Kitchen Games Poker

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Two nights ago, I got a chance to go to a kitchen game poker night that a coworker was putting on. The whole idea for the night was to play dealer's choice poker from the set of crazy games that people have come up with over the years. We weren't allowed to choose the casino standbys of hold'em, omaha, or 7 card stud. Instead, we played a series of games like Chicago, 727, Midnight Baseball, Mexican Sweat, etc. It's been a long time since I've played games like this. I've been playing Texas Hold'em pretty seriously for a couple of years, so it's kind of interesting to revisit some of these silly games to see if there is anything of interest. We played quite a few games, actually, that I'd like to note down for future reference because they were all quite fun. So here's the rules for some fun kitchen games that have a little depth to them.

  • 727: Players get two cards down, and one up. The aim of the game is to be the closest to the total of 7 or 27. Face cards count either ten points or half a point. An ace counts either 1 point or eleven. On each round, players are asked one at a time if they want one more card added face up to their hand, followed by a round of betting. If all players pass on a card, then the game is over, but otherwise another round is dealt. The game can last quite a few rounds! After the last round, players then simultaneously indicate whether they are attempting to win by being closest to 7, by being closest to 27, or to both. Half the pot is awarded to the closest to 7 (who indicated they were trying to win that side), and half is awarded to the the closest to 27 (who indicated they were trying to win that side). To win both, the players who indicated so have to be closest on both sides.
  • Auction: Each player is dealt two down cards. Then a card is turned up in the middle of the table for each player in the hand. Players then make a blind bid. The person who bids the most chooses the card they want. The next highest bid chooses the next card and so on. When all the cards are gone, another set of cards is dealt in the middle. This is repeated until all the players have 7 cards each. A round of betting happens after that. The person with the best high hand takes half the pot and the person with the best low hand takes the other half.
  • Ten Card Regrets: There are 5 rounds to this game. The object of the game is to partition 10 cards into two 5 card poker hands: one that is a low hand and one that is a high hand. On each round, players get two cards and must decide whether to put them on the left side to be part of the low hand, or on the right side to be part of the high hand. At the end, the person with the best high hand takes half the pot and the person with the best low hand takes half the pot.
  • Tic-Tac-Toe Hold'em/Omaha: Players are dealt two or four cards depending if they are playing the hold'em or omaha variant of the game. The key difference is the community cards are dealt in a 3x3 grid of cards. First, the flop is the four cards that form the sides of the grid. The turn is the four corner cards, and the river is the middle card of the grid. Players then make the best poker hand they can from the cards in their hand and any of 8 sets of three cards from the board. These sets are the three horizontal lines, three vertical lines, and the two diagonals. You can play Hold'em, Omaha High, or Omaha High Low.

These were my favourites from the night. Do you have any fun kitchen games I can deal next time?

Heraldk

Playoff Predictions, Round 2, 2008

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I posted before the first round playoffs started to present some output from my NHL playoff simulator. How'd it do at predicting the results? Well let's have a look. I removed the later round predictions from the last post just to clean this up and make it easier to read. Correct predictions are in bold.

Montreal_Canadiens 0.720
Detroit_Red_Wings 0.811
Boston_Bruins 0.280
Nashville_Predators 0.189
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.590
San_Jose_Sharks 0.634
Ottawa_Senators 0.410
Calgary_Flames 0.366

Washington_Capitals 0.481
Minnesota_Wild 0.468
Philadelphia_Flyers 0.519
Colorado_Avalanche 0.532
New_Jersey_Devils 0.477
Anaheim_Ducks 0.414
New_York_Rangers 0.523
Dallas_Stars 0.586

Not bad huh? In every case, the favourite team of each match was the one that won. Three of the series went right down to the wire though, and I honestly thought Washington was going to beat Philly in game 7. They were a feel good story this year, along with the Oilers late season push to the playoffs that fell *just* short. San Jose and Montreal almost choked in the first round on series leads, but managed to pull through in the end.

