How To Make Poker Legal

I am reading this funny book The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs. The author writes about his learning and experience from reading the Encyclopedia.

I am up to the letter E and "embalming" when I read how we are always trying to find the loophole to get around a law, rule, or order.

Examples he cites:
* The Bible says that the men of cloth can not take up the club. But it seems that its perfectly OK with Jesus to bash in the head of an enemy using a long metallic blade.
* Monks were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. So they decided that baby rabbits were fish, so they could eat them on Fridays.
* In colonial America it was illegal to play nine-pin bowling. So people added another pin and invented 10-pin bowling.

Here's my idea to make poker legal.

Let's change the name of the game to "River." And the change in the game is that the dealer must deal all the cards to the river, even if players have folded earlier. It doesn't change the outcome of a hand. It just changes the game so we can call it "River;" sort of like adding another pin to invent 10-pin bowling.

There are no laws against the game of River, right?

By the way, did you ever wonder why so much of society is against poker? The reason is found in our history. The Church found that people who gambled money and lost playing poker, had less money to contribute each week to their local church. Of course, the Church had to stop that from happening.

Poker is one of the twenty commandments. I believe number 19 read "Thou shalt not play poker" but that tablet of the commandments 11-20 was dropped by Moses. I know it to be true because I saw it in a movie.

Oh well, I am sure there will be loopholes in this stupid UIGEA act that is suppose to go into effect at the end of 2009.

Thanks again for reading my blog. And I wish you the best of luck in your poker play. And of course, Happy New Years!