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Submitted by Jetsetpoker on Friday, August 22, 2008 at 2:00 AM EST
 I’m moving on up! To the east side! With the deluxe apartment in the sky. Well ok no apartment but I do get a cool jacket. Welcome to the very first main page edition of Shuffle Up and Deal. Some of you might have read me before most of you probably have not. So let me introduce myself, I go by the name of Jetsetpoker. I play poker for a living as you will see from my future column’s. I have always been a life long wrestling fan and after playing poker for so many years I realized that poker and wrestling aren’t that much different. Before I hop into things let me give a big thanks to my fellow main pager and friend, Romans. When I decided to write a year ago I tried messaging some of the people I always read on here for years, like Tito. In typical Tito fashion, he couldn’t be bothered by a commoner like me. So then I messaged some religious guy named Romans for some advice and never looked back from there. Romans helped me out not only as a writer but as a person. The guy is a great friend and willing to help anybody if need be. Make sure to read his stuff. I’ll get to the boring wrestling stuff in a second but I just have to ask, am I the only one getting hyped for Football starting soon? The Lions have their first game in 2 weeks and I can’t wait. Well, I could wait for the Lions but not for football in general. Baseball has been entertaining this year but for some reason I haven’t been into it as much as in the past. Might have to do with the fact that my Detroit Tigers are the biggest bunch of overpaid bums this side of the Yankee’s but who knows. Its pretty damn sad that you can put together such a talented team and still barley be over .500. I was planning on going to the game this weekend but screw that. This team isn’t worth spending my money on. Renteria has been a bust. When we traded JurrJens for him I knew it was a bad trade. I was hoping we would send Minor or Thames for Renteria. Anything but JurrJens, You could see the potential in that kid every time he pitched. Renteria is the least of our problems though. You got Dontrel Willis who is struggling in single A ball. Yes, I said that correct. SINGLE A ball! You got Zumaya who is dead set on not throwing his fast ball now. Maybe if he would stop playing Guitar Hero and ripping tendons in his hand he could still throw 100 MPH. Add that to a slew of overpaid hitters who don’t produce and you got the Detroit Tigers. And to think, all I have to look forward to is the Detroit Lions. Ugh….Its going to be a long year. Let’s get those cards shuffling...  This is when I actually have to talk about wrestling, eh? Damn. From what I have been reading around the net it seems like Summerslam is being regarded as one of the best PPV’s of the year. I can’t really disagree with that but then again I think I have only seen like 2 PPV’s this year so I’m not exactly the best person to ask on that. Plus you can’t forget about the ROH cards that are suppose to be THE BEST WRESTLING EVARAR!!!!$!$$!!!! I did however happen to catch Summerslam this year and I personally wasn’t disappointed. I enjoyed it but that also might be due to the help of my fine friend known as Miller Lite. Speaking of drinking, do not go to the bar to watch a PPV. It had to of been the most pathetic sight of trailer park trash I have ever seen. Everyone smelled, they were re-enacting the matches like somebody would at a Star Wars convention, and they wouldn’t shut up with the damn WOOOOO”S! I swear if I had to hear one more WOOOO! At that bar I was going to punch somebody right in the fucking face. So unless your one of those trailer park trash obnoxious typical wrestling fan, take my word for it and avoid the bar. If you are one of those types of fans then uhmm…I’m Sorry? The PPV opened with a solid match between MVP and Jeff Hardy. It seems like both men are kind of getting lost in the shuffle over on Smackdown. Ever since MVP’s feud with Matt Hardy ended his stock has been going down quicker then Tammy Sytch for some crack. It was nice to see MVP pick up the win. Can somebody tell me the last time he won a match on a PPV? Yeah, that’s what I thought. The solid opener was followed up with the awesomeness that is Glamarella. Whoever got the idea to pair Santino and Beth up together had a stroke of genius. Unless it was Pat Patterson, I ain’t stroking anything of his. While I loved every minute of Santino running around like a moron with the belt, I was slightly confused. Kofi Kingston was just finally starting to get over big time. All the schmucks at the bar were doing the stupid hand clap