Incredible End to the MLB Season

Has this ever happened before?

With only Game 162 of the scheduled regular season remaining in Major League Baseball, we're sitting here with not one, not two, not three but four different teams, all of whom straight-up control their own destiny as far as nabbing the final two post-season spots, one in each league. I certainly cannot recall such an exciting finish to a baseball regular season in my recent memory, and while I know we've had some close calls before and certainly we've had several examples of one-game playoffs to determine who rolls on to the post-season and who heads home for the winter, I'm not sure it's ever happened quite like this. The fact that we're ending so excitingly in both the AL and the NL stands in stark contrast to what most of September shaped up to be in MLB -- the most boring September in years. With all six division races nicely tied up within just a week or two into the month, and with near double-digit leads for both the Braves in the NL and the Red Sox in the AL for their respective wildcard spots heading into the month, it seemed as though there would be little of interest to keep baseball fans glued to their tvs until the playoffs came around.

But then cue not just one but two concurrent historic collapses.

First, the Braves. Entering this month, the Braves were 80-55, well behind the Phillies in the division but way out in front in National League wildcard race, leading the Cardinals by 8.5 games in that category. But in September, the Braves' offense has all but disappeared, averaging just a hair over 3 runs per game in losing 17 out of 26 games, while the Cardinals have turned it on, winning 17 out of 25. Superstar Albert Pujols has put the Cardinals on his back this month, hitting .366 with 20 RBIs in 25 games, and star pitchers Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia have recovered to go a combined 7-0 with an ERA in the 2.4's over the past four weeks. Meanwhile, the Braves' perfect foil has been pitcher Derek Lowe, who went 5-0 with a 1.17 ERA in September of 2010, joining Tom Seaver in 1969 and Randy Johnson in 2002 as the only National League pitchers to pitch in at least five September games and win them all with an ERA that low, but who now in September 2011 has gone 0-5 with an ERA of 8.75, making him the first National League pitcher ever to pitch in at least five September games and lose them all with an ERA that high. And the Braves' slump has come over 26 games in September, 18 of which were against the non-playoff-bound Nationals, Marlins and Mets, so it's not like the schedule has been particularly cruel to Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the story in Boston is pretty much even worse. On September 3, the Red Sox were sitting at 84-54, a couple of games behind the Yankees in the AL East but holding an even more comfortable 9-game lead even later in the season than the Braves. Since then, the team has stunk out loud, going 7-19 overall in the month of September, while the Rays have simultaneously gone on a tear, rolling off a 16-10 record and giving up four or fewer runs in 8 of their last 12 games. The Red Sox's 19 losses in September (and counting) are the most by the team in this month in 59 years, since the Sox went 7-20 in 1952, a mark they could tie with a loss tonight to end the regularly scheduled regular season in Baltimore. And, like the Braves in the NL, the Red Sox do not have the schedule to blame, as September has seen them face off for six contest with out-of-it Toronto, and a total of seven games against the hopelessly horrible Orioles, in which so far the Sox have gone 4-8, with one final game against the O's tonight at Camden Yards for all the marbles.

With both leagues' wildcard races now tied with just one game remaining, the very real possibility exists of two one-game tiebreaker games on Thursday, which again I doubt has ever actually happened before. As far as those tiebreaker games go, MLB has announced this week that any one-game playoffs would be played on Thursday. First pitch for the American League tiebreaker between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla., is scheduled for 4:07 p.m. ET, if needed. The St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves would start at 8:07 p.m. CT on Thursday night in St. Louis.

With both underdog teams having won the season series with their opponents, each of the Sox and the Braves have their work cut out for them tonight, which will be I think for both teams their last best chance to salvage a post-season run out of the 2011 regular season campaigns before having to go on the road to win a one-game playoff against a much hotter team rich in the belief that destiny is on their side. And the odds seem stacked in favor of us having a second team to the 1964 Cardinals as the only team ever to have overcome a deficit of at least 8.5 games in in September to reach the postseason in Major League Baseball.

