gonores
09-07-2004, 10:27 AM
It was fantasy football draft weekend this past weekend. In my own, humble opinion, if there is one game at which I excel more than poker, it has to be fantasy football. This season alone, I have $520 spread out among a number of teams. Simply put, the game attracts the wrong kind of players; namely, it attracts football fans over EV-heads. Fortunately, I happen to be both. I am (as you could guess) a rabid Green Bay Packer fan. After the first ultrasound, mom and dad called the Packer office to put me on the waiting list for tickets. They didn’t even know yet what gender I was, so they put down the unisex name of Jamie and changed the name to Doug after I was born and they decided they couldn’t pull the trigger on Jamie. Anywho, the silver lining of #4’s retirement (that’s Brett Favre, our star QB, to all you people across the pond and elsewhere who define football incorrectly as that agonizingly slow sport where you can’t use your hands) is that the influx of available season tickets means I will finally get my pass into Valhalla….er, Lambeau.
Fantasy-wise, my weekend was OK. I employed a strategy in the 2+2 draft I often try to use but rarely get to fully implement. It’s no secret that the bye week can wreak havoc on a fantasy football team, so when I realized that I did not have a single player with a bye in week 8, I spent my last 4 picks all on players with that bye week. Now, when week 8 comes up, all I have to do is dump out my interchangeable spare parts and boom, no more bye week problem. However, during the same draft, I picked Anquan Boldin, who happens to be hurt for the first half of the season…ah, the perils of laziness.
I can’t say I got a ton of my earmarked players this year, but I did end up drafting relatively consistently healthy teams, and I was able to take a lot of flyers on rookies.
Undervalued studs
- Kellan Winslow (cmon...we all know Garcia likes to throw to big, strong mans).
- Chad Pennington (#3 overall QB in my book)
- Brandon Lloyd
- Lee Suggs
- Charles Rogers
Overvalued suckas
- Michael Vick (duh)
- Joey Harrington (hey! I drafted him in the 2+2 league!)
- Fred Taylor (his season will end before my challenge does)
- Corey Dillon (He’s Curtis Martin with a 2 year lag. Doesn’t bode well for this season)
- Any and every kicker, and most defenses.
*After writing this, I stumbled upon a 2+2 thread talking about a fantasy football forum (www.footballguys.com). It is obvious that I am nothing more than a big fish in a small pond….many of these guys know their stuff when it comes to fantasy football. If I find time, I am picking their brains apart. It amazes me how quickly I stopped feeling so damn good about my fantasy skillz.
Day 7 started off real slow. Two real short sessions yielded wins of $212 and $315.50. Nothing to really talk about there. Session 3 was long and boring for a long while. I dipped down ~$1000, clawed up a bit, slipped a bit, etc. Then I caught a break and caught a pure fish talking about his superiority to his unworthy opponents. I proposed we play a little heads-up poker. He said he would, but he insisted on playing 15/30. When I play heads-up, I prefer to play 10/20, because the blind structure on Party seriously punishes the SB limper (which is something most of my opponents enjoy doing in spades), especially since the SB is out of position. In the 2/3 blind structure found on the 15/30, it is much less of a mistake to fold the SB uncontested. Therefore, to punish the limper, I have to raise with a ton of hands from the BB. Furthermore, I have to limp-reraise often from the SB in order to occasionally limp in from the SB.
He brought ~$570 to the table. I brought $1k, which I assumed would be enough to make him leave if he happened to take it from me. I gave myself 90% chance of winning ~$500 (post-rake) from him and a 10% chance of dropping $1k (these are really simplified and don’t take into account factors like me reloading when I get down to under 12BBs, him leaving early, etc). By my 7am math, that means I had an EV of $350. To earn that in 10/20 6max terms, I would need to play 875 hands. So I get to add such a bonus to my hand count. Hooray!
