toast

NL Wild Card Standings: A Daily (weekday) Service of TheCubsFan.Com until the season is over or the season drives me mad CHC — (OFF) SDP — (Hitchcock v ATL Hampton) SFG — (Rueter @ MON Patterson PHI 4.5 (OFF) FLA 4.5 (Pavano @ LAD Weaver) Oh great. Just who I really wanted to see on … Continue reading “toast”

NL Wild Card Standings: A Daily (weekday) Service of TheCubsFan.Com until the season is over or the season drives me mad

CHC --- (OFF)
SDP --- (Hitchcock v ATL Hampton)
SFG --- (Rueter @ MON Patterson
PHI 4.5 (OFF)
FLA 4.5 (Pavano @ LAD Weaver)

Oh great. Just who I really wanted to see on the edge of this race again.

That also means it’s unlikely the Cubs are still in the lead at the end of the night. It’s two weeks more killed off the season – they were last tied on August 3rd – with the added bonus of everyone else being back in this.

Yesterday was really LaTroy Hawkins’ shining moment, wasn’t it? I don’t know if we win the game with him around – mostly because I don’t know if they go to him instead of Kyle – but it sure did make him look better by not being there when they need him to be. (Strange how there’s not going to be remembered it’s his fault he wasn’t there when they need him to be there.)

Developing Dusty Trend: Sticking with cold/struggling reliever far after everyone else has given up on him.

Kyle The Farns by month

MON  G  IP   ERA  WHIP
APR 12 10.0  5.40 1.30
MAY 14 12.0  2.25 1.58
JUN 16 15.0  3.60 1.07
JUL 12 14.0  1.93 1.43
AUG  7  3.0 24.00 5.00

You don’t even really need the ERA for August; only getting 9 outs in 7 apperances is a clue enough that something’s wrong. It actually started slightly before August.

Game Log

DATE       IP H BB R evaluation
07/27 MIL 1.0 0  0 0 great
07/29 MIL 1.0 1  1 0 below average
07/30 PHI 1.0 0  3 0 bad
08/01 PHI 0.1 2  0 0 bad
08/04 COL 0.1 2  0 2 bad (but he gets the W!)
08/07 SFG 1.0 1  1 0 below average
08/08 SFG 0.0 1  1 2 horrible
08/12 SDP 1.0 2  0 1 below average
08/13 LAD 0.0 3  0 3 horrible
08/15 LAD 0.1 0  1 2 bad (L)

He looked even worse than the line yesterday shows, getting just 3 of 10 pitches for strikes, but he really shouldn’t have been put in that situation after having trouble for the last two weeks. Even though the other bullpen guys didn’t have any more luck, it was the wrong guy to put in the situation given his last two weeks.

I have a feeling that Kyle might be put on the DL, for a real injury or imagined, just to give him a break and allow them to call back up Todd W. I don’t think the Big Reliever Ace is coming, and I’m pretty sure I’d rather keep Todd around rather than get most of them.

For all the misdirection about not using Rusch in case Wood was suspended Saturday, it did occur to me that the suspensions were promised not to be concurrent, so Wood couldn’t have missed his start while Hawkins was out. The problem now is they still haven’t ruled on the appeal. If they announce it today or tomorrow and it’s shortened to 4 games, the rotation can use today’s off day to stay on their days and Kerry won’t miss a spot. After that, with no offdays for a few weeks, it’s going to be quite a crunch to accommodate a suspension unless it falls on the right day.

Besides being 2 games played ahead and playing Monday, the Giants are also making up a rained up San Juan date with Montreal Wednesday (extra game at SF), which means there’ll be quite an artificial gulf for a while.

I think the Pavano/Weaver game might be the pitching matchup of the night. Scary.

live handball coverage

I’ve waited till 2:30 AM to watch handball. And I seriously thought I wasn’t going to get into the Olympics this year. I was nutty into the Atlanta games, staying up way too late to watch the late night show for weightlifting and water polo and all sorts of silly stuff. I did manage to … Continue reading “live handball coverage”

I’ve waited till 2:30 AM to watch handball. And I seriously thought I wasn’t going to get into the Olympics this year.

