorsement deals; riding the wave of poker's great popularity to buckets of side income. It's great work if you can get it.

The New Orleans business community is excited about the exposure that the city is receiving as the final stop on this year's World Series of Poker Circuit. Today's Times-Picayune has a feature Business article on the impact of the newly minted event on the popular vacation city. Harrah's New Orleans has doubled the size of its poker room twice over the past two years to keep up with the popularity of the game, and business is up over 60% in 2005 alone.

The Harrah's New Orleans Bayou Poker Challenge officially gets underway tomorrow with the opening $200 No-Limit Hold'em event. The Circuit Championship Event will begin on Wednesday, May 25, and will be taped for airing on ESPN. Full schedule here.

We all know that both Steve Wynn and Las Vegas Sands (Venetian) head honcho Sheldon Adelson have targeted Macau as the latest gambling oasis - with Adelson already operating there and Wynn soon to follow. But can they come up with something to top this idea?

A company called the Melco Group today announced the approval of a $1 billion "City of Dreams" project that will be built on the Cotai Strip - and will include a fully underwater casino. No word yet on whether you'll be able to play poker underwater, but I'm looking into it.

There's also no word yet on whether Steve Wynn will construct an entire ocean inside his new Wynn Macau property in response to this announcement.

If you live in Iowa, time is running out on your local bar poker game. Beginning July 1, organized poker tournaments - which are becoming very common at restaurants and bars throughout the U.S. - will become 100% illegal activity in that state. A bill signed on May 4 by Governor Tom Vilsack makes clear that poker tournaments are not considered "bona fide contests" under state law, and therefore are illegal in any unlicensed venue.

Beginning July 1, in order for a poker game to be considered legal in the state of Iowa, players must have a pre-existing social relationship, no entry fee can be required, and absolutely no more than $50 can be won or lost during a 24-hour period.

Now comes the hard part: actually enforcing such a law. Writing a code and actually getting local law enforcement to act are two different animals. Is raiding poker games a good use of taxpayer money?

Daniel Negreanu went right to the source over the weekend and challenged David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth to heads-up matches right on their own site, the 2+2 Forums. Negreanu has been on a tear as of late with respect to issuing open challenges to members of the poker elite, so going right into Sklansky and Malmuth's backyard should come at no surprise.

Negreanu was offering a 10% rebate to either man, as well as an open choice of stakes (above $100K) and type of game played. Seemed like a fair enough challenge to me, especially considering the fact that the two players could easily choose to play a game that is considered their specialty and Dan's weakness (For example, Omaha Hi Lo 8 for Sklansky). The only caveat is that Negreanu wants to play the games openly at Wynn Las Vegas.

Malmuth quickly turned him down, citing a busy schedule around the forthcoming release of Dan Harrington's new book on 2+2 Publishing. Sklansky, however, balked and then made a counteroffer of a 20% rebate advantage. He also mentioned his relationship with Bellagio and how he would not wish to play a highly publicized game at Wynn. Needless to say, the 20% counter was not accepted and it appears nothing is brewing at this time.

You can check out the original challenge and the subsequent discussion over at 2+2.

2K Sports - formerly known as the sports division of Sega Games - will be bringing a WPT game to the Xbox and PS2 (as well as the Xbox 360 upon launch). The game, World Poker Tour 2K6, will make its public debut this week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. Few details have been released at this time, but the public will get a first look this week and more info should be available soon.

What we do know is that the game will feature WPT graphics and presentation, so you know what that means...the long-awaited video game version of Vince Van Patten!

Quotes I want to see in the game:

"Oh look at this, he's picked up a legitimate strong hand here...K-9 offsuit."

"This is a potential disaster for (player's name)!"

"Look at the acting job going on right there, he looks like he's auditioning for Baywatch."

The hits keep on coming from Phil Hellmuth at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Today's installment featured a very good match between Hellmuth and Huck Seed. The match lasted long enough for the blinds to reach $6000-$12000, which is pretty unique considering the format lends itself to quick matches where one can be eliminated within just a few hands.

Hellmuth continues his impressive run, entertaining the masses all along the way. This week was no exception as Phil continued talking up a storm at the table, at one point telling Seed, "You're gonna raise $20,000 with Tens and a Jack on the board? Whoa, you're not gonna win this match doing that." Seed, of course, had just won the pot with a better two pair than Phil's - a hand that Phil continued to bet to the river despite Seed's continual smooth call strength. In the end, Hellmuth managed to end Seed's run when his K-6 offsuit outran Seed's pocket Jacks for the remaining $64,000 on the table. I kept waiting for Seed to browbeat Phil for risking the match by calling with K-6 offsuit and then sucking out...but, unfortunately, I was disappointed.

