I am not sure how much more Olympic coverage (read Michael Phelps) I can handle this week.  I have to admit that it has been great to witness history and all but where is the coverage of Usain Bolt? I mean seriously, that guy is just sickening!

So now my thoughts drift but to poker and I love to talk game theory.  Not the high level math that NASA uses to compute implied odds; but playing certain hands in certain spots against certain types of players.

I don’t normally play too many marginal hands; but rather I look at the position I am in first, the action in front of me, and then my cards.  One such situation came up in a tournament that I was in that could have really been something had I just gone with my first instinct.

I have J8 off on the button at about the end of the first hour of play.  The table has been loosening up since the start and there is a min raise from under the gun and 3 other callers when the action is on me.  My first thought is that I should call just because the blinds have decent stacks and haven’t been looking to make moves preflop as of yet.  Plus with all of the callers there would be a lot of coverage so I could just see what happens.  If I don’t flop two pair or better, I can always dump my hand with only putting in 2 bets to this point.

Then I start thinking that I should just fold and save those two bets since I will need all the chips I have if I don’t get a hand before the break because of the blinds going up.  I just fold and sit on my stack.

The flop produces a nice rainbow of J-8-7.  I have that feeling of getting punched in the stomach.  This is not the first time I have gone against one of the pillars of my game, which is the skill of good risk/reward assessment, and have been punished for it. But I take heart in that I would probably not get much from this pot since there wasn’t a huge over card or and draws other than the 10-9.

There is some action on the turn when a J hits, but nothing to write home about.  The pot is fattening up quite nicely at this point, much to my dismay. 

The river brings another 7 and now it’s happy go lucky time.  The board turned and rivered a flush and of course anyone with the case J has a nice boat. 

There are fireworks and a couple of all-ins and sure enough, one guy has a J and the other flush to the A.  Of course the real crime is that I had the ultimate nuts with my Jacks full with the 8 over the 7’s. 

So the lesson is that you should go with your gut if you have sound principles and start prospecting.  Who knows, you may hit some gold!

Here are some random things I have been thinking about in no particular order:

– Lori will no longer play in the Ladies Event.  Every year it’s the one event that we circle on the calendar and make the pilgrimage to Vegas for, but no more.  Year after year the play is so bad and you get no chips to start with.  Even the professional women players hate this event, but they have to play it for their various sponsorships.  It’s a shove fest and no one can ever release a hand no matter what’s on the board.  So you can image the bad beats that go on.  Just gut wrenching.

– Harrah’s is really getting better at running the WSOP.  This year everything was just a little better.  They moved the registration area and it was way more organized.  There wasn’t this massive congestion at the entrance to the main room like the year before and really just more room for tables and stuff.  No “outside” tent for tables. A room only for satellites.  Just better overall. 

– I am watching Umberto playing in the main event from last year on ESPN and I can’t help but to like the guy.  He is even more personable in real life.  He doesn’t like throwing hands away, but he normally has the goods when he is in there.  Hellmuth was as advertised, but I was fine with that too.  Just watching it makes me want to get back out there.

– There is no better time to be in Vegas if you like poker.  There are so many games outside of the WSOP that are going on that there is just a cornucopia of action.  We love the DeepStack format at the Venetian, but the Mirage and Bellagio also have some great tourneys running.  Just a ton to choose from and a great time for poker players.

– Vegas is everywhere.  There are more shows, commercials, magazines; everything Vegas.  It’s more than I have ever remembered.  Even banner ads on random sites are littered with great airfare and room rates to Vegas.  Maybe I am just more aware of it all because I love it so, but I think it’s more.  I think that the Casinos are savvier now and their marketing departments are getting more sophisticated.  I don’t know, but I am loving it!

Lori and I make it back early this morning taking the red eye from Vegas.  There are pluses and minuses with taking the red eye back east, but it was a quick flight as both she and I were knocked out from jump.

Basically today was shot as we were trying to readjust to normalcy, but man it is tough.  Somehow we sleep and generally mope around all day and the next thing you know it’s time for game 4 of the NBA finals.  Now I have not really seen any of the games so far since we were in Vegas the whole time and seemingly always playing in some tournament during the 6 o’clock hour (games out west start earlier than I am used to, but what can you do?).

The game was great for about 3 qtrs. and I was about to turn it off as I was getting tired from being worn down after 6 days of poker, but unfortunately I didn’t and had to endure the largest collapse in NBA history.  Awesome.

Normally I would be asking all of the usual questions, “why did we go away from what was working early (Lamar Odom)?” and “what or who is Kobe going to blame for his spotty performance?”  But watching the game you just got the feeling that the Celtics were better down the stretch and it was the Lakers looking like the team who was scrapping to come from behind.  Just a gut wrenching experience made worse by my own physical delirium of the Vegas effect.  More on that later.

I have a ton to post, but I will get to it this weekend as I am beat.  And from the looks of it, so are my beloved Lakers.

So I have resisted posting about the upcoming NBA finals mainly because I have had no time to really sit down and do it justice.  But since Lori and I are going to Vegas tomorrow for the WSOP, it seems appropriate to talk about it mainly because I have the opportunity to wager on it for the first time.

Basically I have loved the Lakers since I was about 9 years old.  When you pick your favorite team as a child, that’s pretty much it.  I have known, followed, agonized, rejoiced, suffered, and just plain love the Lakers for over 20 years.  I can remember doing the “sky hook” with rolled up socks hitting my little brother in the head like about a million times as a kid.  Good Times.  It’s pretty insane considering I could have held on to my love of all things Ninja at around that same time; but once you discover girls in middle school, Ninjas no longer seem relevant.

But the Lakers have always been relevant, in some way shape or form, for most of my life so them being in the finals is always a good thing.  I really think that the Lakers have the deeper team and should win it in 6.  Which would be extra special seeing how they are the only team to have ever won a title on Boston’s home floor (85’ which was the first year for this 2-3-2 format; just dumb really).

The Forum Blue & Gold is my favorite place to go when I am looking for the down low on the Lake Show.  They have been doing it since 04’ and it’s hands down the best blog out there on the Lakers.  I highly recommend it if you can somehow pry yourself away from this blog, haha.

We are flying in to Vegas tomorrow late, so of course I am going to miss Game 1.  However I think that if I am going to put any money on the series it would be Game 2.  The Lakers should be underdogs and I can just bet them to win.  I can not even think about betting them as the favorites at home and then they somehow win but not cover.  I would rather them just win.

I have no clue what the point spreads are, but I will be in the Venetian for the first 4 days so I will check out what they got.  We will finish up at the Rio, but my mind won’t wonder far from the prospects of LA bringing home another title.  Especially at the expense of the Celtics! 

Vegas Here We Come!