Here Comes the Rain Again

We can share the women, we can share the wine...Jack Straw just started as I type this. Today's Sunday Selection is from the Paramount Theatre in Portland, OR. It's a fairly mellow vintage 1972 and perfect for a stormy Sunday morning w/coffee and a bowl. If only they could harmonize....

I'll be spending the day on the poker tables over at Pokerstars. I'm using the shitty weather to justify this. I am in a Deep Stack tourney right now where I'm going to employ some 'small ball' strategy. I am also scheduled to play in the Sunday Quarter Million @ 3pm and maybe a few others too.

Yesterday I spent the day inside the Madison Avenue Pub playing poker as it dumped on the city. While I was there I played in Saturdays with Dr. Pauly which was my first Pot Limit Omaha tournament. I finished 14th of 44 and got my stack in with the best of it before my opponent's flush card hit on the turn. That crippled me and I was left to push and hope. I played a few hours on some PLO cash tables and came out with a slight profit, but I'm not sure if it was because of good play or bad opponents. I was there for 1/2 price appetizers and put back an order of ribs and an order of Voodoo Chicken Fingers during the 3-7pm sale washed down with 5-6 pints of Keith's which also happened to be on sale. I made about as much playing poker as I spent at the bar.

I'm having some trouble finding a dance partner for my fantasy baseball poll trade deadline. I am looking to add either a Stud starting pitcher or second baseman. My depth is in the outfield and above average, but not studly starting pitching. I'd be happy with my team as it is as it's very well rounded, but if I can make it better I will. Right now I'm holding down the wild card spot for the playoffs. We have 3 four team divisions for some reason. I am currently second in my division but would be in first in any other division. As such, I may end up with the second best record but will go into the playoffs as the 4th seed.

I am the commissioner of a Yahoo football league called "The Lion's Den". I have sent out invites for this upcoming year so as to give everyone enough notice to prepare for the draft. With families, multiple time zones, etc this is a must. Last year we did an auto-draft which is kind of like getting dealt a hand of cards. I like the decision making, smack talk and berating of each others picks that goes along with the live draft. I have been able to link up our past leagues on Yahoo so now we can keep running stats vs each other over extended periods of time. We can now pick up patterns like 5 wins-in-a-row against another opponent. This is useful info for "Smack Talk". I have a good solid core of 6-7 players and others have come and gone. Some were kicked out because they were bumps on a log. If you're running a fantasy league and don't want any lame duck owners I would recommend charging the last place finisher 2 or 3 times the entry fee. Hockey will be starting soon too and that's a lot of fun. I am going to run a free-to-enter fantasy hockey pool over at ESPN as a part of my Tragically Hip Blog.

Speaking of fantasy sports, I have been on a good run over at Fantasy Sports Live tripling my initial buy-in in just over 2 weeks. It's a pretty cool concept. The match-ups are daily and you can play in more than one. It is set up like single table poker tournaments and can have 10 players with the top 3 getting paid down to a heads-up match where the winner takes all. The cost goes from $1 up to $200+ per match so there's something for everyone. If you're interested hit the links provided here and enter bonus code JStraw to get a little something extra. The best part is you can load and unload via Paypal. No need for CCs.

We're still in the midst of a garbage strike here in Toronto. The weather is just not cooperating with the union. In an ideal world it would have been a hot and muggy July and the city would have been just stinking. Instead we haven't had much above 24C. Room temperature works for me. Some people have been complaining about this, but trust me, these will be the same people bitching about the smell when the temperature does go up. As for the workers who are holding out for the benefits of future employees while walking off a job that pays the over $24/hr to do moronic work like sweeping sidewalks, I hope they're prepared to face the wrath of this city's citizens when they come back. People are unemployed and hurting. Wrong economic climate to pull this shit. They better not be standing around either. Not when you and I paying their salary.

I love the 10 minute Dark Star intro before Jerry hits that first verse...

-mrjackstraw

Sunday Funday

Hey all! Happy Sunday!

