Vacation Post

That's right everyone. The Hammer Family is going to the beach next week. I will be bringing my computer, but as far as I am told, there is no internet access at our beach house. That means there likely won't be any updates here during next week.

As I said, however, I am still bringing my computer. If I find somewhere convenient with internet access, I will try to post. And, in my ever-present optimism, I am still hoping to show up there and find at least a wireless network I can hack onto if not some form of internet access at the house itself. I mean, it's 2006. Who the F doesn't even have the internet in their house? Sheesh.

Now I have a slight bone to pick this morning. Let me start by saying that I absolutely love what Byron has done with the WPBT tournaments and leaderboard. I've posted about that here many, many times. As I've said, I love the WPBT events, I look forward to playing in them, and, probably saddest of all, I really actually care about how I do in them. For whatever reason, since the beginning it has been very important to me to do well in the WPBT race, and I have taken every single event I've played in seriously. I'm so glad that Byron has taken the time and effort to keep running track of bloggers' performance in a whole series of holdem and non-holdem poker tournaments, and I've had a great time in each event, bar none.

Now, after all that disclaimer, why do I have a bone to pick with Biggestron this morning? Because I checked out the finally updated WPBT POY leaderboard on his site last night, and found that, after my impressive 18th-place finish in the event last week, I somehow dropped in the standings from 11th place to 14th place. Now, I'm not typically one to make sweeping generalizations about things I actually know nothing about, but in this case that is Absoeffinglutely Redonkulous.

First of all, let's look at the players ahead of me in the race, as I was in 11th place going into the live wpbt event two weekends ago at the Caesar's Palace poker room in Las Vegas. I personally eliminated StB, well before the money positions of the top 30 slots for the WPBT race. Second-place Lucko didn't play in the event, nor did Lifesagrind in 5th place. Gracie in 5th place failed to cash in the live event, as did SoxLover, and Drizz didn't make it out to Vegas to play. Tony Soprano (aka Cracknaces) was busted early from the live event, and Blood couldn't make it out either. In fact, the only guy who had been in the top 10 players before Vegas and who finished higher than I did there was StatiKling.

Now let's look at the other guys who did do well in the live WPBT event. F-Train won the event. He wasn't even on the WPBT list before the live event. Pii came in second place, another guy who also was nowhere to be found on the WPBT board. Esteemed poker author DoubleAs was in the top five of the live event as well, but he was in 26th place prior to the live event and thus way out of the WPBT's top ten. Other final tablers as I recall included Donkeypuncher, who was near the very bottom of the WPBT list going in, Change100 as well ended near the bottom of the top 10 in the event, and Bobby Bracelet also made the WPBT final table but also was down near the bottom of the WPBT standings before Vegas. These players also were not near the WPBT top 10 prior to the event. So the few people who did better than me in the live event were not near me in the WPBT standings heading in, and the people who were ahead of me on the WPBT board did nowhere near as well as me in the WPBT live event, with the exception of Mr. Kling. So I'm thinking I have to have moved up here, from 11th place prior to the live tournament, to probably something like 7th ot 8th place.

Instead, I log in this morning and see that I am down to 14th. Huh? Can't be. Then I look a little deeper, and a guy like F-Train who wasn't even on the list prior to the event, is now up to 11th place overall? Whaaaa? Pii, having played in only one event, is in 26th place overall? Not cool. How do you play 10 events over several months, and then a guy plays in his first event, comes in 2nd place in that one event, and is in 26th place out of 140-some players? And a guy who wasn't even on the list, comes in an wins one event, and is suddenly in 11th place. No way. Byron, you gotta change that. I couldn't say enough how much I love what you've done with the whole WPBT thing. But in this case, no way. One event can't possibly count as much as 10 events and 10 solid finishes by other players. Please tell me I'm just misreading this thing.

OK I'll post again when I can. Have a great week if I don't chat you before then.

**UPDATE: Byron has come through again, very quickly notifying me today that he had in fact failed to add in my points from the live WPBT event. So now I'm up to 7th place in the overall WPBT standings, and 5th overall in the points-per-event standings. That's more like it. And Byron updated the shizz about an hour after I posted on his blog this morning. Now that is service. Anyways, I still question how coming in 2nd place in the one event can be worth so much as to get Pii into 26th place after just one event played, or how F-Train can jump a million spots into 11th place overall with just the one win and only one other WPBT event played (did he even cash in that event?). But I guess I don't care as much, as long as I am back in the top ten ;)

Thanks Byron for your quick response. He runs a tight ship over there at the WPBT headquarters.