Santana

The Mets finally land Santana, and after the initial shock and joy has passed, I'm now wondering how this can go wrong.
* Elbow chips?
* 5+ ERA to close the season?
* Highest HR rate of Santana's career last year? 

Then reality sets in.  Nothing, of course is a sure deal.  But Santana is moving from the power happy AL central (despite a home park that has been surprisingly pitcher friendly) to the NL East, with two caverns, a band box in Philly, and God Knows What in DC.  He's still in his 20s - at least for 2008.  He's got a strong up-the-middle defense behind him, and one of the best offenses in the NL.  I still believe Wagner has some gas left in the tank to help close things out.  Plus Santana can hit and run a bit too. 

Of all the potentially available players in the market this winter, the Mets just landed the best of the bunch and the one that fills their biggest need.  So the Castillo signing can move to the backburner along with the Milledge trade.  This team that darn near made the playoffs last year with Glavine leading the rotation and with Pedro only for a month now has Pedro, Santana, plus the wildly underrated John Maine, and the enigmas that are El Duque and Ollie Perez.  Pelfrey waits in the wings, Sanchez should be back in the pen, and Ryan Church has to be an improvement over Shawn Green.  I like the makeup of this team. 

Stay healthy, Endy. 

Aussie Open Final

It's Sharapova v. Ivanovic, or the best possible option for Darren Rovell's head to spontaneously explode. 

CHIMPS PLO

I struggled to 7th out of 20 in CHIMPS PLO tonight, seeing the flop in only 18 of 83 hands, and winning 8 pots all night - two of those preflop.

All night long, "AZ DonkeyHerder" is leading the tourney, but man oh man is he getting there through some questionable play and some luck. Several called him out for this, none more, uhhh...eloquently than Zerbet. Of course.

Finally, with the blinds at 80/160 and 1120 chips in my stack, I'm dealt Ah Qh 9h Js and figure it's time to make my move. I bet pot preflop and only "AZ" calls me. The flop is 8s 9c As and it's go time for my short stack. He calls me with A8, no spade draw, and his overcard is the same as one of mine - a Jack. He's drawing to two 8s and runner 5s, plus a runner 6-7 for the gutshot, or about 4 outs. I'm 80% to win on the flop, 90% after the turn.

Let's take a look at what transpired:


The biggest question is why is he in the hand in the first place - other than for the gutteral thrill of felting the short stack..

AIPS Post-Mortem

Twice I was dealt TT.  Twice the board came with all unpaired undercards with no flush draws and unlikely straight draws.  Twice I ran into overpairs (QQ and AA).  Twice I never improved.  And after the second one, I donk out in 141st out of 155, far and away my worst performance. 

But it begs the question - am I supposed to slow-play overpairs, turn into a calling station, or try to play aggressively?  I took the aggressive route in each, slowing down only in the first hand vs. Chris.  And I can't fault either player with QQ or AA...they played their hands properly. I just stepped into the bear trap. Twice.

Then I walked over to a NLHE SNG and had to experience this:

Full Tilt Poker Game #4899473856: $5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (37197113), Table 1 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:24:43 ET - 2008/01/17
Seat 1: EugenPoly (1,025)
Seat 2: FaT-T666 (1,446)
Seat 3: supra350z (4,179)
Seat 4: BambiDD (1,265)
Seat 5: newbee101 (1,450)
Seat 7: NoFish4You (1,420)
Seat 8: djm182 (2,020)
Seat 9: sau124 (695)
sau124 posts the small blind of 40
EugenPoly posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #8

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to djm182 [Qs Ad]
FaT-T666 calls 80
supra350z folds
BambiDD folds
newbee101 folds
NoFish4You calls 80
djm182 has 15 seconds left to act
djm182 raises to 250
sau124 folds
EugenPoly folds
FaT-T666 calls 170
NoFish4You folds

