Schooled

I went up against Alan for the semifinal match in the HUC5. And I got thoroughly schooled. He took the first two games pretty easily. Then, we weren't sure whether or not we were doing a best of 5 or 3, so we played again, and he took that one down fairly easily as well.

I lost for a couple of reasons. One, the dealer was giving him all of the cards. I hardly got any pairs or strong cards, and the cards I was getting just weren't connecting. The results were partly due to the fact that it was Alan's day. When I took pairs to battle against his draws, his draws won out. When I took a draw to battle, I couldn't catch. My low pairs hit overcard flops, and my big pairs would lose to turned 2-pairs, etc.

But it's not all about the cards, and to his credit, Alan played a strong, tough game. I could never get a solid read on him. He would show down enough winning hands that I couldn't tell if his river bets were value bets or steals. It paralyzed me to the point that I was reluctant to try & bet him off of hands after the flop. Mentally, I was taken out of the game pretty early, and the combination of being card dead, low stacked, and up against an admittedly stronger opponent was just too much for me today.

So good luck to Alan. I was very much bitter & frustrated afterwards, and I took it out on Alan afterwards with some slightly snide remarks, but I wish him the best & I'm pulling for him to take this down. In the meantime, I guess I await the loser of Lucko vs. Jordan for a 3rd place battle?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Speaking of school, I'm going back to school starting tomorrow. Not full time or anything, but I'm enrolled in a class with the University of Washington's extended learning program, a Human Resources certification class. It's paid for by my company & it's a great resume enhancer, and it'll definitely help me advance in my current position. The downside: it's every Monday & Wednesday night from 6-8:30pm. So not only will I be absent from any blogger games for a while (yes, I do show up every now and then) but it means that I won't be able to play much poker for the next couple of months. Between the class, homework, and sticking to an exercise plan every Tuesday & Thursday, my week is already booked. So if you notice a dropoff in my posts for the next couple of months, now you know why.

Party Animal, Right Here!

So much to talk about. I think this might turn into a Jordan-esque post.

The girlfriend is out of town for the weekend, so that means cramming in as much poker as possible. Yes, instead of going out with friends or hanging outside during a beautiful weekend in Seattle, I've kept myself inside for most of the weekend, and when I've gone out, it's most been to...you've guessed it, play poker.

Friday:

I rushed out of work on Friday, leaving earlier than I was supposed to, to make it down to a cardroom about 20 minutes away, without traffic. But this was a Friday during rush hour, so it's easily double that. Plus, my phone was dying, so I had to stop home to charge. So instead of getting there at 5:30, I was there just past 6pm, in time to sign up for the tournament...as the 15th fucking alternate! What was usually a 4-table tournament became only 3 because they refused to break up the last table, which was being used for a 4-8 game.

At this same cardroom, I had my first encounter with a real live poker blogger! About 30 minutes south of me lives a blogger by the name of RaisingCayne. You may know him, he's been luckboxing dominating the MATH the past couple of weeks. I don't make it out for live poker as much as I'd like, but with the girlfriend gone + a recent cash inflow (see my other personal blog, Nothing Special, Really, for more info), I figured I could make it down and invited Cayne as well. But after an hour, we were still nowhere close to getting in. So we cashed out and donked off our money at 4-Card Poker. Yay table games! (I would've played Pai Gow but they didn't have the $5 table going.)

So I came home and fired up some FTP. Ended up getting 5th in a 90-seat SNG when I ran presto into 99. I made about as much as I would at a 1-table SNG, but at least I had more than $4 profit to show for about 3 hours of playing.

Saturday:

After dropping off my car for a new brake job, I came home and decided to broaden my horizons. I jumped into a $3 PLO tournament, and sat somewhere between 3rd & 6th for the middle part of the tournament. However, I donked off most my stack when I took AQxx to the felt on an Axx, two spade flop. Not only did the other guy flop top set, but he also had the flush draw as well. From there, it was a perfect storm of sets losing to turned straights twice afterwards, and I busted well short of the money when A-high lost to a rivered straight.

