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.

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

Insanity in Sask.

Yikes.
It's hard to know what to make of the Saskatchewan Roughriders these days. At the start of the season, they looked like the best team in the CFL in winning their first three games. The offence looked unstoppable, and Darian Durant looked like the best QB in the league.
Looks can be deceiving, for sure, and the Riders crapped the bed on several occasions in dropping four of their next seven games. Inexplicable losses - to the hapless Edmonton Eskimos on Aug. 28, and a brutal 31-2 capitulation against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 12 - became the norm.
Then came Friday's home game against the Calgary Stampeders, the CFL's best team. The outcome is best described with a paraphrase from that cinema classic, Dumb and Dumber: Just when you think they can't get any stupider, they go and do something like this . . . AND TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES!
Well, total redemption might be putting it a little strong. Durant was in a brutal slump coming in, having thrown three TDs and 10 picks in his previous six games. He put up some crazy numbers on Friday, throwing for 495 yards. But he threw a pick-six on Saskatchewan's first possession, and made a couple head-scratching decisions down the stretch.
Ultimately, Durant got the Riders into position to beat the Stamps in regulation, galloping away on an electrifying scramble to get into field goal range with the score tied 37-37 and just a couple ticks on the clock.
But this is where the game got strange. In what is sure to become a huge talking point in Saskatchewan for the next couple days, Riders coach Ken Miller sent punter Eddie Johnson out to try to boot the ball through the end zone for a single point. His excellent field goal kicker, Luca Congi, is pretty much automatic from 35 yards, which is the kick he would have been looking at. Needless to say, Johnson's punt was short and Calgary ran the ball out of the end zone, forcing OT.
Now, I generally think Miller provides the Riders with above-average coaching. He is one of the CFL's best. But on this call, he must have been smoking some powerful peyote.
Not to worry, though - the Riders won in OT. Sheer madness. Only in the CFL, right?

RANDOM NFL OBSERVATIONS:
Sunday's best highlight was Randy Moss scorching Darrelle Revis for a long TD, on a ridiculous one-handed catch, no less. Who's the slounch now? . . . LaDainian Tomlinson is the best running back on the New York Jets roster . . . Reports of the Indianapolis Colts' demise have been greatly exaggerated . . . The Seattle Seahawks came back to earth, big time, in Game 2 of the Pete Carroll era. I think that's more along the lines of what we can expect from the Seahawks this season . . . Cleveland Browns fans were utterly unsurprised by Derek Anderson's horrendous bed-crapping against Atlanta . . . Hard to tell who's more overrated: the Dallas Cowboys or Tony Romo. It's kind of crazy, but it seems like a lack of discipline is almost part of the culture in Cowboy-land . . . The over-under on Wade Phillips's tenure as Cowboys coach is 3.5 games . . . Aside from Minnesota Vikings fans, the only folks worried about Brett Favre's slow start to the season are fantasy football leaguers who drafted him three rounds too high. The rest of us just think it's funny . . . Speaking of fantasy football, all those "experts" who were horny for Joe Flacco in the preseason better be updating their resumes.

A devastating beat

I just came within a whisker of a monster score.
If my tear ducts worked, I would be crying as I typed this. I just finished 13th out of 1,213 players in a $20 multi-table tournament, and I exited in the most devastating fashion.
We'll start from the beginnning. This morning I bought into three MTTs: a $10 turbo, a deep-stack $10, and a standard-speed $20. I wasn't able to get anything going in the turbo, and I busted out of the deep-stack event a couple hours in when I flopped bottom set against my opponent's top set. Nothing you can do about that.
But I made a monster run in the $20, which had a guaranteed prize pool of $20,000. I just played real solid, disciplined poker and steadily built my stack.
With about 250 players left, I was in fifth place with around 30k, but at that point I lost a pot that would have given me the chip lead. A middle-position player made a small raise, and was called in three spots before it got to me in the big blind with JJ. I made a nice reraise, and the original raiser thought for quite a while before shipping all in. Everyone else folded, and I had great odds to call. He had AK, and I was safe through the flop and turn before a king appeared on the river. Dang.
I grinded my stack back up, only to fall back to 20k when my AQ lost to a short stack's A9, all in preflop. But 20k was the average when the money bubble burst with 180 players left, so I was content to ride it out and avoid confrontations.
At that point, I simply went card dead and pretty much didn't play a hand for an hour. I did make one nice hero call to maintain a playable stack. A player in the cutoff raised, and I flat-called on the button with 88. The big blind called as well, and we saw a flop of 643, two clubs. It was checked around to me, and I bet about two-thirds the pot. The BB folded, but the original raiser reraised all in. I just felt like he was full of crap. He'd been stealing preflop, and I figured he put me on two big cards that had missed the flop. I called off my stack, and he had Q4 offsuit. Booya. I managed to dodge his five outs to double to about 60k.
With about 50 players left and the blinds at 2000-4000, I was basically treading water at 60k (15xBB) when I finally picked up a couple hands. The new player to my right had been raising every second pot, and when he min-raised in the cutoff, I shipped with AdQd on the button. He called with 56 offsuit (?!?!?!), and I was fortunate enough to flop a queen. Two hands later, I had KK and found a customer who called a nice big bet on the flop before folding the turn. All of a sudden, I had 170k.
My stack probably peaked around 190k, and I cruised through to the final two tables. There was this Russian dude a couple seats to my right who was extremely aggressive preflop. I pretty much stayed out of his way, except for one pot where I made a nice resteal out of the small blind.
Anyway, that brings us to our crucial hand. We were six-handed at my table when the pesky Russian raised under the gun. I was ecstatic because I had AA on the button. I reraised, he called, and we saw a flop of KQ3. The pot was around 100k at this point. He checked, and I bet about half the pot, leaving myself 50k behind. He reraised all in, I called, and he showed QJ offsuit. What a donkey. The turn was safe, but he rivered a third queen to bust me in 13th place, good for $182. Unlucky freaking 13.
Did I mention first place was $4,300, which would have been the biggest score of my fledgling poker career? And that the pot I lost contained 331k, which would have put me in fifth place when they got down to the final table? What a spot that would have been. Even sixth place paid a grand. Talk about a brutal beat.
The good news is, the Saskatchewan Roughriders crushed the B.C. Lions in CFL action last night. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
What's also clear is, these MTTs have great potential for profit for me. To recap, I've had recent finishes of 37th out of 1,551 players; 3rd out of 228; and 13th out of 1,213. I am going to win one of these. It's only a matter of time. I just need my aces to hold up ONE TIME!
For the time being, though, I need to take a breather from poker. I need a mental break to get my confidence back in the sit-n-gos, and to be honest, I'm just a little bit tired of cards right now.
Bankroll = $5,150

