The easiest poker tells to pick up in a live game are the reactions that players make when the community cards hit the board. Many players will look at their chip stack when a good hand hits them. They intend to bet, and can’t help but look at their chips to prepare the best-sized bet for the situation.

Others will look around like they’re trying to appear disinterested. They will scope out the room, suddenly unconcerned with what the other players are doing. This player also has a good hand, and should be given respect.

Actual disinterested players will look at their cards quickly and usually start to pay attention to something else that’s going on at the time. If you know when a player has decided to stay out of a hand, you can play like they’re not there if you decide to bet or call some action.

The action at Euro 2008 has ranged from outstanding to sleep-inducing. At least we haven’t been short of surprises. That seems to be good news for the bookies.

The quarterfinal between Portugal and Germany, for example, saw the Germans pull off the upset at 15-8 (Portugal was 6-4, the draw was 2-1). The punters reportedly took a bath when Germany won 3-2 after a lackluster 1-0 performance against Austria in the Group Stage.

Much of that money will apparently go back to the betting public if Spain continues its historic romp. The Spaniards are 3-2 co-favorites with Germany as Euro 2008 enters the semifinals; Spain has a date with Russia on Thursday, one day after Germany tangos with Turkey. Both matches are 2:45 p.m. Eastern starts.

Spain’s David Villa has also been getting support to win the Golden Boot for most goals in the tournament. Villa is an 8-15 chalk with four goals, one more than Germany’s Lukas Podolski (7-2).

Sic Bo is a game that you’ll often only find in Asian-themed baccarat pits. But like most games, it’s easy to find in online casinos. Sic Bo is a simple dice game where you can make different wagers to predict the outcome of a particular roll. There are seven Sic Bo bets to choose from, each giving different odds.

Dice Face: players may bet that any one of the six dice sides will show.
Two Faces: this is a bet that a combination of two particular numbers will appear.Totals: players can wager on the total of all three dice.
Small or Big: this wager is a bet that the total of the three dice will fall in a specific range.
Triple: Here you’re betting that all three faces will come up with a specific number.
Any Pair: Betting that a pair of any particular number will come up.

Larry Bird goes for the jump shot.

Not everyone looks good in a tank top – myself, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird to name three. But everything else about the NBA Finals looks perfect.

The Los Angeles Lakers vs. The Boston Celtics. This was the NBA’s leading rivalry up until 20 years ago, when Michael Jordan took over the league. Now it’s back, and television ratings are the highest since the last time the Lakers were in the Finals, four years ago.

Home-court advantage continues to be the critical factor in these playoffs. The Celtics won the first two games of the Finals at the Garden; Los Angeles replied 87-81 at the Staples Center Tuesday night, although Boston cashed in as 9-point underdogs to go up 3-0 ATS. No surprise that the Lakers had 34 free throws and the Celtics just 22. But it was unusual to see Paul Pierce shoot 2-for-14. That’s not something David Stern can control, is it?

Roland Garros was a French aviator and a fighter pilot during World War I. He was shot down and killed a month before the end of the war, but his name lives on with the Tournoi de Roland-Garros, known better on these shores as the French Open.

We associate the French Open with its clay courts, but when the first tournament was held in 1891, there was only one kind of tennis: lawn tennis. It wasn’t until 1912 that red clay was first used. And it wasn’t until 1968 that the tournament became a true Open, allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete.

France’s Max Decugis won eight men’s singles titles between 1903 and 1914; Bjorn Borg of Sweden holds the record with six championships during the Open Era. Chris Evert has seven women’s titles on her resume – she didn’t lose a singles match on clay for six years between 1973 and 1979. Now that’s a solid betting trend.

Get your French Open odds here!

Easy on the eye, Maria Sharapova is competing at the French Open

This is the last thing the sport of tennis needed right now. The Daily Mail reported earlier this month that an International Tennis Federation panel has identified 45 matches over the past five years which are “under suspicion” because of unusual betting patterns. The article goes on to raise the alarm by rehashing last year’s Nikolay Davydenko-related scandal and other recent examples of possible match-fixing.

Keep in mind that it’s the Daily Mail we’re talking about here. This is a British tabloid that begs to be made fun of. But over 2.4 million people in the UK read it, and tennis is in the spotlight with the start of the French Open and Wimbledon coming up in June.

In sharp contrast to the Daily Mail, the Guardian handled the story by emphasizing that the ITF found that “professional tennis is neither systematically nor institutionally corrupt.” The Guardian is a respected broadsheet with journalistic integrity – and a great sports section.

With the French Open in full swing, it’s still good clean fun to bet on tennis.

So I’m sure for some of you this is old news but I have never heard of this before. A drive through Sportsbook.

The Fiesta Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is one of a kind. Only in America can you place a bet from your car. It’s defiantly a novelty and it’s kind of like a drive though banking. You put your money in a cylinder, it goes up to the attendant, who you can talk to and then they send you back a receipt.

I think that this idea is pretty cool but aren’t we lazy enough. Are we really that constricted for time that we need to do our sports wagers from the car? I guess if your wallet is so huge its weighing you down well then, yes you have an excuse for the Sportsbook drive through.

We all love to hit the “easy” button. And it doesn’t get much easier than betting on Big Brown to win this Saturday’s Preakness Stakes. You just have to be willing to eat some chalk at 1-4.

It seems highly unlikely anyone else will defeat Big Brown at Pimlico. At the Kentucky Derby, he was 4-3/4 lengths ahead of Eight Belles in second and 8-1/4 lengths up on third-place Denis of Cork. That’s after winning the Florida Derby by five lengths over Smooth Air.

Big Brown’s competition level at the Preakness isn’t exactly Triple Crown quality, either. Gayego was confirmed for Pimlico on Tuesday by trainer Paulo Lobo. This will be the only horse who ran against Big Brown at the Derby to try again at the Preakness. Gayego finished 17th at the Run for the Roses.

The bigger question is whether Big Brown can complete the Triple Crown by winning the Belmont. He’s even money to pull it off.

Get all your Preakness Stakes odds here!

Every year, the producers of American Idol say the upcoming season is going to be the best one ever. Last year’s produced Sanjaya, so this year can’t help but look good by comparison. Nonetheless, the ratings are down, and the performances are getting mixed reviews. FOX has even conducted market research into how to fix the show.

It’s still far and away the biggest show on television, so the entertainment futures market keeps bringing in the action. The show is down to its Final Four, and former favorite David Archuleta is down to 2-1 odds to win, losing some of his teenage-girl fan base to Jason Castro (25-1). Archuleta is a technically proficient singer with all the emotional power you would expect from a 17-year-old boy from Utah.

David Cook is the favorite at 1-2, making interesting choices with which versions of songs to perform – Cook’s version of the Michael Jackson standard “Billie Jean” was based on a cover version by Doxology. Maybe there is hope for America.

The Los Angeles Lakers are into the second round of the NBA Playoffs. The Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns are not – and L.A. is the reason why.

The Lakers were able to trade assorted parts and draft picks for Pau Gasol. The Mavs (Jason Kidd) and the Suns (Shaquille O’Neal) made blockbuster deals in response, but those moves failed in the short term because the teams gave up too much talent and failed to play cohesive playoff basketball.

Los Angeles is still on an NBA Finals collision course with the rebuilt Boston Celtics, and the way Boston honked two games in Atlanta has to be encouraging for Lakers supporters. At press time, the Celtics were the NBA championship favorites at 7-5; L.A. is second at 9-4.

As they say, anything can happen in a short series, but I prefer the Lakers as a value pick and feel very confident in their chances of winning.