5 Best Poker Chip Sets Reviews of 2020 - BestAdvisor.com

what makes a good poker chip set

what makes a good poker chip set - win

Fun (but complicated) boss fight I ran for the finale of my two year (level 16) campaign

First, consider this a template you can adjust to your needs. I knew the type of players in the group and what they were capable of, so I tailored the encounter to them.
Second, this fight is stupidly complex by normal 5e standards. I'm heavily influenced by MMOs, so I like crazy intricate boss fights. This is designed based on the assumption that the players will know everything she can do, so the puzzle is just executing rather than discovering how things work. I had a trusted lieutenant who'd been playing both sides for a long time, so he was my narrative excuse to give the players all the information.
Third, the environment was an enclosed tower, 45 feet across by 75 feet long by 80 feet tall. Four pillars stretched from ground to ceiling with torches of white flame on each, facing the center of the room. Torches were also spread evenly along the tower walls with flames of six different colors, two of each color. Here's a picture for reference (ignore the poker chips, we were just using them to track elevation): https://imgur.com/a/TJrSJoP. The use of these will be explained in the Lair Action section below. You can use whatever colors you want, but I used red, yellow, orange, pink, green, and blue.
The boss herself was Zariel, but I deviated quite a bit from canon lore. In my version, she was a mortal warrior who ascended to being a celestial before falling to become Archduchess of Avernus. As a result, she wavered back and forth between her forms, following a pattern of Devil, Mortal, Angel, Mortal, and then repeat. She has different abilities based on what form she is currently in, and the transformation takes place at the beginning of each of her turns. Rather than deal with minions to balance action economy, I just gave her four turns, one after each of the players.
Without further ado, here she is.
 
Stats
Size: Large
HP: 400
AC: 21
Speed: 90 feet (flying)
Primary Stats: Str +8, Dex +6, Con +10, Int +8, Wis +8, Cha +10
Senses: True Sight
Immunities: Devil form - fire, poison, necrotic. Angel form - radiant, poison. Mortal form - cold.
 
Passive Abilities
Note - When I say "round" in the descriptions, I mean a full set of turns, regardless of whether that is, for example, round 2 of combat or the second half of round 2 and the first half of round 3.
Regeneration: Zariel heals for 10 HP at the beginning of her turn unless she is at 0 HP or her healing has been disrupted. When Zariel takes on her Angel form, she will not heal if she has received necrotic damage in the last round of combat. When Zariel takes on her Devil form, she will not heal if she has received radiant damage in the last round of combat. When Zariel takes on her Mortal form, she will not heal if she has received force damage in the last round of combat.
Ascendant Rage: When Zariel takes damage, she gains one stack of Rage. She can only gain one stack per source of damage. (Not sure how to word this, but like Scorching Ray = 3 stacks, multiattack = 2 stacks, but attack + smite from a paladin = 1 stack. Generally, multiple rolls = multiple stacks.) Each stack makes Zariel deal 1 additional damage to any creature she damages and makes Zariel take 1 less damage from any source of damage. Zariel loses all stacks of Ascended Rage if she does not take damage from a hostile creature for a full round of combat.
Incapacitation Resistance: Zariel has advantage on any saving throws for which a failure would cause her to be incapacitated. (I did this to avoid her getting locked down too easily, but I didn't want full magical resistance to deny casters doing good damage.)
Legendary Resistance: The standard three uses.
 
Lair Action
Zariel expends the energy in one of the torches around the room, causing the torch to go dark and empowering Zariel in some way. The effect of each is as follows:
The effect can be dismissed by picking up the other torch of the same color and using it to color the 4 white flame torches in the center.* If successfully dismissed in this way, the colored torch the players were using goes dark, the white flames return to the center torches, and Zariel cannot use that effect again. If Zariel uses a subsequent lair action to change effects rather than having it forcibly dismissed, the power returns to the initial torch and it regains its colored flame.
 
* I allowed this to happen for free as long as they were adjacent to the white torch they wanted to color. This way, the players were only limited by their movement rather than action economy. Feel free to adjust depending on how much of a stickler you are for the rules.
 
Actions
Devil form
 
Angel form
 
Mortal form
 
I think that covers everything, so let me know what you think or if you have any questions. Just wanted to share what turned out to be a fun fight for my group.
submitted by frezzyisfuzzy to DnDBehindTheScreen [link] [comments]

Stories from 12 years of Casino Industry

I was asked to make a post about some stories within the Casino grounds so I thought I'd share. I have many so I'll do my best to pick the better ones.
Some back information: I've been a Casino Dealer for 11 years, I've been a supervisor for five years, and I've been a Surveillance Operator for one year. I've worked at three properties, none of which are connected or owned by the same company. I've worked on : Government/Private/Native American owned casinos.
  1. From Hero to Zero.
At my first Casino, I was one of the first group of people who were trained to deal Roulette . After 4 weeks of working 6PM-3AM then doing roulette training from 3AM-8AM (Not paid) , I actually really enjoyed the game and after about six months I became extremely quick at the number game and the pace of the action was steady with very low margin of errors. Young man walks in, cashes in for $500. He buys in for $2 chips and just loads the board. After a few spins and pretty decent hits, he then changes his chips from $2 to 5$ then to $10 and racks his winnings up to $10,000. It was then, five spins in a row, he loaded the board with some pretty gross bets, and every spin I would hit the ONE number with either NO CHIPS on it, or maybe 1 chip , He lost all $10,000 in a matter of minutes. He leaves , and I go on break. After my break I was going back to the same table and wouldn't you know it, the same young man walks in and cashes in another $500. He tells me he just sold his car outside and this is all that he had left. So we do the same deal, buys in for $2 chips, then slowly starts betting $5 chips, $10, $25...and he makes $10,000 AGAIN. Within the next 25 minutes it was straight agony. Every spin, same thing, he would bet $2500 in chips, and win only $250, $400, and after about a half hour he lost it all . Never saw the guy again.
2) Man down
At this property, we are 24 hours for table games. It's currently 5AM , and I'm dealing some $25 Blackjack to this guy. He's probably early thirties , heavy guy. He's sober as can be, but right away I can tell he's been losing. We know how much you've bought in for, how much your down, or up, and I could see he was down $2000+. After about twenty minutes of pure losing, his temper starts to flare.At this point I now have two other guests at my table. Drinking coffee, not saying a word, just losing their money. After losing hand, after hand, this guy looks me straight in the eye, seized up, starts shaking, he can't move. He tries to punch towards me and smashes his stack of chips all over the place and falls backwards to the floor. I call for security, we cannot touch him due to liability . I can't move from my table because, well, liability / casino cash property, all I can do is try to talk to him. As I'm doing so, these other two woman who are sitting at my table just look at me and one says "OK, dealer, cmon lets go " as she taps the table telling me to start dealing and forget about the guy having a stroke on the floor. As security takes him to the ambulance out front, I had to stay behind for a couple minutes and give a statement. I go on break. I come back, and 45 minutes later, he comes right back in with a oxygen tank and keeps gambling for the remainder of the morning.
3) You get a dildo, and YOU get a dildo!
On a late summer Saturday night, we had a large event for these massive muscle guys/strongman competition type thing. After their show, I'm at the roulette table , and five of these boys come over to play. They were absolutely hilarious. They were feeling pretty good, cashed in somewhat large amounts and I could tell this was going to be a fun time. After about a hour of dealing to these guys, it's almost midnight, everybody is pretty hammered , I spin the ball, and all five of these guys take out these god damn (what I can only tell was) two feet purple dildos from inside their pants, and wiping them around in the air. The ladies were just loving it, one of the dildos landed in the roulette wheel and we had to shut the table down to re-calibrate the wheel to make sure nothing had been changed. I just remember that night was so much damn fun, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I would never forget it.
4) Full Moon
On this day, I was actually training dealers / supervising them on small games like Three Card poker. We opened the table at 10AM, and this older man came and sat down . He played all day. The jackpot was $21,000 and that was pretty high for this table. He played, and played and played. He's one of the players where you know he's wearing a diaper because he's been drinking coffee/pop all day and hasn't moved in eight hours. As the day went on, this man never moved from his chair. Getting closer to midnight, he was aggravated and said "I need to go have a smoke, I'm getting killed in here". He left, and the very next hand, the lady beside him was dealt the jackpot . He didn't say much, but you could just tell he just hated life at that very moment because had he not gotten up, it would of been his hand. The man calmly took his cane , his hat, jacket, coffee, and left. The next morning I found out when he did leave he drove his car straight through his bank and was arrested.
5) Slick Robber
I actually give props to people who can actually pull this off. This story may confuse you so I'll try and explain things as best as possible. A lot of casinos have machines as soon as you walk through the front doors. A man walks up to one of these machines and sticks in HIS $100 bill. He doesn't gamble it, instead he hits the cash out button and gets a $100 TITO ticket where he then takes the ticket to the ATM machine to get his $100. Now remember, his Original $100 is in the slot machine. He then takes the $100 from the ATM and goes back to the same machine, and repeats this process over a hundred times. Essentially he's taking money from the ATM, and loading up the Slot Machine . Now he knows he can't do it too much because if the slot machine gets full of money, the machine will shut down and the slow attendant will have to take all the cash out. So he deposits over $10,000 , then has a small crowbar, he cracks the machine open and makes a run out the front door. To my knowledge he was never caught . But damn, that was pretty smart .
EDIT:
6) Mental Health is a thing.
10PM man walks in to play some high limit BlackJack. This guy knows the game and played well. Dressed nice, drank juice/tea , a little bit of a attitude, cashed in over $10,000. When this man was half way down his buy in, he said something a long the lines of "If I don't win here tonight, I'm going to go set myself on fire." I wasn't sure if he was serious because when people are down, they tend to say a lot of nonsense. I actually left early that night, and from a third party was told he did exactly that in the parking lot. The next day it was clear something terrible had gone wrong in the parking lot .
EDIT:
7) Nothing good happens after midnight
After a busy Saturday night, I was dealing a mix of games, and during this story I was in the middle of Blackjack. I had one young kid (probably 19) sitting in the middle, one older male probably in his later 40's sitting beside him on his right, and I had a really nice couple in their 20's sitting together at the other side. This young kid wasn't playing just sort of watching, and ever time the old man won he would give this young guy some of his winnings. The older man, was a wine drinker, and he had black between all of his teeth, I'll never forget. He's a little drunk but nothing terrible. As the night goes on, the older man goes and uses the washroom, at which point the couple asked the young guy "Oh was that your dad?" and the young guy says "Hah, no I wish!". The couple and I just looked at each other. This old guy, was in complete control over this kid. Absolutely disgusting. The night ends, and I find out the couple called a few of their friends, and they all waited outside by this old mans truck and beat the living hell out of him. 40 years old, sleeping with a 19 year old, completely brain washed . Very weird.
8) That one co-worker where you just wish they would quit.
One of our co-workers, nice guy but had a very big ego and we as employees just sorta left him alone. One day he had enough of the atmosphere and quit. Now usually when you quit, you cannot come back until you paperwork is finalized. How ever, HR was in that day, and he was given the paperwork the very next day. He came in, cashed in $1000, and made $50,000 in about a hour at the Baccarat table. My manager, was extremely annoyed, because now this guy is just mocking the casino and having the time of his life (Thanks for the big tip by the way :) ) and so he decides to call it quits. He wants to ban himself and he wants $50,000 in cash. The casino says Nope, we are going to give you a cheque. Now here's the thing, most business people will take the cheque, how ever you CANT CASH the cheque until the following monday because it's on that day where the funds are available. The casino on the other hand will cash their own check in anytime , because they want you to play. So this guy pretty much said go to hell I want my cash, and he called the police. Police show up, and management promptly gave him the cash.I though it was absolutely hilarious .
​
9) No good deed goes un punished
I was dealing Three Card Poker, and the jackpot was around $17,000. This old man (a regular) was sitting there all day grinding it out. Super nice guy, always a pleasure to deal to. Well, after hours of playing, he stands up and says "Hey john!, can you come here for a minute?" so his buddy John comes over. He says to John "I need to go take a piss real quick, can you play my card until I get back?" John agrees . John takes the chips and I stop him and explain he can't play his friends chips, he needs to cash in and play his own. And he does. Welp, second hand out and bam, doesn't he win it. The old man comes back and is so happy, he can't believe it. John, took his $17,000, didn't say a word to his "buddy" and walked away. I never felt so much hatred in all my life. Didn't give him a dollar, not a thank you, nothing. The old man sits back down again, the progressive resets to $2500, and he sat there grinding away again.
10) The Top Knot
I had this player , young guy, who was born into a fortune. One of his relatives passed away and left him a pretty big sizable amount of money, so he played poker every single day for the rest of his days. I will add, he IS a good player. I did not enjoy his company just because of the "Know-it-All" attitude, but he was good. We'll call him John. John is 5'10, and well build, with muscle. John also decided today was the day to show off his Top Knot. (google top knot if you're not sure what I mean) So he sits down, and he's absolutely KILLING the table. Every hand, after hand, after hand. And because he's in such a good mood, he's playing any two cards, calling any $500 bet, and he's just dominating. This one guy at the table decided he had enough. He got up, without saying a word and left. A moment later, he comes back in, walks behind John, and takes a pair of scissors , and cuts off his Top Knot. I for one couldn't believe it, dying laughing inside, and it just turned into one big brawl. That was a good day.
11) That one bad seed
One of my best friends who I haven't seen in YEARS ended up being part of the crew. Was kind of nice to catch up. We never really got along as we grew up because he has a very high picture of himself . He wanted that 10/10 woman. A mansion, and a new Corvette. So every month or so we would all go up to the other casino to play. I myself would bring no more than $500, but I couldn't understand how this guy (we'll call him Kyle) was spending THOUSANDS of dollars at the tables. So this wen on for a few months. Well, one day, as we're closing the casino, he and I are in the High Limit room and we're getting ready to close the tables. We are told to take the chips out, count them, put them back, sign this piece of paper and that's it. Well as the supervisor was locking the tray, the piece of paper fell to the floor, so she asked Kyle to grab the piece of paper. As he bends over, a great big $500 chip falls right out of his sock. Kyle was fired immediately , but it all made sense. They offered Kyle a deal where if he replaced all the stolen chips they would not make it public. Not sure how that turned out.
12) If I ever decide to write a book, this will be the last chapter: <3
After working at my first Casino for five years, I met a Indian woman who was visiting from another part of the country. During this time I was explaining a game to her, which honestly I don't think she even cared. She explained she was visiting and sight seeing , and that was that.Well, two years later I ended up moving to the other side of the country and transferred casinos, and low and behold she worked there as a Dealer. We got married , and it's been 5 years.
13) The Tip
One of our tables that we've had for a couple years had a progressive jackpot that had reached $100,000. The dealer at the table was sitting pretty lonely. Nobody really played the game because people knew it was extremely difficult to win the jackpot. My memory is a tad foggy, but you somehow needed to flop the royal flush. This young guy sits down and says to the dealer, we'll call him John. "John, if you pay me that jackpot, I will tip you $10,000" Well John started dealing, and about a half hour into his shift, he F*cking did it. He dealt him the royal. And you know something?This young lad, kept his word, and he made sure there was a audience, and he tipped exactly $10,000. That was a moment right there. That pay cheque was real nice. I think we all got about $500 more than usual. The moment that jackpot was awarded they got rid of the table because the money it was making was not near what the casino wanted. I'm sure there have been bigger tips at other casinos, but that was something special .
14) The Lawsuit
Now this story I'm going to have to beat around the bush a bit due to the nature of what happened. I can't won't answer any questions that you may have on this topic other than what I have to say because it had a lot of publicity . The waitresses at this casino had to wear very thin sexy clothes. Not borderline legal, but it was noticed. One day they called all the waitresses to come in and explained they were changing their outfit to something even more sexier. Now these new dresses were very very borderline legal . The staff said No way. We're not wearing that.So , friday night comes, and the staff work their whole shift, then at the end of their shift were called into a meeting and were all fired. Welp, one of those ladies father was a pretty big time lawyer. Brough the casino to court and won. They won big. Good for them. We had no waitresses for a couple days haha.
Thanks for reading along, I have many more I can add as the day goes on, those were just some off the top of my head. Feel free to ask any questions of the Casino industry. I don't really have many stories about the surveillance department because that's the one area where I can't really say a whole lot due to its privacy and contracts I was and still am under.
submitted by viodox0259 to TalesFromTheFrontDesk [link] [comments]

