Well, this is lovely. Back in July/August, I correctly predicted that Philadelphia would win the NFC and New England would win the AFC, but as the Donkeylicker accurately pointed out, I didn’t make a goddamn dime on that prediction. So take this prediction for what it’s worth… New England 23, Philadelphia 13.

Been fiddling around in some SnGs, dipping into Pacific and Party just enough to keep the balances active. Amazingly, I still have around $300 floating around between these two accounts. I still haven’t had the gumption to simply “walk away” and pocket this money, I have NFI why not. By the way, Pacific has screwed with my former game of choice, the 20-seater, by shrinking the cash positions to the top three ($160, $96, $64) from the top five ($112, $80, $64, $48, $16). I came in second place for my first attempt, but it’s a different paradigm for such a top-heavy payout structure. One needs to be much more aggressive at the first table, and try to build up a big stack before the tables merge. In the old system, one could play passively and practically fold your way into the money.

On the less analytic note, Donkeysniffer talked me into trying one of the “speed” tournaments they have on Party at 11:45pm for $6. What a freakin’ circus! About two thousand people sign up for these things, and the structure is roughly like betting $1 on Black, and parlaying each bet for eleven consecutive roulette spins, trying to make $2000 with little or no skill. Blinds go up every THREE minutes, meaning you’re lucky to go three hands before the next level. Of course, this leads many to simply go all-in on just about anything. You would probably need to win the aforementioned eleven consecutive coinflips to win one of these, and at least your first six or seven to get a whiff of cashing. One suckout… just one… and you’re done. Of course, I bombed out in the top quarter (which, if you’re paying attention, means about 500th place), but actually was only online for about 35 minutes, meaning that over 1000 people busted in roughly a half an hour.

So if you have an hour or so to kill, and want to gamboool with a bunch of other –EV players, either buy a lottery ticket or try one of these things. It’s almost like watching the WSOP on ESPN, since almost every hand after the first 15 minutes features one or two people pushing all-in. What the hell, it’s only $6.

Sigh. Here we go again. My wife has a touch of the flu and went to bed early. I cranked up the PC and decided to jump into a $10 SnG. And cashed.

Either I'm a really good poker player and can make money anytime I want by entering low-stakes tournaments on a total whim....

Or these players at Party really really suck.

Seriously, on an online poker scale of 1 to 10, I give myself about a 4, maybe a 5 on a good day. But the average $10 SnG player at Party/Empire is about a -4.

I'm gonna be either in Atlanta or New York for the next blogger tourney, so I might not be able to make it, especially since it's for business travel and we just got a corporate memo about little things like "using the company laptop for non-business related reasons". Really puts a damper on the blogging, fantasy sports, and poker. Bastards.

Maybe I'll find an Internet cafe or something...

Well, I’m back. At least for a little while… I don’t expect to be blogging very frequently for the next year or so. I’ve accepted a higher visibility role at work within a “special operations” group dedicated to the release of a new product within the next year, and I will be relocated from my Punxatawny-like cubicle to a main thoroughfare right in front of the sales director. Since most of my blogging was done from my relatively hidden burrow free from the wandering eyes of pedestrian traffic, I could write and browse blogs without fear of discovery. Now I will be verrrry visible and, as such, not as prolific.

The week in Maui was relatively uneventful, seeing as there is NO gambling on the entire island. I asked cabbies, concierges, janitors, maids, everyone I could find. They all said the same thing: everyone goes to Vegas to gamble. Un-frickin-believable. I couldn’t believe that there wouldn’t even be ONE smoky bar with an illegal side game or a floating crap game or a bingo parlor or ANYTHING! Sheesh.

I’m debating how and when to re-enter the poker world. I dabbled in a couple of small SnGs, cashed in one, bombed out in another. There’s too much work-related shit going on for me to get really enthused about poker. I still have bonuses to clear at Party and some spare cash at Pacific, but no HUNGER for it. I’m seriously considering cashing out for a little while until the itch resurfaces. It’s not a good idea to simply piss away money when your heart and mind aren’t into it. Poker requires too much focus and concentration to be successful, and for now, I ain’t got it.