inspired by "redright's" series of a similar name
This actually happened a couple of weeks ago but I still want to share. I advertised a number of Mariners bobbleheads on Craigslist. I was contact by someone asking to purchase 5 of them and offering me $85 which he said was $10 off what I had asked. I noted that Griffey had been sold but I could sell the other 4 for the same $85 which was $10 off. I hope he mis-added and wasn't trying to scam me. He then changed his mind on which ones he wanted but the cost was the same. We agreed to meet over the weekend, likely Saturday, when he'd be in the Factoria area.
Saturday afternoon he emailed me and said the day was busy so we set up an 8 AM Sunday meeting time (I had plans during the day). I arrived at 8, waited a few minutes, then checked my email to see he had said his car was frozen shut and he couldn't make it. It was cold but not cold enough to freeze car doors. I responded that we could touch base around 5 PM. I called him at 5 and he never called back. I emailed him Monday or Tuesday and never heard back.
I don't mind so much that he reneged on a deal. That's the nature of dealing with people through Craigslist. That he gave me the run around over the weekend and didn't have the courtesy to call, text, or email that he was sorry but he had to back out of the deal is what gets me. Given the energy I spent on this transaction, I was barely making any money even if he did show. Acceptance reasons for this behavior are 1) death, 2) brain death.
Saturday, October 30
Sunday, October 24
Playoffs x2
With the college football season nearing the end of October, talk of a playoff system is heating up again. Having 7 teams undefeated and a handful of very strong one-loss teams makes the noise a bit louder than in typical years. As well, it's almost a certainty that Boise State and either TCU or Utah, who play each other, will wind up undefeated. And so there's a chance we'll have three or four undefeated teams prior to bowls. And thus a "deserving" team would be left out of the Championship if that happens.
The problem with a playoff system, and why I don't like any of the ideas I've heard, is what we're seeing in baseball this year. The playoffs have been competitive and entertaining for sure. And having the Rangers and the Giants in the World Series is a compelling story and a nice change from Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. However each league is represented by the weakest of its four playoff teams. We played 162 games to determine that the Yankees, Rays, Phillies, and Braves were the best team and then played 10-12 games to decide to send someone else to the World Series.
I'm not suggesting we go back to two divisions and only four team in the playoffs. However I think college football "fans" are oblivious to what would happen in a playoff system. I think there will be a lot of noise about TCU/Utah being left out of the National Championship, but would having Alabama play Missouri or Michigan State for the Championship make anyone feel better about the title?
The problem with a playoff system, and why I don't like any of the ideas I've heard, is what we're seeing in baseball this year. The playoffs have been competitive and entertaining for sure. And having the Rangers and the Giants in the World Series is a compelling story and a nice change from Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. However each league is represented by the weakest of its four playoff teams. We played 162 games to determine that the Yankees, Rays, Phillies, and Braves were the best team and then played 10-12 games to decide to send someone else to the World Series.
I'm not suggesting we go back to two divisions and only four team in the playoffs. However I think college football "fans" are oblivious to what would happen in a playoff system. I think there will be a lot of noise about TCU/Utah being left out of the National Championship, but would having Alabama play Missouri or Michigan State for the Championship make anyone feel better about the title?
Sunday, October 17
Bears: Bad News, Good News, Bad News
The bad news is that the Bears lost at home to an inferior team that's been particularly bad on the road. And the offense didn't look good at all. Honestly the offensive line is going to have to step up and give Cutler some time. If they can't run and can't pass, they can't win long term. Hopefully Garza and Briggs are back soon because they team doesn't have enough depth to play hurt. And 0-12 on 3rd down conversions should clue them in whatever they're doing isn't working.
The good news is that after 6 weeks, the number of NFC team with a better record than the Bears is 0. There are 4 other teams at 4-2. And the Bears are one of only 8 teams fighting for 5 playoff spots. This assumes that only the NFC West champion will make the playoffs (likely but not a guarantee), the Cowboys at 1-4 are done (hard to see them going 8-3 and 9-7 probably isn't a playoff team anyway), and the Bucs 3-2 is simply an artifact of an easy first two games. And the 8 includes Washington and Minnesota, neither of whom are necessarily good.