Eskimos gift-wrap a win for Riders

The Saskatchewan Roughriders may indeed be the best team in the CFL at the moment, as I suggested last week. But that doesn't mean they've arrived.
Take Saturday's home game against the Edmonton Eskimos, which the Riders "won" 24-20 to move to a perfect 3-0 on the season. I use the quotation marks because the Riders didn't so much win the game, as the Eskimos lost it.
The 0-3 Eskies limped off the field with bullet-riddled feet - Kelly Campbell dropped an easy TD catch in the end zone just before halftime, and Calvin McCarty and Fred Stamps had momentum-crushing fumbles in the fourth quarter.
The Roughriders, for their part, played fairly badly compared to the lofty standard they set in last week's blowout win over the B.C. Lions. The offence sputtered for much of the game, until some creative fourth-quarter play-calling bailed them out. The defence, so dominant the previous week against B.C., was rendered ordinary by an Eskimos o-line that was less generous than that of the Lions. But the Riders defenders deserve credit for being opportunistic in generating the turnovers, and it's the mark of a quality team to pull through with a victory when it's not firing on all cylinders. We'll see how this develops.
On a side note, I got a huge kick out of the Roughriders' new red-and-black retro uniforms - particularly the hideous argyle-type slacks that the coaching staff were made to wear. Those pants would have embarrassed even a professional golfer. Good times.

Roughriders roll

Let's talk a little CFL football.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan. Have been since I was a wee lad. Thus, it did my heart good to watch the Riders rough up the B.C. Lions last Saturday at Empire Field. Final score: 37-18.
Random thoughts:
-- The temporary stadium at Empire Field is everything it's hyped up to be. Seating just north of 27,000 fans, it's a wonderfully intimate spot to watch a football game. It's everything that cavernous, character-less B.C. Place is not.
-- The fans at Empire, on the other hand, leave a little bit to be desired. I attended the game with a crowd of vacationing in-laws from Saskatchewan - Riders season ticket-holders - and they were roundly disappointed with the general lack of football knowledge in the bleachers. In football, it's generally understood that the home fans are to make noise as the visiting team's offence approaches the line of scrimmage, so as to make it difficult for them to communicate. I could count on one hand the number of times Lions fans tried that tactic against the Riders - and then, only after they were instructed what to do by the P.A. announcer. Weak sauce, Lions fans.
-- One more rant on Lions fans. Seems like every time I go to a Lions game, at least one fight breaks out in the stands. On Saturday, there were two brawls. I've attended a lot of sporting events in venues across Western Canada and the States, and I can honestly say that 90 per cent of the scraps I've seen have come at Lions games. I hate to apply the "white trash" label, but . . .
-- I guess I should say something nice about the Lions now. Geroy Simon, with two highlight-reel TD catches, was one of the only Leos with a pulse - I was stunned how much gas he has left in the tank for a 34-year-old. And Travis Lulay's resilience was a credit to him. The Lions backup quarterback entered the game just before halftime after Casey Printers went out with a leg injury, and the Riders spent most of the second half treating him like a pinata. But Lulay stuck with it. With the game out of reach in the fourth quarter, and just one play after being virtually de-cleated by a Sask defender, Lulay stepped up and threw a TD bomb to Simon. I've always liked Lulay.
-- As for the Riders, they looked an awful lot like the best team in the CFL in improving to 2-0. The offence has so many weapons - the score would have been even more lopsided if not for a couple of first-half mental errors - and it's scary to consider the upside as QB Darian Durant (pictured above) continues to improve. The defence, which was porous during a Week 1 win over Montreal, dominated against the Lions. It's hard to put too much stock in that performance, given the atrocious play of B.C.'s offensive line, but it was encouraging regardless.
-- In closing, since I can't seem to successfully embed video in this blog, here's a link to a hilarious YouTube video featuring Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd roasting LeBron James for his "Decision:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtIaMr2hGeI
And just for the heck of it, another surreal clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI