2006 WSOP

Elizabeth: Captain Barbossa, I am here to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Port Royale.
Barbossa: There be a lot of long words in there, miss. We're naught but humble pirates. What is it that you want?
Elizabeth : I want you to leave and never come back.
Barbossa: I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request... Means "no."

"Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"

Just like everyone else, I'm pretty excited about going to see Pirates 2 tomorrow night. It will be a part of the Distraction's birthday present, seeing it in Gold Class at the new local cinema. The place is awesome, and being within walking distance for these late Saturday night screenings when the bar is open is also a welcomed convenience.

By now everyone is in the full swing of the 2006 WSOP. It is good to see that Joe is still passing the sugar putting in a good showing against everyone's favourite online poker room operator, and then 22 year old Mark Vos – Pokerbok to those who are familiar with his online exploits – pulls out his first bracelet and $800K to go with it. 22 years old with $800K – what the hell? That really spun me out, the more I thought about it. Then I went online and won $4.50 last night. At 22, my net worth was firmly in the red. What am I talking about – even now at 25 it still is firmly in the red.

Is making a prediction on the Main Event winner even worth bothering about anymore? I think more interest will be around the $50K HORSE event, which ought to be a favourite amongst the pros. Funnily enough I didn't see many online qualifiers to that event, and you can already here the poker purist claiming it to be the "real" main event. It does lend itself to the title a little, considering it is 5 times the buy in.

Can't agree more with the recent writing of the good Dr Pauly, re Mr. Hellmuth. Like him or hate him, you gots to respect him. And while I'm talking about Dr Pauly, I don't think I will ever enjoy or follow a WSOP without his writings. In such a short amount of time, it has become a tradition and an integral part of the poker event. Pauly, you deserve everything that has come your way since the last World Series, and here's hoping there is plenty more to come.

Work has been extremely busy of late, so the poker has been scarce but I have managed a few session here and there, still finding my feet and continuing my whoring ways.

I have had the chance to catch up on some all important TV shows, and once again I wish to enter the debate on The Shield vs 24. Our former room mate has seen season 5 of 24 (which is only up to the 5 th or 6th hour on TV here, but thanks to the internet…) and claimed it to be the best series ever, with no filler like previous seasons. Excited by this recommendation, the Distraction and I popped it in for a look-see at this exciting new season and…disappointment. There was more emotional drama filler than ever before, and Jack has lost his touch. By hour 19, he was trying to sneak onto a heavily guarded plane, and how did he do this? He pulled his hoodie up. Yep, super agent Jack Bauer could not be seen with his hoodie on. Then, he walked right up to the plane – with two suitacases mind you, and walked into the cargo bay safe and sound. Man, did they just give up on this or what? And who is left alive after this season? It's one thing to kill off a main character for shock value, but when you kill off 3 or 4 in quick succession, it's kind of redundant.

In contrast, season 5 of The Shield rocked. When they killed off a character, it was gut wrenching to watch. I think one of the differences in the shows is in 24 they think of a cool way for Jack to get out of a situation, and then create the situation. In The Shield, they think of the situation that would arise through the course of events so far, and then try to figure out how to get out of it.

To put it bluntly, as I have said many times before even though I am a fan of both shows, The Shield > 24. Always.

This is still about poker, right?