The New Diceboy?

Britney Spears ... she's the new Paris Hilton (after Paris Hilton was the new Britney Spears).
Small ... it's the new big.
The browser ... it's the new OS.
And now ......

Lennie ... he's the new Diceboy?

Wednesday - Tiltboy game. I had 4 or 5 showdowns with Dice for big pots ... and won them all. Including pulling a 2 outer on the river to take a huge pot. By the end of the evening, Diceboy looked stunned. I felt very strange, as if I had a smug look on my face.

Thursday - LOTW. In our weekly Lock Of The Week bets, I picked the Niners +10 against Seattle and Over 37.5 points in the same game. Entering the 4th quarter, Seattle led 7-3 in a rainstorm and the offenses showing about as much skill as Perry delivering a pickup line. Diceboy seemed to be back on track and freerolling ... the under seemed a given and only a garbage time TD by Seattle from a sweep.

I called to ask him how much he wanted to let me out for, and he declined to even make an offer.

The 49ers hadn't had a drive over 80 yards all season. Without belaboring the point, in the 4th quarter they went on a 90 yard TD drive, a 73 yard TD drive and an 86 yard TD drive. On the last drive, leading 17-7 with 1:42 to play and Seattle out of timeouts, the Niners faced 3rd and 8 on Seattle's 18 - everyone in the stadium knows it's gonna be a handoff to Frank Gore to run at least 45 seconds off the clock. Except it' s not. Instead, Alex Smith fakes the handoff and waltzes into the endzone on a naked bootleg with noone within 15 yards of him for an easy score. The right play would have been for him to fall down at the 5 and then just kneel 3 times for the victory, but there's nobody within 15 yards of him, and he wants the score. Now I've got an out for the over - a Seattle garbage time TD!

Seattle returns the kickoff to midfield, drives quickly downfield and now there's 18 seconds left ... if they complete one inbounds there won't be time to stop the clock. Hasselback floats up a wounded duck into the endzone, the ball is tipped by a Niner ... and Seattle's tight end grabs the touchdown catch - I win the over!

I went to look in the mirror, and I swear if I didn't know any better, I'd say the corners of my mouth were turning up ever so slightly into an undeniably cocky smirk.

Sunday - Fantasy Football playoffs. On Sunday, Dice and I face off in the Paper Gridiron League playoffs. Dice came over to watch the morning games on Sunday Ticket. Dice had the league's best record at 11-3 and he was on a 9 game winning streak. I was a mere 8-6 and had my starting QB (McNabb), a starting RB (Ronnie Brown) and two starting WRs (Darrell Jackson and Joe Horn) were out for the game with injuries. My team had a huge day, Dice's team stunk it up, and I crushed him by 53 points.

The key point was when Joey Galloway, after having done absolutely nothing all day, caught a 30 yard pass and then a 64 yard TD pass.

I squealed with delight as Galloway waltzed in to the end zone and then I performed a Diceboy clench .... and it felt very very natural and comfortable. Like I was born to clench.


So yes, I'm tempting the Sigma Gods by even asking the question, but it's time to ask: have I become the new Diceboy? Did I somehow steal Dice's mojo? Has the world spun on its axis and put me into the lucky side? Do I have 40 or so years of incredible luck to look forward to? Is there any reason to delay printing the inevitable Len Fuego Club Cards? Or is this merely some kind of anomaly, a Mystery Spot, a Mark Fydrich, an Afternoon Delight?

Who Is The Player?

As a followup to Rafe's logic puzzle, I submit the following "Who is the player?" quiz:

At some point during a stud hi-lo hand at the game last Wednesday, someone made the comment "we should play where if you don't look at your cards, you can play for half price." Sure enough, the next hand someone announces "7 card hi-lo stud, if you don't look at your hand, your bets and calls are half-price." We played one hand with about half looking and half not.

Phil meant to play blind, but I'm sure you can guess that he accidentally looked at his cards and had to pay full-price, putting him on mini-tilt. But that's not the point of this story.

