Once again, the Alouettes

For the second year in a row, the Saskatchewan Roughriders allowed an emminently winnable Grey Cup game to slip through their fingers against the Montreal Alouettes. The circumstances were less painful the second time around - thank goodness - but the fact remains, the Riders could be Grey Cup champs right now had they made just one or two more plays. That is a lousy realization.
Anyway, I figured I'd revisit my pregame predictions to see how poorly I did.
ANTHONY CALVILLO WILL STRUGGLE
I was definitely wrong about this, but not by as much as you might think. It's hard to say that a QB who throws for 342 yards struggled. But Calvillo definitely struggled at times, particularly in the second quarter, and the fact his team only put up 21 points underscores the fact that this was far from a vintage Alouettes offensive performance.
A big part of my Calvillo prediction was based on the notion it would be cold at Commonwealth Stadium. It was just below the freezing mark at kickoff, though - not nearly the frigid weather I'd been hoping for. In the end, Calvillo managed the game like a pro and made just enough plays in the passing game to fend off the Riders.
IF ALS WIN, COBOURNE WILL WIN MVP
I whiffed on this one, big-time. Cobourne, the Alouettes running back, got off to a great start in the first quarter, but his team abandoned the run at that point and never went back to him in any serious way. That decision, in my mind, greatly contributed to Montreal's struggles to move the ball during that point of the game.
Montreal just continued to ride the arm of Calvillo, for better or for worse, and he eventually cracked the Riders' blitz-happy scheme with quick-hit passes to Jamel Richardson and S.J. Green. The two jumbo-sized receivers look nearly identical, as they wear similar numbers (18 and 19) and tinted visors. They utterly terrorized the Sask secondary, and Richardson was full value for the MVP award.
WILL DURANT COME THROUGH? NOT A CLUE.
Yeah, I pretty much nailed this one, in that I foresaw that the Riders QB would be wildly inconsistent once again. After a rough first quarter, Durant moved the ball well in the second quarter, but several promising drives stalled short of the end zone.
Durant was ice-cold in the third quarter, but finally got something going in the fourth, marching the Riders down a short field for a major to cut the deficit to 21-18.
On the ensuing Als possession, Montreal drove into field goal range, but placekicker Damon Duval missed his second field goal of the game. (How bad has Duval been in the last two Grey Cups? I don't see how the Als could bring him back next year.) Durant got the ball back with less than two minutes left, but he threw an interception that essentially ended the game.
I feel Durant was hamstrung to a certain extent by the Riders' offensive game plan - I would have liked to see them take more shots down the field, and utilize Durant's running ability to a greater extent. A lack of offensive creativity hurt Saskatchewan's chances.
FINAL SCORE
I was predicting (hoping?) the Riders would win 24-21. When Saskatchewan got the ball back with two minutes left, my prediction was still very much in play. If the Riders had driven into field goal range and forced OT, there was a possibility I could have nailed it right on the nose.
It didn't work out that way, but I'll take a little solace in the fact I was correct that the Grey Cup would be a defensive struggle, rather the offensive show everyone was predicting.
Congrats to Calvillo and the Alouettes. Well done, well deserved.