Unfortunately there's a bad, bad side. The Bears next three weeks are Washington at home, bye, and at Buffalo. They should be 6-2 after that but the Redskins have shown some flashes; we can re-assess in another two hours. However the second half of the season is a nightmare. Except for one game at Detroit, they play potential playoff team every week. By the time they play the Vikings in week 15, Minnesota's goose may have been cooked but that still looks to be team you won't walk over. The good news is the Jets, Patriots, and Eagles all come to Soldier Field which means they're likely to win one of those. Still 3-5 or even 2-6 isn't out of the question.
You play the games one at a time, but basically the Bears have to beat Washington and Buffalo then home they can manage to go 4-4 the rest of the way and finish at 10-6, which almost certainly gets them in the playoffs. Or it's going to be a disappointing season that started 4-1 and didn't finish with a playoff berth, which would sadly mean the end for Lovie Smith.
The good news is that after 6 weeks, the number of NFC team with a better record than the Bears is 0. There are 4 other teams at 4-2. And the Bears are one of only 8 teams fighting for 5 playoff spots. This assumes that only the NFC West champion will make the playoffs (likely but not a guarantee), the Cowboys at 1-4 are done (hard to see them going 8-3 and 9-7 probably isn't a playoff team anyway), and the Bucs 3-2 is simply an artifact of an easy first two games. And the 8 includes Washington and Minnesota, neither of whom are necessarily good.
Unfortunately there's a bad, bad side. The Bears next three weeks are Washington at home, bye, and at Buffalo. They should be 6-2 after that but the Redskins have shown some flashes; we can re-assess in another two hours. However the second half of the season is a nightmare. Except for one game at Detroit, they play potential playoff team every week. By the time they play the Vikings in week 15, Minnesota's goose may have been cooked but that still looks to be team you won't walk over. The good news is the Jets, Patriots, and Eagles all come to Soldier Field which means they're likely to win one of those. Still 3-5 or even 2-6 isn't out of the question.
You play the games one at a time, but basically the Bears have to beat Washington and Buffalo then home they can manage to go 4-4 the rest of the way and finish at 10-6, which almost certainly gets them in the playoffs. Or it's going to be a disappointing season that started 4-1 and didn't finish with a playoff berth, which would sadly mean the end for Lovie Smith.
No Limit comes to Washington
Well, sort of.
While playing poker in casinos has been legal as long as I remember, Washington has a screwed up set of laws. First the maximum poker bet in tribal ("Indian") casinos has been $500, but in card rooms the max was $20 when I started playing several years ago. They upped the maximum to $40 about 3 or 4 years ago which led to a bunch of 20-40 limit games, which is actually decent stakes, and some 2-40 spread limit. The 2-40 game was a huge improvement over the 3-6 and 4-8 limit games that dominated the area. Not only could you bet enough to get people to fold but you had huge implied odds which made it "correct" the play a lot of speculative hands, even against raises. This led to much more action and much more profit. But still it wasn't even close to no limit -- the $40 max came into play in almost every raised pot.
The Washington Gaming Commission has been debating higher limits probably since the day they upped the limit to $40. Finally a month ago they decided to allow a trial of hold 'em with a $100 max bet with the law going into affect 30 days later. Friday the 15th was day 30 and The Hideaway was one of the places that got a 3-100 spread game going. It's still not true no limit but in playing a few hours I only saw one hand where the $100 max came into affect. With a $200 max buy-in, you run out of chip before you run into the cap. Note that if someone bets $40, you can then raise to $140. It's really hard to have a deep enough stack and big enough pot that you'd want to bet more than $100.
Anyway, I played in the inaugural game after work on Friday. Lots of people were interested in playing or at least willing to try. The game was really good. I doubled my buy in over 3-4 hours and it would have been much, much better had I not lost a huge pot on a bad suck out. But that's poker.