*** FLOP *** [Ac 5h 8s]
FaT-T666 checks
djm182 bets 400
FaT-T666 calls 400

*** TURN *** [Ac 5h 8s] [Ks]
FaT-T666 checks
djm182 bets 500
FaT-T666 calls 500

*** RIVER *** [Ac 5h 8s Ks] [2c]
FaT-T666 checks
djm182 checks

*** SHOW DOWN ***
djm182 shows [Qs Ad] a pair of Aces
FaT-T666 shows [2h Ah] two pair, Aces and Twos
FaT-T666 wins the pot (2,500) with two pair, Aces and Twos

CHIMPS II.1: Card Dead

Just horrible cards, not helped out by Fasso to my right with a big stack, and having this happen in the only significant hand I played all night:

Full Tilt Poker Game #4874781694: CHIMPS II Event #1 (36301280), Table 1 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:25:19 ET - 2008/01/15
Seat 1: NewtSkins (1,430)
Seat 2: budgetcoach (1,425)
Seat 3: OffDeadline (1,620)
Seat 4: stpetebeach (2,710)
Seat 5: djm182 (1,250)
Seat 6: zsg (693)
Seat 7: Miss Rigby (845)
Seat 8: IlliniFan (2,027)

zsg posts the small blind of 25
Miss Rigby posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #5 <<ME

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to djm182 [Jd Jh]
IlliniFan calls 50
NewtSkins folds
budgetcoach calls 50
OffDeadline calls 50
stpetebeach folds
djm182 calls 50  <<With three limpers ahead, I'll see if I can trap on a bad flop, or maybe trap one of the blinds
zsg raises to 693, and is all in << a ha!!
Miss Rigby folds
IlliniFan folds
budgetcoach folds
OffDeadline folds
djm182 has 15 seconds left to act
djm182 calls 643
zsg shows [Ts Th]
djm182 shows [Jd Jh] <<woot!

*** FLOP *** [6d 7d 4s]
*** TURN *** [6d 7d 4s] [8h] <<oh no
*** RIVER *** [6d 7d 4s 8h] [5h] <<yup.  runner runner runner runner runner straight

zsg shows a straight, Eight high
djm182 shows a straight, Eight high
zsg ties for the pot (793) with a straight, Eight high
djm182 ties for the pot (793) with a straight, Eight high

I limped down to around 500 chips at the 50/100 level, then went belly up when JJ<QQ

Tilghman's slip of the tongue

Anyone who has ever watched Golf Channel coverage of the PGA TOUR knows that Kelly Tilghman lives by the slogan "why say in five words what you can say in a dozen?"  She's very overdramatic both with her tone and with her vocabulary.  Always has been - even back in her GolfCentral days.  Given this experience, you have to give her quite a bit of slack about her wretched lynching reference regarding Tig.  She surely didn't mean it literally.  And even though it took her a couple of days to fess up on the air and reach out to Tig, I cannot believe she was expressing a racist point of view here.  Judge this comment against the dozens of dramatic comments she makes on the telecasts each week.  This one was bad and a suspension and disciplinary action is warranted, but not to the point of costing her this job. 

Clemens Lame Excuse

More people need to be citing articles like this one by ESPN's Patrick Hruby.   He asks some very fundamental questions about Lidocaine and B-12 injections and their effectiveness. 

Can you get pain relief in your joints by injecting lidocaine into your, well, buttocks?

Dr. Dombrowski: No. Never. Unless Clemens was limited by hip pain or whatever in his buttocks, then no, that's not what you do. You use big deep muscles for injecting steroids. But you would never treat shoulder or elbow pain in that way. If what he was injected with was truly lidocaine, his butt cheek would be numb. And that's it.

Dr. Dretchen: Just a blind injection into the gluteus area, that would be a strange usage of the drug. When you go to the dentist, would you get an injection into your arm? Of course not.

Me thinks it wasn't 100% Lidocaine that went into Roger's heiney.  Me thinks it was (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) "lidocaine" (wink, nudge) that went in.  Get my drift?

