darren rovell

What would you?

Ace: It’s an emergency. We have to talk about this.

Seth: OH, LET'S GO right here!

BiSB: You could do a Gimmicky Top 20 about this video, and there would still be grievous omissions. It contains multitudes.

Ace: Let’s set the stage: Darren Rovell is playing his first online poker game ever. This surprises me, since I assumed he’d be one of the types who watched the World Series of Poker in 2005 and got obsessed because it was sports with money and that’s Rovell’s entire life. They’re playing Texas Hold ’Em and, in this video, he’s dealt a great hand: Ace-Queen suited (both diamonds).

Importantly, this is the table just prior to the hand being dealt. Rovell, naturally, is “DMoneyWinz,” and we should note a couple more things here:

He’s the short stack at the table. By a lot.

He’s also the big blind for this upcoming hand, so more of his waning money is going in the pot no matter what. Over 11% of his chips will be going into this hand before a card is dealt.

image

BiSB: Also, notice the chat, where he offers the insight that, quote, "I have no money left."

Ace: The first line of this is what some would call “foreshadowing.”

Brian: Darren Rovell is essentially my age, which means he is in the Has Watched Rounders 50 Times, Ten To Fifteen Of Them On Purpose age bracket.

Ace: This age group extends down to my generation thanks to Chris Moneymaker.

Brian: Every American male from my age to Bill Simmons's has a dusty DVD on a shelf somewhere.

Seth: /raises hand

Videocassette.

BiSB: John Malkovich should have won an EGOT for that role.

Ace: It’s almost impossible for someone anyone near his age/demographic/job not to get some poker knowledge by sheer accident.

HE COVERS THE CROSSOVER BETWEEN SPORTS AND MONEY.

Sorry, I’m getting prematurely upset.

Brian: Right. This is just setting the cultural context stage. Everyone on earth knows how to play Hold 'Em now. Let us embark.

BiSB: So, he at least recognizes that suited Ace-Queen is good. Bonus points there.

Seth: Should we discuss his choice of avatar?

Ace: I think it’s a default, another player has it too.

Brian: His alternatives appear to be a turtle, a fox, and an anime lawyer so I get the stogie chomping guy as an option. Turtle is tempting though.

Ace: Rovell also gets a little credit for taking coaching to heart and knowing he should fold the vast majority of his hands.

Brian: DOES HE

Ace: Now, does he apply this knowledge well? Stay tuned.

[After THE JUMP: The flop, the turn, the flop]

This Week in the Twitterverse takes a look at the social media happenings of the previous week, or whatever else I feel like talking about. Mostly I make fun of people who are better at things than I am. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited. Consult your doctor if this column lasts more than four hours. If you come across anything you think should be in next week's column, send it to @Bry_Mac.

 

As of today, I have been married to my lovely wife, Mrs. BiSB (also known as WiSB or J_Mac, but not really), for exactly four years. In that spirit, I thought I would share some of the lessons I have learned in those years, in hopes that my wisdom may save you from some of my missteps.

Your stupidity is noticed, stupid.

When you screw up (and you WILL screw up), you may not always get called on it. You ignored a request to refrain from peeing in the sink  put some pants on, dammit, we have company do the dishes, or you come home from your "quick drink after work" at 2:00 a.m. with a concussion, wearing a loin cloth and reeking of ouzo, and your significant other lets it slide. "I'm a wizard," you think to yourself. "I should rob banks. Or the Louvre." You see, you confused a patient and tolerant person with someone who didn't mind. Turns out, humans tend to notice and respond to stimuli. You are unknowingly making withdrawals from the First National Bank of Spousal Patience, and you never know when your balance will hit zero and crap will hit the fan. To wit:

McKenzie

As we have discussed many times, people send stupid tweets to recruits all the time. The recruits usually don't respond, so the morons tweeting them probably assume either (a) no one notices or cares, or (b) they need to up their trolling game to break through the noise. Turns out, they are just making their respective schools look bad. Shai Mckenzie had a since-deleted back-and-forth with one such Pitt fan, and as a result he’s not feeling the love. I don’t know if he decided to cancel the visit (it was scheduled for today), but needless to say that if you were the fan who cost your team a 4-star running back, your day will not be good.

Sometimes a little space is a good thing

If you've been in a relationship for a long time, you probably enjoy spending time together. Regardless, a little "me time" is a healthy thing for both of you. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and you don't need to share your every thought and every waking moment with your paramour. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Omnipresence makes you this dude:

Turner

Kentucky has jumped to the front of the Inappropriate Twitter Stalkers parade, and this guy is out front waving a Big Blue baton. As you can probably guess, those are all recruits (including Jamarco Jones, who is most decidedly not considering Kentucky anymore). It isn't even that he contacts recruits. It's how OFTEN he's contacting recruits. And what he's saying to them. And how it seems to be the SOLE REASON he has a Twitter account. And... Jeebus, read that feed. He’s mentioned TJ Harrell nearly 50 times in the last two weeks alone. So, based on quantity, quality, use of exclamation points, and overall lack of self-awareness, I declare you, John Turner, to be the TWITTER CREEPER OF THE YEAR OF THE WEEK. This is only the second time I have given this award, so cherish it, BBN hero.

