Waves of Pleasure

Choice bits from an article by “philosopher and poker obsessive” Nicholas Fearn for London’s Guardian newspaper this week wherein he describes his time aboard a $250,000 tournament-poker cruise with Europe's most feared players, Dave the Devilfish (say again?) and Il Capitano (Il who?):

Dared is a former video games champion who started playing poker online two years ago after completing a college degree in computer science. He began with $50 and within six months had turned his seed money into $50,000. He is now a millionaire and plays on up to eight tables simultaneously that he arranges over two adjacent 21-inch screens.

Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful. More after the Jump….

Dispatches from the ‘It Could Be Worse’ Dept.

City Councilman Sala Udin remembers the sign he saw outside a riverboat casino he visited in Vicksburg, Miss.: "Social Security and Welfare checks cashed inside."
Murphy Creates Slots Advisory Board (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Dealing with a Man of Letters

From the good people at Poker Player Newspaper comes a glimpse at Mark Twain - American Poet and Poker Player:

"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a 'flush'. It is enough to make one ashamed of one's species."

Mark Twain on Poker (Poker Player)

In Vegas, It's All About the Big Wynn

Who isn’t in a tizzy about the upcoming Wynn Las Vegas? Details are sketchy and will likely remain so until Vanity Fair’s exclusive comes out next month, according to reports. For now, we know only that the casino will, in addition to being “suffused with natural light,” be the “most expensive in the world, boasting features such as a three-acre man-made lake, a Maserati/Ferrari dealership and the Strip's only golf course.”

SAT puzzler: If nine obese telemarketers equals one Asian businessman, and 15 diabetic retirees from Arizona equals one corporate lawyer, how many Burger Kings will Caesars have to install to stay in business?
Wynn's Las Vegas Dream [Business Week]

Who's Bad?

Have you seen the cover shot for the WPT’s new Bad Boys of Poker DVD? Looks more like “The I.T. Guys at Your Office of Poker,” to us. I swear one of them just fixed my hard drive.
World Poker Tour Special 'Bad Boys of Poker' DVD Coming [Amazon.com]

More Side Pots

· Anyone know what this is all about? Seems sketchy. Emails welcome. (Rake Rebates)
· The Odds Are, You’re F’ed: Half of World Lives with Hazard Risk. (NYTimes)
· Lawrence Meyers gets skeptical on the World Poker Tour. (Motley Fool)

Hard Cell

Your eyes are weary but willing captives to the seductive glow of the online poker room. Those zombie craters flanking the bridge of your nose are getting deeper, but so too are your pockets. The question is, how can you find a way to play more--actually get your eyes to bleed--when every waking hour not already devoted to poker is taken up by work, masturbation and unavoidable social engagements?

My friend, until this very moment, you’ve been unwittingly tyrannized by Points A and B. You’ve played at home. You’ve played at the office. Never in between. But that was then…. JUMP TO:

It is upon us: The First Ever Mobile Phone Interactive, Multi-Player Gaming System for Poker. That’s right: real-time, real-wager cell-phone poker. No longer waste valuable time in transit not gambling! Before you go foamy, however, consider the following scenario: You’ve got a royal flush. He’s got a full house. He raises to $100. You toss your head back gleefully, knowing he’s sure to call your all-in bet, just as you drive through a tunnel and lose your signal. They don’t even have swears for this kind of thing.

“Officer, what you call ‘road rage,’ I call the inevitable and unavoidable bi-product of modernity, a cry for help, if you will, from a passenger on the express train to an alienating, technology-based future ruled by existential angst and marketing data. Please accept this $200 cash donation to the Benevolent Association.”

The Fix Is In

Part One: Idol Bets
As long as that douche-baggy “rocker” Constantine doesn’t win, we’ll be happy. Talk about a guy in need of a cock punch.
Carrie Underwood 1.3/1
Bo Bice 2.1/1
Anwar Robinson 6.4/1
Constantine Maroulis 7/1
Nadia Turner 12/1
Vonzell Solomon 14/1
Nikko Smith 16/1
Anthony Federov 89/1
Scott Savol 149/1
American Idol Odds (Readabet)

Part Two: Paris Likely to Score
You really can bet on anything these days, but that doesn’t necessarily make it exciting.
2012 Olympic Bid Odds (Myway)

Part Three: Wagers of Sin
That will be 8,000 Hail Mary’s, 13,000 Our Fathers…actually, forget it. When you get a chance, step over here into this fiery hole, mmmkay?
Odds: Who Will Be The Next Pope?
Odds: Next Pope's Name

Part Four: Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright
The only way to make golf less mind-numbing to watch is to bet on it.
Odds: Masters

Your Mother's a Whore

Everyone’s very proud of Terri Iligan, the woman who just sold the rights to her name fetid remnants of her soul to the online casino GoldenPalace.com for $15,199 on eBay. The mother of five will now officially be known as GoldenPalace.com which, in the grand scheme of things—or more specifically, compared to this human stain--isn’t so bad. If any press is good press, it would seem that the geniuses at Palace have come up with a foolproof marketing campaign. I mean, how could this scheme ever backfire?