After that, I played stoxtrader HU in a .02/.04 exhibition match on Pokerstars, with $50 to the winner. Initially, I wasn’t going to add the results to the $60k, but after realizing just how mentally draining it would be to play this beast, I decided to allow myself to freeroll the $50 toward my quest. If I lost, no harm to my final numbers. If you don’t like this policy, tough. I ended up winning, but not without being totally mentally drained afterward. PS – stoxtrader can flat out play. Period. Session 3, HU sessions included, ended at +$422. After taking a quick 9pm nap, I came back for a night session, played about 90 minutes, and won another $1253. Final Day 7 total of $2203.
Day 8 was hindered by a drop-in by the parents. Let me tell you, the whole parent thing is a whole lot easier to handle after winning upwards of $14,000 in one week. It makes my career a lot easier to swallow. Talking about my parents in the journal is something that deserves a full entry-worth or writing, so I’ll cut it off here. Suffice to say, I was not going to hit my 3000 hand goal, which is ok by me, since I overshot the mark on Day 7. 4 sessions, all but session 3 being quite abrupt; $293, $705, -$493.5, $766. Session 3 was the ugly side of Dougie LAGgro. I made the assumption that every pot which was not raised preflop simply belonged to me. All I had to do was go through the formality of betting the flop, turn, and river whenever I felt like it. After about 600 hands of pounding my head into a wall, I decided to go play .02/.04, and obviously never take my finger off the raise button. After cracking KK and AA with 95 and Q3, I felt a lot better. Session 4 was by far my best poker since the challenge began. I dropped a bit in the first 60 or so hands, won $1500 in 100 hands, and got sucked out on two more times before I decided to quit. Total for Day 8: $1271.
Hands:
Due to the fact that I spent most of my past two days discussing fantasy football while playing poker, I didn’t get a chance to write down many hands. Therefore, I’ll throw in a few hands from the HU matches. Yeah, I know there isn’t much place for discussion of HU hands...meh.
Hand 1 – vs. stoxtrader. Early in the match. I jumped out to an early lead and was dealt AJ in the SB/button. I raised, he either called or reraised and I smooth-called (normally a cap). To this point, stox had not got out of line, and I was mostly stealing pots with turn aggression. Flop came down Jxx rainbow. He bet, I called. Turn was something like the 8c. He bets, I call. River was a third low club. He bet, I raised, he reraised, I martyred myself and folded. He claims he had a ten-high flush.
Hand 2 – vs. stoxtrader. Related to hand 1. I told stox what I had in hand 1. The next time I raise him on the river, he tells me he can’t make a laydown like I can. I had the best hand in that case. He called me again on the next river raise. I beat him again. These were foremost in my mind on this hand. He raises from the SB, I 3bet from the BB with 9s9d, he calls. Flop comes Ah Kh 8d. I bet, he raises, I call. Turn comes [Ah Kh 8d] Ac. I check, he bets, I call. River brings the Jh. I decide it’s time for stox to make a laydown for once. I check, he bets, I raise. Good timing?
Hand 3 – vs. fish. Early in the match. So far, his obvious exploitable tendencies are his incoherent bluff strategies (I think he just picks random hands to run bluffs, and doesn’t deviate from his plan to pummel me with raises until I blink) and a clear inability to maximize value. He probably undervalues ace-high as well. I’m dealt JJ on the BB/button. He completes from the SB, I raise, he re-raises, and I cap. Flop comes 884. I he checks, I bet. Turn comes a 2, completing the rainbow. He checks, I bet, he raises, I reraise, he caps. River brings the 9c. He bets, I call. I seriously think raising this river would be better. The irrelevant results were that he turned over 88 for flopped quads.
Day 7 – Goal: 1500 10/20 6m hands (I’d play something else, but why change something that’s working?). Draft Kellan Winslow in all 3 fantasy drafts conducted today. Watch 2+2 poster Nick B. decimate the final table of UPC Tourney #1.
Results – 2349 hands (HU bonus hands factored). Got Winslow in 1 draft. Watched Nick B. (I cried my eyes out…I’m so proud of that kid).
