July 2007 Archives

Yesterday, the FBI raided Alaska Senator Ted Stevens's home as part of a corruption probe.

Also yesterday, one of Michael Vick's co-defendants pleaded guilty.

According to Google News, there were 1,896 articles published with the words "Ted", "Stevens", and "Home."

Meanwhile, there were 3,114 articles published with the words "Michael", "Vick", and "dog-fighting."

FOXNews.com featured 23 videos about Michael Vick. It had no videos about Ted Stevens (that's right, zero, nada).

They decide...because they report.

Arlen Specter recently slammed Harry Reid for being "rude" and "dictatorial."

Reid's offense? He made Specter wait thirty minutes before giving a floor speech. What happened during those thirty minutes? The Senate voted on an education bill.

The funny thing is that some people have called George W. Bush rude and dictorial.

The reality is, both sides are lying a little.

It's like the two kids in grade school math class studying the multiplication tables. The teacher asks each of them what  6*4 is. One of them answers 26. The other answers 298,341,334,287.

They're both lying a little.

Leave it to NVIDIA to drag their feet for six months, failing to offer Vista drivers that support HDTV overscan compensation -- only to offer not one but TWO drivers (different version numbers to each) on the same day, both of which support the long-overlooked feature.

I'm finally going to install Vista on my HTPC now -- hopefully the NVIDIA drivers work better than the junk they shipped in January.

Here's an interesting article in which Steve Wynn argues the reason why the blackjack hold (the percentage of chips bought by players won back by the casino) has doubled in his casino: his tip-sharing plan.

I don't know enough about this to comment, but I have a feeling that Wynn knows what he's talking about. It seems unlikely that The Wynn is just getting lucky.

Hellmuth in car accident -- in parking lot. The Ultimate Bet press release is the best part.

UPDATE: Video.

At the season's midway point, the Yankees (not my favorite team!) have outscored their opponents by 72 runs -- yet they are one game below .500.

This is a rather remarkable achievement. I just took a look at the final season stats for 2001-2006 and only one team (out of 180 - 6*30) has ever outscored their opponents by that many runs and not had a .500 record. (It was the 2006 Cleveland Indians, one of this year's better teams.)

Keep in mind though that this is only half a season -- since 2001, no team has ever been outscored by more than 88 runs in a full season and had a losing record. In fact, the Yankees are on pace to outscore their opponents by about 140 runs.

The 20 teams that have outscored their opponents by 140 runs since 2001 have an average winning percentage of .612. 17 of those teams made the playoffs. And 3 of the last 6 World Series winners fall into that group.

I know that the Yankees have dug themselves a big hole -- especially given the strength of the top AL Central teams. But a half-season is a long time to go and the Yankees just might be the most underrated team in baseball.

But if I hadn't, they'd probably fire me.

Since AT&T Park opened in 2000 through the end of last year, Barry Bonds hit 144 homers at home and 145 on the road.

By comparison, Todd Helton (who has played at Coors Field his entire career) has hit 160 homers at home since his rookie year in 1998 -- and 121 on the road. 

Helton hit .334 during that span. Bonds has hit .328 since AT&T Park opened its doors.

Helton has hit .374 at home and .300 on the road. Bonds has hit .342 at home and .316 on the road.

It sounds like about 1,250 started day 1A of the 38th WSOP main event. That's a huge number, but even if they end up getting more entries on the other days, the field should fall from close to 9,000 in 2006 to no more than 5,500 or 6,000 in 2007.

Perhaps this is the year that they should raised the main event buy-in to $25,000 (or more). The changes in online gambling made it relative predictable that the numbers of entrants would decrease, so why not bite the bullet and raise the buy-in as well?

Sure, this year's prize pool would suffer (but only relative to the past 2 or 3 years), but the long run health and prestige of the WSOP would be secured. (You can't claim the 50k HORSE event is the grand-daddy of them all when you still have a main event.)

80 games into the season, the Mariners are 10 games over .500.

Yet they have exactly the same number of runs allowed as they do runs scored -- 400.

The Braves, Phillies, and Diamondbacks have both been outscored by their opponents but have records over .500.

Meanwhile the Yankees appear be the only team to have outscored their opponents despite a losing record. Look for them to have a big second half and make a run at the wild card.

I inadvertently deleted a post a little while ago. Fortunately, through the magic of Google, I was able to find a cached copy of it. Hadn't ever thought of Google as a backup engine before...

Anyway, here's the post:

The whole poker world on tilt

I really enjoyed this Jesse May blog entry:

    Is there anybody out there that is under the illusion that some of the best poker in the world is being played in the Rio this year? I mean, there's a story about Barry Greenstein playing two tournaments at once, sprinting back and forth between tables between hands like some kind of bearded clown balancing a seal on his nose. Barry Greenstein? Ace on the river, spotlight on me, and prop bets galore Barry Greenstein? The man who only a few years ago was on top of a lamppost demanding that he be recognized as the professionals' professional? Running around the room like a clown? Dare I say it, on tilt?

It suffers from a tad bit of "rosy retrospection", but I think it is required reading for every poker player and WSOP staffer.

The 51st event of the 38th annual World Series of Poker began yesterday. The big one -- the $10k World Championship -- begins next Friday. It will dish out the 55th bracelet of this year's WSOP.

To get an idea of how many bracelets that is, it took 9 years until the WSOP gave out its 55th bracelet overall. Now they banging out 55 per year. It took them another 5 years to put out 55 more.

Gotta' love progress, eh?

p.s.: I'll bet the total rake on any single event during this year's WSOP exceeds the entire rake collected at Binion's Horseshoe for at least the WSOP's first 15 years.

So strange.

And it comes just as I was beginning to like him -- his little outburst at the umpire after Mariners fans showed the love to Ken Griffey, Jr. showed me that he actually did have some heart in there after all.

Hopefully McLaren does well.