Mission WSOP

I don’t know the word to describe how it felt to watch the last episode of ‘The Wire’.  Inevitable?  It’s true that all things must come to an end… and in this case something great came to an end.  Every season, I always looked forward to the next episode… and every off-season, I always looked forward to the next season.  Part of me rooted for HBO to make the re-up and part of me rooted for the creative team to say we’ve got another season in us.  To me, ‘The Wire’ went out on top.  It wasn’t this super-artistic "choose your own" ending like ‘The Sopranos.  It wasn’t a clusterfuck like ‘Deadwood’.  It didn’t hang on too long to get stale.  It left just early enough for you to want more.  People who didn’t catch on, thanks to DVD and TV syndication, at some point, will realize what they missed.  And Sundays will never be the same.

What was impressive about the way the show ended was how the end was truly the beginning.  McNulty was gone… but in the last scene Detective Leander Sydnor can be seen, in McNulty-like fashion, going to the same judge McNulty went to in Season 1 to say that Barksdale’s continuous dodging of the law was not a coincidence… and Sydnor was singing to Judge Phelan about how they had Marlo dead to rights and somehow he’s on the street.  Cedric Daniels moved on from police commissioner before he could have a real impact but it looks like Ellis Carver is on his way to follow in his footsteps (and Carver is Daniels, right down to the skeletons in his closet).  The new mayor has the new police commissioner wrapped around her finger.  The streets are still the streets.  There’s a new Marlo who was a new Prop Joe who was who was a new Stringer who was a new Barksdale.  There’s even a new Omar.  Maybe Michael won’t be the Robin Hood of the streets but I doubt that will be the last time Michael taps the money.  And Bubbles is finally clean… too bad Dukie is following down the same path. 

It was a quick 10-15 seconds but my favorite part of the show was when Chris Partlow and Wee-Bay were seen talking in the prison yard.  The muscle of their respective operations, they did the best they could… life in prison to protect the drug lord in exchange for their families to be taken care of.  It’s the best the soldiers can do.  It’s either that or go out like Snoop or Strinkum, I guess.  It’s a long shot that they’ll work their way to Slim Charles’ level, now most likely the new head of the Co-Op.

Were there some chapters left untold?  Of course!  But when a show is as rich in characters as ‘The Wire’ is, how can you tell them all?  We got a taste of where Namond was headed but what about Randy?  And what about that kid that stole all the cars?  The show left ‘Cutty’ out there as the most pointless character in the history of TV dramas by not even giving him a sniff at the end.  Is Rawls gay?  What’s Marlo doing next?  Will I see McNulty on my next trip to the White Marsh Mall or maybe the Shops at the Inner Harbor as the latest Rent-A-Cop?  But I think I’m just splitting hairs.

‘The Wire’ was more real than any reality show shoved down our throat these days… and it could have been what blocked it from being a truly popular show.  The mainstream public doesn’t want their bad guys to be human.  In this case, the drug kingpins that were the target of the police investigations throughout.  They only want their bad guys to be human if they don’t really know they are bad guys like Tony Soprano.  The mainstream public doesn’t want their good guys to be flawed.  In this case, the police officers and government officials who were sometimes on the trail of the bad guy but almost always covering their ass.  Instead, they want Gil Grissom.  The mainstream public isn’t always willing to accept a major character dying out of the blue.  In this case… well, that might be more cases then on ‘Deal or No Deal’.  Heck, ‘Dallas’ had to bring back Bobby Ewing and play it off as a dream sequence. 

On that note, I figured I’d rank my Top 10 TV Dramas of all-time… I went with prime time Dramas to not out myself on my secret ‘General Hospital’ obsession of my teen years… oops! (Cesar Faison… best villain ever!)

