More Poker discussion and links...

First off... Getting excited for the Harrahs Texas Holdem poker tournaments. With Christmas coming not sure how to divide up my meager bankroll. Play some nooners +1 (they list 1 pm start times which is great for the late risers) or try and stick to the nightlys to play multiple tournaments. Should I hit the satellites or Sit'n go tournaments whatever they are called there that I seem to run so bad at recently. We'll see.

-Write a blog post and try to get in the mind of a world class player and fail. Joe Cheong discusses what he was thinking in that famous hand much better than I could do: Go here to read more.

-Okay, penalize me a million points for knowing the name of a random alien in Star Wars. In my defense I googled it because my in-laws have a dog that looks like him. Or so, I thought it was a him. Check out the high-heels and ask yourself if Greedo was a chick, or an alien cross-dresser. And while you are busy asking yourself questions, also ask if you could tell if an alien was cross-dressing?

-Speaking of aliens I don't know why this isn't a much bigger news story. There is a news conference tomorrow to discuss astrobiology. Indsiders think NASA will anounce the discovery of life on a moon orbiting Saturn. Likely green, but probably not wearing heels.

-This article is fascinating. Sounds like the hackers who messed with the Iranians nuclear code were devious and so sophisticated it probably wasn't the handiwork of one hacker, a group of hackers, or even one nation, but most likely a group of nations. Perhaps, the article suggests an unlikely confederation of Israel, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Germany. Though at one point, buried deep in the code was a 007 reference (clever Brits).

The code was designed to secretly penetrate the facility and just mess up things so bad that the Iranians would never even know there was a virus there. They'd just keep seeing their readouts saying everything was normal when their computers would be f'ing up everything. Apparently it's results were already so effective the Iranians scientists were running around getting killed by the government as it was accusing everybody of sabotage and subterfuge. It took outside contractors who discovered it on their computers to figure out that it had neatly hidden itself in the Iranian nuclear facilities by back-tracking.

The suggestions are both fascinating and a little scary. Definitely, worth a read with far more to it that what I just glossed over (even if you dislike the owner of the content).

-Now for something a little lighter. Great photo story chronicling the rise and falls of USC quarterbacks in the pros. Who would have thought Matt Leinert was more Ryan Leaf than Peyton Manning. It's hilarious how Matt Cassel is outperforming the "studs" he sat behind in college. More hope for Mitch Mustain I guess.

-You interesting in the stir around Auburn and got time to read a true-life Grisham novel head over to Tiger Droppings. A lot of this is just republished from Message Boards and blogs so some of the sources are suspect but there is also a lot of truth in here. I'm an Auburn fan so some of it was painful to read, but if you got some time on your hands very, very, interesting.

-Is it just me or are the juices of live tournaments almost getting prohibitive? Take the Harrahs event $300 to buy in with a $45 fee. Don't know if there will be a dealer toke or not. Let's say no, but don't forget most of the tournaments aren't even putting the entire 300 in the prize pool. They are already taking some of that out. As much as I love live tournament poker, I'm starting to consider just dumping that part of my bankroll into online tournaments (which is the same as lighting it on fire as those players crush me, lol).