I expect I'll still play at Snoqualmie with the 2-5 no limit, but this game is a good alternative.
While playing poker in casinos has been legal as long as I remember, Washington has a screwed up set of laws. First the maximum poker bet in tribal ("Indian") casinos has been $500, but in card rooms the max was $20 when I started playing several years ago. They upped the maximum to $40 about 3 or 4 years ago which led to a bunch of 20-40 limit games, which is actually decent stakes, and some 2-40 spread limit. The 2-40 game was a huge improvement over the 3-6 and 4-8 limit games that dominated the area. Not only could you bet enough to get people to fold but you had huge implied odds which made it "correct" the play a lot of speculative hands, even against raises. This led to much more action and much more profit. But still it wasn't even close to no limit -- the $40 max came into play in almost every raised pot.
The Washington Gaming Commission has been debating higher limits probably since the day they upped the limit to $40. Finally a month ago they decided to allow a trial of hold 'em with a $100 max bet with the law going into affect 30 days later. Friday the 15th was day 30 and The Hideaway was one of the places that got a 3-100 spread game going. It's still not true no limit but in playing a few hours I only saw one hand where the $100 max came into affect. With a $200 max buy-in, you run out of chip before you run into the cap. Note that if someone bets $40, you can then raise to $140. It's really hard to have a deep enough stack and big enough pot that you'd want to bet more than $100.
Anyway, I played in the inaugural game after work on Friday. Lots of people were interested in playing or at least willing to try. The game was really good. I doubled my buy in over 3-4 hours and it would have been much, much better had I not lost a huge pot on a bad suck out. But that's poker.
I expect I'll still play at Snoqualmie with the 2-5 no limit, but this game is a good alternative.
Sunday, October 10
Hideaway Fall Classic
One of my disappointments in the local poker scene is the lack of reasonably priced deep stack events -- tournaments where you actually play some poker before you get to the stage where everyone is shoving all-in every hand. Either you have daily $30-60 tournaments that are fast with little or no skill or $500+ special events like Tulalip's 10-10-10 $1010 event. So I was excited when I saw The Hideaway was having a Fall Classic with a series of reasonably priced events $60-120 and $240 for the main event with a lot of chips to start with and 20-minute rounds.
I played in a few of these. The first was a $60 buy-in tournament starting with 30K chips (100-200 blinds) and 20-minute levels -- their normal tournament but twice as much play. I didn't play very well and went out early. The second event was an interesting twist on a team tournament. Normally in a team tournament, the teammates switch who's playing every level (15 - 30 minutes). In this tournament each team member was part of a pool of 20 players. Each pool played its own tournament with the top 3 getting paid. Then the top team, based on the ranks of its team members, wins 25% of the total prize pool. I finished 4th in my pool and Meier got 3rd in his pool, which made us the top team. We'll take it but we both feel like we could/should have won our individual pools as well. Meier in particular got unlucky on his last two hands or could have been heads up with 2/3 of the chips.
I had a Mariners conflict and missed the Omaha/8 tournament which I wanted to play. I played the NL bounty tournament Friday AM and finished with two bounties and go unlucky and busted at the final table.
Then I played the HORSE tournament on Saturday. HORSE is a mixed game where you play Hold 'em, Omaha/8, Razz, Stud, and stud/Eight. (Yeh, the "E" is kind of a stretch.) Anyway, the tournament sucked and everyone who played in it thought so too. Basically they started with too many chips for everyone given it's a fixed limit structure and raised the blinds too slowly. I played 6 hours before busting at which point they got to the final table of 8 from 24 who started. A tournament of this nature shouldn't take 6 hours to complete much less to just get to the final table. We spent 3 hours just passing chips back and forth when the blinds were tiny. Then played some poker for a couple hours, then hit a shove fest where it came down to who caught cards. Oh well. Was fun to play HORSE for real and I'd probably go back for their cash game. But I'd never play a structure like that again.
