It's been a while since I've written one of these, so I might be a bit rusty. For some readers who haven't seen my Week in Review before it's a glance at some of the more interesting posts and other happenings from the world of Poker Blogs.

First, pimping Clark and Grubby on the Las Vegas Blog. Clark has the lowdown on the Poker Art Exhibition and Grubby has some rumors on Pauly's favourite card room (well one of them from his Vegas Poker Rooms Post) the Excalibur which may be downsizing.

HDouble has an excellent post up on the online poker pros playing at the 30/60 level and how they fare. The information is astounding and in classic HDouble fashion, very well written.

Felicia has been putting up some excellent posts of late, her psychology series and analysis of the personalities that win at poker are thought provoking, a worthwhile read for all poker players and skill levels.

Check out the series of short stories over at Truckin, an excellent read from Dr Pauly's blog collection.

Bill has a post on the Phil Gordon Charity event from the other day, and he is helping to put a much deserved Bad Beat on Cancer.

Now, I ran into something really rare over at TillerMaN's blog, a video of Stu 'the Kid' Ungar. He was the undisputed card master and it's almost impossible to find any footage (or even stills) of him in action, so it was a real treat to run into this 1981 Final Hand footage.

From our "Online Poker is Rigged" department...

In some cases this is apparently true... check out RBCalc.exe poker rootkit alert so don't be surpised when more of these pop up. The same personalities that are so sucessful at online poker also make up a majority of the hacker population. If you think something fishy is going on... it just might be.

On a final note, TripJax ran 21 questions for poker bloggers a couple of weeks ago, so be sure and stop by to check out the questions and info. That's the quick tour for today it for this week.

Excellence just keeps coming out of the poker blogosphere...from Pauly's beautiful application of the life of a great writer to poker, to Felicia's series on the Psychology of Poker, poker bloggers continue to set new standards for analysis of the game. Quest of a Closet Poker Player continues the serial blogging trend by taking a look at Relationships and Poker - currently a four-part series.

Bill Rini continues to explore the poker wisdom of Paula Abdul - who knew she was so deep? Felicia revists narcissism and poker and considers the future of tournament poker, while ScurvyDog analyzes the chances of online poker being outlawed.

Don't forget to check out the new WPBT site, along with the WPBT Wiki.

Starting March off with a bang...

• Mean Gene comments on a recent piece from ESPN's "poker guy" Bill Simmons.
• Felicia continues to educate with Part Two of her Stud Theories series.
• TripJax ponders the possible future of casino poker - electronic poker tables.
• Chilly gets his Mac back and puts it to work on some Vegas memories.

The online poker world is abuzz with the news of top players found cheating, and another Congressional attempt to outlaw one of our favorite pastimes. Scuvydog takes a look at some common hand situations, and breaks down the math involved. Pauly and Spaceman completed another round of excellent tournament coverage, and Wil turned out a solid performance in the WPT Invitational.

Hiatuses are the new cool.

Many apologies for the prolonged absence. Life is slowly returning back to normal, and along with it, time to read and write is returning too. Several items managed to catch even the easily-distracted eye these past weeks. The Big Pirate posts about his own Big Game, Grubby continues to share tales of life in Las Vegas, Gene looks at luck, and Wicked Chops Poker reports on poker and crime.

Several excellent strategy posts from bloggers - Felicia on Seven Card Stud, Pauly on Pot-Limit Omaha, Ros on blocking bets, Betting for Value looks at SnG strategy, and ScurvyDog continues his analysis of limit play.

Bloggers started 2006 off in full force, turning out strategy posts along with channelling Jeff Foxworthy. Visit Pathetic Poker Play for a few tips on tackling the Stars 180-person SnGs. (Although techincally not from the week ending 1/08, JoeSpeaker fills in for our own Dr.Pauly with his own must-read tourney strategy). Sound of a Suckout wrote an open letter to poker sites, advising them on what the players want to see. PokerStars appears to be well on the way to surpassing PartyPoker as the most popular online poker site. Counting My Outs and Poker Sweet Home both consider the reasons why. Jason Kirk shares family poker memories with us, and Linda from Table Tango writes about the honor of sharing her home with a friend. Finally, I know you were all glued to the PokerStars blog for updates on our blogger friends playing in the PCA, but make sure you caught the button post - classic Otis.

