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How often does the opportunity come around on an internet poker site when you can lay down a legitimate royal flush in a non-wild card game of casino poker? It’s probably as likely as being hit by lightening, but I had the pleasure of watching it happen online recently from a game dating back to 2007.

It always helps when you start with Ace, King diamonds in the pocket on pokerstars.com. It brought out a $60K raise. By the way, blinds were 10/20K at this point. The bet gets a re-raise from a pair of eights, up by $150K. Now we’re talking.

Quick action from here. An all-in bet and a call. Everyone else is out. Not a very enthusiastic call, either, just a bland, monotone acceptance that this is the way the hand was progressing.

These two guys, Mikkelson with the Ace, King and Lovelace with the pair, are peering over huge, mountains of chip stacks, too. It’s really cool to see as a fan of the game.

The pot currently sits at $765K. Nothing left to do but wait and watch now…haven’t even seen the flop yet.

The PokerStar flop comes out, and it’s 10 of diamonds, Jack of diamonds, Jack of hearts. This draws a big grin and a raise of the eyebrows from Mikkelson. It also draws some comments from the remaining players that folded, knowing full well if he pulls off the big hand, he’ll be “monstrously ahead,” as one of them put it. No doubt about that.

Something else that’s great about all-in hands, is there’s no more secrecy, and you often see players you like watching show a little bit of a different side throughout the hand. A little more personality comes through, a little more chatter. Definitely makes for good television.

Lovelace, by the way, is sitting with his mouth on his fist, getting redder by the second. Enjoying his two-pair but no doubt sweating bullets. The two only catch eyes briefly before the next card.

Six of diamonds…so Mikkelson pulls a flush, somewhat ending the drama. But as the PokerStars.it dealer says, “it’s not over yet!” Is a full house still in the cards? We know, but the players don’t. Still, Lovelace acts defeated, getting up, almost ready to shake Mikkelson’s hand in congratulations. He reseats, rubs his nose, leans back and waits for his fate.

Then it happens, Queen of Diamonds. Ooo’s and ahhh’s from the crowd and the players, and the truest statement of all from Lovelace.

“What a hell of a way to go out.”

You said it.

Rumors…always something to pay attention to when preparing to gamble on sports, but never something to count on until it’s official.

42-year-old, bloody-ankle warrior Curt Schilling is actually looking to get back into the game. Not sure why. But he says his shoulder feels fine. No mention of his legs, arm, conditioning, true desire, patience, durability…you know, the little things. Schilling says if he does return, it’ll be for a championship caliber team, like – and these are his picks – the Rays or Cubs. Funny, those wouldn’t have been my first two choices. And I really don’t see Schilling meshing well with Piniella of all people.

Watch Joe Mauer’s hurt (sore?) abdomen throughout the year. Check out the latest MLB baseball odds for yourself. It looks like he’s progressing well and should/might be ready to go by opening day. But I have a hunch it’ll be one of those things he’s in and out for throughout the season. The Twins are always a gritty team, and surprised everyone by being in the hunt down to the 163rd game of the season last year, but stripping half of the one-two punch that keeps you competitive out of the equation doesn’t bode well for the Twinkies.

Speaking of injuries…the biggest pitcher of them all, Johan Santana, was an early spring scratch. Maybe it’s just me, but when I hear “no case to worry,” I pulling my money away from any early temptation to bet on the Mets. Every year could’ve been “their year” (in the real sense, not the Cubs sense), but there’s always something (Pedro, Yankees, desire, injuries) that holds them back. Santana could be it in 2009.

If the Mets are the NL’s missed baseball betting opportunity, last year in the AL it was the Tigers. And this year so far isn’t infusing confidence in picking Detroit to even make the playoffs. They’ve been a sleeper favorite of mine for a couple months now, but reports of Bonderman being slow to recover from multiple surgeries in the off-season, and being scratched from a recent spring training start, is major cause for concern. When healthy, he’s there ace. When he’s not, it throws the whole rotation out of whack and hurts it down to the No. 5 spot.