I usually hole up, listen to a show, smoke, set my fantasy teams, place some football bets and play a lot of online poker on Sundays but today I think I am going to head out and hit the city. Maybe catch a movie or two. Now that the Oscar nominees are out I should make an effort to see some of these films. Slumdog Millionaire is very high on my list along with Gran Torino. We'll see where the day takes me.

Today's feature show is from this year's Philathon from the Nokia Theater in NYC. The West LA Fadeaway>GDTRFB is great at the end of the first set and the So Many Roads, sung by Jackie Greene is a nice treat in the second set. I LOVE this line-up of Phil and Friends!

We watched Wanted with Angelina Jolie last night. It was OK. I can't see myself watching it again, but it entertained which is all you can ask I guess. There were some neat special effects some of which were a little far fetched, but whatever. A little imagination never hurt anyone.

I got bounced out of a $3 satellite re-buy tournament to the Party Poker $300K GTD. this morning under weird circumstances. The hand right before the first break (ending the re-buy period) I had AJh in about middle position with just under 6000 chips. The blinds were 150/300 and I was in middle position. There was one limper ahead of me. I raised to 1400. Action folded to the button who then shoved. It folded around to me and I called. This was basically what I wanted. One on one and hopefully I wasn't too much of a dog. He flipped 77 which was about what I was hoping. This was a shot to double-up to 12K going into the freeze out portion which would have positioned me nicely at my table to go deep. Worst case scenario: I re-buy and add-on for $6 and my stack is the same. I busted and went to re-buy as we had hit the break and the software wouldn't let me. Party Poker has decided in its infinite wisdom that 30 seconds is all that should be given to a player, which is fine during play, but during the break? What's the difference? Anyways, time ticked down I kept hitting the "Re-Buy" button and nothing. Then I was told I had finished in 182nd place. Great! Because most people would just walk away there, right? Why re-buy? Why add-on? This was theft. So I wrote to customer service telling them they owed me $6. We'll see what comes of this. I either get $6 or my money comes off their site. Who's with me?! Haha! I'll let ya know.

The NHL All-Star game is today. There are no Red Wings and the voting was retarded so I will not be watching. The thing is it's unlikely I'd be watching anyway regardless of the circumstances. I understand why the NHL does it. So their sponsors can all get together and get pissed. There will be about as many "real fans" at the game as there are "real fans" sitting in the platinums at the Air Canada Centre for Maple Leaf games. Arguably the worst sports fans ever. Ever.

And...

Miss America has been crowned! Miss Indiana - Katie Stam. All you little girls better aspire to this. Do not go through life as a nothing! Beauty is everything and you should be judged on it. Who does beauty pageants like America? Canada? Nope. We have them surely? Don't we? Whatever. I guess there's money to be made.

I gotta believe all these girls have been on the 'circuit' for a while now (life). Look at all the smiles in the background. How can you tell a genuine one when these ladies have been trained to smile like that their whole life? They all must fucking hate her. Hate her. They should do an unedited behind the scenes broadcast live at the same time as the pageant. Keep it on the DL. Pay-per-view maybe. Then at the end judge them on that. That folks would at least be real.



I have added some banners promoting the Full Tilt Online Poker Series XI begins Feb 4th and runs through until the 15th. There is $15 million in guaranteed prize money and each tournament is hosted by a different Full Tilt pro. I will be posting the complete schedule and links to satellites which are a great opportunity to make a really big score for minimum investment. Full Tilt also allows its players to cash in T$ (tournament dollars) for cash so if you do qualify for a high buy-in event you don't necessarily have to play. I also wanted to test some banner placement to see how things looked. I don't think I want to pimp a poker site across the top of my blog so I'll change that when I find something that may be more suitable for me and more interesting to you. In the meantime, if you don't have a Full Tilt account, you can always get one right>>>>>>>HERE!

Play Dead > Play Crashed Ice

Andy, Sameer & I scored tickets to see The Dead in April in Albany. We wanted to do a Friday in Albany and Saturday in Worcester, MA. Alas, the scalpers jumped all over the MA tickets for the Saturday night. Boy do they have a surprise coming. At the prices The Dead are charging for this tour ($100 WTF) I can't see many people forking over $150+ to see a band who hasn't played a lot together and is without one Jerry Garcia. So we will be in Worcester, MA on the Saturday ready to grab those extras on the cheap. There is a Buffalo show on April 18th. From Toronto it's the closest, but being during the week we would actually have to take more time off work for it than to travel. So it's a trip down the I-90 for us.