Turning Random League of Legends Champions into a DnD Build (Attempting) Until I've Done all 152 (and Counting) Day 8: Twisted Fate

If I’m being completely honest, Twisted Fate is probably the hardest time I’ve had trying to figure one of these builds and probably the least confident I’ve been on one, but mama didn’t raise no bitch and I’m shooting my shot.
submitted by BestBaconatorNA to 3d6 [link] [comments]

‘We just annihilated them’: Revisiting the 2000 Giants’ NFC title game rout - The Athletic

Ernie Accorsi is a wreck during games. The long-time football executive, best known for his tenure as general manager of the New York Giants from 1998 to 2007, can barely stand to watch the action on Sundays. “You’re helpless up there,” he says of watching games from the press box. “You’re totally helpless.”
Typically, during his most nervous moments, Accorsi would head down to the ground level of a stadium and walk the corridors, periodically peering in through the tunnels to check what was happening on the field — determining the rest by crowd noise.
Twenty years ago, Accorsi had the most relaxing fourth quarter of his life as an executive. During the NFC Championship Game at Giants Stadium, he ditched the sterile press box, headed down to field level and, instead of pacing, stood proudly in the tunnel taking in the scene. The Giants, underdogs that day, were leading the visiting Vikings, 41-0.
“Standing there in the tunnel, just feeling the electricity in the crowd because they knew it, they were chanting ‘Super Bowl,’” Accorsi remembers, “that was one of the great feelings I’ve ever had in my life.”
Entering the 2000 season, the Giants were nobody’s idea of an NFC contender. They had missed the playoffs the previous two seasons and five of the previous six. They hadn’t won a playoff game since Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor wore blue, and head coach Jim Fassel was coaching for his job in his fourth season.
That tension reached its zenith the week of Thanksgiving. A promising start had crashed in back-to-back home blowout losses, first to the frontrunning Rams and then to the mediocre Lions. The morning before Thanksgiving, New York was 7-4, in third in the NFC East, and thanks to tiebreakers on the outside of the NFC playoff picture.
John Fox, defensive coordinator: The team was pretty low after that game with Detroit … I can remember at the team prayer after that game thinking, “God, we’re not very good.”
Fassel: Every team has ups and downs. It’s the way you handle it as a coach. You’ve got to have a, I don’t know, a belief to each other about what we’re going to do. I believed in those guys. I believed that we had that. I told the coaches that we’re going to remain positive.
In his Wednesday gathering with the media, Fassel expressed that belief memorably.
“If you’ve got the laser, put it right on my chest, I’ll take full responsibility. I’m raising the stakes right now,” he said. “If this is a poker game, I’m shoving my chips to the middle of the table. I’m raising the ante. Anybody who wants in can get in, anybody who wants out can get out: This team is going to the playoffs.”
The New York Times called it “a passionate, unsolicited and wholly uncharacteristic speech” from “the Mister Rogers of football.”
Bob Papa, radio broadcaster: Everybody viewed it as a little shocking, which gave it more credence. That’s something that (Bill) Parcells would do, or a coach with a different disposition would do. It was out of character for Fassel, and that helped it carry more weight and resonate with everybody inside the building.
Fassel: It’s our job (as coaches) to make the adjustments. That’s our job. So I put it on the coaches, and the players knew that I put it on the coaches. And I included myself, you know?
Accorsi: He put himself on the line. In a situation like we were in, I never worried about if somebody stirs something up. If everything’s going smoothly and we’re 9-1, don’t disturb the waters. But in that kind of situation, throw caution to the wind. I’m not saying that was the reason, but it turned out that it helped us because it got us stimulated. It caught everybody’s interest.
Fox: Our team did respond. It was like, “OK, our leader has said he’s all-in, so we better be all-in.”
Keith Hamilton, defensive tackle: He didn’t mess around. Him coming out saying that meant a lot to the team, it uplifted everybody. I remember practice was upbeat, and we took care of business.
Papa: I thought it was a stroke of genius by Fassel to do it as they were getting ready to play the Cardinals, who weren’t a very good team. It was the perfect game to give the team confidence. He pressed the exact right button at the right time.
The Giants beat backup quarterback Dave Brown in Arizona, 31-7, that weekend, then upset Washington on the road 9-7 the following week when Eddie Murray missed a late field goal.
Accorsi: If Murray makes that kick, I don’t think we make the playoffs.
The Giants stretched their winning streak to five to close out the season with victories over the Steelers, Cowboys and Jaguars. Thanks to second-half swoons by St. Louis and Minnesota, the Week 17 win over Jacksonville clinched home-field advantage for New York. The Giants dispatched the division-rival Eagles for a third time that season in the Divisional Playoff, setting up an NFC Championship Game against the Vikings. Although the road team, Minnesota was favored by two points.
“(The Giants) surprised me, I think they’ve surprised everybody,” John Madden said pregame on the Fox broadcast. “The keyword is they’ve done it as a team … Today they’ve got to do more than that.”
Jessie Armstead, linebacker: Going into that game, they were saying nobody could stop that offense.
The Vikings had a 1,500-yard rusher in Robert Smith, two 1,000-yard receivers in Randy Moss and Cris Carter and a Pro Bowl quarterback in Daunte Culpepper.
Fassel: I thought we could beat them. I thought it was going to be a close game.
Accorsi: If you look at that offensive lineup, I kidded John Fox: “The Vikings score 400 touchdowns between midnight and 8 in the morning when I try to sleep.” Fox turned to me and said, “We might shut them out.”
Fox: We matched up pretty good. Our defensive front was very good, so I thought we could handle the run game pretty well. They had two big wideouts, we had two big corners.
They had a little bit of a tendency where when they were in shotgun it would be a pass and when the quarterback was under it was run. So we had a couple of automatics in the game based on that backfield set that would permit us to play an extra guy in the box. That was pretty advantageous to us as well.
Fassel: I really thought in my head, these guys think they’re coming in here to kick our ass, and that ain’t gonna happen. I did stuff to jab our team. I wanted to make sure my team understood this is the highest scoring team in the league and everybody’s betting on them. To use that kind of thing. They’re betting on them, they’re gonna kick our ass. And had fun with it.
Hamilton: We knew they couldn’t beat us. The coaching staff knew they could not beat us. We were confident.
That confidence existed on the other side of the ball, as well. While the media posited that a characteristically cold and windy day at Giants Stadium would behoove the home team, offensive coordinator Sean Payton was praying for better weather. When he saw a mild forecast, he confidently told his offense it could hang a hundred on Minnesota’s defense. He dubbed it “Air Force week,” building a game plan around quarterback Kerry Collins’ arm rather than the team’s traditional running game.
📷Amani Toomer finished the game with six catches for 88 yards and a touchdown. (Stan Honda / AFP via Getty Images)
Papa: He thought the Giants could pass all over the Vikings. We started to get a sense they were licking their chops. Talking to the players, they couldn’t wait.
Fassel: I could see it; I knew we were good the way we warmed up, the way we talked. And it was good we could play at our place.
Giants Stadium was packed with fans waving white towels well before the 12:30 p.m. kickoff, riled up by honorary captains Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson and Ottis Anderson — who spent the rest of the day on the sidelines with the team.
Accorsi: It was electric in there. It really was.
Fox: A lot of people don’t realize that’s way more electric than the Super Bowl. It doesn’t have the meaning of the Super Bowl, but as far as the stadium atmosphere with real fans, it’s pretty wild.
Armstead: You had all the legends. You realize you weren’t just playing for yourself. When you go to the sidelines, those guys were out on the field and you had to perform.
Hamilton: Looking at Lawrence Taylor and looking at Harry Carson, you can’t even make that up. They’re on the sidelines; that’s a dream come true. That’s everything. I don’t know how to put that into words.
It was the offense that set the tone, though. Winning the toss and electing to receive, the Giants marched 74 yards on four plays, culminating in Collins’ 46-yard vertical seam touchdown strike to Ike Hilliard. The Vikings fumbled the ensuing kickoff, New York defensive back Lyle West recovered, and Collins hit fullback Greg Comella on a wheel route for another touchdown on the next play. In 143 seconds, the Giants were up 14-0.
Hamilton: That gave us a jolt. We weren’t used to the offense doing too much.
Armstead: Our thing was, if our offense scores 17 points, we’ll win the football game.
Papa: Everything they talked about during the week was starting to unfold. But you were still incredulous because you kept waiting for the Vikings to get their mojo going, and it never happened.
Fox: It was 14-0 and I’m not sure anybody had broken a sweat yet.
“I don’t think in their wildest dreams could they have dreamt this,” said Madden on the broadcast.
The onslaught did not stop there. The Giants hounded Culpepper into quick throws and frustrated Moss and Carter with physical coverage. And the “Air Force” approach continued on offense, as Collins meticulously picked apart the Minnesota defense in a first half for the ages.
He hit Joe Jurevicius in the back of the end zone to make it 24-0 early in the second quarter. “This is unbelievable!” said Madden. Pat Summerall added, “I thought the Giants had a chance, but wow!”
📷Joe Jurevicius had just two catches for 15 yards but one went for a touchdown. (Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport)
With the seconds ticking down in the first half, Collins found Hilliard for a second time in the end zone for a 34-0 lead.
Collins finished the half 23-of-34 for 338 yards and four touchdowns — already a franchise record for passing yards in a playoff game (and 101 more yards, incidentally, than Collins combined for in New York’s two other playoff games that season). On Fox, Terry Bradshaw called it “the most impressive half of football by a quarterback and an offense I’ve ever seen.”
It was a validating performance for Collins — and for the team that signed him at his low point. He had been the fifth overall pick in the 1995 draft by Carolina, leading the Panthers to the NFC Championship Game in his second season. But by the time he was a free agent, he’d been waived by Carolina, had played poorly in a cameo with New Orleans, had battled alcoholism and been accused of racism.
Fassel got emotional talking about Collins’ performance that day.
Fassel: It was fabulous. I’ll tell you this: Some of this stuff coming back to me really means a lot. Kerry was out. People cut him, we picked him up, and nobody really thought Kerry Collins was going to be a great quarterback. He was just amazing. He came in and he was a leader. He played so confidently, like “This is my game, guys, I’ve got them.” And that carried to the whole team.
The 34-point halftime lead remains the largest in the history of the NFC Championship Game.
Hamilton: That was amazing. I couldn’t have been prouder of the preparation that went into the game, the things (the offense) did, and they excelled. They just took off.
Fox: Payton had said (before the game), “How many you gonna need?” I told him 31. Well it was 34-0 and we were running in and he said, “Is that enough?” I said, “Hell no!”
Fassel: I told Fox (at halftime), “If they score 35 points, you’re fired!”
Armstead: Nobody’s going to come back on our defense at 34-0. That’s impossible. There was no way with the guys we had on that defense that we’d tolerate 14 points, nevertheless 34.
Culpepper fumbled on the first play of the second half, with Collins throwing a fifth TD pass moments later, this time to Amani Toomer. “The Viking defense looks like it’s chairs,” said Madden. Later, he added, “The Giants have broken the Minnesota Vikings’ will.”
Hamilton: There’s no question. You’ve been fighting a man all day for a couple hours, the look in their eyes is a different look. Ain’t no colorful words for it. They know when it’s time to go home.
📷The Giants sacked Culpepper four times and intercepted him three times. (Ezra Shaw / Allsport)
Collins was replaced by backup Jason Garrett with 12:53 remaining in the fourth quarter; the Giants proceeded on a 19-play drive to run out the clock. It’s tied for the seventh-largest margin of victory in an NFL playoff game in the Super Bowl era. An underdog has never won by more.
Armstead: We were mad at Coach Fassel. We were like, “Hey, let’s get 50!”
Fassel: I don’t think I’ve ever been in a game like that … We just annihilated them. It wasn’t luck, it wasn’t like at the last minute. We just kicked their butt right from the beginning.
Armstead: You know how hard it is to win a ballgame in the National Football League, to be in the playoffs against a team that was predicted to be in the Super Bowl — to beat them 41-0 was the most amazing thing about it.
Papa: I’ll say to this day, it’s the greatest win and the greatest performance by a Giants team in the history of that stadium.
Fox: Watching them construct that stage at the end of the game, I can remember looking at my three sons saying, “We’re going to the freakin’ Super Bowl!” Everybody in the league — whether you’re a coach, scout, an administrator, an owner, a player — that’s your goal: to go to the Super Bowl.
Hamilton: Just to be a part of that, in that atmosphere, the fans were happy because they came to the game to watch a winner. I was happier for them than for me.
Armstead: We were on a real high. I wish we could have played that following week against Baltimore.
The high, of course, didn’t last. Two weeks later in the Super Bowl, Collins was intercepted four times and the Giants didn’t score an offensive point against the record-setting Ravens defense. They lost Super Bowl XXXV, 34-7.
Accorsi: As a franchise that has won four Super Bowls, that’s why that team doesn’t have a great legacy.
But for one day, they were as good as the Giants had ever been.
Fassel: One thing, as a coach, when the guys go out and play so good, you do have to think to yourself: I guess I handled them pretty good this week.
submitted by cornbread36 to G101SafeHaven [link] [comments]

Adventure: Ship (Ch. 17)

