Emily, in your sig you sign off with "israel." Are you located in Israel? If so, OneCare is not sold in Israel, so I assume that you are using a trial copy.
In which countries and languages is Windows Live OneCare available?
The Windows Live OneCare subscription service is available in the following countries and languages: Australia (English), Austria (German), Belgium (Dutch, French), Brazil (Portuguese), Canada (English, French), France (French), Germany (German), Hong Kong (English), Ireland (English), India (English), Italy (Italian), Japan (Japanese), Mexico (Spanish), Netherlands (Dutch), New Zealand (English), Singapore (English), Spain (Spanish), Switzerland (French, German), United Kingdom (English), United States (English, Spanish).
Pasted from <http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/faq.htm>
If you wish to continue to use OneCare you will need to obtain a retail key from a country where it is sold and use it to activate a subscription.
For your current problem, I believe that your issue has to do with the firewall settings, though I can't tell you what you might need to select to make it work effectively over your VPN connection. Since you actually have it working, though, even intermittently, I'm inclined to think that you have actually set the correct exceptions for VPN in the ports and protocols tab. What kind of VPN connection is this? Is there VPN client software involved?
I can't speak for your poker game, though. Perhaps that needs other ports opened or if it is a local program that needs network access, you'll need to allow it.
The best I can offer is that you should contact support - which will be via email if you are in fact in Israel:
How to reach support (FAQ) - http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2421771&SiteID=2
-steve