For the series, I think I wound up slightly ahead -- cashing once in the team tournament to pay for my four entry fees and having the bounties as profit.
No poker as I'm busy at work. Played a silly social game Sunday night. I'm not even sure you could call it poker. Looking to play on Friday when the card room max jumps from $40 to $100 and there's going to be 1/3 "no limit" at the Hideaway.
I played in a few of these. The first was a $60 buy-in tournament starting with 30K chips (100-200 blinds) and 20-minute levels -- their normal tournament but twice as much play. I didn't play very well and went out early. The second event was an interesting twist on a team tournament. Normally in a team tournament, the teammates switch who's playing every level (15 - 30 minutes). In this tournament each team member was part of a pool of 20 players. Each pool played its own tournament with the top 3 getting paid. Then the top team, based on the ranks of its team members, wins 25% of the total prize pool. I finished 4th in my pool and Meier got 3rd in his pool, which made us the top team. We'll take it but we both feel like we could/should have won our individual pools as well. Meier in particular got unlucky on his last two hands or could have been heads up with 2/3 of the chips.
I had a Mariners conflict and missed the Omaha/8 tournament which I wanted to play. I played the NL bounty tournament Friday AM and finished with two bounties and go unlucky and busted at the final table.
Then I played the HORSE tournament on Saturday. HORSE is a mixed game where you play Hold 'em, Omaha/8, Razz, Stud, and stud/Eight. (Yeh, the "E" is kind of a stretch.) Anyway, the tournament sucked and everyone who played in it thought so too. Basically they started with too many chips for everyone given it's a fixed limit structure and raised the blinds too slowly. I played 6 hours before busting at which point they got to the final table of 8 from 24 who started. A tournament of this nature shouldn't take 6 hours to complete much less to just get to the final table. We spent 3 hours just passing chips back and forth when the blinds were tiny. Then played some poker for a couple hours, then hit a shove fest where it came down to who caught cards. Oh well. Was fun to play HORSE for real and I'd probably go back for their cash game. But I'd never play a structure like that again.
For the series, I think I wound up slightly ahead -- cashing once in the team tournament to pay for my four entry fees and having the bounties as profit.
No poker as I'm busy at work. Played a silly social game Sunday night. I'm not even sure you could call it poker. Looking to play on Friday when the card room max jumps from $40 to $100 and there's going to be 1/3 "no limit" at the Hideaway.
Saturday, October 9
Toronto and Buffalo
Before going back to work I got in one last vacation. My friends Meier and Nanci were going to Buffalo for a week with a two-day side trip to Toronto in the middle. Having never been to either or Niagara Falls, at least that I remember, I decided to join them for part of the trip. When am I ever going to have a chance to see Buffalo or Toronto?
Flew into Toronto on Monday and they met me at the airport after I passed through customs. We drove to downtown Toronto and wandered around. Perhaps the most interesting things we saw was Paws Way, which is as cute as the pictures on their web site. It's part dog history museum, part educational facility, part shop, and part training center. They also have a little cafe in the front. I had no idea such a thing existed anywhere. Had dinner at Il Fornello. Went back to our hotel, which was all the way back by the airport, but not before driving through the large Jewish neighborhood of Toronto. Next day we got a late start, saw Casa Loma (house on the hill) which is a famous historic castle. After being there and watching some house hunters, I decided our home should have a fancy name. So now we live at "Casa Oso" or perhaps we should call it "Casa Oso de miel".
We had a late lunch then spent an hour at the Shoe museum which was surprisingly OK. By pure coincidence the Mariners were in town, so we went to the Blue Jays game that night. We had checked ahead and thought it would be fun to see a game in Toronto. Of course, the Mariners lost and looked terrible, but made it interesting in the 9th. Ichiro had 4 hits. And the stadium was empty. We complain about the Mariners drawing 10-15K, but there must have been only about 4000 people at the game though the Jays reported 12K paid. Before going to the game Nanci and I went up the CN Tower and had great views of the city and a cool view looking straight down on Rogers Centre (nee the Skydome).
