Yahoo Update

I traded Kinsler for Arroyo. Arroyo's been 0-5 since with about a 7.00 ERA. The good news is that I was able to pickup Hardy, Castillo, Accardo, E.Encarnacion, and Carmona off waivers. My team has been in first for almost 90% of the season, but every now and then the top three switch places. I still am in desperate need of pitching help since I'm near the bottom in wins, saves, and Ks

CDM Teams

My teams have been in a funk lately, dropping to as low as 250th overall. Nothing to be worried about however since at this time of the year most teams usually burn up too many buys, forgetting how long the season really is.

Right now I have 9 buys left, which is more than I'd expect, but I've been lucky with dodging injuries. I've also kept Edwin Encarnacion, Joe Mauer, and Felix Hernandez on the bench who are going to help out huge now that they are back. EE has already increased his average by 50 points since I started playing him again, all on the road no less. The average buys left for all competing teams is around 6. Remember, since you only start with 14, if the season is 1/3 in the books, you should have roughly 9.5 left.

In August/September, a lot of teams fall out of the race because they are unable to pickup the hot call-up from the minors or unable to drop the high percentage injury. Hopefully I can put myself in a good position to gain some late ground.

Since I've picked up Dice-K, I made one other move - Al Reyes for Houston Street, who hit the DL. The popular pickup was Valverde, but there's no guarantee he doesn't implode in the warm air in Arizona this summer.

Big win for Sach

14 runs, 21 hits
4 homers

Jeff Sucks

MLB '07: The Show

For all my loyal readers, Jeff and I will now be recording all the times I kick his ass at the game MLB '07.



5/14 - Sach won 6-3

Welcome to the team Dice-K

I dropped Sheets for Dice-K. It sounds like a waste of a buy, but Sheets already got hurt once this year (strained groin) and isn't striking out nearly as many batters as he should be. The Brewers have been playing way over there head and won't provide close to the amount of run support that Boston will give Dice-K.

So far, so good. Dice-K put up a complete game, 5 strike out win today in the first of two starts this week.

As for poker, none in the immediate future :/

No money = No poker

With finals taking up the entire week and practically no money to my name, Foxwoods will have to hold off for at least a week.

My Teams

I had another good week and moved up in the standings to 40th overall (from ~75th) in the main game after Saturday. With three pitchers going today, I'm hoping to get up to 30th by the end of the week. I wound up buying Wolf last week and dropped Harden. It proved to be worthless as Wolf got creamed in his first start and the bullpen blew the lead in his start today.

With Mauer and Piazza injured, I'm going to have to pick up a new catcher, most likely Martin.

I dropped to 4th in my $ Yahoo league thanks to my poor pitching. I'm near the bottom in wins and strikeouts and really can't do anything about it because the waiver wire has no talent and I can't afford to trade any hitters yet.

Good News/Bad News

First the bad news. I dropped another $200 in 5 hours yesterday at Omaha. I credit most of my loses to flopping top set four times and not winning a single one of those hands.

It's pretty clear that I've been bad as of late. My last 20 hours show a net loss of $500. Being broke doesn't help, as I don't have much of a bankroll to continue playing until I get a job. I finally hit 100 hours of play since I've turned 21 and currently show a depressing profit of $1000. I was at 80 hours/+$1500 at one point.

The funniest hand was one that I wasn't involved in. It was a kill hand, and a guy raises pre-flop AKTT. First of all, that's a terrible hand to raise with, but whatever. The flop comes TKT. The turn was a J, and at that point it was heads-up. It goes, bet, raise, re-raise, re-raise. The river is a blank, and it goes bet, raise, re-raise, re-raise, re-raise, re-raise and then the jew-bag who obviously didn't have quads looks down at his hand in total confusion and says, 'what is going on here?. Re-raise'. So, after 12 total bets of $12 a piece, jew-bag shows KK for top fullhouse, and the pre-flop raiser shows his quad tens. The funniest part was after the hand, jew-bag says, it wasn't until the last raise that he thought the other guy had quads. It took $100 of raises for him to figure that out?

For the good news, Foxwoods has completely changed their tournament schedule. Previously it was strictly NL Holdem games running 2-3 times per day. Now they have added $100 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud hi/lo, and Omaha hi/lo tourneys running on Monday and Wednesdays. They also announced their Fall World Poker Tour schedule.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 25, 10AM - OMAHA HI/LO $600 BUY-IN TOURNAMENT.

There is nothing that's going to stop me from being there.

Baseball Update

With three weeks in the books, the real players are starting to break away from the pack and put up some sizable leads. Fortunately, I am one of them. My teams have been on absolute fire. My highest point was 18th overall in the main game with a $15,000 grand prize. Since then I have taken a few steps back in the standings due to a lack of saves this week.

Throughout the year, you are only allowed 14 player purchases, where you drop a player from either your starting lineup or bench, and pick up a new one. I made my first buy last week, dropping a struggling Olsen for Maine who has two starts (vs. COL, @ WAS). This week, my bench starters include Harden (DL), Hernandex (DL), Sheets (hurt groin in last start). As of today, Sheets is still scheduled to start on Tuesday, but this could change over the weekend.

