My YouTube video mentioned in an earlier post of it still getting lots of attention from the Poker Players Alliance. They completed their lobbyists “fly-in” last week and PPA president former Senator Alphonse D’Amato sent out an update e-mail (click here to see it) to update members on what happened. It includes another reference to my video in which he said “Chris Young’s right-on-target video was shown on the Hill…”. The e-mail also contains links to a page of text testimonials from people all over the country and many of whom also played the handicapped card. Lots of veterans also contributed. Click here for links to news coverage about the event.

To date my version of the video (with the typo in the opening title) has gotten over 1800 hits and eight comments on YouTube. The PPA upload of my video has earned over 350 hits and three comments while other versions of the video on other hosting sites have earned a little over 100 hits combined.

Here is a PPA video giving an overview of the Washington event which is pretty cool.

Click here for a link to the PPA YouTube channel which contains lots of other poker news videos.

In my next installment see how that PokerStars T-shirt paid off for me.

To follow up on earlier post… AbsolutePoker.com has admitted that an employee hacked their own system and used it to cheat and poker tournaments.

Click here for an article from MSNBC.com which details the situation.

In my previous post I shared a YouTube video that I created for the Poker Players Alliance to help them promote legislation for the legalization and licensing of Internet poker. Apparently the PPA was really taken with my video because they quickly posted it on their homepage and requested my permission to post it at several other video sharing sites.

Apparently there is a site called TubeMogul.com that allows you to post the same video to several different sites automatically.

I sent my original DivX .avi file to a site called zShare.net which will allow you to transfer large files in any format to other people. The files are not public. They’re only available to people to whom you send the link. I set my file to them and then e-mailed the link to the folks at the PPA. They download it and then submit it to TubeMogul.com and it automatically posted it to the following sites…

• MySpace.com
• MetaCafe.com
• Google.com
• Revver.com
• Dailymotion.com
• Blip.tv
• BrightCove.tv

Click on any of the links above to see the video posted on these other sites. Note that the original YouTube video at a misspelling in the opening title. It said “Legalizaion” with a missing “t”. The corrected version appears on all the other sites.

I also got a really nice e-mail from John Pappas the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance saying…

Mr. Young, I wanted to send you note to personally thank you for the pro-poker, pro-PPA post on You Tube. Your story was and is amazing and you tell it with such passion and sincerity. I just wanted to let you know that your piece made me feel really proud about what we are trying to accomplish.

Thank you again,

John A.
Pappas
Executive Director
Poker Players Alliance

The president of the PPA is former Senator Alphonse D’Amato. He regularly sends out an e-mail newsletter to all PPA members with a customized message based on what Congressional District they live in. Click here for an e-mail he sent me on October 17, 2007. In the e-mail includes a link to my video and encourages others to submit their own videos. He also has quotes from other poker players who apparently didn’t hesitate to play the “disability” card in their plea for legalized poker.

Let’s hope all this does some good.

In other poker news apparently there is controversy at AbsolutePoker.com about someone who cheated in one of their major tournaments apparently with inside help. Click here for an article on a site called http://www.poker-king.com/ There are also articles about some questionable activity in the World Championship Of Online Poker recently concluded at PokerStars.com where I like to play. This didn’t involve any insider information. There are just allegations that two or more players were playing from the same physical location and perhaps some team play was involved. That kind of stuff goes on a lot but they are easily caught because PokerStars can track the IP addresses of the players. Here is another article about the scandal at Absolute Poker.

That’s all the gossip for now.

P. S. check out my next article for follow up on the Absolute Poker scandal.

One of my earliest memories as a child was going to my Grandma Osterman’s house on Sunday nights for a family poker game. She taught me how to play poker and when I was 14 I was officially old enough to play with the other adults in the family. Poker games have been an important part of family gatherings for as long as I can remember.

Since 2004 at also been playing poker on the internet at a variety of sites including PartyPoker.com, UltimateBet.com but mostly on PokerStars.com. I generally play single table sit-and-go games with a buy-in ranging from $5.50 to $6.60.

Unfortunately the last year new federal legislation was passed that attempts to block banks and financial institutions from making customer transactions when internet gambling sites. A new grassroots organization called the Poker Players Alliance is currently lobbying Congress to overturn most of the provisions of that law and to provide for license legalized internet gambling. Later this month the PPA is having a rally in Washington, DC to draw attention to our cause. For those of us like myself who cannot attend the rally they suggested that we create a YouTube video telling our story why internet poker is so important to us. With the help of my friend Anne Chapman I created a YouTube video and submitted it to the Poker Players Alliance. They liked it so much they are featuring it on their main webpage and are going to upload it to other video sharing sites for me. They created a special news item on their webpage about my video. In just four days my video had been viewed 50 times and that was without any publicity by me.

Click here to link to the Poker Players Alliance website for more information about pending legislation and what you can do to help our cause.

Here is my YouTube video…

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Click here for my next installmentfor five to about the reaction to this video.