First l Previous l Next
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An ocean of red surrounded him, stretching as far as the eye could see. The landscape was featureless, just a constant crimson that engulfed even the horizon. Picking up a foot he took a step forward, then he felt it, the feeling of something breaking beneath his feet. It reverberated through his leg, the ripples from the disturbed crimson surface spread outwards from him as the feeling spread inwards. He gritted his teeth, the feeling wouldn't relent, the ocean was draining away, a sense of dread filled him, he didn't want to see, he didn't want to know what he stepped on, but it just kept draining. He would see it soon, he would know, he didn't want to, he didn't want to, he didn't want to, he didn't want to, he didn't...
David woke with a start, he was breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably in a cold sweat. He took a few deep breaths and rubbed his face to wake himself. Just a dream. He brought his breathing back down to normal and looked at the clock on the wall, It was early morning. David sighed and laid his head back down, he would doze a bit till it was a more appropriate time to wake. At least he tried to, he couldn't seem to get even a nap in. Cursing it all he just grabbed the controls for the entertainment system to find something to preoccupy himself.
He swapped through a series of shows over the next couple of hours. He watched recent news for a bit, then a couple of different nature documentaries on various planets, and then a brutal version of football where the players were all remotely piloting heavy robots they could slam around with impunity. Eventually the hospital came to life again and the Vildune doctor entered into his room.
It gave him a quizzical look before speaking. "Oh, you're awake, didn't expect you to be up this early."
David gave a smile in return. "Yeah I guess I'm just an early riser." He turned the entertainment system off so he could properly listen.
"Well since you are up, we could start your final examination so we can get you cleared to leave."
David perked up a bit. "Sounds like a plan to me." The doctor started testing his body, poking, prodding and recording his reflexes. He shined a light in his eyes and questioned it's reflective properties, to which David gave a summarized explanation. The doctor was intrigued but didn't push him for more details, instead continuing with the examination. He finished by having him stand and conducting a basic mobility test. David went through a range of motions and stretches to make sure everything was working as intended.
Content with the tests the doctor had David sit. "Looking good, everything seems to be in order. Do you feel that something's off or otherwise not operating as it should?"
David just shook his head. "No everything feels fine."
The doctor nodded. "Alright, once I submit this form you'll be cleared to leave, if you could just sign here, thank you, any questions?"
Something popped into his head that he had forgotten. "Actually yeah, where did my stuff go?"
"You mean your pants? We were keeping it stored for you after we had it cleaned."
"Was there a blue scale in one of the pockets, do you still have that?" David was getting concerned.
"Yes I believe there was, we stored it with the pants if that's what you are wondering about."
David let out a relieved sigh. "Thanks, I would like that returned to me please."
The doctor nodded. "Of course, a nurse will bring your effects as well as a new printed shirt and pair of shoes."
"Appreciate it doc, thanks again." The doctor gave him a smile then left to file the paperwork. David sat down on the bed again to wait for everything to be processed. It was maybe ten minutes before a nurse showed up to deliver his clothes. The pile was deposited on the bedside with a polite nod, then they left.
David noticed the scale on top and picked it up to examine it again, It still had its luster but the edges were scuffed and scratched now, a testament to its use in his escape. He smiled to himself, I should make this into a necklace or something. He set it aside while he stripped down and got his clothes on. After he was properly dressed he slipped the scale into one pocket and the credit chip into his other before exiting his room.
Stepping into the hall he inhaled deeply, enjoying the freedom that he had missed. A call from down the hallway got his attention as he turned to see Sky and Solomon sitting in some chairs, evidently waiting for him. He smiled and approached to pair who stood to greet him. "Morning Sky, Solomon, were you guys waiting for me?"
"Not for very long." Solomon responded. "We decided it would be appropriate to congratulate you on your release from the hospital."
David chuckled a bit. "Thanks, but it was just one night, no need to stand on ceremony."
Solomon did a 'shrug'. "Well it was that, and Sky here doesn't seem to want to let you out of his sight." Sky snapped to Solomon with a look of betrayal before looking at the ground embarrassed.
David laughed and ruffled his head feathers a bit. Sky actually flinched a little at that, and a needle of sadness pierced David's heart. "Don't worry Sky I'm not going anywhere fast. I got to contact my boss and let them know the situation, then I have to get a new ship, supplies, equipment and a general sense of what I'm going to do next." Sky just nodded and continued staring at the floor. "Well, I'm going to go send a message, so you guys can wait for me at the front if you want."
With a nod they left to wait and David went off at a brisk pace to the public terminals. Following the signs on the walls he found them fairly quickly and signed in to his account. Labeling the message as an emergency situation update, he summarized the events of what transpired to the best of his abilities.
Before he hit send, he hesitated as he thought about something. His boss technically did belong to a branch of the government so maybe they could pull some strings for him. He added a p.s. to his letter asking for a favor and sent off the message. With that done he signed out of everything and left to meet up with Sky and Solomon.
He found them waiting in the lobby and with a wave joined up with them. "Sorry to keep you waiting. So, what's the plan for today then?"
Solomon responded. "I was going to research where I may be needed as a doctor or if there was a hospital that could use my services."
"Well wherever you go they will be lucky to have you. I think I'm going to get a new ship first, if you find out where you want to go, I can give you a lift so you don't have to hire a shuttle."
Solomon raised a manipulator at him. "I don't want to impose on you more than I have already."
David scoffed. "Impose? Come on, you're not imposing. We can just take a jump gate and be anywhere with another orbital station, and even if there wasn't a jump gate it would still be no big deal. Just accept the offer already, you might hurt my feelings if you don't." David got him with that one, his manipulators slumped a bit as he was caught between a rock and a hard place, and he knew it.
"Twist my tentacles why don't you. Fine, I will graciously accept your offer."
David smiled a devious little smile at his success. "Excellent, lets meet up later tonight to talk about things. If I remember correctly, I think there is a bar on level 23 called Zarg's bar 'n grill, sounds plain but they fix up a damn good drink. Lets meet around seven, standard Terran time, tonight for a bit of celebration and planning."
"Sounds good. I take it you are going to stay with David, Sky?" Sky was still embarrassed and just nodded. "Well then, I will see you both later." With that he turned and left leaving the two of them alone.
David turned to Sky who looked at him finally. "Well we should get going and find a new ship." Sky nodded and followed slightly behind him as they walked. They found an unoccupied lift and David set in a command to take them to the market level. Sky was being quiet the whole time and David felt kind of awkward with the little guy just standing there like some kind of attendant.
David decided he should try and start a conversation. "So how are you doing?"
Sky looked up at him quizzically. "What do you mean?"
"I mean with everything that's happened. You doing alright?"
Sky looked back down apparently thinking about it. "I'm not sure, I guess I'm a little nervous. I've never been anywhere but the Dread Throne before, I have no idea what to expect or do."
David bobbed his head a few times. "I see, well don't worry, I think you'll like freedom more than you know." A soft chime sounded in the lift and the door opened to reveal the market, bustling with life as people went to and from different shops and stalls talking to the various vendors selling goods from their planets. The diversity of life in the crowd was always exhilarating. Many different species walking, sliding, crawling, and flying all over the place while talking to the vendors, haggling and buying what they wanted, was energizing to say the least.
David was about to step out of the lift when he felt a hand grab onto his pocket. David looked down to see Sky, wide eyed, staring at the crowd of people like a deer in headlights before blinking a few times and noticing what he did. His hand quickly shot back down to his side and he mumbled a quick "I'm sorry."
David gave him a soft smile. "It's ok, just stay close and you'll be fine." Sky nodded and they exited together. David started weaving through the crowd Sky kept close to his side as he did. David found Sky's reaction to be quite funny as he stared at everything, mouth slightly agape like a little kid. Sky's gaze lingered on a vendor who was selling some hefty looking alien fruits, and David thought he might have saw Sky gulp a little bit at the sight of them.
Why not. David weaved his way over to the vendor with Sky in tow. Stopping in front of the stall the vendor gave him a warm welcome and insisted they buy his merchandise. David, not one to disappoint, scanned over the fruits for a moment before he saw one with good size and color to it. Selecting it from the pile, the merchant presented a device to pay with and David inserted his new chip into it, then scanned his hand. A second later a green light came on and the vendor gave him a polite bow in thanks for the patronage.
David turned back to Sky and presented the fruit to him. His eyes went wide as he stared at it, mouth hanging open, and David thought he might start drooling. He reached for it but stopped part way, hesitating. He looked up and David and asked "Can I?" Icy cold needles of sadness were everywhere in his heart now.
David managed to keep smiling and replied. "Yes, go ahead." Sky grabbed hold of the fruit with both hands and looked upon it like it was the most valuable thing in the world. He opened up and sunk his beak into the fruits flesh, slicing into it with an ease born of his natural affinity towards it's consumption. A look that could only be described as ecstasy flooded across his features as he practically melted on the spot, savoring every ounce of flavor.
David just smiled at his friends, but the sadness ate at his insides. This was probably the first real fruit Sky had eaten since he was a little kid. Anger at the snake bitch rose from the grave, but with nowhere to go, it evaporated into the ether. "Can you eat and walk Sky?" Sky snapped out of his own personal rapture and took a moment to process the question before giving him a quick nod. David smiled and started walking again, making sure he kept an eye on Sky as he ate his fruit so he didn't wander off.
He found a directory at a junction and looked over it for the shipyard. Target located he headed in that direction and into an interior lift which he keyed the correct sub level to go to. Sky had managed to finish an impressive amount of the fruit by the time they stepped out.
The entire level was dedicated to the creation and selling of ships of all shapes and sizes. The reception lobby was all clean polished metal with a large desk manned by three individuals of various species. David walked up to the desk with Sky behind him taking in the sights as he munched on his food.
A polite greeting was had and they asked how they could be of service. "Yes, I'm in the market for a high end exploration ship, powerful scanners, good for long journeys, and preferably a method of self defense." No way was he gonna be caught with his pants literally down again.
The individual talking to him gave him a once over before replying. "Such a ship would be quite expensive sir."
David felt a twinge of irritation, he knew he didn't look great in his plain white shirt and worn pants, but he adopted a smug grin. Pulling over the credit scanner he inserted his chip into it. "Is this enough?"
David watched with immense satisfaction as their eyes widened in surprise and they tripped over themselves trying to apologize. "M...my apologize sir, please follow me we will get you a custom ship to your exact desires." They proceeded to lead the pair down a hallway and into a private room.
The doors money opens, David mused. He sat in a really nice leather chair, Sky just finished the last of his fruit as he sat next to him. The receptionist excused themselves to retrieve a representative that could help them. They waited in the room for a few minutes before the door opened again revealing a four armed biped, Quallexen David believed the name was, fifth seat of the alliance. The light green skin on its body was indicative of the foliage of its planet, it had skin that looked like a lizards, its slender form was incredibly flexible putting even the best of earth contortionists to shame.
It entered and raised an eyebrow at the two of them for a quick moment before adopting its practiced business face. "Hello, my names Cathol, I heard you would like to order a custom ship?"
David nodded. "Indeed, I'd like to see all your options if you wouldn't mind." Cathol walked over and handed them a data-pad prompting a holo-display to appear in the middle of the room, and then sat across from them. David examined the information on the pad, a complete list of ship types, features, and cosmetic preferences. David looked across at the dealer who was apparently not expecting much from the pair. David fought to keep the smug look under control and began to make his selections.
Selecting the newest line of Venture series ships he sifted through the options and saw an impressive list of function and comfort items. He began selecting some of the options such as, nice pilot seats, lounge, gym, fabricator, and fully stocked kitchen. This got another raised eyebrow from Cathol but David wasn't done yet. Moving on to the functional features he specified complete control of the ship from the cockpit, Biometric scanners, Reinforced doors, localized environmental controls for each room, customized suites with one set to the preferences of Aoulooron's and the others defaulted to human preferences, shields as heavy as were allowed on a civilian vessel and equally heavy armament, then finished it off with a few cosmetic changes.
Cathol was now quite surprised by all the selections, but to their credit they did a fairly good job at hiding it. He cleared his throat before speaking. "Well sir, if you are done with your selections I can give you a quote." He used a data-pad of his own and input a few things, then a number appeared that was quite large. David had the money most definitely but his mother would strangle him if he didn't at least try and haggle it down.
"Seriously? I know its custom but I could probably get this same ship at a discount at Atlas station."
Cathol's brow furrowed a bit "Sir I assure you this is an accurate estimate of the price."
Tough cookie huh. "Alright Sky come on, we'll try at the next station." Sky looked slightly confused at what was going on but got up anyway and followed him towards the door.
"Sir, please wait, I can maybe adjust the price a bit for you." He tapped on his pad again and the number was shaved down a little bit.
David walked back into the room a little bit but didn't sit down. "You have my interest, but not my business yet."
"Sir you must be reasonable, this is a tall order to fill."
"I'm not asking for much Cathol, just a price that we can both be happy with at the end of the day." Cathol stared at him for a moment but David was putting on his best poker face. With a sigh Cathol tapped once again on the pad and the number dropped a little again. David gave a smile at the new price. "There we go, that is a more acceptable number." He sat back down in the chair. "Now how soon can I expect this to be done?"
"We have a ship in this model ready, we would just need to add all your preferred features. It should be done by tomorrow afternoon."
"Sounds good to me, where do I sign?" A image appeared on his pad, standard agreement for this kind of deal. He gave a quick once over of the forms and then signed his name at the bottom. Cathol now smiled and stood to offer him a hand, which David took.
"Pleasure doing business with you sir. Your order will arrive at hanger C on the 54th floor after midday tomorrow."
"Thank you Cathol, I will expect it then." Cathol escorted the pair to the exit and saw them off with a polite bow as the lift door closed. David released the tension in his body with a sigh. Sky was looking at him with a questioning look.
"What just happened?" He finally asked.
David chuckled a bit. "It's called haggling Sky, some places let you negotiate on the price, and sometimes you have to be aggressive about it." Sky just thought on it for a second before shaking his head apparently giving up on the concept for the moment. David chuckled again but turned his mind towards stocking his new ship and getting equipment. Time for some shopping.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As usual let me know what you think down below and of anything that could improve my writing.
submitted by XSevenSins to HFY [link] [comments]

Examining the Giants’ 2018 ‘miscalculations’ and their ongoing impact - The Athletic