My outfield is falling apart as well. I have Soriano with zero HRs and one RBI, Taveras who's done nothing so far, and Baldelli and Swisher who are nursing injuries. I'm going to hold off on dropping anyone though because there's no one I really want to buy.

My buy candidates include:
Peavy (expensive) - nasty in last start with 16 Ks in 7 IP.
Wolf (dirt cheap) - 31 Ks in 30 IP with 3 wins.
Sabathia (moderately expensive) - great start, but he's still a fat fuck.

Remember, ERA and WHIP don't matter, just Ks, IPs, and wins.

I'll post an update next Monday with my changes.

Live Omaha, Online Cash Games Update

I took a pretty big hit at Foxwoods last Friday to the tune of -$250 in 4 hours. I started out in a must move game that was short handed. Basically I opened up my starting hand selection and was seeing approximately 75% of flops. I missed every draw imaginable and was quickly down $100. When I got moved into the main game, there were plenty of regulars playing, but a few guys were donating chips. Again, I was missing draws left and right.

When I was down to my last chips, a donk raises preflop on a kill. I was in the big blind, so I called, along with about six others. The flop came QQJ. With 6 players in the hand, its very unlikely for someone to not have a Q. The raiser bet the flop, a few folded and I called. Note that since it was a kill, on the flop I had to call $6 into a roughly $70 pot. The turn brought a 7, and I lead out with my xx77. It was now down to me and the preflop raiser. I was fairly certain I had the lead at this point. If he did have a queen, I would be afraid of a low card, such as a 2, or an ace. I was putting him on a A2Qx type hand, or even better, AA2x. The river brought a king. Since I was down to my final $20 in chips, I bet, got raised, and the prick shows me KQJ5. Unbelievable. Great raise pre-flop guy.

Even if the table looks good, I like to cut my loses at a certain point. In the long run, this is pointless, but there's a psychological disadvantage to playing when you know you're down a decent chunk of change.

After next Friday, I should have a 100 hour update at the tables since I've turned 21. I want to play some $5-$10 Stud though. First of all, I' m starting to get burnt out from playing some much Omaha. Secondly, my goal is to eventually play in the $10-$20 Stud game. There shouldn't be a real difference in the playing ability going from the $1-$5 to the $10-$20 table, just people willing to gamble for more money.

Potential Gold Mine

I stumbled upon my longed ignored Absolute Poker account today to find that there were four $2/$4 Omaha hi/lo games running during the day. First of all, I was shocked. Second of all, I was very shocked. Not only were there a decent amount of games, but they were not the usual super-tight players from as recent as six months ago. In years past, Absolute was known to be one of the tightest and hardest to beat sites because they offered unlimited bonus reloads. Many people would nut-peddle and play to clear bonus dollars instead of playing for fun.

I found out that by signing up for a service called Add-Funds, I can essentially purchase long-distance calling cards and then transfer the 'calling card money' over to the poker site. It sounds like a completely insane way to move money around, but I was willing to risk a couple hundred of dollars for the opportunity to play online. I wound up getting the entire thing setup in 15 minutes and had a $200 balance sitting in my Absolute poker account.

It's still unknown if I'll ever see this money again. There have been some reports that Citizens Bank stopped accepting PokerStars checks, but I don't really know the severity of what's going on. Technically there should be no problems with banks accepting money from gambling sites, it's just that the process of getting money to the sites that was affected.

I opened up two Omaha tables and they were $$$. I've never seen such poor play since Party Poker left the US market. I made an easy $60 in under an hour and very much look forward to playing as much as I can. It seems like the highest traffic will be during the day, since most of the players should be Europeans playing during their evening, but I really don't know yet.

Bad variance kicks in

There's a trail of blood along I-395 northbound to I-90 east towards Boston (See map below) . It's the result of the leakage coming from the massive raping I took river after river after river after river today.

I final experienced the ugly side of variance. It's been long awaited. The two most shocking hands, within 30 minutes of each other, in which I had incredible equity after the first four cards are as follows:

My hand - ATKJ
Flop - KQJ
I flopped the nut high and had a draw to a fullhouse. I bet, then there's a raise, then a guy cold calls. The turn is a 7 and there are no flushes possible. I bet, call, call. The river is a fucking piece of shit Q. My straight is no good, the guy that originally raised showed a 10,9 for a king-high straight, and the other moron shows KQ for a fullhouse.

My hand - 34Q10
Flop - A2K
A perfect flop for a hand with a 3,4 in it. The turn was a beautiful J, giving me the nut high with a nut low draw. Being a rainbow board, I was pretty much golden. But the river had something else in store for me, another J. Some shithead takes down the pot with AJ, fullhouse. Two minutes needed to lift my jaw off the table.

I had various other suckouts throughout the day while being card dead during a very juicy table. After 8 hours I was down $200. Regardless, I was having a great time. The guys on the table had me laughing my ass off the entire time.

