Mission WSOP

Christmas has come and gone and now I’m a rock star thanks to Guitar Heroes.  Actually, I pretty much am finding the game difficult on any level other than Easy.  I am looking forward to spending my gift cards at Borders and Best Buy and will smell much better doing it thanks to some new soap and cologne for Christmas.

My bankroll is stuck in neutral lately and after a 4th place finish in a Stud tournament last night, I’m at $2075.

A message to all of you out there who feel compelled to ask me to stake you… don’t!  If I want to stake you, I will seek you out and do so.  In the mean time, I am losing my patience with all of the requests as of late.  I feel like I’m walking through a village of homeless people every time I sign on to AOL Instant Messenger.

Finally, I was so disappointed recently when Yahoo ran a story featuring the Top 40 Most Interesting Sports Figures of 2007 as voted on by bloggers… but no one asked this blogger to participate!  Sure, I have a readership of maybe 43 but still… I have an opinion and I fit their expectation of being "basically a big city white guy in their 20s and 30s."

So, here is my Top 15:

15 (tie). Randy Moss/Terrell Owens
Two guys who just can’t help you win and are a major distraction are on teams with a combined 28-2 record.  Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do!

14. OJ Simpson
The former Heisman winner turned retired bumbling detective. (Hint: OJ, look in the mirror… you’ll find what you are looking for!)  Now, he’s a candidate for America’s Dumbest Criminal with a brief summer news affair where he was caught on tape committing a heist of his own stuff.  Way to go, OJ, we knew you had it in you.

13. Tim Donaghy
In the scandal that just couldn’t get any steam behind it, I still think Tim deserves some kudos for costing (or winning) millions of degenerate gamblers everywhere some dough.

12. Floyd Mayweather
I want to make a joke about Dancing With The Stars but I’m afraid Floyd Mayweather might read this and come to my house at 4 am when I’m sleeping and hurt me real bad.  An MMA run in 2008 could make Floyd a Top 10 candidate for sure. 

11. David Beckham
I had something realy interesting and funny to say about Becks but I’m going to hold out for millions and then totally not deliver.

10. Tony Romo
He went from bumbling the snap in a key playoff game to 13-2 and nailing Carrie Underwood and Jessica Simpson.  This guy might be my hero.

9. Roger Clemens
He’s retired… no wait… he’s not retired… no wait… he’s retired… no wait… he’s not retired.  Boy, that’s old.  I guess Clemens thought so, too.  Here’s a new suggestion.  He used steroids… no wait… he didn’t use steroids… no wait… he used steroids… no wait… he didn’t use steroids.  If ESPN makes a reality show about this guy I hope I can account for my whereabouts when the program director is found dead.

8. Tom Brady
All he does is win.  And now they give him some real targets to throw to and he makes the game look easier than ever.

7. Barry Bonds
He probably should be higher but eclipsing the home run record was anti-climactic and the rest of the Bonds story is so played.  Although the highlight has to be the 100s of interpretations of the Hank Aaron speech.

6. Bill Belichick
Cheaters never win?  Someone needs to put out an inquiry on this one then!

5. Brett Favre
It’s always big news when you are able to get off my "I hate how overrated this guy is" list.  Somehow Favre put me in my place in 2007.  Has he always been that good and I was just blind to it?  I’m sure he’ll make two or three well-timed choke throws in the playoffs to help me get to a place where I can put him back on that list.

4. Gilbert Arenas
Agent 00… helped his team in the best way he knew how: he got injured and out of their way.  I’m rooting for him though.  Maybe he can go the route of TO and Randy Moss and end up on some juggernaut of a team and we’ll forget all about the mugging and trash talking.  The Celtics could use one more player.

3. Pacman Jones
Made it rain, wrestled and then disappeared into oblivion as he tries to convince the NFL to let him back.  Adam had such a lock on the #1 spot for me that he only slipped two spots when he failed to make the news in the second half of ‘07.  Someone call up Jones and tell him I got a big stack of $1 bills for his 3rd place finish!

2. Michael Vick
Public enemy #1 finishes #2 on my list and in most eyes, Vick equates to a pile of #2.  Now he’s behind bars and fading out of the hot button topics of the public.  This is a good thing as he was a mine waiting to blow up in the face of anyone who stepped out and commented in any way other than Michael Vick should be burned, stoned, hung, shot by firing squad, etc.