I joined Cayne and his friends Josh and Jenn for the tournament at Treasure Casino, this time making sure to get there early enough to be guaranteed a seat. Cayne & Josh had been there since earlier in the day, playing in their DS game at 12:30. This was my first time playing live casino poker since I think March, and only my second time in about a year, so I was both anxious & nervous. I wasn't sure what to expect, but as I learned very quickly, I was sitting at a very beatable game. Here's a couple of notable hands:

I sat out nearly a full orbit, then decided to follow something like 4 other limpers with a limped JTo from the CO. The flop was a golden 789 rainbow. It gets checked to me, and instead of checking, I decide to bet 300 into I think a 400 pot. I did this because the table was very loose, and I expected to get a couple of callers chasing something. What I didn't expect was the button to reraise to 800. Then, a big ass loose donkey to my right calls. A note about this guy: I saw him limp-call a 10xBB raise from OOP with 76c, then call a pot sized bet on the flop with nothing but a gutshot which got there on the turn. When I saw him call, I knew there was only one thing to do: reraise. I could've just flat called, but honestly, I thought like the reraise was strong enough to call, and I knew this other guy would call anything. I repopped to 2800, which got the reraise to fold, but the donkey called. Turn was a 4d, putting two diamonds on the board. I push for 1800 more, he calls with....A6d. The turn call I understand, but the flop call was beyond me. After the hand, he tells the girl between us how he thought I may have had a straight but he liked his call anyways. Yeah, nice call as a 95-5 dog.

Lost a chance at a huge pot when flopped trips became a boat on the river, only to see the other person have the exact same hand.

The hand of the night came when I limped J9d from the button. Flop comes AJ9 with the J&9 spades. Girl to my right bets pot for 1200 and I reraise to 3k. When she calls, I know she has to be on a draw, probably a spade draw. Turn is a offsuit ten. I still think my 2 pair is good so I put her all in, and she calls with KTs. We were pretty much even on the flop, but by the turn, she was about a 2:1 dog. When I put her in, she still had about 5500 left, enough for her to fold, but she felt her draw was too strong. Of course FTP the dealer rewards her with a Qh on the river, and I lose about half my stack.

I move tables, get AQ in the CO, only to get reraised by the button. I don't know this table, but I purposely disguised my bet as being very stealy-looking, so I start thinking about the push. His raise was 1500 less than what I had, or so I thought, so I hoped for a race situation & pushed. Actually, I had about 3500 more, so I easily could've folded, and should have. He had QQ, and the Q-high flop did me in. At least I did better than Cayne, who bounced just after the first break when he fell victim to the almight 37 suited (although, admittedly, he wasn't very clear headed to start the tournament. Cayne + booze = A Drunken Donkey).

So I came home, fired up some more FTP, and made a whopping $7. Time to start making retirement plans...

Sunday

Started the morning taking down a SNG in which I received not or two pocket aces, but FOUR. Including back to back at one point. And I got action on each one of them. Needless to say, I took that one down.

Took a break to watch the Seahawks game with some friends. I'm no Seahawks fan per se, but as long as their not going up against the Steelers or my hometown Cardinals, I'll root for them. It was a pretty ugly game, but the Seahawks made some plays at the end to come from behind and win.

Came home and played a couple more games. Won some, lost some, but was able to pick up a token at least. Between all the games I've played this weekend, I basically broke even.

Now, time to spend the rest of the night taking care of the things I put off all weekend. Like laundry. And dishes. And other various chores.

BTW, if you don't know about it, you should check out this link. Tons of free streaming TV shows & movies, including movies still in theaters. Not the best quality, and you have to deal with Japanese subtitles, but if you ever wanted to watch Superbad or The Office while you're playing poker, now's your chance.

Fantasy Football Week 2

I got crushed this week, big time, and it's not even because I had a bad week. It's because I went up against a team that had both Chad Johnson & Steve Smith. Those two alone have almost outscored my whole team. Even if I played my top scorers at each position, I don't think I would've one. As it stands right now, I need Brian Westbrook to amass 250 yards & 5 TDs just to tie. But, you take the good with the bad, so here's the recap.

Starters

Peyton Manning - the Titans usually play the Colts pretty well, so his numbers aren't too far off from what I'd expect. Would've liked to see another TD in there, preferably to Wayne.

Brian Westbrook - numbers still pending, but don't really matter

Travis Henry - Once again, got the yards, just not the TDs. Again, Cutler had two turnovers, not including the fumble that was recovered. Plus, it looks like Henry may get some goal line carries taken away by C. Sapp or S. Young. At least for right now, he's an automatic start thanks to some brutal matchups for my backups, but in a couple weeks, I may have to reconsider him as a starter

Reggie Wayne - As Manning falters, so does Wayne. I usually hate to start more than one player from a team - to use an investing term, I like to "diversify my portfolio" when it comes to FF. Hopefully, the good weeks will outweigh the bad, and I won't have to run into a 65 pt outburst from my opponent every week.