So what does the simulator say for the next round? Once again the first column is the probability of winning that round. The second column is the probability of winning the conference final, and the third column is the probability of taking home the cup. This run is one million playoff simulations seeded with the results of the first playoff round.

Montreal_Canadiens 0.616 0.348 0.147
Pittsburgh_Penguins 0.568 0.289 0.114
New_York_Rangers 0.432 0.189 0.064
Philadelphia_Flyers 0.384 0.174 0.056

Detroit_Red_Wings 0.772 0.530 0.380
San_Jose_Sharks 0.483 0.180 0.094
Dallas_Stars 0.517 0.199 0.107
Colorado_Avalanche 0.228 0.091 0.039

Detroit, Dallas, Montreal, and Pittsburgh are the favourites according to the simulator. The only selection that is a bit surprising for this round is Dallas - but I'm not too surprised by that considering some of the numbers they put up this year. If they can shut down Thornton, they've got a pretty good shot at the conference finals.

Overall Detroit still has the highest probability of winning the cup, up to 38% now. Montreal and Pittsburgh are neck and neck for second place in probability of winning the cup. Dallas and San Jose are next and the last three have a 6% or less chance.

Now that the first round is out, the last remaining Canadian team is my second favourite team in the league: the Montreal Canadiens. So since the Oil are down and out, I'm cheering for them. Push that 14.7% edge boys!

Heraldk

Stepping Up

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It has been awhile since I last seriously tried to move up in limits at Poker. I've only really done it a handful of time. From my starting ground of 0.5/1 full ring limit I moved up twice to 1/2 and 2/4 limit. Then I started playing 6max no limit at 50nl, and moved up once from there to 100nl which is where I've been at for awhile. This past week had been very good to me. I got a Party Poker reload bonus emailed to me, so I decided it was time to go back there and try and clear it. Well, I did rather well playing 100nl. I was up over 7 stacks in 4 or 5 days playing a couple hours per day. I felt confident and on top of the world. So it occurred to me -- what about moving up again? I had been playing 6max 100nl for quite a long time and had made a few grand at those stakes.

A few nights ago I gave it a shot. The first night I had 2 tables open and made about half a stack at 200nl. Not too shabby, but it was a short session. The next night was terrible. I dropped 4 stacks, and it just didn't feel like anything clicked. It seemed like every time I raised preflop I'd get called by people who would call my continuation bets -- but I wouldn't flop anything. I know I made a few errors, and I think I got a bit flustered. But even if I played perfectly, I doubt I'd be better than down 2 stacks.

The next night went quite a bit better. I was down a stack fairly early, but I got pretty comfortable and in the end managed to win a stack and a half or so. That brought me to last night where I thought I played alright, but for the longest time couldn't dig myself out of the one-stack whole I had got myself in. I had a great table with two incredible fish who were just asking to give their money away. It took me several hours to finally get one of them for about a stack and a half to finally draw even for the night.

It's interesting -- I don't think the game is that much tougher than the one I'm used to playing. I think it's just that the size of the swings is a little daunting. Like I said, it's been awhile since I tried moving up. So far, the experiment seems to be going alright even though I'm down a little bit so far. I've got a bit of a bankroll to sustain some loss, so it's not like I'm risking all that much. If I succeed in moving up, then I think my win rate in dollars goes up a fair amount which was the whole reason to move up.

Wish me luck! Heraldk

3-0 Baby!

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I've been playing floor hockey with the CS team again this year. This year we've got a pretty competitive looking team. Several new additions to the team mean we've got some serious firepower on the floor almost every shift, and the players that don't have that firepower are good solid players. So with last night's 10-1 win capping off the 3 game round robin, we're on top of the division for the first time since I joined the team several years ago. Woohoo! It's a lot of fun to play and have a shot to win. I haven't often been on a team that has had a competitive shot to win.

In related news, it looks like I might be able to join a floor hockey team in the Edmonton ball hockey league. I've been looking for a league to play in for a long time, so I'm pretty excited about getting a chance to play finally. The short intramural season was just not enough time to play floor hockey each semester.