1. Jimmy Rollins
Allow me to go local… he told us the Phillies were the team to beat in 2007 and then went out and backed it up by helping the Phillies storm from behind and put a dagger in the heart of millions of Mets fans.  Plus, he was named MVP and had 20 doubles, triples, home runs and stolen bases in the same year.  And then there was his biggest feat of 2007: he knocked the Eagles out of the top news spot in Philadelphia and put the Phillies into the spot of team most talked about going into 2008.

A tough Saturday led to my first losing day of poker in about a week.  I had bubble-itis on Saturday and finished at the final table of a PL Omaha Hi/Lo MTT but out of the money (finished 9th but 8 cashed) and 4 times in Sit & Gos, I finished 4th with top 3 paying.  The bankroll was down to $1140.

I played very little poker on Sunday and spent most of my day with my girlfriend and caught up on my RSS Feeds on Newsgator.  Here were the highlights… my commentary is free of charge:

• The poker world received "exciting" news that the federal government has put safeguards in place to ensure the casinos take 25% of any cash prize awarded in a poker tournament.  There is now a new law that states that casinos MUST take 25% of any prize over $5000 awarded at a poker tournament.  This should make for some interesting chops.  Anyone want to take a bet that you will see a chop at a tournament of $4999 (or something very close to that)?
• Fox’s Anchorwoman received a lot of hype… and now it is cancelled!  Despite Lauren Jones previously being a Bob Barker beauty, Miss New York and a WWE diva, only 2.7 million people turned out for the first (and only) airing.  If you were one of those people or someone who saw the commercials but are disappointed you missed it, fear not!  You can catch the show on Fox’s website.  There’s 5 episodes over there.  I think they are calling it the Who Gives A S–t channel.
• Dumbest People In The World #3: Anyone who sticks up for Michael Vick.  Look, I’m not crazy about any domesticated animal… especially dogs.  However, I really thought about this argument that a few people are throwing out there (including me at one point) where the public is coming down harder on cruelty to animals than cruelty to humans.  The most recent to come out to defend Vick was comedian/actor Jamie Foxx.  Boxer Roy Jones did too.  The argument presented was that people can shoot someone and not go to jail but Michael Vick fought dogs and he is going to jail.  Let’s get one thing clear about this argument.  If Don King were to shoot and kill one of his boxers after he lost a fight, I think he would be doing some hard time.  I still think there was a rush to judgment here but in the end everyone who did rush to judgment was bailed out by Vick being that stupid. 
• Amy Winehouse’s father-in-law wants us to boycott her music.  For some reason it is our responsibility to put Winehouse in the poor house which will apparently end her drug addiction.  You know, that makes a lot of sense… you never, ever see poor people addicted to drugs.
• I’m shocked!  CBS’s "Kid Nation" is under scrutiny.  The show will premiere September 19th but it will under a cloud of negative press.  First, it was the 22 page release parents had to sign to pimp their kids to the network.  Now, it is the allegations that children were hurt on the set and were forced to work unusually long hours.  I find it hard to believe that kids aged 8 to 15 left alone and without adult supervision could possibly get injured.
• Enrique Iglesias has a small penis!  And in true celebrity-blessed fashion, his small penis has not hurt him.  It seems that now Enrique has a modelling offer for a brand of extra small condoms. 
• Finally, the most exciting movie news since the release date of Transformers is that G.I. Joe will be hitting theaters in 2009.  The project also has a director: Stephen Sommers of ‘Van Helsing’ and ‘Mummy’ fame.  Now that a director has been named, the important question of who will be cast in the roles of Duke, Cobra Commander, Snake Eyes, Bazooka, Destro, Zandar and others.  Mark Wahlberg has been the only rumor so far. 

Well, hopefully, I’ll get back on the winning track soon.

After committing to the restart on Thursday, I took Friday and Saturday off to spend some quality time with my girlfriend and clear my head.  As I restart, when I get a few days ahead I am going to start taking a little time off here and there to keep the game fresh and prevent the boredom that can occur which makes me do stupid things.

In my first day back, I added $18 and bumped my total to $152.54.  A little behind where I should be but I’m happy with how I played in my first online foray.  I also played at the lowest level on the site and was able to earn 36x the big bet in about an hour.  If this were a 5/10 game, I would be +360 instead of +18 (although that is a much tougher game).  But, I have realized I can’t push it if I want to do this right and need to grind it out.

