"Taking the under on Seattle to win 8 1/2 and getting +105 in my favor," I said off the top of my head. I really don't know why. I just have a feeling their run is over.

One final word on this preseason over-under handicapping. I've gotten three different sets of numbers, and they're all different. If you happen to be in Vegas, collect a few of them and see if you can catch a middle, or in this case, see if you can get plus-odds on the same team to go under the number on one house's sheet and over it on another. Then you'll be in a win-win situation, which seems impossible in a hard-nosed place like Vegas. But Coach JT swears that such action is possible.

"They haven't definitely fixed the price on anything yet," he said. "Everything is in a state of flux. There could be some great middles out there."

I asked him why he didn't research the whole bunch of them himself and set up his plays accordingly.

"No more funds," he said.

Summer Reading

I'm on the summer book review circuit. Gave you a gnarly one last time, KC Joyner's Scientific Football. Now here's one for pure pleasure -- but you've got to like two things or it won't work. Western rodeos and Cowboy culture, which is the way the news release describes it. I could add a third one. Terrific photography.

The book is Cowboy Up by Arthur Frank, whose unbelievable camera work provides a look at this segment of life that you've never seen before. I don't want to give it away, so I'll cut this away from the herd at this point ... except to add that it costs $35 and you can get a copy by contacting the publisher, powerHouse Books, 212-604-9074 or email: info@powerHouseBooks.com.

Poker patter

I'm still waiting to read something coherent about the last days of the World Series of Poker. Instead, this is the kind of drivel we had to read, which I guess you could call a feature angle. Pat Hayden, a firefighter who hoped to cash in,  was quoted in the New York Daily News: "It would be tough because $7.5 million is a lot of money."

Or how about this one, describing his ability to "enjoy the town. Vegas is great. You can't beat it. It's a fun place."

I'm tellin' ya, you learn something every time you pick up the paper. But what I didn't learn was why, in the crucial final hand that won the bloke from Down Under the $7.5 mil, he chose to stay in and even stand a raise with 7-3 as his hole cards? Somewhere someone should have asked him. It went against all logic, which probably was why he won. Or maybe he had to go to the bathroom  or was getting sleepy, or something. But that's the thing ... when everything is geared to hype, you never get a logical question answered.