I’m pretty much speechless. We won another title, and I think Gator Nation is just trying to take it all in and enjoy the moment. We may never win another one, so now’s the time to enjoy it.
Go Gators!
In ATL for the Final Four
I’m up in Atlanta for the Final Four. Last year, I flew from Dallas to Gainesville to watch the games with my buddies. As soon as the tourney was over, I started pricing Final Four tickets for 2007 and making plans to get to ATL for the games. Being in Gainesville was awesome, but there’s nothing like actually being there.
So, I’m “there” and it’s awesome. Before the tourney, I had us as 50/50 to repeat (that seems conservative, but I thought it was pretty generous considering we were only 1/65 of the field). Now? I’d say we’re about 4-to-1 to repeat (and I feel that’s pretty conservative). We looked really good tonight, and we seem to be up for almost any challenge. Since we already beat OSU (yeah, they’re a different, more mature team now, but we’ve improved a lot too) by 26 in December, I feel pretty confident we can do it again.
Billy D. to UK? Not a chance.
Billy D. isn’t going anywhere. He’ll “think” about it for a few days, but then he’ll announce he’s happy in Gainesville and he’s enjoying being a part of such a promising program that is still growing. He’ll talk about how great it is for his family in Gainesville, and he’ll hint that it would be nice to have some better facilities for the team. He won’t turn down the contract extension this time, either.
UK essentially just canned a very, very good coach who has had a rough few years. Any coach can have a few bad years (we were out of the tourney after the first weekend five years in a row), and I think UK overreacted. Billy walks on water in Gainesville, and he’ll have a pass for several years, regardless of what happens. Why move to a town where expectations are so high and patience is so low? Most importantly, I think, why would Billy leave a dynasty that he is currently creating to try and revive a dying dynasty in Lexington?
One more game
I’ve been saying for a while that this team will go down as one of the best ever… but only if they repeat. This team has five thousand-point scorers, potentially something like six or seven future NBA players, three SEC championships, tons of school and NCAA records, two Final Four appearances and, so far, one Championship. If they get the win on Monday, they’ll be considered one of the best NCAA teams ever. I’m trying to enjoy every game I see because it’s going to be a long, long time before we see this kind of team with this kind of talent again.
I should mention that Chris Richard would probably be starting at 95% of the schools in the country. He’s been consistently improving this year and has really turned it on in the post-season. He’s included in the “…six or seven future NBA players…” I mentioned earlier. I don’t think he’ll be drafted, but I think he’ll be picked up by somebody, and he’ll be a solid contributor off the bench.
It’s great to be a Florida Gator.
$50 tourney recap
This was only my second live tourney since October and I felt I played well until (of course) the last hand. We started with 5K chips, 10/20 blinds and 30 minute levels. It was a pretty good structure and I really liked my chances. I was sitting to the left of a couple guys who were sort of tricky, so I had a pretty good seat.
I caught a couple hands early (AA, KK), but didn’t get too many chips with them. I didn’t mind too much because I was picking up information on my opponents, so I really didn’t want to be in too many hands anyway. Here are the significant hands I can remember:
I think we were at the 15/30 level and I picked up KQs in the CO. MP2 limped (he’d been limping a lot), I raised to 130, he called. Flop was ATx rainbow. He checked, I c-bet something like 175 and he called. Turn was a blank. He checked, I checked. River was a Queen, he bet 400. I thought this was a suspicious bet since he was basically representing an Ace. But if he was representing an Ace, then he thought I didn’t have one and I couldn’t understand why he’d bet 3/4 the pot in that situation. I called, I think he mucked something like 77 and I took it down.
50/100 level, it’s folded to the CO (same guy from previous hand) who raises to 275. BU folds, I wake up with AA and re-raise to 1000 straight. I wasn’t sure what to do there because I knew he was probably raising light, but I felt we were too deep to get cute and just call. He folded.
75/150 level, I get AQs UTG (we’re now 8-handed, I think). I raise to 450, everyone folds to SB who calls (same dude from previous two hands). Flop wasQQ2 rainbow. SB checked to me and I decided to make a larger c-bet than normal since I figured he’d interpret that as weakness. I bet 600, he c/r-ed to 1700 and I just called. I figured if I just called, he might put me on TT or 99 and try to steal it if the turn was a good bluffing card for him. I called. Turn was a Two, giving me Queens full. He checked, I checked. River was a blank, he checked, I bet 2K, he folded saying, “I know you didn’t have a Queen. Smells like Ten Ten to me.”
A couple times in there, I’d made top pair from the BB, bet out and had to fold to a raise. I also chopped a pot with AQ vs. AQ (same guy).
