Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

So, back to my tale, an interinant poker player who somehow vacation in a resort without wi-fi. Makes it hard to play poker online . I guess that's a real poker bad beat . Anyway, I was in the middle of everybody's least favorite subject... somebody else's kid. Mine... So bare with me. We were at the Polynesian resort for the day. I suspect the fact everybody had already departed after they had their kids participate in a parade with the characters around the restaurant we were playing catch-up. I get it but every year I go to Disney World I feel more and more like a piece in a assembling line being bundled about the park experiencing things more in a fast food type manner than in a long relaxing dinner (proof enough in the hurried aftermath of the breakfast). We contemplated getting a ticket for the rest of the day at the park. Disney doesn’t offer reduced rates and we had to really decide if it was going to be worth 70 to 90 bucks a head for half a day. Given that we sti...

I've been away from poker from some time, both in a real world sense and as a blog author. I've played some poker online and have toyed a bit with the subtleties of different variations of poker like Omaha , but for the most part I've been away from the felt. Well, I haven’t totally taken a vacation from poker. I said away from the felt… home games don't count because there is no felt there, unless it's Shannon Elisabeth's home game. Recently, I went on vacation with the wife's family in Venice Beach, FL. That's on the gulf coast side south of Tampa and it was a very relaxed almost tropical destination. They didn't have the picture perfect white sands of Pensacola but they did have some of the best million year old shark tooth hunting in the country. Also, million year old Megladon teeth (giant GIANT sharks from the dinosaur eras). I found plenty of shark teeth but no megladon teeth. Those can range in value from $100 all the way up to 5k. W...

What are the U.S. chances? I think the U.S. can beat Ghana. Think there will be some people taking advantage of Live streaming football for that one? We might be a favorite in that game though it will be critical to our success to think of ourselves as underdogs. Then we’d be in the semi-finals with a very winnable game vs. South Korea or Uruguay. Uruguay is one of my favorite teams this year and are legitimate dark horses to win it. South Korea has been a bit of a thorn in the side for those youth teams I referenced and like us are part of a new guard of soccer nations (even if the Euros don't want to admit it). However, Uruguay's style despite their superiority means we'll be in the game if we can just keep them off the score sheet (tough task). We won’t have many opportunities but our fitness might open up some late chances in a tight game. I think our finishing can only improve. Dempsey was awful unlucky today. Either team is beatable... and that would mean the s...

POKER... I SAID I'D TALK ABOUT IT AND NOW I AM... I think it's been a great year for poker players from our region at the WSOP. Lots of people to root for, and I'm enjoying the success others are getting and not just in Texas Hold'em poker . I'm also getting very itchy to play. John Dolan is the latest to make a final table, following Gabe Costner and David Diaz's lead. Rooting hard for the youngster from Bonita Springs Florida to win a bracelet. With my health problems hopefully not a problem I look forward to getting some live poker action soon. It's about time the region got some recognition for the caliber of players that come from here. It's a new generation of kids that are taking on the World and the World Series. I'd take our old men against any old men (except for those at the Big Game in Vegas), and now I'd take our youngsters against anybody's youngsters (except for those at the Big Game in Vegas). Though the Big Game isn't rea...

Sorry, have to post again about the World Cup. What an epic game today. Felt like going on a heater of all heaters playing some casino games . For the soccer haters that 1-0 game was anything but boring. Hard not to get behind this team who have been denied two legitimate goals by horrible calls, dealt with a player suspended for a hand ball that hit his face, and had a player bloodied in the box today (a definite PK) with the ref not doing anything about it. Still, they prevail despite soccer feeling more like a predetermined outcome than casino slots . I had given up at home. I was resigned for the fact that we'd likely come off as whiners when we boarded our plane to come home. All we could do was point to terrible call after terrible call. Yet, previous teams like England have dealt with handball goals that eliminated them, Germany dealt with a goal that never crossed the line in a World Cup final, and in general, it's kind of a badge of honor to get shafted sometimes by...

