SB Nation User Blog: tehGrindCrusher

Luling City Market this Saturday?

tehGrindCrusher — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:49:21 -0000

BFD was kind enough to post about my request for quality barbecue here. I've decided that Luling City Market was the best place to go. I should be there at noon this Saturday and would be happy to meet up if anyone is around. If not, at least I'll have some good brisket to cry into.

Let me know if you're interested.

I need ten more words to make this the right length.

Rolling the Dice: Defense and Hold 'Em Part II,

tehGrindCrusher — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:06:18 -0000

As a follow-up to my last post, which attempted to use poker to as a proxy for football, and explain why aggression is important to each, I'm going to give what I hope is a thought-provoking (and somewhat novel) theory on how a team with lesser defensive talent can neutralize some of the advantages a team with a superior offense enjoys. It may run a bit long, but bear with me, because it should be an interesting discussion. As I did last time, I'm going to start with poker, weave a little game theory into my argument, and conclude by tying it in to football.

Suppose for a minute that you entered the World Series of Poker Main Event and somehow, through a combination of intuition and luck, have made it to the final two. You are heads up (yay!) and have only one person left to knock out. If you do, money, fame, fortune and a bevy of hot blondes are yours for the taking -- you'll be so rich that you could cover your bed with money and roll around on it while you cavort with a variety of lovely women. Sounds great, right?

There's only one more obstacle to overcome before you can release your inner baller, and his name is Patrik Antonius. Antonius is one of the most feared players on the planet. He plays in, and wins, the biggest games in the world. He's not afraid of anything, isn't intimidated by the money, and is basically a stone-cold killer as far as poker is concerned. You playing against him is like trying to go one-on-one against Yao Ming. You know that over time, his edge is so great that your chips will practically jump into his stack on their own. Your only hope appears to be luck, right? Is there any other hope you have of defeating your foe and becoming the poker celebrity that you've always wanted to be?

Let's be clear: in the long run, you have no edge, and no hope of winning - any more than you have against Yao Ming. However, tournaments - particularly the heads-up portion at the end - are all about the short term. All you have to do is win one big pot against your opponent and you either win the tournament or cripple your opponent to the point that he'll be eliminated in short order.

All hold-em starting hands are ranked in order of their strength. This is most important in a heads-up situation because it's more rare that a person makes a big hand (i.e. a straight or flush) and, therefore, a high card (like an unpaired ace or king) or pair is most likely to win the hand. In a nutshell, the strongest hand in a heads-up situation is a pair of aces, and the weakest hand is an unsuited 32.

The biggest advantage your opponent will have over you is that he will quickly be able to put you on a range of hands. So if you raise with only strong starting hands like aces, kings and ace-king, he'll be firing bets at any pot you don't raise knowing you'll probably fold. Furthermore, if you start putting money into the pot with one of your premium hands and he hangs around, he's probably got something that beats you. Eww.

So, what's this magic strategy that you can use against superior opposition? In order to keep your opponent guessing, you'll need to mix up your play. In practice this means occasionally raising with your weaker hands so that your opponent has a harder time figuring out what your hand range is. If, for example, you raise with aces, kings, queens and ace-king but also raise with 32 and 42, you've played almost twice as many hands and your opponent will have a harder time putting you on a specific hand.

There's an even better way to mix up your range, and it's so effective you could actually tell your opponent what your strategy is and it wouldn't matter. It's simple: randomization. You randomize the cards you play against him. Let me explain why (and how) that works. Then I'll relate it to football.

In the above example, you've widened your range by adding two hands to it. An observant opponent will sniff that out pretty quickly. A better strategy is to find some kind of randomizing element to determine when you play your weaker hands. Based on the size of the money in the pot and the size of the bet you intend to make, game theory, in the form of the Nash equilibrium, can tell you how often you need to mix in your bluffs in order to make yourself un-readable by your opponents (I won't go into detail in this post, but if you're interested, you can check out the math here).

The idea is that you bluff enough that your opponent can't tell whether you are playing a strong hand or a weak one. The way you choose when to bluff is by randomly selecting a hand you would normally fold in the first betting round and raise with it. You determine how often you do that by using the aforementioned Nash equilibrium, but you don't really have to be that exact. For simplicity's sake, you could probably raise with about twenty percent of the hands you'd ordinarily fold and that would be tricky enough.

You've now created an unexploitable strategy that, in the short term, increases your chances of winning. In the long term, your opponent will pick you apart in the later betting rounds, but like I said earlier, tournament heads up sessions are rarely long, so you've given yourself as good a chance as possible. And since you're playing random cards, your opponent will not know if you're betting because you have a good hand or a bad one, even if you tell him what you're doing.

