The Texas Hold'em round of the World Cup opens today.  Who blinks?  Who draws to the inside straight and who folds?

In Group B look for a draw between England and Sweden.  Neither of these two seem able to come up winners when they face one another and especially when it doesn't matter at all since both will move on to the next round.  England have coasted so far, conserving energy for the knockout rounds.  A smart play by Sven.  Look for more of the same in this one despite a start by Rooney.

Group A goes to Germany who are playing well.  Ecuador sits its two best players for this one saving them for the round of 16.  The gamble here is this team was on a roll and playing well together.  Does sitting those two disrupt that?  We'll see.

Remains to be seen how Argentina plays this against the Netherlands in Group C since again both go on to the next round regardless of what happens here.  What a shame that is, for these two to meet in a meaningless game.  Will someone decide to try to send a message or will they both fold'em.  I'd guess they both duck this round and play a lot of guys that won't see action otherwise.  I seriously doubt either are concerned at all about who they might face from Group D.

In that group, does Mexico go for it in their match against Portugal?  I think they do.  Maybe Borgetti will be ready but he might sit anyway for another few days rest.  That might be the right call relying on their superior goal difference to win the day even if Angola defeats Iran.  It might be a real poker players move but the odds favor it with Angola at a GD of -1 they would have to win by 3 to overcome Mexico even if the Tri lose this match by 1.  I think they go for it and let the first half decide what happens at that point.

So what happens in Group E?  Well, expect the worse from Italy and the Czech Rep as they'll likely agree to the draw before a ball is even kicked on Thursday morning.  A USA win and Italy defeating the Czech's mean the USA moves on.  On the other hand a Czech and Ghana win closes the door on Italy.  The safe play then is the draw and thats what they'll do.  The Europeans will fold and work together for the draw.

A draw between Italy and the Czech's would see them both move on UNLESS the USA not only wins the match against Ghana but must do so in a style that is simply unlikely.
That being the case the mission for the USA is to defeat Ghana and that will be a difficult task in itself.  Ghana will be missing their two most productive goal scorers but the USA will also be missing Eddie Pope and Pablo.

What's even worse about that is Arena seems not aware of that or concerned that he might need a bushel basket full of goals to advance.  He remains clueless and likely to NOT play Eddie Johnson or Josh Wolf in spite of the fact that this USA team has been about as inept as you can get in the offensive end.  Actually, since they have not scored a goal its safe to say you can't get any worse than that.  Remember what I said before this World Cup began; the knock on this USA team is they can't score goals, and they haven't.
 
Group F is the one that should produce the match of the round between Australia and Croatia.  The winner goes on and the loser goes home.

Group G is sure to produce two good games here as this one offers nearly as many possibilities as Group E.  France finally had a good game and look like a good choice to move on but they'll have to produce another solid game like that against South Korea, a team that will press them for all they are worth.

In Group H Ukraine, who recovered from their opening game debacle even better than the USA did (they actually scored goals; 4 of them in fact) look to move on along with Spain.