Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - Roothlus
So this past weekend was awesome. So many great things happened and as a whole September is an unreal month. I’d say it ranks up there with the likes of December and June with July an honorable mention. There is so much going on this month: college football, pro football, real football (soccer hehe), new shows on television, the U.S. Open, the VMAs and the weather is still in top form. Oh and Labor Day weekend is definitely one of the best weekends of the year. I mean, the list just goes on and on. There will be no poker in this blog just me discussing the merits football and soccer, my newfound admiration for tennis, but most importantly, Kanye West. I mean, what’s a blog without Kanye freakin’ West!?
I’m really happy to see the NFL back. During the summer months there is this void in any true sports fan’s heart. There needs to be multiple sports going on at once. And for a two month span it’s only baseball. Come on. Baseball?? What a snoozefest. I used to like baseball a long time ago probably before I was enlightened by the internet and my attention span was a bit longer. It’s just so boring pitch to pitch. Yes, there are brief moments of excitement but they are few and far between. As well, it’s the middle of the season and it’s hard to stay interested in something not ending for 100 games. NFL is similar to that but it’s still faster paced and there is excitement on nearly every play not just a couple here and there. While I’m no Nostradamus, I do think Green Bay, Dallas, and the Giants looked excellent in the first week. I thought Minnesota could be great but Favre is a huge asterisk. The ending to the Bengals-Broncos game was incredible and such an unlikely turn of events to end the game. It’s things like these fluke occurrences that make football an incredible sport.
Soccer helps fill that void midway through the summer. While I have said football is a phenomenal sport, soccer is my favorite. The structure of a soccer game is great compared to all the other sports. It’s two 45 minute halves with no commercials with a twenty minute break in between. And these 45 minute halves run straight through. There’s no stop when the ball goes out of bounds or commercial breaks, just injury time, which is a couple of minutes at the end for fouls and other stoppages during the half. Commercial time outs are definitely one of the worst attributes of American sports. Soccer hasn’t succumbed to it yet, even Major League Soccer thankfully. Also, while yes scoring in soccer is few and far between, the buildup to each and every goal is exciting and tense. Because there is less scoring there is also a massive importance on each goal so mistakes can prove to be deadly. On top of all this, the idea of being able to hit a ball with your head is just cool. I love that there are a lot of different leagues going on in a typical soccer season as well. There are each country’s respective leagues and then there’s the Champion’s League, a league for the champions of the individual leagues. There are some other smaller leagues going on as well but thrown in the mix are World Cup qualifiers as if everything else wasn’t enough to keep things interesting. Okay, that’s enough on soccer for now.
I became a new fan of tennis this past week with the U.S. Open. I watched an epic match between two unknowns that ended up being the longest match in U.S. Open history. After that, watching Federer’s unbelievable shot between the legs on Sunday and Del Potro’s unfathomable victory against Federer in the finals Monday was enough to have me hooked. Federer had a SIX YEAR winning streak at the U.S Open spanning forty matches. That’s just unheard of for any sport and to watch the match where someone coming out of nowhere to take the title and break the streak was truly gripping.
Lastly, the best part of the weekend was Kanye West acting like a total goon. I don’t need to go into it because quite frankly, if you haven’t heard what he did this weekend then you must live in a box. I have no idea what could compel him to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech which had to be one of her most special moments in her young life. Kanye must think he’s untouchable but if he keeps these antics up he’ll find himself out of the limelight fairly quick. The best part about what he did are these photoshops popping up all over the place having him interrupting different icons and saying another person was better. It’s been dubbed Kanye Gate and quite frankly, it’s hilarious.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this blog and this action-packed weekend as much as I did. Until my next blog, talk to you soon.
–Adam “Roothlus” Levy
Tags: Baseball, Champions League, Football, Kanye West, NFL, Poker Poker Poker, Taylor Swift, Tennis, US Open, VMA's
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Saturday, July 11, 2009 - ZMEN
It’s that time of the year where fantasy football and poker will soon collide. I’m both happy and scared. Obviously, it’s great that the NFL season is nearing because every Sunday I’ll be able to sit back, relax, have a few brewskies, and enjoy Sunday NFL ticket rooting for my FF players. That’s the happy part.
Why am I scared?