[After the jump, your friends may be on your side, but that doesn't mean they're "helping"]

Sigh

I apologize in advance, but I’m not feeling very funny this week. Some weeks the world just feels really heavy, and it’s tough to pick yourself up, let alone to be amusing for others. Some weeks you just want to sit very still, as if the bad things of the world will quietly move along. You can only hear so much about bombings and fertilizer factory explosions and ricin and shootouts and sinkholes and flooding before you want to just shut the world out just so you don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Martin Richard was 8 years old. Come on. If that alone doesn’t put a damper on your Universe, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Since Monday’s horrors, people have tried to articulate what, other than the obvious, made Boston affect us on such a deep and personal level. In my mind, it is because this tragedy invaded something we foolishly believed to be beyond the reach of such evil. Sports often serve as a welcome escape from the “real world” with all its highs and lows. We prefer the fiction we create that our favorite teams and pursuits are really life-and-death matters. We feel like at the end of the day, there is a floor to how much we can lose. I love Michigan sports, but no matter how devastating a loss might seem (PITCH THE BALL TO STEVE BREASTON), I know that at the end of the day my child is healthy, I have a home and a job, and my dogs will still be happy to see me. We have a presumption of the ‘worst thing that can happen’ in the athletic arena.

So when the “real world” seeps into our cozy little athletic realm, it strikes a special chord with sports fans. I think the reason people reacted so viscerally to Kevin Ware’s injury wasn’t because it was such a devastating long-term injury (he’ll be back playing by next season). It was because it was such a graphic injury that it reminded us that while we like to imagine our athletic world as a comfy bubble that separates us from the dangers of our everyday lives, that bubble is and has always been a fleeting figment of our imaginations.

The Boston Marathon bombings were terrible in so many ways, beyond the obvious horror, fear, death and devastation. This one struck close to home for many people because the Boston Marathon lies at the intersection of our sports world, our national psyche, and our own lives. They attacked a major sporting event. They attacked an iconic American event. And they reminded us all that there, but for the grace of God goes any of us. My wife is running a half-marathon in Indianapolis in a couple of weeks, and if you don’t think Boston will be on my mind, you’re crazy.

Boston itself will be fine. I mean…

Yeah. I’m not worried about Boston. I’m a little bit worried about us. I feel like as much as we need to face our problems, trying to do so every day gets to be too much. We need a few hours every week where our biggest worry is the ability to pick up that A-gap blitz. The horror of Boston reminds us that in the grand scheme of things sports really aren’t that important, but they also remind us why we need sports in the first place.

I guess what I’m saying is that after stuff like this, don’t judge people for jumping back into what they know. After all, there is no wrong way to cope.

Except This

Okay, strike what I said. THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO COPE:

Rovell Marathon

This was the afternoon of the bombing. He’s talking about a number of people who have lost limbs. Would it be nice if the Boston Marathon gave the victims an exemption to run the race? Sure. Would it be nice if they bought everyone a pony? Of course. But Jeebus, man.

On a related note, this may be my last Darren Rovell update. We had a disagreement over my assertion that his request that people tweet him pictures of the Boston bombing was (in the words I would have used had I known he was going to block me anyway) un-f*cking-believably opportunistic and voyeuristic and vulturific and dongish. He responded by deleting our conversation, and becoming the second person to block me. So if anything Rovell-related needs to be featured in this here column, someone let me know.

Rovell Blocked Goodnight, sweet prince.

Worst Ace Ever

You know how I said Rovell was the second person (that I know of) to block me? I’m sure that you, as one who hates unresolved plot points, were saying to yourself, “I must know who the other one was.” Wonder no more. It was, of course, Ace Williams. You all undoubtedly remember Williams as the guy who broke the story that John Navarre was Keyser Soze, and that Michigan Basketball was secretly the Monstars in Space Jam.  But I’ve got some bad news for everyone: Ace is no more.

Farewell Ace

This is what used to be Ace Williams’s feed. His history is Ace’s history. But alas, as is fitting of this Week in Which We Can’t Have Nice Things, this wealth of Michigan knowledge has departed for… something? The icing on the cake is that Ace’s old account, @ChatSportsACE, has already been taken over by a parody account (“Parody Ace Williams”).

Before he left, though, Ace fired off one last hilariously fabricated story (redacted above), the details of which will not be repeated here because it is hilariously fabricated. His “story” has also been parroted by his former employer’s Twitter account, which I will also not link because see above. But for those who are wondering, “BiSB, how can I tell if one of these stories is fake?” It can be hard to tell, but here’s a protip: no one tweets specifics about an “exclusive” story and then waits more than three days to publish the actual story. If you have a scoop, you don’t say, “hey, CBS Sports/ESPN/ABC Sports/Deadspin/MGoBlog, there’s a really awesome story out there. Here’s exactly where to look. I only hope you don’t publish your story before I finish writing mine four days from now.”

Fortunately, no one will ever, EVER mistake Ace Williams for Ace Anbender.

Wrong Ace Easy mistake to make

Never Saw THAT Coming

I’m sure you all remember Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers coach who was fired because we’re all a bunch of wusses. Also because he whipped basketballs at players’ heads and called them f*ggots. But mostly the wuss thing. In any case, Mike Rice is back where he belongs: yelling at kids.

Mike Rice Redux 2

Mike Rice Redux

Sometimes in history a bold visionary will look at two things that don’t belong together, put them together, and become a genius. Sour cream and onion chips, for example, sound like a terrible idea, but are pretty tasty. Likewise, combining Mike Rice, coaching, and 12-year-old girls may SOUND like a terrible idea… yeah its actually an even worse idea than it would appear.

That’s Unusual…

This came from @bryan_starke, and I can’t make much sense of it.

Sloopy

The disconcerting possibility is that the Spartans and Buckeyes are combining forces, but I don’t know. If anyone can explain this I will sleep much better.

Jose Canseco UpdaOMG OMG OMG

Oh. Oh my. Jose Canseco did a Reddit AMA. I REPEAT: Jose Canseco did a Reddit AMA.

Jose

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE CLICK THE LINK: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1clw9o/i_am_jose_canseco_famed_steroid_user_and_former/