Secondly, my poker calendar may slowly fill up as there will be some opportunities to test my poker skills in some fairly big events.  Two of them are online and two are live.

The first online series has already begun and I’m looking at the August 16th Seven Card Stud event on the Full Tilt Online Poker Series as a possible event for me to play in.  The event takes place at 9 pm and top prize is $25,000.  I haven’t decided yet if I was going to play and with my work schedule, it looks like an unlikely event for me.

The other online series is the WCOOP on Poker Stars.  I played in an event last year and just missed the money by 4 places after leading the tournament for about 75% of the first 4 hours before taking two rough beats and getting decimated in chips only to finish close to the bubble.  I’m hoping to play in either the 7-Card Stud event or the Razz event in September. 

Live events upcoming are the Borgata Poker Open in September which is disappointingly Hold’em only.  I doubt this is a tournament I’ll play in but if I go on a hot streak then I’ll be there.  I’m very disappointed in the Borgata’s total abandonment of non-Hold’em games.

The most likely event for me to play in is the Seven Card Stud event at the Taj on September 17th.  I have talked about playing in this event every year for the past 5 years and I never participate (including one year where I actually went to AC and stayed over with the intention on playing ONLY to oversleep after a late night session and not participate).  I think this is the event that I’ll be targeting to play in and hope I stick to my guns and actually participate. 

If I play in any of the events, I will be updating my blog during the events.

Moving away from my life, Michael Vick should be suspended by the end of the week.  I’m surprised it has taken this long.

Pacman Jones is a wrestler… sort of.  Apparently, he can’t be touched or harmed in any way.  TNA has its’ work cut out for them to make this work.

Finally, I haven’t done a Top 10 in a while so after catching a movie with one of my favorite characters of all-time in it, I came up with a list.

Top 10 Favorite Movie Characters Of All-Time

10. Drexl Spivey (True Romance)
Sure, Gary Oldman’s character has a very small part in my favorite movie ever but it is just one of the best performances in one of the most underrated movies of all-time.  It was tough to decide between Oldman’s character and Christopher Walken’s character but Oldman edges Walken out.

9. Teddy KGB (Rounders)
John Malkovich’s underground Russian villain of the greatest poker movie of all-time is absolutely a performance to see for any poker fan.  You play poker with anyone that has seen this movie and they are bound to mimic Malkovich’s Russian accent and one of the many memorable lines that KGB says during the movie.

8. Rick Blaine (Casablanca)
Humphrey Bogart is one bad m-f-er in the only love story a guy can get away with saying he likes without being called a wuss. 

7. Mr. Blonde (Reservoir Dogs)
"Are you gonna bark… little doggy… or are you gonna bite?"  Michael Madsen is the highlight of the pre-Pulp Fiction Tarantino film era. 

6. John McClaine (Die Hard)
Hard to believe I still haven’t seen Die Hard 4.  Bruce Willis as McClaine is easily my favorite action sequel-fest character.

5. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (Full Metal Jacket)
The main reason to watch the first half of Full Metal Jacket is R. Lee Ermey’s turn as a ball-breaking drill sergeant who pushes Private Pyle… well, if you haven’t seen it, I am not going to ruin it.

4. Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction)
The baddest of the bad m-f-ers in movie history.  He has a wallet to prove it.  Screw John Travolta, it’s Samuel L. Jackson that makes this movie one of the best dialogue-driven movies of all-time.

3. Roy Hobbs (The Natural)
This movie gets me every time.  I can’t stand when this movie pops on my TV because I can’t turn away.  You have to make me turn it off.  I defy any true baseball fan to not get caught up in this movie and end up rooting for Hobbs to win it all for the New York Knights.  Hell, he made me root for a New York team.

2. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Christian Bale carries this movie as a businessman by day/psychotic killer by night addicted to 80s music and serial killings.  I’d quote some of the many memorable lines from the movie but since practically the entire movies is on the Internet Movie Database, you can look for yourself.

1. Leon (The Professional)
Assassin turned father-figure turned protector of Matilda, a 12-year-old played by Natalie Portman who loses her family when they are all murdered.  Jean Reno is amazing as the assassin with a heart.  If it weren’t for the chemistry between Reno and Portman, this movie would be ordinary. 