I was nutty into the Atlanta games, staying up way too late to watch the late night show for weightlifting and water polo and all sorts of silly stuff. I did manage to go to bed just in time to miss the bomb going off, but I have that special ability for important late night events.

I don’t even remember the 2000 summer games. I don’t know if was the massive tape delay, the bad press because of the massive tape delay, or just being college and having better things to do.

Even though I watched a whole bunch of Salt Lake stuff and drove people crazy with self hype of curling, I didn’t think there was much in Greece for me to find interesting. I guess I need to never underestimate my desire to watch weird programs at odd times.

Wow, handball IS cool. I’m glad I stayed up for this. They’ve got some nice info on NBCOlympics.com, your home of finding out what may or may not be on in the next half hour. This would’ve been cooler if they didn’t pick an odd time to take a break.

While I’m in the category, JLU was okay, but it’s an obvious odd choice to have two straight non-new people episodes right after introducing the new concept. I guess having kid Green Lantern act completely differently from than non-kid Green Lantern was allow them to do the wacky Green Lantern powers the GL fans dig, but maybe it would’ve been better with another character who fit there better. Or someone else instead of Superman, since he didn’t do much.

Having someone new would’ve made things a bit more interesting, but it’s still a stock “what would our characters be like if they were suddenly kids!” plot, not exactly the most creative of ideas, based on a comic or not. It’s no more than I expected in the new format, but not realy worth the three paragraphs I just spent either.

According to this post, it looks like this episode was originally slated for later in the season. Which would made more sense. The Cartoon Network listing has this episode as #5 instead of #3 as well. (Heck, now that I check, so does the TiVo listing – what happened here?)

I need more Flash. Flash is awesome. Doesn’t sound like he’s on next week either. Doesn’t sound like he’s lead superhero in ANY of the episodes. Sucks.

Handball has quite the Water Polo-esque frequent stops for penalties. I think this would have serious Curling-type cult success if it was on at a better hour and the US had someone to root for.

Wow, USA Basketball is sounding like they’ve learned nothing. This is going to be much much worse before it gets better. Carmello whining about playing time in a twenty point loss should be reason enough not to do the All Star teams again. They’ll squash Greece and everyone will think everything’s okay again, but there’s not medaling here. I hope the right people win the ensuing argument.

You can not stop Korea on the fast break! Maybe Gail’s part of the Olympic team (the Olympic team OF THE FUTURE) and that’s why she’s from Korea. And the power play let’s them make a huge run – they keep slipping behind Russia on the break. I may know nothing, but having no one between you and the goalie is a good thing.
This second 2nd half break is at the wrong time, as Russia may have just taken the momentum back – except they stopped the tape, awesome. 4 point led with 10 minutes to go, but a good pass allows 11 to slip behind for a shot and Korea needs to think this over. Korea’s wisely taking off as much time off as allowed. I’d kinda expect more basketball type post work on the edges of the goal box, either muscling around for a shot to drawing people in to go to the perimeter shooter, but it’s a lot more international basketball types slashing in action with outlet passes. Constant movement.

Looks like Korea’s defense might be breaking down, Russia beating them on the transition. But then South Korea makes 30, really happily. And a stop and 31, putting the up by 4. It must be awful being the goalie, because there’s not much you can do when it’s one on one; it’s a five times harder than a penalty kick because the ball’s smaller and there’s more angles it can come from.

Oh no, 2 minute penalty. Now they’re really dead – so we take another break. Wow, we got about 3 minutes of TV time before another Hardball commercial. The breaks do allow me to cruise info about handball.

Oh no, they skipped ahead this time, but the score’s essentially the same with 1:@0 left with no one in the box. I don’t know if Russia has time to come back here. They’re scrambling and manically trying to find a an open shot. Point, down 3 with a minute left, as they do some mass subs. Might as well use a time out here. Russians do the hand cheer of no hope.