Heraldk

A Note on Gambling

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I find it quite interesting noting the reactions of various people to gambling. As you probably know by now, I play a "little bit" of online poker, and have once in awhile been known to throw away some money playing blackjack or craps at a casino. I guess part of it is that my Dad's side of the family (which happens to be Chinese) is a group that loves to gamble. The other part of it is my love for any sort of game that involves some thought. There definitely is a bit of a thrill when you win at a gambling game. The more money at stake, the bigger the thrill when you win. I experienced this particular phenomena when I managed to get in on Mansion's $1000 free bet on the Pittsburgh Steelers at the start of last year's NFL football season. My friend Mike and I sat in front of the TV glued to it until the last play of the game and we were cheering like crazy throughout the game. When there's a fair amount of money on the line, it's exciting and fun.

So it's pretty easy to see how the gambling thing can be a problem. Fortunately for me, I know enough about the math behind the games that I know who has the edge most of the time. I would never slap down a $1K bet without first making sure that I was a) sure that my edge was there, and b) sure that I was okay with losing that money if worst came to worse.

So I don't really truly gamble in the same way that so many people get themselves in trouble do. I mostly play poker where I have definitely shown that I have an edge for the limits that I play. The couple of times I've done other gambling, I've either known I had an edge (like that $1K free bet at mansion where the edge was huge since it was free), or I've been willing to throw away $60 playing blackjack or craps for a couple hours.

Playing poker so much though has changed my outlook on a lot of things. One thing that is definitely different is my outlook on money is a little different. Once you've played poker for awhile, the face value of the currency you're playing with changes. It kind of loses its meaning in the sense that $100 is just a stack of chips you could lose or win at any given moment. It's kind of weird, but being able to sit down for a few hours and win a couple hundred dollars playing $100NL with .5/1 blinds makes it possible for me to add to my yearly revenue by a significant amount. It's only really bounded by the amount of time I have to play (which these days isn't that much, but I still get in a few sessions most weeks).

I kind of think that that effect of poker on my life has been a bit negative. It's hard to regain a respect for how much money is worth and how hard it is for most people to earn it after you've played online poker seriously for as long as I have (and I haven't really been playing that long really). The other negative aspect that is less severe for me is a bit of a crisis of conscience when you realize that the money you're winning is being taken from the wallets of people who may not have the self control to realize that they've lost next month's rent cheque. I deal with that thought with the following argument: "Will those players stop playing if I don't play? No. Well then I'm not changing anything by playing and being the one to take that money from them". Think that's faulty reasoning? Let me know. I'm curious about this issue. Without a doubt, it is a parasitic action, but I'm not sure what I can do about the other person's problem - particularly if they are an unknown person I'm facing through online poker (which is how I play the bulk of the time).

So there's some negative effects of playing poker, but there's a lot of reasons that I continue to play. The financial results certainly don't hurt, but it's not just that. I enjoy the competition. Playing these games lets me battle wits with other players and it can keep me sharp. When I'm playing my best, I'm seeing a lot of things happen in front of me and I can tell you a lot of what's going on.

Playing good poker also teaches patience and handling of tough times. The variance in poker is sky-high, and that means that to play well you have to be able to take the tough luck hands without letting them get to you or you'll start playing poorly (on tilt as it were). You need to be able to objectively back away from a particular situation and assess whether you indeed made the appropriate decisions regardless of the outcomes. This is a skill that helps a lot with life.

Poker contains a lot of mathematics, some of it simple, some of it quite a bit more complex. There is a lot you can do with math (despite people who will tell you that poker is primarily a psychological game), and learning to apply math to specific situations in poker is an essential skill to getting good at the game. Likewise, mathematics helps you with situations in life too. To tell you a quick story, my mom was telling me about some advice she heard some people were giving in a "learn what to do before retiring" seminar. The advice was that you should replace all your appliances a year before retiring, with the idea being that these appliances would then not likely need replacing throughout retirement saving a lot of stress. This advice struck me as pretty wrong considering that there was no part of this advice that took into consideration how old the existing appliances were. You might be replacing an appliance that is still working great and has an expected lifetime of 5 or 10 more years - effectively throwing away part of your existing investment in the appliances you currently own. And who's to say the appliances you buy aren't going to fail during your retirement? The proper solution here is to replace appliances that need replacing, and wait until your other appliances require replacing. Meanwhile, the money you didn't spend on new appliances gains interest. I fail to see why this is a worse solution.