Giants co-owner John Mara recently conceded what has been painfully obvious for three years.
“We definitely made some miscalculations in a number of areas in 2018,” Mara said after the Giants wrapped up the 2020 season.
Mara pinned Dave Gettleman’s 15-33 record in three seasons as general manager on those 2018 miscalculations. As a result, Mara is sticking with Gettleman for a fourth season due to greatly improved personnel moves last offseason.
Despite Mara’s clean slate, the Giants are still feeling the effects of the 2018 offseason. Every decision in roster building has a lasting impact and it has taken years to dig out from some of the misses Gettleman made in his first year on the job.
The Giants made a number of franchise-altering moves in 2018 and Mara didn’t specify which ones he viewed as miscalculations. So here’s an examination of the big moves from the 2018 offseason, why they didn’t work and how their impact has been felt in subsequent years.
• Sticking with Eli Manning
Quarterback Eli Manning was 37 years old and clearly in decline when Gettleman was hired. Manning had two years remaining on his contract, but the Giants could have cut him to create $9.8 million in cap savings while eating $12.4 million in dead money in 2018.
That was always a long shot and Gettleman made it clear that Manning was part of the plans in his introductory news conference, referencing a big game the quarterback had against the Eagles late in the 2017 season as evidence that the two-time Super Bowl MVP could still get the job done.
Would ownership have hired a general manager who advocated dumping Manning? Probably not. But Mara was adamant that there was no ownership mandate for Gettleman to make decisions geared toward one last run with Manning.
“That’s absolute nonsense,” Mara said last week.
In hindsight, cutting ties with Manning before the 2018 season would have been best for the future but it obviously would have been difficult to dump a franchise icon. But without even adding a successor in 2018, the Giants stuck with Manning again in 2019.
Cutting Manning in the 2019 offseason would have created $17 million in cap savings with just $6.2 million in dead money. The Giants, of course, took Daniel Jones with the sixth pick in the 2019 draft and he took over as the starter in Week 3 of his rookie season. Carrying Manning’s $23.2 million cap hit as a backup quarterback in 2019 was a poor use of resources.
• Signing Nate Solder
Even if there was pressure to build around Manning, Gettleman bears responsibility for the moves made with that objective in mind. Mara isn’t hands-on to the point where he dictates which specific players must be signed.
Signing left tackle Nate Solder to a four-year, $62 million contract with $34.8 million guaranteed was a gross miscalculation.
The Giants had a dire need at left tackle and Solder was the best option on the market. Anyone with a wi-fi connection knew that. But general managers don’t make seven-figure salaries for giving the biggest contracts to the biggest available names.
General managers earn their keep by evaluating all of the options and making decisions that give their team an advantage. Just look at what Solder’s former team did.
The Patriots determined Solder wasn’t worth the contract offered by the Giants despite seven solid seasons in New England. So the Patriots let Solder walk in free agency and traded a third-round pick to the 49ers for Trent Brown and a fifth-round pick. Brown counted just $1.9 million against the cap in 2018 and the Patriots didn’t miss a beat when he was plugged in at left tackle. In the process, the Patriots got a third-round compensatory pick in 2019 for Solder.
The takeaway: There’s always another option, so saying, “What else was Gettleman supposed to do?” isn’t an excuse for the Solder signing. And Gettleman had to have a Plan B at left tackle since the Giants’ top offensive line target in 2018 was guard Andrew Norwell, who signed a five-year, $66.5 million contract with the Jaguars. Once the Giants missed out on Norwell, they went all-in on Solder, which obviously hasn’t worked out.
Solder’s contract leaves the Giants in a tough spot after two disappointing seasons and an opt out for 2020. The Giants compounded the financial consequences by restructuring Solder’s contract before the 2019 season to create cap space. That move created $5 million in cap space in 2019 but added $2.5 million to the cap in the final two years of his deal.
Solder counted $5.6 million against the cap in 2020 during his opt out. He has cap hits of $16.5 million in 2021 and $18 million in 2022. The Giants can cut Solder this offseason to create $6 million in cap savings while eating $10.5 million in dead money.
The bottom line is the Solder contract was a major miscalculation and it continues to be a drain on the Giants’ finances.
• Other free agent signings
Whereas Solder was grossly overpaid, Gettleman’s other notable free agent signings in 2018 were simply poor evaluations.
Signing guard Patrick Omameh to a three-year, $15 million contract seemed reasonable. But the veteran was such a disaster that he was benched after six games and cut in Week 10 of his first season.
Linebacker Kareem Martin, who had familiarity with defensive coordinator James Bettcher from their time together in Arizona, was signed to a three-year, $15 million contract. Martin failed to make an impact in two seasons and was cut last offseason.
Giving running back Jonathan Stewart a two-year, $6.8 million contract wasn’t a big deal in terms of the cap implications. But Gettleman’s obstinate defense that the 31-year-old back hadn’t lost a step chipped away at his credibility when Stewart clearly had nothing left and was cut after one season.
In an ideal world, Omameh and Martin would have been established veteran starters on the 2020 roster. Instead, both were long gone. Misses happen in free agency. But it hurts that Gettleman signed them rather than keeping better players like Devon Kennard and Romeo Okwara, who have been far more productive with other teams since 2018.
• Trading for Ogletree
Like with the Solder signing, the Giants had a need at middle linebacker. So Gettleman took a big swing, sending 2018 fourth and sixth-round picks to the Rams for Alec Ogletree and a 2019 seventh-round pick.
It should have been a red flag that the Rams were looking to deal the 26-year-old Ogletree within a year of giving him a four-year, $42.75 million extension. Ogletree’s five interceptions in 2018 masked otherwise poor play. He struggled again in 2019 and was a cap casualty last offseason.
In all, Ogletree cost the Giants $20 million against the cap for two subpar seasons and a mid-round draft pick. Rebuilding teams shouldn’t give away draft picks and they should be cautious about adding high-priced veterans. The Giants violated both of those tenets with the Ogletree trade.
The Giants got it right at middle linebacker last offseason by signing Blake Martinez to a three-year, $30.75 million contract. If Gettleman had found a similar player in 2018, the Giants would have had better linebacker play in 2018 and 2019 plus an additional mid-round draft pick to develop.
• Trading JPP
The lone move Gettleman made during the 2018 offseason with the future in mind was trading defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul to the Buccaneers for a third-round pick. The trade came a year after former GM Jerry Reese gave Pierre-Paul a four-year, $62 million contract.
The trade left $15 million in dead money on the 2018 cap, but cleared a combined $37 million in cap charges off the books in 2019 and 2020. The Giants used the third-round pick on B.J. Hill, who had 5.5 sacks as a rookie and remains a solid rotational defensive tackle.
This trade looks worse in hindsight since Pierre-Paul has 30.5 sacks in the three seasons since the trade, which is tied for eighth-most in the NFL during that stretch. But dumping an aging player with a big contract for a draft pick wouldn’t have been a bad move if the Giants were rebuilding. The bigger problem is Gettleman’s inability to find a comparable replacement over the past three years.
• Picking Saquon
Using the No. 2 pick in the 2018 draft on running back Saquon Barkley is the decision that had the greatest impact on the franchise. The second pick is an incredibly valuable commodity that can make a seismic impact on a franchise, like when the Giants took Lawrence Taylor at No. 2 in 1981.
As Gettleman said, everyone saw him “drool all over myself” when evaluating Barkley in the pre-draft process. Barkley is supremely talented, but one of the main arguments against using a premium resource on a running back has been realized, since injuries have limited Barkley to just 31 of 48 career games.
The obvious alternative was taking a quarterback. It’s impossible to know how that would have turned out. No. 3 pick Sam Darnold has been a disappointment for the Jets, who may move on this offseason. No. 7 pick Josh Allen was a second-team All-Pro this season after a breakout Year 3 for the Bills. No. 10 pick Josh Rosen has been a complete flop and is already on his fourth team. So clearly there were a wide range of outcomes if the Giants took a quarterback instead of Barkley.
If the Giants took Allen and built a strong supporting cast around him like Buffalo has, maybe they’d be playing in the divisional round this weekend. And if they took Rosen, they’d probably already be back in the market for another quarterback.
The other option was trading back. We’ll never know if Gettleman could have received the package the Jets sent the Colts for the No. 3 pick (the No. 6 pick, two second-round picks in 2018, one second-round pick in 2019). Maybe if Gettleman had a better poker face about his commitment to Manning and infatuation with Barkley, the Jets would have been compelled to trade up to No. 2 to avoid having the Giants beat them to Darnold. But Gettleman admitted to never seriously considering offers for the pick because he was so dead set on taking Barkley.
The Colts took a three-time first-team All-Pro guard (No. 6 pick Quenton Nelson) and an excellent right tackle (No. 37 pick Braden Smith) with the first two picks from the Jets. They then traded the other second-round pick (No. 49) to the Eagles for the 52nd pick (edge rusher Kemoko Turay) and the 169th pick (running back Jordan Wilkins). They then used the 2019 second-round pick from the Jets (No. 34 overall) on cornerback Rock Ya-Sin. Turning the No. 3 pick into two stud offensive linemen, a starting cornerback, a rotational pass rusher and a backup running back is a master class in maximizing value.
Gettleman and Mara don’t view the Barkley pick as a mistake.
“I’m still happy that we have him,” Mara said last week. “I certainly expect him to be a Giant for a very long time.”
Again, we’ll never know if Gettleman could have secured the same offer or something similar to what the Colts landed for the third pick. But it’s tough to stomach how the team directly behind the Giants in the 2018 draft got so much more out of their premium pick.
• Extending Odell
Giving wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. a five-year, $90 million extension during training camp was the last big move of the 2018 offseason. There were rumors that the Giants could trade Beckham during the 2018 offseason, but they didn’t have much of a choice regarding an extension once they kept him.
Beckham had been a good soldier throughout the 2018 offseason so they rewarded him with the monster contract. Playing hardball with the team’s best player would have made for a rough start to first-year head coach Pat Shurmur’s tenure.
The Giants clearly had regrets, as they dealt Beckham to the Browns for safety Jabrill Peppers, a first-round pick and third-round pick after the season. Ultimately, the failed marriage resulted in the Giants paying Beckham $20 million for 12 games in the 2018 season. Even if the trade is viewed as a positive for the Giants now, the financial impact of the extension was significant.
Gettleman has acknowledged multiple times that his plan to win while rebuilding was flawed.
“As I’ve already admitted, ‘18 was not a stellar year, personnel-wise,” Gettleman said last week. “We’ve learned from our mistakes.”
If only it were that easy. There are consequences for such mistakes. The Giants just went 6-10 this season and have numerous holes to fill, yet they’re only projected to have the 19th-most cap space this offseason despite the benefit of having a quarterback on his rookie contract. Decisions like keeping Manning through the end of his contract and giving Solder a megadeal have financial implications that can’t be swept under the rug.
Mara and Gettleman both view the 2019 offseason as a step in the right direction. That’s debatable. The Giants certainly feel good about the Beckham trade despite the offense’s glaring lack of a No. 1 receiver. The lone big-ticket free-agent addition of the 2019 offseason — four years, $37.5 million for 30-year-old wide receiver Golden Tate — went about as poorly as the Solder signing. The evaluation of the 2019 offseason hinges on quarterback Daniel Jones, and the jury is still out on the sixth pick in last year’s draft.
“Our processes are better,” Gettleman said. “I think this past year showed the fruits of that, both in free agency and in the draft. I really believe strongly we’ll continue in that way.”
No one can dispute that Gettleman nailed free agency last offseason, while it’s too early to judge the draft. The Giants need a similar offseason this year as they continue to dig out of the hole created by the miscalculations of 2018.
submitted by cornbread36 to G101SafeHaven [link] [comments]

why is this happening to me ??? should i play on another site .

Hello this is my first post . I play on partypoker my screen name is GWABWAZ89 . I am by no means a professional poker player, i dont depend on poker for income i enjoy the game and i'd just like to not be a losing player which for the most part my graph says that im right at even ive played about 500 tournaments in the past 50 days . I've finished 1 place in a $3.30 bounty hunter tourney , as well as a first place finish in a $11 bounty hunter mtt... also finished 2 in a $22 bounty hunter tournament.
soo all I'm trying to say is that I am not clueless about how to play the game ok... sooo in the past 72 hours I've been experiencing an insane amount of consistent bad beats too the point where I am messaging support and asking if im being cheated . I have accepted and came to an understanding of variance .
Just thinking about what happened to me in the past 3 daYS JUst makes me mental and my mood is raging i wanna punch a hole in the wall soooo freaking bad but then ill have to pay for the damages so i can't do that .
I constantly constantly constantly have my opponents in bad shape... Once all the chips get into the middle of the pot not referencing to a 50/50 coin flip situation. conservatively lets say I'm %73 favorite and my opponent is a %27 underdog ...... how long can i expect to be getting 2 outer' d on the flop / AJ SUITED UP AGAINST ANY 2 RANDOM UNDERCARDS ... PRETTY MUCH DEAD ON THE TURN .?
Also is there any online poker rooms that can offer players insurance mid hand if the players specifically opt in to have this kind of arrangement. Because i think that would be a great way for good poker players to settle the emotional wreckage that comes with playing well above the rim good poker ...? I unfortunately had to adjust my play to the point where I don't play at all deep into the mtt tournament( I sit out until i hit the final table) . Because I've been set up soo many times when I'm the chip leader . THIS IS HOW I WON 2 OUT OF THE THREE TOURNAMENTS I PLAYED ON PARTYPOKER . I am absolutely results orientated and if it means sitting out before the set up hand/ before the break where 2 players get dealt premium hands and get the chips all into the pot . I will do that . Party poker or online poker is making me nitty scared poker player because of the unfair gaming software internet poker has to offer . I have a Bicycle deck of 52 cards and ive running my own simulations manually just to see how many time 2 outers happen in real life not the RNG reallll actual life ... ok and to my surprise my bigger pocket pair vs. my opponents under pair hits after 12 full run outs hits 1/4 time so why is it happening to me 9/10 times . To close id like to know if i'm playing the game of poker texas holdem incorrectly this whole ... meaning is the goal is to get all the money in with the best hand!?!?! ... or is that a mistake should i just bluff non stop and take the risk of getting raised called with crap because nothing i seem to be doing is going my way and i feel like the site is trolling me after im down to like one big blind .. I get dealt pocket Q Q and then im forced to be all in and the RnG DECIDES TO FLOP ME QUADS ......when im drawning dead when it matters to two outers last 50 all ins . Please someone respond to me I don't see the point of buying a poker training course if I continuously get the chips in the pot with the best hand ... Unless theirs a specific course on how to not play freaked out when i get a premium hand and just fold because i dont wanna bust out . Party poker is making me a not even call a 2.5 open with pocket 44. so disgusting think about it i won the tournaments because i avoided the set up traps .
submitted by GWABWA to poker [link] [comments]

Bad play begets bad play?

I played a long session of live $1/2 last weekend. It was brutal, total rollercoaster train wreck.
I sat down with $300 and started bleeding immediately. I had a ton of suited connectors that didn't pan out and was getting beat by slow played KK and there was one a-hole that was totally picking on me. He slow played AKdd and hit a flush on the river. Reraising me, putting me all-in. The straw that broke the camel's back is that I went all-in for my last $150 with QQ and he beat me with 85o when he double-paired the flop. He was also annoying, complaining about every single dealer. Mostly how they were 'disrespecting' him by, as he claims, looking surprised when he won. IDK, but I switched tables and this fucker is still staring me down. I was going to flip him off, but I just waved instead and he finally looked away.
Anyways, I'm at the new table and I'm still getting owned. I would bet my draws on the flop and turn and get reraised 3x. I would bet with top pair-top kicker, and get beat by a slow played two-pair or set. This table was FULL of talk between 3-5 players that were talking GTO strategy, and how to bet in previous situations. One guy bluffed a guy off a huge pot when he went all-in with 88 and guy laid down two pair, when a straight was on the board.
Finally, I said fuck it, and thought, it's time to fight fire with fire. BTW, I have a TERRIBLE table image and I'm in the game for $800 with maybe a little over $250 in front of me. I bet $10 from LJ with TT and get two callers. Flop is Ts4c5d. It's not super dry, but I decide to check. Hijack makes it $25, CO calls. I call. Turn is 9s. I check, Hijack makes it $50, with both call. River is Jh. So, I'm a little annoyed that I let the Straight get there. I check. HJ goes all-in for $165. CO doesn't take too long and calls. I have it barely covered and call. I win when HJ showed QTss for a pair and busted flush/straight draw. The CO had 45hh.
So, I'm thinking that I shouldn't have slow-played from the get-go. I'm thinking that I should've bet on the flop, and Cbet at least one street. I'm not unhappy with the check on the River as I was in bad shape. Any pointers to how to play it better?
One other hand in this vein was when I opened to $10 with A5hh and get one caller from a guy that was habitually reraising me. A guy that was talking game theory with the other guys, and the one who bluffed huge and won before with 88. (BTW, this guy busted later when he went all-in preflop, got called and lost when his 44 got beat when AJ paired on the flop) Flop is Qh2h6c I check and he checks. Turn is the 9h. I check my nut flush and he bets $25 and I call. The river is a 3c and I bet. I didn't even count my chips; I just grabbed a handful of chips and placed them over the line and the dealer counts $55. The guy looks at me incredulously and asks, 'what in the world do you have?' He then says he has to see what I have and calls. I turn it over and he says, 'ah, figured.'
These hands got me back on track. I ended up booking a win for +$52.
I'm not sure that I played either hand correctly, but I played a lot hands like this...passive and trappy, and won. But results be damned, that can't be the way to play good poker, right? But what happens when the rest of the table are wild, trappy aholes (under the guise of GTO experts) and you keep losing when you get reraised when you bet draws and strong pairs?
submitted by albone to poker [link] [comments]

