BUSY WEEKEND BUT NOT TOO BUSY

Now that my little league coaching has slowed down, I have had a little more time to play some poker when I am not breaking down the games. I have been going to Vegas and playing 100-200 limit hold-em or 25-50 PLO for about 10 years. Oklahoma now has poker and that combined with the explosion of TV poker has made for an interesting few years. Poker is a lot like golf, most players think they are a lot better than they actually are and there are lots of "good" players and very few "great" players. The most interesting thing about poker, are the players. Anyone with the money can play and there are all types of people. One time, I was playing and a guy (after losing a big pot) decided to go to the bathroom all over himself! That was odd enough but after the table learned what he had done the only thing people said to him was "it's your bet." I am hosting a poker tournament @ the Lucky Star Casino tomorrow called The Fat Jack's Just in Time for Christmas, 15,000.00 Free Roll. I love these events because I get the chance to talk to a lot of poker players, some of which are clients, and get out of the office on a Saturday. These events are ALWAYS sold out and great for myself and the casino. We are giving away a lot of money and the cash games should be good.

Tomorrow is a big day. The first day of December and our first release of a game in which we press our bet up. Winning will get the holiday season off to a good start.

Taking the family to breakfast and then poker after that. If nobody wets themselves it should be a good day.

FOOTBALL AND SHOPPING

Well, Thanksgiving is over. That means 2 things. Bowl season is right around the corner and its time to start thinking about Christmas. I really think this is one of those situations that if you combined the best of Christmas, Hanukkah and Festivus you would have a better holiday for everyone. Jewish people have the best idea about presents. A gift each day for a couple of weeks is a much better idea than a lot of gifts on one day. If you have kids you know what I mean. It is hard to make kids see the value of the giving when all it seems like they are doing is receiving. The best part of Christmas is why we celebrate it. The birth of Jesus Christ is the best reason I can think of to shut down the banks and give most people the day off. I do love some of the qualities of Frank Costanza's Festivus. I mean poles are cheaper than trees and better for the environment and I would fair pretty well in the "feats of strength" part of the celebration. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, rent season 2 of Seinfeld.

For those of you that are betting on the games you need to sign up now! We rebounded from our worst week in 3 seasons with another winning week. I have been pretty good over the last 10 seasons of following up bad weeks with good ones. I know a lot of you are thinking of quiting because of the holidays. Keep one thing in mind, It is not the betting your wife hates, its the losing. If you start winning, I promise you wife's view of your hobby will change.

Happy shopping and have a good week.

THANKSGIVING TURKEY RETRACTION

After a heated pre-thanksgiving debate with Mrs. Fat Jack, I am retracting the following from the last blog entry entitled THANKSGIVING AND TURKEYS.

1. I have never spent A LOT of time with a group of turkeys. Most of my turkey research comes from TV and there is a small possibility that I watched a group of dumb or mentally retarded turkeys.

2. Due to this fact, there is a small chance that some turkeys are smarter than pigs or cows. Since this is a possible, I had no right to call ALL turkeys "stupid" and "dumb".

3. God created turkeys so they do have value.

Now I hope we can put all of this turkey slamming behind us and my wife will get back in the kitchen and please finish my fruit salad.

Nobody wins when Mrs. Fat Jack goes on a cooking strike!!!

Happy Thanksgiving.

THANKSGIVING TURKEYS

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I bet if you asked most people why we celebrate Thanksgiving, they would need to think for a second before answering. I mean most people KNOW why we have Thanksgiving but it is one of the only holidays that we don't do anything to remember the event that started it all. Easter, we go to church. Labor Day- we don't work. Memorial Day- We go to graves and honor the fallen men and women that made it where we can again, not work. Even with birthdays, we put the # of candles that show our age. At least until you turn 50 or so. But Thanksgiving,we don't do anything but eat and watch football. I am sure the meal has some symbolic value but I am also sure the pilgrims didn't have access to my sweet cornbread dressing and fruit salad. The ONLY thing I can see the pilgrims eating that we eat is the turkey.

