My buddy Steve from work was going with Lauren and I for the game and we told him we were hitting the road at 8am, so be at my house before that.  I believe my call at 8:07am woke him up.  Somehow we still manage to pick up some drinks at Safeway and get on the road by 8:30.

Tailgate was solid.  We’ve really been stepping it up lately in the parking lot.  Have to make sure to get maximum entertainment value in the lot, since the entertainment value inside the stadium has not been that solid.  Beer pong was rolling.  KB and I won three consecutive matches, representing as the Chico team.  Steve and Golf Cart Kelly were our final opponents and I’d say they gave us a close match… but that wasn’t the case.

The game was actually fairly close with both offenses not able to do a whole lot.  The fans continued the boo’ing of JaMarcus Russell.  I remember thinking he wasn’t playing that ‘bad’ this game, but then looking at his stats, 8 of 23 for 64 yards, I’m not really sure what I was thinking.  Gradkowski came in and it looked like we actually had a chance.  Down by 6 and driving in the final minutes of the game.  However, a tipped ball ends up in KC’s hands and that sums it up.  A loss to the Chefs.  Ouch.

For the first time ever, I did go up to section 304 in the south endzone.  (I’m in section 107).  My friend Amber was at the game and sitting up there with her crew.  Pretty interesting perspective seeing the game from up there.  Although I’ll definitely be keeping my seats…

For the record, I also attended but didn’t write about:

Week 1 opening Monday night game vs Chargers.  Close loss.

Week3 vs Broncos.

Week 7 vs Jets.  Yes, I miss the win against the Eagles the week before and end up at this horrible game instead.

This seasons first home game is on a Thursday and I obviously made sure I’d have the day off work.  The game started at 7pm, which made it pretty nice to be able to sleep in and relax a bit before heading out of town for the drive to Oakland.  Lauren and I also were going to make this a bit of an extended weekend and following the game were heading to Los Osos to go camping with Aaron and Alissa.  So that Thursday morning, we spent a bunch of time getting all the camping and Raider gear all piled into the car and didn’t get out of town until around 2pm.

Not sure how I always forget this, but heading to the bay area for an evening game on a weekday… well… sucks.  Traffic.  So that delayed us about an hour and made getting into the parking lot a bit harder than it should have been.  Why?  Well, because Chris had our season parking passes on him and he was already in the parking lot.  And the more time you give anyone in the lot, the less likely they are going to be sober enough to hear the phone ring and be willing to walk out and drop off the passes to you.  So, I somehow managed to get an officer to allow me to park up on the sidewalk just outside the main gate and Lauren ran in to use the bathroom (her main priority) and find Chris with the passes (my main priority for her).

Anyway, finally got in, saw all the old buddies, KB, Hashem, Mike, Meeker and others as well.  Beer Pong was rolling, Chris added some new paint/designs to his car and the season was under way!

I made a point of going in early, since it was preseason and all, I wanted to make sure to see the opening drives where the starters would be playing.  The first drive or two was not all that bad and it included a field goal.  And… amazingly… things improved as the game went on.  Everything looked clean.  We were playing as a team.  A mix of short and long plays and we were moving the ball.  I don’t want to make too much of a preseason game, especially the first one, but it really looked like an improved team.  Dallas didn’t really do anything to impress.  Final score, Oakland 31 Dallas 10.  Awesome!

A few of the guys left the stadium right at the start of the 4th quarter to get the tailgate party rocking again.  And Lauren and I left just a bit before the end of the game (yes, sacrilegious, I know), but instead of joining the party, we headed out to drive 4 hours south to Los Osos.  And now the camping part of the weekend began…

The parking lot gate staff did their job well.  I tried to weasel my way into the A Lot by showing some old parking lot passes I had… but they didn’t bite and I ended up in the cash only side of the parking lot.  Still, much better than being outside the lot, across the freeway.  A short hike with the cooler over to Chris and the tailgate party began.

Beer Pong has been the main entertainment this season.  I have to say my skills seem to have improved.  Jason and I went 3-0 in beer pong matches for the day.

The party grew in size as we picked up some random people, had margarita’s from Marvin’s portable Margarita machine, and some of the A Holes at the A Pole regulars showed up.  And as none of us seemed to be all that excited to actually go to the game, the tailgate lasted well into the first quarter.  At which time we finally packed things up and headed in.

Game was… well, defense played solid.  4 picks.  Just… our offense… can’t score.  We did get to chant for Tui, which is always fun, as Walter got hurt.  I actually don’t even know why Russell wasn’t the starter and never came in.  Someone in the stands told me he got hurt at the end of last game.  I guess since he has no Fantasy Football value, I hadn’t heard about this injury.  Who knows.

In the fourth quarter we were technically only down by one score (8 points), so you have to say the game was somewhat close.  But nobody in the stands had the impression we had a chance in this game.