+$2203
Day 8 – Goal: 3000 10/20 6m hands
Results: 1331 hands (I swear, I’ll play more when the heater is over)
+$1271.
Cumulative results
Goal: 150000 hands (secret modified hand-scoring system)
Days 1-8: 18082 hands (extrapolated: 135615 hands)
Goal: $60000
Days 1-8: $15459.17 ($7459.17 ahead of pace, extrapolated: $115943.80)
Fantasy-wise, my weekend was OK. I employed a strategy in the 2+2 draft I often try to use but rarely get to fully implement. It’s no secret that the bye week can wreak havoc on a fantasy football team, so when I realized that I did not have a single player with a bye in week 8, I spent my last 4 picks all on players with that bye week. Now, when week 8 comes up, all I have to do is dump out my interchangeable spare parts and boom, no more bye week problem. However, during the same draft, I picked Anquan Boldin, who happens to be hurt for the first half of the season…ah, the perils of laziness.
I can’t say I got a ton of my earmarked players this year, but I did end up drafting relatively consistently healthy teams, and I was able to take a lot of flyers on rookies.
Undervalued studs
- Kellan Winslow (cmon...we all know Garcia likes to throw to big, strong mans).
- Chad Pennington (#3 overall QB in my book)
- Brandon Lloyd
- Lee Suggs
- Charles Rogers
Overvalued suckas
- Michael Vick (duh)
- Joey Harrington (hey! I drafted him in the 2+2 league!)
- Fred Taylor (his season will end before my challenge does)
- Corey Dillon (He’s Curtis Martin with a 2 year lag. Doesn’t bode well for this season)
- Any and every kicker, and most defenses.
*After writing this, I stumbled upon a 2+2 thread talking about a fantasy football forum (www.footballguys.com). It is obvious that I am nothing more than a big fish in a small pond….many of these guys know their stuff when it comes to fantasy football. If I find time, I am picking their brains apart. It amazes me how quickly I stopped feeling so damn good about my fantasy skillz.
Day 7 started off real slow. Two real short sessions yielded wins of $212 and $315.50. Nothing to really talk about there. Session 3 was long and boring for a long while. I dipped down ~$1000, clawed up a bit, slipped a bit, etc. Then I caught a break and caught a pure fish talking about his superiority to his unworthy opponents. I proposed we play a little heads-up poker. He said he would, but he insisted on playing 15/30. When I play heads-up, I prefer to play 10/20, because the blind structure on Party seriously punishes the SB limper (which is something most of my opponents enjoy doing in spades), especially since the SB is out of position. In the 2/3 blind structure found on the 15/30, it is much less of a mistake to fold the SB uncontested. Therefore, to punish the limper, I have to raise with a ton of hands from the BB. Furthermore, I have to limp-reraise often from the SB in order to occasionally limp in from the SB.
He brought ~$570 to the table. I brought $1k, which I assumed would be enough to make him leave if he happened to take it from me. I gave myself 90% chance of winning ~$500 (post-rake) from him and a 10% chance of dropping $1k (these are really simplified and don’t take into account factors like me reloading when I get down to under 12BBs, him leaving early, etc). By my 7am math, that means I had an EV of $350. To earn that in 10/20 6max terms, I would need to play 875 hands. So I get to add such a bonus to my hand count. Hooray!
After that, I played stoxtrader HU in a .02/.04 exhibition match on Pokerstars, with $50 to the winner. Initially, I wasn’t going to add the results to the $60k, but after realizing just how mentally draining it would be to play this beast, I decided to allow myself to freeroll the $50 toward my quest. If I lost, no harm to my final numbers. If you don’t like this policy, tough. I ended up winning, but not without being totally mentally drained afterward. PS – stoxtrader can flat out play. Period. Session 3, HU sessions included, ended at +$422. After taking a quick 9pm nap, I came back for a night session, played about 90 minutes, and won another $1253. Final Day 7 total of $2203.
