The TOKE: TOC Scuttlebutt, Small Town Poker, More On Bots and Pots, + This Darn Video Poker Thang A'gen

:: WSOP TOC a fair deal?  ESPN Poker Club’s Steve Rosenbloom reports on the rumpus, brouhaha, and general ballyhoo that involved the Brunson, Hellmuth, and Chan invites to the WSOP TOC.  Seems Pepsi had something to do with them getting in.  We understand a player such as Daniel Negreanu’s gripe about this, but Wicked Chops Poker thinks that if a Fortune 100 company (62, to be precise) is ready to dump millions of ad dollars behind the sport, as George Constanza would say, “you can stuff your sorry’s in a sack, mister” and let it slide.  ESPN Poker Club

:: Earn your 15 minutes of sort-of-D-level fame.  The Small Town Poker Tour is looking for amateur players with interesting stories (like you!) to film.  Read all about it and don’t forget about us when you’re almost famous.  PR Web

:: Thank you not at all, Mr. Roboto.  MSNBC has now done a piece on bots.  While the bot info isn’t much more than you’ve already read in Wired, they have some pretty graphs with online poker statistics that we’ll be referencing in the future.  So might as well get familiar with them now.  MSNBC

::  ‘Notha state that Clifford Jennings ain’t welcome no more, son.  The Governor of N.C. thinks the state’s lottery will run the video poker business out of town.  While we still don’t understand why the Carolinas hate our favorite sport so much, at least they’re doing away with the terrible disease that is video poker.  News Record