[NH] Portsmouth attorney given poker power

March 17, 2008

Attorney Patrick Fleming isn’t a high stakes gambler.

But he’s been known to win some cash at local tournaments.

“Not anything that would make me quit my day job,” Fleming said Thursday. “At least not yet.”

Fleming was named the Poker Players Alliance New Hampshire state director on Wednesday. The PPA is a grassroots advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C.

In his newly appointed role, Fleming will be responsible for monitoring poker-related issues and events in New Hampshire, and alerting the national PPA office to emerging trends or issues as well as leading PPA activities in the state, according to a press release.

“Pretty much like everybody, I played poker as a young man,” he said. “I played with my dad as a kid and his buddies, played in college.”

But it wasn’t until the resurgence in poker several years ago that Fleming got back into playing.

Nowadays, it’s all he plays at casinos.

“If you’re going to go to a casino, why not play the only game not against the house and where skill can actually make a difference and make you a winner?” he said.

Fleming says he plays online poker three or four nights a week, visits the Seabrook Greyhound Park once every other month to play in charity poker tournaments, occasionally visits Foxwoods Resort to play and takes a yearly vacation to Las Vegas.

“Poker is extremely popular everywhere,” he said, adding that there are 5,500 PPA members in the state. “It’s America’s game and it’s regaining popularity … (My) basic duty at this point is to grow the organization.”

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Recovered from the Poker Players Alliance archive index. This is the archived item as preserved.