Fearful Grey Cup predictions

As a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan, I am both wildly excited and deeply nervous about the Grey Cup game on Sunday. Last season, you'll recall, the Riders lost the CFL title game 28-27 to the Montreal Alouettes when they sent out an extra man for Montreal's field goal attempt on the final play. Als kicker Damon Duval, who had struggled all game long, missed his first attempt, but the Riders' too-many-men penalty gave him another try, which he made. That couldn't possibly happen again, could it? COULD IT?
At any rate, here are a few hunches I have about how Riders-Alouettes II will play out.
CALVILLO WILL STRUGGLE
I was in attendance at Regina's Taylor Field for the 2003 Grey Cup, and watched Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo drop an absolute stink-bomb in a 34-22 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos. The conditions were ridiculously cold that day, and it seemed that the frigid temperatures didn't agree with Calvillo.
Even in last year's Grey Cup in Calgary, Calvillo played very poorly until the fourth quarter. The colder it is in Edmonton on Sunday, the better it is for the Riders. The forecast is calling for -6 C with 10 km/h winds on Sunday afternoon, but hopefully that's enough to cool off Calvillo.
IF THE ALS WIN, COBOURNE WILL BE MVP
Montreal's real ace in the hole, to me, is running back Avon Cobourne. He's a tough little runner, and the Riders have had a hard time stopping the run. The question is, if Calvillo struggles, how quickly will Alouettes coach Marc Trestman identify that and put the ball in Cobourne's hands?
WILL DURANT COME THROUGH? NOT A CLUE.
I've titled this post "Fearful predictions," and I'm honestly too scared to venture a guess as to how Saskatchewan QB Darian Durant will play on Sunday. I have no idea what to expect from Durant on a week-to-week basis, or even quarter-to-quarter at times this season. He's been consistently inconsistent, despite leading the CFL in passing yardage.
I'll say this for Durant, though - he may not always get it done in the prettiest fashion, but he's a winner. He's also the kind of QB who won't lock in on one receiver - last week in Calgary, with favourite targets Andy Fantuz and Weston Dressler blanketed by the Stampeders, he looked for Chris Getzlaf more often.
It should be noted that Montreal's defence surrendered the most passing yardage in the CFL, but also led the league in interceptions. Durant threw 22 picks, and he's got to to a better job of taking care of the ball on Sunday.
FINAL SCORE
Since I'm thoroughly biased . . . Roughriders 24, Alouettes 21. The weather will help keep the offences in check, and Durant will make just enough plays down the stretch to get the job done. And Saskatchewan will have the proper number of players on the field at all times.