Honorable mentions: Jason Vorhees, Clark Griswold, Hoke Colburn, Private Trip, Private Pyle, Clarence Worley, Alonzo (Training Day), Jesse & Celine (Before Sunrise/Before Sunset), Worm, Knish, Todd Wodds & Reggie Kane (Duets), Tyler Durden, The Joker, Mike McDermott, Boba Fett… too tired to continue but I think you get that I had a long list to pare down to 10.

Armed with feedback from my small readership, I will attempt to write a more solid blog entry tonight.  The grind toward $2k continues to bode well as the bankroll went to $233.09 tonight.  That’s +$11.80 for you math wizards out there.  I wish I had more time to devote to playing as I think I could really go higher with my goal.  I hit the nearly $12 mark in less than 40 minutes and am loving playing mostly stud.

So, why the limited time?  Let’s break down a typical day in the life:

9 AM - 10 AM: At some point in this hour, I roll out of bed.

10 AM - 11 AM: Check work e-mail, personal e-mail, send information to store teams (I’m a District Manager for Blockbuster Video), call stores, check voice mail, check work e-mail #2, call more stores.

11 AM - 11:15 AM: Shower, dress, out the door.

11:15 AM - 11:30 AM: Hit Wawa, grab a Red Bull, eat some toasted ravioli.

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Drive, listen to Howard Stern in between calling stores and returning customer complaint calls.

12:30 PM - 4 or 5 PM: Visit a store, log the visit.

5 PM - 7 PM: Varies… sometimes it’s just checking work e-mail again sometimes it’s returning more phone calls.  Tonight it was teaching a New Hire Orientation class until 8:30 PM.  Occassionally, I have to interview, hire or fire someone too.

7 PM - 8 PM: Drive home.

8 PM - 11 PM: Varies (especially the arrival time home).  Sometimes I spend some limited but valuable time with Lisa (my girlfriend), sometimes I get a chance to dig into playing poker early, most of the time it is spent combining one or both of these activities with catching up on my massive DVR recordings.  And somewhere in there I have to eat.

11 PM - MIDNIGHT: Hit the gym.  I try and do 2 miles on the treadmill, exercise my torso and abs and then stop at Wawa on the way home for a pint of milk and a banana.

MIDNIGHT on: If my perfect schedule works out then I’m hitting the online tables at an earlier time than normal.  I catch up on the news through my Newsgator account or on Yahoo and fit in some time to blog and if necessary any work I let slide through the cracks that I can complete at home on my work laptop.

Around 4 AM: Nap… I can’t call it sleep anymore… sleep would be more than 4 or 5 hours.

And this is a less hectic day.  No fire-drill conference calls or issues in stores or the day having to start earlier because I have to drive to a Maryland store or have a debrief with my boss.  I estimate that I have slept 20 hours in 4 days this week.  That’s roughly the amount of Red Bulls and Moutain Dews I’ve had.

I mentioned Newsgator earlier… this is a dream come true for me.  If you are not familiar, Newsgator is an RSS Reader.  Basically, an RSS reader allows you to sign up for various News Feeds (including the Mission WSOP blog) and check in for the latest updates on a daily basis.  Tonight I found that I could link to Norman Chad’s articles in the Washington Post.  His latest article talks about how it is impossible to make any form of gambling illegal because people will always find away to drink, gamble and make whoppee.  His words, not mine.  It’s one of Chad’s less funny pieces but a slam dunk once again.  Chad has to be my favorite writer and I’ve been reading his stuff for at least 15 years.

The Newsgator Feed Reader is amazing because it’s like setting up your very own online newspaper.  Never will I have to worry about accidentally reading an article by Michelle Malkin again. (How am I doing with the links?)  While I’m new to Newsgator, I am an instant fan and recommend it to anyone who is a news junkie like myself who just has failed to find the time to sit down and enjoy a newspaper.

Poor Becks!  It looks like David Beckham is not going to be able to play this weekend where his expected debut with the LA Galaxy was supposed to occur.  The ankle is too swollen and he left just a glimpse of hope for those waiting to see his debut.  The annointed savior of American soccer has said he may step into the game late.  "I’m here for five years.  I’m not here just obviously for the game on Saturday."  Maybe I’m a bit pessimistic but I feel like the Beckham-era will be more prima donna than premiere player. 