thing so he must be catching on. I fear that if they take the title off Kingston he is going to disappear in the mid-card of RAW. RAW is so stacked that it would be easy for Kingston to get lost in the mix. If Santino is only going to be a temporary champion then I’m all for it. After getting pumped up to see Santino win the Intercontinental title, the WWE took all the mark in me away with that abortion that was a ECW title match. Matt Hardy always has been and always will be one of my favorite wrestlers. Don’t ask me why. I have no good reason. It’s something I should be ashamed of I know. I guess it’s kind of like the fat chick you fuck when you’re drunk but you don’t tell anybody out of fear of getting made fun of. That or E-fedding. I just don’t understand what the point of having that result is. It makes Henry look incredible weak and doesn’t really do anything for Matt either. I know that it shouldn’t matter because it’s only for the ECW title which is worth about as much as one of those fake titles at Wal-Mart ($8.92! Rollback Prices!). I guess that’s why the title has no worth to it anymore. Come on just let Matt Hardy win a damn title already!! Bring back Mattitude!!! Ok, sorry about that. I turn into a fat goth chick rooting for Jeff Hardy when I start talking about Matt Hardy. I apologize. Uhmm…Oh Yeah, Punk vs JBL for the title. Some of you might know that I am not exactly CM Punk biggest supporter but I thought he did well in this match. It’s not to easy to carry JBL to a good match and Punk did just that. While I was rooting for a JBL win, I don’t mind Punk going over. Especially if it means Jericho gets to become the man to take the title off of Punk. Over/Under does Punk lose the title at or before Survivor Series? I’d take the Under. Am I the only person who is a fan of the Great Khali? Yup, guess so. I was actually rooting for him to go over HHH. I really didn’t think his first title run was that bad. Sure he isn’t exactly a technical masterpiece but I mean he does his job well. Who wants to see a 7 foot giant doing german suplexs anyways? I think that HHH’s reign as champ has been incredible bland and boring. For some reason, I can’t seem to care at all about H as the champ. Maybe it’s the lack of credible contenders or maybe it’s just H himself but either way I am not buying what he is selling. Give the title to Umaga ASAP! Then after that match we had the supposed EPIC match up that was suppose to be of monumental proportions. Sadly for me, I didn’t really care about this match one way or the other. If Batista won, great. If Cena won, great. Either way I really didn’t give a damn due to the fact I am not really a fan of either guy. I don’t mind Batista, I don’t mind Cena but will you see me rooting for them? No. I will admit though that the match was pretty damn good. Not amazing, but very solid action nonetheless. However it wasn’t the best match on the card. That goes to the main event. Hats off to Edge and Undertaker for putting on a awesome match inside that Cell. Both men brought they’re A game to the ring and it showed. Edge took some pretty sick bumps. Nothing like the bumps Foley use to take but then again nobody is as crazy as Foley was nowadays. Edge spearing Undertaker threw the cage was a pretty damn cool moment along with Edge getting chokeslammed threw two tables. All around A+ effort from both men and I would say that it was a perfect ending to the almost year long feud those two men have had. Overall I would say that Summerslam was pretty enjoyable and leaves a lot of questions to be answered over the next few weeks as to which direction the WWE is going to go heading into the Fall/Winter months. Enough about Summerslam though. Let’s get to the main event...  I imagine most of you reading this have probably played Texas Hold’Em in some form. Rather it be for fun with some friends, a cash game, strip poker with the neighbor, or a tournament it really doesn’t matter if you’re a experienced player or not. I imagine that there are a lot of hardcore poker players who will probably read this column and understand what I am saying better then others but don’t worry I will try to keep it simple. I mostly play cash games now but when I first started playing poker I use to play a lot of tournaments. Tournaments are a easy way to win a big amount of money at once without risking a whole lot. They are great for building your bankroll because like I said before you might be able to buy in for $100 but if you win the tournament you might make say $4000. Or you could suck like Random and make nothing. Either way you get my point. When I use to play tournament poker I noticed that after a while the players