Ready to go home, I raise preflop with QQ45 to get my final $15 or so in the pot. Eight callers, so I'm basically praying for a Q. By some miracle of the poker god, the flop comes 559. Not bad, but certainly not good. A queen would be perfect, but I'd need to fill up with a 4 in order to win this hand. The turn brings a K. There's a bet and then a raise, meaning I'm through. Not quite. A five comes on the river. The raiser wins the side pot with KKK55 and I take down the main pot with quads. I survived the all-in and wasn't feeling completely bent of shape.

I'm now on my 9th straight hour and almost ready to go. It's just hard to leave when you're playing against nine other clueless people, but aren't getting dealt cards. Then, my luck changed a bit with these few hands:

A267. The flop came 347. The turn was a 5 and the river an A. With five people in to the river, there was definitely some sharing of the pot. It turned out there were two people sharing for low and three for high. Luckily I had a piece of each, giving me an unheard of 7/12 of the pot.

A379. I flopped really nice. Improved to the nut low on the turn and got a straight on the river. I bet out, got raised, and I re-raised because there was no way I'd be splitting both high and low. Sure enough, I scooped a nice pot.

A234. I raised on the button and a had a family of callers. I nearly busted a load when the flop came 232. There was a bet and a call in front of me, so I just called. The turn brought me the nut low and the river was painless. I took down 3/4 of the pot.

After getting crushed all day, I'm all of a sudden up $20, and ten hours is enough.

It's good to see that there was a lot of action on a Monday. I hope it stays that way during the summer.

Great Opportunity, but Couldn't Capitalize

The first hand I saw when I sat down at the Omaha table today had me drooling. There was the usual small blind for $2 and big blind for $4. The next guy posted a live-straddle of $8. Basically, he now gets the right to act last after all the cards are dealt, but it's a sucker move because he is forced to put in two bets before even looking at his cards. THEN, the next guy posts another straddle for $12. So before the cards are even dealt, there's $26 in the pot.

The best thing about idiots posting straddles and raising blind is that it makes everyone at the table loosen up and play like donkeys. Today was no exception. There were so many chips flying around and money to be made; guys capping bets on the flop and kill pots every other hand. Of all the days, of ALL the days, I am completely card dead. Nothing. I think I had maybe three legitimate playable hands in the four and a half hours I played. I had the chance to cash in huge, but couldn't take advantage of it.

I was going to head home early, being just about break-even when I was dealt a K652. At this point the table was playing passive and some of the earlier donks had already left. I thought my hand was suited, but when I re-looked at it, I realized I played a pretty crappy starting hand and probably wasted $8. The flop was nice. 922 with two spades. It's rare for someone to be holding a 9 and a 2, so the only hand that could beat me on the flop was an A2, which some could surely have, or pocket 9's, very unlikely. I bet out and was called six(!) times. A typical scenario in which at least four people are wasting their money. The turn was great, a 5. So I had what I felt was the best hand, and the turn brought a reason for people to stay in and continue to draw out. Another five or so people called $8 a piece and the river was a nonthreatening 10. With so many people in the hand, I wound up with a nice $120 profit. A good way to end the day.

Final results:
Omaha - 4.5 hours - +$150
Stud - 30 minutes - +$55
Total - +$205 in 5 hours.

Another Day, Another Dollar

I got to Foxwoods around 11am today. In the elevator I hear some lady mention what the date was. Friday, the 13th. I figured that they'd be less of a crowd, and sure enough there was. The poker room was approximately 25% less crowded than it was last Friday.

The day started off pretty slow. There was only one Omaha game going and bunch of tight players in it. I spent the first three hours floating around even. Eventually a $8/$16 game got started, but I didn't have enough cash on me to switch over. You have to sit down for at least $400 to not get killed by the variance.

After the new game opened, a bunch of fish sat down and I took a very nice $300 jump.

Ended the day after 8 hours and up $195.

It's been really hit or miss with the games on Fridays. If I get to the casino too early, I have to sit through a boring morning of tight playing and small pots. But if I arrive too late, I'd have to wait around for hours to get on a table. I'm going to head back early on Saturday regardless because I think the games will be good all day and then I can just head home early.

My results on the Omaha table recently have been staggering. I've made $1145 over 24 hours for a $48/hour profit. I'm still anticipating a big correction, but it's been good while it lasts.

Massive HORSE Tournament

I entered a tourney on PokerStars to kill some time while watching baseball. Somehow I outlasted over 5100 players and made it to the next round. It was only a freeroll, so it shows hardly any level of skill, but it's pretty cool that I lasted that long <-- "that's what she said". Since I have no means of transferring money to any online poker sites, and have over $600 locked indefinitely in my Neteller account, I'm shooting to win a whopping $10 through freerolls and build it up to millions (or at least enough to fool around with).