It's Baaaaaaaaaaack

By random chance, I got the opportunity to be a part of a Real NFL Moment this weekend, something that reminds me just how great the NFL really is these days. It was my younger daughter's birthday party this weekend, and my girls' two best friends from New York City came out to "the country" for the party with their families and a bunch of the birthday girl's other friends. We had a nice party at a place my daughter loves around town, and then afterwards her two city friends came to our house to hang out for the afternoon. One of the families left a couple hours later, but our other friends ended up staying well into the afternoon, which gave me the perfect excuse to spend the afternoon watching opening day of the football season with the other dad -- we can call him D -- which for us in the metro area meant watching Mark Sanchez and the New York Jets' impressive debut against the Houston Suxans.

I should back up and say that my friend D, who is originally from Denver, is a big, big football fan. A serious fan. Like, he paid the $60 immediately to DirecTV for their online NFL football season pass this year just to be able to watch his beloved Denver Broncos game the day after they play. Like, he gets five or six update calls on his cell every Sunday during gametime from friends and family who are actually at the game with 50,000 other lifelong season ticket holders. And like, the every-10-second updates scrolling by on the screen of the other televised games weren't nearly enough for him to keep track of his Broncos, so I gave him my laptop and he spent the entire three hours of the Jets' romp reporting on every single play in the Denver / Cincinnati game. Which, if you didn't follow, was about as boring as a game could be, with just two field goals from the Broncs and no score from the Bungles for the first 59 minutes of the game. Needless to say, D was not particularly pleased though he was happy with the defensive effort at least.

Then with 41 seconds left in the game, D reported from his perch at the laptop that the Bungles had just taken their first lead of the day when they ran a ball in on 1st and goal from the 1 yard line. The extra point was in, and just like that a grand defensive effort out of Denver in support of new coach Josh McDaniel was wasted as it was 7-6 Bengals with just more than half a minute to go. Something about the play was reviewed and eventually upheld, but during the time of the review, the Jets game mercifully ended with a 24-7 score that wasn't even that close, and wouldn't you know it, CBS HD in New York switches over to the final 41 seconds of the Denver - Cincinnati game. D was pissed to have missed his team's defensive beatdown all through the game but then to be forced to sit and watch the hapless Kyle Orton try to lead a 41-second scoring drive with no timeouts left. Our wives were in the other corner of the room talking, and between us our four children were on the floor playing with dolls and other toys while D and I finished out watching the carnage with Denver.

And then the unthinkable happened, my Real NFL Moment of the weekend. D and I are lamenting how often this happens with bad teams, leading all the way, making one bad play at the end and you end up losing, and suddenly Orton throws another of his typical bad passes off his back foot, far short of his receiver and it actually looks like it's going to be an interception to end the game with 30 seconds to go. D and I literally groan out loud as the ball leaves Orton's hands, clearly destined not to reach its intended target. The Bungles' cornerback easily cuts in front of the receiver, tips the ball in the air and well away from the intended target of the pass -- D and I are cursing Orton out loud already -- but then out of nowhere there is Brandon Stokley of the Broncos to pick the tipped ball out of the air, with both defenders having left him to go cover the intended receiver of the original pass. D realized what was happening a split second before I did, and he immediately jumped out of his seat on my plush leather couch and started screaming, nearly hitting his head on the spinning ceiling fan in the process. A half a second later, I am up there with him, as it's like it's in slow motion, with Stokley breaking away from the rest of the guys in the home jerseys and running it towards the end zone. And D and I are jumping up and down and yelling increasingly loudly for Stokley to keep it going the whole way, kinda like when it's down the stretch at the racetrack for those of you have frequented that sort of thing in your days. When Stokley finally crosses the goal line and essentially seals the unlikeliest of Denver victories after what seemed to be a sure last-minute loss, D and I are hugging each other, slapping fives like it's going out of style, and screaming so hard that our faces are red and we are seriously out of breath.

Then we suddenly remember ourselves look over to the other side of the room. And there are four female faces, staring at the two of us blankly, with mouths agape, as if we are little boys having just hit the game-winning home run in the sand lot at stickball. "What the heck is wrong with you, Daddy? Did you hurt yourself?" asks my oldest daughter.

The NFL, baby. It's baaaaaaaaack.

FTOPS Back in Da Hizzy!!

