|
|
| Need help to select an online poker room or casino? |
February 09, 2008 |
such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
View two of our favorite Valentine's Day poems at -
alas! - Losing Streak.
Guaranteed to bring the love home in a red-hot, heart-shaped blaze of glory.
More Valentine's day exttravagaza
here.
|
December 15, 2007 |
Scandal upon scandal, looseness upon liberty.
While his books of theology collected dust on a high shelf, one especially
"gallant and amorous young spark" had a Spanish lute within easy reach, which
he took down and strummed to a song about one of the local lovelies.
Thomas Gage was was among the first witnesses to the corrosive effects
of the New World's great riches on the Spanish and their divine kingdom.
Discover the colorful wonders that awaited at
Conquistadores
|
November 17, 2007 |
Bring on the girls! In honor of the magnificent
performance by women in Washington last week, which may very well push
Internet gambling "over the thin line that divides the floperoo from the
socko," The Roll & Shuffle salutes the chorus and the intrepid
Will to Win.
|
November 10, 2007 |
Remembrance Day. Here's to all the forgotten farm boys who left green
pastures for adventure overseas despite
impossible odds
against a safe return - proost!
|
November 03, 2007 |
Mac-Cooler. Find out why Will Shakespeare's dark Halloween or
Scottish Play concludes but never opens a new season of theatre,
at the Roll & Shuffle under
Omens and Lucky Charms.
|
October 27, 2007 |
World's Craziest Poker Game. Or at least Eastern Europe's.
Could there be a game to beat the dark one described in Liquidation, a novel by
Hungarian Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz, we wonder? You be
the judge this week at the Roll & Shuffle
here.
|
October 20, 2007 |
A cross between a burst horsehair sofa cushion and a condom hastily stuffed with a sock.
That's how ex-pat author Christopher Hitchens ungenerously describes his frontal view as he
determines to take the fitness challenge this month at a plum California spa. Read an excerpt
from the author's own charming account of occasionally realistic fitness goals and objectives,
a novice's take on various cures and a brutal self-assessment of the odds on his success, at
Mortal Gambles.
|
October 6, 2007 |
His skill at poker was the stuff of legends. Indeed, he was able to send
some of his winnings back to his old law office to pay for the disastrous home
foreclosure case with which he began his practice and even square things with
some of the investors in another failed scheme involving, of all things,
frozen orange juice. Like him or hate him, Alan Greenspan recently rated
him as one of the top intellects among his peers. Learn the identity
of this week's mystery player at
the Roll & Shuffle.
|
September 29, 2007 |
Charles A. Willoughby. It's the name of an intel officer Korean War vets won't soon
forget especially after the release of top journalist David Halberstam's final book chronicling
events that led to the devastating battle of Unsan. View a brief excerpt from this 2007 publication
we keep in a carefully locked drawer hidden in the back labelled
Loaded Dice.
|
September 22, 2007 |
In keeping with our top story, this week's best bet comes from
Losing Streak.
Years of Solitude is a poem by Dionisio Martinez from a recent contemporary
American anthology describing a few of the shadow figures we ignore and occasionally become.
|
September 08, 2007 |
Fare thee well, gone away. But plenty left to say, especially by former British generals,
in the happy wake of this week's withdrawal by UK military forces from Basra. Cups up
to the 4 Rifles, the Royal Welsh and their return home, which now seems imminent thanks
to a decision by government gamblers to cut their losses in Iraq. Join the party as
PokerPulse celebrates the now much safer
Gambling Warriors.
Soccer fans will also find a PokerPulse tribute the golden-voiced tenor who scored a hit
when an aria he was long associated with became the theme song of Italia '90. It's all there at
The Will to Win.
|
September 01, 2007 |
Two-time Losers? Vancouver lawyers have been unusually generous to
their alma mater's building fund this year. The reason may be
empathy. Rooftop gardens, which have turned the Provincial Law Courts Building
into a moldy, leaky nightmare, are about to be replaced, unbelievably,
by MORE leaky rooftop gardens. Is another kind of garden 'green'
behind the decision, we wonder? Find out at
Gambling Lawyers.
|
August 25, 2007 |
Gyda phob dymuniad da oddi wrth PokerPulse. As the magnificent outdoor
Glyndebourne Opera Festival 2007
comes to a close this weekend, we celebrate Wales - lush green land of
world-renowned poets, baritones and brawny rugby players, many of whom may be
spotted at this time of year in back lanes throughout the countryside huddled
over unusual racecourses, shouting words of encouragement to reluctant competitors.
More on a unique Welsh pastime at
The Roll & Shuffle.
|
August 18, 2007 |
'Destiny caresses the few, but molests the many, and finally every sheep will hang by
its own foot on the butcher's hook, just as every grain of wheat arrives at the millstone,
no matter where it grew'. Discover the source of these bitter reflections
as PokerPulse welcomes
Turkey
to the Roll & Shuffle.
|
August 11, 2007 |
Naked with summer in your mouth. Al Purdy, the people's poet of Canada, pays tribute this week to all
the immigrants brave and bold enough to withstand the rigors of immigration to this freezing,
wet country of beer drinkers. It was a perilous journey aboard ship that ended at one time and
not that long ago with a quarantine welcome at Grosse Île, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence.