So, how do you pick a random hand? There are any number of ways, but the easiest way is to look at your watch. If you're bluffing twenty percent of the time, you just look down at your watch, and if the second hand is anywhere between one and twelve seconds (twelve being twenty percent of 60), you bet. It's that simple.

It's important to note that you only need to do this in games where you don't have an edge. It's an, uhm, defensive strategy that seeks to make your intentions harder to read. If you're already better than everyone you're playing against, then you don't need to go to such lengths to make yourself harder to read.

Well, that's awesome, but how does it relate to football? I'm glad you asked. This kind of strategy works best against when you're playing against someone who is good at divining what you're going to do. So you would want to use it against a team with a quarterback that is able to notice larger patterns in your defensive play, sniff out your tendencies and anticipate what you're going to do, and make split-second decisions based on what he sees. Sounds a lot like Peyton Manning.

In practice, it would work something like this: the Texans line up in a base defensive formation, depending on down, distance and game situation. They can run any number of different sets at the offense from this formation - they can blitz one or more players, they can drop back into coverage, they can read-and-react, whatever. Let's say that in any given formation, there are ten possible sets. Some of the time, the defensive coordinator is going to call a play based on what he thinks the opposing quarterback's tendencies are: which receiver he's been favoring, if a running back has been running the screen particularly well, etc. Basically the standard cat-and-mouse game between offense and defense.

However, because the qb in this situation is Peyton Manning, he is able to sniff out what the defense is likely doing and make the right adjustment most of the time, because he's also aware of the defense's tendencies, etc. Here's where our poker-game theory example comes into play. A certain percentage of the time, our defensive coordinator is going to send in a random play. He won't change the defensive formation, but he's going to use whatever random number generator he wants to and use that to determine which play he's going to call.

He won't do it all the time, because there is a lot of value in adjusting your defense to what the offense is doing well or poorly. If he's really mathematically inclined, he can use the Nash equilibrium to determine how frequently he'll do it in each particular situation. But even if he does it, say, twenty percent of the time, he can have a real impact on Peyton's game management. Again, you would not want to do this against a qb like Vince Young who has a limited ability to read the field, but it could be effective against a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

It may sound like I've just spent a ton of time and space discussing something radical and far-fetched, and I would be surprised if any coach ever did this, but I think a lot of modern coaching theory supports this idea, even if it isn't so academic.

For example, here's a quote from a great article in The Atlantic. The author spent a day with Andy Reid watching footage of the 1958 NFL Championship game and wrote about Reid's analysis. From the article:

"If I’m calling the plays" on offense, [Reid] went on, "I get paid to get into a rhythm with the guy calling the defense" on the other side. When a coach achieves the right "rhythm," he can sense what his opponent is thinking—and for Reid, grasping the "rhythm" of the classic game was fairly easy. "I can see what the offense is doing," he said. "You can almost call it offensively and defensively."

The strategy I've laid out is simply a scientific way of determining how not to get into that rhythm that Reid talks about. Another example of the importance of unpredictability is the idea of scripting a team's first fifteen or twenty plays on offense. The reason this is done is so that a defense can't anticipate what the offense will do. My theory is just a way to extend that unpredictability into the rest of the game.

This has turned into a long post, and it's not quite as sexy as talking about the draft or our free agent needs. But I hope those of you who have stuck with me this far have something new to think about when you put on your Andre Johnson pajamas and dream of Steve Slaton running over Albert Haynesworth.

How Defense is Like Playing Hold 'Em

tehGrindCrusher — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:25:17 -0000

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Game Theory.

Now that we have a new defensive coordinator who, if Pancakes is to be believed, is in love with the blitz I thought I would give my own two cents on why pressuring the quarterback is the single most important part of playing defense. I'm no specialist in defensive shells a la Matt, but bear with me and you'll see that there is a solid foundation for what I'm going to propose.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to compare football, specifically defense to poker, specifically no-limit hold 'em. Stay with me - the comparison works. For all the image that poker has as a game of wild bluffs and douchebags wearing their sunglasses indoors, there is actually a fundamental theorem that tells you in simple terms what you need to do to be a good player. Sure, there's a bunch of underlying mathematical gobbledygook that explains it, but the premise is amazingly simple: get your opponents to make costly mistakes by paying cards differently than they would if they knew your hand. Note that the deviousness and misdirection is implicit in the theory. As I'll show you later on in the post, so is aggression.

The best poker player, then, is the one who is able to profit the most from his opponents' mistakes while losing the least from his own. Being a good poker player does not mean making no mistakes - it means that you make a mistake on purpose in order to get your opponent to make a more costly mistake.