And like every year, I’m hearing rumors that the Cubs will win the World Series. I don’t really have to tell a serious gambler that they won’t, do I?

If there’s one thing this season has taught us in college basketball betting, it’s that there is no number one team in the nation. It’s not UConn, it’s sure as heck not Pitt. It’s not a short-handed Oklahoma, who’s seeing their potential seed position in the tournament fall faster than you can say dipsy do dunkaroo.

Baby.

So what does that mean? Two things off the top of my head. First, you definitely won’t see a repeat of the freak occurrence that was four No. 1 seeds in the final four. Won’t happen. If you’re thinking of penciling that into your bracket, allow me to light the bottom with a Zippo before you even turn it in.

Who would the top seeds be right now anyway? Once considered the safe choice, Pitt’s big loss leaves them still in the mix, but teetering on the brink of falling off the perch. They don’t have the friendliest of schedules down the stretch, either.

UConn’s dealing with a major injury of its own. It’s never fair when team’s aren’t playing with a full deck of poker.com cards, but hey, life ain’t fair. Just as Oklahoma. The selection committee isn’t thinking about how good you were, or how good you could’ve been, they’re thinking about one thing. How good will you be? Dyson puts up the points, so without him, UConn’s chances are more wobbly than a Jenga board.

Speaking of injuries, how about them Sooners? Good ol’ JR (look it up) must be crapping in his barbecue sauce right about now. Two tough losses they could blame on the Griffin injury, but just like UConn, the cries will fall on deaf ears. Look ahead to the latest NCAA College Basketbal Odds and a tough match up against Missouri as a backbreaker if they drop it. But as I’ve said before, you can’t trust Missouri to play up to their potential, so an upset, if you want to call it that, might just be in the making. Of course, some experts would have you believe Griffin’s injury won’t have any impact on the team’s seed. Don’t believe it, and certainly don’t bet on it. In my opinion, it already has.

North Carolina? They’re shaky, and they can’t play defense.

Memphis? We’ll see. Decent schedule from here on out, and they’re riding a nice winning streak and a ton of momentum.

Plenty of basketball bets left in the season before we start hammering nails into coffins.

If you want to play poker with your friends instead of strangers at the casino or in an online poker room then one of you is going to need to set-up a home poker game. It’s not very difficult to set-up a small home poker game with your friends, but there are a few things you need to make sure you remember and we’re going to look through those things in this small guide.

• The first thing you want to do before going through the trouble of setting up a poker home game is make sure that your friends can come to the game on the date you want to play the game. If your friends can’t make it then it’s better knowing this before you spend time setting the game up so make sure you plan the poker game in advance and make sure everyone can make it.

• Once you know your friends can come to the game then you need to figure out where you’re going to play the game. A dining room table works best because you’ll already have chairs and everything, but it’s up to you where you want to set the game up. Just make sure you have enough chairs for all of the players who plan to make it to the game.

• The next thing you need to make sure you have ready is the chips you’re going to use. You also need to ensure that you have enough chips for everyone who is going to be playing so that you don’t need to play short stacked games. You can find cheap chip sets online at many of the poker manufacturer’s websites.

• You should plan out the structure for the poker tournament and the blind structure as well. You need to determine the payouts before you play and you also need to have the blind structure set-up so everyone knows when the levels will change before they begin playing. You don’t want to plan the game once everyone is sitting with chips because then there can be too much confusion and arguments which you don’t want to deal with at a friendly poker game.

• You should have some drinks and snack food for the game in case your friends get hungry and thirsty while playing. Usually some pop and finger food works just make sure that the finger food isn’t greasy or have sauce. Candy works the best as it doesn’t ruin the cards that you’re using and it’s not like you’re serving a gourmet meal it’s just some munchies while playing.

If you spend a bit of time planning out your home poker game it’ll run much smoother and you won’t need to worry about running into any obstacles. If you have everything planned out well before the tournament then all of your friends will know about it and you can get down to playing poker when you meet up for the game. Keep the stacks reasonable as well because not all people can afford losing a couple hundred bucks on a pocker night.