Mean Gene

Some Random Thoughts

If you read the previous post you know that the Monty Memorial Tournament never came off thanks to a customer service glitch at Pacific Poker. Reading Iggy today I learned that Pacific is giving every registered player $25 and will put an additional $500 into the prize pool. About as good an apology and make-up as one could hope for, so hopefully we'll all get to yell and scream at each other very soon.

Instead of playing poker last night I watched the Fox Poker Superstars show, where Howard Lederer won after being extremely shortstacked. Gus Hansen must've had to go to the bathroom or something, he and Howard were all-in against each other like 5 hands in a row, with Lederer winning them all. I have no idea what the format of this event is, they play six rounds...and the winning of the first round gets more chips than the other players...I think that's how it works...or maybe it doesn't...

The buy-in was $400K. Ouch, babe. Then again, that's probably the small blind in the games Chip Reese plays in.

Johnny Chan wore a shirt that should be brought up before the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. I can't describe it, because this blog doesn't carry an NC-17 rating.

Watched a bit of the Olympics...which I find I don't care about too much. I used to watch the Games religiously when I was a kid, but I guess they've become so commercialized and overhyped I can't enjoy them at all. I did watch Pittsburgher Lauryn Williams win the silver in the 100m dash, which was exciting. The cameras they have that follow the athletes down the track show how extraordinary these folks are. It isn't just that they're running fast--every muscle of their bodies seems to be straining at the maximum.

The controversy surrounding Paul Hamm's gold medal illustrates just why so much of the Olympics sucks. Once again we have incompetent judges who can't even be bothered to figure out how they're supposed to do their jobs. The South Korean gymnast got royally screwed and should be awarded the gold medal, end of story. Just because his coaches didn't dispute it on time, that's all bureaucratic horseshit. It isn't like the judges gave him a controversially low score--they made their mistake before he even started his routine. Not his fault at all, and he shouldn't have to suffer for it.

Can you imagine the uproar if the roles were reversed, if Hamm had been the one who got shafted? Al Trautwig would be screaming for nooses to be tossed over the uneven bars for a lynching, every US newspaper would have headlines shrieking for justice. The South Korean will, I believe, be quietly awarded a gold medal somewhere down the line, putting an asterix firmly beside his and Hamm's name. Sorry, Paul, no matter what you do now, you'll never have sole title to that medal. Gonna have to deal with it with as much grace as possible.

I saw about seven seconds of the badminton coverage, about 4 hours of the beach volleyball. Wish the ratios had been reversed. Now, I play beach volleyball in a league, and I like looking at women in extremely tiny bikinis as much as any other heterosexual male, but 2-man (or woman) beach volleyball is deathly dull. Bump, set...dink. Bump, set...kill. Bump, set...partial block. Bump, set...dink. If they didn't have rally scoring in beach volleyball the games would last longer than the opening ceremonies.

OK, that's enough for now. I may update this later as I think of new things to complain about.

<< Home