With the legal status of online poker still on shaky ground in the U.S., one online gambling entrepreneur, Pinhas Romik has come up with an inventive idea that is sure to test the borders of legal jargon found in the Wire Act. What Romik has done is essentially superimpose the scoring elements of bridge over the rules of traditional poker, thereby eliminating the chance factor and luck of the draw. Having launched an online poker site of his own since developing the internet bridge room for the World Winner Group in 2004, Romik is pleased to announce his site, ePoker USA, is now accepting real-money wagers for tournament games, and is later scheduled to offering real-money ring games in October.

Under the bridge format, tournaments are constructed so that each table taking part in the tournament is dealt the same exact playing cards. Additionally, the Flop, Turn and River cards are also the same at each table. With the element of chance taken out of the mix, the Romik also designed his new breed of online poker in a way that instead of awarding monetary chips, players are given points, which added at the end of the tournament designates the winner. Players still gamble with chips; However, each player starts with the same amount of chips at the beginning of each hand. Points are awarded not just on who wins the hand, but on who maximizes their winnings and minimizes their loses, as compared to other players with duplicate hands.

Romik concedes that this style of playing online casino poker is unconventional, and may take some time before die-hard poker players give it a chance. In other words, it is certainly going to be an arduous task convincing online casino gamblers to get excited over a game that could potentially award a pot to a player who actually lost chips in the round. This, however, is obviously not deterring Romik, for he has several tournaments already planned, as well as television coverage to help educate unfamiliar players. Depending on which way the US Senate rules on the awaiting anti-online casino gambling bill, online poker may become no more, and Romik's version may be the only legal alternative.