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Monday, July 03, 2006

Smorgasborg

Props to goalkeepers Jens Lehmann of Germany, and Ricardo of Portugal for coming up with multiple huge saves in each of their respective penalty shootouts to send their teams on to the semi-finals. Lehmann's final save led to the call of the weak from the Spanish announcer crew: "JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS JENS LEHHHHHHHHHHHMMMANNNNNNNN."

While England failed to show up for the entire tournament, and was justly eliminated by Portugal (side question: why the fuck is Beckham wearing long sleeves if he was complaining about the heat?), France finally played up to their caliber, and absolutely dominated Brazil. Even Ronaldo's utterly embarrassing dive near the top of the penalty box as time wound down (which was actually called by the ref, and earned France a yellow card) wasn't enough to save Samba-land. Those of you who don't know France's striker, Thierry Henry, should take the time to look up some of his highlights. He's a perennial goal producer for Arsenal in the English Premier League, and is one of the top few strikers in the world.

On Saturday night, we visited NYC icon, Katz's Deli. Katz's is in a league of its own - not only for their completely unparalleled pastrami, which I can best describe as "RIDICULOUS," but also for their old school nostalgia. Everyone entering the big, cafeteria-like deli takes a little ticket, almost like you get when you go into a parking garage. When you go up to the counter to order, you give the carver your ticket, and he writes the price on it (about $14 for a pastrami on rye). He also gives you a little taste of pastrami while he makes your sandwich, hand carving the freshly steamed pastrami. If you respond by throwing a few bucks into his tip cup, you get a nicely stuffed treasure which quite literally dissolves in your mouth. (wow, that sounded kinda obscene - I was talking about the pastrami.

In poker news, Danny Negreanu finally got under Mike "the Mouth" Matusow's skin on High Stakes Poker, when Danny mocked The Mouth for having to borrow money to play in the game. After Mouth paid off a river value bet from amateur Fred Chamanara, Negreanu needled further, mockingly reading a glossary definition from a book Phil Laak slid across the table to him: "Payoff Wizard: Someone who calls bets on the river when they are losing. P.O.W." Laak chimed in, "Page 158 Mikey." Great stuff.

Oh - and there was a hand where Mouth and Sammy Farha got all in, in a situation where neither of them really wanted to be all-in (Mouth came over the top of Sammy with middle pair, and Sammy insta-called with his flush draw.) Before the players saw each other's cards, they not only agreed to run it twice, but also "saved" most of the final re-raise: meaning they decided to just play for what was already in the middle. This is a total fucking joke, and both players should be embarrassed... There is no crying in baseball, and there are no takebacks in poker... Ridiculous.

In MORE IMPORTANT POKER NEWS, my boy Eric "E-dub" Lindauer was featured in TheSportsman.Com's Online Kings writeup. Of course, I was furious when I read the article "When a friend gave him a copy of David Sklansky's classic text..." You see, that "friend" was none other than Kid Dynamite! Eric and his wife and baby boy showed up unannounced at my apartment Sunday morning, and I immediately challenged him to a series of heads up freezeouts to punish him for failing to give me credit for teaching him everything he knows. I planned to thrash him in the style of sensei-student / master-pupil, even though he's like a friggin' learning computer, and probably one of the best in the world (yes, I mean that) when it comes to poker math and theory.

I dispatched Eric in our pot-limit hold'em freezeout, and quickly throttled him in pot-limit omaha. I then took pity on him and let him choose limit hold'em for the next freezeout. Now, Eric is a limit hold'em master, and well, I am a no-limit assassin now, so I figured to be a huge dog here. After E-dub cold-decked me early when he turned a gutshot straight draw vs. my top two pair, I fought back valiantly, from a 3-1 chip deficit to a 3-1 chip lead. Even though our starting stacks were only 25 big bets, we played for a solid 90 minutes, before finally agreeing to a draw. I took it as the highest compliment when Eric told me, "I don't feel like I have a very big edge against you."

If you're interesting in improving your poker skills, Eric offers poker coaching. Contact him at e_lindauer at Yahoo to discuss the plans he offers - you cannot help but become a better player when you deal with him. You can also visit his website. If you tell him Kid Dynamite sent you he'll give you 10% off.

A big time BBQ is imminent, happy Independence Day to everyone.

-KD

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