The One-Eyed Albino Shark

It's getting ugly up here in Boston. The circus that surrounds the RedSox and their record setting collapse is getting out of control. Let's hope in RedSox nation that this season is the One-Eyed Albino Shark of seasons for the RedSox.....that is...one in a million. It could represent the we here at PokerandMiscStuff Inc. will call it the RedSyclox season from now on.

Early Oct. means it's time to go to the beach....

Yup....I was swimming at the beach yesterday like it was late August. The water was warmer than it was when I went on my annual vacation to Salisbury Beach. I went swimming twice no less!! In poker news.....Full Tilt Poker continues to suck ass. Absolute Poker continues to suck ass and I haven't played in months. I can't go to the Poker Classic at Foxwoods and probably won't be able to go until late Oct. when my birthday rolls around. After the Red Sox set the record for all time futility I am really happy that the Patriots and Bruins have started their seasons and both are doing well. I can't believe that the Sox, Phillies, and Yankees are all out of the fall classic. That is going to make for some interesting baseball series for baseball fans around the country...but I won't be all that interested. I would like the Milwaukee Brewers to win a world series but anything goes this year. Back to Full Tilt poker for a second.....back when the pro reps went to D.C. for hearing on the viability of legalizing online poker...they sure seemed confident that something would happen soon. A certain pro was quoted "I am really confident something will get done in the next 6 months...it looks really good" and it was also reported that he was confident in his mannerisms as well. I wonder if they knew what was going to happen before it happened on Black Friday?? It kind of seems that they must have known. I wonder if any of these Russ Hamilton type players will suffer the same image destruction that the latter suffered. It doesn't seem to have happened yet...it doesn't even seem like it is going to happen. My questions are plenty. The Government is in tough enough shape and they are being investigated for all sorts of scandals. The guy in charge of enforcing the ban of online poker is being investigated himself for not only crimes punishable for life but also perjuring himself in front of Congress. That can and will mean that online poker is going to be on the back burner forever. Sometimes I really miss online poker but I can't believe that I was walking through life playing almost every night...I don't know how I functioned. I don't miss it as much as I used to...I think I would play a lot less if it was ever to come back though. What I really do miss is the bloggaments...those were some fun tourneys. I miss the banter on the Instant Messengers etc. during the tourneys. That is probably what I miss the most.

Highest of Highs and Lowest of Lows

In a Sports sense of the phrase that is.
Well...it happened again. The Sox outdid their own record setting past and set a new record in futility. The biggest collapse yada yada yada. I'm guessing that everybody knew in their gut this was going to happen to this team this year. They showed no heart at the start of the year going 2-10. Then they had a succession of great months culminating in a stellar July.....but nobody cares about baseball in July anymore. It happened in slow motion as most things in baseball do. Yooooooouuuuu caaaaaann'tttt looooooooose twennnnnnnnnnnty ooooonnnnneee gaaaaaaaaaaaammmesssss in Septemberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (best slow motion sentence ever). Yes you can...and not only that you can do it with the highest payroll in all of baseball. You can't buy team chemistry. You can't do it. 1978, 1986, 2003, now 2011. These are all now part of the lowest of lows. I'm not going to sugar coat any of this. The rest of the country is laughing and well they should. It's too bad that Tito Francona will probably end up leaving or getting fired. The guy that brought two world series championships to Boston shouldn't be the guy to take the fall should he? He has to (or so the boston sports-talk media would have you believe). These overpaid baseball players should but their contracts are guaranteed. I'm not saying all of them are overpaid...but when you look at the salaries of Lackey (good god what is wrong this fuckhead), Crawford (what a waste), Drew (my middle finger hurts), and probably a few others they were doomed. To have that much locked up to non clutch baseball players is a travesty. Sure....great on paper but terrible over 162 games. If I was younger this would have devastated me and I would be sad all week. After seeing the past decade full of championships and some of the Highest of Highs in the sports world it just doesn't matter much anymore. I mean the Patriots and the Bruins are starting up right around the corner. The Bruins of course brought us from the Lowest of Lows in 2010 to the Highest of Highs in 2011. The Patriots have been on a Lowest of Lows streak lately but after 3 Super bowls they were destined to come back to earth. Basketball and the Celtics...well their recent surge is going to be over if the NBA even gets their negotiations completed. This is a rambling post....I guess there isn't really any one point to it. If I put more time into it may look like a real writer actually took some time to craft a nice article. Nahhhhhh. I have an idea for the Sox though. Theo Epstein may just be the person that needs to go....that way you can tinker with the roster (maybe buy a few bad contracts and beg a team to take some of the losers I listed with bad contracts) and you can keep Terry Francona. Epstein is should certainly be under the ownership microscope this off season. Maybe this time he can leave in a clown suit instead of that Ape suit he used last time he left the Boston Red Sox. Anybody remember that? I do.....

The sox won!?!?

Yes it's true.... Can they pull out of their month long collapse? Tune in tomorrow to find out!!!

