Last September this website featured an article about Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his love for the game of poker. Now four months on the junior Senator from Illinois is on the crest of a wave as he bids to become the United State’s first black President.

His highly impressive win in the Iowa Democratic caucuses has been heralded as a key moment in American politics, but for many poker players the win has offered new hope for those wanting prohibitions on Internet poker lifted.

While Obama has not been vocal on the issue, his aides have suggested that he is sympathetic to poker players, and why wouldn’t he be – by all accounts, he plays a decent game himself.

The issue is too volatile in some parts of ultra-conservative America to bring up on the campaign trail but those close to the Presidential candidate believe he is keen to overturn the Bush administrations draconian laws in relation to internet gambling.

Former poker playing friends including Senator Terry Links told the Sunday Telegraph that “When Obama was a young state politician in Illinois he played his cards right. He had the stone face. He didn't stay in hands if he didn't think he had a chance of winning. Barack wasn't one of those foolish gamblers who just thought all of a sudden that card in the middle was going to show up mysteriously.
 He's as competitive in politics as he is in poker. It's not like he's going to go into something without a course of action mapped out.”

Obama Barack’s win in a state which has 95% white voters has sent ripples through political commentators worldwide. And it gets better for the man with Irish decent (his great great great grandfather Falmouth Kearney was born in Ireland) with polls over the weekend showing that he has a significant advantage over main rival Hilary Clinton ahead of tomorrow’s vital New Hampshire primary.