The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

In honor of Kaavya Viswanathan, our favorite copy writer, I bring you two points of consideration: Aishwarya Rai (above) is commonly known as the most beautiful woman in the world. Another lovely lady from the subcontinent. Alexa at NY Hotties, an interesting blog by a group of New York escorts, claims that Ms. Viswanathan was tired of being a super-achieving Ivy-Leaguer and now can live a wonderful life of less pressure, more friends, and waking up with strangers. Some interesting comments flow forth for sure. I realize after posting this link to NY Hotties that most folks will read no further, but I'll keep plugging away.

I have a love/hate relationship with Felicia Lee. As most of you know, Felicia is an extremely popular blogger and great player with some longevity. This doesn't mean that she's an old fart (she's younger than me, and old is at least officially older than me), but it does mean that she remembers Dewey Tomko and Carlos Mortensen before we saw them on the WPT. My hate part? Just that I can never leave comments on her site no matter how many times I've tried to figure it out and that I feel she's picking on me because I'm not proficient at anything but LHE (although I'm trying to learn Stud). My love: she has a great poker mind and she's a cutie-pie. I don't get to do-it with my wife enough to ever be that interested in having an affair or cheating on her, but think about Felicia: an excellent poker player who is cute as a button. Every man's dream, right? NOTE: I have never had any dreams about Felicia, so Melissa Gilbert can know that I'm staying true to her.

Anyways, Felicia has a great series on psychology and poker, and her latest post describes her Glenn although inadvertently describes me to a T. "I once pulled a trick on Glenn. After playing for several hours, I put my hands over his eyes and asked him how many chips each of his opponents had in front of them. I asked him how they were dressed, whether they were male or female and other details. I asked him how much the rake was, if it was being taken correctly, if there was a BBJ drop, and if so, how much was it?" I absolutely couldn't tell you much of any of that except for the one or two people who might be picking on me or on some other schmuck. I know the dealer takes a rake, but I honestly couldn't tell you how much, just that he or she is making change. I hardly pay any attention during play, which is either brilliant or horrible. Brilliant as I'm fairly immune to reverse-tells, sort of like the chunky safety that T.O. is trying some double-move on. Felicia says that only the most brilliant of players can attain this level of proficiency like Glenn and I have, so I've got that going for me. Did I also mention I have a problem with short-term memory? That may not have been exactly the point she was making, but that's what I got out of it.

So how long do you really need to play poker before leaving? I have to be home for dinner yesterday by 6:00 (my Mother-in-Law is here while Sweetie helps pack boxes for our home office transition), so of course at 5:07 I sit down at the $10/20 LHE full-ring table at Party. 30 hands dealt, play four hands, win $323. It helped that I had a 14.5/12.5 player on my right. Hand one: BB with KK, late position raises and I three-bet and bet out on board of 6JT8Q with three diamonds on board (checked the river), villain had Ah8c. Hand two: I raise UTG with As9s and the bb calls, 9hJh9d and villain checks/I bet/called, 4s on turn villain checks/I bet/villain raises/I three-bet/called, Ah on river and villain bets/I raise/villain calls with AcJd. Hand three: three hands later, same villain to my right raises with no action and I three-bet on button with 99, he calls and we see a flop of A89 rainbow, check/bet/fold. Do I slow play this? I could have I guess, but I didn't. Hand four: I'm in sb with Ts8s, villain raises his button and both blinds call. Flop comes Th8d3d, I bet/bb raises/villain folds/I three-bet/bb caps. Qs on turn I bet/called, 7c on river I bet and am called by Td9d. Hands I threw down: A7o, A3o, T9o. It's debatable whether you should hunker down for a long session or just split if you need to. I'm really more of a hunker down guy if I can, but I play alot of short sessions as I don't have alot of time to play normally. I'm 7 for 7 in May and on a 10 day winning streak. I've decided to embrace variance, play when I'm on the winning side of variance and not play when it's my turn to lose. It seems to be working out well.

I've enjoyed my lady blog forays off the beaten track, like my new buddy Skampy in LA (who tells about her new Period Pants innovation to sell pre-stained sweats to menstruating ladies), Lady Falcon (The Etiquette of Checking Out a Man's Junk in Public), and Lizzy (she lists hers, but what seven songs would you put on an iPod Shuffle if your iPod got broke? For some reason, I don't think BadBlood would have Lionel Ritchie's Hello like Lizzy did).

Had to watch the last episode of 7th Heaven last night with Sweetie and her Mom before catching 24. OK, they watched it while I checked out blogs on Sweetie's laptop. Unwatchable wouldn't really give you the full emotions I was going through. This is not a show that you would want to watch the last episode of if you had only one to see. Good riddance, though. And 24? They do need an hour where they all get a bite to eat, sleep, or go potty. Sweetie said they should never transfer any prisoners from CTU, which I would tend to agree.

In the spirit of getting rid of stuff, I'm going to bring in different poker books to give away. I'll have a list in the next couple days, and we'll figure out how to either barter for them or just give them to you. Some are horrible, others are great.

Some final notes. Cardplayer has a nice write-up on the HU match at the Venetian: Liz Lieu vs Erik "Erik123" Sagstrom. Luke had written some NLHE hands that Erik123 had played as he's one of the top online high-stakes players. An interesting 2+2 thread on 10/20 NLHE at the Bellagio, a great player abusing a guy for some chippies. When you're head is spinning at the table, it's time to find another game. You don't need me to pimp Pauly, but a great post yesterday. That's enough for now. I've got a full table finally for the home game this Friday, so I might actually be able to start hosting a real game regularly. Have a great day.