Congrats on all you who picked UCLA

Now please go and blow that money you won on Pai Gow.

If you're here expecting to see an article on parental love thanks to a flattering link from this awesome site, hello, welcome, no my kids won't be degenerate gambooolers and sorry you've haven't slept well lately. Please scroll down a couple.

As for the rest of you, well, Saturday afternoon was not my best moment as a Kansas fan and graduate. They lost by playing about as well as a fifth grade recreational weekend basketball team with braces on their teeth, legs and heads.

It was a nice year, for sure, another conference title and a deep run in the tournament for the first time in three years. The Elite Eight is nothing to scoff at, and the Hawks lost to UCLA, a great team with as much tradition as us.
And yet I thought this was our year. I guess I believed all the pundits. I suppose that's because I'm one myself.
Damn pundits.
It seems like the future is bright, given that we're all sophomores and freshmen, save for a junior or two, but we might lose at least one player to the NBA. Such is college basketball these days. It's a game ruled by players who probably still carry a Trapper Keeper.

I have often wondered why I care so much about a team. Sure, I went to school there, but how they do in a game has no bearing on my life. And yet it does affect my happiness. When they win I'm pumped, and when they lose, well...I'm not quite as bummed as I once was, now that I have a kid and twins on the way, but I'm still depressed.

So here's my question. Why are we fans? Why do we care so much? Why does it matter if our team wins or loses? I'm interested to hear from you all on this.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

I honestly thought meals of boiled race and cottage cheese, topped off with a cup full of Kaopectate were something to look forward to 40 years from now.
But alas.
Alas, I got to taste the chalky yet slightly candy-cane-like peppermint of everyone's favorite "runs" medicine for the first time this weekend, when, after what I thought was a bad cold turned out to be something, well, a little something more runny than just my nose.
Ugh.
Fortunately, two things cheered me up.
First was finishing 10th in my second 180 SnG on Stars. I had a chance to make a really good run at the top prize but my 7,7 lost to A,5 to runner, runner straight. Ah, well. It was fun. I'll play more, as the play in this was less than stellar.
Second was this:



My Kansas Jayhawks are the #1 seed in the West Region in the NCAAs!
Seriously, is there any other sporting event that even comes close to the tournament?

I played in Kansas' basketball band from 1991-93. Usually they took nine players, with only six traveling, and more than 30 usually tried out. Most practiced for months and fought like dogs for a chance to go to the Final Four, and that was just the band members. Competition was brutal. I was lucky to make it all three years I tried out, and I saw some awesome tournament games. College was a much better place for me and holds many golden memories because of tournament time.

So that's sort of carried over to my adult life. I don't let the tournament affect my home life. I don't yell at the TV anymore, now that a little one is running around and has barely heard Daddy raise his voice. I don't throw things. I don't kick the dogs. But I still live and die for the games, especially now.

Kansas beat Texas in one of the best games I've seen for the Big 12 tournament title.
I just hope my insides heal in time for Friday's first-round game. They're going to need to handle the stress.



Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!




Edit: Here are the details of the baby pool. Three picks per date. Pick when the twins will be born. Due date is June 3, but consider that most twins aren't born on the due date. In fact, the average is 35 weeks, so from late April on we're on call.


It's $5 to enter. Since this is just outright gambling instead of poker, we can use any money system we want instead of Neteller and our government won't care. You can get it to me in three ways:
1) In person, where I"ll keep it in a white envelope in a secret location.
2) By PayPal. My email is dengl5@earthlink.net.
3) My Poker Stars or Full Tilt accounts. I"m pokerpeaker on both of those. If you do that, however, let me know through e-mail so I can keep track of it.
This is most definitely a one-time offer. Let's just say the doctor will, er, TAKE CARE of me as soon as I know those babies are healthy. Apparently I"m dangerous.
You can enter up to five times.

We have one contestant so far. Even if four enter, we'll have a pool!!!

Clank

“There were a lot of similarities to how we played Saturday, except this time we made shot. The difference between playing average and playing great is whether the ball goes in the hole or not."

— KU Coach Bill Self after last night's victory against K-State.

Last night was, I hope, the climax in a week of brutal beats, tough breaks and a downright disgusting display of suckouts. I wasn't going to write about it. There's enough of that shit around already, and I really don't want to be Waffles.
I was really having a hard time letting last night go, however, even after I stopped playing, fired up Zelda and then watched "X-Men III" (my review: Eh). I took it to bed with me and woke up with it. Until I read that quote above.

