Michael Vick Guilty!… Criminal Aliens… and more

So I apologize for the lack of activity the past few weeks on this blog… I had been busy hosting a few friends visiting the area (which was so much fun) and with work in general. Additionally, I felt slightly bad about completely donking away my roll over the past three weeks playing cash games way outside of my limits. I’m going to redeposit and recommit myself over the next few days with just SnG tournaments because I know I’m a winning player in those.

MICHAEL VICK

The biggest news of the past few days, in the sports world and perhaps news world in general, is that Michael Vick has reached a plea deal with the federal government in regards to charges of dogfighting. I’ve said from the beginning that I would give Vick the benefit of the doubt (following the debacle in Durham last spring) before I wrote anything in depth about the situation. Now that we basically have a conclusion, let me offer some of my own thoughts to this whole ordeal.

First off, make no doubt about it, I think Michael Vick is a cruel, awful, terrible, indecent, retarded (insert any other horrible adjectives) human being for funding and being involved in dogfighting. Some of the allegations – how Vick personally oversaw the execution of these dogs by electrocution and drowning – are truly unimaginable. He deserves whatever jail time he will ultimately be sentenced to by federal judge Henry E. Hudson (who is notorious for giving out tough sentences). I won’t say that Michael Vick will never play another down in the National Football League, but it will take an owner willing to take one hell of a risk to go out and grab Michael Vick when he does come back from behind bars. Out of all the positions in the NFL, quarterback is probably the one that would require constant practice – reading defenses, memorizing playbooks, timing passes, etc. Also, the quarterback of a team is usually the face of a franchise. I don’t know a single owner out there in the NFL right now that would want to present a dog killer to his fans as that face. Finally, this just popped up on SportsCenter… a SportsNation poll to the question “Would you want Michael Vick to play on your team after a prison sentence” came back with a resounding 75% majority of “No”. Maybe the CFL or AFL can take a chance on Vick, but I just don’t see an NFL team doing it.

In some respects, this whole situation with Michael Vick is a bit depressing. We all know about Vick’s younger brother Marcus, who once stomped on a linemen in the crotch after a dead ball whistle. It seemed, at the time, that Michael was above his younger brother’s behavior. He was a superstar in the NFL, had just signed the richest contract in league history, and was doing his best to lead the Falcons to a championship season. Sometimes you just can’t get away from your past. It seems like that was the case here with Vick. His three co-defendants invovled with the dogfighting operations were all childhood friends and appear to have continued to provide a bad influence on his livelihood. I’m not saying that their influence exonerates Vick by any means… I’m just saying with all the money and fame that follows these athletes, there are some things out there that just can’t be changed. Let’s hope Michael Vick learns a lesson from all of this and comes back to society as a better person.

CRIMINAL ALIENS

In case you missed it, two weeks ago four students in Newark were lined up and shot execution style by a gang of men. Three were killed and one was critically injured. It has become apparent, since then, that at least one of the suspects is an illegal immigrant. Jose Carranza is an illegal immigrant from Peru. The crime itself was completely horrifying. What makes me even more enraged is the fact that some of those involved were in this country illegally. I won’t get into my own views on immigration policy, but obviously I am sympathetic to most immigrants as the child of immigrants myself. I also realize that this country probably does need illegal immigrants in order to provide cheap labor that many other Americans are unwilling to perform. My problem comes when illegal immigrants commit crimes within our borders and then are GRANTED BAIL (yes… Mr. Carranza was granted $2 million bail for his role in the shootings of these four teenagers). I think that if you’re going to commit a crime as an illegal alien in the United States, you should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and then deported instantly upon serving your required jail time (assuming it isn’t a life sentence). Rest in peace to the three kids who were murdered in these shootings.

