The Poker Players Alliance announced on Wednesday that the state of Massachusetts has stricken language from their new Gaming Bill that would have made it a crime to play online poker in the state of Massachutes. This is great news for online poker players in the state of Massachusetts.Press release available here.Is the tide turning for the United States online poker market? In somewhat related news BWIN and Party Gaming officially announced their impending merger. If BWIN were to merge its Ongame Network with the Party Gaming network they would create the third largest poker network in the world. With this big announcment the big rumor is floating around once again. Is Party Poker coming back to the US? Could this merger with BWIN be the groundwork for a huge re-entrance into the US? Only time will tell.