My Top 10 Dramas

10. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The show was entertaining, Sarah Michelle Gellar was hot… what more do you need?  Best Episode(s): Becoming, Part 1 & 2 from Season 2

9. Jericho
Now, the show I root for most to make it season to season.  I was shocked when it was cancelled after season one and more shocked when it didn’t get a recall for season two.  It’s can’t miss now.  Best Episode: A.K.A. from Season 1

8. The Sopranos
I almost feel obligated to put this on here.  I guess I don’t want to get whacked.  It was one of the few shows I know that could keep me hooked even with some episodes that were just complete misses.  I know diehard Sopranos fans would disagree but it wasn’t perfect… just really good!  Best Episode: Kennedy and Heidi from Season 6 (Part 2) - The one where Tony finishes off Christopher and goes to Vegas to get away.

7. My So-Called Life
I always wonder if this show is high on my list because it got cut out before its time or because it was that good.  I remember I never saw it and then watched all 19 episodes consecutively on MTV. Best Episode: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (Series Finale)

6. Star Trek: The Next Generation
Engage!  Better than the original and I’ll give it a pass for creating a lot of lame copycats trying to build on the Star Trek franchise.  I’m rooting for the new Star Trek movie… J.J. Abrams, don’t let us down!  Best Episode: (any episode with Q but I pick…) All Good Things… from Season 7 (Series Finale)

5. Dawson’s Creek
Don’t judge me, damn it!  They can’t be all gritty dramas, can they?  The WB might have actually made it if it produced more winners like this one.  Best Episode: Sex, She Wrote from Season 2

4. The X-Files
I still watch this show 3-4 times a week.  I get excited every time I hear a rumor of a 2nd movie.  You have to give this show credit that it can hit theatres and actually surge on after its release. Best Episode: The Amazing Maleeni from Season 7 

3. ER
I hate the talk that this might be the last year for the show.  No matter who is on this show, it still clicks on all cylinders.  I was in high school when this show started and don’t remember if I started watching it immediately… but I’ve seen every episode now.  My favorite characters from the show aren’t even on there anymore and I still dig it.  Best Episode: There Are No Angels Here from Season 12 (one of the Darfur episodes)

2. Homicide: Life On The Streets
Excellent show with great characters starring the greatest TV drama star of all-time - Baltimore.  Andre Braugher as Frank Pembleton was pretty amazing, too.  There are few dramas I would watch over and over again… and I’ve seen every episode of this series at least three times.  Best Episode: Night Of The Dead Living from Season 1

1. The Wire
For all the reasons above and more.  It had great stars and, once again, it was set in Baltimore.  Although, at the end of the day, I’d have to say Omar was my favorite character on the show, it’s really tough to pick just one.  Best Episode: Middle Ground from Season 3 (Stringer gets it from Omar and Brother Mouzone)

The truth is out there… you just have to know where to look.  (Maybe I shouldn’t watch ‘X-Files’ all night long.)  I’ve been playing poker a long time and I’ve realized there are some things that are absolutely true.  Some of them are about my game, some are about the game in general but all of them are 100% true.

1. Pocket Aces is the best hand in poker.

Next time you are sitting at a table and a player says they hate pocket aces, I have a suggestion.  Punch them in the face!  I think they might enjoy it.  They obviously don’t know what is good for them anyway.  I almost put #1 as "I always win with aces" but that’s not exactly true.  I would estimate that I win with pocket aces roughly 90-95% of the time.  Nothing is more exciting than looking down and seeing two matching A’s or seeing two aces pop up on the screen when playing online. 

2. If you want to tell an entertaining poker story, a bad beat story is definitely NOT the way to go!

I used to tell these stories all the time.  Then, I’d be sitting down at a food court near the poker room and hear some schmo on his cell phone boring his friend to death with a story of how some donkey called with J3 under the gun and flopped a boat.  Here’s the deal with bad beat stories, no one really cares.  I remember walking through the area right outside of the Amazon Room at the World Series of Poker in 2005 with my girlfriend.  She would count the number of times she heard the words "… and then a/an (fill in the blank with a card) came on the river!"  It was usually followed by some expletive filled sentence about how lucky his nit opponent was.  I think when we boarded the plane she was in triple digits.

