Posted by Dr Fro 8:17 PM
Lagniappe

Some misc blog updates...

Poker tournament
We had a poker tournament in the Siberia Room (my garage) on 12/29. Twenty guys at $60 a pop for a pot of $1,200. I got 7th (or so, maybe 8th). I didn't get much in the way of cards. Probably my best hand wasn't even one I one. Matt called, I called with JJ (hey, I was in early position..anyway, wait till the end of the story to criticize), another caller then a small raise. He gets one call then its all folds to Matt, who goes all-in. Really? An early call and then all-in? From a very tight player? I show my cards to CCM and fold. The raiser goes all-in and a short stack calls. I don't recall what the shortstack had but the original raiser had A6o. Matt had QQ. I KNEW IT! Anyway, the A6o won when four diamonds came.

My decision was based largely on the fact that Matt is tight and would only do that move with a small range of hands, almost all of which beat JJ. The other reason for the fold was that I expected the (loose) original raiser to call and I certainly expected the short stack to. My JJ isn't very powerful in a 4-way pot. CCM said he would have called in an instant.

I lost when I was down to an M of 3.5 with the BB coming in a couple hands. I went all in with KJ. I got beat by Ax.

Whe paid out 4 places. With 5 players left, three people got all-in a pot. Tournament rules always (to my knowledge) give the 4th place money to the person who had the biggest stack at the start of the hand. The reasoning is, I believe, that even thought the side pots are awarded first as an administrative matter, the pots are actually contested in the opposite order. In other words, all 3 players competed for the main pot. After that, 2 players competed for the side pot. Anyway, I was inside putting the kids to bed and the two eliminated players mutually agreed to let the player with the best hand to take the 4th place prize. Then they showed their hands. KK and QQ. The guy with QQ had the bigger stack. He shoulda won the $130 prize but he won nada.

The question is: did he give away $130? I say no.

Prior to the mutual agreement, he basically had $130 coming to him. EV-$130. When the agreement was made, there was a 50% chance of winning $130 and 50% chance of winning $0/ EV=$65. That is a loss of EV of $65. The other way to view it is that he had $130 but he gave his opponent $65 and entered into a $65 side bet. Still an EV of $65. So Mister QQ (aka Budakleck) gave away $65, not $130. That will help him sleep better.

The tournament was won by the same guy that won last year. Second place went to the guy that won our league tournament. Who said skill plays no role in tournaments? Of course, in addition to skill, they also got dealt hands early, in the middle and in the end. It isn't good enough to be good unless you also get cards.

Fiesta Bowl
What a sloppy game. Colt's INT was his ugliest pass of the year. tOSU committed too many stupid penalties. Why did they cash in on the double QB formation only once? Why did their DB try to make a play on the ball when he should have just tackled Quan Cosby? Why did we commit TWO penalties on defense to keep their drive alive? And FOX sucks! The announcers sucked. The graphics were wrong or missing. They lost sound when they wanted to interview Mack Brown. The worst was their inability to get to the game after a commercial break and in between downs (the UT hurry up threw them off). It was just ugly.

Of course, I was thrilled we won. I'll take ugly-good over pretty-bad any day.

Does Mack Brown get fined if he votes UT #1? Or do they throw his ballot out? Probably the latter. CKA probably knows.

NCG

I consider myself damn good at picking games (see below). This is a tough one. I start out by thinking that OU absolutely looked more impressive to me over 13 games than Florida did. But 2 things have happened....

First, OU has had some tough injuries at linebacker and RB. They are without their best defensive player and their second best offensive player. Unlike 2000 when they suffered nary an injury, this team is banged up (and I think the drop off to 2nd string is bigger than they'll admit).

Second, the SEC has looked better than the Big 12 in bowl games. Throw Alabama out since they were missing two starters on the offensive line (including the best in the country). Ole Miss looked good and LSU looked great. Meanwhile, Missou wins in OT over Northwestern and Okie State loses. Tech loses and UT, thought they won, barely beat a team that was considered to be a tier below the NC-calibre teams.

Those things give me a lean toward Florida. Then I remember that Urban Meyer is money in bowl games and Big Game Bob is not exactly Coach January.

So, I'll take the Gators.

That said, I don't like them enough to bet on them.

Pools
I won one pool already. In a second pool, I clinch first ($700) if Tulsa wins tonight. In a third pool, I place in the money if OU beats Florida. Two other pools I am on the leaderboard but unlikely to win. I'll have a summary later as well as a long post that has been in my head for a while on betting strategies in office pools.

4 Comment(s):

Posted by  Anonymous, at 11:11 AM, January 07, 2009  

re: Mack voting UT #1... just read this on Chronicle Blogs... in summary, apparently it does not matter who Mack puts as his #1 team, his ballot will be modified to put the OU-FL winner #1 and UT (assumed) #2.

re: NCG...
I am more concerned about OU's MLB situation than RB. Mike Balogun will get the start and Austin Box will be available to play. Both are raw, and as you said a clear fall from original starter (Reynolds). Balogun is big and hits hard, but I think they are going with him to try to clog the inside running attack, especially since Demarcus Granger is unavailable to provide depth at DT... He is relatively slow and I am afraid he will get burned or not be able to support runs on the edges. Box is the better athlete and much faster... I think OU's only chance is to get out to an early lead and make Florida one-dimensional and replace Balogun with Box.

All that being said...I am not confident in the game and not betting it. I hope and believe that OU will be able to score, but I think it will be lower scoring than many think. I think OU's defense plays better than everyone thinks.

CKA prediction: OU 38 - FL 24

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Posted by  Dr Fro, at 8:35 PM, January 07, 2009  

I transposed the poker results...

The winner, Bushie, was the one who won the league tournament.

Second place, Feather, was the one with KK who got first place last year.

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Posted by  Anonymous, at 9:32 AM, January 09, 2009  

Well, I was half right... Florida did score 24.

I did not imagine that OU would leave so many points on the field... the two obvious drives that stalled inside the 5-yard line, the blocked field goal, the holding call that prevented 1st and goal on the 2nd drive...

Everyone is saying how well the OU defense played, and to some extent I agree - but they allowed far too many 3rd Down conversions (especially on 3rd and long).

OU offense only looked out of sync. Bradford was off and made several uncharacteristic poor decisions.

Oh well, another season in the books... and I can still say that I am proud to be a Sooner and would take Stoops over Mack. But I think how the 2008-2009 season will be remembered as "the year of the OWL"

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Posted by  Anonymous, at 11:05 AM, January 09, 2009  

Also interesting results in coach's poll (USA Today) final vote...

Utah received 1 first place vote - presumably from Head Coach Kyle Whittingham. Didn't think it was possibly for him to do that - and regarding Fro's original post, I am not aware of what the ramifications are (fine, loss of vote, etc).

Kind of interesting that Whittingham voted his team first and Mack didn't. (Pete Carroll does not have a vote).

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