More Bad Newz for Mike Vick.  Despite his apology to Falcons’ team owner Arthur Blank, animal rights group PETA is planning to protect in front of the NFL league offices in NY on Friday morning.  Last time a public figure experienced this Don Imus was fired… let’s see if this forces the NFL to take action.  Vick’s new shoe has been shelved by Nike and it probably doesn’t help that PETA has planned to tell its’ 10 million members to boycott Nike, too.

So many roads this nightmare of a situation could go for all parties involved but it would be nice for Vick to ask the team for an unpaid leave while he handles the business of a federal trial but then again, who am I to ask a guy to walk away from $6 million.  The guy hasn’t been convicted yet so I really don’t see how the league or the team can react until due process has been followed.

I’m not sticking up for Vick in any way.  I just think these ultra-sensitive groups consistently overreact prior to all of the facts being sorted out.  The difficult part is that in the end, they are probably right to call for such a swift action taken… it looks bad for Ron Mexico.

The best news of the day was that Vick’s trial was assigned to US District Judge Henry E. Hudson.  Hudson is known for keeping trials moving and US District Court in Richmond is known as the "rocket docket" for getting cases handled quickly.  No word on whether or not Vick has considered Rocket Docket as a name for his next canine purchase. 

Finally, Poker After Dark should be excellent Friday night (well… Saturday).  If you can stay up late or DVR it, the final four of Poker Analyst Week is going on and Gabe Kaplan is the chip leader.  Mr. Kotter is always fun to watch and I’m glad to catch the replay of this since I missed it a few months ago.  Joining Gabe will be Mike Sexton, Phil Gordon and Howard Lederer.  All week, Kaplan has been on point with his play and his humor and it’s been a great week on one of the best poker shows on TV.

Today, I struggled but still managed to get back on track with a winning day.  Low limit is so rough to play because it is such a small amount of money to win.  I was able to claw, bite and scrape my way to a +$4.23 to $194.23.  I’m slowly sliding backward on my pace and now just 4 days ahead of the pace needed to pull this off.  But it’s way too early to have any reaction to my progress.

I’ve obviously spent a lot of time talking about poker since embarking on this hare-brained quest, partially because I’m an ego maniac and love attention and partially because if I could pick one thing to do 24 hours a day, it would be poker.  It doesn’t even have to be playing it.  It could be watching it, talking about it, writing it, whatever.  If there were a 24-hour poker channel, I’d be the #1 viewer.  The thing that is most difficult though is having a discussion with a non-poker player or someone who fails to really understand the game.  It usually always ends up coming down to a discussion of the non-poker member of the conversation discounting poker as a game of skill.

Recently, I have had a few of those discussions with my brother who consistently fails to grasp the level of skill involved in poker.  The first discussion occurred when watching Poker After Dark two weeks ago.  The hand involved Clonie Gowen who held Ace-3 suited.  She was the big stack and made a raise only to have another player go over the top all-in but that player was short stacked.  That player held pocket Kings.  At that point, I quickly did the match and figured she would be getting better than 2-to-1 on her money so she had to call.  Of course, my brother disagreed because all she had was an "ace with a three".  I tried to break down the math and it helped that the percentages were right there on the screen but he just didn’t get it.  The discussion then became rather juvenile and unproductive and every hand after that the comment was made that whatever the player had was not as good as an "ace with a three".  Clonie did call and won the hand when she hit the ace. 

The second discussion occurred tonight when talking about the Final Table of the WSOP.  I was criticizing Danny Sheridan’s oddsmaking on the players at the Final Table of the Main Event and I commented that Sheridan’s odds took very little into account the skill of the player and focused mainly on the chip stacks.  My brother felt that the odds should basically be made based on chip stacks because if they made it this far, they were all about the same skill level.  Once I attempted to argue that that was not the case as there were players with serious deep tournament experience still remaining and that some of the players may have defied the odds slightly to get this far, the discussion broke down into a commentary on luck vs. skill.  Rather than bore you with the details of this inane argument, luck is absolutely a factor when it comes down to individual isolated results but overall success in poker comes down to the skill level of the player involved.