Fallout 3 is better than Fallout New Vegas

I know ill face some heat but here is my maybe not so hot/ hot take.
Fallout 3 is better than Fallout New Vegas for one big reason: Atmosphere
In Fallout 3, each place you visit seems to be struggling to survive. Even places like Rivet City and Megaton. the world seems stressed and in a desperate, Doomer like state, struggle to survive,
For instance, Caps, the currency of the new American wasteland is hard to come by. Having over a few thousand caps in Fallout 3 is considered a lot of money. I remember getting excited when I actively saved over 4k caps. The real currency of the wastes is what you can trade. Not junk ( which kudos to Fallout 4 for making junk a viable commodity outside of trading for money, taking up weight, or making a sub par weapon) Primarily bullets, no weight, valuable to trade and use in battle. Kind of like the Metro series.
When it comes to leaving the safety of civilization in Fallout 3, you are greeted with the horrors of the wastes. Will it be Raiders, Super Mutants, Death Claws, Mirelurks, Feral Ghouls, or other monstrosities that roam the land? And that's only if you don't Piss someone off by being good or evil.
When you step out side of the gates to a city, and you look at the map. you see nothing. the world looks dead. the only signs of life are the spiritic gunfire of forces struggling to find their next meal. even the super mutants are putting up defenses and fighting to make it day to day. nothing feels safe in fallout 3, the good guys of the capital wasteland are few. the brotherhood is basically the only safe dudes. besides the outcasts, and other such groups.
In Rivet City, you might feel safe, or even megaton, or Tenpenny Tower. But inside you feel a great since of distrust for people. people who act friendly seem untrustworthy. Why should they be so friendly? Its a dog eat dog world. There are places even in the Capital Wasteland that are worse than it. take the Dunwitch building for example, enough said if you have been there. Fallout 4 tried to recreate the place but it came across as bad fan fic than the existential dread that that damn building makes you feel.
​
This is all in contrast to Fallout New Vegas, Vegas gets a lot of things right. The lore and NPCs related to fallout 1 and 2 are perfect. the writing for Characters and lore background is great too. Its one of the few videogames where the "villian" I.E Ceaser, had a backstory that made since and had a logical tale that was in many ways relatable, although with a dark outcome. Its great playing through the game and seeing you actions have consequences, seeing the world change around you. but then that is the first thing. It doesn't really,
In Vegas, the land will try to tell you that it will "sallow you up" or that its a horrible Quagmire of violence. but... its not. The game's main quest forces you down a path around the whole map that leads you too Vegas itself. you cant realistically just go to Vegas right off the bat. head north and you run into Cazador hell fest with high level bandits and raiders to boot. head east and its radscorpians, deathclaws, and powdergangers ( your first easy enemies). if you follow the path south they set out for you, you will be able to navigate the Mojave with little trouble. most threats can be handled easily. if you deicide to go wild and head west you will find A FUCKING MOUTAIN RANGE THAT BLOCKS 1/3 OF THE MAP.
When it comes to factions, New Vegas does great at diversity but most of your threating evil factions are hardly a threat to you the player. for example, the Legion prides itself in burning down villages and towns and enslaving any assholes they find wondering the trade routes. Except you that is. As a level 1 nobody, you can just stroll on though legion camps and NCR outposts, the Great khans camp, without so much as a threat! all you will get is. "Profligate!!!" or god forbid "Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter". In fallout 3, you cant really enter a single town or city without someone threating to shoot you for showing up or having to bribe your way into a place. Fallout new Vegas? the biggest hurdle? " Submit to a credit check"
Which goes into another issue, money, there is so much god damn money in fallout new Vegas you wont know what to do with it. 2000 caps? bitch please, I had that before I got to Novac. Fallout new Vegas has so much money that they needed two more currencies to manage it all. three if you count poker chips.
Fallout new Vegas feels like its trying to be hardcore but failing, the Lore 10/10, NPC world building and backstories 10/10, in game dealing with these things 4/10. Its hard to take the legion seriously when one charges you with his edge lord Romophile attitude with a manchette in hand while you are holding a belt feed machine gun. threats of slavery are all to real until you realize that the romanos wont try it on you, just look at you and go "Profligate".
And what's with the Anti establishment stance on the NCR. Dudes are literally like we will give you trade, protection, and jobs if you let us in. and people are like "BUT TAXES MMEEHHHH" Bitch, in the capital wasteland, MFs are happy to find some clean water, let alone a whole ass army that wont enslave them or kill them outright. (sorry Muties)
​
TLDR: Fallout 3 presences a better grim struggle for survival that is felt in the lore and in the game play. Fallout New Vegas's map is linear, NPCs are not threating are are basically try hards. the people of the Mojave are ungrateful.
Edit/futher development: has a general counter argument I've seen posted a lot in the replies is that NV is more a out organizing and managing a War and deciding who lives and dies and all that stuff, and it's not about the day to day struggle to survive...if that's the case, then why not play Hearts of Iron 4 mod Old World Blues? In that game you literally control a country and can establish laws do all the stuff in depth that I keep seeing posted on here... also highly recommend getting the Enclave Reborn mod with it. Its great.
Edit 2: I've also noticed a lot of people defend NV by saying " its different than the others a d it's still good" fair point, I can't argue that really, the same can be said for each fallout game. "Except 3. 3 bad and it's not a real fallout game, play metro if you want darkness". Really? That's the counter? What passes NV doesnt pass 3? Hmmmmmmmm.....
submitted by HalloweenHoggendoss to Fallout [link] [comments]

Subverted Expectations, Part 14 (By jimmyhopkinsbroh)

Two days had passed since you had taken in Lucas. You’re taking him to the vet today, then you’re going to the park with your fluffies. Everything was good with him, got his shots, then took him to Old City Pizza as a reward. The other fluffies were being watched by your neighbor, Max. Curly hair, relaxed eyes, kind of guy who’s nearly constantly high but still manages to have a steady job. Cool guy, real chill, loves fluffies but doesn’t have any of his own.
“Hey, Jack! Whoa! What are you wearing?” Sal is looking you over, obviously surprised by your outfit. You had decided to make the boy shorts and thighhighs apart of one of your outfits. Look, it’s comfy, and Philly has become one of the more progressive cities and you can finally express yourself now. Not like growing up in a tiny town where saying you were gay was like saying you were the devil incarnate.
“It’s comfy, alright?” Sal laughs. “Hey, don’t worry man, I heard that ‘femboys’ are popular with the internet today. Besides, it suits you. Certainly got the figure for it at least amirite?” You just sort of stare at him, one eyebrow raised. “I’ll, uh, I’ll be with you in a sec to take your order.”
“Daddeh, Wucas smeww pwetty nummies!” You laugh, putting him in one of the fluffy seats. “Yeah, this place always smells good.” Sal runs up to the table. “Alright, what can I get ya?” You look over the menu, thinking about what Lucas would like the most. “The regular for me, a small plate of spaghetti, and a plate of chicken tenders.”
“Comin’ right up! Also, I was distracted earlier by, uh, things, but I noticed that you have a new fluffy. What happened to the other three?” You scratch Lucas behind the ears. “The other three are at home with Max, Lucas here just had his check up.” Sal knew Max, and immediately started laughing.
“You sure you want your fluffies hanging out with a stoner? They might be listening to Pink Floyd when you get back!” He wipes a tear from his eye, clearly imagining the scenario in his head. “Oh, they already listen to Pink Floyd. But I made sure to let Max know that ‘toking’ is not allowed in the apartment. As much as I know he would love to smoke weed with a fluffy.” Sal lets out another hearty chuckle. “I’ll be back with your order.”
Sal arrived with the food, and you and Lucas proceeded to eat. “Before you try the spaghetti, want to try some chicken tenders with barbecue sauce?” Lucas looks up at you, confused by the statement. “Tendew? Wha’ dat?”
You grab a chicken tender, and tear it into a few strips. “That, my little friend, is the sign of a good chicken tender.” You dip one of the strips into some barbecue sauce. You hold it in front of him, and he sniffs at it. He gives it a little lick, and his eyes light up.
“Yummy!” He says, taking the strip from you and chowing down. “Dis bettah den sketties!” Hearing that actually makes you really happy, considering how much you like chicken tenders.
“Can Wucas hab mowe tendews?” You laugh, and dip some more into the barbecue sauce. “Sure thing little buddy!” He happily eats, until the entire tender you broke up is gone. “Wucas fuww, daddeh.”
“Yeah, me too. Lets bring these back home, I’m sure your siblings will be grateful for the spaghetti.” You pay the bill, get some boxes, and walk home with Lucas in tow. “Come back anytime, Jack!” Sal calls out the door.
On your way home, you and Lucas see one of the fluffies of the city, carrying a letter tied to its side. Not really even a feral, since you think that someone trains them to do this. You just know that none of them have asked for a home, and in your experience, have never had kids with them. “Hewwo fwuffy fwiend! Am Wucas!” The fluffy looks up at Lucas and smiles. Thank goodness his wings were obscured, it would have been a disaster if this little courier had gotten frightened and lost his letter. “Hewwo babbeh! Am maiwfwuffy!” The little courier continues on his way. Hope he wasn’t carrying any poker chips.
“Daddeh, wha maiwfwuffy?”
“Well, you know what a mailman is, right?” Dum dum, why would he know what a mailman is, you have a PO box. “Maiwman, wike Nooman?” Damn, he paid attention to Seinfeld last night. “Yeah, like Newman. Only a fluffy, and not Wayne Knight.” He smiles. “Wub Seinfewd.”
You arrive back at the apartment, and see Max sitting in the safe room, playing with the toys while the fluffies watch TV. “Dude, what are you doing?” He looks up from building a Duplo castle, trips over a wooden train, manages to not fall on his ass, and chuckles.
“Look, I tried playing with them, but they wanted to watch King of the Hill. Then I kinda got into building this sick ass castle, and then the railway, and long story short, you need more track cause I wanted to expand into the rest of the apartment.” You put your hand to your face and rub your eyes. “Nice outfit by the way.”
“Alright Lucas, go say hi to uncle Max, I’m gonna pack a basket to take with us, then we can all go to the park.” Lucas walks over to Max and goes into that pose they do when they want you to pick them up. Max picks him up and starts scratching behind his ears, and then he looks at you. “Can I come?”
You all headed to the park, Max coming along as well. Max is carrying Magnum and Nebula, and you’re carrying Lucas and Johnny, along with a picnic basket with the leftovers you just got, some juice, and a blanket. “I still don’t get why you don’t let me smoke with them.” He says, jokingly. “Magnum would love it.” Magnum looks up at him. “Wha?”
“D-don’t worry about it, Max is just being weird. This looks like a good spot to sit, big tree nearby, stream over there, not too far from the sidewalk, seems good to me.” You place Lucas and Johnny down on the grass, set the basket down, and lay out the big picnic blanket.
You all spend some time playing, doing a little bit of exploring, and eating the food you brought. Magnum and Johnny are playing with a ball you took along with you, Lucas is sitting by Max in the sun, and Nebula was playing near some flowers nearby the trees. You and Lucas didn’t eat as much, but the other fluffies (and Max) made up for it. You certainly had enough juice to drink though.
“Hey, Max, I’m gonna go find the bathroom in this park, probably gonna call the vet and schedule an appointment for their fixing, can you watch the fluffies while I’m gone?”
Max gives you a thumbs up. “Sure thing, dude.” With that, you embark on your crusade to find the bathroom. Hope It won’t take too long.
SUPER COOL PERSPECTIVE SHIFT: (Nebula Perspective.)
You are Nebula, and you have the bestest family ever. You and your brothers were rescued by your daddy when you were all babies, and even though Johnny and Magnum had been hurt, they were still happy, and so were you. Your daddy gave Magnum a cool set of wheelies that let him play again, and he gave Johnny a pair of wheelies that let him walk again. Daddy is the best, even if Magnum and Johnny think his not fluff leggies are silly.
You also have a new brother, a pointy wingy babbeh named Lucas. Despite what other fluffies had told you about fluffies with wings and a horn (Munstah fluffies, they called them), Lucas is really nice! He’s littler than you and your brothers, but daddy said that was because he’s younger.
You like to play with your brothers and daddy and uncle Max, but sometimes you just want to explore on your own. Daddy told you not to go past the sidewalk, but that still gave you plenty of room to explore. “I’ll take you on a little walk later, Nebula. Then we can explore to our hearts content!” Plus, uncle Max was watching you while you explored, and uncle Max was a nice man. Even if he was a little silly.
You had just found a pretty looking rock, and had picked it up with your mouth, when you heard two fluffies talking.
“Gu say hewwo, dummeh! Kebin wan pwetty speciaw fwien, wight?”
You knew what special friends are, and special huggies, and babies, and stuff like that, but daddy had said no babies or special huggies, and that was okay with you. While you liked the idea of having babies, you also knew they were a lot of work, and you had to take care of your brothers. They depend on you, since you’re their big sister!
“O-otay, Cwaig is su smawty, su Kebin wiww twy.”
From behind the tree, a fluffy steps out, about the same size as you. He’s an earthie, with pretty white fluff and a teal mane. “H-hewwo, am Kebin. Do p-pwetty fwuffy hab namsie?”
You giggle a little. He sounds like daddy whenever someone says his outfit is pretty! “Fwuffy name am Nebuwa! Wan be nyu fwien?”
Kevin digs at the ground with his hoof. “W-weww, Kebin was w-wondewing if pwetty Nebuwa wan be s-speciaw fwien.”
You smile at him. “Nu tank yu, daddeh say nu speciaw fwiens, bu’ Nebuwa can be nowmaw fwien!” Kevin looks a little sad, but when you mention being normal friends he smiles. “Kebin wike dat. Mummah say Kebin nu can hab speciaw fwien anyway.”
“Nu! Dummeh! Dat nu how yu get speciaw fwien! Cwaig wiww show how it dun!”
A dark blue fluffed, light green mane, unicorn fluffy steps out from behind the tree. He looks at you and grins. Not a nice grin like Kevins, but a meanie grin that almost seems to say ‘Fwuffy bettah den yu.’ Kevin runs to hide behind the tree. “S-sowwy Cwaig, pwease nu yeww at Kebin!”
“Pwetty mawe gib Cwaig speciaw huggies an’ good feews.” He grins, and runs up behind you. Suddenly, you feel something touch your no-no spot, and you let out a little scree! “Uncwe Max! Hewp!” You look over, and Uncle Max is helping Magnum out after Magnum accidentally got stuck in a hole.
“Nu make dummeh scree noise, dummeh mawe! Cwaig nee’ concentwate to do speciaw huggies. (nu can fine speciaw spot…)” Your little mind is working as fast as it can to think of a way out of this horrible situation. You think back to this morning when you were watching TV with your brothers. You think about the funny little human on TV who learned how to protect himself by kicking meanies in the special lumps. You grin a little, and summon all your strength and courage.
“DAT NEBUWA PUWSE, NEBUWA NU KNO YU!”
You kick out your back leg, and feel it collide with something squishy. “SCREEEEEEE! WOWSTEST SPECIAW WUMP HUWTIES!!” The meanie smarty relinquishes his hold on you, and you run away as fast as you can to Uncle Max!
COOL PERSPECTIVE SHIFT AGAIN (Jack)
After what felt like 30 minutes, and a few close calls of pissing yourself, you finally found the bathroom. Turns out it was actually really close by. You do your business, and then proceed to call the vet and schedule the appointments.
Right as the call ends, you hear what sounds like a fluffy screaming its head off. “Oh goddammit, Max.”
You sprint over to a tree, where you find a fluffy rolling on the ground clutching its groin, and another fluffy standing nearby looking slightly concerned, but also giggling a little.
“Huu, no-noes su huwties… Why dummeh mawe huwt wumps?” The fluffy that isn’t writhing around in the dirt just stares. “Kebin nu gib huggies now, Cwaig was meanie. Nu mean nu!” You walk over to Max, just as an old man comes over. “Dammit, Kevin, I told you not to play with Craig! He’s a bad influence!”
“B-buh daddeh, Kebin make nyu fwiend! Nu eben nee’ speciaw huggies!” The old man sighs and looks at you. He’s bald, but he has a kickass mustache. “I’m terribly sorry, Kevin is a little too explorative for his own good, and a little too trusting.” He looks over to the fluffy on the ground. “Craig, I’m gonna have a serious talk with your owner after this.”
“N-nu! Nu teww mummah! Huu, wumps su huwties…”
“Daddeh, can Kebin pway wif Nebuwa? Nebuwa nyu fwien an’ nice fwuffy.” The old man sighs again. “Maybe some other time Kevin, I’m exhausted.” He looks over to you. “Young lady, what’s your name?” You chuckle a little. “Jack, sir.”
“Jack… Odd name for a girl, but I just realized I was mistaken. Well, Jack, my name is Rex, and if you ever want to bring your Nebula over to play, or want to have a play date with Kevin, here’s my number. Kevin doesn’t have a lot of friends, so the fact that he was able to make one today is a big accomplishment.”
You write down the number in your phone, shake hands with the old man, and he leaves, taking the fluffy on the ground with him.
“Hey, uh, Max? What the hell happened while I was gone?” Max looks at you.
“Well, uh, Magnum got stuck in a tiny pothole, so I had to help him out, and while I was doing that Nebula got into a fight with another fluffy, I think. Maybe she could tell you better.” He hands Nebula to you.
“Meanie smawty fwuffy twy gib Nebuwa bad huggies, bu’ Nebuwa say ‘Dat Nebuwa puwse! Nebuwa nu kno yu!’ an’ gib him wowstest speciaw wump owwies. Wish Nebuwa could hab pwayed wif Kebin…”
“Well, I’ll take you to play with him some other time. For now, I think we’ve had enough of the park. I’m proud of you Nebula, but please promise me one thing.”
“Yus, daddeh?”
“Please don’t do everything you see on TV.”
submitted by jimmyhopkinsbroh to fluffycommunity [link] [comments]

Was calling this all in the correct move?

