The CNBC interview aired today. Since 60M hasn't aired yet, this is my first major TV interview ever. Yay! Granted, I kinda hoped it'd be for winning some big donkament or other, but this is fun, too.

In other news, Tworags is going places and people will like the changes, but since that's still a ways off, I encourage you to check out SirWatts' lucky cats.

...waiting for a particular text message is getting old.

Since being on the scene for this is probably worth several grand, it's more than worth it, but it would certainly be nice if Obama would HURRY UP AND SEND THE DAMN THING OUT ALREADY.

On the plus side, at least the media has fallen for it to the point where the last three days have been all Obama all the time. It'd be funny if the delaying tactic weren't so transparently calculated to do exactly that and the MSM didn't obligingly fall for it anyway. The news cycle has effectively made American politics an absurd circus, in whose main ring two opponents battle it out over whether one is a bigger celebrity and whether one is loved by the ringmaster more than the other. (Incidentally, when one candidate has three times the media presence of his opponent, the correct fair and balanced thing to do is probably not to write three times the negative stories to make up for it.) The debate over Iraq - anybody realize that the US went ahead and set timetables for withdrawal this morning? - and over the economy has been relegated to the sideshows. Ridiculous.

But hey, it's great for me; the dozen or so talking heads that never switched off their HRC support (I'm looking at you, Stephanopolous) have been talking up Hillary for vice president to the point where the Intrade price hit double digits. Aside from the fact that she hasn't been vetted, Obama can't stand her, and she's *still* disingenuous about her level of support, Obama is (perhaps overly) sure he's going to win, and, as such, is almost certainly not concerned with VP electoral math at all, removing the only reason that she would ever be picked. Nevertheless, the market rates her as more likely than Sebellius *and* Kaine combined. "Lol".

...and as I write, Drudge seems to be breaking that it's Bayh. Looks like a busy night is coming up.

Update: I'm good at doublechecking, so the Bayh false alarm didn't cost me any money. OTOH, I don't have anything on Biden right now, either, and he's not quite worth it at the high 80's just in case of a last second switch.

In the meantime, I'm told that Dick Morris was on Hannity today talking about how much Obama needs to pick Hillary. Dick Morris, much like anyone else on TV ever connected to the Clintons, is entirely worthless.

Right after I got back home from the 60M thing, I got a strange email in my inbox from CNBC asking me to contact them. Turns out they read the NY Times article on me about Intrade and wanted to do a piece on that. The result was a pretty decent (I think) interview that will air on CNBC around 8/25, largely rehashing the NY Times piece; depending on what they air, it should be a little more in depth, though. Bottom line: if you think that Intrade is a good example of the wisdom of crowds theory, you're probably better off just taking my predictions (or that of another decent trader) as gospel, instead; you're much more likely to get something coherent out of me than out of trying to look at that kind of political market.

In other news, I'm currently playing the Sundays and haven't posted a hand on the blog in forever, so here's one from the Cake 100K. I had T9 and think the river fold was good. Opinions?

The interview was a long time coming, but it did finally happen today. I'm proud to say I think it went well. ETA: sometime this fall.

Fun fact: it turns out dlpnyc21 (NYU Dave) and I went to the same high school!

Preview pics:

The second half of my stay in Fresno turned out to be a lot of fun. It was divided into three parts - the main event (lasted an hour; got two pair in against a set, then got my last 10 BB in with KK vs. the mighty 72 sooted. oops!), a few business meetings that went pretty well, and hanging out with shaundeeb watching him grind 25 tables' worth of donkaments. The guy is sick for that one thing alone, but he also manages to play good while doing it, too. I wish I could do that :(

Apparently, Shaun'd been having a pretty bad downswing for a while there, but it ended in spectacular fashion - he had a 20K day or so on Saturday, then won the FTOPS HUment on Sunday while I was sweating him, for another 115 grand or so. The HU tourney was hysterical; every time we saw any of his last 3-4 opponents make a big move that made no sense, we turned to each other, said "flush draw" in unison (no cheating involved, it was just obvious), Shaun would call/raise as appropriate and the other guy's hand would be a flush draw, which all somehow missed. Then there was the first hand of the semifinal that got posted in BBV; Shaun raised nines, the other guy (an aggro HU regular) 3-bet, Shaun of course 4 bet, the other guy tanked and 5 bet shoved, Shaun snap called and, obviously, the other guy had A8/was thinking on the exact wrong level. (Flop ace; river Shaun's 4 flush.) He then said "I thought you'd fold JJ-99" in chat. Why would anyone ever fold a middle pair on the first hand of a HU SNG?

While Shaun was doing that, I was playing my own weekend donkament sessions and basically posted an 0 for 13 ITM line in non-Cake tourneys while going 3 for 3 on Cake. This made me pretty suspicious that I was playing too much Cake and not adjusting properly elsewhere, which Shaun agreed with. So, when I got back the other night, I played another half dozen donkaments. Results: three random bustouts, one bubble on Stars, one 45'th place on Stars in the 150+12 100K where, as far as I can tell, I just played my cards, and, in my one Cake tourney - the 30r 20K - a second place finish that I got because I lost a 70/30 on the final table 6 handed, chopped another 3:1 3 handed, lost *another* 3:1 heads up and then got coolered/lost a huge flip to end it. Basically, lately, I've owned Cake (both literally and metaphorically) while simultaneously getting nowhere on every other site. It's not really a surprise because I've been putting in such a high percentage of my hands on Cake lately, but it definitely looks like I need to ramp up my aggression on sites that aren't as ridiculously soft as Cake is.

One other thing - the weekend accounted for lots of pics. Most of them are probably terrible :) but will probably be posted anyway :( when Kyle has the time to sort through them. Keep an eye on Kyle's blog - it'll be funny.