With his win over Seed, Hellmuth moves to the final eight and will face Lyle Berman on next week's show. Also advancing were Antonio Esfandiari, Scott Fischman, T.J. Cloutier, John Juanda, Mike Sexton, and Chris Ferguson.

Barry Shulman hints in his latest blog entry that problems may be developing with regard to how Harrah's approaches internet poker logo advertising at this year's World Series of Poker. Due to the soaring number of entries to the event being obtained via online poker, Harrah's is beginning to feel some pressure with respect to the murky legality of such sites. Shulman says that "between Harrah's lawyers and ESPN, nobody yet knows for sure whether players can wear logowear - especially at TV tables."

In the past, logowear for "dot coms" has been prevalent on ESPN. However, due to the massive rise in entries from online players - and the big publicity that goes along with it - Harrah's and ESPN may just now be realizing that they are opening themselves up to potential legal problems should the U.S. Justice Department choose to push the issue again (as they did in 2003 with the seizure of advertising assets of Discovery Networks).

Very, very interesting story developing here. Stay tuned. At some point, individual moments like this (Harrah's & ESPN's decision) will lead to the eventual shakeout of the legal status of online poker in the United States. We must go through the conflict to get anywhere on the issue and the WSOP is the likely stage to bring things to a head.

Your Sunday TV lineup for poker...

Fresh:

National Heads-Up Poker Championship - NBC, 12PM ET (most markets)

Poker Superstars II - Fox Sports Net, 8PM ET

Rerun:

Celebrity Poker Showdown Tournament 4 - Bravo, 9PM ET

2004 U.S. Poker Championship - ESPN2, 11PM and 12AM ET

NBC has added a schedule for market-by-market airings of its National Heads-Up Poker Championship. You can view that here.

May 15, 1905 - that marks the day Las Vegas became official. Today the city celebrates its 100th year of existence with a fitting salute in the land of all-you-can-eat everything: a 130,000-pound birthday cake. Even more appropriate is the fact that you can watch the city build its gigantic cake live via an internet webcam right here.

Concerts (including the Red Hot Chili Peppers), weddings, parades, an air show...you name it, the Las Vegas 100 Year Celebration has got it. The city that went from distant desert oasis to sprawling, 1.7 million-resident 24-hour metropolis seemingly overnight will no doubt throw a decent party to mark the occasion. The only question is: Will people be able to pull themselves away from Wynn Las Vegas for more than 10 minutes to even notice?

I made my first visit to Las Vegas nearly 23 years ago, and based on the insane growth of that old cowboy town during the time since, I'm sure Vegas will continue to wow crowds for many years to come. As long as they don't run out of water...

A little more on the prevalence of Asian players in the top levels of the poker scene, this time from AsianWeek.com.

This time, everyone's lumped in - including Johnny Chan - instead of focusing on the Vietnamese angle. The author insists, "We're (meaning Asians) dominating." I'm pretty sure my man Scotty Nguyen doesn't feel that way, baby. His streak of being busted during the final table of World Poker Tour action continues, with no end in sight. Of course, having Scotty Nguyen struggle at five final tables has its benefits, like when he told Shana Hiatt, "You're too fine to be walking around while I'm playing, baby!"

On a related note, we're all going to miss Shana...

The Washington Post (by way of partner Sun-Sentinel) takes a stab at the poker craze with an article on the growth of the poker magazine industry. Card Player, Bluff, ALL IN, and Casino Player are all mentioned as cashing in on the craze - with no mention of CP's long history in the poker community.

The piece is good for a few chuckles, though. In particular, the author's reaction at reading a recent Card Player article on "Understanding Flop Texture," which brought this reaction: "(The article) began with this sentence, 'You will hardly ever see two players put in four bets each on the river with neither one of them holding the nuts.' I have no idea what that means, which probably explains why I'm a lousy poker player."

Heh. We've all been at that stage at some point. I can only imagine how many people each week think the same thing after seeing an episode of the World Poker Tour and then buying all the poker magazines they can find. The first time through can certainly seem like reading a foreign language at times.

It's late Saturday afternoon and I'm back up and running - after almost a week of internet connectivity problems at the homebase. I think an acknowledgement is in order as I'm sure a few readers have noticed a bit of a disappearing act from me in the past few days.

I realized this week just how much I take having a 24/7 broadband internet connection for granted. Once you wake up and realize that your internet seemingly vanished overnight - it only takes about 4 or 5 hours to set in that you use it a lot more than you think.

So anyway, things are now back up and running smoothly...normal posting will resume.