Mean Gene

Poker Moves One Step Closer To Jumping the Shark

First of all, the phrase "Jumping the shark" has, itself, jumped the shark. I divined this when I went to my library a few months ago and found that they had a book on tape called, you guessed it, "Jump the Shark". Listening to the creater of the website that gave us this phrase drone on for four hours about when Madonna jumped the shark, when Friends jumped the shark, when Tom Hanks jumped the shark...I was about to get out of my car on the 31st Street Bridge and jump into the Allegheny River. No sharks there.

But the news on CNN today isn't worth of consideration for "sign of the apocalypse", so I'll trot out the JTS label. Ben Affleck won the California State Poker Championship, a $10K buy-in event with 90 players. He took down $356K, enough to give every person who saw Gigli a full refund, including expenses for popcorn.

If folks who appear on Celebrity Poker Showdown start winning big poker events, that's when we know that the end is nigh. To be sure, Affleck is a far more serious player than, say, Wanda Sykes, but he did get beat by Willie Garson, who played some bloody awful poker. I bet poker pro and WPT finalist Stan Goldstein, who lost out to Affleck, is holding his head in his hands right now moaning, "I couldn't beat a guy who couldn't beat some loser from Sex in the City..."

Will Affleck's victory be a Moneymaker-type boost to the ongoing poker boom, or will folks stop and say, "Know what, I haven't liked a movie the guy's been in since Dogma, so maybe I'll now have to avoid poker to keep my life Affleck-free."

Speaking of Celebrity Poker, is it me or is Lauren Graham tres jolie? I don't watch Gilmore Girls (natch) but I was aware of who she is. And for someone who said she didn't know what she was doing, she looked like she knew what she was doing. Compared to Sean Astin, for instance. And, man, is Matthew Perry a bitch. The line between Chandleresqe wisecracks and pure slappy bitchiness is fine indeed, is it not?

Here's a question--why the hell do they invite celebrities on these shows (including the WPT Hollywood Home Games) who have NO idea how to play. Not play well, mind you--I mean they don't know what a full house is, don't understand blinds, don't know how much the chips are worth. They either need to teach these celebs how to play Hold-Em or I gotta get famous real fast.

My own recent play will not soon land me on the cover of All-In magazine. For those who haven't read it, a quick exercise in handicapping--how many Belevedere Vodka ads do you think were in the premiere issue? The Over/Under is 13, by the way.

Back to my own play. It's been ehhh. Nothing much to write about. I play a few tournaments, get bounced out of the money, and then make it all back playing Pot-Limit. Last night I did something REALLY dumb. After a long night of volleyball and beer I staggered home and, around midnight, entered a $5 satellite for Empire's big Wednesday night tournament. One problem--the game was Limit, not No-Limit. An hour into the thing no one had been knocked out. I was tired. Tired and a bit buzzed. I wanted to go to sleep. I did go to sleep, conking out in my chair only to have my computer go BEEEP when it was finally time for me to act.

At one point I had over $2000, but the guy to my left killed me on three massive hands to cripple me. I had AK, made aces on the flop, the guy called my raises all the way down, and ended up making bottom two pair on the river. I had QQ, raised, raised, raised, and had the board go runner-runner spades, to go with one on the flop, and he had the ace. He called all the way down with nothing but an ace and a single spade in his hand and got paid off. He knocked me out when he had AA to my 33 and flopped trips. Bastard. But at least I got to go to bed--at 2:15AM. There were still 13 players left. Ugh. Never again.

I said in a previous post something along the lines that England had about as much chance of winning Euro 2004 as I do being named to the US synchronized swimming team. I meant to say that about SPAIN, not England. Time to lay a few pounds down on the lads, methinks.

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