BASEBALL

So I know in my Trade Deadline post, I was bitching and ranting about how Brian Cashman was such a dumbass for not getting Eric Gagne at the trade deadline becuase he didn’t want to give up Melky Cabrera. Well now I feel like a completely dumbass. Since going to the Red Sox, Gagne has essentially given the Yankees 3 games in the division race by sucking royal ass. I guess the transition from the non-playoff attitude in Texas to the championship attitued in Boston is proving tough for Gagne. Meanwhile, the Yankees are doing their best to keep pace in both the wild card and divison races. Although right now we are currently getting our asses raped by the Angels 13-5, I still like the way we are playing. If we can get our starting pitching to where it should be, I truly believe we will make the playoffs and be a serious threat to win it all. Two young arms – Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez – have proven to be critical in a few games so far when we’ve needed them. I’m especially excited for Chamberlain who simply has electric stuff. I know its a really small sample size (7 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 11 K’s)… but just watching some games in which he has pitched gives me a feeling that this kid will be really special in the future. Also, how the fuck are the Mariners so good? Can anyone please answer that question for me please…

Fantasy Football

So I’ve joined my first ever Fantasy Football league for the upcoming NFL season. It’s with a bunch of friends from Lawrenceville, so I’m expecting lots of trash talking and fun. It’s a 10 team league, and I got the 6th pick. Here are the draft results for my team:

Pick 6: Larry Johnson RB
Pick 15: Carson Palmer QB
Pick 26: Reggie Wayne WR
Pick 35: Terrell Owens WR
Pick 46: Carnell Williams RB
Pick 55: Jamal Lewis RB
Pick 66: Kellen Winslow Jr. TE
Pick 75: Ben Roethlisberger QB
Pick 86: Jerricho Cotchery WR
Pick 95: LenDale White RB
Pick 106: Michael Turner RB
Pick 115: Packers D/ST
Pick 126: Neil Rackers K
Pick 135: Jerry Porter WR
Pick 146: Muhsin Muhammad WR
Pick 155: Eddie Kennison WR

A brief analysis of my draft. I actually just entered the live draft room for my first round pick and was in a hurry to figure out what the hell was going on and who was left. Tomlinson, Jackson, Westbrook (wtf DJ?), Gore, and Addai had all been taken. I was in a struggle between Larry Johnson and Shaun Alexander. Both are great backs and due for big years in my opinion… the only question mark for LJ was his contract holdout and 400+ carries last season. I went with Johnson in the end because I think despite the 400+ carries last season, he’s the more explosive back and will have more opportunities to score TD’s with the QB situation in KC (compared to an established Pro Bowler like Matt Hasselback in Seattle). I picked Palmer for my second round pick because I felt there were no premium RB’s left in the draft. I hope Palmer will turn out to be the 2nd best QB in the league this year behind Peyton. The rest of the picks I think are pretty reasonable. I was stupid for taking a kicker in anything other than the last round (as I found out from Top 10 things not to do in a fantasy draft on SportsCenter), but in general I am satisfied with the way things turned out.

-K

Poker Results 8/1

25+2 SnG’s Today: 94 played, -282.50

25+2 SnG’s Year: 161 played,-133

Ouch… fucking ouch. Had some terrible beats like A10 vs AQ, 99 vs A5, etc. and then your standard Jokerstars KK vs. AA once again. This downswing was rough. Luckily, on tilt, I decided to play some 100 NL and beat it for 1.5 buy ins to minimize the damage. But yeah, don’t know whats wrong with my game right now.

-K

Poker Results 7/31

25+2 SnG’s Today: 12 played, -165.50

25+2 SnG’s Year: 67 played, +149.50

Bad night… thought I was running pretty well on a few of the tables, but once the blinds started to creep up, I just didn’t have any hands. Stuff like this will happen, I’ll just have to play through it hopefully.

-K

Poker Results 7/25-7/27

So not much to report… didn’t play any SnG’s the past few days. Have been busy hosting Doorey, who was here for a few days from Chicago. In the past day, however, I have dabbled a bit in cash games and it’s been a harsh reminder why I’m going to stick to SnG’s for now. I was -40, then +80, then last night went on a sick run of +150, and then earlier this morning, went on a rollercoaster 1k hand session of -200. The swings are just something I don’t want to deal with at this point in time with my bankroll.