Long Weekend

With Patriot's Day on Monday, I'll have four days off from class. That means Foxwoods x 3. At least I hope. I expect a slow day on Friday at the tables. The Omaha game was pretty tight up until about 4pm last Friday when it became more tourist-y. Saturday's are usually goldmines but I have missed the past few and would like to check out the action. And, I am definitely going on Sunday. So this weekend looks to be either two or three trips to gambool. Looking forward to it. Results to come...

Is Niceeee

Another solid day in the books. I got to Foxwoods around noon and the Omaha wait list was already 12 names deep. So, I sat around for a couple of minutes before jumping into a $1-$5 Stud game. I was dealt a few nice hands, taking down a big pot with an aces full of fives fullhouse shortly after I sat down. I dwindled away $60 until I started with a QQ in the hole and a K showing. I caught another Q on the next card and it was smooth sailing til the end. I managed to finish up $85 after under an hour. I had said I am wasting my time on the $1-$5 table and should move up limits. Next time hopefully.

Over the past month, after six hours at the Stud tables, I was only at break-even. In the past two hours I've been up $155, which finally gives me a respectable win-rate.

They opened a new Omaha table around 1pm, which I was surprised about since it's Friday. When I sat down, it was a kill hand, meaning the limits were $6-$12. Usually it's a good idea to sit out a couple of hands when you are new to table to get a feel for the action, but I decided to play regardless. Right off the bat I'm dealt A267 and flop beautifully - 85K. The turn was even better, a 4, giving my nut high, nut low. The worst possible card in the entire deck came on the river, the 2 of clubs. This not only counterfeited my low, but gave someone a possible flush. I managed to squeeze out a quarter of the massive pot by splitting the high. On the turn I was looking at a nice $150 profit to start my day and wound up winning zilch.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a pretty tight table. We traded chips for about three hours. TightAssholeHick was down $100 quickly and that made me pretty happy. NiceMiddleAgedLadyButPlaysTooGoodForAWoman was also down $100 and that also made me happy. Finally BigFish sat down and we started getting some better sized pots.

I didn't have anything really going for me and was forced to switch tables when seats became available at the main Omaha game. The usually suspects had already moved to the new table, but there were a few other fish there. With no really memorable hands I cashed out $110 after playing for a couple of hours.

Total trip came out to +200 in 5.5 hours. A decent day all around, but I never had any huge wins. I noticed I was making better folds early in hands, rather than throwing away good money. I was also tilting less. The few times I'd get rivered to one of the only four cards in the deck that could hurt me, I didn't overplay crappy hands immediately after. Those two factors combined helped me minimize loses between my scattered wins.

With Easter on Sunday, I'm going to have to limit my gambling to one trip this week. I'll just have to make up for it with three trips to Foxwoods next week. (Which I plan on doing).

Foxwoods

I' m taking a trip down to Foxwoods tomorrow. I play on playing some Omaha and $5-$10 Stud if there is a wait list for the Omaha game. Is niceee.

CDM Points Teams

CDM is my favorite fantasy service. I've played with them for eight years now and have won a nice chunk of change along the way.

It is a salary-cap style game with 40 man rosters (28 starts, 12 bench), 25 team leagues, and league, overall, and weekly prizes. Transactions are made weekly and the salaries and positions don't change throughout the season.

I've entered seven teams across three different game formats (different costs and prizes).

Scoring:
1B- 1 point
2B- 2
3B- 3
HR- 4
Run- 1
RBI- 1
BB- 1
SB- 1

IP- 1
K- 1
Win- 10
Save- 10

Week 1 Staters:
C- Mauer
C- Piazza
1B- Fielder
1B- Gonzalez
2B- Weeks
2B- Phillips
3B- Cabrera
3B- Encarnacion
SS- Reyes
SS- Drew
OF- Soriano
OF- Sizemore
OF- Swisher
OF- Rios
OF- Taveras
OF- D.Young
Util- Howard
Util- Hafner

SP- Haren
SP- Olsen
SP- Sheets
SP- Hernandez
SP- Harden
SP- Papelbon
RP- Rodriguez
RP- Ray
RP- Street
RP- Saito

Bench:
C- McCann
1B- Pujols
2B- Utley
3B- Atkins
SS- Ramirez
OF- Holliday
OF- Baldelli
OF- Markakis
SP- Young
SP- Hill
SP- Hamels
SP- Cain

I've done a ton of research this year, so I really hope it pays off. My strategy was to mix a bunch of higher priced hitters with a relatively cheap pitching staff. Papelbon listed as a starter is money in this game. You get 14 buys throughout the year to drop a player from your team for a new one. I figure that I'd need at least two on closers, a couple on my speculative outfield, and the rest will be for the various pitching injuries that always occur.

Yahoo Roto Team

10 teams, 30 players deep, $30 fee

C- McCann
C- B.Molina
1B- Lee
2B- Kinsler
3B- Rolen
SS- Reyes
CI- Overbay
MI- S.Drew
OF- Sizemore
OF- Matsui
OF- Hunter
OF- Markakis
OF- Hawpe
Util- Tracy
Bench- Duncan
Bench- C.Young
Bench- DeJesus
Bench- Scott
P- Oswalt
P- Papelbon
P- Bonderman
P- Ray
P- Haren
P- Wainwright
P- Maddux
P- An.Reyes
P- Garcia
Bench- Broxton
Bench- Shields
Bench- Loewen

I'm pretty happy with my team. I had the third pick after Pujols and Utley were taken and I decided to take Reyes over Santana. I like locking up the shortstop position early and not having to worry about it later. My offense projects to be first in the league and my pitching looks to be about average.