Phish tickets go on sale next Friday and I am really wanting to score some Jones Beach seats. They are going to be tough and may cost a bit extra, but I would like to take my girl to NYC and tie it all in. Since they are dealing with Live Nation and not TicketBastard (no link sorry), I have found out that Blockbuster Video Stores are now ticket outlets. I am hoping this is not just an American thing, but that tickets can also be purchased for US shows here in Canada at out Blockbuster Video stores. We'll see. Check out my Phish 2009 Tour Blog.

REDBULL CRASHED ICE

Have you heard of this? It's on TSN tonight starting at 8 or 830pm. Not sure which. Basically races are done in groups of four. Each racer is dressed in full hockey gear and a track has been created through Old Quebec City.





There's twists and turns, drops and jumps with about 100,000 people there to party and watch the races. It looks absolutely crazy. This year is also the first year that women will be involved. So it's four person heats (20 runners for the women, 64 runners for the men) with the top two from each heat advancing until a winner is declared.

Here is last year's final, also from Quebec City, Canada:



I had a nice run on Party Poker last night taking 2 first place finishes and 1 second place finish in the three events I entered. A nice bankroll boost that hopefully I can use to my advantage. Time will tell, but I am feeling very confident right now about my game and the decisions I am making. That's three solid positive sessions in a row for me so hopefully this is just the start of a nice little run. I have really made an effort to protect my final chip while focusing on small pot poker, striking when I am the dominant hand on pots I have then been able to build.

It's -17C here in Toronto at this very moment. I'm really wishing I had bought more beer last night so I wouldn't need to re-stock before CRASHED ICE starts. Oh well. Don't forget about the NHL Skills Competition. I don't know when it starts. It's nowhere to be found on the NHL's home page, where it should be, along with network info for both Canada and the US. More NHL Marketing 101. How's that going?

Later.

Championship Sunday & Other Stuff Too

I know nobody comes here for pick advice. (yet) Ha Ha! But I will continue to make them. Last week I ran off four losses. You're welcome. It should be noted that I don't make my living off of sports betting so use this info accordingly. I'm also on a nice little run in a poker tournament so this post may be splotchy.

CARDINALS (+4) over Eagles
How about them Cardinals? Did anyone expect them to go into Carolina and lay the beatdown on the Panthers the way they did? Nice work if you did. I didn't. So now we have the NFC Championship being hosted in Arizona. I bet they wish they were hosting the Big Game this year instead of last.

I like the points at home in this one. I think Warner is in a better position to succeed than McNabb. He just has more weapons at his disposal. I actually like the Cards to win this game outright.

Ravens (+6) over STEELERS
Another week, another road playoff game for rookie QB Joe Flacco. This has been a great season and a great run for the Baltimore Ravens. That game last week vs the Titans was fierce. I think Baltimore was lucky to come out of it though.

These teams have already played twice this year with Pittsburgh winning both, but they were close. I think this game will be close and therefore I'll take the points. I like the Steelers to win a close one, but it's not inconceivable that the Ravens could be heading for Tampa Bay.

As always I never encourage sports-betting, but if you do feel so inclined Sports Interaction is where I'd go. Yes, they have poker too!

Last week: 0-4
Playoffs: 2-6


...The Detroit Lions hired a new head coach - Jim Schwartz. I am happy they finally went with a defensive guy. Now if only they can somehow trade down a spot or two in the draft and resist the temptation to take a QB. I am hoping (praying) that this team will be built from the lines out with an emphasis on developing a nasty defense. We have tried other ways and the results speak for themselves. Good luck coach!

...we are down to 38/560. My stack is shrinking. I made a mega donk move to lose over half my chips when I played AJo vs KK. We'll see what happens. I gotta bear down now. I'll post the results when I finish.

***Just busted 34th. K8d lost to ATo. Had two diamonds on the flop. Alas, the third one never showed. $11>$27. meh...

-mrjackstraw