Long drive home, especially since I ended up the sober one, having to drive the other three home.

On that note, it reminds me of a pretty funny conversation I had with a buddy of mine yesterday.

Miles: some people were talking about football yesterday and they were talking about how some moves were going to help team X and Y make the playoffs in 2010
Miles: and the other guy said something like “nobody can predict who will be in the playoffs 2 years out”
Miles: and I said “the raiders won’t make the playoffs in 2010″
Kevin: laf!
Miles: haha

Ahh, sad.

Anyway, I should have actually wrote about this game right after it happened.  Because… well… the Raiders upset Favre and the Jets!  Not only that, we got to witness history.

There is a feeling Raider fans have had over the past few years.  That’s the feeling of having a lead in the 4th quarter and knowing you’re going to still lose the game.  It’s happened over and over again.   This game had that same feel.  Game was close the entire time.  And when we had to punt to the Jets with a minute left, to a team led by Favre… you just had a feeling he’d drive down and score a TD to win the game.

Despite giving up 60+ yards in under a minute, we actually held the Jets to a FG and the game went on to overtime.  Well, you can all read the entire recap on your fav sports site… so in getting to the point, the Raiders ended the game with around 3 minutes left in overtime with a team record 57 yard field goal by Janikowski.

The Charger game was on the day of my wife’s birthday.  She brought her mom to the game who came all the way down from Reno that morning to catch a ride with us to the game.

Raiders lost.

Okay, let’s back up. Monday night game! Pretty sweet way to start the season. And earlier in the day I was pretty happy the game didn’t start till 7pm. Meant I could still work a few hours in the morning before I had to start the drive from Chico to Oakland. Ended up getting to the parking lot in pretty good time, around 4pm. 3 hours to tailgate, I thought I was doing pretty good. Well, I was pretty much the last person in our group to actually show up… and well… most people had already consumed quite a few drinks. One of our buddies in our same Black Hole section has a connection with mini liquor bottles. You know, the kind you get on airplanes? Anyway, the parking lot was scattered with empty mini plastic bottles by the time I got there. Good times.

The rest of the tailgate was pretty fun. The theme was sheep shots. Which I’ll pass on going into more detail on. We were left alone for the most part from parking lot enforcement on things like ‘music too loud’, ’someone standing on the roof of the car’, etc. We also had a huge turnout of regulars, including Stephanie, an ex-Raiderette we’ve known for years. Beer pong table was setup, but didn’t get that much use. Did some good grilling, I went with the basics, a cheeseburger. All in all, a good solid tailgate to start off the season.

Then the game started.

It’s kind of one of those moments where things are going really bad, but it doesn’t quite sink in right away. It seemed like our offense was gaining a little speed, but they just needed more time. Like… any minute now it’s going to kick in and fall into place. So you had that hope for the first quarter or so. The problem was that every single time the Bronco’s got the ball, they seemed to score quickly and with ease. Over and over again.

I actually just now went and looked at the box score. The score was only 17-0 at halftime. So, maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought the first couple of quarters? Oh, no. Look at the drive log. It’s bad.

Denver’s posessions:

First half: TD, punt, FG, TD, punt

Second half: TD, FG, TD, TD, end of regulation

We stayed until the very end. The crowd was at least half gone by this point. The only positive to that was that it meant it’d be pretty easy to get out of the parking lot.

Where am I going with this? Since football season ended last year with the sweet Giants victory in the superbowl… I have not thought about football at all. Usually during the off-season I’m reading about the draft news, trades, anything to do with the Raiders and getting ready for preseason. And of course I also am doing a bunch of research on getting ready for my Fantasy Football league.

But this year… nothing. So, when it came time to leave work on Friday morning to head down to Oakland for the Raiders first game, I was honestly not ready. I remember thinking how tired I was and wasn’t really excited to be going to a Raider game. (FYI, I travel from Chico, CA to Oakland for all of the home games). My buddy Chris was also running late due to the Raiders complicating the schedule with an overlap on his wife’s birthday. So when I got there, I just parked in the regular lot (I haven’t picked up my club parking passes yet, ack!) and then just sort of wandered the lot to see if I could find anyone I know in our normal A lot area. (AholesbytheAPole)

3.5 hours till game time…
After a bit, we find Hank, Dan and crew. Around this time, I also finish my first beer of the afternoon, it’s a beautiful day out and I’ve pretty much shifted out of thinking about work to enjoying being here in Oakland. I’m not quite at full football/tailgate mode yet though.

2.5 hours till game time…
The group of us up to this point noticed a lot of the conversation was about “when is Chris going to show up”. Chris is pretty much the heartbeat of our tailgate party. He converted his suburban to be a tailgate party mobile. Speakers in the back door that are loud enough for the Raiders to initiate new sound rules for tailgating. The second Chris pulls up, the music is on, the beer pong table is set up and people are doing beer pongs off the top of his car. It’s official. Raiders season has started.