My life has been affected drastically because of my time spent playing poker. For the most part, I think it has been for the better. I feel like I am able to keep myself sharper and more able to analyze situations objectively, and the monetary considerations certainly don't hurt.

Heraldk

Game On

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The past three games have been very encouraging for the Oilers. We're battling through some pretty intense injury trouble, but with last night's win in LA, we're now just one game shy of .500, and a pair of points out of a playoff spot. The two wins against Anaheim are HUGE for a couple of reasons. The first is obviously that wins are important against any team. But beating down Anaheim means that we are more likely to finish above them in the standings - meaning the draft pick we have from them is worth more than the one we gave up for Dustin Penner. The Kevin Lowe vs Brian Burke war seems to be evening out a little more. If the oilers can turn this season around, I think the Dustin Penner offer sheet was a pretty good move for Kevin Lowe - particularly since Penner has been playing better and better over the last few games.

The Edmonton Oilers, in the past couple of years, have been a frustratingly fun team to watch. Even in 05/06 when we made the run to the cup, the Oilers just squeaked into the playoffs. They did so by beating the good teams, and losing to the bad teams ... which made no sense. Last year's season was a terrible disappointment, but the team had so much trouble scoring. Add in the injury troubles that plagued the oilers in the late season, and it really was a recipe for disaster.

I still think the experts are crazy to think they can just write off the oilers as contenders. Anything can happen in the new NHL, and the oilers have a lot of the right ingredients to turn things around. Granted, they have a lot of young and unexperienced players on their team, but there is a lot of skill there, and if the elements click into place, I wouldn't be surprised to see this team playoff bound.

Heraldk

Rock Band First Impressions

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This past Saturday I had the chance to play rock band for the first time. How was this possible? Rock band doesn't come to Canada until December?! Well one of my friends managed to convince his friend to bring a copy up from the states with him when he came for convocation last week. So ... they had it at the party I was at on Saturday. I've enjoyed most of the guitar hero series. I played through guitar hero I and II and managed to pass all the songs on expert. I bought guitar hero III when it came out, and have enjoyed it to a certain extent, but the game has driven me mad on a number of different fronts. The first issue is the game seems to be hard for hard's sake. Rather than focusing on making the experience as realistic as possible, it seems to be catering to the people who enjoy showing off that they can pass a wicked impossible section at 100%. What this does is it makes it nigh impossible for a more casual player (which I think I fall into) to pass the game in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable frustration level. The other part of GH3 that I can't stand is the guitar duel mode. To me, the game is at it's best when it is you versus the challenge of a particular song. It's hard enough to pass some of the more difficult tracks, so why do you need to throw in a random element with an opponent making it yet harder?! Maybe this is just me being frustrated, but having passed GH1 and GH2 on expert, I have yet to even come close to passing GH3 on hard due to the final boss battle. Ugh.

So what do I think of rock band? It's awesome! The most obvious difference between the games, of course, is the added instruments. The drums are, in a word, sweet. The guitar requires a larger abstraction to make it accessible to a more general audience. That abstraction comes in the form of 5 buttons instead of 6 strings. The drums, on the other hand, require almost no abstraction. You have things to hit and a kick pedal, and that's all you need for a basic drum kit. So where skills in guitar hero won't likely transfer to a real guitar, I have a feeling skills on the drums in rock band will transfer okay to a real drum kit! Of course, there are things about real drums that aren't emulated, but a lot of the stuff looks like it should transfer. The drums are also a lot of fun, which doesn't hurt!

