December 3, 2004
Operation: Unload Bookmarks
In addition to getting behind on my e-mails (it has happened yet again, sadly), another thing I often get overloaded in is "bookmarks" -- links to stuff on various websites that I save with a plan to talk about them here or at The Hardball Times at some point. Since my bookmarks are only slightly less out of control than my in-box right now, I thought today would be a good time to unload them. You know, before they get together and revolt against me over the weekend or something.
(That would be Hutchinson on the left and Navarre on the right.)
To be honest, I'm not sure which is scarier: Those two mugshots right next to each other in a place where women and children might stumble across them or the fact that both of those guys will be starting NFL games this Sunday. (And yes, I realize I'm not exactly the greatest looking human being on the planet, but me being funny looking doesn't preclude other people from being funny looking too.)
The second one is Dutch Boyd's blog, which is basically his musings on poker and other subjects, such as trying to quit smoking. Boyd is a member of "The Crew," which is a group of young poker players who are friends and who get a lot more attention from ESPN than they probably deserve. I know a lot of people find Boyd and his buddies annoying (or worse), but I have to admit that I liked watching him play during the 2003 World Series of Poker.
I don't care if a guy has a big ego or is pompous or comes across as a jerk, I just like to watch people who are interesting. It's the same reason Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson are two of my favorite baseball players. With that said, I'm not exactly a big fan of Boyd as a person, at least not judging from some of the stuff I've read about his business practices. Although, I will say that you have to admire someone who can do that many amazing chip tricks at the table. (Oh, and Boyd went to college when he was 12 and was done with grad school at 18 too, if you're interested in that sort of thing.)
Anyway, I just like his blog. In yesterday's entry, he talks about a poker website that is selling "I Hate the Crew" t-shirts and writes: "If they sent me one of those crew-hater t-shirts, I'd probably even wear it. Irony is stylish." If you're like me and you're constantly searching for more quality poker writing on the internet, add those two blogs to your links.
Here's a little piece of the article:
Blinds were $100,000/$200,000, and for four days, for up to 14 hours a day, Beal sat quietly in a white suit and bulky black headphones and grinded it out against the pros, who took him on in shifts. He finally got up and walked away from the table, saying he had to go back to Dallas for his twin daughters' camping trip -- finishing up a $10 million winner.
I've read a lot about this subject and perhaps more than anything else in the world of poker, these elite players teaming up to compete against Beal for ungodly stakes is fascinating to me. There are just so many levels of intrigue involved. A guy who has so much money that he can almost literally gamble any amount he wants and not worry about losing. A group of the very best players in the world getting together to try to get some of that money from him. And how about just the actual game? I can't begin to tell you how much I'd love to watch people playing for $200,000 a bet, and the strategy involved has to almost go beyond poker in a lot of ways.
Weekend Reading:
- The BTF Poker Tournament
- Bye Bye Blanco (Choosing a Backup Backstop)
- Worlds Colliding
- NBA Notes (and Juan Castro)
- Notes from the (Long) Weekend
