Best of the Grump (so far)

All right, I'll join the rest of the writers of the world in doing a year-end (slightly belated) "best of" list of my own. But two differences. First, since I've only been blogging for about 15 months, I'm going to take the liberty of including everything from the beginning (since the main purpose of this post is to tempt some newer readers into exploring stuff that was put up before they joined, and what the heck do I care if it's from 2007 or late 2006?). Second, it may or may not be ten items. I'll just stop when it feels like I'm done.



I have to include my first-ever post, because it's the rant that got this whole thing started: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2006/10/what-you-threw-away.html


This one amuses me because it's the one by which Google searches most often stumble upon the blog. I think that's funny, because most likely people typing in "poker clothes" are looking to buy poker clothes, not find somebody taunting them about poker clothes. http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2006/11/ugly-poker-clothes.html


This was my first attempt at waxing philosophical, without really being grumpy: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2006/11/loved-or-feared-non-grumpy-content.html


This is overall my favorite post ever, perhaps my best attempt at being funny at the same time as grumpy: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/04/armpit-of-las-vegas-poker.html


This story is still the most startling, eye-opening thing that has ever happened to me while playing poker: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/05/whats-absolute-worst-thing-in-poker.html


I'm going for a double here, because these two posts, I think, were basically what got me my first poker-related radio guest spot, when they were read by James Klosty, then a host of the Hilton's weekly radio show (see http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-radio.html): http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-think-im-going-to-throw-up.html; http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2006/11/crap-underfoot.html


This is just a pointer to something else I wrote that got published in Card Player magazine, my first appearance in the larger poker publishing world. While not particularly important in the big scope of things, it was a milestone for me personally, because it confirmed my thought that I really do have things to say that others will find interesting and/or useful, even though I'm playing $1-$2 games instead of $1000-$2000 games. http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/article-in-card-player-magazine-non.html


This pair of posts remain the one most widely read, after I took the liberty of putting links to them up at a couple of widely read poker forums. I think the overt religiosity at the year's WSOP final table caught a lot of people off guard, and I had a few things to say about the subject that I think weren't said by anybody else. http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/mr-destiny.html; http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-on-religion-at-poker-table.html

I like this post because circumstances were just right to turn one of my most painful poker experiences into what I think is a story so perfectly ironic that I would think the author was making it up, had I not lived it myself: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/irony-poker-story-in-4-parts-non-grumpy.html

This post has a little bit of everything thrown in--grumpiness, movies, my medical background, some poker history, rules discussion, and the kitchen sink (well, not literally): http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-do-poker-movies-have-to-be-so-awful.html

This post isn't characteristically grumpy, but it may be the one that I learned the most from. I ended up having to do a lot of research to figure out the right mathematical approach to the question I posed, and had to revisit it a couple of times with addenda as I learned more. Writing it ended up giving me a big boost in my understanding of how to go about poker probability calculations. http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/08/unlikely-events-non-grumpy-content.html

I'm deeply cynical about politics and the current political scene. I find it endlessly baffling and depressing that the great majority of people, it seems, have a deep urge to control how other people behave--a trait that I do not share. Most of politics is people trying to control others, which I despise. That finally showed through with this post, my first about politics: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/poker-players-are-political-wimps.html

I'm a big fan of Doyle Brunson, so it took an investment of quite a bit of time and research before I was willing to publish a post saying that he was wrong about a point of poker advice: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/doyle-brunson-is-wrong.html

Two of my worst poker experiences ever were both at the Tropicana, stories told in two posts: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/tropicana-home-of-most-obnoxious-poker.html; http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/12/tropicana-poker-room-with-no-rules.html

This is another potpourri post (touching on game shows, probability, the stupidity of the general public, other people's blogs, and Elvis Presley, among other things) that for some hard-to-define reason I just like way more than is probably reasonable: http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/10/chuck-woolery-and-me-non-poker-related.html

The concept of Superman playing poker is just too silly not to love. Incidentally, the "Family Guy" snippet I managed to put up on YouTube got taken down shortly thereafter by the powers that be--something about copyright infringement. http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/11/superman-playing-poker.html

OK, now it feels like I'm done with my Top 16 Or Maybe 19 Depending On How You're Counting List. I hope you enjoyed it.