Final thoughts on the final table

The 2010 edition of the World Series of Poker main event final table will go down in history as perhaps the most dramatic and entertaining WSOP final tables of all time. I’ve had a couple weeks to digest how it all went down; here are my thoughts.
OH CANADA!
Congrats to Montreal native Jonathan Duhamel (pictured above) for becoming the first Canadian to win the main event. He didn’t play the best poker at the final table (more on that in a minute) but he got lucky in some big spots, and then finished things off with overwhelming aggression.
Certain members of the poker media have wondered aloud whether Duhamel’s win will cause a poker explosion in Canada, similar to what happened when Chris Moneymaker won in 2003. I tend to think that’s not going to materialize. The thing is, Canadians already love poker. The game has been well-exposed in Canada on TV, and most of those who might be inclined to play, already do.
If there’s a poker explosion, it’ll be in Quebec. The French-speaking media apparently loves Duhamel – RDS, the francophone arm of TSN, sent a camera crew down to Vegas to document the 23-year-old’s every move leading up to the final table. How to you say check-raise en francais?
I WAS RIGHT ABOUT CHEONG (SORT OF)
Back in July, I predicted Joseph Cheong would win the main event. I really admired his perseverance and sharp play in rebuilding his stack after Filippo Candio gave him a sick beat leading up to the final table.
By and large, Cheong’s performance at the final table justified my faith in him. He looked awesome on TV during the early stages, and from reading various hand-by-hand blogs after watching the telecast, he absolutely dominated the table to an extent that wasn’t really reflected in the TV coverage. I was particularly impressed with the way he induced Matthew Jarvis to bluff off half his stack on one of the early hands.
What folks are going to remember Cheong for, unfortunately, is one of the all-time great blow-ups. He built his stack from 23.5 million at the start to over 100 million when it was down to three-handed between himself, Duhamel and John Racener. Racener was short-stacked, and it seemed like just a matter of time before Cheong and Duhamel locked horns heads-up.
But then Cheong decided to six-bet all in against Duhamel with A7o, and was called by the Quebecker’s QQ. The queens held, crippling Cheong, and he was eliminated a couple hands later.
I listened to audio of the post-tourney media scrums with the players, and Cheong basically said he made a read and went with it. He said he’d probably do it the same way if he found himself in the same spot again. Obviously it was an epic mistake, but I respect that the guy has so much confidence in his reads. If you’re not confident in poker, you’re screwed.
Part of Cheong’s thinking was, he felt he could get Duhamel off a hand like QQ. And honestly, if I’d been in Duhamel’s shoes, I would have been hard-pressed to call off my chips in that spot. In his post-match interview, though, Duhamel said it was an “easy call” – which implies that because of Cheong’s constant aggression, he didn’t give him credit for a big hand. Failing to consider his table image was Cheong’s biggest error, in my mind.
It says a lot about Cheong’s skill that even after he blew off such a huge stack, the folks at ESPN.com were still blown away by the clinic he put on prior to that.
MIZRACHI BLEW IT
The most recognizable pro at the final table was Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. After starting the day seventh in chips, he grinded his way up to the chip lead at the dinner break. He had the biggest stack when play got to five-handed, but he managed to bust in fifth place.
Grinder’s tournament came down to three crucial hands – two of which he played badly, and one of which he got unlucky on. On the first key hand, he open-raised with A8 suited, and then the short-stacked Racener shoved all in. Racener had been playing tight all day, but Grinder decided to take an ill-advised shot at him. Racener had Mizrachi dominated with AK, and his hand held to take a big chunk out of Grinder’s stack.
Later on, Racener gave Duhamel a sick beat when his AQ sucked out against AK, all in preflop. The very next hand, Duhamel raised in the small blind with A9o. Mizrachi shipped it from the big blind with 33, and after humming and hawing for a long while, Duhamel called off his stack. I think this was a brutal call by Duhamel – the best he could have hoped for there was a coin flip, and he could have easily been dominated. Mizrachi had an incredulous look on his face when Duhamel showed A9. At any rate, Duhamel was extremely fortunate to flop a nine and double up.
The eventual champ executed a lovely trap to knock out Mizrachi. Duhamel limped in the small blind with AA, and the Grinder checked with Q8o. The flop came queen high . . . Duhamel checked . . . Grinder bet . . . Duhamel check-raised . . . Grinder snap-shoved . . . and Duhamel called. Two cards later, Mizrachi was busto.
When Mizrachi took the lead at the dinner break, everyone expected him to run over the table from that point. That he managed to blow off all his chips in short order was quite stunning.
TIGHT PLAYERS HAD THE RIGHT IDEA
Racener and Candio were by far the tightest players at the table, and I have to give them both a certain amount of props for that. It ain’t sexy to play snug, but there’s something to be said for moving up the pay scale. Candio netted just over $3 million for fourth place, and runner-up Racener won $5.5 million for essentially sitting there and waiting for everyone else to beat each other up.
John Dolan, who began the day second in chips with 46 million but busted in sixth, might be a richer man today had he played as conservatively as Racener and Candio.