Well, most NFL games are on Sunday and that’s generally the best day of the week to play poker. So what’s a guy to do? In past years I tried mixing the two but, since I rely on BOTH for income, mixing has taught me a tough, expensive lesson. While I know how to be a winner at both games that’s only when I concentrate on one or the other, exclusively. The past four years I have NOT been able to do better than break-even in poker during the fantasy football season. To me FF and poker are like drinking and driving – don’t mix the two at the same time! So you may find ‘zmen’ absent from the UB tables on Sundays in the months ahead even though Sunday is one of my fav days to play online. No worries. I make that time up by playing more on Saturdays and the rest of the week! The key for me will be to pay attention to FF on certain days and Poker on other days, don’t mix the two, and hope for the best.
As Debo and P0kerH0 certainly know from hanging with me each of the past five years at the Aruba Poker Classic and also at the WSOP, my life for the past decade has been lots of fantasy football. I’ve been on the cover of Fantasy Pro Forecast magazine. I was a regular on a fantasy football show on FoxSportsNet. And I should mention I have two fantasy football books published, Drafting to Win and, most recently, Fantasy Football’s BIG SIX. (BTW, I gave Annie Duke a copy of DTW and Phil Hellmuth a copy of FF’s Big Six. And did you know? Phil/Debo/H0 are all very into fantasy football!)
So you can see my commitment to FF. So much so that in 2004 thru 2008 I’ve ranked as the #1 fantasy football player in the world after consistently winning at high stakes fantasy football (wcoff/nffc) where live drafts are held in Vegas each September. But after a rough 2008 season I enter 2009 as #5. So I will be putting in extra efforts in the upcoming draft preparation to get to the top again, and that probably means a little less poker. OK, just a smidgen less. 
Since poker is my equal passion and bigger supply of income I must move forward and prepare somehow, someway, for FF this Summer and Fall, and hope to continue to still play poker at a high level. It won’t be easy! -z-
Tags: Annie Duke, aruba classic, Debo, NFL, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ub, Vegas, WSOP
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Saturday, February 7, 2009 - JMURJEFF
My experience at the Superbowl was definitely a good one. Ultimate bet contacted me about the promotion to get the tickets right before Christmas time and I traded in points to obtain the tickets. The tickets were to be either picked up in Tampa or delivered to your hotel during the week of the Superbowl.
Ultimate bet makes sure they keep in touch with you to let you know what is going on. They sent me a jacket, a hat, and a shirt as well as for the guest who I brought along. On the day before the Superbowl we went to pick up our tickets from Tony Luisi who was definitely a nice guy. The pick up location was on the same street as the stadium so it was very easy to get to. Also when we got there Tony gave me and my guest a bag with Superbowl memorabilia as well a pass for parking. The parking pass for no additional cost is good because stadium parking is $50. I also ordered the NFL on location party from Ultimate bet through points redemption. So I was able to pick up the tickets for those as well at that time. On the day of the Superbowl I was offered a drink by Tony and a manager from Ultimate bet, however my guest really wanted to go to the NFL experience right away so I had to turn down the request. Although it was definitly a good gesture and maybe another time I would definitly take them up on this offer. Right outside the stadium there is a lot to see from football beginnings to present times. The NFL on location was definitly the place to eat because the open bar with the food was worth it. Cause if you were hungry at the stadium you would be paying $10 a beer and $9 a cheeseburger. When we went to the stadium it was awesome because our seats were on the 50 yard line 23 seats up from the field. So I was able to see everything during the game and it was definitly an experience. It definitly is much better to be at the stadium cause you can see all kinds of things you don’t normally see. Like how the recievers run their routes and the sidelines. The half time show was awesome because whenever Bruce Springsteen plays you know it has to be good. Everyone was standing up during the 4th quarter because of how crazy the game got. The majority of the fans may have been for Pittsburgh but towards the end I don’t think anyone really cared who won because both teams were putting on such a great show.
After the game we got to go back to the NFL on location to eat more food. So that party is something I recommend cause it is better to enter the stadium and leave on a full stomach.. Also because traffic is crazy in the beginning so you might want to wait a while before leaving. Overall this was a great experience and if you can take advantage of this offer then I recommend it! Cause how many times will you get the go to the Superbowl?
Tags: Icon, loyalty, NFL, players, points, Promotions, RAI$E, Super Bowl, VIP, vip host
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