The vocals is the other obvious addition to rock band. On this spot, the Harmonix crew took it easy on the people who have trouble with pitch. The easy difficulty level is amazingly forgiving, which means that the biggest barrier to entry for the vocalist is just the potential embarrassment factor - which karaoke seems to have solved in a lot of places (with some help from some liquid courage). After you get over that, you don't really have to worry about failing your band mates by failing a song. The more adventurous singers can up the difficulty level to get a challenge. The one thing I don't like about the vocals part of it is the interface is a bit awkward. I'm used to reading music, and that might help me out quite a bit. I found it was almost a requirement to know a song pretty well before attempting a song or I had no hope to figure it out as it went.

There are some tweaks to the game that just feel right. One simple one is the game shows you how many stars your current performance is getting, and how far away you are from the next star. No more wondering how close you were to 5-starring a song! The other biggest change I noticed is you can still collect star power even when you are currently using it. This change just makes sense to me.

Anyways, I got a chance to play a few songs on each instrument, and I was thoroughly impressed. I especially can't wait to give the drums more of a try at some higher difficulty levels!

Heraldk

Super Mario Galaxy

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Wow. This game is awesome. I've been spending every chance I get working my way through the latest Nintendo masterpiece. It isn't often I have trouble putting a game down, but this is one of those times. The game is fantastic! I never really played super mario 64, though I may have to at some point since there's a lot of people who say that it was really well done. I did get super mario sunshine, but I really didn't enjoy it. The controls were all wonky and I really didn't like the whole water backpack mechanism. So Super Mario Galaxy is my first real 3d mario title. Before this, my only experience with mario titles has been through Super Mario 1,2,3, and World -- all of which are excellent games (I played 3 the most out of all of them).

Galaxy is incredible. The worlds are varied and rich and full of an inventiveness in level design I haven't seen in a long time. The controls, while a little hard to get used to at times (especially in swimming levels) don't get in the way of enjoying the fun. There's a lot of levels, and all of them are simply beautiful!

Besides the main levels, there's also a bunch of challenge levels and mini games that are a lot of fun. The inventiveness continues throughout all of these games.

One of the things I've noticed early on as well is the music is wonderful. I am quite enjoying the whole experience, and this is probably one of those games that I finish way too fast because I play through it too quickly! Oh well, it'll be fun!

Heraldk

Maddening Oilers

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Man, I just can't shake the feeling that the Oilers have some chance to go on a stretch of wins. They've got so much talent - they just can't seem to put it together. Of course, the crazy number of injuries isn't helping. If the Oilers started getting healthy all of a sudden, I think we'd be looking at a particularly good team. The game last night against Vancouver was a lot of fun to watch. It was also a nail-biter, and every time Vancouver got some pressure on us I got nervous. But Mathieu Garon managed to put on A SHOW and stopped everything that Vancouver sent his way - including three shootout attempts! The Oil looked dangerous for parts of the game, but they seem to have this bad habit of giving the puck away in the neutral zone (or worse, in their own end). I don't know how to get them to do this, but they need to be able to maintain control of the puck for longer parts of the game or we're going to continue having trouble maintaining any pressure.

Tonight's game was worse for that score. We just couldn't keep constant pressure on the puck and it seemed like every second shift we'd give the puck away several times. Ewww. Hockey like that is maddening to watch for the fan. Glad to see Jarret Stoll get a couple goals though. They were a bit ugly, but I'm glad to see him snap his goal drought. Let's hope he continues to recover last year's form!

Maybe their play tonight was due to the back-to-back schedule. I sure hope they can start building some consistency into their game ... if they do, and start to get healthy ... I seriously think we've got a playoff bound team. Until then though, we're in some trouble.

Heraldk

Reorganization

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Every so often I feel the sudden urge to reorganize the furniture in my room. Today was one of those days. I don't know what it is - maybe it's a fresh perspective on something I see everyday, maybe it's a chance to try something else ... but it seems that whenever I do it, I am almost always completely satisfied with the result. This time is no different. Several of the elements in my room were moved around and the room feels like a totally different place - and the organization is altogether better (in my mind at least). I completed the furniture move before the hockey game (that's another post), and then sorted out a bunch of crap that had accumulated. I'm going to be spending some time in the near future sorting through paper that I've accumulated and trying to discard as much as possible. It seems pretty unlikely I'll need my high school financial management course work, don't you think? (Oh yeah, I kept a lot of crap). Something tells me I'm going to need a couple of boxes to take all the paper I'm going to discard to the recycling bin.