Don't forget, it's Monday night, the start to a new week and thus to a new week of blogger tournaments on full tilt, beginning with tonight's 6-max MATH tournament at 10pm ET:



As always with my private tournaments, the password is "hammer" and I look forward to seeing everyone there if you can make it. We're only in the second week of the MATH for 2008 and there was a four-way chop for first place in our first tournament of the year, which means no large payouts to any one person and therefore nobody has a big head start on anyone else on the 2008 moneyboard. Btw still no updates on a prize for the 2007 moneyboard leaders, but I'm still working on it and I will let you know here as soon as I know anything myself.

So the big news from my perspective this weekend is that FTOPS VII is back in the hee-ouse! This quarter's Full Tilt Online Poker Series will last from Wednesday, February 6 through Sunday, February 17, including a record 20 different events and culminating once again in the February 17 Main Event, a no-limit holdem tournament with a $2 million guaranteed prize pool. In keeping with my poker goals for 2008 as well as some of my biggest successes in past years, I plan to play as many of these FTOPS tournaments as I am able, focusing of course on the games which I view as my best and where I have had the most success in the past.

As with past FTOPS series, I like to look at the entire schedule early on and determine which events I know I cannot play or which don't really fit into my normal schedule, and especially which events I would really like to play so that I know which ones to focus my generally successful tournament satelliting efforts. As such, here is the entire FTOPS VI schedule:

Event #1: NL Hold-m - $200 + $16, on Feb 6th at 21:00 ET - $750,000 Prize Pool

Event #2: PL Omaha Knockout - $240+ $16, Feb 7th at 14:00 ET - $100,000

Event #3 HORSE - $500+ $35, Feb 7th at 21:00 ET - $300,000

Event #4 PLH - $200+ $16, Feb 8th at 14:00 ET -$150,000

Event #5 LH - $200+ $16, (6 max) Feb 8th at 21:00 ET - $150,000

Event #6 PL Omaha - $500 + $35, Feb 9th at 14:00 ET - $250,000

Event #7 NL Hold ‘em Rebuy - $100 + $9, Feb 9th at 16:30 ET - $400,000

Event #8 NL Hold ‘em Knockout - $120 + $9, Feb 10th at 14:00 ET - $150k

Event #9 NL Hold’ em - $300+ $22, Feb 10th at 18:00 ET - $1,000,000

Event #10: NL Hold ‘em- $1000+ $60, (6-max) Feb 11th at 21:00 ET- $1,000,000

Event #11: Limit Omaha Hi/Lo- $200+ $16, Feb 12th at 21:00 ET - $200,000

Event #12: NL Hold’em - $300 + $22, (6-Max, Rebuy) Feb 13th at 21:00 ET - $1,000,000

Event #13: HA (PL Hold ‘em and PL Omaha) - $200+ $16, Feb 14th at 14:00 ET- $100,000

Event #14: Razz - $200+ $16, Feb 14th at 14:00 ET - $100,000

Event #15: NL Hold ‘em - $200 + $16, (6 max) Feb 15th at 14:00 ET- $150,000

Event #16: Stud - $200 + $16, Feb 15th at 21:00 ET- $100,000

Event #17: NL Hold ‘em 2-day - $2,500+ $120, Feb 16th at 14:00 ET- $1,500,000

Event #18: PL Omaha Rebuy - $100 + $9, Feb 16th at 16:30 ET- $300,000

Event #19: NL Hold’em Knockout - $240 + $16, Feb 17th at 14:00 ET- $300,000

Main Event: NL Hold ‘em - $500 + $35, Feb 17th at 18:00 ET - $2,000,000

Taking a quick look at this schedule, the first event that jumped right out at me as a supremely fun tournament to play was FTOPS Event #2, a $240 pot-limit Omaha tournament which will feature a $40 knockout bounty for every player eliminated. Now, even though PLO tends to be a brutal game of suckouts and redraws, I have said here many times that it is a game I enjoy playing in a tournament format probably even more than good old-fashioned no-limit holdem, which is really saying something since nlh is the game that brought me to online poker in the first place a few years ago. It is also a game I have performed very well at in the somewhat limited time I have spent playing Omaha tournaments, so that also adds to the mystique, along with the knock format which I think will be especially fun in a brutal and fast-moving game like PLO. The one problem with this tournament? It is on a Thursday, a work day, at 2pm ET, making it basically impossible for me to play due to my day job. But then the solution hit me all at once: Fuck my job. My manager wouldn't know leadership if it bit him in the ass, and he couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag over the past couple of years. So, to repay my boss for all of his tremendous efforts, all of which have essentially worked to my and my company's detriment, I will either be taking the whole day off or at least the afternoon off. Yes, to play online poker. Deal with it.