would start to know what I was going to do before I did it. If I had been playing tight (not playing a lot of hands, only playing very good hands) whenever I made a raise they would fold because they knew I had to have a good hand. If I was playing loose (like Lita) I was bluffing a lot and they would catch on to that. I needed to make a adjustment to my game at the right time. I needed to change gears. Changing gears is one of the most important things you can do in poker. It allows you to mix up your game and combine being both tight and loose at the same time. It makes it harder for the other players to know what you’re going to do at anytime. Any successful tournament player will tell you that one of the keys to winning is knowing when to change gears. While it might work early on in the tournament to play one way eventually you will need to play a different way. You might be asking yourself, “What the hell does this have to do with wrestling and why am I still reading this shit?” My guess would be that you haven’t had any porn popups since you started or else you’d be gone. As to what changing gears has to do with wrestling? I believe when done at the correct time it is one of the most important things to a wrestler’s career. Let’s take a look at a few examples of what I mean.  Sure, that’s the Edge everybody remembers now but don’t forget it wasn’t that long ago that this use to be the Edge everybody knew...  After turning heel in late 2003, Edge wasn’t really going anywhere with his career. Well he did get many stints to the IR but that’s about it. He was basically just collecting a paycheck. Everybody knew he had talent but for the first time in Edge’s career he had became rather boring. He was extremely bland as a heel. He played your typical coward heel and couldn’t really get heat with the fans because he was still kind of goofy. When Edge came back in 04 he started to show more intensity. He made it clear that he wasn’t around anymore to please the fans, his goal was to win the world title. After tweaking his gimmick more and more each month, He really started to get comfortable with his new badass heel persona. He was paired up with Lita at the time which paved the foundation for the Edge/Matt Hardy real life feud that was about to begin. Little did Edge know that banging Lita behind Hardy’s back was the best thing he could do for his career. He became hated even more then he already was and got catapulted as one of the top heels in the WWE. He would go on to win the first ever MITB and the rest is history. He surprised everybody by cashing it in at the most opportune time and defeated the big and mighty John Cena to finally win the World Title. Thus the Rated-R superstar was born. Edge knew that he was at a crossroads in his career and if he wanted to make it to the next level he was going to have to make a drastic change. Sure the goofy heel worked for the first half of his career but its time to evolve into something better, something more bad ass. Edge came into himself as the Rated-R superstar and is still to this day one of the top guys in the business. Without changing gears Edge might still just be that goofy heel. Or he could be stuck in TNA with Christian *shudders*  Chris Jericho has always been one of my favorite wrestlers to watch. He is always entertaining and you can count on him for a good match. You always knew what you were going to get with Y2J. A loudmouth cocky performer who with the right opponent can put on a 5 star match. While that was always a strong point of Jericho, it was also his weak point. Jericho has been pretty much the same character for the last 5-10 years dating all the way back to his WCW days. Rather Jericho was a face or a heel it didn’t really matter. As a heel he would still get cheered due to his entertaining nature. As a face he could never be taken seriously because he would come off as a novelty act. When Jericho finally returned to wrestling earlier this year nothing really changed. Sure, he had a new haircut and a new book to sell. Along with the fact that he was hear to “save us” but really he was just the same old Chris Jericho everybody knew. Except this time it wasn’t so cool. It could be because he is a bit older now and trying to play that hip funny prankster in your 30’s might not work. Or it could just be that his character was getting stale. Probably more of the later. After a lackluster return Jericho was starting to get stuck in dud feuds with the likes of JBL. It made you wonder why did Jericho even come back if this was all he was going to do? Little did we know that Jericho had more in store for us then his usual old shenanigans (awesome word!) After