Atlantic City Trip Report

For those unfamiliar with Atlanticy City, picture extravagant hotels and casinos mixed with a third world country. The surrounding areas intertwined with the city are pure ghetto. Walking outside, at night, alone is a guaranteed death sentence. Regardless, it was a great trip.

I played at the Trump Taj Mahal for the two days I was there. I wanted to check out the Borgata, but didn't have enough time. The Taj is notoriously known for having disgusting, dirty chips, but other than that the poker room was pretty good.

Day One:

I started off playing in a $3/$6 2-way Omaha hi-lo/Stud hi-lo game with a full kill to $6/$12 which was pretty juicy. I only played for 2.5 hours and won about $50 on the Omaha side. I got dealt nothing but garbage in the Stud side and gave most of my money back. A huge hand that could have helped my stack out big time was when I held A237 on a K867 board. I had an uncounterfeitable low to go with a pair of 7s. The river brought a 10 and I wound up getting 3/4'd to an A2510. Final result was +$0 in 2.5 hours.

I was highly disappointed with the $80+$20 fee Omaha hi-lo limit tournament I entered. The blinds increased way too fast and only 26 players entered. First place was $1000 and fifth place made their money back. With 15 players remaining I was chip leader after an incredible hand. I was in the small blind with AAxx and about five players in the hand. The flop came KJJ. It was checked around to the button and he bet. I called because he could have made the bet with just a pair of kings. Four players saw the turn which brought the beautiful Ace. I had a lock on the hand so I checked. When it came back to me there was already a bet and the button raised all-in. I didn't need anymore help on the river, but another Ace came giving me quads. I managed to get a call from a fat, obnoxious lady with QT for the straight. The button showed KJ and he was pretty pissed to get knocked out after such a perfect flop. The blinds were quickly $1K/$2K and I exited in 10th place after I committed my stack pre-flop with a suited AAxx and lost to two pair.

Later on that night I took a seat at one of the three (!) $5-$10 Omaha tables they had running. The game played with a full kill, any scooped pot over just $75. It wound up that nearly half the time we were playing $10-$20, which is higher than I would have liked to play, simply because a bad variance downswing would hurt my bankroll. For the most part, the play was more aggressive than at Foxwoods, but that didn't necessarily mean it was any better. I played for about six hours and finished down $60. When I was sat, we had just started a must-move game. Basically whoever was on the top of the list had to move over to the main table whenever someone else left. I only was allowed to stay at the table for no more than an hour.

I hit my first live Royal Flush. My hand had four high cards, so I was looking for a high card flop and hit a straight. I then hit runner-runner for the Royal! In Foxwoods they give you a nice leather jacket, and I was hoping I'd get something cool at the Taj. They wound up giving me two free buffet coupons which was disappointing. Nevertheless, it was cool to hit a live Royal.

When I moved into the main game I was up against a bunch of players who had some clue to what they were doing and couldn't build up any sort of stack. I left the casino around 3am after putting in a nice 14 hour day, down roughly $200.

Day Two:

After eating at the nasty Buffet, I jumped back into the Omaha game. A few guys from the night before were there and I was absolutely card dead for the first two hours. I went through one horrible stretch where I could not be dealt an ace. For an hour I saw nothing but K886-type hands. I sat down with roughly $240 and was all-in at one point. Two of the better players left the table and it was starting to look more profitable. I was picking up some nice hands and started recouping my loses. I wound up leaving the table with $500 for a nice $260 profit in five hours. It could have been much higher, but some of my premium scooping hands didn't develop past the flop.

One unfortunate hand came when I was in the big blind and had KQ108. You only win these types of hands when the flop hits you perfectly. It did. J92. I had a million outs. Any K, Q, 10, 8, or 7 gave me the nut straight. The 8 hit on the turn but brought a low draw and a flush draw. I was thinking that if the Q of diamond hit on the river, I would be money. Four callers saw the river and the perfect card hit. I had the nuts and no lows were possible. I bet, got raised, re-raised, and when I capped it I could only hope that they both didn't hold the KT. Sure enough we split the pot three ways and I couldn't believe the crap they were holding to draw out to the river with. They both didn't have low or flush draws, nor did they have straights on the turn. What should have been a $200 scooper, turned into a zero profit hand.

Over the two days, I played a little bit of $5-$10 stud for no more than an hour while waiting for my main games. I didn't stay long enough to win any pots and bled off $60 there.

Final totals come to 14 hours at the cash games for +$140. The tournament cost me $100 and three hours.

I'm not sure if I'll ever visit Atlantic City again because of how much of a shithole it is. I'll probably head back to Foxwoods next Friday to play some Stud and Omaha.

