2007 Mountaineer Balloon Festival captured on Google Street View.

I was scrolling through the new Google Street View addition this evening and found some shots of the 2007 Mountaineer Balloon Festival on October 6th 2007. Probably a little bit nerdy but I find this pretty awsome as I saw these balloons take of probably only minutes after these shots were taken. For some reason I can't embed the images onto here so we have to resort to links.

Two Baloons over Interstate 79

Look Up Street View Crew

You can find photos of these balloons just before they took off here.

Can the Chargers go undefeated this year?

I went through the 2008 NFL schedule and I think there will be many surprising records. First off I see San Diego having a much bigger chance of going undefeated than New England did last year. Chargers only real threats are Indy and New England but both games are in San Diego. While the Colts are probably a small favorite I don't think New England will be much of a threat. The New Orleans game in London is probably going to be more of a challenge.

New Orleans 14-2

Do they have a shot at a 14 win season? Not much to stop them. They're going to lose in Tampa but the Buccaneers shouldn't have a shot in New Orleans. They could win against Green Bay and at Washington. Other than that it should be a cake walk.

Cleveland 10-6

This is my team here but I'm trying not to the the bias keep my from giving an accurate prediction. I see Cleveland losing easily to Dallas, Giants, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, and Tennessee. Playing in Pittsburgh will be a challenge but they could pull it off. At Philadelphia? We'll see. Other than that is should be an easy season. Cleveland has some weapons and a pretty deep roster. They could easily upset any power out there.

Pittsburgh 7-9

Steelers will be the biggest disappointment in the NFL this season. First I think they are extremely overrated. They only have 2 main weapons with Polamalu and Ward. The rest of the team might produce a couple more but I'm not counting on it. Add that to the fact they have to face Jaguars, New England, and Tennessee away and Giants, Indy, San Diego, and Dallas at home I don't see them producing very many wins.




Those are my main surprises, You'll have the typical winners, squashes, and surprise wins. Other teams you'll need to keep an eye on are the Jets, Jags, Titans, Vikings, and Tampa but I'm not putting money on the quite yet. You have the Farve factor this year but unless he finds an offensive line and some receivers to suit him I don't see him doing much.

Super Bowl: San Diego over New York Giants




AFC EAST~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NE 14-2
NYJ 9-7
Buf 7-9
Mia 2-14

AFC NORTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cle 10-6
Pit 7-9
Bal 4-12
Cin 3-13

AFC SOUTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ind 15-1
Jac 14-2
Ten 11-4
Hou 6-10

AFC WEST~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SD 16-0
Den 7-9
Oak 2-14
KC 2-14

NFC EAST~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NYG 15-1
Dal 14-2
Phi 9-7
Was 6-10

NFC NORTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GB 10-6
Min 9-7
Chi 3-13
Det 0-16

NFC SOUTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NO 14-2
TB 10-6
Car 9-7
Atl 2-14

NFC WEST~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sea 13-3
StL 6-10
Ari 5-11
SF 2-14

My New Site

I've finally done it and started my first official website, http://www.morgantownpoker.com/. It is basically somewhere for the locals here to get together and find games both live and online. It isn't finished yet but it really wasn't as hard as I expected. I already new some HTML and CSS but other than that I'm clueless. Now I need to do the hard part and get it seen by some search engines. I'm pretty excited about it more because I play a lot of poker online but hardly ever can find a good home game to go to. I know that there are a lot of good poker players in Morgantown but I don't know many. Hopefully this will help me meet some fellow players and get a couple regular games going. I'm also going to be setting up some private tournaments online.

Since I've been working on the site so much this week I really haven't had much time to play. I made a small deposit and played the Sunday Hundred Grand on PokerStars and played horribly. I don't know what was wrong with me but I was really ashamed of my performance. I didn't do too bad in the few ring games that I played but I think that I'm down a little overall. I've been mixing it up a little and not been playing just ABC poker. I still need to work on my technique a little but I'm pretty confident. I'm loving it because when I show a bluff or play 8-6 suited at the stakes that I play most of the table are seriously thinking that I'm a donk and really pay me off when I hit a big hand.