Ignition - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
Hero (CO): 104 BB BTN (BTN): 186.2 BB SB (SB): 93.8 BB BB (BB): 179.8 BB UTG (UTG): 161.8 BB
SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Dealt to Hero: AsAc
fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, SB raises to 5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 15 BB, SB calls 10 BB
All standard preflop action. I like to punish weird minraises like this by 4-betting large with a linear range. Really forces them to put in a lot of chips with their middling hands that are too scared to raise properly.
Flop (31 BB, 2 players):
SB bets 78.8 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 78.8 BB KsJs8c
This is a very weird move by villain, just shipping it all in on the flop. All ins tend to be nutted so I start going through all the value hands villain could have here. Top pair which I beat, bottom set and middle set as well. KJ here is also VERY likely. I have the spade blocker which lowers the odds of villiain bluffing with a flush draw (but it also gives me the backdoor flush draw for slight equity if I go in bad). All in all I thought it was a close decision between calling and folding, but villain is going to be shoving with enough top pair to make it worthwhile I thought. Is my thought process wrong?
Turn (188.6 BB, 2 players): Kc
River (188.6 BB, 2 players): 7c
SB shows: AdKd (Three of a Kind, Kings) (Pre 12%, Flop 9%, Turn 98%)
SB wins 179.2 BB
No biggie, bad beat on the turn. What I'm wondering here is if I'm going to be good here more often than I'm bad.
submitted by PokerAlt123 to poker [link] [comments]

I died over a year ago. I just woke up (part 3)

Hello everyone. I know it’s been a year since I shared my story. Everything that has happened, was so hard to keep up with, I wanted to wait until it was all over to share the rest. Here is the beginning of your closure.
Casey Jones.
There she stood, feigning fearlessness, but her trembling arms gave her true demeanour away.
She scowled, her deep smile lines protruding around the sides of her mouth.
She did not look happy to see me. If anything, more confused and angry.
”Who are you?” She barked defensively, hands practically glued to the bat.
My words failed me. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed that Dustin’s dead girls were rising from the dead, or fucking terrified.
”What’s a matter wit’ ya? Huh? Cat got your tongue?” She shouted in what appeared to be a thick Brooklyn accent.
”C-Casey Jones?” I asked, standing like a deer in headlights.
I meekly stuck out my hand. ”I’m Fiona. Fiona Holiday.”
She stood, staring deeply at my now quivering hand. ”Hold up, that dead girls grave next to me? That’s you?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat.
”Christ,” she laughed manically. ”What’s going on here? Because I would really like to know,” she said, raising the bat behind her.
”Whoa whoa whoa. Hey. I was the first one to wake up,” I said, easing the bat from her hands.
”Alright blondie, why don’t you tell me how this all fuckin’ happened.”
”Okay, Casey. A couple days ago, I woke up in a coffin. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.. and I managed to claw my way to the surface. I don’t know how long that took. I noticed the bracelet on my arm...”
Casey glanced down toward her bracelet, and then at mine. Gold and engraved.
”Okay, so what?” She waved her hand, motioning me to get to the point.
”I looked around and noticed 5 more makeshift tombstones. Three to my left, and two to my right. You were the one directly to my left. I didn’t believe anything that was happening. I started to dig up your grave and...”
”I wasn’t in a nice little coffin like you,” she interrupted, finishing my sentence.
”...yeah. I grabbed your hand and saw the same bracelet on your wrist that was on mine. I realised that all 6 of us were victims of some man who-“
”Pfft. Man? You call the psycho who probably played poker with the night stalker and decided to kidnap underage girls a man? C’mon, blondie. Don’t humanise the fucker,” she quipped.
”Honestly, if he had the balls to show his face around here right now, I would make sure he can never jack off again.”
She blew a strand of fiery red hair away from her face.
”You didn’t see him?” I asked, remembering the shocking discovery I made in the first place upon arrival.
”Who? this ‘Dustin’ or whatever the fuck he calls himself? Goldilocks, if I did, do you really think he’d still be alive right now?”
”I smashed his head repeatedly with the very bat you’re holding in your hand right now. Then I left to seek shelter so I could figure out what to do...”
”Looks like I underestimated the strength in the size of you .”
This time, I shot her a look.
”What? You look like a daisy. Nothing wrong with it.”
”Anyway,” Casey continued. ”You didn’t go to the fuzz did ya?”
”No, of course not I-“
”Do you have any idea what they would do to us? Send us off to some science lab and attach us to machines, and experiment until they kill us. Heh. Sounds about right.”
”Anyway, if you smashed Dustin’s brains in, where the hell did he go? Don’t tell me he rose from the dead in seconds whereas for us it took fuckin’ years,” she scoffed.
”I’m not sure.. honestly, I thought I hit him good. Hard enough to be unconscious for a long time. He seemed to have recovered quick enough to up and run.”
” ‘Unconscious’ isn’t good enough. Comatose, or dead. Otherwise you didn’t do the job,” Casey sneered.
”Alright Merida, if you know what’s best, why don’t you go ahead and decide what to do next?”
”I’m no Scott Princess. I just wanna find the dude, properly bash his brains in, and go back home to my old man.”
”What about the other girls? What happens to them?”
”They’ll figure it out. If we take the problem out, they’ll be fine if or when they wake up.”
”Don’t be cold. You woke up a day after I did, and you died a year before me. What’s not to say.. err.. Vanessa Walters won’t wake up tomorrow? And Delilah Woods the next?”
”Vanessa Walters. Huh. That girl was a train wreck.”
She really had my attention now.
”How did you know her?”
”He took me 10 days before he killed her. She loved him to death. Even that, was an understatement. Girl had a big bad case of Stockholm syndrome. Gave me the heebie jeebies, but I felt bad for her. What can you do? If a sicko can easily take a girl in broad daylight. he can just as easily get into her head. But not mine!” She retorted.
”Right. I say we stay here tonight and see if there’s a chance that Vanessa wakes up tomorrow.”
”Are you nuts? I’m not staying another night in H.H Holmes’ Murder Castle. You picked the wrong girl to be stupid with.”
”You’re also the only girl with me right now. If we stick together, we can wake the others up and have a chance at finding Dustin.”
”How do you think this’ll help us find him?”
”Every girl must have different memories and experiences with him. Maybe he took them places, or told them things he never told the others. Was Vanessa his favourite?”
”Oh yeah. For sure. I went garbage diving while she got sugar cubes and TV dinners.”
”Haha. I’m serious, Casey.”
”Yeah. She seemed like the only girl who actually developed an obsessive attachment to him, just like he wanted. Don’t know why he killed her. He couldn’t get that from us.”
”Why did he kill her?” I asked with sadness in my voice.
”Look blondie, I just said I don’t know, alright? He was giving me more attention than usual one night, which I resisted, and she got a bit jealous. The next morning, she was gone and he told me he released her. I knew it was a fuckin’ lie, though.”
I started to laugh.
”What’s so funny?”
”You’re not at all what I pictured. Maybe you really were a different person before everything happened.”
”The hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
”Casey, when I left yesterday up the mountain to find shelter, I hitchhiked and a man picked me up and drove me 5 miles to a woman’s shelter,”
”Your point?”
“I think he was your dad. Frank Jones?”
Her horror-ridden face softened for the first time.
”How- where is he? Does he still live with mom back at home?”
”He didn’t tell me much, just that his 15 year old daughter went missing in 2016. And, since you were killed in 2017, that would make you around 18 years old now..”
For once, there was no remark from Casey Jones.
She was stripped back down to a scared little girl, crying for her Father in the back of a van with a man she once trusted.
Flashback
Red and green girl, swinging on the swing set. She’s trying to see how high she can swing. The tips of her cherry worn-out sneakers touch the sky, and pierce through the clouds.
This is the most free she had ever felt, and the last, for the duration of her first life. Her perfect, undisturbed, cookie cutter life. A perfect cookie cutter family in a new cookie cutter neighbourhood. The friendly Californians brought pies to the Jones’ residence, who just moved from Brooklyn. A squeaky clean “Welcome” mat on the spotless swept ground.
Tuesdays are the worst. After enduring expensive piano lessons she was forced into for an hour, the swings at the local park were the only taste of relief she could get on a Tuesday.
A misplaced van with rotting colours enters the perfect scene. Paint chips that look like claw marks flash all over the sides. Tinted windows. Curiosity and Casey were never a good team. Red and green girl runs over to get a closer look. A hand snakes out the abruptly opened door, and takes the fifteen and pristine girl, scribbles all over her, until she’s fifteen, obscene, and dark all over.
She saw 5,475 sunrises and sunsets. She was supposed to live to her 30,000 goal.
The Cookie Monster took the crumbling cookie girl from the cookie cutter neighbourhood, and devoured Casey Jones until she was spat out bitter.
”Casey? Casey?” I asked. Fanning my hand in front of her face. She was in a daze. After getting a good look at her eyes, they weren’t intimidating at all. I know this now.
”Yeah. That’s my dad. After all these years I can still hear the way he snorts when he laughs. And the way he mispronounces ‘February’ “.
So she did have her memories back.
”What about you? You got folks?”
It stung.
”My mother ate a bottle of pills a few months after my disappearance, and my dad found her. I don’t know his whereabouts.”
”Ouch. I’m sorry. To be honest, my mother was pretty selfish. I wouldn’t be surprised if she forgot I existed.”
”Don’t be silly. A mother’s love is the most powerful thing.”
”Sometimes. Unless you’re their mirror, but a reflection of everything they wanted to be, and they secretly resent you for it.”
There was a long pause, until she broke the silence, once again.
”Fuck it. We’ll sleep here tonight. Inside by the door. But not at the same time, one of us has to keep watch in case Hannibal Lecter comes back. I’ll take first watch. I’m not going to sleep so soon again, for christ’s sake.”
I did a double take at the silver cross necklace she had hiding underneath her stained shirt.
”Is it the walking dead escapee outfit or the necklace?” she snorted, catching my gaze.
”Whatever. I got murdered, I came back to life. I ain’t never seen that in the whole goddamn bible. You best believe I’m a changed woman now.”
We shared a genuine laugh together. My first real laugh in years.
”Better get a head start on the rest blondie. I don’t think there’ll be coffee around here.”
”Right, right. Goodnight.”
”Awe man, don’t you go saying that, you’re closing your eyes for a hot minute. Stay alive for me until I wake you up.”
I sighed in response and rested my head on the wooden floor. I wondered how many bodies had been dragged across this floor. Had been killed on this floor. Had clawed at this floor. Had hit this floor. I sat upright, and decidedly positioned myself against the door frame instead. I’m safe.
I was shaken violently awake, an hour later.
There was a noise coming from outside in the backyard. Casey was the first to jump up, swinging the baseball bat blindly against the air in the darkened house. She crept toward the back garden, and I stayed low behind her.
She turned to me, gazed into my dilated pupils and put her finger against her lips. Our rapid breathing could make us heard.
She slid open the back door, and we stepped out onto the cool concrete.
We abruptly looked both ways, multiple times, before finding middle ground on the soft grass. In front of the other 4 graves.
”Come out, fucker,” she mumbled under her breath. My body betrayed me, and I coughed. Loud.
”Shit shit shit...” she said, the noise we were trying to locate ceased.
I mouthed ”I’m sorry” and we crouched down low. I couldn’t help but gaze down at my left. Vanessa Walters laying just beneath me. I was trembling so much, i could’ve swore it was the dirt beneath us.
”I think it was an animal,” Casey groaned.
”Hey! Earth to Fiona!” She said, snapping her fingers in front of my face.
”We got bigger problems missy.”
I pressed my hand against Vanessa’s tombstone one last time, and stood back up, stretching my arms above my head.
We walked back into the house and sat ourselves back down in the same spot as before. It was 1am. There was nothing left to do but wait.
I had nothing on my mind but Vanessa Walters, and the what if’s and the should haves. Would she stay loyal to Dustin? Or would she want revenge?
As for Casey, the girl was half hell. But, that night, the look in her eyes said she wished she never woke up
submitted by WintryNymph to nosleep [link] [comments]

I abandoned VR as an early user. I came back to try the Quest 2 and HOLY S#*!, I'm completely blown away by the experience. If you are on the fence, BUY ONE. VR is ready in 2020.

