Headed to AZ

I'm off to Scottsdale in a few hours for a good friend's bachelor party weekend. The timing couldn't be better after having seen The Hangover, which is absolutely hilarious. I don't think we'll be slipping any roofies into our Jagermeister, though. I'll Tweet and try to send some pics of the debauchery as it happens on my Twitter page, so if you're one of my good friends who is missing this weekend...well, shame on you, but at least you can track our action a little.

http://twitter.com/ccmccandless

Have a great weekend, everyone. I know I will!

Good day

ASU beats Washington to advance to the Pac-10 Tournament Championship game.

The Red Sox thump the Yanks in a prime time Grapefruit League tilt...which is obviously meaningless, but Big Papi and Mike Lowell went yard, which is definitely not.

And there is word that Friday Night Lights may get renewed for not one, but two more seasons!

That's just a good day all around. And tomorrow is AJ's birthday party and in five days I'm off to Arizona for the annual boys trip. Good times.

28 awesome things from 2008

There are always tons of "best of" lists right around New Year's Day. Here is one more. Instead of a Top 10, or a Top 100, or anything so rigid and structured, here are just 28 things from 2008 that were awesome. They are not comprehensive, and they are not in any order. But they are awesome.

• Season four of Lost, especially on Blu-Ray.
• The 2008 World Champion Boston Celtics.
• The Dark Knight, especially Heath Ledger's brilliant performance.
• Season three of Dexter.
• Metallica: Death Magnetic and LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Dustin Pedroia: Sun Devil, Red Sock, and AL MVP.
• Iron Man.
• Tropic Thunder.
• The Robert Downey Jr. resurgence in general.
• Rock Band 2.
• My second straight Chatham Bluefish Diamond Mind baseball championship.
• Scream Queens on VH1.
• Terra Naomi's acoustic hair band covers.
• The fact that a new GNR album actually came out, and it's good.
• Friday Night Lights, and the fact that it is still on TV at all.
  
• Survivor and The Amazing Race still being fairly entertaining.
• Pretty much everything AJ McC does, including his hilarious exploding vocabulary.
• Sierra Mist Free Cranberry Splash. Try some with vodka and thank me later.
• ZaZa pizza in Little Rock. The huge high heat woodburning oven is the key.
• The fact that a new movie theatre (with an Imax screen) opened right down the street, even if I don't get to go there as often as I'd like.
• That a guy who kind of rocks won American Idol.
• The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.
• Tina Fey, both on 30 Rock and SNL.
• Van Halen LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Catching my first Red Sox game in way too long, with a rooftop table under the Budwesier sign.
• Two Vegas trips, an AZ fire up, and a Cape Cod vacation (with the Boston trip in the middle of it).
• Lots of cool shows on the Food Network. Seriously.
• WiiFit.

And eight things that were not so awesome:

• 18-1. Still pisses me off.
• The ASU football season. An entirely different kind of letdown.
• The Sox losing game 7 of the ALCS when they clearly could have been champs again if just a couple of guys stayed healthy.
• Watching shitty teams flounder in the 2008 NFL playoffs while the superior Patriots sit at home. Sickening.
• The economy, including our old house still being on the market.
• The disgusting New York Yankees offseason spending spree.
  
• Heroes. Season one started great, and since then it's been pretty bad. And yet, I continue to watch.
• The complete tabloidization of the American media. Didn't CNN used to be a respected news outlet? Now they are People magazine with some news thrown in. Go ahead, check the website right now. What's on there? A video of Harrison Ford getting his chest waxed, apparently. And network news shows are just as bad. I cannot do it. I basically hate the news, now. I really do. Thankfully technology exists that lets me consume only what I want, for the most part. Okay. Rant over. I hope everyone has a great 2009.
  

AZ wrap-up

So where were we? Ahh yes...Kyoto. It's a Japanese hibachi restaurant in Scottsdale, but we certainly don't go there for the food. The place has become a Loop institution because of the atmosphere and the sake bombers. For the uninformed (or, more likely, the mature), doing a sake bomber consists of pouring yourself a shot of warm sake, dropping it into a small glass of Japanese beer, and downing it. Repeat several times for a guaranteed good time.