Stalling stalling stalling. They may make the ref make the call. No, pass from the corner to an illegal shot. Russia is at least running on the turnover, but they blow the shot and Korea’s goalkeeper whips the ball down court for an easy one on one. GOAL. That’s it, non-subtle shove by Russia after the shot besides. Russia gets in a goal that’s for a point but pretty pointless and Korea gets a huge upset. I don’t know enough about handball to say Russia/Korea is USA/Puerto Rico, but given that only European Teams win these things, it’s pretty big.

Lester Holt tells me more at 2PM CST and I may actually TiVo that. Now, bed.

crowns

So. I’m playing no limit poker. About two hours in and around a 40 people left in a 400 person field, if I remember right. Which I may not. I’ve got 158,500 chips. The guy I end up facing, JasonMoney, has 88,000. Average stack going into this hand is 102,564, though it’s a bit higher … Continue reading “crowns”

So.

I’m playing no limit poker. About two hours in and around a 40 people left in a 400 person field, if I remember right. Which I may not.

I’ve got 158,500 chips. The guy I end up facing, JasonMoney, has 88,000. Average stack going into this hand is 102,564, though it’s a bit higher at this table.

Transcript of the hand with comments

>>>DEALING HOLE CARDS<<< thecubsfan dealt down 6s Kd Yay! King. I’ll play this.

thecubsfan posts the small blind 2,000
magic_man9 posts the big blind 4,000
DiSorDeR_16 folds
JasonMoney raises 5,000 to 9,000
kobej8 calls 9,000
sggirb237 folds
goostick21 folds
invazn folds
ROCKO folds
heywhitie folds
thecubsfan calls 7,000

Sure, why not. KING!

magic_man9 calls 5,000

That’s 4 of us in.

>>>DEALING FLOP<<< [ 8h 7h Ks ] Yes! Two Kings, top pair. I’ve got the biggest stack and I’ve been successful in bullying people, so let’s do it some more.

thecubsfan bets 4,000
magic_man9 calls 4,000
JasonMoney raises 53,000 to 57,000

Sign I’m a bad poker player: I thought this was a Great Thing! This is 60% of his stack.

kobej8 folds
thecubsfan calls 53,000

That’s a third of my stack coming into this hand.

magic_man9 called time

Fake drama!

magic_man9 folds

Yea, thought so. So we’re down to two.

>>>DEALING TURN<<< [ 3c ] Well, obviously with a card that doesn’t help me in the slightest, there’s only one move to make

thecubsfan bets 96,500 and is all-in

I don’t know. The bullying had gone straight to my head.

JasonMoney calls 32,000 and is all-in

money money MONEY

JasonMoney shows Ad and Ac

OH NO

thecubsfan takes back 64,500

Yea, they can bury me with that money.

>>>DEALING RIVER<<< [ Kc ] OH MY GOD

thecubsfan shows three of a kind, kings
JasonMoney shows two pair, aces and kings (cards were Ad Ac)
thecubsfan wins 223,000 with three of a kind, kings
JasonMoney finishes in 38th place

I got really lucky. I should’ve let him had that hand as soon as he bet so strong on the Flop, because it meant he had at least two Kings and my kicker wasn’t going to be worth anything. It was 95% to 5% after I went all in and lose that 19 times out of 20, and yet I pulled it out here. I believe I semi-apologized for winning.

I took a bad hand a while later and then just got sucked dry with teasing but ultimately unhelpful cards following, but still ended up 12th (going out on a three way all in), which is my best finish in any tournament EVER. Even though I got nothing out of it (no money, no ‘points’), I’m pretty happy that I now hold bragging rights; I was ahead previous last week with a mid-40s finish, but he had me trumped with a 24th place finish in an Omaha event of all things.

Anyway, I thought I need a category for weird game stuff digressions, so I thought I’d use my really lucky hand.