2005 was the Year of the Poker Blogger - from the varied professional successes of many in the WPBT community to sending bloggers to the WSOP, bloggers continued to make their mark and bring recognition to the community.

The strategy masters in our group continued to share their wisdom in 2005. DoubleAs spoke of pressure points, weakness, and getting the most from a NL hand. HDouble found poker wisdom in unlikely places, charted the path to poker mastery, explored information asymmetry, and mixing up play. ScurvyDog taught us how to protect our limit hold'em hands and to play agressively when we're drawing.

Felicia gave us tips for Omaha 8, Pauly wrote of risk,-EV prepared us for the split-limit games in Vegas, JoeSpeaker entertained us, BadBlood waxed philosophical, on_thg drew us pictures, Bill made us laugh and defended the integrity of online poker while looking for ways to make it better, and PokerGeek showed us emotion.

We had highs and we had lows. We said good-bye to some familar faces and hello to many more. We've hit the ground running in 2006 and it looks to be an even better year. As CJ so eloquently said, "Here's hoping your 2006 is filled with everything you desire but full of the welcome surprises that make life worth living".

Personally I'd like to extend a big thank you to the Poker Princess for the Year in Review suggestion, and be sure to check out Pauly's recap of the year as well.

Check out Dr. Pauly's Bloggers in Las Vegas: The Short Film.-Flipchip

Hope everyone had a great poker-filled Thanksgiving. While you're feasting off of leftover turkey for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, check out these quality posts from the past week -

• Absinthe's Troubles - The Joy of Sets
  
• Up for Poker - The Luckbox Speaks
  
• The Poker Life - The Fundamental Theorem Of Losing As It Relates To Poker
  
• Poker Cats - Robbery
  
• Infant Days Sleepless Nights - Guide To Tilting The Field (v 1.01) [BTW Chilly, if you really want to tilt me, tell me Phil Gordon was just there but you didn't mention it because you didn't think I'd be interested}
  
• Pokerati - Meanwhile, in Florida...
  

Since the upcoming trip to Vegas is the topic on everyone's mind, we'll start with Vegas-related items. First off, PokerStars is really sweetening the prize pool for the WPBT tourney. Be sure to show your thanks. Secondly, Pauly has proposed a Blogger Prision Pact. It's one of those things that you hope you'll never need, but knowing this group, it's likely that we will at some point. Finally, many of us will be hitting the limit HE tables while in Vegas. ScurvyDog has some advice on protecting our hands in those games. It's a long post, but a must-read. Print it out and take it with you on the plane if you must.

Somewhat Vegas-related, CJ has been on a tourney rush lately. Hopefully he's gotten it out of his system so the rest of us will stand a chance in December. Otherwise, who's up for skipping the tourney and just hitting the bar instead? Okay, anyone besides Al?

Tilt was the topic on a lot of minds this past week, resulting in great posts from Otis, Mourn, and HDouble. Other minds were focused on finding the wisdom in the works of Paula Abdul-Jalib - certaintly no easy task, but Bill does well.

Dr. Pauly is live blogging the World Poker Finals direct from Foxwoods. Read his Day #3 Report below and check out his live reports beginning around Noon Eastern Time at TaoPoker.com.-Flipchip

In three weeks, bloggers will descend upon Las Vegas. Will the Strip run out of SoCo? Will the Imperial Palace bar post record earnings in the 4th quarter? Will the dealers at the MGM Grand continue to remember me? Will you make it to the Excalibur for the Storming of the Castle, Pt. 2? To be sure, head on over to UpForPoker and sign up for the texting chain Otis has started. It's the next best thing to everyone holding hands kindergarten style as we roam from casino to casino.

After you've done that, check out Maigrey's posts on angle-shooting, and an amazing introspective from PokerGeek.

Check out the Poker Geek's WPT dream table and this robot video (non poker, but very funny)

Written higlights from this past week include Bad Blood on losing, Absinthe on Infection Points, and Beck from Steal the Blinds on calculating drawing odds.

Proving that a poker blogger with material and MS Paint is a dangerously funny combination is Res Ispa Poker where the recent entries are often accompanied by visual aids. These are can't miss, if only to admire the skill in working with stick figures.

Finally, congrats to Alan for winning the WWdn Donegal Invitational, Sir for winning the first Saturdays with Dr. Pauly tourney, and CJ and -EV for winning the first Six Gun Shoot Out satellite. Bloggers rule.