Looking at the slate of satellites for this tournament, the ones that jumped out at me immediately are these $33 + $3 PLO sitngos, with the top finisher out of 9 runners being awarded the FTOPS #2 seat. So, being the entreprenurial guy that I am, I solicited some PLO-loving bloggers on Friday night, waited two hours for one of these sngs to fill, and then I played in my first one. After getting sucked out on twice and sucking out on KOD once, I found myself in 2nd place out of 3 remaining (these particular sngs are winner-take-all). At that point I ended up pushing preflop with a decent but not great starting hand, got called by a high pocket pair, and that pair ended up making a set on the flop so IGH in 3rd place. One attempt, one strike. Then on Saturday night this weekend, everyone's favorite PLO blogger was up for the challenge once again, and this time our satellite filled from just us two to nine players much more quickly. Fast forward about 40 minutes, and I was heads-up with Bayne himself, with me at close to a 2-to-1 chip lead, and I got in ahead of Bayne's medium-pocket-pair hand and actually had a favorite hold up against him to take it down:



So that was $72 spent, and I was qualified for FTOPS #2, a $240 knockout PLO tournament. Good stuff, good investment.

Next up on the slate was FTOPS #9, a $322 buyin nlh tournament hosted by Erick Lindgren, for which full tilt has been running some good mtt satellites on a nightly basis -- in particular I like the $75 buyin mtt sat at 10:10pm ET every night. Again, and you will find this to be a pattern with me, I strongly prefer the larger-buyin satellites (if your roll can afford it of course), because although everyone would of course prefer to play into these things as cheaply as possible, the cheaper the satellite buyin, the harder and more rare it is to win your way in through that low-buyin satellite. Personally, with the roll I have and the success I have had over time in satelliting in to larger-buyin tournaments, I prefer to take what I consider to be the second- or third-level buyin satellites, ranging in the $40 to $75 range depending on the size of the underlying tournament. For example, with this nightly $75 buyin satellite into the $322 FTOPS #9, that basically means that 3 out of every 13 players will win their seats. If your roll can withstand it, this is the kind of ratio you want to see in your mtt satellites, because having to win outright out of 30 players in a $26 satellite into the same $322 buyin FTOPS #9 is about 100 times harder to pull off than just finishing in the top few spots out of 13 runners.

Anyways, I tried this tournament on Friday night as well, the first night I really started seeing these FTOPS satellites back on the tournament tab on full tilt, and I flamed out early with I forget what. It wasn't a good play by me whatever it was, as I do not recall getting sucked out on in that spot (I only took about 435 suckouts this weekend, costing me I would estimate maybe 10 grand in winnings, so it was a good weekend overall for me and a highly lucky one as well compared to the way I usually run). So I also tried it again on Saturday night, a satellite in which cmitch and I both made it to the final table around the end of the first hour of the nlh event, albeit both with short stacks. And when I say I had a short stack early at the final table, let me show you what I mean:



195 chips, with 8 players remaining and the top 3 getting seats to FTOPS #9. 195 chips. This was the result of a really bad call by me on the previous hand where I had called an allin from a similar-sized stack to my own on an AA7 flop against a guy whom I had not read for a strong hand when he called my preflop raise out of the blinds. I agonized and then eventually made the allin call holding pocket 6s, and he flipped up some garbage like KJ or KT for the higher two pairs, and I was mega-crippled like you see above.