Day 8 was hindered by a drop-in by the parents. Let me tell you, the whole parent thing is a whole lot easier to handle after winning upwards of $14,000 in one week. It makes my career a lot easier to swallow. Talking about my parents in the journal is something that deserves a full entry-worth or writing, so I’ll cut it off here. Suffice to say, I was not going to hit my 3000 hand goal, which is ok by me, since I overshot the mark on Day 7. 4 sessions, all but session 3 being quite abrupt; $293, $705, -$493.5, $766. Session 3 was the ugly side of Dougie LAGgro. I made the assumption that every pot which was not raised preflop simply belonged to me. All I had to do was go through the formality of betting the flop, turn, and river whenever I felt like it. After about 600 hands of pounding my head into a wall, I decided to go play .02/.04, and obviously never take my finger off the raise button. After cracking KK and AA with 95 and Q3, I felt a lot better. Session 4 was by far my best poker since the challenge began. I dropped a bit in the first 60 or so hands, won $1500 in 100 hands, and got sucked out on two more times before I decided to quit. Total for Day 8: $1271.
Hands:
Due to the fact that I spent most of my past two days discussing fantasy football while playing poker, I didn’t get a chance to write down many hands. Therefore, I’ll throw in a few hands from the HU matches. Yeah, I know there isn’t much place for discussion of HU hands...meh.
Hand 1 – vs. stoxtrader. Early in the match. I jumped out to an early lead and was dealt AJ in the SB/button. I raised, he either called or reraised and I smooth-called (normally a cap). To this point, stox had not got out of line, and I was mostly stealing pots with turn aggression. Flop came down Jxx rainbow. He bet, I called. Turn was something like the 8c. He bets, I call. River was a third low club. He bet, I raised, he reraised, I martyred myself and folded. He claims he had a ten-high flush.
Hand 2 – vs. stoxtrader. Related to hand 1. I told stox what I had in hand 1. The next time I raise him on the river, he tells me he can’t make a laydown like I can. I had the best hand in that case. He called me again on the next river raise. I beat him again. These were foremost in my mind on this hand. He raises from the SB, I 3bet from the BB with 9s9d, he calls. Flop comes Ah Kh 8d. I bet, he raises, I call. Turn comes [Ah Kh 8d] Ac. I check, he bets, I call. River brings the Jh. I decide it’s time for stox to make a laydown for once. I check, he bets, I raise. Good timing?
Hand 3 – vs. fish. Early in the match. So far, his obvious exploitable tendencies are his incoherent bluff strategies (I think he just picks random hands to run bluffs, and doesn’t deviate from his plan to pummel me with raises until I blink) and a clear inability to maximize value. He probably undervalues ace-high as well. I’m dealt JJ on the BB/button. He completes from the SB, I raise, he re-raises, and I cap. Flop comes 884. I he checks, I bet. Turn comes a 2, completing the rainbow. He checks, I bet, he raises, I reraise, he caps. River brings the 9c. He bets, I call. I seriously think raising this river would be better. The irrelevant results were that he turned over 88 for flopped quads.
Day 7 – Goal: 1500 10/20 6m hands (I’d play something else, but why change something that’s working?). Draft Kellan Winslow in all 3 fantasy drafts conducted today. Watch 2+2 poster Nick B. decimate the final table of UPC Tourney #1.
Results – 2349 hands (HU bonus hands factored). Got Winslow in 1 draft. Watched Nick B. (I cried my eyes out…I’m so proud of that kid).
+$2203
Day 8 – Goal: 3000 10/20 6m hands
Results: 1331 hands (I swear, I’ll play more when the heater is over)
+$1271.
Cumulative results
Goal: 150000 hands (secret modified hand-scoring system)
Days 1-8: 18082 hands (extrapolated: 135615 hands)
Goal: $60000
Days 1-8: $15459.17 ($7459.17 ahead of pace, extrapolated: $115943.80)