3. It’s more fun to be slightly behind on a coin flip than slightly ahead.

If the two hands flipped pre-flop are 9d-9s and Ah-Kh, I hope I have AK.  It’s just so stressful when you have to root for your hand to hold up.  You are biting your nails on every street and if you fall behind, you usually only have 2 outs for the re-suck.  On the other hand, you have a shot to take the lead on the flop, turn and river.  Sometimes, you are even lucky enough to get additional outs on the turn or river depending on how the board plays.  Granted, I’m giving up a few percentage points but I’ll take it.

4. Good players win and bad players lose.

You have to look at poker players more like pitchers in baseball and less like boxers.  What do I mean by that?  Steve Carlton was probably the greatest left-handed pitcher of all-time and Muhammad Ali was probably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all-time.  Ali won 92% of the time while Carlton won 57% of the time but their success is relative.  In poker, the best players don’t always win but the better players perform better than the less talented players.  If you look at the top 10 players on Card Player in 2007, only one of those players did not have a true poker pedigree.  David Pham, the Player of the Year in 2007, actually won the Player of the Year in 2000 and finished 2nd in 2004.

5. Poker is 65% skill, 10% luck and 25% timing.

A lot of times, timing is mistakenly identified as luck.  Poker is a truly mathematical game.  My educated guess is that if you push with AK and get called by a lower pair 1000 times, you will probably win about 450-500 times.  The thing that I can’t predict is how many times that will be for all of your chips and how many times it will only be for a small percentage of your chips.  An above average player will win his fair share of tournaments but if he/she is playing variable buy-ins, those wins might come in the lower buy-in tournaments rather than the larger buy-in tournaments.  It explains the Top 10 money list in poker and why it includes a player like Chris Moneymaker who is nothing more than an average player who caught fire at just the right time.

6. Live lower limit cash games have moved beyond the books.

I’ve read a lot of books about poker and nothing can prepare you for the way that poker is played at a $1/$2 No Limit game.  The game has moved away from anything resembling poker described in any poker book out there.  The biggest change is pre-flop play as it is now considered standard to raise to anywhere from $12-$25 pre-flop and it is expected that 2-4 players will call said raise.  What’s particularly puzzling is that a player will limp for $2 and then call a $25 raise.  This used to be the way that online cash games went but these players moved to the online game and now the online game has actually become more standard in its play.  I never thought I’d say that.

7. You’re never really sorry.

When you flip over your hand and you are behind I will bet you $10,000 that your first thought isn’t "Man, I hope I don’t hit my card here and suck out because I’d hate to see this guy lose."  So, why do you feel the need to apologize when you do?  In my opinion, this is totally disrespectful to the person who lost.  I know it’s supposed to be the right thing to do but it isn’t like you knocked someone over and helped them up.  In this case, you knocked someone over and just kept walking… if you’re really sorry, give me my money back.  Didn’t think so!

8. The online poker laws in the U.S. are ridiculous.

It’s pretty silly that there are laws out there trying to curtail U.S. citizens from playing online poker.  The laws against people playing poker live outside of casinos and legal poker rooms have been so effective that the U.S. government feels they can have the same impact online, I guess.  Join the Poker Players Alliance and help in their fight to legalize online poker. 

9. "The Grand" will be poker’s version of "Caddyshack".

Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Dennis Farha, Cheryl Hines, Richard Kind and Chris Parnell are the main characters and Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Gabe Kaplan, Werner Herzog and a pile of poker players also appear in the movie.  It hits theaters March 21st and looks like it will be hilarious.  From what I’ve read, most of the movie was improvised and rumor has it the entire final table was improvised as well.

10. Online poker is not rigged.

If you think online poker is rigged, I have two suggestions.  (1) Don’t play online and (2) drop by my home game and you’ll see all the evidence you need.  As to the first point, if you think online poker is rigged then you are a bigger sucker than those people who play the Money Wheel in the casino.  I don’t play Blackjack online because I don’t trust it.  If I didn’t trust online poker to be legitimate, I couldn’t play it.  If you play enough live poker, you will realize that the stuff you see that "only happens online" actually happens everywhere.  Deal with it!

