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.