Now that we are on the subject of turkeys let me say, I have watched the last cooking show I am going to sit through that shows people what they can make if they don't want to cook turkey. I wondered why anyone would not want to have turkey at Thanksgiving! That's like having birthday cake without candles or having Easter without eggs. That is just plain crazy!! Apparently some vegetarians are offended when turkey is served. Well, I am offended when a vegetarian is invited to Thanksgiving dinner but I just keep my mouth shut and eat my pie. By the way, have you ever been around turkeys? I mean really spent some time with one? Well, I have and they are the dumbest animals in the world! One turkey does something and ALL of the other turkeys do exactly the same thing. It is "chasing the jones'" in its purest form. I would go so far to say that if there is one animal that deserves to be eaten, its the turkey. Anything that dumb needs to taste good to serve any purpose on the earth. I don't see cows or pigs getting presidential pardons. Both of those animals are A LOT smarter than a turkey. So this year on Thanksgiving, count your blessings and thank God that he made a bird that is that stupid and that worthless yet so damn tasty!! And enjoy your turkey. Happy Thanksgiving and God bless you all.

DETROIT+3 1/2,ARIZONA STATE+3 AND THE ARIZONA STATE GAME TO GO UNDER 49 POINTS.

MY THANKSGIVING PARLAY FOR YOU. GOOD LUCK!!

MY TRIP TO KNOXVILLE

Last week I went to Knoxville, Tennessee. I did some radio stuff, talked to some clients, and had a good time. I took my son with me. Kind of a "go to work with daddy" trip. I struggle with how much to let my kids know about what I do. I think the guy that owns The Jack Daniels Company might can relate. You would want to show your son how what you do is helpful and profitable but worry about him showing up at the whiskey factory ass hammered drunk yelling "give me another bottle! Do you know who I am?" As in a lot of businesses, moderation and discipline are keys to success.

I took 3 things from Knoxville.

1. They are some of the kindest people around. Although I don't subscribe to this school of thinking, people in Oklahoma pride themselves on being polite and nice to strangers. The people in Knoxville are easy going and seem to care about only two things, manners and Tennessee football.

2.The women are HOT. I mean all of the women. From 21-60 years old. It doesn't matter what they were wearing. During the football game, EVERYONE was wearing orange. Orange is not a flattering color on most people but somehow these ladies pulled it off. Southern beauty is alive and well in Knoxville.

3. EVERYONE in Knoxville LOVES Tennessee football. People in Oklahoma and most parts of the country love a few teams. There isn't a Tennessee State to balance out the team spirit. The evening news started "54 people were killed downtown, in a tragic bullfighting accident ,BUT first lets see how the Vols did today!" Of course, I'm kidding, but it really is Vols football first and everything else second.

I try to get out to a lot of the cities that run my show because I like to meet my clients,face to face. I pride myself on being able to look someone in the eye and tell if they are full of s*** and I think a lot of my clients like to be able to look me in the eye and know I am on their team and I do truly care if they win.

Maybe that's just a southern thing but it did get my son and I to beautiful Knoxville.

After the horrible week I won my Monday night selection running my MNF record to 11-3 AND won again in basketball! Things are back on track and I am looking for a great Thanksgiving weekend.

MY WORST WEEK IN 2 YEARS.JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!YEE HEE!!

Well, I guess it was bound to happen. I dropped off one of those football weeks that will make even the most disciplined gambler ask themselves " why in the world would I choose to do this?" I lost Monday night( my 3rd loss of the season and only 5th in the last 2), I had Oregon on Thursday night (lost my QB in the first quarter), Saturday, I didn't get my first win until the sun had gone down and I would tell you about my NFL wins, except I didn't have any!!!!OUCH!!!

  Now for most handicappers and almost all gamblers the week I had is common place. They have these once a month or so.  I view if a little different. Saying " well it happens to everyone" would be fine if I was just your average bettor.I feel like since I charge money for my picks I am required to do better than that. It would be like you going to the doctor for a tummy tuck to lose a few LBS and waking up to see your right arm is gone and the nurse saying "it happens to everyone, we cant get it right every time!"  You are paying them to do a job and when they fail its not ok.  Thats not to say I win every day or every week but I hold myself to a higher standard than most handicappers. The only saving grace is that I did go 8-3 in the last 8 days of basketball selections (thank God for that!!) AND I was 7-3 last week so we just had to give back that profit.

The only people that don't care about that AT ALL, are the ones that waited to sign up until last Thursday or Friday.They were welcomed to the Fat Jack Family with a heart felt " good luck" and a big time losing weekend!!!! SH*/0!!0/*(**)##!!!2 **!!!!!

Ok enough of that. It is a marathon and not a sprint.I will take care of the new clients,the older clients know "it is gambling" and also know I rarely have those weeks. I will turn it around starting today and continue what has been a good season overall AND  if I can keep the hoops going at this high % the month looks great!!