Yahoo Head-to-Head team

12 teams, H2H with generic roto categories
If the league goes well, we plan on putting some money on it next year.

C- Barrett
1B- Lee
2B- Utley
3B- Rolen
SS- Ramirez
OF- Markakis
OF- Duncan
OF- Drew
Util- LaRoche
Bench- Tracy
Bench- Dejesus
Bench- Shealy

SP- Zambrano
SP- Bonderman
RP- Wagner
RP- Lidge
P- Hamels
P- Bush
P- Olsen
Bench- Escobar
Bench- Torres

I'm not entirely thrilled with my team. My outfield is very speculative and I was forced to take Derek Lee with my second pick and would have preferred someone else taking the risk. One guy was on auto-pick and somehow horded all the stolen bases. My Utley, Ramirez speed should be enough to compete on a weekly basis since there aren't any other real stolen base heavy teams in the league.

I've been targeting Utley in most of my drafts. I rank him pretty high because of the lack of talent at second base, but 130 runs, 35 homers, 100 RBI, 15 SB, .310 AVG ain't too shabby.

Between Lidge and Torres I should be able to find some sort of production out of my second RP slot.

I have another Yahoo draft taking place this Saturday. $30 entry, $300 prize pool.

What would I do with $100K?

2007 World Series of Poker Schedule

If I ever had the opportunity, I would love to enter nearly half of these tournaments.

2007 Baseball Season

The season is just around the corner and this will mark my eighth year playing fantasy baseball. Although in the past I've done an over-the-top amount of research, I've at least doubled that this year.

Here's the breakdown of my teams:

2 Free Yahoo Head-to-Head teams
One was a practice draft with a bunch of scrubs to get a feel for where players were falling
The other is a league with a bunch of guys I've played with the past few years
1 Yahoo Roto League - $30
A bunch of good managers in this one, but it's mostly for fun

1 transaction fee CDM points game - roughly $350 for the full season
6 free transaction CDM points games - $180 ($30 a piece)
1 other CDM game with a slightly different format - $20
Plus I have another $30+$50+70 in side bets going amongst my CDM teams.

Add on an additional $60 for being a CDM Club member, $40 for Insider Baseball subscription, $40 for Pecota website access, $15 for Baseball Forecaster, and $15 for Baseball Prospectus.

That puts my grand total at $900.

Compulsive.

I'll post my rosters once deadlines roll around on Sunday.

7 Card Stud Practice Session

I went back to Foxwoods today to apply some of the strategies I've been reading in my Stud books. One thing I realized today was that I have to stop playing $1-$5 and move up to $5-$10, probably sit down with $250. There's just not enough money going around in the lower limit game (average pot size around $60).

I can report three hands:
1. I made a pretty good bluff check-raise with a K, 10, 9 showing with an A, J in my hand. I led out the betting on 6th street, everyone folded, and I took down a nice sized pot with just ace-high.

2. I took a huge hit shorty after. On 4th street, my bet was raised by a guy holding 2,4 with a 5,3 showing. When I made three Kings on 5th street, he hit his straight. I couldn't improve to a fullhouse or quads and my stack took a sizable hit. Looking back on it, I was only a 38%/62% dog after 5th street to win the hand. Check it out here.

3. My biggest pot came when I held AA in the hole with a 5 showing. I raised the pot to $3, which is a typical raise for me. There was one call, and a guy who was playing very aggressive, mostly with garbage made it $8. Everyone folded to the guy to my right who had a 7 showing. He raised to $13. I was certain I had everyone beat, except I feared trip 7's. I made the call and four us took a 4th card with roughly $60 already in the pot. We each put in $10 on 4th street and no one improved substantially. After 5th street, I felt more comfortable when someone drew a 7, making it less likely the guy who raised to $13 had trips. We each put in $10 a piece and it was down to three players. When all the cards were out, the guy to my left started with KK in the hole and had two pair. The guy to my right started with QQ in the hole and had two pair. I squeeze a peak at my last card and caught another Ace. My trips took down the $175 pot, which is absolutely enormous for the stakes we were playing. Looking back, the guy with the Queens played his hand terribly and could have easily saved himself $50.

I was up over $100 after just an hour, but was card dead for the rest of the evening. In 3.5 hours total I left, up $70. I'm gonna try out the $5-$10 game the next time I go back.

One more thing, there was an interest list of 20 players for $5-$10 HORSE (Holdem, Omaha hi, Razz, Stud, Stud hi-lo). I would love if they got one of those games going. There's no doubt I'd be the best player at the table. Hardly anyone knows how to play razz or stud hi-lo correctly, and I'm pretty sharp at the other games. Usually the only reason why they don't have a HORSE game running is that it causes problems with the dealers. They have enough trouble keeping one game running smoothly, let alone five.

