On April 17, Mat Sklansky, ProfessionalPoker, and I spent most of the day meeting with John Pappas and Rich Muny of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA). The idea was to talk about ways in which we could improve our relationship. Specifically, we were thinking there is so much happening on the legal front, what can we do to make things even better so that our members can get good information as fast as possible. It became a very good day of discussion.

The first step, now in progress, is to merge the PPA Forum with the Poker Legislation Forum. The new merged forum will now become known as “The Poker Legislation Forum brought to you by the PPA.” Sounds pretty good.

We also want to make more people aware of what PPA Executive Director, John Pappas, is working on. While everyone knows what PPA Vice President Rich Muny, also known as TheEngineer is doing, and there has been wide spread support for his daily action plans, we felt that some of the events that John Pappas is participating in could use a little more publicity. This merging of forums should allow us to get the word out better.

In addition, John and Rich, as well as other important PPA officials will be participating in the Poker Legislation forum. So, if any of you have suggestions, that’s where they should be posted.

On a personal note, I’ll be giving a paper at The 15th International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking which will be held the last week of May at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and is sponsored by both UNLV and The University of Nevada/Reno. The title of my paper is “A Mathematical Model of “Tilt” – Cause and Cure.”

For those of you who are wondering, this is not my first presentation at this conference, though it has been a while since I presented anything. My first presentation, which was given at The MGM Hotel and Casino in Reno all the way back in 1987, was titled “Non-Self Weighting Strategies and Bankroll Requirements.” This material found its way into my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics which was also first published in 1987.

Editor’s Note
by Bryan Clark

On Tuesday, April 30, Ultimate Poker became the first regulated online poker site in the U.S. to begin running cash games.

You can read about the opening of their site in this 2+2 thread.