Hold'em Fun, Screwed Are The Suns, More Time Warner Fun, and Wrongfully Accused

Here is what should have been blog entry #100; it was pushed back only after I watched the season finale of The Office.

- The term "bad beat" is a poker term referring to a hand won by a player despite a holding a terrible hand, and then making the best hand by the turn or the river. There are bad beats, and then there some absolutely sickening bad beats (which I shall, from now on, refer to as "donkey sh!t").

Case in point, from a hand I saw a couple days ago (I am player Quintaces):

Hand #1135011766000819: Munich 11766
Seat 2: MCRAIGA (6.25 in chips)
Seat 3: Vatson (25.15 in chips)
Seat 4: Quintaces (8.40 in chips)
Seat 5: GivMeDaMoney (25.52 in chips)
Seat 6: slick sammy (46.55 in chips)
Seat 7: SkunkEBuds (7.40 in chips)
Seat 9: TL1127 (21.49 in chips)
Vatson: posts small blind $0.10
Quintaces: posts big blind $0.20
Dealt to Quintaces [ Kh Ks ]
GivMeDaMoney: raises to $0.40
slick sammy: calls
SkunkEBuds: folds
TL1127: folds
MCRAIGA: calls
Vatson: folds
Quintaces: raises to $1.50
GivMeDaMoney: calls
slick sammy: calls
MCRAIGA: calls
*** FLOP *** [ 9s Qc As ]
Quintaces: checks
GivMeDaMoney: bets $5.80
slick sammy: calls
MCRAIGA: is all in
Quintaces: folds
*** TURN *** [ Qd ]
GivMeDaMoney: is all in
slick sammy: folds
GivMeDaMoney: returns uncalled bet $18.22
*** RIVER *** [ Tc ]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
GivMeDaMoney wins $2 with Two Pairs, Aces and Queens
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MCRAIGA wins $19.35 with Straight, Queen high

MCRAIGA held a jack and an eight. Calling before the flop was a horrible play enough, but then he called an all-in bet with just an inside straight draw (needing a ten to make his straight)!

There were a couple other horrendously bad beats, like the guy who flopped three queens and lost to four deuces on the river, or the guy who went all-in with absolute crap and got help on the turn and river to make a flush.

Online poker, it's FAN-tastic!

- The Suns ran out of gas last on Wednesday, and lost to the Spurs to go down 3-2 in the best of seven series. As if that wasn't bad enough, noted dirty player Bruce Bowen hit the game winning shot: a 3-pointer from the corner. Think the Suns could have used Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw yesterday? If the Spurs go on to win the NBA Championship, some votes have to go to Robert Horry, right? The Suns were totally gassed at the end of Game 5, and they had only a single off-day to recover for Game 6, AND they have to win tonight or go home (and it's not looking good)!

I am praying for this series to go to a Game 7, for the following reasons:

1. I can't rule out the possibility of a Suns' retaliatory cheap shot, this time on the Suns' home floor (I kid :P).
2. I want to see how the Suns' fans treat Robert Horry. Maybe a fan will throw a towel at him.
   
3. Most importantly, this is the most compelling NBA Playoffs series to come around in years. I'd like it to go the distance.

- (from Consumerist) I should really stop complaining about how much Time Warner sucks. I don't have it nearly as bad as these guys do. My favorite story is this one; ghetto-rigged "repairs" are nice if you're doing it for yourself or for a friend, but not when you're a technician for a major cable company!

(Tangent: I love the pictures that Consumerist uses in their articles, like the guy smoking crack in the first article linked above.)

- Finally, a Harford, CT, man will be paid $5 million nearly a year after he was released from prison, when DNA evidence proved he did not commit a rape he was convicted of in 1988:

Tillman, who was 26 when he was arrested, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after being convicted of raping and beating a woman in Hartford in 1988. The victim identified him, but Tillman was exonerated last summer after DNA tests showed he could not have been the attacker.

Tillman's lawyer, Gerard A. Smyth, said his client believes the $5 million is fair compensation.

I hope I don't hear that this guy has agreed to a book/TV movie deal in the next couple of weeks. In all seriousness, I hope the guy is able to life a normal life after being (wrongfully) imprisoned for so many years. Sure, $5 million would probably be enough for the guy to retire on, but is any amount of money enough to pay the guy back for losing eighteen years of his life?

Kudos to the guy for being so humble, and kudos to the CT legislature for their decision as well as their subsequent standing ovation to the guy.