There are two kinds of ways to get your opponents to make mistakes: you can have them put money in the pot with the worst hand or you can make them fold the best hand, giving you all the money in the pot. The first point is pretty obvious, but it's the implications of the second point that make no-limit hold 'em so powerful, and make the comparison to no-limit hold 'em so relevant.

The majority of poker games have fixed betting limits. No-limit hold 'em, on the other hand, allows players to bet as much as they'd like. Because of this, every player is basically risking their entire stack on every hand they play. The threat of losing one's entire stack is a the key part of the game. If you're playing in a $1-2$ fixed-limit game with a $200 stack, you might lose $15 in a big pot. But if you're playing in a $1-$2 no-limit game with that same $200 stack, you could lose the entire stack in a single hand. As you can see, a player who is correctly aggressive can constantly put his opponents at risk of losing their stack and can cause them to play much more conservatively (and therefore make mistakes by throwing better hands away).

Example: Let's assume for a moment that you are playing poker against someone you know pretty well. With one betting round (of four) left there's $100 dollars in the pot and you both have $400 left to bet. You don't know exactly what your opponent has, but you have an idea of the range of hands he's likely playing and you estimate that, if both players check the hand down (meaning no one bets anymore) and the hand were played to the end, you will win 50 percent of the time. Your average profit is basically zero because you'll win half the time and your opponent will win half the time. If you play the hand out this way 100 times, you will win $100 half the time and lose $100 the other half of the time, for a net profit of $0.00. Bogus!

On the other hand, you estimate that if you bet out at your opponent, say $100, regardless of your own hand, he will fold half the time and call half the time. If he folds, you win the current money in the pot. If he calls, you'll win half the time. Since you are betting out regardless of your own hand, you will be betting with the best hand some of the time and betting with the worst hand (i.e. bluffing) some of the time.

Your aggression has just turned a breakeven situation into a winning one! 50 percent of the time you'll win the existing pot ($100) and the other 50 percent of the time you'll split the the $300 in the pot ($100 already in, plus your $100 bet and his $100 call). If you played the hand out 100 times, instead of breaking even, your net profit is $.50: you win $50 50 times and $0 50 times. (50 +0)/100 = .5 Bonus!

That may not sound like a lot, and there are some assumptions in there, but it is a useful demontration of how aggression can be useful. Which brings us to football.

The goal of aggression in hold 'em is to get your opponents to make a mistake by throwing away a better hand. Sure, sometimes they'll have a monster and then you'll lose. But if you can get them to throw away a few marginal hands that are better than yours by bluffing correctly, you've gotten them to make a mistake, which is your goal all along.

The same goes for defense. Just as with a poker hand, a football defense has its strengths and weaknesses. And, just as aggression can turn your weaker hands into money winners, it can also be used to cover up a defense's weaknesses. If you have a weak secondary but are able to get consistent pressure on a quarterback, you'll see a lot more bad throws out there, leading to more interceptions and incompletions.

There are many different styles of poker play, but they can be categorized based on how many hands a person plays. Players who don't bet a lot (called passive) will generally call bets and hope their hand holds up, but won't bet on their own. This style tends to be unprofitable. I would equate this style with the way the Texans D played under Richard Smith - they didn't commit a lot of extra resources to pressuring the quarterback (i.e. played passively), which put undue pressure on the secondary. The problem with this style of play is that you give up a lot of opportunities (read time) while you are waiting for your pass-rushers to get to the qb, and in the short season that is the NFL, you don't have that many opportunities.

The other style of poker involves betting your hands (so it's called aggressive play). There are risks involved, since opponents can trap you when they have a strong hand (sort of like a screen pass) but, per my example above, overall aggression is the way to go. This is where the Texans need to be.

I know this is a long-winded way of explaining something that everyone probably already knows, but it's worth pointing out that in games like poker (and also football) aggression is not only exciting, it's also a winning strategy.

Maybe Richard Smith needs to go read up on his poker theory.

There's a few other thoughts I have pertaining to defense and game theory. If I feel up to it I might get around to posting them one day.

Rick Smith: The Pact - Update?

tehGrindCrusher — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:37:05 -0000

I was tooling around BRB today and I remembered this post. To recap, Solis is at a training camp session when Rick Smith spots a boy in the crowd named Donovan. Smith invites Donovan to watch practice from the sideline with him and then makes a deal with him: Donovan keeps his grades up and Smith will get him tickets to a game. Much gushing and praise for Rick Smith (all of it deserved) ensue.

It occurred to me that we've never gotten an update as to what happened with this. I'd like to think that both sides of the party lived up to the deal, but I don't know.

Any way we can get the rest of the story?

