Random Thoughts: WSOP and World Cup Edition

The fact that it is in it's fourth running makes me wonder how effective the Ante Up for Africa charity is. $5,000 is a pretty big donation to make in a recession to a problem that most people don't seem to understand. A participant in this years Ante Up for Africa event was Matt Damon. When Damon moved to a new table once his broke, I was shocked to see how short he is. He's like a miniature person. A very rich miniature person. online poker 468x60 Speaking of Africa and things coming up a little short, how heartbreaking was Ghana's loss to Uruguay in the World Cup? I felt especially disappointed not because I enjoyed the feel-good host-nation story, but because I bet Ghana to win the tournament at 200:1. That bet almost started looking really sweet. Speaking of the World Cup, how about Germany? Although we're American, we have a special place in our hearts for Germany since so much of our traffic is German (and because we bet a bunch of money on them to beat Argentina) so since the US isn't in it anymore, go Deutschland! It looks like Tom Dwan is giving the high stakes poker community one final sweat on their prop bets. Dwan, the online poker wunderkind known as 'durrrr', has multiple million-dollar bets with high stakes pros regarding whether or not he can win a bracelet during this WSOP. He already brought the poker world to its knees earlier in the series but let them off the hook by finishing 2nd in a $1500 no-limit event. At the time this article was written, Dwan is 9th in chips with 18 players remaining in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship. It seems that David Benyamine, Phil Ivey, Eli Elezra and others have at least one more sleepless night ahead of them. Update: the high stakes regulars can rest easy; durrr busted in 17th place. I might try the under-utilized and under-appreciated "bet $300 on some random number on a roulette wheel" satellite into this year's Main Event. Ghana almost won the game if it were not for Suarez's deliberate handball to keep the ball out of the goal. Suarez knew a goal would eliminate them, so he cheated and batted the ball out. It was the rational choice though for him and ended up paying off. Given how many of the Vegas casinos are getting pummeled by the economic slowdown, will they be tempted to pull a similar trick if they are facing an almost certain bankruptcy? Perhaps some super high roller playing roulette and the ball just somehow misses his numbers? Unlikely, of course. Illegal and difficult to pull off, of course. Entirely out of the realm of possibility, I dunno.... Hey, we had an interview with a female on PokerTips that wasn't a poker dealer, go us! Apparently, we can get interviews with the past two Main Event champions, but an interview with a female poker player that is not from our hometown still eludes us.