7 Card Stud

I'm re-reading 7 Card Stud for Advanced Players by David Sklansky right now. I'm shocked by how much strategy I've actually forgotten. I was playing a lot of Stud, Stud hi-lo, and Razz a year ago online, but gave up on te because it's almost impossible to play more than two tables at a time and remember everyone's folded cards. Now that I'm playing more Stud at Foxwoods, it's time to brush the dust off my library.

Here's a list of poker/gambling books that I own and highly recommend:

• High-Low-Split Poker
  
• How to Win at Omaha High-Low Poker
  
• Super System II
  
• Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha
  
• Getting the Best of It
• Holdem Poker for Advanced Players
• Seven Card Stud for Advanced Players
• Small Stakes Holdem: Winning Big with Expert Play
• The Theory of Poker
• Sharp Sports Betting
  

Even if you are the best of players, there's always something new to learn from these books. I have a few new moves I want to work into my Stud game, mostly what to do with pocket pairs on third street.

Results, Past and Present

I have three midterms this week and a team paper due tomorrow, so this is the best way to push off studying just a bit longer.

I've put in 31 hours at the $4/$8 Omaha game so far and have netted $950.

Last month I sat down at the $8/$16 game for a few hours because Foxwoods was packed and the waiting lists for all the other games were huge. The play was apparantly more logical; a lot of pre-flop raising, 3-bets, and pots being won without a showdown. Regardless, there were just as many donkies at the table and I can definitly make a nice profit there. I only put in 4 hours because I had to head home and finished down $250. At my lowest point I was down $400, but it didn't phase me much because we were generally putting $16 in a piece pre-flop and the variance can be pretty high. Losing only 16 big bets is nothing for those stakes and I look foward to playing this limit more often when there is a game going.

I play the $1-$5 stud game when I'm on the waiting list for Omaha and have recorded 6 hours with a loss of $10. I'm most dissapointed by my results at this game. I'm a pretty good stud player, but have considerably much less experience at it. The play at these tables (usually about six of them running at any given time) is absolutely terrible. At least four people stay until seventh street and there is no such thing as $1 bets. It's either call $5 or fold. There are frequent bluff attempts which are completely transparant. For these reasons I've been playing pretty tight, but there's no reason why I can't pick better situations to throw in $30 and stay to the end. I'm going to re-read some of my stud books so I can pick up some extra cash and then jump into the $5-$10 which I can get away with sitting down with just $200. I'm also anticipating an O8/S8 mixed game (Omaha hi-lo, Stud hi-lo) in Atlantic City that I'd like to play.

That puts my Foxwoods grand total at $700 after 41 hours, and I'll take it.

Over the past year I've been to Turning Stone a few times and made a few bucks at their $3/$6 Omaha game, $1-$5 Stud, and $2-4 Holdem. They recently upped the Omaha game to $4/$8, but I didn't play much, nor do I remember how I did. The play there is even worse with nearly everyone being triple my age. Any profit I took off the table I gambooled away at video poker (too tempting to resist).

Two years ago I was playing a ton online. Limit Holdem, No-limit Holdem, Omaha8, PL O8, Stud, Stud8, Triple Draw, HORSE, Royal Holdem, 5 card draw, video poker, and blackjack. I can't post the results here, but I had a lot of fun with the extra money.

More posts to come in the future on my video poker success.

Sick run of cards

Less than 12 hours removed from my +$300 run at the $4/$8 game I find myself driving back down to Foxwoods. I got into the Omaha game around 4pm and by 5:30 I was up $300. I was pumped and the rest of the night was pretty much a blur.

The table was full of fishes for most of the night, with the biggest two directly to my right. There was a pretty good player (Donk) sitting to my left who won his first two pots when he sat down and was feeling pretty good. Little did he know that he'd be personally handing me most of his stack.

Couple of huge hands:

A hand that I shouldn't even have been a contender for left me with trip sevens with an ace kicker when all the cards were out. The pot was roughly $120 and no chance for low. Donk bet at the end after big fish and myself checked to him. I figured one of them had to have a boat (unlikely), small flush (likely), or straight (almost guaranteed). Fish called and it was worth my while to pay off the winner. Instead, I added an additional layer to my towering pyramid of chips.

Another notable hand came during a kill hand. I was in late position and limped with KKQ10. Donk, who became very vocal and overconfident was on the verge of tilting. He raised and a bunch of us saw a J-9-3 flop with two hearts. I bet out, because, well, I wanted the pot. Donk raised, there was a call or two and I re-raised on accident because I didn't realize I already had chips in the pot. The turn brought a lovely 8 giving me the nut straight. There was still three other players in the hand so I was dodging lows, flush draws, and was praying that the board didn't pair up. We were at a point in the game where people were just plain donating though. The river brought the dreaded 3 of hearts. I was screwed. It was checked to me twice, so that meant no full houses. I bet hoping to get a low flush to fold. To my surprise I get two callers. Shit. Buttt, I scooped. Donk showed a J-9 or some shit and the other fish showed trip 3s. The pot was roughly $200. Ship it. Looking back on it, I got lucky to say the least. But it was my aggressive stance early in the hand as well as the raise by the Donk which got rid of any hands that could eventually beat me on the river.