Support Steve Slaton

tehGrindCrusher — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:25:45 -0000

Our boy Stevie needs your help. Not on the field, obviously. And not off the field, probably, given his mack-daddiness in between the hashmarks and his mad cooking skillz.

What he does need, however, is your vote. Slaton is up for NFL rookie of the week.

So do your part, Texans fans. Don't let guys like Flacco or Forte get the limelight that our own Stevie Wonder deserves. Follow your Inner Vision, head over to Higher Ground and vote for Stevie, Ma Cherie Amour!

I Have No Use For Peter King

tehGrindCrusher — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:15:24 -0000

I've always thought that Peter King has several flaws that make him a less-than-average sportswriter. For one thing, he is at best an average writer. He's too chummy with several of the league's marquee players (see also: Farve, Brett), which effects his ability to remain neutral on football-related issues. His analytical abilities are even worse than his writing. And I don't care to read about his coffee fetish or how annoyed he gets when travelling.

Today, however, he's crossed the line with me, and this time for entirely selfish reasons. Tonight is a big night for us Texans fans, even if the season hasn't gone according to plan. It's our team's first ever appearance on Monday Night Football.

I realize that a huge chunk of the U.S. doesn't really care about the Texans, an expansion team with a crappy record, paying against the Jags, another (though less recent) expansion team with a crappy record. And I realize that this is not what the NFL had hoped when they scheduled this game before the season started. No doubt, a great many Americans will find this game about as interesting as reading a treatise on celestial mechanics. I don't even mind that Peter King thinks so (not that he's capable of understanding even the drawings in a treatise on celestial mechanics).

But woud it kill him to keep that thought to himself? Today I find in his Monday morning ramblings (they're like a trainwreck, I can't stop myself from looking) an entire segment dedicated to encouraging readers to spend their Monday evenings doing something other than watching the Texans. Adding insult to injury, among the recommendations King makes are shows from the Animal Planet and National Geographic networks.

Peter, I get it. You'd much rather watch some retard run after a bull mastiff or two humpback whales, err, humping than watch the Texans and the Jags. It's a shame neither team's seasons have panned out the way their respective fans would like. You're not a paid shill for the league (just an unofficial shill for some of its supposed marquee players), so you don't have any responsibility to hype matchups between losing teams.

But isn't this a little uncalled for? Even if this isn't Giants - Steelers, it could still end up being a more exciting game than people think. Even if it isn't it wouldn't exactly be the most boring Monday Night game of all time, or even this year.

So, Peter, how about next time, instead of taking a few more minutes to add space to your already-too-long column (and while I'm at it, how about you keep your Ten Things lists down to, you know, only ten actual things) with suggestions for alternate programming, you just keep your big yap shut? Just think, you could spend that time getting all warm and fuzzy over a cup of some exotic latte while you imagine yourself giving Brett Favre a massage. I'm sure that would be better than watching the Texans and Jags play tonight.

If you'll excuse me, I have a game to watch. I'm hoping for a resounding Texans victory. It's about the only thing that will get the image of you massaging Brett Favre out of my mind.

Discuss your other teams here

tehGrindCrusher — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:14:15 -0000

There seem to be quite a few posters on this forum that follow other teams. Last week there was quite a bit of discussion about soccer, rugby and other sports. Rather than clog the gameday thread (and risk a ban) with talk about soccer, I thought I'd open up a fan post to discuss it.

I'll start. The Greatest Soccer Team In The History Of The Galaxy had a mixed week. They lost 2-1 away at West Ham but rebounded well to win at home against NEC Nijmegen. They're now within 3 points of surprising league leader FC Groningen.

Feel free to brag or complain about your other team here.

Before the cyanide takes

tehGrindCrusher — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:36:44 -0000

I just want to congratulate you guys on the win. Because my mother raised me not to lie, I can't say you deserved it in any way, except for the fact that apparently both starting quarterbacks play for your team.

In any event, good luck the rest of the way, and please take it as a compliment that the last words I uttered on this earth before gouging my eyes out with rusty paper clips were written on this blog.

I'm off to choke on my vomit now.

OIHDIOhoisfhdos;iadhfoiashdfso;dkfhj;oskdhfsiodhfc

tehGrindCrusher — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:34:13 -0000

OIHDIOhoisfhdos;iadhfoiashdfso;dkfhj;oskdhfsiodhfc

Dear Hakeem

tehGrindCrusher — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:53:44 -0000

Thank you for all the memories. Enjoy your day in the sun. As the years go by, your grace, skills and character stand out more and more. Thanks for what you did for Houston.

And thanks for crushing the Spurs. It's hard to argue against Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell being the greatest centers of all time, but in basketball Valhalla, you sit at the head table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW4uXlRGAF0