If you are thinking about signing up. You waited just long enough to miss out on that week and I ALWAYS win with tryptophan in my system!! You can get the rest of the month hoops and football for only 199.00.

another entry coming tomorrow!!!

HOOPS,FOOTBALL AND THE WEEKEND

This will be short and sweet. Basketball has started. For most people this isn't a big deal. For me it means a lot more work. Basketball is very profitable but has a lot more volatility than football. More risk but more reward. That formula means more pressure for me to get it right, and get it right early. Guys will try basketball but if you don't win early, they will jump off the train and only play the football selections. It is a long season and normally a very profitable one.

I am going to Knoxville tomorrow to meet some of my clients and do some pre-game radio for the Tenn vs. Vandy game. I am taking my 8 year old son and am very excited. We have never been to Tennessee but if they have a store where I can buy him all you can eat chips and all you can drink root beer, he is guaranteed to have a good time. I lost my first Monday night game in 8 weeks. I really enjoy the week a lot more when I win Monday nights. It makes the week better and a lead going into the weekend is a always a nice thing. The weekend card looks good so we have a good chance to have another winning week.

In the 'things I don't understand" file.- The lead story on the local news is the story of a skin head that went out and killed a homosexual that he had never met. Guys that decide to do this clearly haven't thought it through. I mean the skin heads were sitting around hating the thought of men having sex with each other. They put down their swastikas, grabbed a beer and went looking for a man that likes to have sex with another man. When they found one they stole his car, kidnapped him and killed him. If they had bothered to buy a television and turned on CSI they would have known they were going to get caught and be put on trial for murdering a man that has sex with other men. When convicted they are going to go spend the rest of their life in jail where they will, you guessed it .....have sex with other men. Talk about a bad circle of life!!

BUSY WEEK BUT A GOOD ONE

I am sorry for the delay on the blog updates. It is weird, I am not sure who is reading these entries but I do feel an obligation to keep them current. Lets start with the picks. 7-3 last week. For those of you that don't bet on the games, that is a good week. All of our wins were easy and all of all of the losses were easy. That is a good thing. The worst thing you can have is a game that looks great and then turns out to be a loss. That takes some of the fun out of gambling. It is better to have releases like Boise State over Utah State(Boise won by 50) and losses like S Miss over Memphis ( S Miss was a big favorite and lost the game.) Either way they were easy and when you have 7 wins and only 3 losses, that is a good week.

I coached my son in the Norman 8 year old flag football Super Bowl. Coaching this team has been quite a learning experience. I have talked about the behavior of some of the parents and other coaches but I will tell you that the team we played had great parents, players and the classiest coaches of any of the teams we faced. Let that be a lesson to all of you little league coaches, if you allow the kids to have fun and act like an adult, you may find yourself in the championship game. If you scream like a spoiled idiot when you are coaching you will probably find yourself watching the big game from the sidelines and being talked about in some idiots blog. The kids will keep reminding you that they are kids if you will just listen to them. We were getting ready to play the "big game" and I told our team we were going to quickly go over and listen to the National Anthem, the officials were going to go over a couple of things and then we were going to come back over to the field and " win a championship". I thought I had given a great speech that was sure to inspire and instruct our team all at the same time. When I was done with my speech, a hand rose from one of my players. I asked him what his question was. I was sure it would be about rather we were going on offense or where he would be playing in the game. He looked at me and said "Coach Fat Jack will there be snacks served at the flag thing?" I responded "Justin, I love where your head is at but regretfully, no snacks until after the game." The parents really care about the game but the kids are just looking for a good snack.

I went to Tulsa for a couple of reasons but only played a few hours of poker. There was a good $50.00 to $300.00 A-5 Triple Draw game and I did make some money. If you don't know what that means, it ok . You just haven't played a lot of cash game poker. Which for a lot of people is a good thing.

I will have another entry Wednesday as I have a few things I think will entertain. Have a good week and may all of your snacks be great this week.

Oh, for those of you that care , we did win the championship. My son got a big trophy and I wasn't crowned coach of the year. No big upset there.

LITTLE LEAGUE= LITTLE CLASS

I know this is talked about a lot but I am seeing some things I have heard about, for the first time.