Take a virtual tour of this historical island featured in Purdy's seasonally-titled collection at the
Roll & Shuffle.
|
July 28, 2007 |
Full-tilt tankards this week to British-born Poker Alice Ivers, who became one of the
greatest poker players and best faro dealers in the Wild West. All that book-learnin' in a
fashionable Virginia school, especially in math, was put to profitable use by Alice when
the family hied it during the Civil War to gold-beckoning Colorado.
Read more about Poker Alice and other
Celebrated Women Gamblers at the Roll & Shuffle.
|
July 21, 2007 |
The Chinese Territory of Macau is now the world's gaming capital ahead of Vegas, according to a
recent report in Fortune magazine. Get the jump on strategy in Macau's favorite game, baccarat,
at the Roll & Shuffle under China Gambles.
|
July 14, 2007 |
How well would your nation's leader hold up in an interview destined for publication in Philosphie
magazine by the
author of Atheist Manifesto? France's new premier Nicolas Sarkozy provided nothing less than a suave,
self-assured confessional to Michel Onfray, an excerpt of which appears in translation in this month's Harper's.
The European Union's newest exec offers some surprisingly personal insights, including a quotation from a favorite
French novelist on the subject of love. Find the quote among pearls of gambling wisdom by
France's most resplendent roues.
|
July 07, 2007 |
PokerPulse cups up! to BBC reporter Alan Johnston, 45, who
was released this week against impossible odds to armed men in Gaza City after 114 days in terrifying captivity.
We are proud to be among an estimated 200,000 supporters worldwide who signed the petition posted at the
BBC website demanding his return. More on this amazing story at
The Roll & Shuffle.
|
|
June 02, 2007 |
This week the Roll & Shuffle revisits a shadowy wood in lyrical Poland, home to many of the world's greatest poets, including Jan Kochanowski,
whose laments at the death of a young daughter marked the beginning of Renaissance literary style throughout the Slavic world.
Read 'em and weep at Losing Streak.
|
May 12, 2007 |
This week, we tip our poker visors to philanthropic gazillionaire from Boston, Greg Carr, who is injecting unprecedented
levels of cash in a bid to save the once legendary Gorongosa National Park of war-torn Mozambique.
More about Carr's big south African gamble, including his complete project plan online, at
Gambling Scientists.
|
April 28, 2007 |
Vancouver, home to Olympics 2010. High-stakes winners thinking of playing the real estate game on a
trip to Canada's wild 'n wacky West Coast during the festivities get a think-twice-and-then-again
warning this week at
Gambling Condo Buyers. While you're there,
take a not-so-light-hearted look at the locals you'll be meeting at a new favorite blog,
B.C. 'Billy Dillies.
We got trees with that, eh?
|
April 21, 2007 |
With spring's long-awaited re-opening of the snowbound mountain pass, stir-crazy PokerPulse gives a
nod to Jimmie Driftwood and his 1959
gambling classic recorded on one of the greatest party albums of all time. Horse
enthusiasts will also appreciate the perilous mile-high-stakes gamble P.J. O'Rourke took
recently in an obscure mountain outback. More on the Trigger-happy humorist at
Kyrgyzstan Gambols.
|
April 14, 2007 |
Friday the 13th and the fix is on.
This week PokerPulse bids hello and farewell to Pilgrim Kurt Vonnegut,
who died April 12th at 84 after surviving the fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II and the rearing of
some six children, three of whom were added when his beloved sister and audience of one died of cancer.
During a lifelong search for rescue by a mythical blue fairy godmother, Vonnegut produced an array of
characters and poetic sighs rich enough for writers to plunder for years to come. Heigh ho. And so it goes.
He championed despair with a refreshing breakfast menu and a plea to the young to denounce the bottom line
in his timeless essay collection, Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons. Read Vonnegut's rundown on the players,
the stakes and the odds In a Manner That Must Shame God Himself at
Gambling Sci-Fi.
|
March 31, 2007 |
PokerPulse celebrates the long-awaited return of spring this month with John Steinbeck's
1932 short-story cycle, The Pastures of Heaven, the quintessential guide to
garden gambles and gamblers.
The stories are set in the rich, fertile Salinas Valley, where the dark, enduring hardwood
floors of the author's childhood home are now trod by embarrassed tourists.
The small book, so difficult to birth, represents the first stirrings of what would
become Steinbeck's most important work so, naturally, most of his critics reviled it.
More on this rough beginning under Losing Streak.
|
March 17, 2007 |
Raise a green tankard St. Patrick's Day to Paul McCartney-ex Heather Mills, who blew the competition at
Unusual Bets
out of the water with an especially unique dance gamble week. Hoist another to handsome paddy John Morrissey, a
huge, brawling boxer whose Matilda Street club effectively launched serious gambling in Saratoga Springs.
