This is usually when I would make a list of new year poker resolutions. Bet and raise, don't call; trust your instincts and put your money behind them; play tournaments you can comfortably afford, don't chase rainbows. That sort of thing.
But, for 2010, I don't have the luxury of resolving how I am going to play, due to a serious risk that my regular games will die before the end of the year.
The card room at the Victoria casino, London, is the HQ of British poker. Local rivals come and go, but can never truly compete – or couldn't, until the government interfered.
The 2009 spring budget introduced a stupid, greedy, ill-thought-out change to the tax rules. Casinos always paid full tax on their table games, but VAT only on poker. That's because poker was a "service" rather than a "business" – at the Vic (or similar outfits) customers play against each other, not the house, paying only a small hourly fee for table hire.
The budget ignored this, slapping a full tax rate on poker as well. The money raised will be too small to affect the nation's finances: it's just big enough to cripple the Vic. It has cost them an extra million so far this year. If poker is as expensive for them as roulette, while being so much less lucrative, why should they bother to keep having it?
This is the same government that wanted super-casinos and unlimited fruit-machine jackpots. So they want to encourage dangerous, mindless gambling but punish a game of skill? It's idiotic. All poker-lovers should resolve, next year, to write to their MPs and the chancellor about this punishing tax. It must be removed, for the survival of big casino poker rooms and the future of the live game in this country.
