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What is skill poker?
It is a game developed by a publicly traded company
in the United States that is designed to remove the
element of chance from the game of poker.
Poker is already
widely regarded as a game of skill, however the
cards dealt can be considered 'luck', making it
illegal in some states. By removing the element of
chance, the developers of this tournament based
poker game are betting that they can operate legally
from within the United States, whereas all other
online card rooms are forced to operate offshore. If
their gamble is successful, it would be good news
for "skilled" North American poker
players.
The company that is
bringing you the game of skillpoker is LegalPlay
Entertainment, Inc. based in Vancouver, Canada.
In the past 5 years, Vancouver has been one of the
world's major centers for the development of online
gambling and skill based online games. LegalPlay is
a public company, trading on the OTCBB under the
symbol PKER.
SkillPoker.com
launched for real money on November 15th, 2003. The
success of this venture remains to be seen, but the
idea is solid. The game itself plays out almost
exactly like the poker tournaments that you'll find
at other online poker sites. The difference is that
whether you win or lose doesn't necessarily depend
on how you place at your own table. Skill Poker
reminds me of the theme of various futuristic movies
based on parallel universes. Jet li starred in one
such movie call "The One", where the
protagonist got stronger each time one of his
identical characters was knocked off in a parallel
universe. In skill poker, there are parallel
tournaments running. In each parallel tournament,
there is a player with your cards, playing against
other players who have the same cards as your
opponents. Your position goes up when you play your
cards better than your opponents playing the same
cards in their respective parallel universes.
The early favorite at
skillpoker.com appears to No Limit Holdem. This is
no surprise as No Limit Holdem is favorite game of
poker players worldwide and the game of choice at
the World Series of
Poker.
There is no reason to
believe that skill poker will ever replace regular
poker, as most professional poker players already
understand that poker is a game of skill (only the
US lawmakers need convincing), however, it may well
be the future of online
poker.
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