Just like ~98,699,699 other people, I gathered with some friends for our yearly Superbowl get-together.  In addition to the game, we have a pre-game poker tournament.  Typically having between 12-15 participants, this years poker tournament was a little smaller with just 10 of us matching wits across the felt.  I’ve been considering getting back into poker after my 1.5 year (except for a few weeks here and there) absence from serious play.  After a few hours of play, we finally whittled our game down to three of us, including myself.  I was extremely proud of my play at that point as I hadn’t had anything to work with from my cards and able to make several moves and outright pot-steals to continuously keep my stack healthy.  

After that point, however, the three-way match became a bit of a crapshoot as the blinds grew and grew while we were unable to do anything but move the chips around from person to person.  Eventually, a hand saw all of put our money in the center and ended the tourney when my hand knocked out both Mike & Jason at the same time.   The victory did nothing to reduce my renewed interest in poker.

The poker tournament had dropped to 3 people around the start of the Superbowl and didn’t finish until The Boss was singing at halftime… an epic finale, at least in duration.  Fortunately, much like last years Superbowl which was extremely boring until the last 2 minutes, this years Superbowl was pretty dull until the final quarter (the remarkable play to end the 1st half not-withstanding).  Arizona had a remarkable rally in the 4th and looked set to upset the Steelers in a game that until that point, had looked like the one-sided game many of us thought it would be.  When Fitzgerald was running in his second TD reception with 2 minutes to go, all of us were on our feet.  As it turned out, Pittsburgh answered in dramatic fashion and quieted all of us underdog fans.  The better team won on Sunday but Arizona gave us something to cheer for.