Here's a new-to-me twist -- a card-playing priest, rosary handy, stars in the lead-off of a TV poker competition this weekend.

Father Andrew Trapp, an assistant pastor at St. Michael Catholic Church in Garden City Beach, S,C, has won $25,000 -- so far as the PokerStars publicists will say -- and the right to keep on playing in the show's Million Dollar Challenge, which begins airing on FOX on Sunday.

Bettors know and love the three-card poker table game for its fast action and big payouts on monster hands.

But for inventor Derek Webb, the process of bringing the game to market was anything but easy.

Webb, who splits his time these days between Las Vegas and Darby, England, likens the process of getting casinos to license the game to "pulling teeth," and notes that it was one of the toughest challenges of his career.

After two months of speculation, CBS has finally confirmed what the poker world has suspected all along: poker pros Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho will be competing together as a team on the upcoming season of the competition reality show “The Amazing Race.”

Photos, bios and video of the two women went up on the show’s official website on Wednesday, along with those of the other eleven teams competing in the latest installment of the race. Ho and Michelle will be facing off against a wide array of people including a married couple who work as yoga instructors, members of the Harlem Globetrotters, a singer/songwriter team and a contestant who has Asperger’s Syndrome.

Reporting from Denver - Let's say you're playing poker and you need one more diamond for a flush. The dealer turns a card, reveals a diamond and you win the hand. Was it skill or luck?

The answer is affecting the fates of people across the country accused of breaking anti-gambling laws -- people like Kevin Raley of Colorado.

As an engineer, Raley finds that the mathematics of poker come easily, and he's pretty good at keeping a blank face. Reading other people, though, is something he's always working on. "It's something I'm better at today than I was five years ago," said Raley.

The Colorado Supreme Court will have to judge whether poker is a game of chance or a game of skill, a poker players' organization said.

The appeal stems from a criminal case that began when the Colorado Bureau of Investigation arrested five people over a Texas Hold 'Em tournament with a $20 buy-in at a bar in Greeley, The Denver Post reported Wednesday. One defendant was acquitted in January and prosecutors then dropped the charges against the other four.

We just started our eighth season of the World Poker Tour (WPT). It’s actually pretty amazing to think we’ve been on television for seven seasons! And it’s more amazing how time flies.

Season VIII kicked off at Bellagio in July with a $15,000 buy-in for the Bellagio Cup V. 268 players were looking to take down the nearly $1.2 million first place prize. It was a strong field and a very tough final table. Erik Seidel, who was going for his second WPT title, said that it was the toughest final table in WPT history. I’m not sure I’d agree with that, but it was a very strong group.

SPN's broadcast of the WSOP is set to start next week. The first broadcast will be a two hour review of the WSOP 40th Anniversary $40,000 NL Hold'em event.

WSOP 2009Televised coverage of WSOP 2009 is set to begin on July 28 on ESPN. The broadcasts have been scheduled to air every Tuesday at 8 P.M. ET and the shows will run from next Tuesday until November 10, when the Main Event's final table will be broadcast. The show this year will feature twenty four hours of Main Event coverage.

After a crazy and fast Day 8 of the Main Event of 2009’s World Series of Poker, we’re down to the final nine players. Phil Ivey made it, to the cheers of a packed rail at the Rio. Seriously — they were going mental for this guy.

After 27 started the day, poker fans were treated to some insane action. Billy Kopp pissed away a commanding chip lead on a 5-high flush. Kopp finished in 12th place after many were speculating that he would play tightly and coast into the final table with a strong lead.

Deepak Thadani learned how to play poker during a trip to Atlantic City in 2004, a few years after he launched a high-end network security company in Woodside, N.Y. He soon discovered that many of his clients--CEOs and CFOs of large New York companies--were also aspiring card sharps. So he organized a monthly game. "Poker's like the new golf," says Thadani. "People get together at the poker table, they play, and they build relationships."

This year's kickoff event was a $40,000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament commemorating the 40th annual WSOP. Personally, I think it's a dumb idea to ever have a bigger buy-in for a No Limit Hold'em tournament than the Main Event, so I wasn't for it. I didn't play in it because I missed the first week of the WSOP this year. I took a vacation with my wife Karen and son Ty (nine months old) to Yellowstone National Park - and it was great! It was a vacation for our second anniversary and Ty is the first child for either of us. It's official - my priorities have changed from poker to parenting!