I just read a short argument over on PokerNews. com regarding whether a shot clock would be good or bad for poker. The argument stems off of a couple of recent events. First, the $250,000 Challenge at Aussie Million incorporated a shot clock during their event and it was deemed a success.

The reports of this blog's death have been greatly exaggerated. I'm happy to announce that I have returned to regular blogging duties on PokerJunkie. com. I have received several questions over the last year or so regarding my lack of posting and I will address them in my "Compncards Return FAQ.

Cardplayer dropped the bomb on former US Full Tilt Poker players last week when they said that it would be a year or longer before payments would be made. This has brought a lot of anger from players across the nation, but it really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. *Why So Shocked?* It has only been four months since the DOJ approved Garden City Group as the settlement firm. Some people completely expected to have been paid in full before now.

his blog[http://www. blackbeltpoker. com/blogs/read/4330163/badbeat/Failure-to-Engage/] I played semi-professionally for two years starting in 2006 and I can tell you that even from that point until now, things have changed dramatically in not just the game but also how people act. I play very few live NL Hold'em events nowadays.

The Poker Freedom Act was filed today by US Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) and is the latest attempt to legalize online poker in the United States. The bill covers most bases in regards to legalizing the game but there are a couple of glaring holes in this bill that need to be either clarified or closed to prevent controversy. Small Casinos May Get Shut Out Via Current Definitions John Mehaffey broke down the Barton bill over on LegalPokerSites. com and made an interesting point regarding what qualifies as a "Qualified Card Room.

With online poker now legal in the state of Nevada and Ultimate Poker becoming the first site to go online, it seemed that another casino would get their site online in short order. The seemingly obvious choice for this seemed to be Caesars as many figured that WSOP. com would come online just prior to or during 2013 World Series of Poker. The WSOP is now well into the Main Event and real money gaming is still not being offered on the website.

Back in March, the United States Department of Justice announced that the Garden City Group (GCG) would be utilized to process remission claims for former American players at Full Tilt Poker. At that time, the website FullTiltPokerClaims. com was setup and players were urged to register for further updates. More than 3 1/2 months have passed with very little information coming from the company in terms of when the process will begin and if an article at PokerUpdate.

The Ladies Event final table is currently playing out at the 2013 World Series of Poker and for the first time in years, this event did not include male participants. Earlier this year, WSOP officials announced that the event would "officially" be a $10,000 event with ladies receiving a $9,000 discount. Some pointed out that the WSOP was walking a legal tightrope offering the reduced rate but was not challenged prior to the event. Men could have participated if they wanted to, but they had to pay $10,000.

Today will be my last blog entry for about a week as I go to 4-H camp for a week. In addition, this blog isn't going to be much about poker past some back story on this year. For those of you that may follow me regularly on my twitter[https://twitter. com/compncards], you know that I have been in the process of losing a significant amount of weight, but I have never much went into the story of what brought me to that point, so today I will share that.

The topic of online sponsorship in the poker world has been a hot one as of late due to the difficulty of many top pros in acquiring online poker sponsorships post Black Friday. There are some, like Josh Arieh, who have come out and said that many poker events cannot be sustained at current levels because the money is not being poured in from online sites like PokerStars and other. Arieh actually "retired" at the end of the 2012 WSOP because the money was not there to be made in poker. From listening to some talk, you would think online poker sponsorship losses are precursors to doom in the game.