This was an interesting hand that came up last night. I called with A4s UTG and it was folded around to the SB who made a small raise to 3xBB. The BB called and I called (I will normally call small raises with a suited ace just to see the flop). The flop came down Qs 10s 9h. SB made a CBet of 1.50, BB called, and I called with the nut flush draw. Turn comes down an offsuit 5. SB bets again for 4, which is fine, he might just be doing another CBet. What really confused me was when BB raised to 10. I was 8-tabling at the time and really didn’t have an idea of who this player was (also… I don’t have PokerTracker or PAHud… which I need to get if I do decide to play cash for real). I decided to call the $10, and the SB called the additional $6. In my head (little did I know how not true this was), even if BB had two pair, a set, or maybe even a flopped straight, I still had 9 outs for the nut flush, so pot odds *I think* warranted a call – especially if you take into consideration my thinking that I’d stack someone if the spade did fall. Well the river was one of two spades I DID NOT want to see… the 5s pairing the board. As you can see from the link, SB pushed all-in, and BB CALLED (quickly). This is where, once again, I’m confused as shit. Did that 5 just fill him up for the boat? This is a $150 pot if I call… and I don’t see how I could possibly get away from it. If BB did have the boat, it would have been one hell of a laydown. I reluctantly called, expecting SB or BB to have the flopped set and then turn-river boat. Luckily, both players had baby flushes and I scooped up the pot. I probably still take down the 40 dollar pot before the river since I feel SB and BB would check if they missed their flushes. But a big bluff by one of them, and I’m probably folding.

This is why I don’t want to play cash right now. I’m in the SB with KK. I’ve got 3 limpers ahead of me so I raise it up to 6xBB, a pretty standard raise for me to get at least a few of the limpers out. UTG+1 and Button call. Flop comes down QJ5, two spades. I bet out about half of the pot, UTG+1 folds, and Button thinks about it for a while, and comes over the top. Turn 5 river J and I’m thinking maybe I’m safe cause Button pushed with pair of Q’s. Nope… J10os, no FD, and a runner runner SD? Christ, I can’t handle the calls some of these fish make. To make it worse, the turn eliminated 3 out of 5 of his outs… so I had 95% equity heading into the river.

So I’m pretty much even with cash for the past few days and won’t be revisiting it for a long while. SnG’s are a grind, but I’ve been hot recently and should stop fucking around with cash games.

-K

Poker Results 7/24

So I might play some more later tonight (right now it’s ~5 PM), but had a nice run earlier this morning. **Update** So I played a bunch more and ended about even for the evening session. Had some really really gay beats like KK vs AJ and AQ vs 62, but managed to have a sick run at the end and pick up 4 1st’s.

25+2 SnG’s Today: 41 played, + 265.50

25+2 SnG’s Year: 55 played, +315

I started to tighten up as I made the cash and it paid dividends. Unless I’m severely short stacked, I think a good strategy once I’m in the cash is to let the other two stacks battle it out and eliminate each other. Even with a chip disadvantage of something like 8500/5000 or 9500/4000 I think that I can play good enough HU to give myself a chance to win every time. This might not be the best strategy, but I’m going to see how it works.

Also, played a round at Lawrenceville with Coyle today… shot something like a 43 or 44. Glad with the way I’ve been playing the past few weeks.

- K

Poker Results 7/23

Got back from the city pretty late tonight, so didn’t get much playing time in. Here were the results from tonight.

25+2 SnG’s: 14 played, +49.50.

Had some bad breaks when I got heads up. Ended up with 1 3rd, 4 2nd, and 1 1st. The 2nd’s need to start becoming 1st’s if I want to increase my ROI. Had one guy down to 1500 with 400/800 blinds and somehow he doubled up 3 times and then took me for the rest of my stack on the 4th hand. Super gay. Other than that, pretty happy about my play tonight – was running pretty well and I was winning lots of hands where I was all-in on with +Equity.

-K

Weekend Recap

Didn’t get much poker in at all this weekend. Went down to Coyle’s beach house, which signifcantly delayed my completion of Deathly Hallows, but it was a fun, relaxing time. That being said, I did finally complete the final installment of Harry Potter last night and I thought Rowling did a good job of wrapping up the series. There were some confusing parts that I’ve already discussed with friends who have completed the book, but I won’t write about what was confusing becuase I fucking hate spoilers.