I love it. I find a reorganized room refreshing and different - and yet familiar in the same way. So it is nice to be able to get that feeling here.

Heraldk

Catchup

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Okay, it seems these catchup posts are getting to be the norm. I hope they aren't though - so I'm gonna try and get caught up here and start getting myself back in the habit of posting here. First up, the big thing lately has been my return to poker. I started playing a few weeks ago to catchup on some PSO promos that they've been adding with remarkable regularity. I started with Carbon Poker where I jumped right in at 100nl and did quite well and banked a $500 profit plus my $120 PSO bonus. Next was Action poker, which I didn't do quite as well at. Even with the $100 deposit bonus, I was only able to claw my way back up to even a little after finishing off the $120 PSO bonus. I didn't really like Action poker - there wasn't enough tables, and I never really felt comfortable. So I was quick to move on. My next promo though was Cake Poker, and it feels much better. Being up $500 plus the $90 PSO bonus doesn't hurt in that respect ... but I'm also rather enjoying the fast bonus clearing rate. So I think I'm going to stick around at Cake for awhile before I move on to my next PSO bonus.

Work is going well. I just moved offices, and have started to get familiar with the code that produced the bots that played in the man-machine match this past summer. I'm super excited to work on the next iteration of these bots ... and even more excited to pit them against the world's best players. At the moment we're trying to lock down some money to challenge some players with. Any ideas where we could get that money? We'd ideally like something on the order of $50K or more to use as prize money. I don't have many ins with people, but if you have any ideas I'd love to hear them.

Diane and I are doing well. We're currently in the midst of wedding plans which are going pretty smoothly I think. We've got several months to go, but we've got a lot of the important things locked up and several others in progress. Hopefully we can have invitations out in a month or so. We've been pretty busy with social stuff too - attending quite a few fun events over the past month. Too many to really recount in a short space here, but the latest was a Chili cook-off. We made some pretty awesome bison chili (if I do say so myself) along with some skillet cornbread, apple crisp, and cookies. Mmm - it was quite a cooking day! We had a lot of fun in the kitchen, and it's making me want to force myself to spend more time cooking on a regular basis. I'd certainly eat better (and healthier) if I did.

The Oilers are maddening to watch at times. The most recent game against the flames was sweet to watch though - now if only we could put together an effort like that on a more consistent basis. I see a lot of potential on our club. If we get a few key members back and contributing, we could have a contender on our hands. I realize it's a lot of ifs, but what else do we have? In particular, I'm really impressed with Robert Nillsson's play. He's been fast, creative, and strong with the puck - I'm starting to get excited every time I see him get the puck. One last thing: what the hell is with the hit on Hemsky? That should've got a suspension for sure! He could've been badly hurt on a play like that!!!!

Not bad for an update post huh? If you've got questions, let me know - I'm feeling a bit lonely in blog land!

Heraldk

End to Carbon Poker

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Wow, it was awhile ago already when I last talked about what's going on. So I finished off the carbon poker promo in about a week, having played about 4 sessions. I ended the sessions up $500 plus the $120 bonus from PSO. Pretty sweet deal, I must say!

I've got my eyes set on a new camera lens, but I think I'm going to force myself to win the money for it through poker, so hopefully I'll get some time to play a little more in the coming weeks. It's been pretty hectic lately, so no guarantees. It looks like I need to win another $500 to buy the lens I want, so I'm looking at 1 or 2 more promos I'm guessing.

What else ... gaming! There are so many good games to play, I don't have enough time to do that either. I bought guitar hero 3 yesterday, and it's a lot of fun. I also have Metroid for the Wii on loan from a friend that I haven't touched ... and then there's the addictiveness that is puzzle quest. *sigh* - maybe I need to drop video games - they take too much damn time out my life.