Although he had a cash-only policy and barred women and local citizens from gaming, Morrissey was
enormously successful, donating dazzling sums to charity. His club was later bought by Richard Canfield,
the Prince of Gambling, whose lavish redecorating is still very much in evidence today. More about
Morrissey, Canfield and the debaucheries of Victorian gamblers under
Yanks.
|
March 3, 2007 |
If March came in like lion, the roar you hear may be Canuck re-wannabe,
British Lord Conrad Black, decrying the criminal charges he faces in
Chicago this month - including fraud, racketeering, obstruction of justice,
money laundering, mail and wire fraud - as American opprobrium. Although both
Black and his Canadian attorney, 'Fast Eddie' Greenspan, are convinced victory
is inevitable, counsel's solicitude toward his client and the risk posed if he
chooses to testify is reflected in a somewhat unusual game we've recorded at
Unusual Bets.
|
|
February 24, 2007 |
Something's rotten in Denmark, but it's nothing a mother can fix even if she's a royal.
Poor Gerutha, tethered to King Yobbo in darkest Elsinore, laments her lack of sway with her
only child, a moody, sickly whelp named Amleth, who prefers the company of a half-demented
jester, and the inscrutable, clattering games designed to repel and exclude her. Check out our
latest celebrated northerner in John Updike's novel based on Shakespeare's tragic play under
Scandinavian Gamblers
at the Roll & Shuffle.
|
February 17, 2007 |
If you haven't yet experienced the pleasures and perils of a brick and mortar casino,
take a virtual tour tonight with a pit boss named Bennett, who keeps watch over four
blackjack tables at Casino Windsor. Inbetween breaking up fights,
he'll introduce you to a few of the local characters, including the infamous urinator.
More on Brian Hutchinson's text, Betting the House, under
Hosers, eh?
at the Roll & Shuffle.
|
February 14, 2007 |
New York wit Dorothy Parker celebrates the royal flush of a pair of media darlings in an excerpt
from Life's Valentines, another lost poem reclaimed at the
Big Apple,
while across Long Island Sound, an especially rum Plum celebrates 59 years of marrital
bliss with a renewed vow never again to spill tobacco on the hearth of the love nest.
More on the rare chirruping love song of the Wodehouse turtledoves at
Impossible Odds.
|
February 10, 2007 |
In deference to the complexity of the many legal challenges currently facing the Internet
gambling industry, the best bet this week comes from a new short story collection by New York
Living Landmark and former litigator Louis Auchincloss, whose narrator in a story called Due
Process lives only to win. More on the game
under Gambling Lawyers.
|
February 3, 2007 |
Follow IBM's cyber star trek to a new frontier
known as Second Life, a holodeck-style fantasy land
where one player has developed a new gambling game recently
licensed by Game Boy advance. More about Tringo
under Gambling Sci-Fi
at The Roll & Shuffle.
|
January 27, 2007 |
| In sympathy with our many winter-weary visitors this season, we have
included an excerpt from the latest British Country Life magazine with tips on
how to build a fire, including a review of which woods burn best.
Find out how a log on the hearth might even help your poker game
at Advice to Gamblers. |
January 20, 2007 |
| Take a virtual tour at the Roll & Shuffle of Fort Griffin, TX, where men drank,
gambled, quarreled and fought, indifferently dumped hundreds of dollars over the bar
and killed each other over a quarter suspicioulsy taken in a poker game. More on the
new biography of Doc Holliday by Gary L. Roberts at the Wild, Wild West.
More on another celebrated patron of the Beehive Saloon, Lottie Deno,
under Famous Women Gamblers. |
January 13, 2007 |
| In deference to the exciting legal twist BoS attorneys put forward in that
company's recent motion to dismiss the indictment over U.S. Internet
gambling (see top story), our best bet this week comes from Barry Unsworth's 1966 novel,
The Partnership. The story opens in an art studio, where the protagonist is doing his
best to resist an urge to 'befoul' opponents, who remind him not of U.S. anti-gambling laws
but 'domestic complicity' of another form. More on Foley and a few of our
favorite UK gambles at Punters. |
January 6, 2007 |
| British octogenarian bon vivant, Sir John 'Falstaff' Mortimer, totes up the once-sacred civil
liberties lost or trampelled beyond legal reason in his latest novel,
Rumpole and the Reign of Terror, featured under
Gambling Lawyers at the Roll & Shuffle. |
December 31, 2006 |
'Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal, and a Happy New Year'
What's 10-year-old Kevin McCallister, a Chicago native alone at the (then)
newly redecorated Plaza Hotel, doing at The Roll & Shuffle?
Find out what's up in the Big Apple. |
December 24, 2006 |
| Find out how poker may have saved the lives of hundreds of servicemen at
Pearl Harbour December 7, 1945 during the surprise attack led by a notable
Japanese gaming enthusiast. View our latest post at the
Roll and Shuffle, Gambling Warriors. |
December 16, 2006 |
| Israeli billionaire Avi Shaked, who made his fortune in Internet gambling,
is offering Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the
Islamist militant group Hamas, $1-billion if he
and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert, can reach a peace agreement. There's even a first
instalment of $100 million if they just start talking.
More on these and other notably Impossible Odds at the Roll and Shuffle. |
| |
| View our best story history page here. |
| |
|
|