After this point, however, began one of the greatest comebacks in poker tournament history, right up there with Jack "chip and a chair" Strauss in the World Series of Poker back in 1982. Starting with less than two big blinds in my stack, and with cmitch the next closest stack at over 1300 chips, I began by doubling up twice with two high-card hands that held up in showdowns to give me at least a little bit of breathing room. At some point cmitch and I think one other player dropped out, and I was then in 6th place of 6 but was right up around 1000 chips. This gave me just enough chips to get the players behind me to fold with allin bets from me once or twice, allowing me to chip up even further. About 25 minutes after being down to 195 chips, I was actually dealt a real hand for the only time at the final table, taking JJ and doubling through the next-shortest stack once again who got allin with an Ace and a kicker lower than my Jacks. From here it was just play good-timing poker, pushing aggressively whenever no one else had shown any strength while being sure not to get stuck calling anyone's allin with an inferior hand, and I was able to survive to the bubble when one of the big stacks got caught with a straight against another big stacks' trips, bringing us down to four players, with one short stack and the other three of us in good position to win the FTOPS #9 seats. The shorty made a bad move and made things easy by pushing allin on the very first hand with what turned out to be 63o, getting called by AQ and that was all she wrote -- over about 90 minutes I went from 195 chips and in a distant last out of 8 players remaining to this:



BOOOOooooooooom! So getting in to FTOPS #9 is in the books. That one is the first Sunday of the FTOPS, and it's at 6pm ET but I can make that happen with Hammer Wife. The Hammer kids don't really stay up that much past 6 anyways most days, and she can finish that off on the night in exchange for something good I can figure out to throw her way. Hammer Wife tries to act like she isn't in to this whole poker thing, but she's good like that. So anyways, this one was $150 spent for a $322 buyin. Wish it was less, but I'll take it.

Then on Sunday night, having already won my way into FTOPS #2 and #9 earlier in the weekend, I was focusing on another tournament that I really enjoyed for the first time in the last FTOPS series -- FTOPS #5 in 6-max limit holdem. This is another $216 buyin tournament, and it is scheduled for Friday evening, February 8 at 9pm ET, a time when I pretty much always play the FTOPS as this last night of the first week of FTOPS has traditionally been saved for pot-limit holdem, but this time around it will be shorthanded limit. As I've said here many times, I really can't stand limit holdem for its donkchasey nature, but if you adjust properly, find a high enough buyin so that it keeps out at least the abject fonkadonks, and play is shorthanded I find that this is an enjoyable game for someone who has read and practiced a lot of limit holdem strategies and techniques. For this tournament, I very quickly located the best satellite for my roll, which was once again one of these second- or third-level buyins of $70. Since the underlying FTOPS #5 is 6-max, the sng satellites running for it are also 6-max which I love and which makes good sense, so for a $70 buyin you get to play a sitngo with 6 players, the top two of which will win their seats to FTOPS #5. Me likely. So, fast forward about two hours in this, my first attempt to satellite in to FTOPS #5, and skipping over about 4 suckouts that each threatened to cripple me in various ways and at various times in the sat, and here you go:



So, it was a highly fruitful weekend for me on the FTOPS front, winning my way into FTOPS #2, #5 and #9 with a total investment of under $300 to win seats worth $256, $216 and $322 for a total of nearly $800. So not only am I in to three big tournaments that I really want to play in, but I've done so at a very low cost relative to the cost of just buyin in direct, which of course is the whole objective all along of playing in these satellites to begin with. Later in the week I plan to discuss the other FTOPS VII tournaments I am looking to play my way into, and which satellites if any are out there that look the most attractive to me to do so.

One last thing:



That is me winning another donkament this past Friday, my first of 2008 and my third blonkament victory already in just the first couple weeks of the new year. In this one I was in 12th place out of 15 players with 5500 chips -- just one late-hour double-up above the minimum rebuy + addon after I sat out for the first 40 minutes or so of Monkey Hour for the third straight week to have dinner and watch a little tv with Hammer Wife. I very quickly doubled up with AQ over AJ at the beginning of Hour 2, and then managed to ride that medium stack to the final table. I had a blast at the final table taking out all the entire tuckfard nutz boys one by one by one, including my own personal punching bag NutzCarson on the old favorite "counterfeit" bad beat when my A8 beat his 88 on a QQx99 board. Sorry Carson, I am sure you'll get me back one of these days in this thing! Anyways, it was $60, but again as with all the blonkaments it is far less about the money and more about the fun and the pride. And with a goal of winning 15 blonkaments in all of 2008, to have already knocked out three of 'em in just a couple of weeks is a very good start for a guy who takes setting and meeting my goals very seriously when it comes to poker.

See you tonight at Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!