Florida has become the latest state added to the list of those considering legislation to allow for intrastate online poker. Currently players looking for online poker action have to turn to unregulated gaming sites run from offshore accounts. Florida legislators sponsoring the legislation are citing the serious income the state is missing out on thanks to these illegal gambling sites. There are some grassroots organizations opposing the bill but the added revenue the state could receive has already convinced a large portion of Florida’s population.

While New Jersey was the first state to consider allowing online poker for state residents, other states like Florida are quickly catching on to the major revenue they could bring in by following suite. The proposed legislation for Florida would allow three different poker sites to bid on being endorsed and regulated by the state. These three sites would have to pay royalties to the state, which would be a small fraction of the revenue they could generate from legalized intrastate online poker playing.

The proposed bill would include online poker among other state sponsored gambling activities. Currently Florida allows gambling at regulated horse tracks and dog tracks. Points to still be resolved in the bill include determining if poker playing would be restricted to specific physical gaming locations, like horse track and dog track betting are allowed only in licensed business locations, or if the anyone with an Wi-Fi connection would be able to access the three different poker sites that would be allowed to operate in the state.

While most of us turn to ESPN for our favorite college and professional sport news and live events, the sporting empire also provides in-depth coverage of the professional world of poker. ESPN’s website has an entire section devoted to tracking player rankings, providing a poker newsletter, and letting visitors play poker for free with thousands of other players ranging in skill levels from beginner to much more advanced players.

Registering for the Poker Newsletter is easy, once signed in with your ESPN member name and password, it’s as simple as entering and email address. The Newsletter promises to deliver exciting up-to-date poker news and standings as this year’s poker events start to kick off in Las Vegas and all around the world.

Another interesting feature of ESPN’s poker world includes The Poker Edge ESPN Radio station brought to listeners by professional poker player Phil Gordon. Gordon not only brings you news from the poker world but also provides “Expert Insight” on different aspects of the game. You can subscride to his podcasts on iTunes or visit the site to listen to or download his different podcasts; he typically does about 4 podcasts a week. Gordon’s show often features poker stars from the professional world of poker to bring their insights and comments to listeners around the world.

The site also features “Poker Wingman” presented by Insider. This interactive program promises to help improve your online poker play by running with online poker room software to help boost your competitive edge over your opponents, helping you to know the pot odds before its time to bet, as well as many other features.

With the multitude of “How To” sites on the Internet, there is no shortage of sites aimed at teacher beginners the basics of how to play poker. While none of the sites promise that you will, in fact, become a world class poker player by following their educational material, they do offer a quick, cheap, and easy way to familiarize yourself with the game.

The easiest way to find a few instructional sites for playing poker would be to type something along the lines of “how to play poker” into any search engine and follow a few of the suggested links to the various sites offering tutorials and explanations for the game.

If you are more interested in learning how to play a specific kind of poker you might want to consider being a little more specific in your search query. The different variations of poker game play include straight game play, stud poker (commonly known as seven-card stud), draw poker (commonly known as five-card draw), and community card poker (commonly known as Texas hold-em). Before investing the time and effort into learning a specific variation of poker, it makes sense to first figure out what kind of poker you will typically be playing with your new-found skills.

After getting a good grasp of the basics, beginner poker players can find tons of different game rooms on the Internet to hone their skills while playing against players of all different skill levels.

With the schedule of events for this year’s WSOP already posted, some poker enthusiasts are interested in checking out the standings from last year to identify key players to watch for this year’s upcoming season of the World Series of Poker.

Ranked first, Frank Kassela made the top of last year’s WSOP list with 290 points, 2 bracelets, and total 2010 World Series of Poker Earnings of $1,255,314. Kassela, originalyl from Germantown, TN, has been playing for years, making his first WSOP table in 2005, before having a breakout season last year. His first 2 and only bracelets came in 2010 after winning the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship and the $2,500 Razz event respectively.

Coming in second in points but actually bringing in nearly 4 times as much earnings as Kassela, is Michael Mizrachi with 240 points, 1 bracelet and earning $4,017,043 for last year’s WSOP. Mizrachi, originally from Miami, FL, also won his first WSOP bracelet in 2010 at The Poker Player’s Championship, winning a little over $1.5 Million. A unique note about Mizrachi is that his older brother is also a professional poker player, Robert Mizrachi came in 5th at the event that Mizrachi won his first bracelet.

To find out what other players to keep an eye on during this year’s WSOP you can check out the World Series of Poker’s website and search for the 2010 player of the year standings. Other top performing players from last year include John Juanda, Vladimiar Shchemelec and Dan Heimiller.

January 25th marked the release of the schedule of events for the 42nd annual World Series of Poker. Starting on March 31st and lasting until July 19th, this year’s schedule includes 58 different events for professional poker players to showcase their skills and gaming strategies. This year’s main location for World Series of Poker tournaments is the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino situated in the best known poker gaming location in the world, Las Vegas.

Participants in this year’s WSOP will have a stretch of 50 days to participate in different events such as a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em, No-Limit Hold’em 6-Max, No-Limit Hold’em Triple Chance, No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, Mixed Hold’em (No-Limit Hold’em combined with Limit Hold’em), Limit Hold’em Shootout, and Pot-Limi Hold’em. Each different tournament is designed to allow for players to pick and choose their preferred playing styles to maximize the diversity of publicized poker play, and to attract fans who follow these different types of game play.

Other notes for this year’s WSOP continue with all events starting at either noon of 5p.m. With most rules continuing from previous years, some new late registration guidelines have been included for this year; details of the new rules are outlined on the WSOP website. Players can pre-register for each of the 58 different events that they would like to participate in this year on February 7th. The WSOP site promises to bring updates for each different tournament including pot sizes, winners, etc. to their site as this year’s schedule of events progresses.

Annie Duke is perhaps the most recognizable female face in the poker world today. She started her lucrative career as a professional poker player after leaving her graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania a month shy of earning a Ph.D. in the field of cognitive psychology. Her success in the World Series of Poker, among other professional tournaments, as well as multiple television appearances (including appearing on 1 vs. 100, Deal or No Deal, and most notably, Celebrity Apprentice) has made her very well-known both in and out of professional poker circuits.

Recent news announcements are pointing to Duke’s interest in running her own poker league catering to professional players. Some news publications covering this announcement are suggesting that this new poker league would be set up and run in a similar fashion to other professional sporting organizations, such as golf’s PGA.

The new league would be designed to be open only to invited players who will participate in various events throughout the year before culminating in a championship tournament in Las Vegas. Duke’s main point to creating a structured league that allows players on an invitation-only basis is to ensure that top players get to battle it out at the end of the season’s championship tournament.

In theory, if the league takes off and is well-received, it will redefine what exactly it means to be titled a “professional poker player.” The ranking of professional will hinge on a players standing in the poker community and whether they are invited to participate in the yet-to-be-named league.