Well first of all, I'd like to thank my New York Yankees for taking a little bit of the sweat out of the equation for me. I have $4,500 riding on the Yankees to win the World Series, and here's why:

1) The Yankees were nearly a 2:1 favorite to win the Series according to Vegas bookies (who seem to know how things will play out with scary/suspicious accuracy)

2) I have a ton of friends from South NJ and PA area who, for whatever reason, have decided to put themselves through the torture of being Phillies fans

3) I <3 $$$

The combination of these facts led to me doing the first significant sports betting of my life. Normally I bet sports very rarely, and when I do it's $20-$100 between friends just for shits and giggles.

I've committed to never playing table games, slot machines, the lottery, and anything else that's senselessly -EV and high variance since I started playing poker for a living.

However, I simply couldn't resist the temptation to let all of these poor, pathetic Phillie supporters let their sense of loyalty to their team mislead them into placing even money bets with me that team with two championships in its existence could beat the 26-time champion dynasty that is the New York Yankees.

While I was donating stack after stack in Sunday donkaments earlier, I took a lot of consolation in the fact that the Yankees managed to take a 3-1 lead in the Series.

And it was a good thing, too, since I mincashed two tournaments out of the thirty I played and was only able to squeeze ~$500 out of the Lock cash games.

But in all seriousness, it has been a hard fought Series. I honestly didn't expect to see the Phillies put up such a fight in defense of the title. And although the Yankees need to win just one more game out of 3, it's not over yet.

But with that being said, my offer still stands to those who have bets against me that you can buy out for 99% by calling me at 1-800-GOT-OWND.

I'd also like to disappoint all of the Vegas bookies reading this (do any Vegas bookies read my blog? if they do, I wonder why...but then again I wonder why anyone reads it!) by saying that I won't be trying to parlay these winnings with more sports betting if the Yankees do win.

I'll just blow it on travel expenses, taxes, and my girlfriend like I do with the rest of my money!

Also, after a random last minute decision partially fueled by the fact that my 13th place finish at Bellagio last week left me hungry, I'll be heading to the largest and most depressing damn casino in the country: Foxwoods.

Booked a one way flight on Wednesday for the $10k WPT main event on Thursday and will be catching the next flight back out of that miserable POS as soon as I'm done there. Wish me luck!

Matt Stout