Poker is a game of skill.   Ya, ok. Look at the following hands from the Main Event final table and tell me how much water that arguments hold to the average poker fan. Case #1 A classic all-in situation.

I listened to the live audio feed of the WSOP Main Event Final Table via bluffmagazine. com. Below are some of the great lines from the broadcast. David Chicotsky talking about Barry Shulman's involvement in helping Phil Hellmuth coach Jeff Shullman: "Barry Shulman, apparently his opinion is respected now that he has actually won a tournament.

*When you start a blog, you hope to strike up a nice and constructive interaction with your readers. And to be sure, many people have had the kindness to comment on our blogs here at Poker Junkie. * Temperature is going up.

The final table of the WSOP Main Event kicks off in just 2 days. The buildup to this year’s final has been much better than last year. This year, we have perennial pro Phil Ivey making his first Main Event final table and trying to come from behind to win it all. We also have the “next Moneymaker” in Darvin Moon.

Day 2 of the USPC kicked off Tuesday and the event of the day was a 7 Card Stud event. Looking around at the players, I recognized a couple of old schoolers, and found a friend of mine in “Detroit” Allen Green. Al is a great limit poker player and has numerous final tables in limit events, especially stud. Today’s event drew 68 players, so the players were in for a long day at the table.

The United States Poker Championships kicked off today with a NL Holdem event. It drew 164 players, which is a decent sized field compared to last year, but still a relatively small field. The cash games were fairly hopping but the waits were a bit much. 16 tables in the room were tied up with the tournaments and others blocked off for satellites and as a result, new games started at somewhat of a slow rate.

One of the largests events outside of the WSOP and the WPT will kick off Monday at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, NJ. The United States Poker Championships kick off Monday with a series of 24 tournaments that culminate in a NL Holdem Championship that will be televised on Spike TV. Up until last year, the USPC was televised by ESPN, but last year, they dropped the contract. Last years event was non-televised and attendance dropped by 66% for the Main Event.

Back in June 2007, Sally Anne Boyer, attended a WSOP academy event and afterwards proceeded to win Ladies NL Holdem World Championship at the World Series of Poker.   This win netted her $262,077 and made her the poster child of the WSOP academy with a quote of "The quickest way to your WSOP Bracelet!"  Since then, she has been plastered in magazines and ads worldwide as a successful academy graduate. There is just one problem with this.

A few bits of poker humor to kick off your week from my past travels: A young kid sits down to a $65 satellite in Tunica, MS and proceeds to tell everyone at our end of the table how he grew up playing poker in cash games with Amarillo Slim. He then proceeds to bust out 2nd in the satellites and the people at the table say: "He sure was full of himself. Who is Amarillo Slim? Isn't that a brand of cigarette?" In a Omaha Hi-Lo tournament at the Bike in L. A.

Many times in the poker world, we get so caught up into who won a bracelet or who took down a WPT title that we forget the fact that there are many tournaments held across the world. In the past month, several big names have taken down tournaments to add to their impressive resumes. Howard Lederer won the $10,000 H. O.