Logging in to Pokerstars yesterday, I unregistered from a tournament becuase I was going to be playing tennis in the afternoon. I opened up the Cashier and was surprised to see that I had an extra 50-something dollars in the account. A little confused, I went into my history and there was one line that said “Credit Purchase $54.09″. Now, this is sad to admit, but I actually have a Pokerstars filter on my Gmail account since I get so many tournament result e-mails from them. I checked the filter and found the following e-mail:

Hello,

PokerStars has become aware of two players who were working together in our Sit & Go tournaments to the detriment of other players.  You were involved in at least one tournament with these players and as a result you may have been adversely affected.

The players’ accounts were closed and their funds frozen pending a thorough investigation, which is now complete.  Fortunately the problem was identified quickly and they had only played in a few tournaments before the accounts were closed.

In a case such as this it is our policy to confiscate the colluders’ winnings or balances and to distribute them to the players affected by their actions in as fair a way as possible.  To confirm your credit, log onto your PokerStars account, go to the ‘Cashier’ screen and click the ‘History’ button.  Your share will be shown as a “Credit Purchase”, followed by the amount of the credit.

I regret that we will be unable to answer questions as to how your specific credit amount was calculated.  Likewise, we are not at liberty to identify the specific games or players in question.  Suffice to say that they have been barred from the site and you will not encounter them again.

The integrity of the games at PokerStars is of paramount importance to us and we will not abide cheating or collusion in our games.  We work hard to police our games and prevent such instances.  In the rare cases where collusion has actually occurred, we make sure that any players affected are compensated appropriately.

Thank you for your continued play here on PokerStars.  Please do not hesitate to let us know any time we can be of help.

Best Regards,

SteveW
PokerStars Support Team

So it looks like two fuckers tried to collude with each other and got caught. I was talking with Eric about this and we both found it quite impressive that Pokerstars does have the security in place to somehow track people down when they do cheat. My roommate and I once entered a SnG together – not with the direct intent to collude, but with the idea that we’d stay out of each other’s path when put in that situation. I think we both finished out of the money anyways and that’s when I got thinking about collusion in Sit N Go’s. In the long run, it doesn’t seem terribly profitable for two players to collude in SnG’s… especially if they’re not already winning players to begin with. If two losing players (where losing players basically means people with a -ROI) think that they’ll become superhuman and untouchable in SnG’s by colluding with one another, I think they’re in for a harsh surprise. Looking at the 25+2 SnG structure (just using this as an example, you could use any buy-in really), two people would have to put up a combined buy-in of 54 dollars. At least one person would have to get 2nd ($67.50 payoff) for this to be profitable. It just doesn’t seem to me that between two losing players, this operation would be profitable in the long run. The only way I see this working is if one of them goes all-in early on in the tournament (when blinds are 10/20 or 15/30) and the other guy calls, with whoever winning having close to 3000 chips and a distinct big stack advantage over the other players. This obviously has risks associated with it. The first one being that unless you are side by side in the SB/BB, there’s no guarantee that someone else in the tourney will wake up with AA-JJ or be a donk and call you with Ax or Kx and win. The second one being that Pokerstars will probably start to catch on to something fish if one person is going in with 72os and another is calling with 94os when blinds are so small, lol. I think the most profitable ( and safe) arrangement a winning SnG player could make would be finding another winning player, entering the same tournaments, and sort of having a non-compete pact where you basically don’t go heads up into a big pot with each other. Then again, having played close to 1000 SnG’s at the 25+2 level so far, I already have notes on most of the good players and make it a priority of mine to stay out of their way when they come in with big PF raises. It’s like the Big Game in Vegas… all the pros will play pots with each other, but when a fish does sit down, it’s a race to see who can take the fish’s money, not each other’s.

