We are eleven days from touching down in Las Vegas for a weekend of poker, too much Corona, and late night Pai Gow sessions. Thanks to Dr. Pauly, we’re already preparing in whatever way we can for our trip. He’s posted a few invaluable suggestions, and we’ll post our favorites over the next couple of days. First tip today? Sleep deprivation:

"As of right now, cut back on your sleep by 30 minutes every other night. Inside of two weeks, you’ll be down to about 3.5 hours of sleep per night. The average Las Vegas visitor gets around 3 hours of sleep and the average poker blogger gets substantially a lot less.

In roughly 241 hours, we’re wheels down at McCarran. In roughly 244 hours, we’ll be down a cool hundy on the horses. This begs the question, "Can you find value in Las Vegas?" Anthony Curtis at the Las Vegas Advisor thinks so, and posts a monthly top ten values list with some pretty good deals. Here’s a peek:

"3. Shrimp Cocktail – Golden Gate – 11-3 am – 99? – The Ellis Island steak?s longevity in the Top Ten is impressive, but the Golden Gate?s 99? shrimp cocktail (#3) has occupied the list roughly three times longer over LVA?s history, having last been left off for a few months in the fall of 1999 due to competition from a huge cocktail at Joker?s Wild (which, of course, didn?t last).

When you win a hand, do like our dad always told us: Act like you’ve been there before. The WSOP on ESPN has shown us the worst tap-dancing ninnies on the planet, and if you try pulling that shit on us, we’re likely to sit there and take it while fuming in silence cap you one. Fist-pumping is one thing, slow-rolling is entirely another. F-Train managed to find out you can be slow-rolled online, and shares his pain:

"Me: 46s in the SB. Half-price flop of 8-8-5 checks through 4-handed. Turn 4 puts two hearts out, I bet pot to see where things are, two folds, one call.

We’re happy that a poker blog called "Best Poker Blogs" is featuring us as their blog of the week, as it’s possible that these fine folks are completely unaware that we’re not going to be around anymore. Good times. So, we love to return favors and fuck up Technorati, so we’ll give "Best Poker Blogs" our own blog of the week award and feature them as well. Feature them, featuring us, what could possibly go wrong? Here’s what’s new on

Good weekend at the tables for us. We placed third in a fairly tough multi, and took $60 off the suckers our friends in our Friday night home game. Still, we got our ass kicked in the Full Tilt Poker Tournament Chip Sit-and-Gos. Jason Kirk has some idea as to how those tourneys should be played:

· North Dakota is exploring opening their borders to host online casino companies in the state. Just as long as we don’t have to go there to collect, we’re cool. [GrandForksHerald]
· A tuxedoed Phil Ivey ran over the seven-player live tournament on Fox Sports this Thursday. Hope you Tivo’d it, and hope [...]

YOUR NEXT / OUR LAST FIVE DAYS ON THE OVER/UNDER · Percent of posts you’ll see this week pertaining to poker – 62% · Posts dedicated to long-since-cancelled television series – THREE · Minutes of effort AJ will put into his last week of football picks – THREE YOUR NEXT / OUR LAST FIVE DAYS ON THE OVER/UNDER · Percent of posts you’ll see this week pertaining to poker – 62% · Posts dedicated to long-since-cancelled television series – THREE · Minutes of effort AJ will put into his last week of football picks – THREE

The Virgin Mary is crying bloody tears at a Vietnamese church in Sacramento. Does this mean somebody got a little creative with grape Juicee Juice? Most likely. However, let’s look at this from an investment perspective. According to one spooked parishoner at the Vietnamese Martyrs Church quoted in the story, the weeping Mary could mean big, catastrophic things are heading our way:

"There’s a big event in the future ? earthquake, flood, a disease," Truong said. "We’re very sad."

See? DISEASE. And what’s been our favorite disease that we’ve been trumpeting the past two months? BIRD FLU. Yep.

· Great week this week. Start off with an oddly compelling Monday Night Football after a two-day vacation…and then we get canned. · Poker stuff galore. Nobody can say BG’s mailing it in! The man likes his poker.

For those of you hanging on AJ’s picks this week, play or fade, we’ve decided to give you a peek today at the lengthy process he goes through to decide who he’s backing in any given week. The method to his madness, if you will. After the jump, AJ picks ‘em for Saturday and Sunday’s action… HOW WE ROLL

[12:08] BG: you making any football picks today?
[12:08] AJ: Eh, I dunno.
[12:08] AJ: I’ll do them now.
[12:09] AJ: Tampa, Phi, Chicago, Jacksonville, Indy, Buffalo, Miami, and hmm….the Giants.
[12:09] AJ: There.
[12:09] BG: heh