Before the Top 10 list, the charges versus Pacman Jones were dropped.  The original report said he "sucker punched" a stripper when he entered the Body Tap strip club’s office because he was upset that his bracelet and money were stolen.  Now, the charges have been dropped.  Hmmmmm…

I did this a while ago and thought I’d update it:

My Top 10 Top 10 (My Favorite 10 Things At This Very Moment)

10. Sirius
9. Puzzle Quest for Wii 
8. Qdoba 
7. The Wire
6. You Tube
5. Catching up on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ On Demand
4. The Chargers
3. My Blackberry Curve
2. The pickle on the Chic-Fil-A Sandwich
1. Chicken, Egg & Cheese On  A Sunflower Multi-grain Bagel from Chic-Fil-A

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.

Christmas is a mere hours away and I noticed that there was some unfinished business in my blog.  I never really did give you my take on online poker staking sites and I figured with me (for the first time ever) being ahead of the game in Christmas prep, I would sit down and write it tonight.

As I returned to playing online poker recently, I never really knew a lot about the ins and outs of it.  First, I never heard of Sharkscope or thepokerdb or Official Poker Rankings.  I was also only vaguely familiar with poker forums online… most notably the official Full Tilt Forum and Pocket 5s, neither of which was I very active.

I started my blog soon after my return to online poker and being the attention whore that I am, began jumping around from forum to forum shamelessly plugging my blog.  While most forums were strictly online communities used to discuss poker strategy, bash Chris Moneymaker and whine about being doom switched (or in the live poker world, receiving a bad beat), I started noticing forums that were mainly created to provide stakes to online players.

Staking seemed somewhat interesting with the WCOOP right around the corner and I thought I would get involved in a couple of sites to see if I could possibly get enough cred on the site to get staked in one of the WCOOP events.  I never really got into any of the sites until I happened upon Surfers Poker.  Surfers intrigued me because they seemed to have a good amount of events and they weren’t overrun by freeroll whores.  What I realized is that the major difference between Surfers and most other staking sites is that Surfers is a poker discussion site with staking built in unlike most others which are focused on staking 24/7.

Now, here’s the good news/bad news on staking sites.  The good news is that if you are a staker and stake the right people, you can make some money.  And if you are a person with some proven online success and a small bankroll, you could get some opportunities to start to build a bankroll.  The bad news is it is on the Internet and in the faceless sea of names that you see on these sites, it is hard to tell the legit players from the non-legit players (i.e. someone looking to scam you).

A couple of things I’ve noticed that might help you avoid a scam if you decide to join a stake site.

1. Establish a relationship with the site members before jumping into the staking part of the site.
On some of these sites, it is easier said than done but it is good to make sure that the major players on the site know you are not just a bottom feeding stake runner.

2. Beware of the player that starts off by being a frequent staker.
You always want to be cautious of these new forum members.  My short experience shows me these are usually the members most likely to run a scam.  Be especially cautious if they stake just anyone and don’t particularly do research on who should be staked on the site.  This is usually a set-up for devious behavior down the road.

3. Get a trusted third party involved when trading money from site-to-site and do it in small increments.
If I want $100 on Poker Stars and I have $100 on Full Tilt, I should have no problem shipping it in $20 increments… or even $10.  And if I’m the one who wants to make the deal, then I should be willing to initiate the first transfer.  If you run into players willing to help you but want you to send more than you are willing to first or require you to go first even if it is their request, I’d be careful.

4. If you fall victim to a scam, the online poker site will not help you fix it.
Unfortunately, there is no recourse is someone were to rip you off on a stake or a money transfer on one of these staking sites.  The only minor satisfaction one can gain from being ripped off is to report the scam artist to the forum and they will most likely be banned.  The money, however, is gone for good.

5. There’s no such thing as an emergency.
The major theme of a scam is usually some sort of emergency where the scam artist needs money right now.  But think about it… even if it were immediately, a cash out on an online site usually takes a day or two to be processed if not longer.  The first place you turn to for a monetary emergency is not your online poker account and your online poker friends.

