Blockbuster

Wow. What a time to be flying in the air back to Las Vegas. When I got off the plane and heard the details of the trade, I have to admit that I was thrilled. Two main reasons:

1. We got rid of Larry Hughes, a player who I believed brought out of worst of the Cavaliers.
2. We got Ben Wallace, a playoff, championship tested defender that can rebound.

These two things are enough for me to approve of the trade. When I learned that we lost Donyell Marshall, a fairly large contract for something that can actually shoot in Wally S., I was even more thrilled. The only player I would have liked to see still in Cleveland is Gooden, but we essentially replaced him with Wallace/Smith, significantly improving our big man rotation. Newble was a great role player and I wouldn't be surprised to see him back here in the future, but will I miss him? No, this guy barely played prior to the injuries we had this season. Shannon Brown and Cedric Simmons never played either. Essentially, we just dumped junk for a fresh start. I understand that we did take on a lot of salaries, but we did lose Hughes in that same thing and from what I understand, Wallace's contract matches his. Wally is a big salary jump. What I love is we somehow convinced them to just throw in a second round draft pick. Two notable Cavs second round draft picks are Carlos Boozer and Daniel Gibson.

I believe that anyone that says Hughes had any value to this team is either 1. blind or 2. stupid. This guy threw up wild shots and because he started making a few on them in the last two weeks people suddenly went to his defense. HE MISSED A 3 FOOT JUMPER FOR THE WIN IN THE PLAYOFFS! When the Cavs get healthy with Sasha, Gibson, and Varajao, we will be the deepest team in the East if not the entire NBA. Anyone calling this trade just "a lateral trade" is an ignorant sports columnist that should be fired immediately and never invited back to ESPN. One of my favorite sites dedicated to Larry Hughes says it best

That being said look for the next 10 games to be tough and the Cavs to maybe win 3 of them. Chemistry isn't something easy to come buy and this move is as risky as they get. The X factor that no one realizes though is how much better Lebron makes everyone around him. We had a bunch of bums that looked average or maybe even good because of Lebron. Now that we have some average talent, these players will start looking a whole lot better. On the same note, Ben Wallace probably couldn't be happier going from the confused Bulls to a legitimate championship contender.

Look at it this way. Our team was obviously not good enough to win the championship. We had to do something. This trade does make our team better, but will it be enough? We'll find out in the coming weeks.


I didn't even mention Delonte West, who provides a player at the point guard that we could use.


LOST (spoilers involved)

LOST was a standard episode last night. We needed to know how Kate got off of her charges to let the flash forward plot move forward. On top of that, we see that she has a child, but it's actually Claire's baby further raising questions about what happened. My new long term prediction is that we will see how this all went down with the Oceanic Six this season. Next season will be more of an explanation of the island and the events after the island, while the final season will be the return to the island and the rescue of the people left behind. I don't have much to say, but to sit back and enjoy this show. Predictions are almost never right. I would like to recant my statement to certain friends about how long I could hold a live grenade in my mouth. I believe I could do this for legitimately 4 hours and not 5 days or infinity as I once predicted.

Survivor

This was the best episode of the year. I think the Favorites made a big mistake kicking out Yau-Man and that Ozzy, as always was right. Eliza should have been booted if it wasn't Parvati. You need to strengthen your tribe and win all challenges, so you can go into the merge and pick off people from the other tribe with numbers. I really do like Jon Penner though and hope he weasels his way deep again. He's always entertaining. I don't even know how the Fans are winning. They are so quirky, odd and bad it's funny.


Ty, I tried to do a lot of research about the dunk contest, but it's a tough question and so I just decided to pick the 5 I remembered the most.

5. Dee Brown arm over the face dunk. Extremely creative at the time and probably tough.

4. Spud Webb one bounce dunk. He's 5 foot 7. Give this little man some credit and I just liked his name when I was little.

3. Foul line dunk by all those who tried it. Probably one of the toughest difficulty ever.

2. Vince Carter--anything this guy did that one dunk contest arm in basket, two handed almost free throw jam, behind the backboard, under the leg.

1. Jason Richardson off the backboard under the leg. This is the toughest dunk ever made.


David T. wrote "After reading your recent article on Pocketfives I was left with some questions regarding your hand analysis: Did you chart the hand rankings based on chip stack and place in mtt? While playing short-stacked frequently while deep in mtts, are you more looking to creep up in the $ or move into a position with a stack that would allow you to make more moves? How has your early game changed since your hand analysis and aggressiveness?"

First off, I want to say thanks for a poker related question because I love answering these and keep them coming.

When I charted my hands, I did it just based solely on the hand, but I took notes next to each one so I had a point of reference. I think you can learn more based on chip stack and place, but for this purpose, I just wanted to look at specific hands.

The short stack question is a good one because I often find myself short stacked in tournaments and I don't really mind being there. The key when playing short stack poker is to look for spots where you won't get called. Essentially, when short stacked, it is sometimes better to look for a spot where you won't get called opposed to one where it is absolutely certain. For example, if someone raises in early position and you look at 77, I prefer folding here and looking for a spot where I have fold equity and am the first one to open the pot. So waiting for a 9 10 off suit is something I would almost rather do here because it gives me a chance to pick up chips without getting called. Obviously some hands are so strong that you have to go with them. 99+ or AQ are probably those hands or when you have a pretty solid hand in the blinds and a late position raiser comes in where you are obviously beating his range of hands.