1 hour till game time…
I have now shifted into why I love Raiders season. Numerous friends are now here, we’ve had multiple people come up and ask if we’re the guys who tailgate in the A lot with the beer bongs off the roof of the car, we’re all talking about what record the Raiders will have this year (average prediction was 7-9) and it’s just a really fun time all around. Oh, and I won the two games of beer pong I played in.

Game time…
It’s pretty rare I make it to my seat before kickoff. Today was no exception. And this will be a theme as I write about going to all the Raiders games. A lot of the experience is about the tailgate. And because we usually celebrate quite a bit, there is a bit less recollection of what happened in the actual game. And in this game… really not a lot to talk about. First quarter ends 0-0 after a few dismal drives by both teams. Or should I say the defense dominated? Hmm, not sure that’s really the case here. 49er QB’s looked bad. Russel looked okay. Raiders running backs looked pretty good. Best play of the first half was of course the Raiders punt return touchdown. Which went right to the south endzone, where I sit in the BLACK HOLE (9th row baby, section 107).

Other usual activities included getting some beers, talking with the people in the rows around us that we haven’t seen since last year, talking to other friends nearby, more beers, talking on the phone to friends not at the game, general debauchery and yelling at refs… all your normal in the stands activities.

In the end, the Raiders give the fans a victory. Against the 49ers, which makes it even better, even if it is just a preseason game. Michael Bush’s rushing TD was sweet as he plowed over some hapless niner. 18-6 Raiders. Ahh, what a day. This is indeed why it feels so great to be a proud Raider season ticket holder. (Yes, I do realize this may be a short lived feeling this year).

I played in event #7, No-Limit Hold’em.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008 to Friday, June 06, 2008

Buy-in: $2,000 Prizepool: $2,899,260 Entries: 1,593

You can find the more info and the results on the world series of poker website here.

What was it like? Awesome! Especially the first moment you walk into the Rio conference center, turned into a huge poker room. There were thousands of players all playing in the main room and as I walked in, you could hear this background sound that sounded a bit like rain. It was constant and as I focused in on it for a sec, you realized it was the sound of thousands of poker players all playing with their chips. If you’ve played much poker before, that sound alone is enough reason to go experience the WSOP.

Okay, backing up a bit, I’ve been playing online poker and some small tournaments here and there for 4 or 5 years now. Not all that serious, but enough to have felt like I wanted to test myself a bit more and me and one buddy (also my boss) have talked about playing in the WSOP for awhile now. This year we decided to stop talking and actually head out to Vegas and play. We wanted to hit one of the lower buy-in’s, not quite ready for the $10k main event and the $2k no-limit tournament fit pretty well into our schedules.

We stayed at the Rio and flew in the day before our event started. We spent the first couple of hours just being in awe of the event, checking out all the pro’s (name a pro poker player you’ve seen on TV and he/she was there), and then figuring out how to register for our event. Eventually we decided to go play one of the sit and go tournaments they had running pretty much non-stop. 10 people at a table, winner takes all. We picked a table that was $125 buy-in and agreed that if either of us won it, we’d split the winnings with each other. Table seemed to be full of average people or one’s that didn’t care a whole lot and I think my confidence ended up getting raised up way too high. I felt like I played well, but it was too easy. I quickly knocked most people out and Jeff and I ended up 1st and 2nd. Welcome to the WSOP, so far so easy!!

We went to sleep after that, knowing we wanted to rest well and get some breakfast before our tournament started the next day.

Event #7, Day 1, blinds level 1.

I headed to my table, blue #22 and sat down about 10 minutes before the tournament was scheduled to start. I felt pretty relaxed, not really worrying about much or even thinking about poker in general. Some people at my table are chatting away, but I stay out of conversation just observing and waiting for things to start. My high point of the tournament comes when the first cards are dealt. Yeah, that’s probably not a good sign if that’s your high point. But, that was a great moment. Right then, you felt like you could win, and there was the high of actually sitting down at a live table of the WSOP. Wow!

Not a whole lot of action over the first hour, pots were all pretty low. Regardless of the pots being low, I still played too many hands. Every tournament I’ve played in up to this point, I’ve always been much more conservative, especially in the beginning. But for some unknown reason, I couldn’t control myself. I wanted to play hands. Ack! Let me tell you, the WSOP is not the place you should be if you just want to play some hands. At this point, people don’t know me all that well and I’m able to win some and luckily get out of any pots that are too big and I have nothing.

After 1 hour, I’m right about even in chips, which should be considered a great place to be in, looking back at how poorly I was playing.

Event #7, Day 1, blinds level 2.

