Glad to see Sam Simon is still with us. The man is a class act and the world will be the lesser for it when he passes.

I had the pleasure of playing against Sam at the 2009 WPT Celebrity Invitational and I got an autographed drawing of Bart Simpson from him. He also figures into one of my most memorable hands stories.

Sam was next to the dealer on one side while Danny Wong was next to the dealer on the other side. I was two places left of Danny and in the big blind on this hand. Sam raises, Danny goes all in, fold, fold, and I look down at the weapons of mass destruction, pocket aces. Danny has me covered so I put myself all in.

It goes back to Sam and he did some hollywooding because I think he was trying to steal the blinds. Sam finally folds, but in the meantime I stood up because I am just more comfortable in these all in situations.

It comes back to Danny and he says, "I hope you don't have a big pair." "The biggest," I say and turn over my aces. Danny, with a sheepish smile, turns over pocket threes.

Three on the flop and a three on the river so Danny ended up with quads and I ended up with a great story.

But even if I didn't have that, I would have the memory of meeting, playing with, and talking to Sam.

Fight on, Mr. Simon, fight on.

It should have been I was three places left of Danny.

Played at Harrahs today. 16 started, top 2 got paid, and I finished 4th.

Overall, I am happy with my play.

To be fair, Emmanuel cleaver blvd speed limit is like 35.

You gonna be at harrahs at all next week?

I am probably either going to play at Harrahs or Ameristar on Monday, but I haven't decided if I will play as the structure for the nightly tournaments aren't as good as the one I played the last two Saturdays. I have a pretty big itch and money to pay for it right now, but I'd like to spend my money on something with a good structure. After this week, I plan on playing one big tournament a month.

I still look a lot like my picture except my beard has gotten grayer and my hair is longer. A lot longer.

Although, I really don't know how many posts I've actually done due to losing posts to deletion, I am going to call this post number ten-thousand.

Here are my goals, non-poker and poker, for the following year.

I want to be a better steward for what God has given me, to be a better man for God, to continue to be the husband that my wife wants and needs, to get a new couch, to get a new place, to continue to try to return Missouri home games to legal status, to continue to help in the fight to bring regulated poker to the US, and continue to improve my poker game.

One of my hopes isn't to finally get a response from Emanuel Cleaver because it has been over a month, and many emails on my part, ago since I started writing him again. I have been in contact with someone who has talked to a lot of people and ignoring constituents seems to be standard practice for Cleaver. Yet, I bet that come next election if he runs, he will feel he deserves to be reelected.

Still no response from Cleaver about online poker, but here is an email I just sent him on another subject.

Dear Representative Cleaver,

I read of the recent Democratic proposal to give the middle class an income tax credit by taxing Wall Street. Even though I am in the middle class, I disagree with taxing wall street especially "Democrats reportedly would fund this with a .1 percent fee on stock trades.."

Not just wealthy people invest through wall street. Many middle class people invest.

If part of the reason of income inequality is that lower income people don't invest as much as wealthy people, the solution is to find a way to encourage lower income people to invest. The solution isn't to steal money from the higher incomes to give to lower incomes.

Theft, even for the best of reasons, is still theft.

Sincerely,
[my name]

The schedule for weekends is out and I will have the weekend HPT is here off. I'm planning on playing the PLO Hi tournament.

Still no responses from Cleaver on anything I have recently sent.

As readers of the Home Ownership thread in OOT know, the wife and I have been on the hunt for a house and thought we found one but the inspection made us walk away.

Here are just some of the things contained in the seventy-one page report. Siding improperly installed with some siding missing, sliding door in basement improperly installed, water heater improperly installed, electrical issues with furnace and air conditioner installation, no heating/cooling source for rooms other than main room and bathroom in basement, toilet in upstairs hall bath not secured to floor, improper plumbing in kitchen and two of the three bathrooms, and issues with both sump pumps. Again, these are just SOME of the issues.

All those problems and the agent for the sellers has the gall to be mad at us for walking away!

Will finish up about the story above before moving on to more important things. The sellers are supposed to sign the paperwork today and we're supposed to get our earnest money back in a week.

Now on to more important things namely the fact that RAWA has been reintroduced in the House. I emailed my people in Washington the same letter and here it is.

Representative Chaffetz has reintroduced his RAWA bill in the House and Senator Graham says he will reintroduce a companion bill in the Senate.

As long as the bill lives, I will be writing daily, with different reasons, as to why you shouldn't support this bill.

For today, here is the most important reason you shouldn't support it. The bill was written by special interests working for casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Support for this bill is a support for crony politics and giving one (unelected) man so much power over the lives of every American is not right.

I look forward to having a dialogue with you on this.

Not my best effort, but here is what I sent this morning.

As promised, this is the second day I am writing you about RAWA and why you shouldn't support it.

Yesterday, I talked to you about Sheldon Adelson. Well, today, I want to talk about his organization, Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling (CSIG) and some of their facts. Make no mistake, CSIG is Adelson's baby.

Now, I'd like to take time to discuss one of CSIG's "facts" about internet gambling.