100/200 level, I misplayed AK against the guy mentioned in the sentence above and went home. Here’s how I screwed it up: I was UTG with AKo and accidentally raised to 450 (I’d forgotten the blinds had gone up). A tight player in MP1 (we’re still 8-handed) re-raises to 1650 total. Everyone folds to me. I have about 5600 left, which is a good number to shove with AK in this spot. I think about his raise and realize it seems a little scared. I put him on AK, JJ, TT, maybe QQ. I figured I had just enough left that he might fold JJ or TT (and probably AK), and I’d be racing against QQ if he called. Before the hand, my M was about 20, but we’d be adding an ante in about 15 minutes, which meant my M was about to drop to 10. I decided to shove and I felt pretty good about it when he didn’t insta-call. But he ended up calling with KK, and I didn’t improve.
My mistake was not in the way I played the hand, but in who I played the hand against (I will not use “whom” in a poker post!). Dude had a lot of chips, but only because he’d been a card rack for a while. He had gotten KK against AK earlier, I’m pretty sure he flopped a straight against me when I had top pair, he also flopped a better top pair against me when I flopped top pair another time. He hadn’t shown any junk and he’d been playing very tight. Against a player like this, a re-raise to 4x my bet means, “I have a big hand! Let’s get as many chips in there as we can, ok?!” What’s worse is that I had a great read on everyone at my table, so I could’ve played small ball and continued to chip up. I guess my excuse is that I hadn’t played a live, deep stack tourney in about five months.
So, I played for about 3.5 hours and finished something like 15/19. I’m pretty disappointed that I busted misplaying AK that badly. That’s pretty out of character for me.
Ten weeks later…
Remember that time when I said I was going to try and make a substantive post every two weeks? Me neither.
So, here’s what’s been up since my last post:
Well, obviously, we’re more than SEC Champs these days. Since we whooped up on OSU, we’ve become the first school to hold both the basketball and football National Titles in the same calendar year. I don’t have much to say about that except that it’s great to be a Florida Gator. Oh, and I feel we’re a strong favorite to repeat in basketball… and look out for us in football next year.
Speaking of next year’s football team, it looks like Urban Meyer is a recruiting genius. But we don’t have a chance next year because we’re losing so much on defense, right? I don’t think so. I think our defense was great this year because we had a lot of talent, but also because we were so well coached. I think after spring practice and our first couple games this fall, we’ll be back on track. Also, our schedule is much more favorable this year and our offense is going to put up some serious numbers. I think our coaches will have the defense ready (though maybe not quite as good as last year), and our offense is going to put up better numbers this year. I think this year’s offense will make last year’s look pretty timid.
Moving on, um… I’ve been reading a lot. I recently finished reading Tipping Point. It was excellent, and it helped me have a new perspective on causality. It was interesting to get a better picture of what can make things “tip”. Here’s the analogy that comes to mind for describing what a “tipping point” is: Paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit; it doesn’t burn at 450 degrees (in theory, or whatever). It’s not that 450 degrees isn’t hot, but that 450 degrees isn’t hot enough to cause the paper to burn – to tip. At 450 degrees, the paper is just hot; at 451 degrees, everything is on fire. But there’s not much difference between the two numbers. That one degree is just enough, in addition to the previous 450 degrees, to make a bunch of stuff happen and finally catch the paper on fire. And so it is with social epidemics – things will often be going on as they always have, and then some small thing suddenly causes those things to become something bigger and much more obvious. The book basically tries to break down the individual factors that contribute to something reaching its tipping point.
I am currently reading Fast Food Nation, which is pretty boring, but educational. I guess I’m learning a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in the “food industry”. The book goes through a brief history of “fast food”, then goes into the specifics of where most of that food is produced, who produces it and how very evil the whole process and industry is. Ironically, I keep finding myself craving a good hamburger while I read it. That ain’t right.
I’ve had a good run playing poker online recently. I spent some time working on my cash game, had a really, really good run, then took a break when the law of averages roundhoused me in the face (but still ran at about 5BB/100 hands for about 5K hands). I jumped back into MTTs and recently had a pretty big score in a $30 tournament. There were 113 people and I took 2nd for $678. Normally, I’d be very pleased with that finish except I battled back from a 2-to-1 chip deficit to a 10-to-1 chip lead (over about 25 minutes of solid heads-up play)… but then I lost a coinflip (AKs vs. TT), a 70-30 (King high vs. QQ), then lost another coinflip (all-in on a QTx flop with two hearts – I had KJo, he had 8h7h and flushed the turn). By the time all that was over, the blinds were so high we were just gambling. I lost one more flip and that was it.