Taxachusetts poker news

Barney Madoff...I mean Frank....Frankly my douche...I don't give a damn....

The history of proposed gambling in Taxachusetts.....

an interesting ANGLE

10 years...seems like yesterday

Seabrook Poker Room

Although I like the Seabrook poker room and the atmosphere I have had no success there. I've only been there twice....but I'm on a dry spell there anyway. I played the nightly 60.00 no re buy last Tuesday night and then when I got bounced from that I played the 40.00 turbo. In 3 hours of tournament poker the best hand I had dealt to me was pocket 8's. I shit you NOT....this was the worst continuous series of holdings I can remember. I have fallen far from my multi-MTT nights back in the days of online poker....far out of practice that is. I do remember being UBER aggressive at these low buyin tourneys at the tracks in the past and that is usually the recipe for success...I just couldn't pull the trigger in certain situations like I have in the past. Maybe it was the tired recuperating from online poker depression look or the fact that I was buying beers. Who knows. It seems like I've become more of a cash game player since April 15th. I had some real success at Rockingham just after the online ban...but since that just a general malaise about poker. I really do think I'm still recuperating  from playing so many online tourneys. That last sentence is confirmation of a slight addiction to online MTT's by the way.
In the 60 NLHE there were 70 or 71 runners. I got knocked out in 40th place with Q-8 suited under the gun....the blinds were getting huge.....I did get one...count it....one good hand in 2+ hours. That was the pocket 8's...I still didn't win that hand but what are you going to do? The second tourney was pathetic...both my own poker play and the structure of the tourney. Sometimes I look around and just marvel at the degenerates that show up every day. There was one guy in the turbo (I am not saying that this guy was a degenerate as I don't make fun of people with a disease or condition very often...only when they piss me off...I'm still not really making fun of this guy but it is kinda funny regardless) who couldn't speak..he could only....gurglerasp. I'm not sure if that's a word but I made it up to explain the noise that he made when he 'talked'. Again I'm not making fun of this guy because he sounded like a balloon deflating that had liquid inside of it...I'm just saying it was a little disturbing. Thank god you can't smoke in a poker room anymore...he must have had his share in he past...I'm sure he would have been smoking if he could have...but Jesus H. Christmas. He questioned a hand I was in and I couldn't understand what he was saying. He raised under the gun and I pushed all in over his raise and another call. That's all I did....he said something. It sounded like "Rasssssspppgurrrrgle...ssphhhtt....hhhhaarrr UUUUuu...raasssppding". I said "Ummmm...what the fuck did you say?!" (I really didn't know..I just found out he spoke that way right before that) The 400 pound dealer with an oxygen tube coming out of his nose said "He said 'What are you doing' ya know?" I said "I pushed all in...wasn't that obvious?!". Just after that RaspGurgle folded after hemming and hawing and rasping and gurgling..then the other guy folded. After that I was trying to understand what he was saying and amazingly people knew exactly what he was saying because he is there every day. Little to no avail for me as I didn't even make the cash in the 10 person turbo. While this whole thing was going on in Seabrook my wife, daughters, nieces, sister, and sister-in-law were having their picture taken by THE Terry O'Reilly...at Salisbury Beach. I should have been there instead. I guess he was riding his bike past them as they were getting ready to take a picture. He offered to take the picture so my wife could get into the picture. Was he hitting on my wife or not? Sly bastard...she had no idea who he was of course. I do miss poker and I will get to the poker rooms soon...but I hate missing out on life these days.

Pretty sure I'm going to

Pretty sure I'm going to Seabrook poker room around 6PM tonight!

Two nights...two awesome dive bars...Uncle Eddie's....

The Dolphin....A great dive bar for the first night.....

Going to the beach for a week....

I'm outta here!!!! I will probably post some crappy pictures as usual but I'm going to be a son of the Beach for at least a week....I may even stop in at Seabrook and get my poker on!!! I'll be right down the road....

Just can't wait....
Well the camera on my phone obviously sucks but J. Giels never gets old. They played for 2 hours....and everybody knows every song. My right contact lens fell out with about 4 songs left to go...I had to stick around the beer stand as I was immediately disoriented. I need eye surgery really bad....I want 20-20 vision without contact lenses. So being next to the beer stand I pretty much started drinking more and more. They were selling 24 oz. beers. We had monster beers and were partying all day on the waterfront. I didn't have to drive home because my friends wife got us a room right near the concert. The pavilion is such a great place to hang out all day and see a concert. If you are in Boston and have a chance to see a show there I highly recommend it.

Aces High!
I always get a kick out of this boat....

On the Boston waterfront...drinking and getting ready for J. GIELS band

Poker and Baseball collide!

.......and this is the result.....some interesting things are happening out there. Most of them after 'Black Friday' and they are all bad. Jeez....I wonder where The U.S. Government could raise tons of revenue by regulating a burgeoning cash cow??