They say, "Criminal Enterprises: Gambling has been a prime target for criminal syndicates to launder money and use for other nefarious purposes. The unregulated Internet environment will attract national and international crime syndicates seeking to increase cash flows and hide capital."

Notice they talk about the dangers of the UNREGULATED Internet. If such dangers do exist, what is their solution? It isn't to regulate an activity, it is to ban an activity. Banning won't solve the problems they say are out there. If the problems do exist, regulation is the answer.

But CSIG really doesn't care about any supposed problems because they just want to serve Adelson and his interests.

Supporting RAWA would be supporting a group doing the bidding of one man.

Don't let one, unelected man dictate what becomes law.

Day three email.

I am writing you today about a very dangerous online activity. If they really want to, children can engage in this activity. People who engage in this activity can lose a house simply by clicking a mouse. Engaging in this activity can devastate not only families, but entire communities. Criminal enterprises can use this activity to launder money. There are states that have legalized this activity without regard to the views of those in Washington.

The activity is online day trading of stock.

I am bringing this up because everything claimed about online gaming can be said to be true of online day trading and yet, we allow the one but not the other. Actually, there is one distinct difference between the two. You can lose a LOT more money with online day trading than you can with online gaming. If you short a stock, your potential loss is unlimited!

You may say we don’t have to worry about online day trading because there are safeguards and regulations to prevent problems such as underage trading from happening. Okay. Then why not apply the safeguards and regulations of online stock trading to online gaming?

You might say online day trading isn’t gambling. Okay. Then explain why it is necessary to do stock trading carve outs in anti-gambling laws. Without such carve outs, online stock trading would be illegal.

What I am saying in this letter is don’t support RAWA because it is a discriminatory bill.

Day four email.

There are those in states not offering online poker who say their state rights are being infringed on by states who do offer online poker because citizens in non-online poker states could play and thus the federal government should step in to make the online poker offering states stop. Excuse me?

These officials say their state rights are being infringed and their solution is to get the federal government to infringe on the other states’ right to control services that are offered only in their borders.

What about the claim that the services escape the borders and thus becomes a federal issue? Where is the proof that anyone in any non-online state has been able to play on a site of an online offering state? As far as I know, there hasn’t been one single instance of that happening

The federal government has no business interfering in this matter.

Don’t support RAWA.

Day five email. No responses yet.

I am writing today about one of the reasons opponents say online gaming shouldn’t be regulated. They claim regulation would lead to a casino on every phone. This is either a deliberate lie or a lack of understanding of the internet.

The fact is that online casinos can already be reached on any internet ready device. Regulation wouldn’t change access. What regulation would do is to weed out bad companies and offer consumers protection.

Do we want to follow the advice of people who are either deliberately lying or don’t understand the nature of what they are trying to control?

What about protecting people by simply banning online gaming? To completely, or almost completely, eliminate online gaming in the US would probably require North Korean level censorship of the internet.

Do you really want to support censoring the internet like North Korea?

Day six email.

I want to quote something from the Coalition To Stop Internet Gambling's website.

"Criminal Enterprises: Gambling has been a prime target for criminal syndicates to launder money and use for other nefarious purposes. The UNREGULATED [emphasis added] Internet environment will attract national and international crime syndicates seeking to increase cash flows and hide capital."

Because of this, you would think the Coalition would be in favor of regulating an internet activity as many people such as myself are suggesting, but they aren't.

The coalition wants as total a ban as they can get and that is as far from regulation as you can get and a ban would do nothing to the problem of money laundering.

If unregulated online gaming is a haven for money laundering, we should have regulation and not a ban.

Don't you agree?

Day seven of writing to Congress.

I am going to take a break from talking about RAWA and talk about a letter I saw recently in The Kansas City Star. Paraphrasing, the letter writer said since Obama was doing all the work, Congress should have its pay reduced by half and perhaps Congress should hire more staff to answer more letters.

I don’t know what prompted the letter writer to say that but based on personal experience, I would agree with him.

When it looked like RAWA could be slipped into must pass legislation last Congress, I started writing my Senators and my Representative in Washington again. Two of you responded, but one of you never has. I even kept the letter writing up day after day to the this one person. Discouraged and with RAWA defeated in last Congress, I stopped writing this person.

Given that RAWA has been reintroduced in the House and could be reintroduced in the Senate, I have started writing you all again. This is the seventh day since I started writing you again, but none of you have responded to my emails.

Do you think one of the reasons for the low approval rating of Congress could be lack of communication on your part?

You really don't expect politicians to respond with a truthful answer, do you?

At this point, I'm not expecting them to answer at all.

Speaking as a friend, you do know what the definition of delusion is, don't you?

No, but I know the definition of insanity.

WE'VE GOT A HOUSE! WE'VE GOT A HOUSE! WE'VE GOT A HOUSE!

Good for you, Doc. I hope this one passes inspection.

It did. The last one saw the wife have tears of anger. This time she had tears of joy.

My daily letter to my members of Congress. I modified it when I sent it to my Rep as RAWA has already raised its ugly head there.

If RAWA makes it to your side of Congress, do not support it. Supporting it could cost you my vote in the next election.