Anyway, I’ve been to Jacksonville several times over the past couple months and I’ve enjoyed being able to get home so easily. I’ve seen my family several times and I’ve spent time with some friends too. It’s nice to be able to head up to Jax whenever I want, and it’s especially nice that I don’t have to burn vacation time or like $500 a trip. As I think back on my time in Dallas, it really seems like it was just an extended internship or something. I never really felt “at home” there, and I was always in a “wait and see” mode. I knew I’d either move west to pursue acting, or I’d move back east to be near my friends and family. Texas was never really a long-term option, and I’m really glad I ended up back in Florida. It’s hard to describe the overall increase in my quality of life since I moved, but it’s pretty drastic.
I bought a digital piano a few weeks ago. It’s a Kurzweil PC88 and it’s in pretty great shape, especially considering it’s probably 10 years old. I have been surprised how much dexterity I still have, and it’s been fun playing “by ear” instead of just reading sheet music. I can tell my musical ear has definitely matured since I’ve been playing the guitar. It’s nice to be able to just sit down and play something that’s in my head (at least a slimmed-down, easy version). Hopefully I’ll stick with it and become pretty decent.
I think that’s about all I have for now. I’ll try to make it back before April.
Florida Gators: SEC Champs!
I’m still getting used to the idea that we’re playing for the National Championship in a few weeks. It seems as though we’ve been struggling since the second half at Auburn, and yet we’ve done nothing but win since that game. Here are my thoughts on our win over Arkansas in Atlanta last weekend:
- We had our best offensive showing since LSU. Hopefully we’ve turned a corner and we can take advantage of OSU’s soft defense.
- The final score didn’t really demonstrate how much we dominated Arkansas. We had four pass interference calls on our defense; two of them kept an Arkansas drive rolling and both of those were terrible calls. Both of those bad calls led to an Arkansas touchdown on the subsequent play. Half of their points were on plays that never should’ve happened.
- Leak threw two interceptions, but I think both of those were due to Arkansas calling tricky coverage as opposed to Leak making bad decisions. All in all, he played a great game and made good decisions all night.
- Our freshmen had a really big night, which is good news for us in the Championship game. If they show up in Glendale like they did in Atlanta, we’re going to be a very dangerous team
- Meyer’s fake punt call was probably a “bad” play call, but I love it from a psychological perspective. Our team had lost momentum and we needed something to happen to change the tone of the game. That play was exactly what we needed and it was a very well designed play.
- Wilbur is a fantastic punter and he had another good game on Saturday. It was nice to see him make some big plays to win the SEC Championship, help get us into the National Title game and start erasing the memory of the blocked punt at Auburn. It was also hilarious to see him mock Arkansas’ punter at the end of the game.
Now, I just have to see about getting tickets (game and plane) for Glendale. So far, it looks like the trip will cost about $2000 and I’m not sure I want to spend that much money. I’m also not sure I’ll forgive myself if I pass on the game and we win.
Road trips!
Road trip 1: Tonight, for the first time in about three years, I went running (outdoors and everything!). I’ve been doing various cardio exercises–ridin’ the bike, the crazy elliptical thing–for a few years, but I hadn’t gone for a run in a while. It was actually pretty relaxing and wasn’t as tough as I anticipated. I went about 3.3 miles in 30 minutes (nine-minute miles). That ain’t great and it ain’t awful. On the up-side, I did have to run a bit of a hill, so I’ll tell myself that slowed me down a bit.
Road trip 2: Tomorrow night, I’m heading to Atlanta to watch the Gators in the SEC Championship game. When I was a student, we pretty much expected to play for the SEC Title and we were always hoping to get into the National Championship game. Nowadays, playing for the SEC Title is a big deal and I want to be there if we win it. Also, it’s a pretty good excuse to go hang with my friends in Atlanta (I haven’t been since last Christmas). So, I’m leaving right after work tomorrow and I should get there around 10:00 tomorrow night. I’ll be heading back on Sunday afternoon.
Road trip 3: In honor of all the road-tripping, I picked up Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (audio book). I figure it’s just a bonus that Beatniks likely weren’t opposed to partaking of the acid from time to time (of course, that’s speculation based entirely on some stereotype I have for reasons I can’t recall).
Turning over a new leaf
I’ve been posting on my blog for almost five years, and I’m probably the only person who consistently reads what I write. While it’s always been true that my primary audience is myself (more specifically, it’s my future self; Marty?), I know that there are a few others who sometimes read it. Over the past few months, a few of those readers have mentioned that they liked what I wrote before the poker posts infested the place, but that they’ve been pretty bored since then.
My friends’ subtle reminders have reminded me that I should take more time to get my thoughts down, so I can refer to them later. Of course, I enjoy all things poker, so I don’t anticipate I’ll be abandoning the poker posts, but I hope to begin supplementing the blog with some more substantive posts more reflective of my life and thoughts. So, I’m going to start trying to post something meaningful at least bi-weekly (I almost wrote “weekly”, but that seemed a little too ambitious since I’m extremely lazy). I have no idea what I’ll write about, but I’m hoping inspiration will strike at least a couple times a month.