“Looking back at how poorly I was playing”. I wish this could have been recognized right at the start of level 2. However, this insight is coming 2 months later. I was still playing the same. I even was getting a little cocky because I had won some pots I bluffed at. And then the hand hits me where everything falls apart. I call it the good player read, the horrible poker skill hand.

I had KQ off and ended up seeing the flop. I don’t remember what position I was in, what I paid to see the flop or anything else. But I know after the flop came out with all low cards it was me and one other guy betting. He checks, I bet, he calls. Turn card comes and it’s another low card and this time he bets out. At this point, I feel he doesn’t have anything. I’m putting him on ace high, probably AJ, AT. Here’s where my first horrible poker skill showed up, after he bet, I raised. But, I only raised a fraction of what he bet and after thinking for a sec, he calls me. Right then, if I had bet an appropriate amount, I’m pretty sure he would have folded. The river comes out with a 2 or 3, he checks and I bet 1000. (You start with 4000 in chips). He quickly calls and shows AT and that he hit a A-5 straight with that river card that I had totally ignored. I never even saw there was a potential straight and I had put him on an Ace! Wow, good read of his cards, horrible poker skill in my betting and lack of looking at the board.

I stay alive awhile longer until the very last hand of level 2. I have pocket jacks and go all in with about 700 in chips. A guy who had probably 6 or 7k in chips calls me with A 8. I hit a J on the flop and it’s looking good, but the turn and river give him an 8 - Q straight and I’m out.

The break starts and I meet up with Jeff. He mentions he’s not doing that well, around 2500 chips left. I tell him I’m out and he immediately knows I played wild and aggressive and wonders what the heck is wrong with me. I have no defense, I just played bad. After chatting for a few minutes, I go back to the hotel room to get away from the poker madness. I lie down, call a few friends and family and then have a good cry. Ha, okay, it’s not a total breakdown, but I’m pretty sure I did shed a tear. Not that I lost or played bad, but that it was over. I was no longer playing in the WSOP. Sigh. Eventually I headed back down and watched Jeff play for awhile. He was making a decent comeback. I won’t cover his whole story, but he ends up alive through all of day 1, making the money and ended up in 109th place. You can see his name on the ranking list I displayed above. And you know the coolest part? He now has a player profile page on the wsop website!

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/players/playerprofile.asp?playerID=45182

How jealous am I? (A lot!)

Other highlights of the trip include:

• Watching the final table of event # 4, where I sat in the stands of the ESPN booth and watched pros like Howard Lederer and Erick Lindgren.
• Chilling and having margarita’s in the Rio’s Voodoo lounge.
• Getting a call that a friend in vegas on a work trip is delivering her baby nearly 2 months early and actually getting to go to the hospital and visit her.
• Buying a number of ridiculous things in the WSOP gift shop… and then having Jeff purchase even more stuff once he cashed in for his winnings!
• Making the decision that I am going to play again next year!

All in all, an awesome (sporting) event that I can’t wait to attend again!

When the Sharks and Stars were scheduled to play each other in the second round this year, I knew that both Aaron and I needed to go to one of the games. It didn’t look like we could make it to games 1 or 2, so it looked like game 5 in San Jose would be the one to go to. After three games and the Stars with a 3-0 lead it suddenly looked like we may have missed our chance. Luckily the Sharks pulled out game 4 in Dallas and the series moved back to San Jose.

I picked up two tickets on Ticketmaster as soon as they went for sale to the public on Thursday morning the day before the game. Aaron’s wife wanted to go to the game and my wife, Lauren, was sort of indifferent about it. Unfortunately Ticketmaster only allowed 2 tickets per person so it was going to be impossible to get 4 seats together. I still bought the two on Ticketmaster and then searched Craigslist for 2 seats as close as possible to mine. I ended up finding 2 one section over from ours and went for it. $160 a piece, not too bad. We were just offset from the net, facing a corner of the ice in the lower reserve seats. Great seats!

I think Aaron was one of about 5 Dallas Stars fans at the game. Not a lot of jeers from the crowd, which was a little surprising. More people looked at his retro Stars jersey and asked him if he liked the Chicago Bulls. Hmmmm. Anyway, the Sharks started off pretty slow and fell behind 2-0 after two periods. But with their playoff life on the line, they came out in the third a lot more aggressive and tied it up, sending the game to overtime. 65 seconds into overtime the Sharks score and the series continues!

We checked out the club area after the game and I picked up a hockey puck commemorating the Conference Semifinals. We walked downtown after the game to get something to eat and the line of people walking received a continuous amount of honking from cars. Seemed like the town was pretty pumped about the win.

This was Lauren’s first hockey game. And her words after the game were: “Hockey is my new favorite!” She loved it. She did complain a few times about the sillyness of the shark chomp and wasn’t a fan in general of the sharks logo. She actually joined Aaron and his wife in cheering for the Stars. But, what do you do? At least she likes hockey.