How Hot is Hot?

While I am no baseball historian, I do know my fair share about the game, and what the Colorado Rockies are doing right now may be the hottest streak to ever finish a season.

After winning 13 of 14 games just to get into a one game playoff (in which they pounded one of the top three NL pitchers - Jake Peavy), they have won seven more in a row so far (the 1-game playoff, 3 in the NL Divisional Series against the Phillies, and the first 3 in the NL Championship Series vs the Diamondbacks). In total that is 20 of 21 games. This is the Colorado Rockies of major league baseball!! It's not the UCLA Bruins' basketball team in their heyday; it's not Roger Federer at Wimbledon; hell it's not even the Notre Dame football team (wait strike that last one, when were they last a championship contender).

This type of streak doesn't happen in baseball very often, and doing it under the pressure of late/post season makes it even more impressive. Furthermore of the 21 games, how many were against clubs with losing records? ONE!!! It was the first game of the streak against the Florida Marlins. The rest have been against LA, ARZ, SD, and PHI.

So how did they do it? Well obviously it has been with their big name pitchers. Here are their post-season starters: the ace of the staff Jeff Francis (4.22 ERA and 47-34 career record), Ubaldo Jimenez (4.28 ERA and 16 career regualr season starts with 4 wins), Josh Fogg (4.94 ERA and 60-60 career record), and tonight's starter Franklin Morales (3.43 ERA in 8 career regular season starts with 3 wins). How's that for a murderers row? Just sends chills up your spine.

Colorado does have a very potent offense despite the fact the average fan wouldn't recognize half the lineup. Here is their usual order: Willy Taveras, Kaz Matsui, Matt Holiday, Todd Helton, Garrett Atkins, Brad Hawpe, Troy Tulowitzki, and Yorvit Torrealba. The team average was .280 during the season. In addition, these boys can handle the leather. They only had 68 errors during the regular season. This was easily the best in the majors, and their fielding percentage was (if I remember right) 1st or 2nd in major league history.

As for myself, I've been rooting for them since the playoffs started for a few reasons: they aren't the Yankees (aka the team salary isn't in the strathosphere, and their fans don't believe that it is their God-given right to win the championship each and every year), they aren't the Red Sox (aka the team salary isn't in the mezosphere), they aren't the Phillies (Philadelphia fans are among the most obnoxious and fickle in pro sports, if you don't know why you haven't followed sports in the past couple decades), they aren't the Cubs (next year will be 100 years since their last World Series, and while I feel for Cubs fans, a full century without a title is so funny/futile I can't root for them yet), and they aren't the other 3 teams who made the playoffs Arizona, Cleveland, and Anahiem (these teams don't spark one ounce of interest for me).

They do things the right way. They aren't flashy or loud. They play team ball. Oh yeah, and they are pretty confident right now. I hope they win it all, and I hope they do it without a loss in the playoffs. This would make a remarkable story for sports. With a 3-0 lead in the NL Series, a World Series appearance is likely, and while I like their chances against either the Sox or the Indians, a sweep would be extremely unlikely. But then again, the Colorado Rockies are only 1 game away from their first World Series appearance!! How likely was that a month ago?

Bread and Butter

I played some cash games for the first time this month (and actually for the first time since August). It was a mixture of Stud H/L and NLH 6 and 9-handed.

Did I mention I love the UB short handed NLH tables?

First hand at the table I get QQ in the BB. Some short stacker in the SB with just under $500 raises it to $75 (10/25 table), I decide to push instead of a "normal" raise to around $225. He thinks and finally calls. Unfortunately, an A and K came, and he showed (you guessed it) K8. Wait that hand didn't come to mind when he called a little over $400 more. However, that was about the only real moronic play that beat me over the course of 2 1/2 hours. I stacked 3 or 4 guys and netted almost 7K at the table (and about 5600 on the day).

After a month long ride on the tourney train, it was nice to play some deep stack cash game poker. It was even nicer to win some.

Enjoy Your Filet!

The picture to the right shows a rare Tom Fuller smile at the poker tables. However, with today's 4th place finish for 160,000 Euros (@$225K) maybe we will be seeing alot more of them. This big result is well deserved and long overdue. After many bitter disappointments, he finally broke through.

