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

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