I’ve been working at different Cliffs properties since Thursday, spending time online trying to get things done by day, sneaking in a few holes of golf or the driving range in the afternoon, jumping into the lake with my boys, sleeping next to my wife, waking up with my youngest by my side.  It’s a fair trade.

I do miss a real vacation, getting totally away from it all, forgetting most everything at work.  I used to have them, glorious times in Tuscany, Venice, Paris, Hawaii, the beach.  These are times of the past.  I have the means to still do these things but not the time nor the business situation.

It has been a nice time, though.  I gave the lesson Sunday to the chapel at the lake community where my in-laws live.  It’s a special place, where her grandfather first built their cabin, where his father grew up in the summers then brought his daughter and son during their youth, and now my wife brings our boys there.  My lesson was What is the role of the Christian in a Global America?  If I actually get three comments requesting it, I’ll post the lesson.  It is one of the sad things about this site now, the lack of posts and interchange.  I’ll keep pushing through with the words, although I do miss folks on the other end.

I’ve been following the WSOP Main Event from afar, watching the bustouts of lucko and LJ among others, seeing my friends IGGY, Liz Lieu, and John Armbrust make it through their Day 1’s.  Liz is in the best shape of the three, sitting on 68k heading into Day 2.  I must confess that it was much better being with my wife and boys yesterday than driving to the Rio for the last first day of the Main Event (no offense, Gene).

We took the boys along with two friends from London to Furman Soccer Camp.  It was bedlam as the older friend (a sixteen-year old girl) was accidentally assigned as a roommate with another of my players, a ten-year old boy.  It took a good bit of work to get her situated, and we didn’t get everyone situated with sheets on mattresses, etc.  Of course, my wife was worried while I was fairly oblivious to being concerned as we drove away.

My parents are in the nation’s capital, and I’m so glad they are able to spend time together out and about.

Back to work, and thanks for stopping by.

Probably the news of the weekend was Big Brown’s first to worst finish in the Belmont Stakes.  I’ll admit that I’m glad that he didn’t win the Triple Crown, although my reasoning probably doesn’t make any sense.  I know less than nothing about horse racing, only watching during the Triple Crown races.  Let me give you my perception of what it has become, though.  It seems as though a ton of horses are tossed into the Kentucky Derby.  More often than not, the Derby favorites get blasted by some other horse who no one had talked about.  Then that winner heads to the Preakness, often without most of his friends from the Derby.  If he wins, then only a few horses show up at the Belmont Stakes.  Often, a couple of good Derby also-rans join some new horses that we’re told are tailor-made for the 1.5 mile trek.  My impression in listening to everyone was that this year was some sort of down year in horse racing, that Big Brown was a pretty pig in a bad litter.  Missing really is the great build-up duel that us sports fans can just drink up.  Horse racing needs Affirmed vs Alydar.

Here’s a great recap of that 1978 duel, narrated by Jim McKay, who passed away this weekend.

Affirmed won the three races by a total of less than two lengths, and the races still are riveting.  McKay is a broadcaster who will never exist again.  Not one of the beautiful people nor a guy, not prone to overhype, he became one of those iconic voices and faces of sports.  ABC Wide World of Sports was part of my youth, and McKay was always there.

The Belmont Stakes of 1978 has to be one of the top five horse races of all time.  Affirmed and Alydar were basically two horses who could run exactly the same speed lining up and running neck and neck for a mile and a half.  It’s still an incredible thing to watch, these two horses running like a rope connected their necks for the last mile.

The greatest horse in my lifetime won the Triple Crown after a long drought similar to what we’re in the midst of.  I don’t have to give you the name of the 1973 Triple Crown winner.  McKay’s description is above, and ESPN Sports Century’s two-parter is below.  The Belmont Stakes run is described very well in the 2nd part below, a Forest Gump-like sprint for the ages.  It was a freak of nature performance, “…an almost supernatural experience.”

Another major disappointment from the weekend was the men’s French Open.  I was a big-time youth tennis player and used to eat up everything tennis for a long time.  I don’t follow tennis much anymore, and it’s hard to figure out exactly who Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal really are.  Federer is possibly the greatest player in history, in the tiny group that includes Rod Laver, Pete Sampras, and Bjorn Borg.  Nadal seems more like Guillermo Vilas to Federer rather than Laver’s Newcombe, Sampras’s Agassi, or Borg’s McEnroe.  This was supposed to be the year that Federer finally pushed through in the French Open.  After the 6-3, 6-1, 6-0 bludgenoning in the final, it is clear Federer will never beat Nadal at the French Open.  His only hope to take down the French is for Nadal to be hit by a truck.

I spent most of my time when I wasn’t working this summer watching Euro 2008, arguably the third biggest sporting event in the world after the World Cup and the Summer Olympics.  The Group of Death starts today (Holland, Italy, France, and Romania).  There is a real magic to the start of every match, and every match is exactly the same.  The two teams walk out side-by-side, each holding the hand of a young boy or girl in their opponents kits or uniforms (incidentally, just to show you how we can screw this up, the kids walking with the US-Argentina players in the Meadowlands last night were wearing McDonald’s t-shirts).  The teams line up on either side of the referees for the match at midfield, then the national anthems are played.  No over-the-top singers, just half of the players gabling the words, half of the players stone-faced, and half of the stadium screaming the lyrics with national pride.  The camera pans every time from the center down to the last player, showing each player’s face.  Rinse and repeat for their opponent.