I have 2 children. My daughter is 5 and is a world class soccer player. By "world class," I mean, she is MY favorite soccer player in the entire world. Pele is a distant second. Her teams don't keep score and I like it that way. After each game, the girls would look at me and ask, "coach Fat Jack, did we win?" As luck would have it, we DID win every game no matter how many goals we scored. Everyone left happy.

Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those "everyone deserves a trophy" kind of guys. In fact (not to brag) I was on a number of state championship teams growing up, won the state 12 years and under Championship in wrestling (heavyweight division), of course, was a team captain and MVP of my 6A football team, a member of the All Decade Norman High football team 1980-1989, signed a football scholarship coming out of high school, and won a number of other awards in sports during my life. So, I do understand the benefits to winning while growing up.

What I don't understand are some of the people that show up to my sons football games. There is more screaming at these games than at a showing of Saw IV. You might be thinking, it must be the trailer park parents that are looking for their kids to be a meal ticket. Yes, there are some of those but I am most surprised by the successful people. These are lawyers, judges, doctors etc. that are acting like they have bet their last dollar on their kids team! The other night there was a close play in the end zone. It appeared our player might have stepped on the back line when catching a pass. The other coach and about 3 of the other teams parents started acting like their mouth was on fire and began screaming at these officials. Normally, I mind my own business when controversy breaks out but it was too much. I was coaching our team so I started screaming at the $7.00/hour refs, " GO TO THE INSTANT REPLAY!!" Then I went over to the coach on the other team and said "THROW THE RED FLAG!! I AM SURE YOU ARE RIGHT JUST MAKE THEM LOOK AT THE TAPE!!!" The coaches and parents looked at me like I was on fire.

I guess what I am saying is that when YOU as a parent are more upset and vocal than the 8 year old players on the team, something is wrong. Whatever happened to "show some composure in the eyes of controversy?" How about "show some class when things don't go your way." and " you can tell a lot about a person by watching them when things aren't going their way?" These are the things I took away from playing sports. It is easy to be a good winner but how you handle yourself when you are losing shows your true colors. It seems these most important rules are the hardest to teach my child when a grown successful man is throwing a fit at an 8 year old flag football game.

By the way...some of you guys may read this and disagree with me saying "I'm not a loser for yelling when my kids get a bad call." If your kid us under 16 years old...Look in the mirror and tell yourself " I am the loser he is talking about." and then show some class at the next game. Your kids will thank you later.

SPAM EMAILS AND MY PACKAGE IS FINE!!!!

Now, I can take this topic a few different ways. I can make it rated PG, R or even worse. It is this fact that I have to made it a topic in my blog.

The old saying "there is a sucker born everyday" must be on the wall of every office that sends out this junk. Most of us that get these emails immediately delete them, but they must work, otherwise they wouldn't be sending them. I am fascinated by the companies that have decided that this is the mark their company wants to leave on the world. If ALL spam emails were from fraudulent companies it would be easier to shut the spam down. The fact is some well known companies use this as a way of invading us. I would think a company that, gave you a snickers candy bar and then tells you if you to send 5 candy bars to 5 of your friends, you would be guaranteed 50 candy bars in one month, that would work. That scheme would be much better than the ones I keep getting.

I get around 40-60 spam emails per day around 30% are from Nigeria or some country that wants to give me untold riches. I pass. 10% are from some companies that are trying spam as a form of advertising but the bulk of the emails are from Viagra or some penis enlargement scheme. Now, I have never checked into penis growth stuff on my computer. I have never sent away for any "bigger is better" potion. In fact, I thought I was doing fine in that area. I know we all measure from different points but I think I am fine no matter what system you are using to measure. Clearly. the word in the spam offices is that I need help! Even if I needed help, I have now been married for 14 years and my wife knows what she is getting each time we say goodnight so it might just confuse things if I was a different size. I think I may return one of the emails that says "I am married and my wife knows its too late for repair." I wish Viagra would back off as well. I definitely don't need that. In fact if they make an "Anti Viagra" they might want to send me a free sample of that.

I know most of you are saying "this is WAY too much information!" I agree and as soon as the spam stops I will stop.

New England plays Indy today. This is going to be a great game and to be honest with you I have no idea who is going to win. We won again yesterday and are looking to having another winning week if today goes well.

Denver+3, Houston+3 and the Tampa Bay game to have more than 38 points. These are the 3 releases for today.

Consider them a free gift from the anti spam handicapper. Hope your week goes well. Going to Tulsa for a poker tournament this week. I will let you know how it is going.