6. Like the poker table, people are usually the opposite of whatever they tell you initially.
At the poker table, a pretty hard and fast rule is that someone who acts strong is usually weak.  Very similar things occur on a staking site.  If your potential business partner acts like a rich fat cat, they are probably broke.  If your potential stakee acts like they don’t need or care about the money, they probably need it very badly.  And if your potential horse acts like the greatest poker player since Phil Hellmuth, they probably couldn’t play their way out of a brown paper bag.

7. If you stake someone and they can instant message you… they probably will ask you for a stake (every day, all day).
One thing I’ve noticed is that if you stake someone, they can become relentless in their quest to get you to stake them again.  I have not run a stake for very many people but those that I have rarely don’t ask again for a stake… or again and again… or again and again and again.

Hopefully, this gives you some insight on what I’ve learned over the past couple of months.  Personally, I don’t ask for stakes ever and I rarely apply for one when they are posted.  I may request a BAP (Buy-A-Piece) down the road for a bigger tournament but that’s about it.  I also don’t stake people very often and only do so when I’m bored and want to be entertained by seeing what people would actually go through to earn a stake. 

Finally, in a totally unrelated subject, I thought I’d list my favorite 10 songs of 2007:

10. "Stronger" - Kanye West
9. "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" - Soulja Boy Tellem
8. "If You’re Reading This" - Tim McGraw
7. "Big Girls Don’t Cry" - Fergie
6. "The Sweet Escape" - Gwen Stefanie
5. "Umbrella" (cover) - Mandy Moore
4. "Our Song" - Taylor Swift
3. "What Goes Around… Comes Around" - Justin Timberlake
2. "Piece Of Me" - Britney Spears
1. "Stay" - Sugarland

More poker, slowly grinding toward $2,000 (at a little over $1600 now).  I’ve been in a writing rut recently so I haven’t blogged all that much.  Here’s my latest happenings and thoughts:

I qualified for the Silver Freeroll on Full Tilt again.  This is my 3rd shot and what is even better is that Full Tilt has thrown in bonus money for any of their December Iron Men and added bonus money for those who have qualified in any other month.  I stand to earn $225 in bonus money in January thanks to my Iron Man efforts.

January 6th will be a huge day… it’s the return of Omar!  Who is Omar?  Omar is the greatest character in television history.  The modern day Robin Hood of HBO’s "The Wire" is being featured in their commercials which I’m hoping means that Omar will be featured in what looks like will be the final season of "The Wire".

Saturday is my home game tournament.  I missed out in cashing in the last one and actually exited fairly early.  I’m in 2nd in points and would like to climb back to the top of the leaderboard.

I have a much improved SharkScope score since I have full access to the site and have been able to really pick my spots and cash because of it.

I rented the "Bourne" series of movies and I look forward to watching them. 

I watched "She’s All That" and "American Beauty" tonight.  "American Beauty" is easily one of my favorite movies of all time and "She’s All That" should be considered science fiction it is so ridiculous.

Finally, it’s been a while since I did a Top 10… so here it is:

My Top 10 Top 10 (My Favorite 10 Things At This Very Moment)

10. Text messaging

9. Turkey, Stuffing & Mashed Potato Bowl from Wawa

8. Sirius

7. Homicide reruns

6. Quoting Dr. Cox

5. Taylor Swift

4. Kid Nation

3. Sharkscope

2. My Blackberry Curve

1. The Pickle On The Chic-Fil-A Sandwich

Lots of random stuff today.  I continued my hot streak with a few more cashes and two more final tables.  One final table in a PL Omaha Hi/Lo tournament (I think it is my first ever MTT cash in PL Omaha Hi/Lo - a game I don’t play much) and a disappointing 7th place finish at the $2000 Guaranteed Stud tournament last night.  It was disappointing only in the fact that I always expect to win when I play Stud.

Through my play the bankroll has been bumped to $1275+.  I am playing “lights out” poker right now.  Last night, John Juanda was holding a chat session on Full Tilt and I got to ask him a few questions since the chat session was at around 5 or 6 am.  I talked to him about cashing in tournaments and he basically said you need to Top 3 in tournaments and don’t sweat the cashing part.  That’s always something I struggle with when I get really close and I tend to tighten up a little more than I probably should. 

