100th Post

First, to get some things out of the way from the weekend. Let me qualify the following with some background: I'm no Rolling Stones fan to say the least, but can we get real? Really, the entire production around the Super Bowl was just dreadful. Aaron Neville was just not very pleasant to listen to, Dr. John was fine but always seems very scary, and Aretha? There are different schools of thought on the National Anthem, and I am in the school that less is usually more. Whitney could have scatted with the best of them, but hers was the best ever because she had the chops to just belt it out. Aretha looked like she was on another Divas show. Then the Stones? Just dreadful. My only real takeaways: Mick Jagger must wear the same waist size as my ten-year old, Keith Richards may not have been either awake or alive during the performance, and the only way to watch this performance is with TiVo, so that you could fast forward through these songs. I mean, who thought this was a good idea: "Start me up, if you start me up I'll never stop....you make a ground man cry (NOTE TO PRODUCER: Repeat 15-25 times)." And Mick, don't take your jacket off to show us those arms. I do hope I'm alive when I get to be 80 or however old you are, so I know that's an accomplishment, but we just don't need to see those skinny-Grandma wings.

The game? I for the most part could have cared less, although I was slightly pulling for the Seahawks. I certainly didn't get sucked into the Win-One-for-the-Bus sentiment, but I'm not a Steelers-hater. So, I'm no real fan of either team, but poor Holmgren hopefully won't see any of those referees walking across the street any time soon, or there could be a Postal-referee slaying. I don't have alot of sympathy for whining about calls, but since I was a non-biased observer, the Seahawks did have some pretty tough calls go against them. This is a Super Bowl for crying out loud, and you just can't have multiple calls go against you in a game that is fairly evenly balanced and be able to come out on top. A great team should be able to overcome that, but you didn't have two great teams here. I was probably happiest for Randle El, who I've always admired greatly. 5' 10" (which means 5' 9", at least I always round up to 5' 10"), 192 pounds, a great quarterback at Indiana in the college system who was cursed with not being prototypical. So, crash and burn? Work at a Target distribution center somewhere? Nope, let's reinvent yourself and be a small receiver who just catches the ball whenever it's thrown to him, who will gladly go over the middle and take a lick. Jurevicius on the other side of the ball was different but similar: a guy taken off of the scrapheap (paying attention here, Falcons?) who comes in and leads the team with receptions. I have to admit I'm a bit old school, so I'm totally fine with the Steelers who ignored the fire-our-coach syndrome and stuck with a guy forever. Well done, but can we not get the Colts and somebody else and have a dadburn barn-burner next year? And get Prince, Up with People, Grambling Marching Band--anyone but the Stones for crying out loud. Or just ask Bono if U2 couldn't just perform every year until they die. That would be just fine too.

We had the in-laws and it was fine. Celebrating my wife's birthday coming up next week, so I gave her some inventory from the Singapore jeweler as well as Wonder Woman Season 1. She really wants Bionic Woman, but it hasn't come out yet.

I'm holding off on a review of Noble Poker until I see if the $50 no-questions-asked-special bonus is real or is a playing bonus. Right now it looks like the latter, which will lead to a scathing review, but I'll know more later. I ended up going bust flopping the wheel, nut flush draw, and straight flush draw only to be up against 67 for the flopped nut straight. Snuck over to FullTilt after the Super Bowl, caught a nice pot raising with Ah9h, checking my flush on the turn and getting TPTK to bet at the pot, only to raise all-in and be called. Leter got a brutal beat when I call from sb NLHE with AdKs and bb calls. Flop comes Ac6d7d, I check, bb bets $4 (pot was $18), raiser folds, I raise it to $18, he calls. 5d comes on the turn, he bets $12, and I raise it to $30, and he calls. Js comes on the river, I check/call his $40, when he flips of 2d4d.

Later in the session (maybe two orbits), I hold 9s8s and limp for $2 with four other limpers to have the button raise it to $10, which I then end up calling along with two others, flop comes 6sTs4h, I check to the raiser who bets $36, and I move in for a total of $63.90. He calls and flips over Big Slick (AdKd), 2h and 5s come, and I double up only to hear the normal rhetoric of that's what I thought you had and I can't believe this site, etc, etc. Granted, it was a bit of a shrugging what-the-heck all-in, but I don't have alot of sympathy in general there. If he's got kings or queens then I'm sympathetic, but he hits nothing then tries a continuation bet and gets caught only to find out he's ahead then gets beaten? Sorry, you'll have to come up with something better than that to get my sympathy. Ended up $59, so it is an accomplishment in my NLHE not to have gone bust on the flushed hand as well as to be up on the session. Still no real play in limit there, so I don't know if this is really the place to have my funds. I may decide to leave and try some other place, so let me know destinations other than Party.

While playing, I watched TiVo'd WPT Paris in Season I with Allen Cunningham and Tony G. Cunningham went out to just a brutal beat by a totally donkified play (beaten by trip threes after a bluff all-in) and the first episode of the Main Event Final Table. I think Matusow wins if he doesn't get away from his play-solid gameplan which goes awry after his KK v AA hand. I think that messed with his mind a bit, and he may not have tilted but he reverted back to his play that makes him so dangerous yet vulnerable, his rags-aggressive play. I really think if he never picks up those kings he wins as he stays solid and avoids bad situations. It's always painful to watch Lazar's meltdown after tossing his marginal ace pre-flop only to catch quads. And to see Hachem short stacked with seven or six to go, just amazing. Would all of these guys have done it differently? I'm sure Matusow, Lazar, and Black have regrets. Danneman? No way. Barch? I don't see that he can. Kanter? Have Danneman be your financial advisor and you might still have money by the time you're forty.

Speaking of WSOP Main Events, was the 2001 Carlos Mortensen win the most impressive final three tables/final table in WSOP history? I'll let the historians come back with alternatives, but it is hard to argue with this collection of final table talent: Mortensen beats Dewey Tomko (2), Phil Gordon (4), Phil Hellmuth (5), Matusow (6), even a young Negreneau (11) plus other notables cashing including Allen Cunningham, Barry Boatman, Mike Sexton. And in the commentary, a great over-the-top of a pre-flop re-raise by Mortensen vs. Matusow, with the Mouth laying down and Carlos flipping over Q8. Now, I would pay to see that.

100 posts may be more a testimony of poker-blogs-are-gay really meaning poker-bloggers-really-don't-have-a-life, but I don't think so. It's been great to share myself invisibly with others, even to meet a real life other blogger as well. Thanks to everyone for checking this out, for adding your two-bits, for your criticism and encouragement. And Felicia? Well, you are a cutie-pie, but you don't allow comments except for your friends, so that's either paranoid or you don't want any more friends. Which is your loss, I guess.