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??

Mohegan Sun

OK...I went to the poker room at the 'Mo for the first time last Saturday. I only played for a combined time of about 2 and half hours though. It can be kind of tough to get down there while trying to entertain a bachelor and a small group of people. My old high school buddy is the best man for his younger brother who is sports betting psycho (In a good degenerate way for those who like sports betting) and a professional keno player if I ever saw one. I'm not kidding I've seen this kid play up to a 100.00 for one number on Keno. He obviously had a great time. There was none of the regular stripper HiJinks going on and I have to say....I'm a little disappointed by that. It's the first bachelor party I've ever been to that I didn't see big fake knockers. Somebody from the party went to Mohegan recently and scoped out a strip joint nearby but was a little skeeved out. I'll have to go to one when I get to Las Vegas this December....hmmmmmmm??? As soon as we checked into the hotel off site we took the shuttle over to the casino. I like the 'Mo....they had a band 'Saving Abel' playing in the Wolf's Den. I wasn't in a great spot for the show but we were hanging around the area and I forgot that they actually have a couple of great songs. It was a good band to gamble with in the background. I mean the last time I was there five years ago they had KC and the Sunshine band or something similar.

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I sent a text to a couple of bloggers who were going to be around or are there all the time. Rakefeeder stopped by right after I got to the poker room. His quote was "make sure you warn me when you decide to stop by and talk OK"? I wholeheartedly agreed because every time I see him at Foxwoods he goes on tilt. I'm not sure why....but I may just be 'The Cooler'. So like I said...I only played a combined 2.5 hours....I got there around 6:30 the first time then at 12:00 the second time time around. I was amazed I actually got served alcohol at 1:30 AM. This would NEVER happen at Foxwoods. I also like the poker room atmosphere. There were typical 1-2 NLHE players at both tables...just like Foxwoods....and that is a good thing! I sort of floundered around for the time I was there but I got paid on a flopped full house no less. I was in the BB and had K-3o. Somebody in early pos. raised a measly 4.00...and when 4 people called I figured I'd call. Kh-Kx-3h on the Flop. I checked of course. There was a 7 dollar bet from the original raiser. Another call....a fold and another call. I Called of course. A nice Ace hearts fell on the turn. I checked again By this time the somebody has a flush or an A. The original raiser got spooked and checked. The other guy in late position checked...that took me by surprise. a harmless rag fell on the river...not sure it was a 5x or something. The guy in early position checked again....the guy in late position made a bet of 30....I raised to 90 and the guy who bet obv. had a K...not sure what his kicker was but he was worried I had a better one. He called after a few minutes and was surprised when I showed K-3o. BB special! people yelled! The kid just mumbled something about King Jackoff...

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We were at Michael Jordan's steak house and basically all got those massive burgers. Man those were good. We also got some cash together and got the groom to be a huge burger the size of a hubcap. That guy from Man vs. Food would have had a tough time finishing that thing. There was too much drinking to take pictures of course. After a ton of bets the groom to be made a run at the burger but could only finish half. I don't know....but I'm sure that half came up later on in the night.....After the dinner we went for more degen. casino games like Roulette. I actually bet on Black each time or one of the three rows and I was raking in the chips. Some dude from the bachelor party dumped 150.00 on #23 because we just at Jordan's steak house. #23 obv. did not come up and 150.00 goes down the drain. I made 125.00 just betting black and the rows each time. I'm not a roulette guy but it seemed pretty good odds to me. The problem was at the end of the night....after leaving the poker room at 1:30AM. I met another guy from the bachelor party at the BlackJack table. There were about 3 hours of table play and 'Helen' the evil blackjack dealer proceeded to clean us out. I usually get away from the table but I was tired and just kept betting anyway. This is why I don't play blackjack hardly ever anymore. Evil Helen was cold as ice. The guy next to me and my buddy lost a cool 3 grand. I lost about 300....but then again I started the day with 300.00. I had a cigar in my pocket and lit that up at 4:30AM...BAD IDEA!!!

I can't wait to go to Foxwoods soon......

Headed to a certain Sunny place this weekend....

I'm headed to Mohegan Sun! For a bachelor party no less! I'm going to try to sneak in some poker but I'm thinking that the drunken degen games will have to suffice....