My Jayhawks have had an up and down year, and Saturday they faced the same kind of gut-wretching loss that I've taken all this week, ahead by Texas A&M, the conference leader, to start counting their chips before they were shipped, and instead the lead was chipped, chipped and chipped, until they blew the final 6 points in a minute-and-a-half and lost at magical Allen Fieldhouse.
They played pretty well but fell to the No. 8 team in the country and lost.
The shots, as Self said, didn't go in.

Wednesday my Hawks played the Wildcats, one of our biggest rivals but a team that has acted more like our punching bag. In fact, K-State has not beaten KU, in its own arena, in almost a quarter-century. If that isn't the most embarassing streak in sports, I don't know what is.
Still, K-State was hot, beating a good Texas team at home and winners of seven straight; KU was down and facing a barrage of criticism, and many thought my Hawks might lose.
They pounced early and often and looked like world-beaters and crushed K-State.
The shots, as Self said, went in.

Lately I've thought about how poker, especially tournament poker, is much the same way. You can play great and lose because of bad luck. Horrible luck. Last night was the worst: I was a 9-1 favorite and lost on the river against the other chip leader. I win that pot and I'm a huge chip leader with 20 to go and the favorite to take down a 45-person SnG. Plus how much fun would it have been to be that much of a chip leader? Loads of fun. Instead, after a week of brutal suckout after suckout, my 90 percent favorite does not hold, and IGHN, just one of the guys finishing out of the money.
A week ago I won the Mookie. I did not suckout once (unless you count Q,J versus 6,6 as a suckout, which I don't), but I did win many coinflips. I lose one of those races, and there were three before the final table, and I"m just one of the guys finishing out of the money. Yet I won, and I felt awesome afterward. Last night I felt terrible, and I played exactly the same way. In fact, you could argue I played better last night, and all week, since I got my money in with much better odds.
My shots went in last week. Last night they clanked.
If it's that simple, why am I still so frustrated right now?

Have you seen this person?

Last seen with two kidnapped victims in a subway. Known sidewalk snatcher who writes about poker and relationships, poker and religion and some actress on "Little House on the Prairie." Recently moved to a new home. Anyone who has any information regarding this person, show up Thursday night at CC's Bash, where we'll play poker with him before arresting him. Oh, and lots of other great players too. Change 100 may even be there, so we'll roll out the red carpet. No autographs, please.


I'm in a bit of slump lately. It's funny how after a big win (The Mookie) variance seems to hit me right away. And no, I'm not suffering from Winner's Tilt. I'm suffering from shit like a total donkey getting a higher two pair than me, people hitting their draws, blah blah blah and waa waa waa. I'm 1/9 in SnGs lately, right when I decided to move up to the $11 SnGs again. Maybe it's just harder there, I don't know, or maybe it's what Change 100 was saying about the soft SnGs being a thing of the past. I"m not seeing great play. I've also bubbled three times, and only a couple hours of Zelda: Twilight Princess can cure that. I hope it turns around soon. CC's Bash would be a good place for that to happen.

I'm guiding another snowshoe this Saturday after spending all day Friday with the J-man. Then that Saturday night I have a big, live, MTT to attend for a birthday party. I'm really excited about it, as the field is mixed with inexperienced players and good players, the best kind, I've always thought. Too many good players and it turns into a grindfest, but too many bad ones and luck is too much of a factor.

I'm not as worried as some of you seem to be about Neteller. I've got $700 in there, about a fifth of my bankroll, but I find it hard to believe our government would simply seize our funds and not give them back. It may take a while, but I think we'll get it back.
Check out how Iron Girl went after Neteller, and the answers she got may help ease your concerns.
For now.

Finally, KU's got a big game against their newly pumped-up rival K-State and its thug coach, Bob "I just had a few dozen beers officer" Huggins. If we don't win that one, I'll be on Super Jayhawk Tilt, and that's far worse than Bubble SnG Tilt.

I wish I could make the Hammer Day tourney but I'll be running tonight and may not make it home until 7:30 or so. Although it looks like it's snowing right now, so I may instead get strapped in a white jacket and scream about winter please coming to an end, good God. It looks like nuclear winter out there right now with the snow and cold and low, depressing fog, and every guy I know is growing a beard and starting to wear multiple layers of clothing and generally look starved. It was supposed to be sunny today.
If the bomb does fall, we won't even realize it.
Good luck to you all if I"m not there. See you Thursday.