Furthermore, he finally gets to try filet mignon. He had made a promise to himself a while ago that he would never eat filet until he gets his first six-figure score in poker. Enjoy it Tom; it may be the best filet you ever eat.

Take 'er Down Tom!

Mr. Thomas Fuller has final tabled the EPT Baden Event. Watch it live starting at 9 AM EST on the EPT website Wednesday. Keep up the great play!

Down Time

I haven't touched any online poker since the end of the month. It has been a nice and much needed break. I may play tomorrow; I may not. What I will be doing is going to the Circuit Event at Caesars Indiana on the 20th. Tom is riding there with me, and we will be meeting Joel, Jason, Dan, and maybe Mandy and Nick there. Anyone else interested is welcome. Just let me know.

On a side note, good luck to Mr Thomas Fuller tomorrow. He is in the final 40 at the EPT Main Event at Baden. He currently sits in 4th place. The top 24 cash and first is a measley 900K and change. (Yes that is a Cuban.)

Blogging for Money

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3196576

A Month End Review and Thoughts

Here are the numbers:

175 tournaments (target was at least 200)
28 cashes (16% cash rate - target was my historical rate of 20%)
$54,195 in entry fees/rake
$55,794.67 in cashes/swaps
$1,599.67 profit (a paltry 2.95% return)
327.17 buyins won
1.86 avg buyin won (essentially this shows I bombed out in the bigger buyin events)
1429.83 countable monthly pocket five pts - top 20 scores (1618.69pts in total)
ranked in the 70s for the month (peaked around 20th or so)

Interestingly, my overall rank for the site jumped from around 600th to around 250th during the month. I would like to get into the top 200 because you can then be ranked in the players poll (voted on by the top 200).

Noteworthy split stats (post my Turbo win on Sep 12th):

77 Tourneys
15 Cashes (19.5% cash rate)
$32,396 in entry fees/rake
$15,681.74 in cashes/swaps (-51.6% ROI) higher cashing rate but no cash over $1800
40.01 buyins won
0.46 avg buyin won

The irony is I thought my tourney game was better at the end of the month than at the beginning. I bluffed much more effectively, and was making some tough calls. At the end of the month, I could consistently build up my stack w/ or w/o cards. I plan on doing a synopsis of the WCOOP Main Event in the next couple days that illustrates this.

Various thoughts:

1) This was a very difficult month for me and my family (especially my wife). She put up with a lot (what is new for a poker player's wife right?). As such, I can't imagine doing an endeavor of this magnitude again for a long time.
2) How do some of these guys do this 24/7? Talk about having no life. I didn't even play nearly as much as many of the big name players. I estimate they play at a minimum 10 tourneys a day, and some are probably in the 25 neighborhood. I averaged less than 6.
3) Only a handful of the "top" online names are actually that good. Most are name players only through the sheer magnitude of tourneys they play (thus resulting in "good numbers" that are really average at best). Some of these players just gamble it up and occasionally catch fire, but I would venture to say many have slightly above average results at best. To illustrate this, I finished in the top 100 for the month and barely made any money. I think I ran pretty poorly too, and I played far fewer tournament than most of the guys that are known. I believe it would be entirely plausible to be a top 50 ranked player on pocket fives with an ROI under 5%. My ROI on the year is 42.15%, and unless you are over (bare minimum) 20% historically, I do not believe you can even be considered a good player. Adequate yes, but not good, and definitely not great.
4) In all probability, the unprobable is going to happen way more than you think.
5) I love where my tourney game is right now.
6) I love the fact I can play almost any game of tourney poker and have an edge.
7) Most players have no clue how to play any form of Stud. These tourneys are so soft its funny. I just wish more of these tournaments were played at major tourneys.
8) Post flop play is so weak among tourney players. This is due to most online events becoming shovefests by the mid way point.
9) Pre flop play is fairly strong (although this is my weakest area)
10) Online tourney structures continue to improve especially for big events. Unfortunately, live tournaments are getting worse especially for big events. Live events seem only to care about profits, while live sites truly seem to want to cater to their customers. Even the rake seems to get worse every year. Ultimately, this could kill the game. This may not change unless poker players finally get a strong tour/association together. The WSOP needs to be the leader here, but that is unlikely under current ownership (considering it is getting worse instead of better).

I am done with poker for some amount of time (to be determined). It won't be a ridiculous amount of time. I am glad it's October though.