thejimsheet

Despite my disparaging comments a little while ago about a couple of reality TV series, I will be tuning in to the season premiere tonight. I have high hopes for this season.

What a great start last night. IND controls most of the game, PHX comes back, then it’s a see-saw down to the wire and into OT. Tamika Catchings and Diana Taurasi are pretty clearly two of the top, if not the top two, players in the league. Tune in again Thursday for Game 2.

Thankfully, the Finals follow a stable format of 2-2-1 instead of the 1-2 of the first two rounds.

This is my first season watching the WNBA. I haven’t always liked NASCAR, despite the hours I now spend each week watching coverage. I used to make fun of both. But, we get caught up in anything we watch. I think Big Brother and Survivor and both kinda dumb. But, because I watched them, I got hooked into following them all season, even paying extra for the the BBAD on Showtime. Okey dokey, that’s my point. Take it or leave it, I don’t care. But, if you leave it, make sure I don’t hear about you needing to make sure to remember to put something (anything) on the DVR.

I just finished the 2 weeks of the cash game that was aired a couple weeks ago. It was good.

Eli Elezra - He often seems to splash around too much. He played pretty close to the vest this time. In the ‘postgame’ interview, he really praised the other guys, which would make him tightening up very logical. I think, overall, I respect his game more than a lot of people that watch. He has a good feel for where’s he’s at most of the time.

Tom Dwan - Right now, I think he’s the best player out there. People often discredit him because he does seem to run good, but he just makes really solid decisions. That includes the ability to make the right, although very thin, value bet.

Howard Lederer - It’ll be interesting to see how he does the next few years. I think a lot of his edge was from his analysis, which seems to have been surpassed. He’s talked about how time away from the game hurt him, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can get in another groove.

Phil Ivey - He’s still really, really good. They didn’t seem to be discouraging the prop betting as much as usual, and it added a layer to watching.

Patrik Antonius - He seems to always play tighter than I expect him to. He didn’t really catch many cards over this two weeks, but he didn’t force anything. It would have been interesting to see if he could have gotten paid off if he had gone on a heater, like…

Ilari Sahamies - A couple days ago, when I was starting to think about my possibly making a post about this, I was going to talk about what an action guy Sahamies was. On the first week, the beginning of the second, and on HSP, I had seen Sahamies be very active. I was going to post that if Sahamies ever went on a heater, he was going to get paid, and then he did. Both Ivey and Dwan ‘almost’ made huge calls, but even with them making laydowns, he did well. As he starts to play more nlhe instead of plo, I think he’ll get even better.

Not much going on. Got a couple gigs lined up. Less online poker in my future. Maybe I’ll actually play live again at some point.

This show has gone from being a Sunday show to being a random show, but thanks to the miracle of DVR, I still get it.

I have to mention a quote from Brian from last week’s show. While he can be annoying, it’s become clear that his thinking about poker is usually top notch. So is his outlook. When Jay was getting down and talking about lowering their expectations, Brian was taken aback, and asked, “why would we achieve a lesser goal?” While I understand both sides, I thought that was a cool way of looking at it.

Anyways, this week, the foursome hosts four newer players (although still nobody as low level as you and I) for what they call Boot Camp. $7500 for a few days of poker lessons may seem like a lot, but the campers seemed to get their money’s worth, at least in their eyes, from both what they learned and the asshattery they got to be a part of.

I’m left again wondering what any of these kids will do when they go busto and can’t work back up a stake. I’d give a “we’ll see” here, but we probably won’t see.

While they’re not playing deep, there’s so much money on the table. And, the decisions are so interesting. My poker weenie is going crazy. Why do I wait so long to watch these? I just watched the first night (from two weeks ago tonight). Sahamies, Ivey, Dwan, Antonius, Lederer, and Elezra. Two people got stacked in the first hour. Awesome. I don’t plan to post much about these episodes, unless something comes up organically. I just want to watch them all and enjoy.

Later.

ps Go Colts!

Saints/Eagles and Jets/Pats, the Loudon race, Sparks/Storm, and the ‘Boys/G-Men tonight.   Don’t count on me to be productive today.

All of us sports fans know what ‘the zone’ is.   When the basket is as big as a lake.   When the pitch looks like a fat grapefruit in slow motion.    Everything is just clear.   This state of being exists for poker players, too (although it sucks when you make all the right moves and get unlucky, but that’s a broken record).    More importantly, at least for this post, it happens in handicapping sports.   As I’ve mentioned a couple times, I’m not posting my football picks here.   At this point, I’m glad I’m not.   I’m in one of those stretches where I’m just not seeing the games well.    I joke about going opposite, but that never works out.   You just have to kinda grind through the rough spots, and know that the hot streak is coming.   Or, at least the lukewarm streak is coming.   I’m going to keep picking, and I’ll let you know when to start tailing me.   a.k.a. not now.

I haven’t watched one episode of this year’s WSOP yet.   I also have last week and this week (9 episodes and counting) of new PAD cash game to watch.    I will get to this soon.    Maybe?   I tend to watch stuff that I can have on while playing poker online.   And, I’d like to take a break and watch all this poker with somewhere near my full attention.   We’ll see.

Two more episodes up since the last time I mentioned it here.

I really enjoyed both shows.   My friend, Bill Biddulph, joined me on Labor Day to talk some poker.   And, this week I finally got around to making up for postponing the offseason basketball episode.   Check both shows out on itunes or at bigstackradio.com.