Winning In Your Sleep, and Women's Euros

Some of you may enjoy this story about a guy who entered an online qualifying tournament for the World Series of Poker’s Main Event, fell asleep after working late, and won.

The online satellite cost $80, and Goldstein registered. But he was worn out from working late that day and went to sleep, forgetting that he signed up.

Unlike most satellites that are structured similar to a standard poker tournament, this one required players to go all-in every hand until there was a winner from the 126 entrants.

As a result, Goldstein’s cards remained live rather than being automatically mucked even though he was sound asleep and not clicking buttons at his computer. The whole satellite lasted a little more than three minutes, according to records from WSOP.com.

Goldstein, whose screen name is “GoldsteinE,” started out with pocket queens on the first hand and won nine consecutive all-ins to take the Main Event seat. On the final hand, he made a flush to beat his opponent, “Basil_Hayden,” who got $72 as a consolation prize.

Goldstein woke up early the next morning and said he had approximately 50 messages from friends informing him he won.

“I was just like, “There’s no way,’ ” Goldstein said. “And then I looked at my email, and there’s an email from WSOP.com saying come get your chips. Kind of a little surreal.

“I was literally getting ready for work, so I didn’t have too much time to comprehend it. It was more just, ‘Holy cow, I guess I’m playing the Main (Event) now.’”

The full story with additional details from the Las Vegas Review-Journal is here.

To fill the off season for football, this year we have the Women's Euros, and so far every odds-on favourite has won, while every game without an odds-on favourite has finished as a Draw.

France are odds-on to defeat Italy in the next match. Matches with no odds-on are usually good prospects for Draw hunters, but in the Women's game, this isn't yet the case.

The previous three Euros have just 21 matches (including group games) with no odds-on favourite, and only four of these have ended as Draws.

At some point, the Women's game should mature and become as competitive as the Men's, and perhaps this year is that moment. Something to watch, literally.