Here’s a few analogies that bring to light the luck vs. skill argument.  In an individual sport such as boxing, a boxer could outbox his opponent for 11 rounds and then get caught with a crisp shot in the 12th round and go down and not get back up.  Despite 11/12th of the fight being dominated by that boxer, they lose.  If you look at the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas fight, you will struggle to find someone to say that Douglas was the more skilled boxer going in yet he won the fight.  I’m not saying it’s luck, it just is what it is.  Then there’s the ‘86 World Series.  The Red Sox were almost the World Series Champions that year.  Unfortunately, the ball went through Buckner’s legs.  The last time I checked, no one has discounted the Mets World Series Championship because they only won because they got lucky that the ball went through Buckner’s legs.  That’s just part of the game apparently. 

Dumbest Person In The World Candidate #2

The football world is filled with dumb players and the first two candidates are from the world of football.  Michael Vick could be headed to jail in the near future due to his possible involvement in illegal dog fighting and cruelty to animals.  The details of the crimes are grim and include a losing Bad Newz Kennel dog being doused with water and electrocuted.  What’s the Bad Newz Kennel?  Apparently, it is the Kennel that Vick says he had nothing to do with but witnesses and other circumstantial evidence would say otherwise… like a reference on his own webpage that lists his hometown as Newport News (BadNewz).  So far, Vick has played dumb but dug himself a deep hole that he may not be able to wiggle his way out of.  The hole is much deeper than any of the shallow graves located on his property for the mistreated animals that either were killed during their barbaric battles or afterward if they let down their owners.  The biggest challenge is going to be that while Vick has proven on the football field that he can get out of the most unlikely situations, his athleticism will not help him here and without that, Vick could be dead in the water.  So, either Vick is a victim as he claims and would make him one of the dumbest people alive as he pins the blame on family members who took advantage of his hospitality and used his home as a dog gladiator arena OR he’s even dumber because he put a lucrative career on the line in order to enjoy watching a highly illegal activity take place.  We crucify Barry Bonds because we think he used steroids and Terrell Owens because we think he’s a selfish jerk… I’m hoping the Vick backlash is a little tougher on him.  If you are unsure why I say this still, read the details for yourself.

So, life is not heavenly in the City Of Angels for Becks.  The long flight from England has reaggravated David Beckham’s ankle injury and now his long-awaited (and televised) American debut against Chelsea this weekend may not happen.  The US soccer world (and ESPN who can’t stop plugging the event) is on pins and needles waiting to see what will unfold.  They will be steaming if Beckham is on the bench at gametime.  It won’t be the first group that would be steaming over the Beckham effect.  Beckham has alienated his teammates over his pay as Becks will make $6.5 million this year. The team’s other top player and captain, Landon Donovan, will make $900k.  There’s even one player that is slated to make $18,000 this year.  A shift manager at McDonald’s makes a little over $20,000.  The rumors have swirled that Becks will be made captain and Donovan will push for mutiny or the team may go on strike… all is not well in Los Angeles.  You gotta love a good soap opera.

All is well in Vegas as the 2007 WSOP comes to a close.  They are down to heads up action and Jerry Yang is absolutely dominating the Final Table.  Yang’s $225 satellite may become an $8 million + payday as he currently sits at $117 million in chips versus Tuan Lam’s $10 million in chips.  Yang has put 6 of 7 of the players to the rail including my pick, Alex Kovchenko who held on to finish 4th.  Yang took out players so fast in the beginning that it looked like it was going to be one of the fastest final tables ever.  He eliminated players on Hand #15 (Philip Hilm), Hand #21 (Lee Watkinson), Hand #28 (Lee Childs) and Hand #56 (Hevad "Rain" Khan).  His run was stopped by Raymond Rahme eliminating John Kalmar on Hand #60 and the newswire stirred at how the final table may wrap up in one of the quickest finals ever.  Then, down to the Final Four, it took 107 hands for a player to get eliminated and Yang did it again by eliminating Kravchenko.  Then he eliminated crowd favorite Raymond Rahme two hands later.

Yang’s domination is amazing… He won 67 of 169 hands getting down to heads up and so far in 21 hands of heads up play (more than the last two years of heads up play combined), Yang has won 17 of them for a total of 84 out of 190.  If Yang doesn’t win, it will be a storied collapse.  if he does, it will be one of shear and utter domination.  Unfortunately, it’s 6:15 AM here and I have work… guess I’ll be finding out who wins when I wake up.  If Lam makes a comeback, it may still be going on.