This is a long post but I wanted to give my full impressions on the experience with details in case anyone is interested in the thoughts of a brand new user to the Quest.
TL;DR: Tried Gear VR in 2015 but was put off by screen door effect, motion sickness, lack of degrees of freedom, lack of games and experiences. Considered Tethered VR but was put off by the barriers to entry and the expensive hardware needed. Now in 2020 saw the Quest 2 with the $299 price tag and no extra hardware or tether needed. Picked one up all those early problems have been SOLVED and VR is now ready for mass adoption . It's a true enjoyable experience and IMO is a great tool to spend time with friends in family in a virtual way in todays environment.
​
----
So I've always been fascinated by the idea of Virtual Reality even as a kid. The idea of escaping into another world and living out all the things my imagination could generate really appealed to me. Back in the 90's I even owned a Nintendo Virtual Boy. I happily played 3D tennis and Tetris thinking the future was now. Fast forward to the early 2010's when the Oculus Rift developer kit was first available. I thought it was really cool but with all the various barriers to entry and being a non consumer product I avoided it.
Then 2015 hit and the Gear VR was announced. For $99 I could be "in VR" with my already existing smartphone, totally wireless with no high end PC needed. I had to try it. My initial experience was one of amazement. Watching netflix on that virtual couch, talking to others online, or watching 360 video experiences was just awesome. I shared it with every friend and family member I could and we played dreadhalls, the manor, etc for some jump scare fun. However, I am very prone to motion sickness so something always felt "off" to me and I could never use it for more than 20 minutes without feeling ill. On top of that the screen door effect was very distracting and having to use a bluetooth gaming controller really effected the experience for me without any sort of hand presence.
I put down the gear VR in 2016 and never went back. It just wasn't polished enough for me or "ready" for what I wanted VR to be. Over the years I followed VR and saw the developments in tracking, controllers, and screen resolution. Now we are talking! However, you still needed a high end gaming PC and the experience was tethered. So I stayed away. Then the quest hit. THIS is what I was waiting for, but I figured the games would be limited and you can't play PC VR titles, so I stayed away still.
When the Quest 2 was announced and I saw the specs and found out you could play PC titles from Steam wired OR wirelessly, on top of being only $299, I knew this was the time to take action. I picked one up from Best Buy a few weeks ago. My first reaction when loading it up coming from an S6 with Gear VR was that the screen door effect was GONE. Wow! This is how imagined the future of VR would look. Everything was super clear and sharp. Next, the in VR software and overall experience was super polished and felt like what a next gen product should be. Even just setting up the guardian system really impressed me by how cool it was and how well it worked, as that was an issue for me with the Gear VR that was solved by the quest.
Once that was done and after briefly changing some settings, I loaded up the first steps tutorial. When I first saw my hands in VR and started playing with the objects on the table, I have to admit as a 35 year old man I was absolutely giddy with excitement. Something I haven't felt in YEARS since I was a kid. Next I loaded up the dancing robot and it was just the coolest little experience dancing with him and playing around. I could swear that robot was right in front of me it looked so damn good. On top of all that the "6 degrees of freedom" with the ability to walk around and actually lean in to look at things was a total game changer. I felt like I was really IN VR and fully immersed with a real presence in the virtual world.
Before I knew it, an hour had gone by and I had ZERO motion sickness. Something I could never do with the Gear VR. I think it has to do with the refresh rate and the fact that all my head motion is fully tracked. It really does fool my brain into thinking what I am seeing is real and my brain is happy and no sickness.
It's been a few weeks since and I have been using it daily for hours. I've since tried many difference experiences and games. The highlight for me has to be Beat Saber. Wow. I've never played a more fun or immersive game in my life. With a good pair of Bose noise canceling headphones it's just the most amazing experience slashing those boxes to your favorite music. Also love Super Hot and Pistol Whip, those games me me feel like I'm in the future I imagined as a kid in the 90's more than anything I've done. I really makes you feel like you are Neo in the matrix or an unstoppable action hero like John Wick. They are a great workout on top of everything. If you are new to oculus or getting a Quest, these 3 are must haves. You will thank me later.
Then we have the social experiences. I lost track of the hours I've spent playing poker or blackjack with strangers, throwing my chips at people, smoking virtual cigars and chatting about life. It's a true escape from the stress of daily life. I also enjoy watching movies with others on "BigScreen" and tossing tomato's at the screen or just hanging out.
Then I learned about SideQuest and the first thing I did was turn on 90hz mode, WOW. This made a massive difference in how smooth and fluid most games were. When it ran well, it added to the realism by a huge factor. An example being the in game menus in BigScreen when they move its so fluid its like they are floating and moving in real life. For me personally, refresh rate is the biggest factor in my immersion into VR and to avoid motion sickness. 90hz on beat saber is way better and on top of that I installed a bunch of custom songs and that turned the experience from an awesome one to an unforgettable one. Then I got virtual desktop and WOW. Being able to WIRELESSLY play Steam VR games (like The Lab, highly recommended) with no noticeable latency is insane to me and being able to control my computer from VR. Worth every penny of the $20.
In summary, I'm super excited where VR is going from here, but right now in 2020 we have a device that solves all the early VR problems and puts it all in a polished consumer product that is FULLY WIRELESS and requires no outside hardware all for a low price $299. I cannot recommend or praise the Quest 2 enough. If you are thinking about buying one or as a gift for a friend or loved one, do it and you will thank me later. This product has added true value to my life and now I will be an ambassador to all my friends and family and show them what the Quest 2 can do, especially in todays environment where staying connected to the people in our lives without physically being there is a factor, this is the product we need right now.
submitted by Lawncareguy85 to OculusQuest [link] [comments]

Comeback Opportunities will determine the game’s long-term survival: Here’s how we do it.