I’ll start working up my first post this week. I think I’m going to write about two financial philosophies I discussed with some friends last night. I’ve also got an almost-finished post I wrote a while back after I finished reading The Prince.
We’ll see how long this lasts.
Crazy week
About a month ago, I moved out here to work for a small software company. I no longer work for that software company… because we were acquired by a larger, public company. At first, I was a little nervous since I’m the new guy and the new guy is typically the first to go if there’s any kind of reduction in force. But, as I thought it over and spoke with my boss, I realized that I don’t have anything to worry about. First of all, the acquisition has been in the works for a few months, so they would’ve had to incur the cost of hiring me, moving me, etc., all while knowing they could let me go. Obviously, that wouldn’t make very much business sense and since I know the people I work for have a lot of business sense (they did just sell their company for a nice chunk of change, after all), I had to figure they wouldn’t make such a costly mistake. Also, a good friend of mine approached me about working there–I didn’t pursue the company so much as the company pursued me–and I couldn’t see my friend leading me to move out here, only to be canned a month later.
So, after a lot of thought and several excellent meals on my new company’s dime, I’m pretty sure I’m good to go. Really, the best thing is that I know have more career options since I now work for an 800-person company rather than a 40-person company. Before, the only vertical potential was basically my boss’ job, and I don’t think he’s going anywhere for a while. Now, there are several places I can go within the company, and I can probably get there relatively quickly since the company is growing very rapidly.
Florida Football winning, but battling silliness
It’s true that we’ve had some close wins against mediocre teams, and we’ve had some close wins against great teams. Our only loss was a close one to a good Auburn team on the road. I haven’t seen the strength of schedule numbers recently, but I’m guessing our schedule is one of the most difficult. So what I really don’t get is why USC is already being anointed as the one-loss team bound for the National Title game. They lost to an unranked Oregon State and they’ve only beaten two teams who were ranked at the time they played. True, if they win out, they will have played a pretty tough schedule, but they still don’t have to play a conference championship game, and they certainly won’t be playing any Top 5 teams in the next few weeks.
We’ve beaten two ranked teams (one Top 10) and our only loss is to a ranked team. We’ll also likely meet a Top 5 Arkansas in the SEC Championship Game. Another thing to consider is that the quality of opponent in the SEC is just better than that of the PAC-10. We’re a stronger conference, but because our teams play defense, we’re being called weak.
I just needed to get that off my chest. If we win out and don’t play for the title, I think we should offer to switch conferences with USC, Texas or some other “big” team for a season. That would be interesting.
Florida Football limping, sputtering to wins
Well, it’s been several weeks since I posted (I guess I’ll need to be more intentional with finding time to post), and the Auburn game remains our only loss. Our wins haven’t been impressive, but they have been wins, and we’re in the driver’s seat. Although a bye might be nice next week, I think it’s good that we’ll have a tune-up game against Western Carolina. We need to work on our offense and hopefully find some kind of rhythm. Our defense and special teams seem to be just fine. Actually, that’s a pretty big under statement… our defense and special teams are pretty awesome. They’re really the only reason we’ve won games since they just don’t allow other teams to put any points on the board.
I’m pretty tired so it’s time to wrap this up. We’re winning games and possibly en route to a National Championship appearance (thanks to some pretty big upsets today). I’ll take it.
Florida Football shoots self in foot
I’ve been meaning to write about Gator football for several weeks, but I’ve been distracted with changing careers and moving back to Gainesville. Anyway, here’s my assessment of the season so far:
We’re good. Really, really good. Our earlier games showed that we’re a strong team with talent on all sides of the ball (I’m lumping special teams in there, too). We’re tough and able to finish games, we have a very potent offense and our defense is stifling. The Chris Leak, Tim Tebow duo is easily one of the best quarterback rotations in the country right now (and is probably one of the better ones in Florida football history). It’s been really fun to watch this team improve and I think we’re the favorite to win the SEC right now.
All that being said, we stunk in the second half at Auburn. Auburn didn’t outplay us, they didn’t out hustle us, we beat ourselves by making several stupid mistakes. I think the first half showed how good we are and the second half showed how dumb we can be. We were clearly the better team and we just melted down in the second half. They brought more intensity, but we were our biggest enemy. Their offense scored only three points in the second half, but our special teams gave up the winning touchdown.
I could rant about that for a while, but the bottom line is we made several stupid mistakes and it cost us. I think there’s a good chance we’ll play Auburn again in the SEC Championship and we’ll beat them by at least two touchdowns if we do (I feel like the magic number is 17 points, but I’m only predicting two touchdowns).
We coulda’ been a contender. We can still be somebody if we can win in ATL in December.