Counterfeited

Just not my night tonight. Was 2nd in chips about 80 minutes into a HORSE MTT, lost three of about 10 hands on 7th street when I led getting there, sometimes improved, but always got beaten. Went out 20th with the bubble at 16. Grrrr. 2:45 for squadoosh.

Then I take my chances at a donktacular $2 TURBO NLHE SNG. This is how I exit:


I *HATE* getting counterfeited.

Home Game

I took down a rather interesting home game on Saturday night.  Despite the hosts insistence that this was a one-time affair with only the Top 8 from our standings playing for a winner-take-all pool, we ended up with nine players, three of whom were not in the Top 8 and one of whom was completely new to the game and had "never played with chips before".  He sat to my right and I never tangled with him despite him playing just about every hand. 

I was thoroughly card dead to start and for about the first hour and a half, played just about nothing.  Two interesting hands came around this point, though I can't remember the order.  For one, I was dealt AK in early position and made it a standard 3x to go (50/100 level).  Got a caller and our most savvy player said "Dave must have AK or a big pair" and folded.  I flopped an ace, got called down by our resident calling station who hit either middle or bottom pair on the flop and nothing else.  Chipped up nicely here. 

The hand that could have been the death of me was this.  I had Ad5d in mid position and limped.  The flop brought two diamonds on board, the highest of which was Td.  I checked, but then it was min bet in back of me with about five or six callers.  When I looked at the pot, I don't believe I had the right pot odds to play this hand, but I certainly had the implied odds.  Still, I was a bit short of chips and didn't want to sit there waiting for the diamond that might never come against a boatload of callers.  So I stewed and threw it away.  Well the turn is a third diamond and I'm pissed.  But people keep betting and calling it.  Huh?  WTF.  The river is a fourth diamond, and the same guy who bet/raised throughout makes a big move at the pot.  He's re-raised all-in by our dominant NLHE player and the original bettor calls.  Original bettor shows the K-high flush (he turned it).  Other player had Jd9d for the J-high straight flush.  Had I seen the turn and not scared him away (I think I might not have, as I might have slow-played the made nut flush from early position against a bunch of callers), I'd have been dead here.

I limped along, collecting a few more chips, but not tons.  Made it down to four-handed play after our "see every flop, make every call" contingent finally donked 'em all off.  When it was four-handed, we had a player who thought his 8-9-T-J-K hand was a made straight.  Before calling a bet on the river, it finally occurred to him that he was missing the lil' ol' queen from his hand.  This actually happened.  Astonishing.

Finally I limp into the final three.  The straight flush guy above has about 43k of the outstanding 56k chips.  Guy to my right has about 8k and I have about 5k.  I pick a hand and shove vs. the big stack with 8d 6d.  He has ATo and I river an 8 to stay alive.  A few hands later, I catch him trying to steal with 34s and my 78s outflops him.  Another double-up.  I'm up to around 13-15k chips when the big hand comes about. 

From the big blind, the big stack makes a pre-flop raise.  Guy to my right goes all-in.  I look down at JJ and go into the tank.  In hindsight, this isn't the time to go into the tank, but the following thoughts go through my head. 
* I can potentially fold my way into the money with a decent stack because guy to my right may shove here with anything - he's short in chips. 
* I can call and see what happens on the flop
* I can shove and see if my big pair holds up. 

Finally decide to shove and jump for joy when I see that I'm up against 44 (original raiser) and a couple of middle cards (guy to right).  Nobody improves, and I take the whole thing down AND assume a smallish chip lead.

I play pretty good, aggressive poker from there, chipping up to a sizeable lead and finally taking it down when I limped in with A6, caught another bullet on the flop and called an all-in from my opponent who had a gutshot straight draw, turned a flush draw, but blanked out on the river. 

Typically, I get zero POY points for this, but it was a rewarding win nonetheless.  Oh, and the concept of HORSE for our game is completely and totally dead.  Sad, really.