5-30-09

Well, May is ending and we are heading into one of my favorite months... June! Writing here to give a few thoughts on some sports stories and talk about a little poker...imagine that...


1. I'm not sure what is happening with the NBA right now, but I'm starting to lose a little interest. This happened to me last year, I enjoy most of the regular season, the opening rounds and by time the playoffs are over, I actually start liking it less. The main reason is that I just don't think it can compare to the past days when I used to love watching the NBA. These series (usually featuring the Bulls) were amazingly intense and you could just feel the competitiveness. Now, the refs don't allow this whatsoever. I can't even describe how annoyed I am with all of the talk about flagrant fouls. It is just ridiculous how sensitive the refs are, and there have been way too many flagrant and technical fouls called this postseason. Just let the players decide the game, it's getting annoying.
But maybe the refs are actually doing their best, and are just bad. Would it surprise you to know that at least ten of the refs in that are doing NBA games are over 50 years old!? With how fast and athletic the NBA game is, how are people these old supposed to be relied to call games at the highest level? I don't understand how the league can't infuse younger referees that would no doubt be better than these old guys, in order to put a better product out there. On Monday, I was with a couple people that weren't big NBA fans and they were so entirely turned off by the product that they chose to watch a Cubs/Pirates and Monday Night Raw over it. This should not be happening when Conference Finals are going on.

2. With all of that being said, I the NBA players are doing WAY too much complaining about every call. I can't even count how many times I've seen a player complaining about an obvious call. Just stop. Kobe and Dwight Howard have five technicals each this postseason. Is that a joke? That's way too many.
Which brings me to another point. Dwight Howard is really starting to annoy me. He smiles way too much. After Game 2 when Lebron hit that amazing game winning three, at the postgame press conference Dwight Howard was all smiles. He was laughing about Lebron hitting the shot, and didn't even seem to care that much. It's the freaking Eastern Conference Finals!!! Are you serious? In case you didn't know Dwight, if you would have won that game, this series would most likely be over already. Instead, the Lebrons now have a chance to steal this series onc again. Besides him smiling all the time, he seems to ALWAYS be getting tangled up with someone somehow. I think the law off averages prove that you won't be getting tangled up with other players that much, unless you are trying to. So I guess my point of all of this is Dwight quit being dumb and get your team to the finals.

3. Recently, it has been reported that Manny Ramirez is fourth in All-Star voting for NL outfielders. I don't know if this is more sad or funny. ESPN.com ran poll saying "If Manny Ramirez is voted in the starting NL outfield, should he play?" When I checked, 68% of people said NO and 32% said YES. Hmmm. Well I think the answer should definitely be YES. If the fans are dumb enough to vote him in, why not play? Even Joe Torre is saying that he shouldn't play. I don't agree. I'm not a believer in fans voting for all-star teams, but if they get the right, why shouldn't their choices be honored? I don't think he will end up in the top 3, but if he does, he should play if he wants to.



If you don't care about poker, quit reading here....




Memorial Day Poker- Last Monday, me and seven or eight other guys played in a day-long poker cash game in Kewanee. I don't know the exactly how long played but I want to say it was something like 3pm-12am. Yes, there were some breaks in there, but we played most of that time straight, and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. There was quite a bit of money on the table (for us), and a good mix of players meant the action was really good. I know it's hard to do with people's schedules but I really wish we could do this more. Most of the time we struggle to get five players, but when we have a full table, it's just way better. You don't have to be playing all the time...sometimes it's just fun to sit and watch other people play big pots.
And there were quite of few of those. I think every player that had their chance to win a monstorous pot. One had stood out for me on t The first one: was between me and Brett Sellers. This player, Tyler raised in early postion (he raised about 75% of the pots on the entire day) Brett called and I did as well with 44. The flop was 4-4-J ... I had hit quads! Naturally it checked all the way around to me, and I did the same. The next card was a King, which happened to make a pair for Brett's KQ in the pocket. He made a large sized bet, which I just called. That was my mistake, had I raised there even with my monster hand, I would have got way more out of Brett there. The river was a 10. Brett bet out his top pair, and I raised him with my four of a kind. He was able to (after quite a bit of thinking) to just call because he was scared of a potential straight. Had I raised him on the turn instead, he might have been putting most of his money in right there. Oh well, still won a nice pot. I felt bad for Brett for about 1.2 minutes, because on the very next hand he got made FOUR OF KIND ACES, and got most of the money back he lost. Poker is a crazy game...

Also, we were able to to get 80 wings, a large pizza, and a family order of cheese sticks from Pizza Hut for $37, which was about $5 per person, also known as amazing. Lucky for us, we had three Pizza Hut employees playing with us who were able to use their half of discount. Hopefully will be able to get another game like this in the near future, but I doubt it...