I would like to write more today because for some reason I feel like rambling but I have to get off of here and do some work. Feel free to check out my site and let me know what you think. Like I said, I'm new to this some and input would probably help me out.

Mixed Results Lately

I've been getting mixed results lately. I've place "In The Money" in every private tournament and a couple private freerolls that I've played. Bad thing is that I've been doing horrible in open MTT's, SnG's and Ring Games. I think it has to do with my state of mind in private games because i'm playing with people that I know and talk to on a regular basis. I think there's more of an urgency to win, so I can do a little brag.

Speaking of brags, Railbirds updated their February Freeroll Rankings on the 18th and guess who is holding the #1 spot....not me. I'm currently 5th in the rankings which is great because I didn't get much of a chance to play in them last week. I've also been accepted into the Dragon Clan on Railbirds which is helping my drive to win. Since I've been a member of the Dragons I've played in 2 private tournament. I came in 3rd in the RB in Atlantic City tournament and won the Dragon Clan Meet and Greet.

Since I've been planning on depositing again I've also decided to throw Bankroll Management out the window and been playing a lot of 0.05/0.10 NLHE ring games. I've been losing at them but I think it's just been because I've been playing pretty passively at the 0.01/0.02 level and I need to be more aggressive at this level. I hope I just need to fine tune my strategy to start winning. I'm updating my Status Post again so you can see how my 0.01/0.02 strategy has been holding up.

Just A Little Update

Well my back is feeling better but sitting in a computer chair playing poker still hasn't been feeling too good. I've played here and there and I'm up $8.71 on the 1c/2c 6-max tables since my last update. I'm currently ranked 17th this month in the Railbirds Ranking Freerolls. I've tried to make most of these and been finishing pretty well. I have 3 cashes this month (48th, 16th, and 64th) in 9 games.

As much as I would like to be one of these guys that turned $10 into $10,000 I think I'm going to have to make a deposit soon. These penny tables are killing me. It is nice to see 50-60BB/100 hands in the stats but I know that means I'm only making about $1 for each hour of good playing. Also, like I said before, I would like to start playing the Sunday Hundred Grand on a regular basis. I'm goingto try to scrounge some cash together and maybe hit the bigger games. There's nothing worse than being on a winning streak and not having any money.

Taking it easy for a week

Between throwing my back out and being broke I took it easy last week. I did play a couple Railbirds ranking freerolls. I took 30th in a Stud Hi and 38th in a NLHE. I finished the month ranked 320th which isn't bad considering that I missed over half of them and half of the games that I did play didn't have my full concentration. I'm going to try to give it more effort in Feburary and hopefully get into the top 100.

In other news, I've been offered a small stake ($10) for ring games. I'm going to be playing 0.01/0.02 NLHE 6-Max tables. This will help me get my 'poker fix' and maybe get a little bankroll started until I can get a deposit in. I played about an hour and a hlf yesterday and made about $3. I've giving it a go again as I'm writing this. I'm also going to update my overall stats in my first post.

Also, my girlfriend won us a trip to Vegas in some contest they had at school. I think it covers airfare, 4 nights somewhere and some spending cash. She's wanting to go during spring break but I'm wanting to go the end of June to meet up with some friends from Beat the Donk poker forums. Either way we're going to have a hard time finding a baby sitter. I think that when we get out tax return back I might take a little to the tables up in Wheeling to get a little live practice.