Went back to the airport hotel, got some sleep then got up the next "morning" and headed to Niagara Falls on the way to Buffalo.
Niagara Falls was awesome. A picture is worth 1000 words.
We had hoped to play poker at Casino Niagara but they had a couple of dealers call in sick and had 15 names on the wait list. I found this stunning as I'm sure they could have found back up dealers. In this economy every dealer is looking to pick up extra shifts. Then back to the US of A. Buffalo isn't very touristy. After Meier and Nanci dropped me at my hotel I walked around downtown for a little bit and saw some of the historic buildings. Meier picked me up later and we went to Duff's for buffalo wings with Nanci's family -- how can you go to Buffalo and not have wings?! Wings were good but we all ate too much. Meier and I headed back to the Falls to play some poker, actually wound up playing on the New York side and had an interesting border crossing at 2:30 AM when we wanted to go back to pick up poker chips. Ended OK but got home very, very late.
Thursday I got up and wandered around town by myself. Walked down to Coca-Cola Field, then walked along the waterfront and looked across to Canada. Meier met me and we discovered that City Hall has a free viewpoint on the 28th floor so we got a good look at the city. Then it was back to eating -- some famous hot dog place that didn't impress me at all and Anderson's for custard (soft serve ice cream) which was pretty good. Then airport and home.
Lots packed in in just four days.
Flew into Toronto on Monday and they met me at the airport after I passed through customs. We drove to downtown Toronto and wandered around. Perhaps the most interesting things we saw was Paws Way, which is as cute as the pictures on their web site. It's part dog history museum, part educational facility, part shop, and part training center. They also have a little cafe in the front. I had no idea such a thing existed anywhere. Had dinner at Il Fornello. Went back to our hotel, which was all the way back by the airport, but not before driving through the large Jewish neighborhood of Toronto. Next day we got a late start, saw Casa Loma (house on the hill) which is a famous historic castle. After being there and watching some house hunters, I decided our home should have a fancy name. So now we live at "Casa Oso" or perhaps we should call it "Casa Oso de miel".
We had a late lunch then spent an hour at the Shoe museum which was surprisingly OK. By pure coincidence the Mariners were in town, so we went to the Blue Jays game that night. We had checked ahead and thought it would be fun to see a game in Toronto. Of course, the Mariners lost and looked terrible, but made it interesting in the 9th. Ichiro had 4 hits. And the stadium was empty. We complain about the Mariners drawing 10-15K, but there must have been only about 4000 people at the game though the Jays reported 12K paid. Before going to the game Nanci and I went up the CN Tower and had great views of the city and a cool view looking straight down on Rogers Centre (nee the Skydome).
Niagara Falls was awesome. A picture is worth 1000 words.
We had hoped to play poker at Casino Niagara but they had a couple of dealers call in sick and had 15 names on the wait list. I found this stunning as I'm sure they could have found back up dealers. In this economy every dealer is looking to pick up extra shifts. Then back to the US of A. Buffalo isn't very touristy. After Meier and Nanci dropped me at my hotel I walked around downtown for a little bit and saw some of the historic buildings. Meier picked me up later and we went to Duff's for buffalo wings with Nanci's family -- how can you go to Buffalo and not have wings?! Wings were good but we all ate too much. Meier and I headed back to the Falls to play some poker, actually wound up playing on the New York side and had an interesting border crossing at 2:30 AM when we wanted to go back to pick up poker chips. Ended OK but got home very, very late.
Thursday I got up and wandered around town by myself. Walked down to Coca-Cola Field, then walked along the waterfront and looked across to Canada. Meier met me and we discovered that City Hall has a free viewpoint on the 28th floor so we got a good look at the city. Then it was back to eating -- some famous hot dog place that didn't impress me at all and Anderson's for custard (soft serve ice cream) which was pretty good. Then airport and home.
Lots packed in in just four days.
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