World-renowned poker star Phil Ivey spent a few nights at the Mayfair casino Crockfords in London last October, and normally that wouldn’t be news, because he’s a pro poker player and all, but the 37-year old caused quite the buzz when he won about $12 million playing the baccarat game Punto Banco. Now, I don’t understand any card games that aren’t called war or assh*le, so forgive me if I gloss over the rules to this specific game* and get right to the bangers and mash – the casino bosses refused to pay out because they accused Ivey of cheating. Naturally, he’s suing them.

So how on Earth do you cheat at a game that involves nothing but pure luck? Easy. You use the exclusive, illegal knowledge that the decks of cards had been improperly cut and you examine each card’s back from a distance to determine the card’s value and wager accordingly. I know, right? How the hell haven’t we all been doing this for years?

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"Yo I said best of 9."

Hey, remember when Georges St-Pierre defeated Nick Diaz at UFC 158 by unanimous decision after he spent five rounds dropping Stockton’s finest on the ground and completely eliminating his ability to box? And remember how, after all of the horrible things that GSP and Diaz had been saying about each other leading up to the fight, GSP and Diaz were like, “Yeah, that was all fake and we really respect each other”? Oh, and remember how Diaz was also like, “I’m probably going to jail because I don’t pay taxes, so I’m going to retire”?

Well, go ahead and forget everything except for that first part, because Diaz isn’t retiring and his team is back to crapping all over GSP, because they think that St-Pierre either needs to forfeit his belt an cough up part of his PPV purse or Dana White and the UFC need to schedule a rematch. Oh Nick Diaz, you can’t ever leave us.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – a lady walks into a bar and she hates Lance Armstrong because she’s married to his former teammate and they both think he’s a lying dick. Wait, I don’t think I told that punchline correctly. Either way, Armstrong’s whistleblower, Betsy Andreu, is back in the news because she wants more attention believes that the shamed Tour de France champion is going to use tonight’s interview with Oprah Winfrey to sway public opinion back in his favor. Because when Oprah’s minge speaks, we listen.

However, Andreu – wife of Armstrong’s former teammate and close friend, Frankie Andreu – is really feeling the need to point out the obvious.

“I do not think he will ever fully admit or take responsibility for his drug taking,” the wife of Armstrong’s former teammate and one-time friend, Frankie Andreu, told Celebuzz in an exclusive interview.

“Going on Oprah is just a way to win public sympathy for him… I think it will be more crocodile tears from Lance – he chose Oprah because she is not known for hard hitting interviews.

“My husband and I just want him to go away.” (Via Celebuzz)

Apparently they want him to go away to prison, because Betsy also added that she believes that Armstrong is deserving of a full criminal investigation. And she might be on to something here, because if Armstrong admits to Oprah and her army of Bon Bon couch warriors that he used performance-enhancing drugs as he is expected to do, he could be facing all sorts of heck. Heck, I say!

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So Derek Jeter, who I think plays for the Yankees, actually faked getting hit by a pitch in a game last night. It was baseball’s equivalent of a dive, the sort of play that would have expected out of Alex Rodriguez. But not Jeter, who went to first base and scored the game-tying run when Curtis Granderson homered in the next at-bat.

“It hit the bat,” Jeter admitted after the game. “[Umpire Lance Barksdale] told me to go to first base. I’m not going to tell him I’m not going to first.”

“It strikes me as a bit desperate, like he has to cheat in order to get on base these days,” Steve S. at TheYankeeU.com writes. “It’s also a bit pathetic, watching a once great and still proud player go outside the rules in order to still be able to do his job.” –WSJ.com

This is worse than doing steroids in my mind. I’d rather have shrunken testicles than no testicles at all. Hey, great acting job, though, Jeter. You’re almost ready for that guest appearance on Rescue Me.

It’s almost unfair how much attention the media and especially the government have given performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball when there are other sporting leagues and organizations desperately in need of congressional intervention. I mean, how many NBA players have to be busted smoking the pot before the Vatican and Interpol organize a hard target investigation? But today’s latest PED scandal is in the world of mixed martial arts, as some fighters are apparently using canned oxygen as the spinach to their Popeye.

For example, the latest culprits are Muhammed “King Mo” Luwal and KJ Noons, who very openly used compressed oxygen during their respective fights at Strikeforce: Houston on Saturday night. Noons was victorious over his opponent Jorge Gurgel, which would lead us to believe that cheaters always win. Unfortunately, King Mo bucked that trend by losing his light heavyweight title after Rafael Cavalcante scored the TKO in the third round. I know, I know. I totally had King Mo in my Strikeforce: Houston pool this weekend, too. What a letdown.

Put me in a rear naked choke, Fightlinker:

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