Well, that will be one of the subjects I touch on... but before I talk about Texas Holdem first things first... ... my health, a bad beat or not? I've gotten a few emails and messages in regard to one of our most outspoken GCP bloggers blog so it's time I set the record straight. So I had a bad, bad kidney stone experience. While I was there getting the equivalent of the radiation of 320 X-rays, the CT scan saw something on my lung. That sucked. I'm the kind of person that worries about things when I need to worry about things. Some of my family, don't stop worrying about something even after there is no longer need to worry about it. One of my very close family once remarked, "I'd never take anti-anxiety drugs, I think I'd get too anxious from not being anxious." Parse that one at your leisure. So, for fear of upsetting them, I decided to keep this close to my vest a little bit. I've also noticed as I've gotten older and expanded my ...

U.S. interest is near an all time high with a men’s team that is maybe even more than competitive, ESPN has gone all out in supporting the event promoting it like it is the number one sports spectacle in the world, and the world has decided to lay an egg during what should be a showcase of the sport. Sure it's also another excuse for Americans to engage in betting on sports . There are a bevvy of great attacking players and teams playing... defensively... WTF. And then you factor in the vuvuzelllas pushing potential fans away, I’m surprised the ratings have been as okay as they have been. Such is the story for soccer in this country—this is nothing new. Though there has been a spike in people looking for online betting tips . In the old NASL, the first ever goal scored, during the first game on a network contract with ABC was during a commercial. No replay. The game ended 1-0. Newcomers never saw the goal and many never watched that sport again. Seems soccer can't stop shooti...

I understand how wrong I am about baseball and don’t even bother too much trying to enumerate the subltities to my friends. Anyway, back to the ball… So with new viewers watching, many of them intrigued by new sports betting odds players sky the ball on every free kick they don’t even see these world class athletes make the impossible seem routine. The players are struggling to develop touch. How's that make the new bettors and new fans feel? They'd be better off trying cricket betting . One of the clichés in soccer that is oft-repeated when a team like the U.S. is in qualifying for the World Cup, “You make that mistake against a real team they’ll make you pay for it.” Not true this year. Nobody is making anybody pay for anything. Well, with one notable exception. The Germans are. Guess what they played with the Jubliani ball all year in their Bundesliga and had an unreal passing accuracy rate of like 90% in their first game against a little bit overrated Australia te...

Obviously, I believe there are still large differences between a college football and a NFL football, which nobody ever mentions in the arduous transition process for QBs. Though far more minutae goes into any sports bet made by certain people. There are a myriad of other things, far more influential than the ball change to point to for the paucity of success for rookie quarterbacks but I bet it takes a little bit of getting used to as well going from college to the NFL. NFL quarterbacks of course have the entire offseason to prepare, but what if you gave them the new ball right before the playoffs. For many teams, that’s exactly what FIFA has done. Wouldn't that change say Basketball odds if they suddenly gave everybody a new ball. There are players that have pointed to the numeruous goalkeeping errors as proof of the ball’s influence on the game, but what I found interesting before the tournament was one goalkeeper who said this new ball may be even tougher for on the field ...

Why not try to pack it in if you are undermanned? Who cares about the people who bet on the favorites to win, but if you enjoy sports betting bet the low scores. At least you are going to be in it. I know if I coached college basketball before a shot-clock and I had no talent, I'd play the four corners for the entire game and try to win 2-0. In fact, in intramurals in college, when playing a team of goliaths I talked my team into this strategy. My thinking was they'd win the tip, miss a shot, we'd hold for one shot in the first half (hopefully score), and open the second half with the ball and stall until they fouled us. Maybe pull out a 6-4 win. Boring, yes, but a win is the thing. Course when we won the tip and our best player took two dribbles and bricked a three that "strategy" was out the window in all of three seconds. I guess they were humoring me before the game or he had a bwin mobile betting account. We got killed. So, I understand why Hondura...

