Not A Fast Start

February has been a see-saw affair. Alternating winning and losing days with fantasy sports.

I have been winning hockey contests overall, but again I'm finding the action slowing down. I'll have a big winner and my opponents don't come back for awhile.

Sunday was my worst day of 2008. I went 1 for 8 in hockey - well, that happens from time to time. No biggie. However, I went 7 for 17 in NASCAR and I blame some of that on a change in the rules - more specifically how the rules are interpreted.

I took a risk on qualifying and got burned on Patrick Carpentier. I also got burned on Jeff Gordon, who only completed about 150 laps. However, many of my opponents picked racers who failed to qualify or racers who didn't even attempt to qualify. According to my understanding of the scoring, these racers should have received a -50 score.

The site I use gave these racers a zero score, citing a rule in the TOS that states in part: "Any member of a roster that does not participate will receive no points". I was told zero points is considered enough of a penalty and they are still on a "learning curve" with NASCAR contests.

So basically, I choose Jeff Gordon and get -50 points, my opponents choose Ricky Rudd (retired) or Kurt Busch for Nationwide (he doesn't even race in that series) and get zero points.

I figured that ruling cost me 3 wins. Maybe that's sour grapes but I don't like it when stupidity is rewarded.

I'm really looking forward to baseball starting in five weeks. There will be plenty of action and no learning curve.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I played two poker tournaments this weekend, without a cash. I finished 12th in one when my AA lost to 77 in a race: He caught a runner-runner flush with 4 clubs on the board. C'est la vie, just keep putting yourself in good situations.

There was some interesting gossip started by David Sklansky in the 2+2 NVG forum. He's claiming a lot of name pros are busto, although not naming names. He claims some of the players who took on Andy Beal are included. That's a short list: Ted Forrest, Jen Harman, Phil Ivey, Todd Brunson and perhaps a couple others.

Without getting into the specifics, the OP boiled down to this: Some of these name pros are just above average players who were in the right place at the right time and became well known just as the poker boom exploded. They were able to capitalize on that phenomenon but perhaps the well has now run dry (hold 'em)... or perhaps the level of competition has improved immensely.

One theme that has emerged: Players are migrating to other games, specifically Omaha.