Road trip

Taking a mini road trip with Victory and her family this Sunday to see the Tigers play the Pirates in Pittsburgh. I've heard that PNC Park is an awesome park. Can't wait.

21K!!!!

Decided at the last minute to play the Paradise Poker 150K Guaranteed tournament. I had only played one multi table tourney in the past few months, so I had an itch. Since Sonny was playing, he was able to send me some money to play in it as well. We decided to swap 10% of each other's action. There were 796 players in the tourney.

It sounds a bit cliche and stupid, but I felt like I might be able to do something special before it started. I caught a few hands early on and accumulated some chips. For much of the first hour or two, I was among the chip leaders.

My first hiccup occurred when I saw a flop with A3s from the small blind. I check-raised the BB on a A-7-4 flop, and had to call his all-in. He had A7 and I was drawing nearly dead. Suddenly my nice chip stack became less than average.

I was forced to battle for a while, and made the money in pretty good shape (top 70 got paid, Sonny finished 82nd of so). The whole time I just kept telling myself to stay focused, since losing your edge or focus for one hand can mean the end of your night.

To make a long story short, with about 2 tables left I was able to catch an incredibly lucky break. My chip stack had dwindled down to way below average with about 15 players left. I was in the SB with 87o, and all folded to me. I immediately pushed all-in, and much to my shock and dismay, the BB called me with a dominating K7. By the river I was down to 2 outs, due to a possible flush, but as fate would have it I hit one of the two remaining 8's in the deck. I eliminated him on a coin flip shortly thereafter.

When we got to the final table, I was again the shortest stack. The table was very aggressive, with some well known online players (SamENole for one). They were dominating the play for the most part with their aggressiveness, so I decided to counter the aggressiveness by playing tight and waiting for a big hand to catch somebody with. Within a stretch of a few short hands I was suddenly the chip leader.

There was quite a battle when were down to 6 players, then another real battle at 3 players.

Finally I got to heads-up outchipped by a 3-1 ratio, against WillisNYC. He was playing a good aggressive game, and it became apparent to me that I was going to have to take a stand with a hand early. I did once when he raised preflop, and I pushed all-in with A7, and he folded. 2 hands later he again raised preflop, and I moved in with A9o. He quickly called with AK. Despite me getting a straight draw on the flop, I didn't suck out this time and I was the runner-up, for a total score of 21K. (first got 36K)

It was quite a needed infusion of cash for me. Ever since the Super Bowl I have been doing pretty poorly (the debacle of the Super Bowl probably had something to do with it). That money will go towards paying bills, paying for the WCOFF (World Championship of Fantasy Football), and replenishing the bankroll.

Favorite 90's music

Just as an off the wall topic I was thinking of my music tastes, which start with mostly things from the 60's and 70's...then moving on to some hair bands of the 80's, then culminating with the grunge movement of the 90's, and basically nothing after that.

So without further ado, my top bands of the 90's.

Pearl Jam - By far my #1 choice. Their first album "Ten", is the only album I can think of where I like EVERY song. More on them in a future post.

Nirvana - One of the most influential bands of the 90's. They were just starting to come into their own when Kurt Kobain died. I'm quite a fan of Dave Grohl's band, Foo Fighters, who was Nirvana's drummer,

Alice and Chains - Too bad Lane Staley decided to kill himself. This band had some great dark tunes, as well as a few heavy ones.

Soundgarden - I pretty much like anything with Chris Cornell, which explains why I like Audioslave now as well. Obviously I also enjoyed the music of "Temple of the Dog", the Soundgarden and Pearl Jam collaboration.

Stone Temple Pilots - Not sure why I liked them as much as I did in college. Catchy tunes still to this day though.

Go get 'em Tigers

So the Tigers are off to an MLB leading 36-18 start. It is a long time coming for this once proud franchise. This is slightly tempered by the fact that Mike Maroth is out for 3 months (at least) after having surgery to have bone chips removed from his elbow. This has caused a lot of panic on the Sports radio waves here in Detroit, wondering how we are going to survive and suggesting swinging a big trade for a pitcher such as Florida's Dontrelle Willis.

First, let's be real, Maroth is really only our 3rd-5th best pitcher, depending on the day. Without him, we still have 2 lefties in our rotation, which is more than most teams aside from the dreadful Royals. We also have Wil Ledezma in AAA, who is a lefty who started in the rotation last year. So let's not make it out like we are losing the best pitcher in baseball.

Now to the second point, those same radio shows have said that to get Willis (or somebody similar) we would likely have to part with rookie phenom Joel Zumaya, who is blowing hitters away in a setup role right now. (Obviously Justin Verlander is untouchable at this point) I argue that Zumaya should be untouchable too...and not just because he is a big part of our future...he is a huge part of our PRESENT. I'm all for making a move to bolster an already solid pitching staff, but not when it comes at the expense of our tremendously solid bullpen.

The final point of this relates to the first point, in that our biggest problem is not the need to replace a starting pitcher, it's to add a better bat to the lineup. The spots of LF and 3B should be the primary targets. Somebody left handed would be great too, but not very likely in the 3B column...although DH is a possibility. Craig Monroe, the current LF is decent, but would be better as a platoon player, replacement. Brandon Inge, the 3B, would be awesome as a super utility man. He could likely play OF, 2B, 3B and C. SS in a pinch wouldn't be a big stretch either. 1B would also be a possiblity. Basically he can play anywhere if necessary. By adding a solid bat to the lineup, you would shore up the lack of depth on the bench by moving Inge/Monroe to the bench, and add some great versatility to your lineup.

So far Dombrowski has been making a lot of great moves (many of them questioned by me when the happened...namely the Weaver trade, signing Kenny Rogers...). Let's hope he doesn't make a knee-jerk reaction to the Maroth injury and trade Zumaya away.