Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Deebo said it best...

Last night I finally finished the first volume (QuckSilver) in Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle Trilogy. Usually, I’ll tear through whatever book I’m reading in a week or less, but this one has taken me a bit over a month, oof. This first book is a thousand page blend of fiction and non-fiction (there’s probably a name for that, but damned if I know what it is), with characters who tie loosely into one of his other works, Cryptonomicon. It’s a tough read, but a good one, and deserves some admiration (if for no other reason) simply because of its sheer size and scope.

Of course, upon finishing I couldn’t sleep so I got up to surf a bit until Mr. Sandman decided to make an appearance. While I browsed around, I brought up PokerStars and watched the latter stages of a couple of tournaments. The couple of events that I watched got me to thinking about what is, in my opinion, is the most brutal part of a tournament.

Is it busting out early? Nope. Busting out sucks, but it’s certainly not the worst.

Is it just missing the final table? Nope. That sucks, too, but at least you get some money for your trouble, even if it is a small amount.

It’s THE BUBBLE.

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding a bubble bust-out, I don’t think there is any other spot in a tourney where I actually want to barf, no matter the buy-in. It’s the spot where the phrase, “So close, and yet so far….”, hits closest to home. Witnessing, yet again, the brutality of the bubble gave me an idea….

--If I can make it into the top 4 in tomorrows WPBT event, I will transfer the tourney entry fee back to the person who bubbled out—

Yea, I know, not the most magnanimous of offers, but the idea came on pretty short notice. And hey, I gots to take some moneys for me, right? Perhaps for the next event I will have a better idea, but for now I’m going to stick with this one.

If nothing else, it should serve to motivate me a bit more to reach the top of the tourney rankings.

Perhaps there will be a late rush of entries, and I certainly hope there are, but the lineup seems a bit short. Yea, yea, it’s a whole 22 bucks. Just skip a meal at one of those awful chain restaurants in which we all find ourselves at one time or another. Think of it as food for your soul, which by the way contains 0 grams of fat or carbs. And to top it off, you don’t have to sit among the sweaty, stinking, bitching masses to take part.

If that doesn’t motivate you, perhaps the words of Deebo from the movie Friday, will.

“Quit bein’ a bitch!”

Get signed up people, only one day left.