High Stakes

If any of you out there are poker fans (if there is anyone out there) you owe it to yourself to check out High Stakes Poker. I had a previous post that explained why:

http://craigshappyplace.blogspot.com/2006/07/tournament-poker-is-for-sissies.html

This season, season 4, the players came up with a brilliant innovation that should have the producers kissing their collective feet. Unlike the usual prop bets that no one outside of the game can appreciate, they came up with an ingenious one that drove the action like crazy. It was this: Anyone who wins with "The Hammer" (7-2) gets $500 from each player.



The most brilliant thing about this is that the amount won from each player was less than one big blind, but every player is willing to put thousands at risk in order to win the prop. Think of an arrangement in your $5/$10 game where everyone has to pay you eight bucks if you win with 7-2, so every player ends up risking $200 or $300 in order to collect a $60 or $70 bounty.

I also enjoyed when Phil Hellmuth says "Mike, explain to the viewers at home what it means to 'buy the button,'" when it was clear that Phil didn't know and there were probably about a hundred thousand "viewers at home" who knew exactly what was going on.

Do Pink's Hot Dogs Contain Peyote?

There's a very famous Hot Dog stand on La Brea in Los Angeles called Pink's. No matter when you go, any day of the week, day or night, there is a line down the block for this place's specialty sausages, hot dogs and other assorted junk foods. Now I don't want to slander anybody, but I just want to point out that I (and others) find myself experiencing strange, vivid dreams after a night at Pink's, and even immediately after ingesting one of their spicy sausage dogs find myself feeling in somewhat of an altered state.

Think about it. What could REALLY make someone stand in line for two hours to get a stinkin hot dog?