While searching for old books that mention poker, I came across this from American Bastile. A history of the Illegal Arrests and Imprisonment of American Citizens During the Late Civil War published in 1869:

(Note: If you're viewing this from outside the US this clip won't show up properly because of copyright issues with Google Books..)

The amusements of the prison proper were but few and simple. Most of the prisoners played cards all day long, and until roll-call, at nine o'clock at night. The favorite game was bluff, or poker, and the stakes or chips were one-cent pieces. It was as amusing to a looker-on to see with what earnestness and feeling the game was played, as it was to the players themselves. They would have had nothing to keep them from thinking of the outrages to which they were subjected, had it not been for card-playing. Whoever invented cards, no matter how much they have been the means of doing mischief, contributed to the gratification of his fellow-beings in no small degree. And that there is amusement in them for the most enlightened and cultivated intellect, as there is for the simplest and most ignorant of mankind, cannot be questioned.

I've started using twitter the past couple of weeks. It's been a fun, easy way to keep track of what friends are up to, and shout out to fans and others. I'll be playing the World Poker Tour championship at the Bellagio this weekend, and will use twitter to give status updates. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/Andy_Bloch. My twitter updates will also be forwarded to my Facebook status.

Enough people have emailed me about the iPhone blackjack card counting app news story that I ought to write a little bit about it here. Here's the background: (This ended up being a lot longer than I had planned.)

Someone wrote a little app for the iPhone/iPod Touch that supposedly helps you count cards. At least, that's what the California Bureau of Gambling Control and the Nevada Gaming Control Board believe (and that's what the owner of the app wants people to believe so more apps are sold). The Nevada GCB thinks it's such a big threat that they sent a letter to casinos informing them of the program. Maybe they ought to set up metal detectors at the entrance to casinos.

This whole thing reminds me of two things. First, about 30 years ago, when I was too young to even set foot in a casino, I remember watching an episode of the old TV series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, where Buck was sent to the outerspace gambling ship outpost called "Sinaloa" to rescue a kidnapped woman and save the universe. But first, before being allowed to enter Sinaloa, he had to go through a detector to make sure he wasn't carrying a computing device that he could use to beat the (computer-dealt) blackjack. However, Buck, being from the 20th century, could do simple math in his head and count cards. He did, and won easily, quickly getting backroomed. (That, of course, was all part of his plan to gain access to other parts of the ship.)

Second, just over 10 years ago, I was arrested in Niagara Falls, Canada, presumably because the casino thought I was using my PDA to help me count cards. My PDA was back in my hotel room, so why did we believe that? Well, the casino seems to have been in cahoots with both the Canadian and U.S. border police. After losing in our first session, we decided to cross back to the US to get some more funds, and were "randomly" stopped on our way back in by the Canadian border police. They searched us and took special interest in my PalmPilot, which coincidentally happened to have a blackjack strategy chart open when I turned it on for them. Luckily, when we got back to the casino, I decided to drop my Palm off in my room since it was a little big in my pocket. (This was a first or second generation Palm, huge compared to the modern iPhone.) When we went back to play, they arrested us (for "cheat at play"), handcuffed us, and took us down to the on-site police substation for a partial strip-search and questioning. They even had us remove our shoes to check for a computer there. This was all pretty ridiculous since it would have been impossible to use a regular PalmPilot for surreptitiously counting cards. But, in Canada a blackjack team had once been prosecuted for cheating using a string of beads, so I felt a lot better having left the Palm back in my room. Once they realized we weren't using a computer, they let us go, and the casino comped us a meal. No hard feelings? (On the way back to the US, we were "randomly" stopped again, this time by the US border police, and I had to explain to them how we could beat the casino without cheating. Luckily, I had a copy of a recent article about me from the Hartford Courant, which helped speed the educational process.)

Back to the present....

I'll be on Poker After Dark the week of February 9, dubbed the "Brilliant Minds" week. I'll be playing against Chris Ferguson, David Sklansky, Brandon Adams, Bill Chen, and Jimmy Warren. PAD airs at 2am on NBC weeknights and there's a director's cut after Saturday Night Live, so set your DVR if you don't want to stay up late! (No need to wish me good luck, though, because the play was filmed last spring.)

Here's a transcript of my pro chat today during tournament 11 of FTOPS IX.

This Tuesday at 8pm (check your local listings) ESPN starts their 2008 World Series of Poker coverage with the first event of this WSOP, the $10,000 buy-in Pot Limit Hold'em tornament, filmed on June 1st. I started the table with the chip lead. Check here for some previews: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/wsop?vidId=3482452 .