THE RAKE – TAKING THE PULSE OF POKER FOR 3/29/2006

The LasVegasVegas 2005 Player Of The Year Balloting Is In…

· Is the bubble about to burst on online poker? Let’s put it to you this way… BEST. MONTH. EVER. [Poker Continues to Set Records With Best February Ever in 2006-PokerPages.com Industry Index – Yahoo! Finance]

· God bless those marketing geniuses at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. They’ve just rebranded their poker room with the “World Poker Tour” logo, which should really drive the donkeys in droves. Now, if they could just find a way to give away a free Shana Hiatt with every bad beat, they’d really be on to something. [Foxwoods Aces On Poker: Room Gets Tour Branding – PokerMag]

· Just when you thought there wasn’t another reasonable product you could slap the Sopranos name on, here comes cell phone poker. [It’s Sopranos poker! Poker! With minor characters from the Sopranos! – Opposable Thumbs]

· You know that guy in the dorm room down the hall who sits at his computer all day wearing sunglasses? We should really write an article for the school newspaper on him. Yeah, screw those kids doing Habitat For Humanity work during spring break… let’s glorify the social misfit that hasn’t seen the light of day in over three semesters! [Student earns living at poker – Digital Collegian (Penn State)]

· If we were hypnotists we’d spend less time putting people in the right mindset for online poker and more time convincing hot girls it’s really hot in here and that they’d be a lot more comfortable without that brassiere. We’re just saying, if you’re good at something, aim higher than this. [Hypnotherapist Puts Poker Players in the Zone – Poker777]

· If we ever built a robot that could do “the robot,” we’d call him the Funkitron 2800. He’d have a giant afro made of steel wool, would speak in robot-Jive, and would be dressed like “Rerun” from What’s Happening. We’re severely disappointed to learn there’s a video game company that has trademarked our name, if not our idea, but only slightly less disappointed then we were to find they’d made a video game of that bullshit all-in fest that is the Poker Superstars tournament series. [ Funkitron Raises the Stakes in Season 2 of Hit Poker Game, POKER SUPERSTARS II(TM); Game Based on NBC and FOX Sports Net’s Popular Poker Tournament – BusinessWire]

· Why can’t the poker magazines come to a consensus when naming their “Player of the Year?” Is it really that hard to decide between Isabelle and Carmel? [The Poker Player of the Year in 2005? – PokerPlayer Newspaper]