Well....the holiday season is full steam ahead. Only 27 shopping days until Christmas for anyone that needs a reality check.
The Steelers season officially ended yesterday with the 30-0 thrashing they took from Baltimore. Big Ben was sacked 9 times during the game, and I heard reports that one of them knocked him out of the game briefly with a bruised chest. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't able to watch the game while in Toledo yesterday, as that would have pushed me over the edge of what turned out to be a bittersweet end to the holiday weekend.
So what happened to the Steelers....Esentially the same team that won the SB last season, now can't even score against Baltimore. Two things they need to address during the off-season (IMHO)....
(1) Offensive line - they need to replenish an aging O-line with some fresh studs ASAP. Parker's running has been inconsistent, and Ben can't get sacked 9 times in a game. (2) Turnovers - this season has shown how much of a fime line there is between winning and loosing in the NFL and how much of an impact turnovers have on the game. Ben has thrown a ton of picks this season, many of which are coming under pressure or on tipped passes from the receivers. The pressure issue should be addressed by the O-line in the off-season. I think this is just one of those seasons that is the karmic payback for last season. Everything bounced our way last year, and is now bouncing against us this year.
At least we'll end up with a high set of draft picks...I figure we'll end up 6-10 or so for the season, which should get us in the top 10 or so in the league.
Poker news - I had qualified for the poker.com 50k freeroll that was heald yesterday, so I had the laptop all set and ready to go after the birthday party festivities had ended yesterday for Alan. I would like to say the poker gods smiled on me and I made it to the money....but of the 1900 players in the event, I went out at 1814 after about 5 hands when my AA was cracked by QQ turning a set. I was in EP and made a raise of 80 (blinds still 10-20)...fold around to the BB that goes all in for 2000+. I had to call the all-in with AA and was ready to double up after he missed the flop only to see him hit the 2-outer on the turn for his set...no A on the river and IGHN. Can't complain, as I had all my money in as a huge favorite and the cards let me down. Not like I was outplayed or made a bad call.
Quick question....does anyone know where Netteller is legally located? I'm tired of their overcharges on deposts, but owe them a small amount of cash from a deposit i made a couple of months ago and they never withdrew from my bank account. Now I'm getting letters to settle up and I'm half tempted to just ignore and let them close my account. Any chance that they can screw up my credit rating here in the states?
Anyway...time for more online shopping from work on cyber Monday....ttfn.
GO BUCKEYES!!!!! One of the best college football games that I've seen in a number of years happened on this past Saturday afternoon. OSU and UM slugged it out and I'm sure all of the players are feeling the pain of that game today. On the OSu side, they've completed a perfect season, going wire-to-wire in the polls and finishing with the first BCS perfect score of 1.000. Congrats to the Buckeyes. Hoping that USC takes care of business on Saturday in beating ND and leapfrogging UM in the polls to get the shot at the National Championship agains the Buckeyes.
Hitting a dry spell of poker recently....no burning drive to play over the past couple of weeks. Missed the Blogger tourney on poker.com on Sat due to the OSU game and the friends we had over for the game. Still finished at 55 out of 104 to pick up some points, but the pressure will be on for me to play well and finish high in the next (last) two tourneys to try and crack the top 20 and make it to the qualifier tourney. I still vow that I will be there at the end to get the trip to Australia.
Holidays are starting to ramp up in full stream. Jen just sent me the December event calendar and it's going to take me 20 minutes to update my calendar here at work to keep track of everything. Going to be a crazy month.
Well...my Steelers have won two in a row in very un-inspiring fashion. A come from behind win in Cleveland was a nice win, but the three fluke interceptions were troublesome to say the least. I figure that they have to win out and get lucky to even have a chance at the playoffs. They have to leap frog the following teams to try and get a wildcard spot, as the division is pretty muh Baltimore's to loose by going into the tank....
1 Indianapolis 9-1-0 (div leader) 2 Baltimore 8-2-0 (2 to play against Pittsburgh) (div leader) 3 San Diego 8-2-0 (div leader) 4 New England 7-3-0 (div leader) 5 Denver 7-3-0 6 Kansas City 6-4-0 7 Jacksonville 5-4-0 8 N.Y. Jets 5-5-0 9 Cincinnati 5-5-0 (1 to play against Pittsburgh) 10 Pittsburgh 4-6-0
So, at this point they're 3 games back of Denver and 2 games back of KC for the 2 wildcard slots in the AFC with 6 games to play. Going to be very tough for them to catch Denver or KC with this few games to play, especially with the schedule the Steelers have the rest of the way. Turnovers have plagued the team this year for the first time in a long time. Amazing on how the fine line in the NFL is between winning and loosing is, especially when you start turning the ball over too much.
Wow...the Steelers won a game...figured I may as well post something as well. Happy to see them finally play a decent game, although I am still not happy with the way the Defense has played this season, and now to have Troy and Townsend banged up with concussions with some critical divisional games looming on the horizon....not good.
OSU is preparing for the biggest game of the decade when the A$$holes from Ann Arbor show up in Columbs this week in a historic 1 vs 2 match up with a berth in the national championship game on the line. Bucks looked real good this last weekend in blowing out Northwestern, so that's a plus. Predicting that OSU will win again in comfortable fashion.
Poker has been on a bit of an upswing....played a bit in the evenings while travelling this last week on poker.com. Pretty much broke even for the trip with some modest gains and subsequent losses from session to session, mainly plaing 2/4 limit. Pretty bad players for the most part, calling with any two cards, chasing to the river, etc...but it is low limit, so that's to be expected. I love the whiners that start ranting when their AA gets cracked by someone when they slowplay the monster and then get caught with their pants down when someone with 9-3os flops trips or 2 pair.....funny stuff.
I haven't been able to crack any tourneys lately. I've played enough on poker.com to qualify for the nightly and weekly freerolls, but no luck in any of them.....either miss the tourney due to dinner/work or get sucked out by someone....or make a couple of bad calls and loose chunks of my stack. Played in the 10K freeroll yesterday...made it through the first break and then was getting blinded away while picking up Danielle at a birthday party...came home to find myself still in the tourney, but down to 650....picked up suited AK and pushed, getting 2 big stack callers (A-Q and 10-10)...caught the A on the flop and tripled up to around 1900. Missed a couple of flops with blinds at 100/200 and fell down to 1200....pushed with 55 in mid position on an unopened pot....BB with 4000 called with K-10 suited, I survived the flop, but watched and K hit the turn and a 10 on the river to seal my fate. Why call 1/4 of your stack pre-flop with a suited K-10? In hindsight I should have tried a stop and go with the flop....modest raise pre-flop and then push on the A...but no telling who would have called behind me with a weak A and I would have been toast anyway.....oh well....at least it was a freeroll.
Looking forward to the blogger tourney this weekend during the OSU game. Hoping to pick up some more points this week and get a crack at the top 20 as the season winds down. Congrats to all that have played well to date...I'm still planning on qualifying and winning, so you've been warned again.
