Online poker

What does it feel like to win $1 million playing poker? Most of us will never know. Many of us will be lucky to hit a five-figure score. A few others reading this may some day hit a six-figure score but a seven figure? Never is the word that will come to most of our minds. Poland's 'bladsonpoker' probably thought the same thing entering Tuesday.

This week's edition of Flashback Friday takes us back to November 7, 2009, a day that will never happen again thanks to recent changes at Full Tilt Poker. Patrik Antonius and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom were entangled in a massive heads-up match playing $500-$1,000 PL Omaha. A mini-raising war pre-flop resulted in Antonius five-betting to $81,000 before Isildur1 finally decided to see a flop. On a flop of 5c-4s-2h, Antonius bet out $91,000, followed by a pot-size raise by Isildur1 to $435,000, Antonius potted to $779,000, effectively putting Isildur1 all-in for his last $162,473.

Rewind to late 2013 when Sheldon Adelson announced that he was going to form a Coalition to Stop Intenet Gambling. Many in the poker community scoffed at the audacity of the man and many felt that he had little to no chance of winning. Then RAWA appeared and again people scoffed at Adelson. RAWA didn't go away and by the time the Lame Duck rolled around, and all of a sudden, he was a credible threat.

If you can't beat them, join into a partnership to take on your biggest enemy. At least that is what has happened between Caesars and PokerStars. In case you missed it, Caesars Entertainment has reversed their opinion regarding PokerStars operating in the United States. Caesars now supports an Amaya-run PokerStars and thinks that the door should be open to them to operate.

Some analysts tried to hype last year as one of tremendous growth for the online poker industry. That growth never came and instead we lost one of the games first legal sites. While some are trying to be optimistic about online poker's chances in 2015, I personally think this will be another year of general indecision and slow movement. Below are my thoughts on some of the major online poker bills being considered.