You know that poker players use skill and deception to take away their opponents' chips, but you may not realize they're also good at giving back — to charity. Poker tournaments across the nation raise millions of dollars each year to help people in need, ranging from high-profile events in major markets to community organizations sponsoring local public tournaments to fund their charitable efforts. The events draw tens of thousands of players wanting to help. ... [full story]

When baseball sold its soul, it sold too cheap. It bargained away more than a century of tradition and generations of goodwill in exchange for a few fleeting thrills and implausible deniability. And the costs of steroid complicity keep climbing, with no ceiling in sight. Alex Rodriguez's coerced admission that he indulged in performance-enhancing drugs leaves no fewer than 103 as-yet unnamed major league players sweating disclosure of their own positive tests. It finds many ... [full story]

Questions about illegal "string bets" and when to make a pot-sized bet highlight LuckyDog Poker's e-mailbag this week. This situation came up at a recent home game. The blinds are $5,000 and $10,000. Player "A" announces a raise, and as he does, he sets $20,000 in chips out past his cards and his chip stack. Does this action constitute a string raise? — Jeff S. No, this is not a string raise, Jeff. The player ... [full story]

SALEM, Ore. – The summer steelhead season on the Columbia River above the Tongue Point/Rocky Point line opens Monday, June 16. The river will be open for adipose fin-clipped summer steelhead from June 16 to December 31 with an aggregate daily bag limit of two adult salmonids. Oregon and Washington fishery managers had delayed the start of the summer steelhead season below the I-5 Bridge, initially scheduled to open May 16, in order to reduce ... [full story]

BEND, Ore. -  Chris Van Der Velde of Sisters, Oregon and Zach Macdougall of Vancouver, Canada, and tied for the top spot during the Local Qualifying for the 2008 U.S. Open, to be played June 12-15 at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif.          Chris Van Der Velde - OGA photo  Macdougall, an amateur from Coquitlam, BC and Van Der Velde a former European Tour golfer and the Golf Development Director and Director of Instruction ... [full story]

BEND, Ore. -- The Bellingham Slam, riding an eight-game winning streak and sitting atop the International Basketball League's (IBL) West Division with a 10-2 record, will face the frenetic Central Oregon Hotshots on Friday night. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. at Whatcom Pavilion in Bellingham, Washington.   Friday's game will pit two of the IBL's most productive offenses against one another. Central Oregon boasts the distinction of being the world's highest scoring basketball team, having ... [full story]

Tiger Woods is wrong. That's what more than 56,000 people say. Or maybe they just wanted an all-expenses-paid summer trip to San Diego. Late last year, Golf Digest asked readers to write an essay about why they thought they could break 100 on the Torrey Pines South Course a week before this June's U.S. Open. It was Woods who made an off-the-cuff comment last year at Oakmont that the average golfer couldn't best three figures ... [full story]

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Cross country skiing has been one of those outdoor endeavors I've always wanted to do, but somehow never took the time to pursue.   MAMMOTH SKIING - Ski instructor Dana Taussig shows off California's Mammoth Mountain to students Susie Christensen (middle) and Franny Perez. CNS Photo by Ed Zieralski.  One of my favorite Winter Olympic sports has always been the biathlon. Skiing, carrying a rifle, doing some plinking, what could be better than ... [full story]

On Dec. 14, 2005, Chuck Long answered the phone at his home in Norman, Okla. A reporter was calling that night from San Diego and asked if Long had received any contact related to the vacant head football coach's position at San Diego State. "No," Long said. He repeated his answer twice more for clarity. Less than three days later, he was introduced as the Aztecs' new coach. In other words, he told a fib ... [full story]

  If you find that your chipping is inconsistent, in most cases it means the arms, wrists and hands are too active throughout your swing. It can also mean that …  [full story]

Q: I am going to start playing $1,000 tournaments on a regular basis. How big should my bankroll be so that I don't go broke before I find out how good I really am?   LEE WATKINSON - Lee Watkinson is a seasoned pro who added to his impressive poker resume last year with an eighth-place finish at the WSOP Main Event, raking in $585,699 to push his lifetime winnings close to $4 million. CNS Photo.  - ... [full story]

During a recent trip to China, I visited a sports school in Beijing where specially selected children, some as young as 5 or 6, live and train away from their families. At the end of each dormitory hallway is a large board with room numbers and colored flags next to them - the results of weekly checks for cleanliness, a teacher informed me. "This must be a pretty messy room," I joked, pointing to a ... [full story]

EUGENE, Ore. — Wayne Holm of North Plains, Oregon, placed the winning $15,500 bid for a statewide elk tag auctioned at the Emerald Valley Chapter of the Oregon Hunters Association annual fundraising banquet held in Eugene. The special auction tag was provided by ODFW’s Access and Habitat Program and awards the winning bidder an extended hunting season from Sept. 1 – Nov. 30, 2008 anywhere in Oregon where there is an authorized elk season. Ten ... [full story]