From donkey to genius

To summarize my crazy November poker run, I basically forgot how to play the game for a minute there . . . and then I remembered.
To be more specific, I made a $1,000 profit during a stellar October, and then managed to blow off $900 of it in the worst single downswing of my tournament career (such as it is).
The way I look at it, the first $200 of the downswing was just the natural variance of poker. I got moderately unlucky in a couple sit-n-gos, no big deal. The next $500 was entirely on me - I played like a donkey. I completely lost my confidence, and every move I made was wrong. If I made a continuation bet, I was definitely getting check-raised. If I had the chip lead on the money bubble, I'd find a way to be the next guy eliminated.
At that point, I decided to buckle down and play some decent freaking poker. I've found that the best way to regain my poker mojo is to play 27-player sit-n-gos as opposed to single-table SNGs. For some reason, the multi-table format tends to encourage me to play simple ABC poker, as opposed to making fancy (often low-percentage) moves. And when I'm playing poorly, a little ABC poker is just what the doctor ordered. From there, I can add bluffs back into my game gradually - only picking the most obvious spots at the start, and opening things up a bit as I regain my confidence.
This tactic probably would have worked, but I ran horrendously bad and managed to bleed off another $200. I lost in all sorts of sick ways: KK vs. QQ, KQ vs. QT, AK vs. AQ, etc. I couldn't catch a break, but I felt like I was playing well again.
The circumstances of my inevitable upswing were kind of interesting. I came down with the flu today and had to stay home from work. As I lay on the couch, chugging ginger ale and sipping chicken soup, I decided to take a shot at one of the big multi-table tournaments. I hit up one with a $20 buy-in, and ended up finishing seventh out of about 1200 people for $671. Pretty sweet on some levels - I got a big chunk of my bankroll back in a big hurry. Of couse, first place was $3,800, so once again I came up just short of a real big score.
Ultimately, I was pleased with my play. I was very patient, navigating my way past the money bubble with a stack that was just a couple bucks below average. Then I was fortunate enough to catch KK against a big stack's QQ, and scored a nice double-up.
I doubled up a second time in fascinating circumstances. The player to my left and I both had very deep stacks of around 50,000, and I think the blinds were around 500-1000. I limped in the small blind with KJ (after everyone else had folded), and he made a bigger-than-usual raise out of the big blind. I just felt like he was robbing me and didn't want any action in that spot. So I shoved, and he snap-called with A9o.
My hand was obviously caught in the cookie jar, but he made a ridiculous call in my opinion. Sure, he had a better hand than me, but that's a very marginal spot to call off all your chips. He's only 60 per cent to win there. Anyway, I flopped a king, and it held to give me one of the biggest stacks in the tournament with about 50 players remaining.
I rode that stack down to the final two tables, at which point I opened up my game and got some timely resteals.
I arrived at the final table with just over 300,000 in chips, which was good for fifth place, just below average. The top five spots paid at least $1,000, which is what I was sort of aiming for, and I decided to be patient. I was rather unlucky not to finish higher - the short stacks kept sucking out and doubling up. It was kind of gross. I only caught one big hand - AA in the big blind - and wouldn't you know it, everybody else folded to me. So sick.
This final table was slow going, and my 300k stack ended up shrinking in relation to the blinds, which rose to 12,500-25,000. I ended up busting in seventh when the chip leader made a small raise from the button, and I felt my AhTh was good enough for a resteal. He called with AQ, and my suckout didn't materialize.
At the end of the day, I'm really happy with both my play and the result. One of these times, I'll get the win.
Bankroll = $5,700

Random thoughts, Episode 2

I enjoyed writing my last "Random Thoughts" post so much, I'm going back to the well.
--> My homeboy Conan O'Brien is back on TV. After being exiled from NBC, he's back with a new latenight show on TBS. As a longtime CoCo fan, his Monday night debut had me pretty stoked. The ginger-haired comedy genius seemed hyper, nervous and excited all at the same time during his monologue, which was both understandable and interesting to watch. But the skits were excellent - both the video recapping his last six months, where he was repeatedly shot Godfather-style by a band of machine gun-toting mafiosos, and the Ricky Gervais guest spot. Conan had two particularly memorable lines. More or less the first words out of his mouth were, "Welcome to my second annual first show." Later on, he dropped the following gem: "It's not easy doing a late-night show on a channel without a lot of money that viewers have trouble finding. So that's why I left NBC." Bazinga.
Here's an interesting look at the impact of O'Brien's debut, via the L.A. Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/11/conan-obrien-grabs-42-million-viewers-in-tbs-premiere.html
--> After Week 1 of the NFL season, I set the over-under on when Dallas Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips would be fired at 3.5 games. If you took the over, you made money - Phillips lasted seven more games before Jerry Jones axed him following Sunday's 45-7 debacle against Green Bay. In the end, my line was a little aggressive, but I definitely had the right idea.
--> Just how much do I despise B.C. sports teams? Consider the following: I was actively rooting against my favourite CFL team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, when they were playing the Edmonton Eskimos this past Saturday. My logic, such as it was, was that a Riders win would knock the Eskimos out of the playoff race, thereby paving the way for the B.C. Lions to claim the third and final postseason slot in the West. My wife and I actually had a mild argument about this - she felt I should have been supporting the Riders, because they needed to snap their four-game losing streak prior to the playoffs. I just couldn't set aside my anti-B.C. bias. And wouldn't you know it, my Riders screwed me, beating Edmonton to let the Lions in the back door. You better believe I hate Saskatchewan's chances in the West semifinal vs. B.C. this Sunday.