I texted myself yesterday to remember to mention a few things during my next blog and hopefully I can cover those here.

It’s fantasy football season again and I am still retired from playing.  The last season I played of fantasy football I went undefeated and the season before I lost only 2 games.  I just can’t get into it anymore.  If you play, draft a strong running back and if you have the top pick and pass on LaDainian Tomlinson, you are insane!  You are going to hear something from me that you never hear from any other person talking about fantasy football… the quarterback position is overrated and the tight end position is underrated.  I’m not saying that you should draft a tight end high and wait until your 5th or 6th pick to grab a QB but I have done that before and it can work out.  The reason?  Take the #1 QB and compare him to the #8 QB and then take the #1 TE and compare him to the #8 TE… you’ll see a huge productivity difference.

Here’s this year’s example: (Using a random fantasy football prognosticator online)

QB #1 - Peyton Manning - 360.4 points
QB #8 - Tony Romo - 296.1 points
Difference of Production - 64.3 Points (4.0 PPG)

TE #1 - Antonio Gates - 160.9 points
TE #8 - Alge Crumpler - 94.6 points
Difference of Production - 66.3 Points (4.2 PPG)

Now, this may not seem like a huge difference but the key to fantasy football success is beating your opponent position-by-position.  When you look at the combination, which one would you rather have?  Manning & Crumpler or Romo & Gates?  You know if you have Manning or Gates you are going to get exactly what is expected but the upside of Romo is huge compared to Crumpler.  And the downside?  If Crumpler gets hurt, his replacement will be lucky to receive for 40 yards per week.  If Romo gets hurt, the biggest gold mine in fantasy football is nailing the right backup quarterback.  Don’t neglect the tight end!

Quick Top Ten

My Top 10 Favorite Sports Jerseys I Own:

1. 2007-08 LaDainian Tomlinson #21 Chargers Jersey (Powder Blue)
2. Vince Young #10 Titans Jersey (Dark)
3. LeBron James High School Jersey
4. Randall Cunningham UNLV Jersey
5. Randall Cunningham Vikings Jersey
6. Personalized Sixers Jersey (Joseph #13)
7. Terrell Owens Black #81 Eagles Jersey
8. William Thomas #51 Eagles Jersey (Been Worn Out)
9. Cris Carter Ohio State Jersey
10. Carmelo Anthony Dark Blue Nuggets Jersey

Sure, it isn’t the traditional top ten and sadly enough, some jerseys missed the cut!  What was I thinking when I bought that Mike Modano Dallas Stars jersey… I hate hockey!

So, why did I bring up jerseys?  I noticed something about 6 months back and it keeps coming up time and again.  The reverse racism of football jersey choosing.  Before I see the person, if I see an Eli Manning jersey, I know it is going to be worn by a black guy and if it is a Plaxico Burress jersey it’ll be worn by a white guy.  On the field Marvin Harrison is black and Peyton Manning is white… off the field Harrison is across the back of a white guy and Manning is across the back of a black guy.

Yesterday, I saw 6 jerseys and it was the same thing:  Jeremy Shockey, Drew Brees and Tom Brady were all worn by African-Americans and Larry Johnson, Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook were all worn by Caucasians.  It’s such a weird phenomenon.  Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

The Phillies are hotter than ever.  They swept the Mets and have won 6 straight and are now 2 back… this is where they suck me in and it ends in disappointment in October.  You know what… i don’t care!  It was lots of fun the last two years and will be lots of fun this year too.

Finally, the final numbers are in for the month of August and I’ve had a few more visitors this month than last but still not a ton.  Thanks to those of you who have stopped by.  I’m thinking of a way to drive traffic to my site.  Any suggestions, please e-mail me at bjoseph22@comcast.net. 

The best feature though is anyone who found my site through a search.  Here were the two searches that clicked on my site:

“Where can I buy a spiderpig?” and “Pearljammer interview”.  I can’t wait to see why people accidentally come across my site through searches.  Maybe I should just start typing Britney Spears and random thoughts afterwards… I’m sure that’ll get some net attention. 