Andre Johnson - I'll say it right now - if I win this season, Andre will be my MVP. I really expected good things to happen with him this year, and it looks like this might be the year he jumps to be a Top 5 WR.

Heath Miller - TEs are hit & miss; the consolation is that he didn't make or break my team this week

Neil Rackers - A nice 13 point outing from my kicker. There's still some better kickers on the waiver wire, but the difference between them & Rackers is so small, it's not worth the change until bye week hits

Seattle D - I chose them over Minnesota because I thought that AZ would have a harder time going off against Seattle then Detroit would have against MN. Unfortunately, SEA really didn't force any turnovers, so they scored about 1 point for me.

Bench

RBs - Thomas Jones & Marshawn Lynch stayed on the bench like they deserved to this week.

Joey Galloway - I doubt that many others would have started him over Wayne or AJ, and at least it's comforting to know that if I did start him over Wayne, it wouldn't have made a difference. One thing I hate though is having 3-4 possible starting receivers, because it often become such a passing game. Yeah, I figured Galloway would have a good game against NO's defense, but enough to warrant a start over Wayne? I'd almost prefer to not have the depth and just take my chances with two clear-cut starters, but I'm sure the depth will be handy later on in the season.

Minn D - I should probably start these guys each week from now on. Not only did they hold the offensive juggernaut that it the Detroit Lions to 20 points, they also forced several turnovers, including one that became a TD. Also, I failed to remember that Seattle's D is much less effective on the road, where they don't have that crazy deafening home-field advantage working for them.

Waiver Wire

No one worth picking up. Derek Anderson & Jake Delhomme are Top 5 QBs in my league right now, but I'm not ready to drop Leinart as a backup just yet. Top RBs available are Derrick Ward & DeShawn Wynn; thanks, but I'll pass. Jeff Reed is the top kicker, and it might be worth it drop Rackers for him, since Rackers is up against Baltimore next week, while Reed is up against SF. Something for me to consider.

Moving On

mclarich 2, cmitch 1

The last game was another back & forth battle. Started off strong with trips & 2 pair in my first two hands, but drop down a bit when I have to fold 3rd pair to a bet on the river. Get back to even when we get the first big hand of the night.

Limp in with the JackAce and see an AA7 flop. cmitch bets & I reraise 3x. At this point, I actually felt like he might have the other Ace. Turn is a T and we both check it. I checked the turn hoping to make it seem like my raise was a steal, to induce a good size bet on the river. River is a K and he bets out about 1\2 pot. I was hoping for a bigger bet, so if he has the A, he must be worried about the kicker. I reraise again 3x and he calls, showing A8. This puts me close to a 2-1 lead.

We get back to even when I call his minraise with 89c. Flop comes 864 rainbow, and I don't want to get crazy here with TP9K, so I call his 1\2 pot bet on the flop & when the 5 hits the turn. River is a 2 and I lead out with too small of a bet, and he comes over the top. I can't call, and he says he had 87h for top pair with mega-draws.

I try to start making some moves and check-raise some flops that I think didn't hit him, but when he moves all in, I gotta fold. I start getting a little tilted, even making calls with nothing but Q-high, thinking I'm catching some bluffs when I'm just calling his value-bets.

Drop down to about 1k when I finally get some good hands, AA & KK. Of course, he folds preflop to them.

Then I take the lead with a bullshit hand that I had no business playing, but I thought that I'd try to represent a strong hand for once, since I wasn't getting anything to play with.

I raise it up with the almighty 37o and get a call. Flop comes A high, all hearts. I do have the 7h incase I need it. I try to represent the A but he calls my 2\3rds pot bet. Turn is an 8h and I check my weak flush. River is a Q and he checks it to me. There's a chance he has a flush, but if he called with a heart, I don't see why he's relying on me to put chips in the pot. I bet out 350, with the idea that I'll fold to any resistance. He calls, showing A8 for 2 pair. This vaults me to a 600 chip lead.

I build another stack when I call his raise with Q9. I flop top pair but we both check the flop. When the turn pairs the board, I check-raise him thinking that I'm good, and it turns out I was.

It finally ends a couple hands later when I limp with KQs. Flop comes Q high and he bets out. I check raise, hoping he sees it as a steal attempt and comes over the top. Instead, he just smooth calls. Turn is a harmless 6 and I bet 2\3rds his stack. He pushes and shows Q2. My hand holds up & I'm off to the Final Four.

It was a great heads up match, and I really enjoyed going up against another blogger I wasn't really familiar with. Next up is blogger that I'm a little more familiar with - RecessRampage.

