Yes, we can edit that Hinkle segment down by about half IYAM. Nothing against a little monotony, when the subject is interesting (Sklansky). But keep it short.
Nice one getting Thor on. I played at his table once, never got into any big pots though.

I understand this is not current according to That Pope's schedule but I eventually remembered a time when it was raining money.

25 years ago I lived in a mountain resort town known for its proximity to a few world class ski hills. It was and likely remains a wonderful place to spend 15 years should one be a little crazy, a little short on ambition or have little interest in anything beyond tomorrow. As long as there was snow on the slopes, women in the bars and 'stuff' incoming from across provincial and national borders life was great. Then there came a day we 'locals' were introduced to someone even more bent than us, and for a week one particular winter life got even better.

A guy by the name of Silver Streak showed up out of nowhere. Apparently a silver lamé ski suit on a double diamond run wasn't satisfying his need to be noticed, so at the end of every ski day he'd hit the bars around town, still wearing his gear and always accompanied by his unnamed friend (escort, buddy, pal, bodyguard or what have you) standing by.

A round for the entire bar got the locals' attention. Then the challenges went out. By way of example, one of the challenges involved sending someone across the street to purchase three 20 ounce prime rib dinners. Whoever consumed the entire meal (baked potato and veggies too) the quickest got a thousand bucks. The dares got bigger throughout the week. Someone was given (earned or won) his ring, which was rumoured to have been worth 5 figures.

Ring aside, it was estimated by various bar staff that he had spent 50 grand that week. For the hordes of 20 somethings with crap jobs who called themselves locals that was big money. He came back the following year, again for a week and did a reprise of the initial visit. I'd bet we were not the only town to experience this dude.


Thor was an inspiration! The Twist more clever than I had previously suspected.

I can't recall whether you take nominations for Bump! or not, and it's not exactly a current poker issue, but it wanted to give a shout to my mate BiggerBoat's thread in the house of blogs:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh....php?t=1358376

He's pretty much dismantled his house and rebuilt it together with the help of the odd Texan casual labourer. It's both a pretty good read, and a pretty impressive piece of work, IMO.

Scissor Sisters Comfortably Numb is so good. Why? You'll be a few minutes in before you realize what it is if you haven't heard/read the title of the track.

Okay - so I love listening to you guys, but I have to call Mike out on this one.

When Adam was bitching about the poker awards, Mike said(rather emphatically) that the Grammy Awards have NOTHING to do with album sales...? WTF?!?

There is no way, with your wide variety of musical tastes, that you can believe that to be true. When was the last time one of your favorite bands got nominated for a Grammy? I think Daft Punk is on like album 12 or something and they are now popular cause their last album went crazy with that one single. Funny.

If Grammys had nothing to do with album sales and were only pure talent-based, none of the current nominees would even get a sniff.

Grammy awards have as much to do with album sales as poker awards have to do with making final tables. Come on Mike.... You can't be serious!?

Seeing this picture makes me beg the question - How does nobody notice that guy who is either raking small pots, losing small pots or neither, is slowly amassing the largest stack in the room?

Greatest cover ever: Johnny Cash covering "Hurt" (by Nine Inch Nails). Go to Youtube, thank me later.

Been loving this for a few years. Confirmed solid cover.

Call me out all you want. Grammy wins and noms are not based on units sold.

From wiki
Grammy Nomination process

Obviously more mainstream artists have greater exposure and their record labels are more likely to submit the work to the academy leading to a higher likelihood of getting nominated but the awards are based on a voting process, not purely on who sold the most records. As opposed to the Billboard Awards and the World Music Awards which openly admit are based on record sales.

From wiki - An example - In 2000, Steely Dan won the award for Album Of The Year for Two Against Nature. The album was nowhere near a best seller. In fact it beat out Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP which is the 2nd best selling album of the 21st century with 22million copies sold.

In 2008, Herbie Hancock won best album for an obscure collection of jazz renditions of old Joni Mitchell songs. It was not until AFTER it won the award that over 95% of the albums sales were achieved.

In 2009 Robert Plant and Alison Krauss won for Raising Sand, a country/bluegrass album that to this day virtually no one has heard.