GOLDENPALACE.COM KILLS FAMILY, SELF IN MURDEROUS RAMPAGE

GOLDENPALACE.COM MOLESTS THREE, SHOCKING CHURCH COMMUNITY

GOLDENPALACE.COM, MOTHER OF FIVE, ARRESTED FOR EMBEZZLEMENT

GOLDENPALACE.COM WEEPS SELF TO SLEEP, UPSET OVER NAME CHANGE

Terri, we know you’re already crazy. Take it the extra mile, for us.
We hope golf camp was fun, kid (Online Casino News)

Serious Reservations

Mohegan Sun casino patrons will soon be offered a comprehensive walking tour focused on the tribe's culture and history, complete with a detailed map, head set and MP3 player, according to The Day:

The audio contains music and the voices of tribal members. It takes listeners back to the tribe's beginnings in upstate New York and continues to the story of today's “Wolf People.”

We’re not even going to touch the “Wolf People” thing, except to say that those guys are much better at “casino for white man” than “make canoe out of tree.” This will be the shortest wait-time ever at the Mohegan Sun, guaranteed.
Tribe Offering History Lesson On Walking Tour Of Casino (The Day, registration required)

Side Pots

· If you know enough about NASCAR to be betting on it, you probably can’t read this anyway. (Las Vegas Sun)
Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban waxes-blog about how business is exactly like gambling (yawn). 8 million readers chime in to kiss his ass with their comments. We’d normally have more to say about something like this, but it’s just all so dreadfully business-y. (Blogmaverick)
· This guy was already down on his luck, then luck grabbed its night stick and got Rodney King on his ass. (Connecticut Post)
· OK, you won the tournament, but do you have to prattle on about it being “destiny?” (Cardplayer)

Fuzzy Math

Miss USA Pageant odds just came across our desk from Intertops.com. Love their exhaustive reasoning process:

Intertops.com is favoring Jessica Tinney, the 21-year-old from Alabama, at 9/1, to have that all-around USA appeal. Performing charity work is rated highly in judges’ eyes, and Jessica is a nurse who performs many charitable operations. Will she win the judges’ hearts? Brittany Hogan from California is also a close contender for the crown at 11/1. She says, "sometimes I think deep," and would like to follow George W. Bush around if she was invisible. If she thinks too deeply, she could do something great for humanity!….

The team at Intertops.com came to the conclusion that there were some girls whose shallowness just lacked depth. Alaska and Minnesota are two of the four to get quoted at 50/1. Sadly, girls hanging around the Red Sox and Phillies’s locker rooms while invisible won’t do much for the world -- unless they have a camera, of course!

If these are the bookmakers we’re all trying to outsmart, why aren’t we millionaires?
Miss Alabama is Favorite to Win USA Pageant (Intertops via mysan)

Slap-Shot Bounces off End Zone into Dugout

When not briefing the president on WMD intelligence, we generally try to avoid using sports and gambling metaphors, particularly in our prose, which is why we were a little nervous for Thomas Friedman this week when he went all-in with a gut-shot straight-draw:

It always starts out like the coming-out season for debutantes in Palm Beach, and it always ends around a smoky poker table at Binions casino in Las Vegas….Eventually every secretary [of State] gets dealt a poker hand - and you never know when it'll come or what sort of cards it'll contain.

And missed:

And this poker hand is seven-card stud, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em. How well you play this high-stakes hand usually determines your legacy as secretary of state.

Wha?

Tom, if you’re going to frame your entire column around a poker analogy, you might want to use an example that actually exists. We know, it sounded pretty bad-ass at the time, but so did a harmless little thing called monster-truck volley ball before all those people started suing us. The point is, you write for the Times. We forgive you, mostly because you’re probably still a virgin (see author photo), but next time you swing for the fences, make sure it’s not with a badminton racket.
Rice's Poker Hand (NYT’s)

Mike Tyson Vs. Obscurity

This one’s going at least one more round. Fortunefun.com, a new entrant into the online gambling world, signs Mike Tyson as its spokesman, then tosses some strippers in his cage. Close your eyes, kids.
Rage The Roof (Page Six)