Sttttreeeeetttttccccchhhhhhhh...

Ahh, sweet blissful laziness. (And how sad it is that I consider sleeping in until 8 and lazily putzing around on the computator and drinking coffee for an hour to be sweet, blissful laziness these days.)

The original plan was to move all of the big stuff this Saturday (the 19th), so I requested the next three days off, in order to rush around, helter-skelter-like, trying to get everything done. But we're renting our current house to my brother-in-law and he doesn't have to move out of his current house until the end of the month, so we threw in the towel yesterday and said screw it, let's just move next Saturday (the 26th). Which not only buys me much time, but leaves me off the next three days. Still much, much work to do, but I don't have to rush around like a headless monkey to get it all done, and can even, gasp, play some of this poker game that all the kids are talking about.

Finally got to see the latest High Stakes Poker episode, which was pretty boring except for the Gus/Negreanu hand, and the hand where Doyle flopped a set of kings versus Negreanu's mighty pair of 2s. Kind of hard to put Gus on as strong of a hand as he had, so that one goes into the "what can you do, that's poker" bin, but the Doyle hand had me scratching my head.

I realize that the gods of poker shall descend upon me and smite me mightily for saying this, but I thought Doyle butchered that one pretty badly by playing it so fast, especially when he filled up on the turn. He lumps a ton of money out there, Daniel folds, and Doyle comments that he was hoping that Daniel had turned trip 6s, etc. Umm, okay, but why in the world wouldn't you just slowplay there and check to him? If he did in fact have trip 6s he'd lump a lot of money in there when checked to, and more than likely take a shot at it even if he didn't when you showed weakness and checked the turn (which I assume was his plan when he called on the flop with just bottom pair, crappy kicker, as far as taking a stab at it on the turn if Doyle showed weakness). I can't see that you gain anything by betting out big on the turn, as a ton of money is going in regardless if he has trip 6s, but he folds pretty much anything else to a big bet there. But then again, Doyle has forgotten more than I'll ever know about poker, so I should shut my dang ol' mouth.

It's also interesting reading about the assorted fallout from the suit by Raymer et al regarding the WPT stuff. I can definitely understand the upsetedness expressed from the poker players' side of the issue, and I definitely agree that the rights given up to play in a televised WPT event are pretty substantial. But in the end I can't help but think: "Yes, indeed, but so what? Everyone likes eating cake, as well as possessing cake, but things don't always work that way."

The WPT is running a business, like any other. They get away with what they can get away with, trying to make as much money as possible. Yeah, they're pretty much the main game in town, if you want to play in big buy-in, televised poker events, but they're not the only game in town. (There's that whole WSOP thing, remember, and all the WSOP circuit events.)

But let's pretend that the were indeed the only game in town, and that to play in a big buy-in, televised pooker tournament you absolutely had to play in a WPT event, and you absolutely had to sign away all sorts of rights to your likeness and image to do so. Okay. That's the universe we're existing in.

Do you really think that you are endowed with some natural, inalienable right, to play in big buy-in televised poker tournaments without signing away those rights? Really? Why should you be? I haven't checked lately, but I doubt that the Constitution or Bill of Rights addresses your rights in regards to televised poker tournaments, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, that it's not a basic right that you should expect. Does it suck, from the perspective of the player? Sure, but that's the price of admission, just that it sucks that you employer can monitor your telephone calls at work, or your e-mails. No one is forcing you to buy into a WPT event. If you feel that you can profit more from completely control the usage of your likeness and image, don't play in a WPT event.