Insert Lame Cliche Here

It's sudden death.
Do or die.

mclarich 1
cmitch 1

I hope cmitch seconds me when I say it's been a tough but enjoyable battle. If it wasn't for a disasterous 5c on the river, I'd be facing Lucko21 in the Final Four. Anyways, we're gonna try to wrap this bitch up tomorrow (we stopped so cmitch could focus on the $24k, where he in 8th out of 89 left - glglgl!)

So you want a recap? I thought you'd never ask.

Game 1

Chip up very early on when I turn trip 4s, but can't get cmitch to call my reraise on the river with what he says was two pair. Any card other than an Ace gets me a decent pot.

We even back up when cmitch pulls a good move against me. I limp call preflop with pocket 8s, hoping to set up a big hand. He leads out on the 9 high flop for just about the pot. With two diamonds, he could have hit this flop, he could've already been ahead with a bigger pocket pair, or he could just be on a draw. I make a mistake and just call. Board pairs a deuce and he leads out for 2\3rds pot. I decide I'm behind with less outs and I fold. He shows 47o for the bluff. Should've reraised the flop to find out where I'm at.

I go on a bit of a streak from here with a couple of well timed check-raises. I flop top pair with Q2, get a check raise in on the turn and take the pot when the flush doesn't hit. Check down top pair to the river, which turns into trips, and cmitch must not have an ace as he folds.

This gets me to about 2200 when we finish it up. After a raise, cmitch bets half his stack on an A high flop. I put him in with AK, he calls with a flush draw that doesn't hit, and I take the lead, 1-0.

Game 2

Game 2 starts off slow when I c-bet with nothing but J-high. When cmitch called, I gave up on the hand and let him take the pot on the river.

Drop all the way down to about 1150 with a bunch of 2nd best hands and, but work it back up to even when K8 holds against K2.

We go back & forth for about 15 hands when I finally take a decent lead when I make top pair with A6. From there I built up my lead to 500 when the hand of the night occurs.

Limping with A3d, I hit top two pair on A32, two club flop. I bet 1\2 pot, cmitch min raises. I repop to 420 thinking I have to be good here. He pushes with Ac8c, a little bit more behind than he probably thought. This is where the 5c on the river saves his ass & cripples mine.

I double up pretty quickly, but he's still ahead by about 2-1, and I just can't recover.

To be concluded....tomorrow.

Fantasy Football Week 1

Since so many bloggers are into FF, I figured it might be interesting to recap my FF team each week. Especially because it kicks ass.

If the first week is any sign of how the season will go, then it's looking pretty good. Of course, now that I've officially said that, Peyton is going to tear his ACL next week. GG me. Anyways, I won the first week fairly easily as I was able to get almost 10 points from every position. Even when my players weren't scoring touchdowns, they were at least getting yardage. Here was my lineup for the week:

Starters

Peyton Manning - An automatic start every week until December, when I might have to bench him if the Colts have the division wrapped up again. His first week numbers (293 & 3) should be par for the year, which I'll happily take for my No 1. pick.

Brian Westbrook - My 1st RB drafted ended up having the 3rd best week on my team. I expected the yardage against GB but also at least one TD. I love his versatility, and as long as he can stay healthy, I think he can end up a top 5 back.

Travis Henry - Aside from the lack of TDs, Henry came through in a big way this week. I'm worried a bit about Jay Cutler - at times, he looked horrible against the Bills, and I wonder if teams will start to pressure the run if Cutler starts hurting the pass game. Then again, this is the Broncos, and if anyone can run, it's these guys.

Reggie Wayne - He ended up starting for me after all! Our top draft choices started by default for week 1, and since I didn't explicitly state NOT to start him, he was in my lineup automatically.

Andre Johnson - I almost started Lee Evans in place of him, but since he was going against Denver's secondary, I went with AJ against a weaker Chiefs' D, and it totally paid off.

Heath Miller - Any points a TE can give you I consider as just gravy, so 35 yards + a TD was great to see.

Neil Rackers - only 5 points, but you can never really predict what a kicker is going to do anyways

Seattle D - Maybe these guys will be decent this year after all. 6 pt allowed, 5 sacks & two FF gave me 13 points and a top 5 defense for the week.

Bench Notables

Marshawn Lynch - He ended up being my 2nd best RB for the week. Hopefully this is a flash of things to come, as I would love to have a steady 4th RB.

Lee Evans - He'll probably stay on my bench until Week 4, with Pittsburgh & NE coming up next.

