There is no reason, Pappas insisted, why this "great American tradition, played around the kitchen table," should now be suspect because it is played in cyberspace.
The Poker Players Alliance - a lobbying group that claims 800,000 members, representing the interests of more than 15 million Internet poker players in the United States - is fighting a law Congress passed last fall that restricts online gambling. It also is lobbying for two measures that would exempt poker from the law or from new regulations concerning Internet gambling.
Girding for battle, Pappas left no card unturned. He flew in top poker pros Chris Moneymaker, Vanessa Rousso, and brother-sister stars Lederer and Annie Duke - legends of the felt, all - to visit with 45 members of the House Judiciary and House Financial Services Committees, which will consider the new bills.
On Tuesday night, the organization hosted a packed reception in Rayburn that included eight House members for food and drink and a chance to pick up bluffing tips from the pros.
Yesterday, Pappas played his ace. He staged a panel discussion called "Poker, Public Policy, Politics, Skill and the Future of an American Tradition," featuring such worthies as Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, antitrust litigator Kenneth Adams, poker stud Lederer, and Harvard law student Andrew Woods, founder of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society.
"This is an example of an abuse of law," said Nesson, who knows about such abuses, having defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. Poker has advanced from the days when Las Vegas "was designed to attract the seals so that the sharks can chew them up," he said.
Someone in the SRO crowd asked: "Why should I have the right to go online and lose my shirt?"