So there we were at Kyoto. We actually had a reservation that they immediately honored this time around, so there was no need to impersonate the Oakland A's pitching staff (a story from not too long ago that most of you have heard). It was a rare Thursday evening Kyoto appearance, and the weeknight call seemed like it might affect our mojo. "Let's take it easy tonight," said my friend Erik, who had early meetings the next morning...and then he sauntered up to the bar and ordered five sake bomber set-ups. Easy, indeed.

It actually was a fairly reserved evening as far as Kyoto nights go. The majority of the rest of the weekend was spent at the AVP beach volleyball tournament, as Erik's company, Crocs, recently became the title sponsor. Now this was quite a set-up. Crocs had a double-wide makeshift luxury box looking over the court, complete with food, drinks, and couches. We had a blast hanging out the entire weekend watching Olympic gold medalists Misty May and Kerri Walsh decimate their competition. I think Beth got a little tired of my temporary crush on Walsh, but come on, she's a 6'3" Amazon goddess who also happens to be really cute.

The Arizona trip concluded with a stay at the Hyatt Gainey Ranch for Beth's Jackson-Lewis legal conference. Great resort, with beautiful grounds, a bunch of different swimming pools, and tons of other luxurious amenities. There was even a casino night event, and despite our success at the tables we came up empty in the raffle, crushing our hopes of winning the iPod nano on display. All in all it was a wonderful trip, but we were definitely ready to sleep in our own bed back home.

A Red Sticker?!?

Beth and I quickly boarded our plane for the flight from Dallas to Phoenix, situated in adjoining middle and window seats. Despite not having the exit row, I thought that sitting by the window with my bum knee on the window side would afford me enough room to be somewhat comfortable.

I was wrong.

Things started badly and got progressively worse. The seats were tiny--the smallest that I've been on in a big plane in a long, long time. And wasn't American the airline that recently made a big deal about adding room to all of their coach seats? If so, then all I can say is, umm..."liars." But since we boarded so close to take-off time, I figured that at least we'd be in the air and on our way soon.

Once again, me, all kinds of wrong. First we're informed that one of the air conditioners is broken. This, while we're sitting in the full plane, on the runway, in Dallas, on a 90 degree day. Awesome. So they get to work doing whatever it is that they do...which doesn't exactly involve fixing said air conditioner. They mess around for a while...and a while longer...and a while longer. Some other minor problem comes up, and they mess around with that. We've gone from ready to go, to half an hour on the ground, to an hour, to an hour and a half and counting, and then we get held up by the red sticker. Or, more accurately, the absence of one.

Apparently, when mechanics work on anything on an airplane, they have to mark the area in question with a red sticker. "It's just like something you'd get at Office Max," the pilot explains, trying to placate us after what has now been two hours in our broken-AC sweaty death box. "Well, the sticker is gone. Either it blew off or...we lost it. So...if we find it right away...maybe it just fell off on the ground...then we can take off any minute now. If not, then it will take a little while longer."

I assume he managed to get all of this out with a straight face. A red sticker?!? Nice to know that airlines are using such high tech repair indicators in this post 9/11 climate.

Anyway, eventually, thankfully, we got off the tarmac and into the air. The flight itself was fairly uneventful, aside from the shooting pains in my knee. Upon landing, we see that our bags immediately arrived at the baggage claim at the same time we did. Good karma after the bad flight, maybe. So we grabbed them, hopped onto a shuttle, and quickly picked up our rental car and made our way down to our hotel in Chandler right across the street from the mall. Dinner with the Bladers at The Cheesecake Factory was exactly what we needed--specifically, a couple of Malibu Coladas each.

On Thursday, Beth went in to do her teaching for work and I happily hung out at the hotel. Read the paper, caught a little sun at the pool, and perused the mall for a little bit, including checking out the newest made-up breed of dog at the pet store. Has anyone ever heard of a "Valley Bulldog?" I certainly hadn't until I saw this British Bulldog-Boxer mix. Very cool mutt. The relaxing day was just what I needed after the travel nightmare that came before it. It seemed like things would continue that way, with a nice, mellow Thursday evening, until I spoke to Shaw B.