One hand later, Stern decides to deal the same thing, 7 card stud hi-lo, non-Perry style, but now you don't get dealt your hole cards until you decide that you're going to look. (Probably a stupid way to deal it, since you don't get the added Phil tilt expected value for accidental peeks, but it does prevent any dispute about whether someone has seen their cards.)

Player A declines to get his hole cards (as does just about everyone else). Player A gets dealt the A of diamonds. The pot gets capped about 6 ways - and of course since he hasn't looked, player A only has to pay half price for the cap - $6.

The next card Player A gets the 6 of diamonds. The other 5 or so players get mixed hands, with one person getting something like 42 offsuit. A few players ask Stern to get dealt their hole cards and look, thus subjecting themselve to full price. It gets tiltcapped with 4 or 5 players - of course, player A only has to pay half-price - $6 again.

Player A's next card is the 8 of diamonds, giving him 3 low cards and a three-flush. Another player or two ask to see their hole cards, and it gets tiltcapped 4 or 5 ways, player A now the only one paying half-price($12).

[Aside: Just before this hand, we got tired of putting in $25 chips and taking out the $1 change, so we made a rule that tiltcaps on the big betting rounds would be for $25 instead of $24. While that may seem like an unimportant detail, that rule somehow fed into the tiltcapping frenzy of this hand ... every round was tiltcapped, for no apparent reason by someplayers.)]

Player A's final upcard is a screaming 3 of diamonds, giving him A368 of diamonds - 4 low cards and four cards to a flush. But of course, he doesn't actually have any hole cards, so he doesn't really have anything yet. Another player has 3 low cards showing (something like 742), and the other two players have nothing special. It gets tiltcapped 3 ways, with the 742 player surprisingly folding, player A paying half price for another $12.

Now Stern reminds everyone that he called that if you haven't received your hole cards on 7th street and go both ways on the end in the dark, you get a free ride for the 7th street rounds of betting. Player A yells out "I see a 5 of diamonds in my future - I'm going both ways in the dark!" The crowd is whooped into a frenzy by this point - Stern having called a weirdo rules twist that wouldn't be expected to be exercised even 1 out of 100 hands (and it's not clear that it would ever actually be the correct play, since if you are going both ways and win, you'll get all the money you put into the potback anyway), and on the first hand ever, player A is going for it.

The pot gets tiltcapped 3 ways (well, 2 ways paid plus player A naturally exclaiming "tiltcap" since he didn't have to pay a dime of it - the other two players inexplicably calling the tiltcap rather than merely $6.).

The players declare, with player A of course already having committed to going both ways. The other two remaining players both go high, and show their hands ... two pair ... and a king high flush. The remaining 5 cards are splayed out and player A is allowed to select which 3 of the remaining 5 will be his down cards. He selects three cards and sets them up on the table next to each other. The other two remaining cards from the stub are shownto the table one at a time. Whiff. Whiff.

Player A turns the first of his three down cards up .... jack of spades ... whiff.

Player A turns the second of his three down cards up ... pairing his board with another 3 ..... whiff.

The crowd holds its collective breath, and player A hunkers down, pulls the edge of his card gently up to reveal it to himself ... slowly keeps turning it up..... slowly ..... slowly ..... then WHHOOOOSH ... he SLAMS the final card on the table .... "I TOLD YOU THERE WAS A FIVE OF DIAMONDS IN MY FUTURE!!!!" and starts shrieking and dancing around maniacally, as the crowd goes berserk!

Now, I ask you, who is player A?

Logic Puzzle

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Logic puzzle
Date:	Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:01:43 -0800
From:	Rafe Furst
To:	Tiltboys

For those of you who weren't at the game last night, you missed a pretty
interesting hand.  I'll present it as a puzzle, and for those who where
there, don't give it away until the others have had a chance to guess! 
Closest explanation to what really happened gets a freeroll roshambo for
$5 from me.

The game is No Limit Blonus 8-handed.  Stern is under the gun and folds,
everyone else calls the big blind.  Skip to the result: Stern goes bust
for $300 when I scoop the pot from him and he doesn't improve on the
Blonus card.  Nobody else lost more than the initial $4.  How did it happen?

--Rafe