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand

Last week I played in PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand for the first time. It has $100,000 guaranteed prize pool but registration usually maxes out for a $200,000 prize pool. The buy-in is $10+$1 and there is usually 20,000 players. I think I counted 20 - $2.20 Satellites throughout the day to this tournament and Sit N Go Satellites throughout the day. I decided to try a $2.20 MTT satellite on Thursday and won a seat my first try. The Sat was pretty easy to get through with 115 entries and 20 seats to be won. Finally Sunday came and I was ready. Right off the gun I started getting big hands. I got a major chip stack quick. The play was weak but not as donkish as I heard. Then the deck got cold. I wasn't getting any cards and the blinds were getting big. I was patient and stole a couple of blinds to keep alive. Finally with blinds at 600/1200 and me with 4670 chips I was dealt pocket fives in early position. There was about 3300 players left and top 3000 got paid at least $20. Players were dropping at about 100 per minute and players at my table were stalling badly. I probably should of folded because a minimal cash would of given me 1000% ROI but I decided to go for it all. I pushed, and one guy calls. Sweet a race. NOPE!!! Cards get flipped over and I see his pocket Aces. I finished the tournament in 3277th place.

I'm going to miss this week but I'll defiantly be playing in this again. I played 2 more MTT Satellites this week with no luck. I might try a SnG sometime coming up. This tournament is weak and should be pretty easy to carry a positive ROI% in the long run. I'll try 3 or 4 satellites a week and should be able to get in with that. If that doesn't work I'm going to just deposit the extra $44 a month to buy in directly. My goal is to start playing these weekly and make a final table this year. With my level of play and a decent run of cards that should be possible. A year would cost $572 of buy-ins and the final table usually pays between $1,000 and $20,000. Sounds good to me.

6-Handed Ring Games

This is a reply to Jonathan's blog. He talks about 6- handed Sit' N Go's but I want to talk about 6-handed Ring Games. The SnG strategy will be a bit different because you basically have a time limit to make chips where a ring game is all about patience.

6-Max Ring Games

I've been playing around with 6-handed ring games. I recently read strategy article that talked about the types of players that play the different types of games. Players that prefer the 6-handed games are the ones who are looking for action. These players are more likely to be Loose-Aggressive (LAG) and also like to bluff at a lot of pots.

Pre-Flop
Pre-flop you have to play hands that are going to generate monsters. Since you're playing players that might be playing anything, they also might hit anything on the flop. They can bluff you out of a lot of pots that you've invested money into. You need to play hands that can generate straights, flushes, or a set. Suited connectors are your best friend for obvious reasons on a 6-handed table. Small pocket pairs are also nice because you have a 1 in 7 chance of hitting a set. A small pocket pair also leaves the higher cards out there for your opponent to hit a big pair while you own a set. Play passivly but play often preflop. To mix it up a little I play almost every pair or suited connector in late position but only play big hands in early position. My opponents can never get reads even though I'm playing exactly the same cards throughout my session.

After the Flop
Now that we've covered pre-flop play, what about after the flop? Well it's really easy, fold if you don't hit. If you miss the flop play the odds. I don't usually count high cards as outs because top pair isn't a sure thing unless you hold a big kicker. The only time I try to draw top pair is if I'm holding AK AQ AJ KQ and sometimes KJ on a really loose table. You want to draw to the top end of straights and to 9 high flush or higher.

If you hit the flop then you need to be agressive, EVERY TIME! Sure your opponent will see this, but he'll still pay you. He'll think to himself, "There's no way this guys that lucky", or ,"Look at this donk playing almost anything". Are you getting lucky or being a donk? Heck no, you have a solid strategy and you're sticking to it. Now your opponent has a mis-read on you. YEA-HAAAAAA!!!!!!!! That's when he' going to pay you.

My Stats

So far I've only been playing around with this strategy on the 0.01/0.02 NL tables on PokerStars and I haven't spent much time on it but it is paying off nicely.


(updated 2/20/08)
4,400 Hands
32.50 VP$IP
about 40% flops seen (give or take 5%)
5.23 Preflop Raise

$23.39 Won

26.58 BB/100 Hands

I'll keep my stats updated for you to see how it goes. I'm hoping to start playing the 0.05/0.10 NL tables soon.