"We're going to Kyoto tonight," he said...

Back to reality

I didn't win the World Series of Poker. I didn't even win any money.

I'm back home, and it's been long enough that I can finally sit down and write about it all. This will probably be long and rambling, if only to make up for the dearth of posts lately.

So where was I? That's right, I was in Vegas for the WSOP. My friend Shaw B was in town with a bunch of his buddies from Dallas, a rowdy crew of guys that I had never met. I met them at The Palms and we had a blast. They were all sitting at a blackjack table together and Shaw relinquished his third base seat to me. To make a long story short, the session ended after everyone there won a decent amount of cash and we all pounded a round of shots called a Red Headed Slut right there at the table. After that, we headed up to Ghostbar, one of Palms' notoriously cool hipster hangouts. This one happened to be 55 stories up, including a balcony patio with a gorgeous view of all of Las Vegas. Good times.

After several absurdly expensive cocktails, we made our way back downstairs, only to find ourselves all sitting down to play blackjack once again. What ensused was classic Vegas material: we all were feeling good and had had plenty of beverages, so of course that led to even more rowdy behavior at the table, exacerbated by the fact that we hit a tremendous stretch of cards. We had a blast. The details were a little sketchy even the next morning, let alone this long after the fact, so we'll just leave it at that.

I spent the next couple of days scouting out the WSOP and just having fun. Poker legends were everywhere, as were Hollywood celebrities. I saw Antonio Esfandiari at least five times. We saw Jennifer Tilly out and about more than once, wearing her WSOP bracelet, which I thought was great. I caught Tobey Maguire playing some high-limit Hold 'Em at Bellagio. I met Phil Hellmuth at a party and he was great. All in all, it was a fun and crazy week.

I started the tournament on Saturday at 11 AM and I was understandably a little nervous. However, those feelings quickly passed and I settled in to play my best game. For the record, my first hand ever at the WSOP was a glorious 2-8 off suit...glorious in that I didn't even have to think about playing it. I played pretty tight at first and it became evident that almost my entire table was filled with players that weren't very good. The lone exception was the player on my left, a friendly and personable guy about my age who went by the name of Tex. We got to chatting a little bit and really only got involved in two pots against each other. In one, we were the only players to see the flop and although I had no hand at all, I made a token bluff. He raised right back at me and I laid it down. This was very early, so it didn't cost much. In the other hand, I hit a fluky full house and he laid down his hand after I made a sizable bet on the river.

Shaw B and Erik, my faithful railbirds, also took a liking to Tex's wife, whom they met as they were all watching us. But Tex and I soon parted ways, as our table broke up pretty early. I wouldn't run into him again, although several days later I found out (spoiler warnings for anyone waiting for the ESPN coverage) that Tex went on to make the final table and finish in 3rd place, winning a cool $2.5 million. From all indications, he is a great player and a great guy, so good for him. And I'd bet good money that his wife logs some ESPN camera time.

The rest of Saturday was fairly uneventful. My stack didn't make any huge swings one way or the other. I did knock out a couple of other players and sit next to a couple of other pros, notably Gavin Griffin and Arnold Spee, who were both very nice guys--in 2004, Gavin became the youngest player ever to win a WSOP bracelet; Arnold won a World Poker Tour event in Reno, defeating Phil Ivey, among others. Late that night I went pretty card dead and was basically happy to have survived the day with a bigger stack than I started with. I ended the night with $12,000 and change in chips, which we bagged up at around 2:30 AM. I then went outside to find the longest cab line I've ever seen at a hotel in my life. I got to bed at around 4.

I came back eager and ready to play on Sunday and won a decent pot with AK on the first hand of the day. Shortly after that, former champ Chris Moneymaker busted out three tables away from mine. I got a chance to meet Chris and chat with him a little bit on Thursday and he was incredibly nice and gracious, just a super guy, and accomodating as can be for someone who still gets hounded everywhere by fans.