Yawn. This world cup has been a snoozefest. Maybe not to the people that played the betting odds to predict such results but for the rest of us. Snore. I'm the first to defend soccer but I'm loathe to defend defensive soccer. Compliments to the U.S. who showed a willingness to attack England, despite being an underdog, and made offensive substitutions to go for the full three points. The rest of the tournament... not so much. Every team has played a game by this point. And the only way we'd know less about them is if there were hockey, even than the Ice hockey odds might be easier to predict. At least there would be some scoring. Any team that has scored a goal has either won or drawed (the exception being North Korea against Brazil). Therefore this year, scoring a goal insures you don't lose. You'd think teams would more aggressively pursue these "goals" but they haven't. Instead, they are like a bunch of old time nits at the same poker ...

I mentioned in my last post how the Police cameras in front of the police station weren't working. Turns out 4 years later nothing has changed. http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Only-40-percent-of-New-Orleans-Crime-Cameras-Working-95925099.html Here's some videos to get me amped up for Saturday's World Cup game, good thing is win or lose we still have a great chance to get to the knock out stages where anything can happen: Last time we played England they were heavily favored and pre-tournament picks to win the world cup. We brought a rag-tag bunch of semi-pros and beat them 1-0. The international reports didn't believe the score was accurate and reported it as England 10-0 or England 10-1. This video is a little more recent. Facing improbablr odds the U.S. qualified for the second round by beating Egypt 3-0, and arguably outplayed Italy in a loss (where former American youth player Guiseppe Rossi scored to give Itlay the win). Then came Spain who hadn't lost a g...

Lakers-Celtics - Why can't I get amped up for the NBA especially with this match-up? Seems like a great opportunity for a decent sweat via sports betting but I just can't pull the trigger. I hate Kobe Bryant. He's a rapist and he's not Michael Jordan. The Celtics should be easy to root for, yet, it's just hard for me to get emotionally invested in the NBA. Can't seem to do it. The only times these guys seem to care about winning is at the end of their careers. Oddly, it's at that time they should be trying to bank as much money as possible for their impending retirements (80% of NBA players (or more) are broke within a couple of years out of the league) rather than trying to capture missed opportunities they blew when they were young. They have it backwards. Lots of stars try this and some succeed (Boston two years ago with Pierce, Garnett, and Allen), but more often than not they fail (Karl Malone and Gary Payton to the Lakers to name one). Should be in...

Neuroeconomics - What? I'm always interested in why people make decisions. How many times have you seen an opponent who otherwise seems completely rational act entirely irrational. Apparently, this is a human trait and it confounds economists. For a while there was a thought that certain animals would make better investors and game players than humans. Well, the decisions of poker players or guys who make online sports betting decisions can be equally as irrational. So basically, the neurologists and economists got together and started comparing notes on what happens in a huge system (on a macro level) and inside one person's head (probably as micro as you can get). Here's a cursory overview . Definitely a topic I'm going to read a little more into when I get time. TED Talks - while I'm trying to appear brainy, I'm in love with TED talks. For the last year I've downloaded their talks onto my iPod and watch them before going to sleep most nights. If you hav...

I'm going to be all over the board today. As excited as I am about the World Series of Poker I'm even more so about the World Cup. Though I love that Jacob Naquin and Gabe Costner have gone out there and gotten cashes early. That's exciting and making me so wish I was there. I'm going to be doing enough WSOP writing in other places that I'll mostly skip it here, for now. -I'll give you an idea of what direction I might go with my online betting afterward, but first who I'll be rooting for. First the U.S., second England and third West Germany. West Germany? I lived there as a kid and they always made me feel at home. I went to an English school, remember very recently us, the Brits and the Russians occupied three pieces of Germany. I lived in the British piece and consequently went to the English school, developed an English accent (long sense gone), and a passion for footy. My betting tips may not be useful as it's been a long time since I ...