Comeback Opportunities will determine the game’s long-term survival: Here’s how we do it.
THE COMEBACK FACTOR: AN INTRODUCTION
There’s no question that one of the most exciting and exhilarating things that can occur in any game is pulling off an absolutely epic comeback. This is true no matter the game or the sport. Just the simple fact of knowing that a comeback is possible is enough to keep both players and spectators captivated and engaged throughout the entire duration of a game no matter what the deficit might be.
Comebacks are responsible for some of the most powerful emotions that someone can experience in a game, whether you're on the winning end or the losing end. And that's what people remember the most about games – not necessarily what happened, but how it made them feel.
Making sure that the comeback element is present is going to be IMPERATIVE for Frost Giant to not only implement, but absolutely NAIL if they plan on creating a game that stands the ultimate test of time.
What I aim to do is to explain the importance of the Comeback Factor, show the Comeback Factor’s relation to RTS and its history, and then propose game elements in terms of economy and unit balance that can ensure that comebacks play a pivotal role in Frost Giant’s mission to create the next great RTS!
​
SPORTS & THE COMEBACK FACTOR
To emphasize just how important the comeback element is, let’s just take a look at the top 25 sports in the world and their estimated global following:
  1. Soccer / Association Football (4 billion estimated followers)
  2. Cricket (2.5 billion)
  3. Basketball (2.2 billion)
  4. Ice Hockey, Field Hockey (2 billion)
  5. Tennis (1 billion)
  6. Volleyball (900 million)
  7. Table tennis (875 million)
  8. Baseball (500 million)
  9. American Football, Rugby (475 million) -----------------------
  10. Golf (450 million)
  11. Motorsports
  12. Boxing
  13. MMA
  14. Athletics
  15. Cycling
  16. Badminton
  17. Swimming
  18. Snooker / Billiards
  19. Gymnastics
  20. Shooting
  21. Handball
  22. Wrestling
  23. Skiing
  24. Horse Racing
  25. Bowling
Take a look at the top 9 sports on this list. You know what element they share? The Comeback Factor!
If you are a fan of any of the top 9 sports on this list, I am positive that you have multiple memories burned into your brain of absolutely incredible (or heartbreaking) comeback games, and you’re probably replaying some of those memories in your head right now as you read this. Comebacks create memories that stick with us forever, both for better and for worse (if you’re on the losing end), and these memories are what keep us wanting more and keep us coming back.
But it’s not even the comebacks themselves that create this phenomenon. It’s the fact that we know in the back of our minds that even if the team we’re cheering on gets soul-crushingly behind in a game or even gets ridiculously far ahead, a game is never over until it’s over. That’s because in all of the games at the top of this list, at any given moment the players have the power and the ability to completely turn things around, take control of the game, and have a direct impact on your opponent’s failure or success. In these games, even if your opponent gets a decisive lead – and even if he keeps up the exact same level of performance – you still have the opportunity to either step up your game and go above and beyond your opponent's level, you can drastically change up your approach to totally disrupt your opponent’s gameplay, or you can also take a series of high risks that might result in a complete change of momentum in the game.
This isn’t the case for nearly all the sports at the bottom.
In golf, if you get significantly behind halfway through a match and your opponent is scoring birdies on every hole, what are you going to do? Rack up consecutive hole-in-ones? Not gonna happen.
In bowling, if you get significantly behind in the first few frames and your opponent keeps bowling strikes, what are you gonna do? Bowl even bigger strikes? Keep dreaming.
In racing sports, if your opponent is a lap ahead and they’ve been consistently maintaining the same speed throughout the race, what are you going to do? Hope you roll a blue shell on your next power up? Ha!
The only way that a possible comeback can occur in nearly all of the sports at the bottom of this list is if your opponent just happens to make a disastrous blunder (like missing a pivotal shot in billiards) or suffers an unforeseeable misfortune (like pulling a muscle in swimming or clipping another bike in cycling).
Having to be 100% dependent on your opponent making mistakes or suffering a misfortune in order to win is simply NOT FUN. There’s nothing exciting or exhilarating about it at all!
The interesting thing about RTS games is that they share elements with sports on both the top and the bottom of this list. RTS games have both the direct offensive and defensive aspects of the top 9 sports (attacking your opponent, defending your base) and they also share the same indirect, passive aspects of most of the sports at the bottom of the list (building your army, growing your economy, developing your tech). The challenge to ensuring that comebacks are possible will be finding a happy balance between the two.
But before we get more into RTS, let’s briefly take a look at two other games that have stood the test of time due to their Comeback Factor: Chess and No-Limit Tournament Poker.
​
CHESS & POKER
RTS games often get compared to Chess and No-Limit Tournament Poker due to their emphasis on preparation, coming up with a game plan, executing different strategies, reading your opponent, adjusting to your opponent, and taking risks. But there are also many elements in Chess and No-Limit Tournament Poker that allow ample opportunity to pull off a comeback, and because of these comeback elements, Chess and No-Limit Tournament Poker are games that will more than likely live on forever.
In Chess, if you’re behind in material, it is very possible to still win if you can coordinate your pieces, give yourself a positional advantage, and execute different tactics to either checkmate your opponent, trap your opponent’s majominor pieces, or promote your pawns. Even if these options aren’t readily available, it’s still possible to cleverly weasel your way out of defeat and force a stalemate. Yes, at the very highest of levels of Super Grandmaster (top 30 players in the world) these comeback possibilities are extremely rare and very blundemiscalculation-dependent since Super GMs nearly always play perfect chess (which is a big reason I feel that chess will never gain mainstream spectator popularity despite having been such a popular game for centuries). But for players of all different levels ranging from just the casual player to even players at the Grandmaster level, the opportunity for a comeback is almost always present and happens in games all the time. In chess, you can also even intentionally give your opponent a material advantage in exchange for a positional or tactical advantage, and these tend to make for the most interesting games in chess! These kind of sacrifices happen regularly at all different levels of chess, including the Super GM level.
In No-Limit Tournament Poker, there is a common term that every poker player knows: “Chip and a chair.” For those who aren’t familiar with NLTP, “chip and a chair” basically means that as long as you have a single chip and a seat at the table, there is still a chance that you can actually comeback and win an entire tournament. This element alone is exactly why so many players are attracted to NLTP, because just like in the top sports mentioned above, a game is never over until it’s actually over. But even before you’re down to your last chip, if your chip stack is dwindling and you’re starting to lose hope, you can decide to risk your entire stack and go all-in and take a shot at a doubling up and giving yourself new life. Not only is this kind of risk taking a possibility, but it’s also REQUIRED if you actually wish to have any kind of long-term success. And on the other end of the spectrum, even if you are the dominant chip leader and have triple the amount of chips as the next biggest chip stack in the tournament, you can go from Hero to Zero and get knocked out of the tournament in just a matter of a few hands if you get unlucky or take a number of unnecessary risks. This dramatic level of constant uncertainty is undoubtedly the element that keeps people playing and also why people will always enjoy watching streams and broadcasts of No-Limit Tournament Poker.
But it’s also very important to keep in mind the difference between No-Limit and Limit Tournament Poker. While both games definitely require a lot of skill and understanding of the game, Limit Tournament Poker almost completely lacks the Comeback Factor. If you are ever down to your last chip in LTP, there is literally close to a 0.00% chance for any sort of eventual comeback. And on the other end of the spectrum, if you’re way ahead of the rest of the field in LTP it’s basically guaranteed that you are going to be there for a long, long time and will have an almost definite chance of placing high in the tournament – of course, that is unless you recklessly make a long series of blunders or get really unlucky back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. There’s nothing exciting about any of that. This is why Limit Tournament Poker isn’t popular at all whatsoever. There actually was a brief period of time when LTP was relatively popular during the Poker Boom of 2003, but after the player population really got a good grasp of the game, that popularity fizzled out pretty quickly, because the game is redundant and simply isn’t exciting or interesting.
We want to create No-Limit Poker, not Limit.
(Note: I am not saying that all of these sports/games are perfect by any means and I believe that there are actually some game balance issues in nearly all of them, but that’s a subject for another time.)
So how can we use all this information and implement the Comeback Factor into the next great RTS?
Before we get into what we can do, it’s very important for us to first take a good look at the economic systems of three of the most successful RTS games of all-time: Brood War, StarCraft II, and yes… WarCraft III.
​
THE OVERLOOKED INNOVATION OF WARCRAFT III
Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. WarCraft III put forth an honest effort to TRY to get this comeback element right, and while I don't believe that they were successful in really accomplishing it, I do think that it would be a mistake to overlook the innovation that WarCraft III actually did manage to bring to the table.
While developing WarCraft III, Blizzard was well aware that a big reason for Brood War’s success was because even if your opponent got a significant lead, players could still stay in the game and perhaps eventually pull off some sort of a comeback. While the comeback element was definitely present in Brood War, it still wasn’t nearly at the degree of any of the sports/games discussed earlier. Blizzard aimed to change that in WarCraft III by implementing upkeep with the goal of encouraging engagement and aggression while also allowing players who get behind to have a higher flow of income than their opponent so that they can build themselves up and get back into the game more quickly.
For those who are uninitiated on upkeep or just need a reminder, upkeep is basically a tax bracket based on active food supply that essentially punishes you for building an army beyond certain points of supply. The three different levels of upkeep are:
- No Upkeep (0-50 Food: 100% income)
- Low Upkeep (51-80 Food: 70% income)
- High Upkeep (81-100 Food: 40% income)
Unfortunately, the implementation of upkeep made the game very unenjoyable for a large percentage of the RTS player base and you can still find WarCraft III players – both loyal fans and players trying to give War3 another shot – complaining about upkeep to this very day! The different levels of upkeep are so punishing that it discourages players from even building up an army much larger than their opponent’s, as their economies would suffer dramatically and it would give their opponent a significant and completely game-changing economic advantage. As a result, at the top levels of play, you basically never see players go above 80 supply and they are even hesitant to even go above 50 supply until they feel the time is right.
So how on Earth are you supposed to have a comeback when the game is systematically designed to prevent players from even getting ahead?
https://preview.redd.it/xdatdlb7x9x51.png?width=292&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d60b32bc0e7bda9560319a1ecbbe414ee35356f
With all that said, it would be extremely shortsighted for us to only look at the flaws of upkeep without acknowledging what it actually did accomplish. The number one thing that the idea of upkeep got right is that it was successful in encouraging aggression. When a player approaches the maximum threshold in an upkeep bracket (50/80 supply), it’s almost immediately necessary for them to attack their opponent in order to either gain an advantage or keep any advantage that they already have – which ultimately also puts that advantage at risk – and there’s really only a small window of time to be able to do that, because if you don’t, your opponent can quickly and easily equalize. When a player is forced to put his advantage at risk, in theory it should create a perfect opportunity for a possible comeback. However, since the possibility of gaining a significant advantage at all is basically non-existent in the first place due to upkeep, the theory doesn’t really perform well in actual practice in terms of an RTS game. This causes the game to place a much higher emphasis on gaining an advantage through hero development rather than unit, economy, and tech development which are basically the three main elements of all RTS games. And in WarCraft III, once a player’s heroes become significantly more powerful than their opponent’s, the possibility of a comeback is nearly completely lost as there is no opportunity to set back any progress that a hero has already made in leveling.
Now what Blizzard seemed to have possibly overlooked when developing WarCraft III was that Brood War already had a form of upkeep innately implemented into the game that they may not have even realized they already had!
​
UPKEEP, BROOD WAR, AND WORKER VALUES
Brood War has an economic system that is extremely unique and very different from any game that has ever been made and this system is a huge reason why comebacks are more possible in BW than other RTS games. To further explain this point, it’s important to first compare its economic system to WarCraft III and StarCraft II.
In WarCraft III, each worker holds the same amount of value and this value remains the same throughout the entire course of the game unless it’s affected by upkeep, in which case every worker’s value is affected all at once. In terms of income, each base only allows a maximum of 5 workers to mine gold at a time. If workers that are mining are killed, all the races have a pretty easy time immediately replacing them with very little impact on the economy. Of course, it’s slightly more difficult for Undead, but you can still replace Acolytes relatively quickly without much of an economic effect since you only need 5 for 100% mining efficiency.
In StarCraft II, the first two workers per mineral patch all hold exactly the same value. The amount of minerals that 16 workers can mine per minute is roughly double the amount of minerals that 8 workers can mine per minute on a base that has 8 mineral patches (ever so slightly less than double actually, but not significantly enough where “double” isn’t fair to say in terms of game balance). After 16 and up to 24 workers, each additional worker adds value approximately 40-45% of the income value as each of the first 16. After 24 workers (or 3 workers per mineral patch) there is practically no value at all in having any additional workers. This is why expanding in StarCraft II is so incredibly beneficial and has such a high reward. As a result, expanding is always done as early as possible in nearly every single top-level game, because the value that you get from your first 16 workers at every base is just so ridiculously high.
In Brood War, mining works very similarly to StarCraft II except for one MAJOR difference. The rate of minerals mined per minute IS NOT doubled when you have 16 workers mining as opposed to 8 on eight mineral patches. In fact, all the workers between worker 9 and worker 16 only have about 55-60% of the income value as the first 8 workers, then workers 17-24 only have roughly 35-40% of the income value as the first 8 workers. Like StarCraft II, additional workers after the 24th worker have practically no value. These elements of mining are a big reason why Zerg players in BW can equalize their rate of income with other races despite having a lower worker count because their workers tend to be distributed among more mineral patches at more bases.
So what does all this mean in relation to all 3 games?
In WarCraft III, it means that it’s basically impossible to have a major long-term impact on your opponent’s economy unless you take out an entire base.
In StarCraft II, it means that killing just a handful of workers can be a total economic disaster for a player. For example, if you and your opponent both have 16 workers mining and you kill half of your opponent’s workers, you now effectively have an income rate TWICE that of your opponent.
In Brood War, it means that the effect of killing your opponent’s workers isn’t nearly as punishing, because if you kill half of their 16 workers in Brood War, you have only given yourself a 55-60% economic income advantage, which gives your opponent much more of an opportunity to get back into the game!
“But what if I lose ALL of my workers in BW and SC2?”
This is just ridiculously more punishing in SC2 than in BW because now you have to make 16 workers to equalize your opponent’s economic advantage instead of just having to make 8 to at least somewhat get back into the game.
These reasons are also why Drone kills in Brood War are often considered way more valuable than Probe or SCV kills, however this is compensated by Zerg’s ability to be able to produce many workers at once. If Zerg didn’t have this compensation, then killing Drones in BW would be just as punishing as killing Probes or SCVs in StarCraft II.
Because of the economic comeback elements that Brood War somewhat possesses, it's far more difficult for both players and spectators to ever really have a clear idea exactly who is going to win until the game is all but over, and I believe this plays a huge role in why an ASL quarter-finals match can still attract nearly a quarter-million live viewers 22 years after Brood War's release.
So how can we take what we know about the economy of these games and implement them into the Comeback Factor moving forward?
​
THE ART OF THE COMEBACK: THE ECONOMY
I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m some sort of creative genius and spitball ideas of whether or not the economy should involve mining minerals, collecting coins, soaking energy from the sun, or picking turnips. I mean, I can if you want, but that’s not what this proposal is about. This is about how to create a fair and effective economic system that finds a good and fair balance between allowing players who are behind to get back into the game while also not too harshly punishing players when they are ahead.
While there was a pretty effective form of economic income control through worker values in Brood War and a somewhat effective form of income control through upkeep in WarCraft III, I believe that both forms of control are still far too dramatic and too immediate (albeit much less immediate in BW since only one worker loses value at a time whereas all the workers lose their value at once in War3).
But there is one thing that both games taught us: Income control is necessary.
I would like to propose a simple idea that can be implemented in a variety of different ways whether it’s through gathering gold, mining minerals, or (ideally) picking turnips from a garden.
What if ONLY the first worker got 100% value from gathering resources at a single location? What if the 2nd worker got 95% value, the 3rd got 90% value, the 4th got 85%, so on and so forth...? Of course, these are arbitrary gradients that mean absolutely nothing right now and we don’t even necessarily have to use workers as our means of getting income, but the idea behind it is that if your early workers have more value and your later workers have proportionally less value but still SOME value, then you aren’t as severely behind when you just have a few workers and you also aren’t drastically punished when you have a lot of workers.
If this were implemented into any RTS it would effectively do three things:
  1. It would encourage engagement and aggression just like upkeep did in WarCraft III.
  2. It would encourage expansion and growth just like in StarCraft II.
  3. It would allow even more of an economic opportunity for a comeback than Brood War.
Q: How would it encourage aggression like in WarCraft III?
-- Because once you reach various levels of economic growth, your opponent will be able to equalize with you much more quickly unless you stop him from doing so.
Q: How would it encourage expansion and growth like in StarCraft II?
-- Because once you reach a certain level of income at one base, it becomes more beneficial to establish another base in order to gain higher value from your workers.
Q: How would it allow even more of an economic opportunity for a comeback than Brood War?
-- Because your earlier workers will have an even higher value compared to your later workers than in Brood War.
In order to give you an even better idea of how earlier workers will have a much higher value and allow for a better chance of a comeback, here are a couple of graphs so you can see it for yourself.
But so that we can compare the worker values in my proposed model to the worker values of StarCraft II and Brood War, I reduced the value of each additional worker in 4% increments rather than the 5% in my example earlier, since we will be using 24 workers to reach maximum saturation. Like I said, the actual numbers are pretty arbitrary anyway. It's the idea that I'm trying to get across. This will allow us to visually compare what it looks like going from 0% to 100% mining saturation in SC2 and BW and it shows what my model would look like in comparison.
https://preview.redd.it/yw8o6jxcx9x51.png?width=2392&format=png&auto=webp&s=81da3bd8b9a2c3d063d9bfe785a03a5f3837b5a9
This graph makes it clear why earlier workers in Brood War are far more valuable than in StarCraft II in the big scheme of things, which is why coming back after taking an economic hit is so much easier in Brood War. But as you can also see, my economic model for Frost Giant takes it a step even further, which would make it even more economically easier to recover should you take a big hit, or any degree of a hit for that matter. But at the same time, it's also not so way over-the-top that it makes it completely unfair to the player who holds the economic advantage either.
I've also included this bar graph if you wanted to take a side-by-side look at the difference of values the workers would have at each level.
https://preview.redd.it/4mpzaptex9x51.png?width=2636&format=png&auto=webp&s=36570527f2781788c5be42cd0bb552606ba4cf89
And here are the raw numbers if anyone wants to take a look and check my math for me...
https://preview.redd.it/s8ingv5hx9x51.jpg?width=435&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8781e32c8dd1d410b36e13ba09a6dfa6bd49f9b2
If you want to know exactly how I got these numbers, you can find the explanation HERE, because it's annoyingly tedious and it really messes up the overall flow and pacing of this proposal.
From an economic standpoint, I don’t see any downside to this if it is implemented to the primary source of income. Plus I’m just going to assume that there will be at least one additional type of secondary resource that players have to gather that could have a more stagnant and consistent gathering rate, so that can also be a way to kind of balance the flow of income between the resources.
(Edit: I wanted to avoid throwing out specific ideas, but quite a few people have commented and messaged me that this would be difficult to realistically implement. I don't see why workers wouldn't be able to extract resources from a single source that loses extraction efficiency the more workers you have on it. There are probably even far more creative/simple ways to accomplish this.)
But while implementing an economic system like this would be very effective, the Comeback Factor cannot be solely dependent on the economy. It will be very necessary to also implement other game elements to allow comebacks to be possible.
​
THE ART OF THE COMEBACK: UNIT & BUILDING QUALITIES
Now that we can finally push economics completely aside, there are many unit/building qualities that will be necessary in order to ensure that comebacks are possible. The main ones that come to mind are:
  1. Unit and building fragility
  2. Unit fortification advantage
  3. Units that dramatically hard-counter other units
  4. Efficient static defense
  5. Accessible and completely momentum-changing units
  6. Units that can quickly exploit different specific weaknesses
WarCraft III, StarCraft II, and Brood War all have some of these qualities to varying degrees, but it will be very important to put an emphasis on these particular unit/building qualities and make sure that they have a strong, discernible presence in order to ensure that comebacks are more of a possibility. And again, I’m not going to act like I’m some sort of creative genius, so I’m not going to try to tell some of the best professional game developers in the world how they should design their units. If you can find a way to implement turnips, cool. If not, too bad. But I do feel that these six qualities are all absolutely necessary for comebacks, nonetheless. They are mostly all self-explanatory, but I did want to elaborate a little on the importance of the first three.
1.) Unit and Base Fragility is probably the most important quality on this list. Having an opportunity to find weaknesses and deal damage to your opponent quickly can be extremely critical when trying to make a comeback, and this will only be possible if units and buildings have an exploitable level of fragility. If units and buildings are too difficult to kill, then it becomes impossible to do any kind of serious, game-changing damage to your opponent if you’re trying to equalize. It won’t matter that you snuck a covert task force into your opponent’s undefended expansion if it takes 5 minutes to kill a building. It won’t matter that you caught reinforcements on their way to join the main army if you can’t kill them before they get there. It won’t matter that you just built a direct counter to your opponent’s army if you can’t do any damage before he builds a counter to your counter. The lack of unit and building fragility in WarCraft III is also a big reason why it’s so difficult to ever rally together a comeback. In War3, if you have a bigger army than your opponent, it’s just incredibly easy to pull back weakened units to ensure they don’t die because of how long it takes to kill them. And because it takes so long to kill buildings in War3, it’s also very difficult to just run a few strategical units into a base, do some meaningful damage, and get out before your opponent’s army gets there, especially with Town Portals being a factor.
2.) Unit Fortification Advantage is a pretty big quality that I think took a hit with StarCraft II due to the implementation of unlimited unit selection and units being able to move in swarms, which led to the inevitable evolution of death balls. This made it extremely easy to get all of the units in your attacking army to all fight at once. In Brood War, it’s a lot riskier and more punishing to send your army into a fortified group of units since it’s way more difficult to keep your army close and have them all attack together. Another reason why unit fortification is stronger in Brood War is because the units and spells that work best in stationary, defensive positions (such as siege tanks, reavers, dark swarm/lurker, psionic storm) are far more powerful than those in SC2. I am by no means saying that one game’s mechanics and unit makeup are superior to the other, but it is important to acknowledge game elements that offer either more or less opportunity for a comeback.
3.) Units that Dramatically Hard-Counter Other Units will be an absolute MUST if we want to give players a good opportunity for a comeback. And I’m not talking about $1,000 worth of unit “A” will always beat $1,200 worth of unit “B” kind of counters. I’m talking about counters like $500 worth of unit “A” will embarrassingly DESTROY $2,000 worth of unit “B” kind of counters! It might not be necessary to be THAT dramatic, but you get the idea. These kind of dramatic hard-counters are definitely something that will help make it possible for a player who is behind to effectively defend or pre-empt an oncoming attack if they know what’s coming. (Edit: I'm NOT saying that every single unit should have a super hard-counter, just that dramatic hard-counters should play a clear role in the game.)
I really don’t think that I need to touch on the last three qualities at all, as the importance of those are very easy to see and understand. So in terms of units and buildings that haven’t even been invented yet, I think that’s all I got for that.
​
THE COMEBACK FACTOR: FINAL THOUGHTS
I really hope that I was able to help you understand the vital importance of having comeback elements in a game. And if I did, I really hope that some of the ideas that I proposed help you guys develop a game that makes comebacks possible and results in an RTS that lives on for generations.
I want to thank everyone who took the time to read this, as I always try put a lot of thought into analyzing any game that I really enjoy playing whether it’s a sport, board game, card game, or a video game. I am very passionate about balance and fairness, particularly in games of course, and I especially have a deep affection for RTS games, so even having you just read this really means a lot.
Thanks again for reading. Take care!
https://preview.redd.it/przhw77nx9x51.png?width=77&format=png&auto=webp&s=0acca35bcbaa0c9fe176ed179f629039f45f184c
submitted by Ted_E_Bear to FrostGiant [link] [comments]

what makes a good poker chip set video

Poker Tournament Chip Distribution. In a typical tournament, players get a particular number of certain-valued poker chips. That chip stack usually includes a few larger values, some of a medium denomination, and several lower values for the early stages when blinds and antes are low. Trademark Poker Chip Set This seven-colored set features 500 chips, and comes in a cool, felt-lined, silver aluminum carrying case. Everything you need to host a poker night is here. This poker chip set from Trademark Poker is the ideal set if you’re looking for the classic, authentic casino feel. The large quantity of chips makes it great for large tables. The chips weigh the standard 11.5 grams and come in classic colors with the striped design. Clay. There are three types of materials most poker chips are made of. The fanciest kind are known as clay poker chips, though truly they're made of a combo of clay and other materials, and are the standard casino diameter of 39 mm. They have a nice heft and weigh from 8 to 11.5 grams apiece. For casual players, the Trademark Poker Dice Style (about $40) is more than sufficient. Each piece is made from a composite resin with a heavy insert that makes it feel like a casino-style clay chip. Thanks to blank faces you can set the colors to any denomination you prefer. Comes with dealer and blind markers. The bigger your games are, the more luxurious set you'll need! Most poker chip sets include not only colored chips but also some additional elements like decks of cards, dice, and dealer-buttons conveniently packed in a sturdy case. Such packages are great for storage, as you needn't worry that chips might get scratched or lost. Organizing a poker set is not always easy. You have to take careful account of various factors and think carefully about which form of poker you plan to play. There is no official regulation for the chip breakdown of a poker set and that is why it happens regularly that people take a gamble with the breakdown of their set. When I looked at the various offerings of poker chip sets for this article, I eliminated from consideration almost all but those featuring either ceramic or clay composite chips — mostly because I’m a snob, but also because I imagine you are reading this to get good gift ideas (or to treat yourself), and a ten-dollar set of plastic poker chips from the Dollar Store is probably not what you ... When you play poker at home it is very important to have the right poker chips set. An outstanding poker chips set serves 2 purposes. Firstly it makes playing more fun, but secondly it is a mark of class. Just like any other status symbol the kind of set that the host of the poker game uses is a sign of their prestige. The Stardust chips are one of the only chip sets I know of that features a T25,000 chip. That alone makes this set rank very high. This is one attractive set, but it does have a big problem: they are from the wrong Stardust! This set was used at the Stardust Poker Mansion in Canada not Las Vegas. Wynn Casino

what makes a good poker chip set top

[index] [3889] [8592] [5770] [7895] [3184] [9860] [3767] [7333] [9173] [4300]

what makes a good poker chip set

Copyright © 2024 top100.playtoprealmoneygame.xyz