Saturday, March 22, 2008

back from the trip and running hot....

Got back yesterday afternoon. Played a session at the airport yesterday that sucked (couldn't win a hand) but then played three winning sessions today/night to book a $2.2k day.

Duke scared the crap out of me yesterday, and I had to watch the game on the other side of my living room so that I was out of reach of expensive electronics that could be thrown. Tossing my laptop out of the window certainly wouldn't have made me feel any better about that game.

Honestly I was pretty dissappointing in the job that K did during the game. We have had success all season playing a run-n-gun style and just jacking up an early shot in transition. Last night we allowed Belmont to dictate the pace of the game and settled for trying to run a half court offense. In a game like that we need to take advantage of our two biggest advantages 1) talent and 2) depth. Instead of trying to run up and down all game with a 10 man rotation, we settled for playing half court in the second half with a 7 man rotation. That style would work with teams that had j-will, dunleavy, and boozer or JJ and Shelden. But on this years team we just don't have strong enough half court scorers (or balanced inside out threats) to succeed in that way.

I also think a lot of credit should be given to Belmont. They certainly looked the part of a team that deserved significantly better than a 15 seed. I thought we played a good first half and despite that only managed a 7 pt lead. With the defense and shooting they had last night I think they would have beaten a lot of high seeds from major conferences.

I was really dissapointed to see that Clemson lost tonight after having an 18 point lead in the first half. I think their coach is a really classy guy, and they had some hard working seniors on that team. Plus they are an ACC team, and I always root for the ACC in the tourney unless they are playing Duke.

Should be an exciting game tomorrow, but I think Duke will end up winning by 9-11 after making some late free throws despite it being a close game. I hoping that getting to the sweet sixteen will light a fire under this team the way that the overtime loss to Pitt seemed to.

Next post will have more poker content, and I might include some Cruise stories. However most of the cruise stories involved us drinking and partying a lot and really aren't that interesting unless you know us an all of our stupid inside jokes.

Last thought. I had two coaching sessions last week before I went on vacation and I really enjoyed both. I think both of my clients got a lot of help out of their sessions, and I felt like my reads and advice seemed to really help during their play. I love coaching sessions because it really focuses me on solid fundamental poker, and prevents me from creating bad habits that you form while you grind. If anyone is looking to get some (more) coaching let me know. I'm likely going to be raising my rates this summer since my time will be more infrequent, and It is getting to be impractical for me to coach at the prices I offer. Plus I don't know of one other coach that is less than 2.5x the price I charge, and frankly I think I offer a better product than many of them do.

hope everyone out there is doing well, and as always thanks for reading.

later


Jim

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