Thomas Jones - I drafted him to be my No. 2 back but he's running against Baltimore next week, so I think I'll take my chances with Henry vs Oakland.

Waiver Wire Action

I'm dropping Mark Clayton for Minnesota's D. I'm still not sold on Seattle's D despite the good effort against TB, and Minn looked pretty good yesterday (even though it was against Atlanta). A second D may be more valuable than a 6th WR right now.

Struggles

I've been struggling lately, in all aspects of poker. I'm either going card dead or losing when my hand is dominating. I'm not playing as well either - even though it's $5 stakes, I'm not giving players enough credit. I'm back down to level 1 thinking, doing things like calling bets with KK when it's obvious the dude has flopped trips. There's probably several reasons that I'm not seeing the success I did before, but I think the biggest is that I'm not as excited about the bankroll challenge as before. When I first started, the initial excitement of the challenge, coupled with immediate success, kept me positive about the whole thing, and as a result, I probably got it in my head that this was going to be easier than it has been. Now that I'm facing some resistance and one of many inevitable downswings, it's more difficult to stay as positive. So I start doing things like playing cash games, jumping up a buyin here and there, or just donking it up at current levels, just to make it more interesting.

Nevertheless, I will persevere and push forward with the bankroll challenge. I can't let short-term success trick me into thinking that it's going to be easy or that I can win them all. This isn't a short-term challenge; the main goal of all this is to build a bankroll, and that just won't happen overnight, or even in a month. I can make the mistake that others have made and try to move up to soon or chase that big payout, but that's not playing smart, and playing smart is what I'm trying to do.

Just some other thoughts:

--Round 2 of HUC5 may start tonight, against cmitch. In my limited experience in blogger games, I don't recall if I've played against him. But if the dude is playing games against people like Brian Townsend, then I've got my work cut out for me. Of the 8 that are left, I think I'm probably the consensus underdog. I'm like George Mason, but instead of a "feel good" story, I'm more of a "Who the fuck is mclarich?" story.

--Played the Dookie last night (turbo O8) and went out on the bubble. I might have been able to wait out the bubble, but homey don't play that. After Hoy limped,I pot-raised from the button with AAK6, single suited. We saw a flop of Q63, two diamonds (not my suit). I had to push & Hoy had to call with something like JT92, three diamonds. He found a 6th diamond on the turn and that was it for me. I'm not sure that I like Hoy's limp-call preflop with a 3-sooted, 3-connector hand. Dunno if he thought I might be stealing or thought that the sooted connectors were strong enough to warrant a call there, but he had the stack to see a flop and it just happened to hit decently enough to call a push.

--I changed my mind and decided not to expand my recap on my FF team. Judging from the lack of comments, it appears that no one cares, so I'll keep the post as it is. Overall, I'm feel pretty good about my team. I think the only mistake I made was not picking up a Defense in round 14, when I took Vincent Jackson. I think I was too concerned about having so many spots on a bye during week 6, so I felt that I could wait and pick up a Defense when I did. But I had a chance at the Eagles D, who have a Week 5 bye, and it would have been a better choice to take them rather than take a sleeper for my 6th WR spot. It could also be argued that I should have taken a TE a bit earlier, but Heath Miller is decent, and at least I have someone representing the Steelers for me.

--One last FF note. I'm a total idiot, and when I submitted my lineup for FF, I left off Reggie Wayne. I still played Peyton, but I missed out on a huge 24 point effort from Wayne. God I'm retarded sometimes.

My 2007 FF Squad

Last night I had my FF draft. A couple players backed out so we were down to only an 8 man league. Of course I ended up with the 8th pick, but in a smaller league, it's not as bad. Here's a recap of my draft, let me know what you think.

Rounds 1-2

I hate being the last pick in a bigger league because you usually miss out on the elite players. Since it was a shorter league it didn't make as much of a difference. Of course, I missed out on the consensus top 7 RBs (LT, Jackson, LJ, Addai, Alexander, Gore, W. Parker). Since there weren't any RBs left that were as valuable as Peyton Manning, I took him 1st, then followed it up with the next best RB, Brian Westbrook. I could've gone RB\RB here and gone with Bush or McGahee, but then I also let someone else pair Manning with one of the other top RBs. I was pretty much forced to take him.