My early game has changed in the following ways. I just try to be more careful with marginal hands and I realize that passing up a marginal situation with some of the hands I charted is not a bad play. Even if I'm maybe 55%, it's not worth it when I am almost guaranteed of finding a better spot later on. I've really reevaluated situations where I'm raised post-flop as well. I think I've been less likely to move my chips in situations where I may be ahead, but I'm only getting called by a hand that's crushing me. This may seem like simple ideas, but places where you have top pair weak kicker and someone raises you early on. I'm more apt to try to read their later street bets than move all my chips in. This may be a loss of aggressiveness in these situations, but I think it has improved my game.

Super Tuesday

I don't know if this title refers to my upcoming PL Omaha w/ Rebuys win in the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza or the second biggest political event of the year. Great to see that Ohio gets to vote after the candidates will probably already be decided. Our system is super unfair and undemocratic as I've stated in previous blogs.

Tyler from Philly wrote in "I am about to jump aboard McCain and Giuliani. In your opinion what are the chances that Giuliani becomes VP for McCain and how do you feel about it as a whole?"

Tyler, I love the political question and a perfect time to ask this. If I had to assess a percentage, I would give it about a 3% chance. First, McCain needs to come through on Super Tuesday and win the nomination. Assuming that he continues his momentum and gets the nomination, he faces some tough questions. First off, the conservative base of the party has seemed to turned their back on McCain. All of the psycho-conservatives (Ann Coulter, Russ Limbaugh) hate McCain. I even read that Ann Coulter would rather have Hillary than John McCain. I see Guiliani as almost the same type of candidate as McCain. He's a very moderate Republican and at times liberal in his views. McCain was picked as that candidate in this primary which is why Guiliani could never gain steam. I would imagine that McCain will be politically savvy if he wins this and pick someone that appeals more to the Republican conservative side as his running mate. What's that equate to? Sorry Tyler, I just don't see a good chance of it happening. I really do think though that if it were to happen, it would throw this race up in a storm.


I'm pulling for Obama on the Democratic side and it should be very close. I just think he has a stance and vision that all American can buy into and support going forward.


As I said, I will be playing the PL Omaha Rebuy event tomorrow at Venetian. This is my first PL Omaha tournament live, but I've had success in the big ones that I've played online namely in the FTOPS and WCOOP. I still am haunted by a hand in the WCOOP that occurred when I was chip leader. I raised in late position with a hand like AA109 Flop came down K 10 x. I bet after the flop and really felt like a player was ready to make a move. I didn't fall in love with my hand by any means hear, but I simply made a play based on my gut with about 24 players left in this tournament. He pushed the pot and I finished off his all in. He showed J 9 9 x for 5 outs since I had one of his nines. The river fell a 9 and I was devastated and could never recover. I finished 18th I believe out of maybe around 700 players. The event tomorrow should be fun and an experience if nothing else.

Today's event went terrible. I arrived a little too late 11:45 for the 12 start time. I did not anticipate the turnout. I was alternate 43 after they filled probably around 440 seats. I got in late in Level 2 with 5700 of the original 6k stack and blinds up to 50/100. I won a couple small pots, then folded AQ preflop after I raised to 600 w/ blinds at 100/200. Shortly after, I picked up KQ in the cutoff (button was away from table), so I had the best position and I limped in a multiway limped pot. Flop came down K Q 10. It checked to me and I bet 1000 into the 1300 pot. A shortstack that just arrived at the table as an alternate put all his chips in on a check raise. I thought for maybe 12 seconds and just thought my hand was slightly ahead of the hands he could be doing this with. He showed AJ and I was just about crippled. After a shortstack triple up and a failed all in I was sent home. Not a good start to this series of events, but that's a very tough situation early in a tournament.

Jay wrote in response to my top 5 poker players blog "What about Allen Cunningham?"

Jay, I totally overlooked Allen Cunningham. He is at least worth an honorable mention if not to be considered as one of the best. I would probably bump lilholdem954 and put him ahead of him if I had to put him in the top 5. I just think his experience in big events and consistent success speaks for itself. If the guy could have any luck at all, he may be main event champion as he was clearly the best player of the final 4 two years ago when Jamie Gold made a miracle call with KJ against his 10 10 and won a monster race.


I will remind you guys to keep those questions coming about anything because I love responding. Just put your question in the comments and I'd be happy to give my opinion.

Keith writing from BGSU wrote "When you look at the Cavs, do you think there is one specific move that will make them a true contender? I think that no matter what move Ferry makes, he will not put the Cavaliers in place to win it all this season."

Realistically, I believe it would take a miracle worker in order to make this team a contender. This team would be a contender with Carlos Boozer locked into a long term contract, and a solid point guard locked into our team. Now in retrospect, it's almost stupid throwing out what ifs, but hey why not. What if we didn't move Andre Miller for Darius Miles in order to try to make this team exciting for the fans? What if we had competent management that actually paid one of the top ten second rounders of the decade in Carlos Boozer?
PG: Andre Miller
SG: Who cares he is nothing to me
SF: Lebron James
PF: Carlos Boozer
C: Zydrunas Ilgauskas

Bench with key reserves including Andy V., Sasha, Daniel Gibson.
That's a contender in my opinion. Can the Cavs get back to that? I've heard Andre Miller trade rumors, but I don't think he or Jason Kidd is the long term answer to this team. I believe it's tough to not call the Cavs a contender since they did make the NBA finals last year, but I get the essence of your question. How do you beat the West and be one of the consistently top 5 teams in the NBA year in and year out? I think anyway that Ferry moves Larry Hughes and lifts the elephant out of the room is the best move. Will there be a blockbuster deal? No. We have what we have this year and probably next year for that matter. We have nothing to give to get another star in here but that's what we need. Lebron will make any player look loads better than they really are. I want to see what he can do with real talent.


That's all for now and keep those questions coming.