The cards went dead again and I just hung around, waiting for my shot. It finally came in the afternoon when my stack was down to about $11,000 and I was dealt pocket aces for the first time in the tournament. A very loose player with a big stack two seats to my right raised to $2500, so this was my chance. I wanted to get all of my money in, and I wanted him (and only him) to call me. Thus, it was Hollywood time. With one player sitting between us, I went into full acting mode, leaning out, staring at his stack of chips, then checking my own stack, then looking at him, then at his chips again, then at my cards again...before finally going all in. Everyone else folded, and he called with a suited KQ. I ended up making aces full of tens and my stack went up over $25,000, the highwater mark of the tournament.

Then the cards went dead again. Dan Harrington got knocked out two tables away from me and walked right past me to do an ESPN interview. He got a standing ovation from the whole room, including me. Harrington's two books were a huge help for me, and it felt odd to see him bust out before I did. Apparently I even held up the action at our table for a moment as I was standing and applauding while the action was on me.

Harrington is a tight player and his books preach patience, which had gotten me this far and looked like it would get me to the dinner break again, which was fifteen minutes away when I was dealt pocket kings. I raised to $2500 and got one caller--exactly what you want to happen. He took quite a while to make the call so I thought he had a borderline hand. The flop came 6-8-9. Perfect. I was first to act and bet out $7000. He thought long and hard before calling. He had a ton of chips and clearly was on a draw of some sort. Me, I had about $11,000 left at this point after my two big bets. The turn brought a useless deuce. I thought for a moment, knowing that I had the best hand, and pushed it all in. He eventually called and revealed a 6-7. He had called a $2500 raise pre-flop with a suited 6-7. Absurd. But I was right all along--he was on a draw and I had him beat.

Until a 7 fell on the river. He made two pair, and I was out of the tournament. I was stunned. I made my way out of the tournament area and Erik and I made a beeline to the bar, where we quickly downed several Captain and Diet Cokes and I made a few requisite "I'm out" phone calls and sent a few text messages. I couldn't believe it was over.

After taking some time to get a little distance from everything, I realized that my feelings about everything couldn't be more conflicted. I was completely happy with how I played. I was in the biggest tournament in the history of poker and I finished in the top 20% and outlasted many of my heroes. That felt great. And I went out on a hand that I read right and played right...but it still knocked me out, and that felt terrible. If I had won that hand, I would have been over $50,000 in chips and I would have been looking really good. But it just didn't happen. I had an incredible time and it was a great experience, but I was left with a painful, nagging feeling that I still have been unable to shake: I can play with those guys. They're the best in the world, and I can play with them.

I'll fill in more of what has happened since soon. Nothing earth-shattering, although I have read a couple of good books.

More poker reading

I finished the Hold 'Em sections in Super System 2. I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't too helpful because there is just no way I can play the way that Doyle Brunson advocates, because that style is just too aggressive for me. So I recently picked up Harrington On Hold 'Em by 1995 WSOP champ Dan Harrington. He is ironically nicknamed "Action Dan" because of his conservative playing style but he's also the only player in the world to make it to the final table of the main event the last two years, which have had by far the biggest fields the event has ever seen. I'm part way through the book so far and it's really good. He also has a volume two coming out later this month and I'll probably pick that one up as well. My favorite tip of his so far is that you tend to win the most money by playing the opposite of your traditional style--tight players win by getting a little looser, and vice versa. Simple, but true.

On Thursday I won a single-table tournament on Full Tilt. The entry fee was only $4.40 and there were just nine people but it means that I now have a "satellite chip" that I can use to buy into a more expensive tournament of my choice. The entire World Series of Poker consists of around 45 total events this year, including the big one that I am in, and Full Tilt runs a lot of qualifying tournaments into the other events as well. Who knows, maybe I'll win my way into another tournament out there too!

We're off to Memphis for the weekend to see my family. Mom and Dad are headed back to Cape Cod for the summer so it will be good to see them before they go. And I haven't seen my brother since January so it will be fun all around. I'm sure we'll be watching game 7 of the Boston-Indiana series on Saturday. GO CELTICS! I want a piece of Sully and his World Champion Detroit Pistons in round two.