I starred down at an excellent multi-way hand of A237 with a suited ace of clubs. I raised in late position. The raise was called and then re-raised by Donk. I capped it with two other players caught in the middle and five of us saw the flop. It was 8-7-4 with two diamonds and a club. I was positive someone flopped the straight. Regardless, I raised the initial bettor. There was a call, the Donk re-raised and I capped it with four of us taking a look at the turn. At this point I was fully low card counterfeit protected, had a pair of 7s and back-door nut-flush possibility. The turn brought the 10 of clubs. With four players still in the hand I could have easily been fighting for only a quarter of the pot. We all put in three more bets a piece and I looked away as the river was dealt. 5 of clubs. Amazing. It was checked to me and to my surprise everyone stayed in for another bet a piece. One guy showed a 23 with some other shit for high, one guy showed a straight, and one guy showed an A2310. I took three quarters of the nearly $300 pot. Donk was pissed at me for raising (he had the king high flush and a couple of low cards). It wasn't worth justifying my unbeatable low, but I did admit I had a huge chance of being quartered. Regardless, there was enough money in the pot and players in the hand to keep me firing. It's worth noting that if an ace hit on the river, I was only going to get a sixth of the pot. I got lucky.

My favorite hand came near the end. It was a beauty. A234 with some suitedness. I know for sure that the Donk was in this hand, but I don't remember who else. After the flop, which was an orgasmic A-2-A, it was heads-up. I fired a bet, Donk raised me, and I 3-bet him. He obviously put me on A2, but he had a nice hand of his own, A35Q. The turn brought a 6 giving me nut low and second nut high. He paid me off, which he had to do, and I scooped it when the river was a blank. I truly felt bad and Donk was pissed. He was on a nearly $300 downswing at this point.

For the most part, I had many easy decisions throughout the night. I was dealt a huge arsenal of well coordinated hands, including many A2 and suited aces. I played pretty loose also. I took advantage of a few pocket high cards with two low card type hands (KK25 for example). I did a lot of promo raising and I did a lot of early position betting, manipulating the size of the pot to give me drawing odds.

When all was said and done, I was sitting with $720 in front of me - more than the entire table combined. My best session ever and most profitable in terms of $/hr. I cashed out up $530 in just four hours of play.

I think I'll avoid Foxwoods next weekend after giving such a beating and then I'll be hitting up Atlantic City the weekend after, right before the start of the baseball season. Or maybe I'll just jump right into the $75/$150 game.

Not so fast Sach.

Inaugural Post

I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping up with this, but here it goes.

Just got back from an eight hour session at Foxwoods. I won't be identifying where I'm playing just in case any of my opponents stumble accross this blog. I started off with some $1-$5 Stud until my game of choice got under way. I finished with 40 bets at the $4/$8 Omaha Hi-Lo game which features a half-kill. Today there was roughly ten kill pots total (in which the stakes move up to $6/$12 for the next hand and the winner of the hand is forced to post $6 pre-flop). A kill pot is defined as any pot in which there is at least $80 and no splits. Winning three of these pots, padded my stack nicely. Being only my fourth trip to Foxwoods, this was my second $300+ day, which is a confidence booster to say the least. With only 30 hours under my belt, my results are meaningless as I've only seen about 1000 hands.

Unlike my last session (a Thursday) which was comprised of nine knowledgeable players trading chips back and forth, today (a Saturday) was fueled by a huge fish who was playing 90% of his hands out of the blinds. I figure he personally donated an extra $100 to me en route to him suffering a -$300 two hour downswing. He went on to win most of it back, which is good for me because it keeps the fishies happy. There were many other fish at the table for most of the day, until roughly 10pm when most of them went broke. I was able to scoop a few pots, throwing in a couple of good promo-raises, stealing when possible, and ultimately cashed out when the table tightened up.

I can never remember any specific hands, but I can recall a few lucky scoops. One was catching runner-runner quads (2nd quads of the night). Another was on a board of J-J-x where I held K-K-J-x and my opponent had flopped a boat with a J. He bet the flop and I called, hoping to catch a full house of my own, or a king to give me a huge boat. I was last to act when the turn came and I still didn't fill up. It was checked to me (dumb) and I bet out to get rid of any low draws. Called by the flop bettor. When the river brought a king, I was faced with a bet and easily raised, taking down the kill pot.

Another hand near the end gave me a flop with a nut low draw as well as two pairs. The turn gave me a nut flush draw to go with my full house and low draws (counterfeit protected) and I was envisioning another $100+ pot coming my way. The river was one of only ten cards that could have hurt me and I paid off the big fish to make him happy he hit his miracle runner-runner broadway straight.

In the future, I'll try to provide more hand histories, but after eight hour marathon sessions, I'm usually too burnt out to remember them.

I want to stay away from Foxwoods for a bit so I don't come off as a total shark. I've met a few guys that will recognize me next time and I want them to continue to think of me as their friend and not their social security thief.

I should be taking a trip to Atlantic City by the end of the month, so I'll get to check out the action there.