--> The whole saga surrounding Randy Moss's release by the Minnesota Vikings last week was amazing and surreal, and nobody was more entertained by it than I was. Reason being, I had traded Moss in my fantasy football keeper league two weeks prior, netting a pair of high picks in next year's draft. Moss had been one of my keepers for four seasons. We'd had some good times, even celebrating a fantasy league title together (in a manner of speaking), but I picked the perfect time to cut bait with the head-case wideout. Not that I don't think that Moss will be an impact guy in Tennessee - in fact, I think he will - but he's officially entered the stage of his career where he's not a keeper in our pool. He's entered the Terrell Owens zone - diminishing talents, and too tempermental to be reliable on a week-to-week basis.
--> I went out of my way to avoid finding out any results from the World Series of Poker main event final table, in order to enjoy Tuesday night's broadcast in a greater way. I unfollowed PokerNews on Twitter. I turned off the radio every time they mentioned the WSOP. Then on Sunday I went to ESPN.com's front page, and right there near the top was a headline naming the two players who had gotten to heads-up. Thanks a million, ESPN. I have since found out who ended up winning, but I won't reveal that in this space yet, in case some of you were saving it for the broadcast.
--> If you read my last post, you might recall I won $1,000 grinding sit-n-gos on PokerStars in October. Well, I blew off half of that in the first week of November. I can't even complain I ran bad. I just played awful - as awful as I've played in the last couple years. I definitely got unlucky at times, but the bigger problem was, I rarely put myself in a position to win. So many decisions I made were wrong. Motivation-wise, I was often playing just for something to do, not because I was stoked to compete. At times like these, I really believe God is telling me to take a break from poker. So that's what I'm doing, at least until Friday. On the bright side, I finished second at my monthly home-game tournament. But online, I'm playin' like a donkey. A break is just the ticket.
Bankroll = $5,500

Random thoughts

--> When you read Bill Simmons’s excellent and entertaining columns on ESPN.com, you assume they’re written by a man’s man. Someone who watches football in a tricked-out man cave. Someone who speaks in a deep baritone. Then you hear his podcast, and he’s got this high-pitched, nasal voice. It’s both jarring and hilarious. It’s like taking a sip from a cup that you assume is filled with orange juice, and it’s milk.

--> NBC aired a “Women of Saturday Night Live” special this week, and it reminded me that Rachel Dratch is easily the most underrated performer in SNL history. Take that hyperbolic statement for what it's worth - I’m too young to remember a lot of the old-school SNLers. But during my era, Dratch was, to steal a poker phrase, the nuts. Only thing keeping her from proper recognition: She’s kinda funny-looking. But that’s part of what makes her hilarious! Do yourself a favour: Go to YouTube and type in “Debbie Downer” in the search bar. You're welcome.
--> I was looking at a print ad the other day that made reference to “faves.” As in, “My faves include skinny jeans and cargo pants.” It occurred to me that the only place I’ve run across the word “faves” is in ads. I’ve literally never heard anyone use that word in conversation. Granted, I’m not exactly hip to all the slang kids are using these days, but I figure I would have come across it once or twice if this was a word people used. To quote a venerable cinema classic (Zoolander), I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
--> So the other day I was listening to the soundtrack for the movie “Magnolia,” which mainly consists of tracks by the understated-yet-excellent Aimee Mann. It occurred to me that it would rule to hear the White Stripes cover Mann’s “Save Me.” Super-weird mix of artists, but a good song is a good song. I want to hear it with a metal/blues twist. Get it done, Jack White.

--> A couple months ago, on this very blog, I went on the record with a prediction that Joseph Cheong (pictured right) would win the World Series of Poker main event. With the final table set to play out next week, I stand by that. I also stand by my offer to wager even money on Cheong (third in chips) and Michael Mizrachi (seventh in chips) against the rest of the final table field. ESPN.com’s Gary Wise recently wrote a really insightful feature on Cheong. Here’s the URL: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=5757063
--> Speaking of poker, October was quite literally a grand month for me. I turned a $1,000 profit on PokerStars, marking the third four-digit month in the past year or so. I was just playing aggressive, trusting my reads, and crushing folks. My ROI, roughly calculated, was around 45 per cent – just plain sweet. Bankroll = $6,000.