Diane and I are doing great. We've started getting plans for our wedding down, and hopefully we can get a lot of the stuff we need to done well before the day of so that the day is smooth and fun. Fingers crossed! Diane's sister is off to Vancouver, so before she left we had a pre-wedding wedding party party (isn't that the best sentence ever?), where the people we chose for the wedding party got to meet each other -- those who hadn't yet. It was pretty fun, and included some good food from Vi's for Pies. (If you haven't been there I highly recommend it!).

So yeah, life is good, and busy, and I wish I had more time to work on side projects!

Heraldk

Predictions

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I'm not going to give my predictions for the upcoming NHL season, although I suppose it has already started officially since there's been a couple of games have been played over in London. I am, however, going to rant a little about the predictions of other "experts". It seems that hockey experts agree that the Oilers have no shot at making the playoffs this year. I have one thing to say: why do these so called "experts" always sell the Oil short? It doesn't seem all that long ago when the Oilers were pushing for the 8th and final playoff spot a couple years ago. They were a team that was fighting it's own potential. I knew the team had a lot of talent, but it seemed that every couple of games, they'd lose a you-should-win-this-game type scenario and they'd slip back a notch. They did it, but barely. In the first round that year, they were up against the high powered Detroit Red Wings. Everyone wrote Edmonton off and had them down in out quickly. Surprise, surprise when the Oil suddenly became the team they were capable of becoming and took down not only Detroit, but San Jose, Anaheim, and almost Carolina en route to the stanley cup final.

Last year was a painful year for the average Oiler fan. The team struggled in mediocrity for most of the season and then got hit by a terrible injury streak that took most of the regulars out of the lineup. As a result, the team skidded to a halt and failed to win most of their remaining games.

The offseason was a high-drama period where the Oilers made a large number of moves and almost completely re-tooled. Powered by the new blue-liners of Pitkanen and Souray, they have far more power on defence than they had last year. Penner adds some size and some scoring punch and Sanderson is a wily veteran who should contribute as well. The real exciting thing for this upcoming season though is the chance for some of the youth to shine. The Oilers have several young players, in addition to Ales Hemsky, who all have a shot of hitting it big this year. These guys include Gagner, Nilsson, Brodziak, Pouliot, and Cogliano. To me, this is super exciting ... and I have a hard time believing that the Oilers are going to have trouble making the playoffs.

But lets take a look at what the experts think. One of the oft-quoted stats from last year is +/-. I'm not sure how they can compare player's +/- stats correctly when these numbers are so very biased on the team they were playing for. For example, Souray and Pitkanen both played on teams that didn't make the playoffs last year. This typically means that those teams got scored on more often than they scored (duh). So take two important defencemen who play big minutes for their teams and put them on clubs that are losing. What happens to their plus minus? It plummets. Whoop-dee-doo. I'm not saying the statistic is meaningless. I'm just saying that you need to make sure you keep in mind what you're trying to compare.

A lot of analysis seems to compare how a team has changed from the previous year. Unfortunately, this also is a problem. How do the experts know that the "winners" of the free agency craziness (the rangers and the flyers) are going to gel and mesh the star players they signed? Who's to say that teams with a bunch of young talent are going to not mesh and start winning games? The past doesn't necessarily tell the future, folks - especially when so much has changed from last season.

One of the things I think many people forget is that the new collective bargaining agreement is giving teams some level ground to play on. It's not completely level, that's for sure, but teams are much more evenly matched than they used to be. Remember the Oiler's heyday way back when they were winning cups every year? That team was so stacked that you had to expect great things from them. Fast forward to today - there are far fewer teams that looked that stacked in comparison. Maybe the penguins look a bit awesome at the moment ... but the division from them to the next closest team is far smaller than for the Oilers back in the day. The salary cap helps balance out the skill players among the teams, and as a result, nearly any team has a chance to do well enough to hit the playoffs. So I don't think last year means nearly as much as the experts seem to think. I also don't think they have ever given the Oilers enough credit.

So I think the Oilers have a good chance of doing well this season, and we'll just have to see how it turns out.

Go Oilers! Heraldk