Isaac Baron was the 2007 Card Player Online Player of the Year, which means that he finished deep in or won several online tournaments. However, Baron himself is quick to point out that he actually considers himself to be a bigger threat at the cash-game tables. Known on PokerStars as "westmenloAA," Baron can often be found in the biggest games running on any site. Having just recently turned 21, he has yet to test his live cash-game chops at the tables, but if his online results are any indication, he'll be at the front of the pack in no time.

In my last column, I shared my thoughts on the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker. I discussed some of the good things that we saw during these tournaments - the structure, the different games, and certainly the coverage on PokerStars.tv. Most people you talk to will agree that PokerStars runs the best tournaments on the Internet, but they are not without fault. In this column, I will share the things I think could be improved about the WCOOP and tournaments on PokerStars in general.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004, Bellagio Resort and Casino. Resting elbows and forearms on the spongy beige cushion, two men face off at a table designed for 10 players. The dealer lifts the green deck from the shuffling gadget recessed into the baize on her left, and slides in the brown deck she used for the previous hand. She cuts the green deck. The freshly unknowable sequence of the 52 cards will determine who wins the next pot.

The best way to get an audience with a member of Congress is to hire a lobbyist to go on the attack. Checks worth millions and millions of dollars are being written to Washington, DC, attorneys each year to do just that. It is what greases the creaking wheels of Washington.

Everyone is betting that Nov. 11 will be the most popular poker television night in the game's history. This is, after all, when the "November Nine" will face off in a delayed TV broadcast for the first prize of more than $9.1 million at the World Series of Poker main event. Two of the final-table players have taken a rather nontraditional route to secure additional sponsorship dollars for their TV time.

Tim Molyneux is one of the youngest stage-show producers in history, including concerts, tours, musicals, and theatrical productions. Molyneux has shows that have been running on cruise ships for the last eight years. Molyneux Entertainment has worked with some pretty big stars, including Elton John, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, and Bob Hope. Recently, Molyneux wrote the poker musical All In, and you can check out the songs at pokermusical.com. I absolutely love it, and I fully expect it to be running off Broadway or in Las Vegas by June 2009. Not surprisingly, Molyneux loves to play poker, and got the idea for the poker musical while he was sitting at the poker table.

Just in case you've been entombed in an underground bunker (or stuck in a poker game) for the past few months, you may have missed what happened at the Olympics this year. A young man named Michael Phelps won a record eight gold medals to go with the six he already had. So, what does a single, 23-year-old guy do to celebrate an achievement like that? He comes to Vegas, naturally.

My buddy John is playing $5-$10 no-limit hold'em at the Hollywood, Florida, Seminole Hard Rock Casino. He has about $1,200 on the table. It's a fairly loose-passive game, with lots of flop-seers for $10-$35 to go. Four laps in a row, the guy in the 10 seat pops it for a pot-sized bet ($100-$175) and takes off all the limpers with no flop and without ever having to show. John suspects that he is stealing, and that his hand strength is probably marginal in these spots. This player has the biggest stack, about $2,000, and the rest of the stacks are $500-$1,000, except that the two behind John are short-stacked (one player has about $75 and the other has $200).

Beginning players, and even some players with a decent amount of experience, have misconceptions concerning when they should raise and when they should call with a draw.