More recently in 2011, in the category of Best New Artist, a completely unknown jazz singer named Esperenza Spalding won the award. She defeated platinum selling artists Drake and Justin Bieber and had virtually no record sales prior to winning. Indie Folk outfit Bon Iver won in the same category the next year beating Nicki Minaj among others and was nowhere near the top selling artists of the year.

Any awards academy that are giving awards for Best Polka album, Best Spoken Word album and Best Album for Children is not primarily a popularity contest.

obviously I could go on and on.

regarding Daft Punk - they only have 4 albums and are a horrible example to use. RAM is a completely different album than anything they have made before and while it was released under the Daft Punk name is a true collaboration with some of the greatest R&B/dance/pop artists in music history. It's not even in the same genre as their first three albums which were of the techno/house/acid/electro category.

Really enjoyed the Thor Hansen interview. Didn't quite understand why it was immediately followed by the buzz kill minute, but whatever.

I think you're both somewhat correct. The award is not based on sales/airplay, but every nominee will have been a relative commercial success to even enter the field.

Really enjoyed the interview with Thor! What a legend

More on the subject of covers:

Since about 2010 The Onion's A.V. Club has run an awesome project called "A.V. Undercover" which is a series of new covers released weekly. They start with a list of songs from which the artists can choose. Once someone covers a song, it gets crossed off the list. They deliberately pick some songs like M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" that wouldn't seem like they are amenable to a decent cover by a rock band. It's amazing to see what those kinds of songs can become in the hands of real artists. [not meant to be a slam on M.I.A., so save that argument for another time] It's also a great way to discover new (to me) artists, like Baltimore's Wye Oak.

http://www.avclub.com/search?feature...=av-undercover

And because I mentioned it, The Clientele covering "Paper Planes":
http://www.avclub.com/video/the-clie...vers-mia-38870

It really is his song now. I always liked the original, but JC added another dimension to it.

Picture of Adam's new tattoo?

I couldn't save the image from twitter. Depending on your job, Adam's ass may be NSFW:

Thor was awesome and am so happy about the Sklansky Minute return, in short great show.

If someone's raise is less than half the minraise, because he is allin, its called an Under Raise. Next acting player cant reraise its either call or fold. This also happens when the BB has slightly more than SB and its folded to the SB, the BB is considered a raise of SB and it will be an Under Raise, where the SB can fold or call but not (re)raise.
This rule is a bit awkward and removing the minimum limit would necessary mean the removal of the use of the Under Raise rule. But as a satellite player I foresee a new way to stall for time if this happens. And the need for another (ethical) rule to take its place.

Invitational is up:

T#: 859192078

Good pick on the cooking a good steak thread. Spent hours going threw it today. Learned a ton.

+1, I thought Thor was fantastic.

Excellent interview with Thor Hansen.

Here's an interesting cover song, The Gourds version of Gin & Juice. I couldn't find an official video on youtube but here's something http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFmFb9QBjoA .
Snoop seems to like the cover http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asrfBGkGsbo .

I haven't figured out whether that was really David Sklansky or an imitator trying to show how socially awkward he is? If it was for real: his message was false. Criminals do not make some EV judgement based on their punishment, there are a lot of other factors coming in to play. There is a ton of scientific research on this subject, all with the same conclusion: criminal law does not work to deter people from committing crimes. The only function it has is punishment related: retribution etc.

So basically a guy does something good or bad because of his moral compass, (in the great tales of the night shift thread Katana says he did not take a ton of money out of an empty hotel room because 'he did not want to be a thief' although there were no witnesses etc.), and not because he could be punished. I would be happy to give Sklansky the scientific researches into this matter. No need to be cynical about everything.

Really enjoyed the Thor Hansen interview. Wish him all the best.

Great show, guys.

Good show as always; but put story time on hiatus until you can build a bit of material. Rich Ryan was okay. Henkle was difficult to listen to. Ask around. Build content. Then bring it back.

And I vote yes to having blitz on the show. Ask interesting poker, travel, movie questions and stay away from the pros and guns; should be fun.