receiving a luke warm reception from the crowd Jericho entered into a feud with HBK. In the past 3 months Jericho has completely revamped his character into a complete badass heel who is sick of being a joke. Jericho has shown a intensity in his promos and matches that he has never shown before. Out goes the goofy comments and long hair, in comes the serious Jericho who no longer cares about the fans. He only has one goal, the World Title. All it took for Jericho to turn his career around was a little tweak to his character. In my opinion it’s the best thing that Jericho has done since coming to the WWE. He is easily the best thing that the WWE has going for it and he only keeps getting better and better each week. Jericho is another perfect example of how changing gears that the right time can “save” a career. However, nobody changed gears better then this next man...  Talk about re-inventing a career. Rather you like Hogan or not you have to admit that what he did shocked the wrestling world. It’s one of those rare moments in wrestling that you will never forget. Eh, what am I saying half the people reading this probably weren’t even watching wrestling back then. Mr. eat your vitamins and say your prayers brother shocked the world when he showed up at Bash at the Beach as the third member of the New World Order. It was the main reason that WCW was able to shift the tide from the WWE to the WCW. Without Hulk Hogan changing gears, WCW would have been dead quicker then ECW. Hulk Hogan always played such an uber babyface that you could never even dare think of him being a heel. It was a genius idea. Hogan had been getting stale as a face which really isn’t a surprise when you do the same damn act for 15 years!!! Don’t get me wrong I grew up on Hogan. I was a huge Hogan mark when I was a kid. Hell, I use to sing I am a real American all the time. That’s still a badass tune by the way. But let’s face the facts Hogan’s act was starting to dry up quicker then a married women after her first kid. Hogan knew he had to do something different. He probably had been waiting for the opportunity to change gears. So when they finally gave him the green light to do it, he took his ball and ran. This is a prime example of why changing gears can revitalize a career. Hogan was a dying act and because of his heel turn he turned into even more of a legend then he ever was. Without Hogan’s well timed gear change we might not see wrestling the way it is today. I know I don’t miss the days of seeing Warrior suck of Hogan. Screw it, I’m all in...  As you can see, changing gears in wrestling isn’t that much different then changing gears in poker. It can be extremely successful and make you in to a star. On the other hand it can also bomb. While I showed you 3 cases that were perfect examples of successful gear changes their has been many cases where the wrestler doesn’t ever really recover from trying to change gears. Just ask Eugene or Beaver Cleavage. Not that Beaver Cleavage ever really had much going for him before hand. What ever happened to that guy? Same thing with Eugene. Once they took the retard out of him, he just wasn’t the same. You want bigger examples? Alright, how about Kane. Once Kane lost his mask he has never been the same IMO. He is more like a cute cuddly big red retard instead of the monster hell fire and brimstone Kane that we all knew and loved. He attempted to change gears in his career but really he just killed his career cold. I think you could put up a argument that same thing happened to Umaga. Umaga got rid of his mouthpiece Estrada and never really was the same again. He tried to eventually go semi-face but it didn’t work out either. Umaga use to be a legitimate threat and a real title contender. Now he is just fodder to Triple H or Cena. As you can see from the many examples, switching up your game can be a good thing or a bad thing. Nobody really knows till you try it out. I think it’s a gamble you just have to take. Don’t take my word for it thought I bet pre-season football and the Olympics so I would probably take any gamble.  Well, that will do it for my main page debut. Hopefully I didn’t bore you to much with all this poker talk and rambling on about nonsense. Any feedback you would like to leave will be much appreciated. You can drop me a line at MSN1983@yahoo.com or leave me feedback in the feedback thread on LOPForums.com. While you’re there check out the Columns Forums and read some of the work of the guys. Some of the best young writers on the net can be found in those forums. Hope you guys enjoyed this. Till next time, I’ll see you guys on the tables...
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