Other shit I’ve been thinking about:

• My first ever bold prediction on this blog was… quite the huge failure. I guess that’s what you get when you bet on Asians. On Saturday morning, I predicted that KJ Choi would win the British Open. As I was typing those words, KJ was at -5 and Sergio was at -7… by the time I finished my post, I think Sergio was at -8 and KJ at -3. Basically KJ misplayed a drive on the second easiset hole on the course and instead of having a good birdie opportunity, he had to scramble for bogey. I was, however, correct in my prediction that Sergio would be too inconsistent and ultimately unravel. Padraig Harrington ultimately beat Sergio in a 4-hole playoff, shooting E to Sergio’s +1. There was lots of fun to be had on the 18th, which was to be expected after Jean Van De Velde’s collapse at Carnoustie in ’99. I was only able to catch the last two playoff holes after driving back from the beach, but Harrington had a chance to win it in regulation and hit it into Barry Burn TWICE while Sergio’s championship-winning par putt just lipped out on the left edge and his bogey led him to the playoff. I’m happy for Harrington – not only cause he’s the cousin of famous poker player Dan Harrington (kidding…), but also becuase he was able to come back from what seemed like a devastating, Open-crushing double bogey and win the playoff playing composed, smart golf. He was starting to enter the Best Player to Never Win A Major chat, but he’s shown he’s got the stuff to win the big one.

• So this is just ridiculous. In Maryland, Mahamu Kanneh was charged with sexually assaulting a 7-year old. That trial has now been dismissed, due to the violation of the right to a speedy trial. What was the hold up? How about this:

“Charges against a man accused of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl have been dropped because the court took too long to find an interpreter fluent in his native West African language.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Katherine D. Savage dismissed the nearly three-year-old case against Mahamu Kanneh last week, saying the delays had violated the Liberian immigrant’s right to a speedy trial.

A court-appointed psychiatrist recommended that an interpreter be appointed and judges who handled subsequent hearings heeded that advice. But officials could not find a competent interpreter of Vai who would stay.

The first interpreter stormed out of the courtroom in tears because she found the facts of the case disturbing. A second interpreter was rejected for faulty work. A third Vai interpreter was located, but at the last minute, that person had to tend to a family emergency.”

The worst part about it, if you keep reading the article, is that the prosecutors DID find another translator, but the judge ruled it was already too late. I guess the key to getting a free pass from the American judicial system is to speak a really obscure language that no one will be able to translate – or one that will take a long time to find a translator for. I should start to learn Elvish and claim to not know English, then maybe I can get away with felony offenses. Fucking stupid judges.

-K

First Post

So after a few months of reading my friend Jim Davy’s blog, I’ve decided to start my own blog. Why you ask? Well I’ve been looking for a way to express myself ever since deleting my Xanga account (I’m kidding… sort of), and I figured this would be a suitable outlet to do so. As you can tell by the title of the blog, I’m going to probably make this primarily a poker blog to track my results and have some discussion on the theory of a few hands. On the side, I’ll probably post a few things about stuff I’m interested in: sports, politics, and anything mind blowingly retarded enough to be funny.

So you might be wondering what the background behind the name of this blog is. I started to play poker online as a sophomore in high school. At the time, the big gambling addiction in my own house, Griswold, was pool, while around the rest of the School it was blackjack. Chris Moneymaker then won the 2003 WSOP Main Event and that all changed very quickly. By junior year, poker had taken off at Lawrenceville and admittedly, I probably had more experience than 90% of the players at the School. One day, in Driver’s Ed with Big Bertha Videtti, my good friend DJ and I decided to liven things up with some heads up Texas Hold ‘em. Things were going pretty well until a monster of a hand came up. With the board reading K K 10 10 x (not sure about the 10′s, but there were two pair on the board), we got all our chips into the middle. DJ held something like a K9, and I held something like a KQ.

So split pot, right? Now, to this day DJ gives me shit about this and I still feel bad (sort of), but I pulled the “Full House Kicker” rule out of my ass and scooped the whole pot. In our massive amounts of gambling since, I’m sure I’ve given some of it back to DJ over the years. But whenever DJ wants to call me out for being gay, he’ll always have the full house kicker.

-K