You know… I almost forgot to mention that David Beckham is most likely out for the rest of the season in his MLS debut year.  This will bring the Year 1 Beckham season to status of huge disappointment.  So much for Becks revolutionizing soccer in the US… he may have actually set it back this year.

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.

A lame night on the online poker felt.  My total was increased just $1.57 to $276.49.  I wasn’t able to hit the $5.77 mark but was able to keep it positive.  Since I’m already to the August 5th target then I’m ok with a light night.

Now time for my Top 10:

My Top 10 Favorite Athletes Of All Time

10. Andre Rison
Sure, his girlfriend burned down his house but I was always a huge fan of the Falcons receiver who later bounced around between teams.

9. Mark McMillan
He was 5′8" but played with a lot of heart and while he couldn’t tackle worth a lick, every once in a while he made a big play and then celebrated like he won the Super Bowl twice.

8. Wes Chamberlain
I don’t know what it was about this guy but I always rooted for Wes.  Maybe it was his adequate .250 hitting or mediocre power or below average fielding.  I don’t know what it was… just liked him.

7. Ladainian Tomlinson
Amazing running back who deserves a chance to play for at least an AFC Championship.  I hope this is his year on a team achievement level.

6. Vince Young
He might someday move to the top of the list.  Watch the USC-Texas game to see exactly why I’m looking forward to the ‘07-’08 NFL season.  He’s the real deal… you’ll see!

5. Terrell Owens
Aggravating that I have to root for a Cowboy.  His cockiness and celebrations overshadows his talent.  Plus I enjoy watching to see if he is going to be the talented player he can be or putting his foot in his mouth on the sidelines.

4. Rondell White
The oft-injured White has been one of my favorite baseball players since he played for the Expos.  I hope he comes back for at least one more year but he has been injured since the second week of ‘07.

3. Reggie Jackson
Mr. October!  I got to see Reggie play once in person.  I think he struck out. 

2. Randall Cunningham
At any moment, Randall could come up with one of the most amazing displays of athleticism you’ve ever seen.  His jaw dropping feats may never be duplicated and I think that Randall is one of the most underrated players in NFL history.

1. Michael Jordan
From North Carolina… at guard… number twenty three… MICHAEL JORDAN!  What can be said?  There is no one EVER that dominated their sport like MJ did. 

Overall, I had an up and down night trying to accomplish my goal for the night.  At first, I was down about $15 and then I was up about $15 and ended the night +$5.12 to $238.21.

Since I had a decent night, I decided to risk a small buy-in to play in a late night tournament.  Out of 82 players, I finished 11th after I went card dead when down to 16 and failed to find a spot to double up in.  I finally exited the tournament with A-7 that failed to improve against Pocket 10s.  Finishing 11th when only 9 pays is one of the most frustrating experiences in all of poker since the tournament lasted 2 1/2 hours for me and I have nothing to show for it.

I have decided that on Friday (Saturday morning) I will be kicking off a weekly Top 10 list. 

TOP 10 THINGS I WANT MORE THAN WORLD PEACE

10. For Norman Chad to read my blog, recognize my talent and take me under his wing to become the next great American humorist… or at least the next dime-a-dozen poker commentator.

9. Three words: EXTRA CRISPY BACON!

8. For every day to be Dollar Dog Day.

7. The official banning of "Wind Beneath My Wings" from being played anywhere… ever!

6. The resurrection of Britney Spears’ career… or at least the total collapse and yet more abhorrent newsworthy behavior.

5. The real story on how the heck these gigantic sunglass fad has become such a huge hit.  Didn’t Spuds MacKenzie wear similar sunglasses in those Budweiser commercials in the 80s.

4. To become so famous that when VH1 does their "I LOVE THE 2000s" series, they ask me to be one of the personalities commenting on the Paris Hilton craze.  I know it’s a huge ask to be as famous as Mo Rocca.

3. An advanced copy of the next Transformers movie.

2. A World Series Of Poker Bracelet (Bet you thought that would be #1!)

1. Jessie’s Girl… Where can I find a woman like that?