Rounds 3-4

Needing to get a second top RB, I went with Thomas Jones. I think he'll be decent with NYJ this year and should be a solid 2nd RB. My other choices here were Travis Henry, Cedric Benson, Deuce McAllister & Edgerrin James, and I think TJ is the safest pick, although if they all stay healthy, I think Henry may put up the best numbers. Only 3 WRs were gone at this point (S. Smith, Harrison, & Holt), so I went for a top WR and took Reggie Wayne. I'm not always keen on drafting two starters from the same team, but when it's Peyton & Wayne, I'll live with that.

Rounds 5-6

I needed another WR and called out Lee Evans name, but quickly retracted that when I realized Evans & Wayne had the same bye week. I was left to chose from Javon Walker, Andre Johnson, & Randy Moss. Even in a bad offense, AJ has put up decent numbers, and I think there's a greater chance he steps it up with Schaub at QB. Walker had the same bye week as well, and I'm not sold on Moss as a 2nd WR. With my other pick, I took Travis Henry who was still sitting there.

Rounds 7-8

The retraction of Lee Evans worked because everyone thought that I had already taken him. So when Round 7 ended and he was still sitting there, I had to take him. To start off the 8th round, I took another Bill, Marshawn Lynch. It was between him & Marion Barber, who did well for me last year, but he's primarily a TD guy, and that's a little too inconsistent for me. Besides, with 3 solid RBs, I was ready to take a flyer on someone.

Rounds 9-10

Needing some more depth at WR, I went with Joey Galloway. I'm hoping that having Garcia at QB will help provide some consistency and give Galloway one more chance at a decent year. In round 10, it was time to take a backup QB. Looking at the Colts' bye week, my best choices were Favre vs. Washington, Leinart vs. Carolina, or Garrard vs. Houston. I went with the one I thought would be the most consistent year round but also the best chance of putting up numbers that week - Leinart

Rounds 11-12

I still hadn't addressed the TE spot, but the top 3-4 TEs were taken somewhere between the 4-7th rounds, and I won't use a pick on a TE that early unless I've got a chance at Gates. I didn't address it here either because there wasn't anyone else that stood out at the moment. Instead, I got a little more depth at RB & WR. I went with Ladell Betts in Round 11 - he played well when the injury-prone Portis was out. In Round 12, there wasn't much for WRs, so I went with Mark Clayton for the Ravens. He's their No.1 target over Derrick Mason, and it's pretty much a make or break year for him. He either does well or becomes someone to drop for a bye week replacement

Rounds 13-14

Time to address the TE spot. The problem was that most of the top TEs left (LJ Smith, Heath Miller, Daniel Graham, Dallas Clark) had the same bye week as my QB, my top two WRs, and my two backup RBs. But the TE spot averages about 4-5 points per week for a decent TE, so even if I have to start him on a bye week it won't make much difference. So I played the "favorite team" game and snagged Heath Miller. In round 14, I almost took a Defense, but again, the top D still available, the Broncos' D, had a bye during the same week. In the end, I took a flyer on Vincent Jackson for San Diego. Someone has to step up at WR in San Diego. However, he's also a chance to be a dud, which allows me to do a drop\add without worrying about dropping a potentially huge stud.

Rounds 15-16

Time to get a Kicker & a Defense. I was hoping that the Dallas D would slip to me but it was taken about 1-2 picks before me. Instead, I was left with the Seattle D, who I'm not completely sold on. I'll probably be rotating waiver-wire Defenses pretty often. I ended the draft by taking the kicker from my hometown team - Neil Rackers of Arizona. Since the Cardinals are notorious for settling for FGs instead of TDs, he should hopefully be a top 5 kicker again this year.

So, to recap, here's my team:

QB: P. Manning, M. Leinart
RB: B. Westbrook, T. Jones, T. Henry, M. Lynch, L. Betts
WR: R. Wayne, L. Evans, A. Johnson, J. Galloway, M. Clayton, V. Jackson
TE: H. Miller
K: N. Rackers
D: Seattle

Positives:

1. I'm set at QB, barring injury
2. I've got 3 of projected top 20 backs (4, as I've seen M. Lynch ranked top 20 also)
3. I've got 2 of the projected top 10 WRs
4. I'm comfortable with my depth at the top 3 positions

Negatives:

1. My top 3 RBs have a decent history of injury concerns
2. Week 6 is a rough bye week for me; I lose Manning, Wayne, Evans, Henry, Lynch, & Miller
3. My Defense isn't consistent & will likely have to be rotated
4. I'd prefer to have players from upper-echelon teams, especially at WR.

I'll probably revise this post in a couple days once our complete draft is posted, and I'll run through players I passed up. Overall, I'm happy with my squad, but we all know anything's possible.