I sweated my buddy Liz Lieu through most of the night as she went deep in the $2.5k NLHE event at the WSOP.  Busted late in 28th place, which I’m sure she’s excited about yet frustrated with.  When you can look around and see the Final Table so close, it stings that much more.

Today marks a day of pause in the World Series of Poker coverage, as it should be the first day that online sites are forced to return to old posts and rid their site of photos older than 72 hours (above photo from 2007 WSOP Event #1, which doesn’t fall under these rules).  PokerListings has one of many views on this, but I can’t see how this is good for anyone.  A quick glance around the web shows most sites have not complied yet, so we’ll see how all of this progresses today.  As many have written, poker pros need more exposure, not less, so I can’t see how this benefits them.  There must be side deals that exempt certain sites, and the biggest early offenders seem to be some of the biggest sites.

As I’m not part of the official poker media anymore, it is interesting to look at how coverage is unfolding.  Several sites have mastered the art of the one-hour update restriction, which is a set-in-stone rule in effect the last two years (and policed in 2007).  Sites are not supposed to update their blog or website with live coverage more frequently than an hour at a time, although other news (interviews, news reports, etc) is not covered by this.  Probably the best at adapting to this restriction is CardPlayer and their coverage.  It pains me to say that, to be sure.  They were part of the first evil empire of poker media, and their people were quite arrogant throughout the 2006 WSOP, putting anyone without the CardPlayer badges in their place.  I don’t know anyone there, but their tournament coverage is top notch.  They have a common format they are using each hour to cover a tournament.  It includes the following (in order):  Blinds/antes, players left/# in starting field, Chip Leaders, average stack, and Big Hands and Storylines.  It gives you a better understanding of how a tournament is progressing and is very easy to read, and I find myself retyping CardPlayer in my browser more than once a day (I can’t leave their site up on my laptop due to too many old scars…).

Event #2 saw the largest non MaIn Event field in the history of the WSOP, and with it came the first significant poker operational problem of the WSOP.  A decision had already been made that these hugely popular WSOP-newbie tourneys would be split into two starting days.  This brought out an initial red flag of the field dissipating too quickly, getting dangerously close to what the cash bubble might be on Day 1A.  Think of it like a golf tournament, where you split the starting field of the Masters into two Days 1 & 2.  The second player group would know what score they would have to shoot to make the cut, a very big advantage over the first players.  225 players made it through Day 1A from a field of 2,048, while 224 bagged their chips on Day 1B from a field of 1,881.  With 378 players being ultimately being paid, it meant that the Day 1’s were too short (ending around a little after midnight, 19 minutes into Level 9) while the Day 2 was too long.  The WSOP started play for Day 2 at 3:00PM Monday, which in retrospect was at least two hours too late (play ended around 12:30AM for Day 1B, and policy is to give players at least twelve hours off).  I’m not sure of the exact time, but play ended on Day 2 around 6:00AM after play had gotten down to 18 players.  A vote was held, and players will reconvene now at 1:30PM.  All of this is an unfortunate side effect from the large field and quick evacuation of players on Days 1A and 1B.  It is most unfortunate as the money gets significant as the players dwindle, and most of the players aren’t used to fifteen-hour marathons that end as the sun rises the following morning.  I’m not sure why they didn’t simply tell the players to come back at 6:00PM and play to a winner for Day 3, unless it was as a convenience to any Harrah’s executive who would be at the Final Table.  Pokerati reports that ESPN made the call as they are planning to film the Final Table.  Again, why should that have anything to do with anything?

The first Final Table was all the WSOP could have hoped for, with top pros and recognizable names filling the seats.

1st  Nenad Medic    $794,112.00
2nd Andy Bloch    $488,048.00
3rd Kathy Liebert    $306,064.00
4th Mike Sexton    $248,160.00
5th Amit Makhija    $198,528.00
6th Chris Bell    $157,168.00
7th Patrik Antonius    $124,080.00
8th Mike Sowers    $99,264.00
9th Phil Laak    $74,448.00

My buddy Liz Lieu snuck away from her sick bed and entered Event #2 over the weekend.  She’s had an evil run with pocket aces all year, and she was knocked out of Day 1B with them.  She is blogging for PokerListings, so you can check her out there.

That is another trend this year, pros blogging virtually everywhere.  I’ll scout around to see if there are any particularly worth reading.  I’m hoping to snag some interviews remotely and will try to sneak in some WSOP content throughout the Series.

My buddy, Liz Lieu, is in the midst of a very rough time. She got sick in early April right as she arrived in Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final. She missed the event, made her way to Las Vegas for the WPT Championship at the Bellagio, then missed that $25k tourney as well. A couple misdiagnoses later, she ended up having major surgery and stayed in the hospital almost a week.

She was discharged last Sunday and is recovering with family in Las Vegas. It’s been a long year for her.

I’ve been a road warrior, and it’s not easy for a big grown man like me. She spent most of her time in Europe and Asia, different cities and hotels every week. I can only imagine what it’s been like for Liz over the last eight or nine months. She’s surrounded by family and friends, and hopefully she’s getting lots of rest and care.

If you have the time, head over to her MySpace page and give her your happy thoughts and good wishes.