Another Year Coming to a Close

And what a year it's been. Later during the last week of the year, I'm planning to do some of the more "year in review" type of posts, including some top ten lists I've been putting together over the past several weeks, so you can look for that right here in the days to come. I know I've been horribly lax in posting this week, but I am out of the office for the rest of the year after today, and as a result I've been running around like crazy trying to get everything done in time for a seamless week off from work. The better news is that, as of tonight, I should be able to get right back to my normal routine of daily posting, as I won't have work, or holiday shopping, or family visits, etc. to get in the way of me doing my thang. Next week will be all about you guys, I promise. Well, you guys, the Hammer Wife and the Hammer Girls I guess.

I wanted to write for just a few seconds today about the WPBT. As you all probably know, Byron's WPBT POY race is over for 2006, with Lucko taking the thing down in a big way, posting three WPBT wins in individual events during the year, and really just generally wowing us all with his consistent stellar performances week in and week out in these things. StB built up a nice lead early on in the WPBT POY race, but Lucko came on like a bat out of hell around the middle of the year, and the man basically never looked back after that. I posted often during the year about my own interest in this race, as it is something that I took very seriously in 2006, so I have to give props where props are due. Congratulations to Lucko, and here's hoping you make even your 25k score from a couple of weeks ago look like nothing in 2007. I'm still waiting for a good "How to Win Multi-Table Tournaments" post from you, but until then I guess CC's article on how the bloggers are all weak-tight will have to suffice.

As an aside, while I'm on the topic, is that something that you all agree with? That the bloggers as a rule are weak-tight? As I read CC's article, which I enjoyed thoroughly as it included input from a few players for whom I have tremendous respect, I could not help but thinking how much I do not agree with that weak-tight characterization of the poker blogging crew generally. Seriously, if anything I find the bloggers as a group to be overly aggro, not weak. Tight, maybe, or at least certainly tighter than Lucko tends to play once he's got a big chip lead in a tournament, yes. But weak? That's just not my experience among the bloggers, with whom I play at least a couple of tournaments a week. That's not to say that there are no weak-tight players among the group, for I'm sure there are, but for the most part, I find the bloggers to be far more aggressive and hard to deal with than weak. Maybe it's just me. But I really don't get that whole thing. The people I'm playing with in the WWdN, the Mookie, etc. are for the most part not at all weak, and many of them aren't so tight either. That's just my opinion, though, so ymmv (one of my favorite internet abbreviations btw).

So, back to the WPBT POY. First let me say again how kickass of a job I think Byron did with this this year. At the beginning of the year, there was seriously nothing out there that enabled the bloggers to keep track of how well players were doing in these regular blogger events. I myself had identified that as something that I really wished would change, and then Byron came along and did just that. Even though I had some questions about scoring along the way, in general I thought the whole POY race was -- literally -- one of the most fun things I had to focus on among the poker bloggers during the year. So I would like to fomally thank Byron for getting it together enough to do this, and for doing it as well as he did. I know Byron was a bit disappointed about attendance at some of his late-season events this year, but frankly I think that is to be expected when you're running a year-long leaderboard and most of the people in your potential audience are no longer in the running for the top spots in Player of the Year. In the end, I loved the format of the games, I loved having the only real consistent multi-game poker series among the bloggers, and just generally everything about the WPBT and its POY race was really excellent to me.

As a result, when I saw a couple of weeks ago that Byron was not planning to do the WPBT again next year, I was really bummed. I know it was an incredible amount of work and I'm sure the bellyaching from dickheads like me about the scoring, format, scheduling, etc. was not always appreciated (why would it be?). Nonetheless, I am overjoyed to see Byron's latest post, where fellow compadre Columbo has agreed to take the mantle but to keep running with the WPBT in 2007. IMO, that is a kickass decision by both Byron and Columbo, and I can always be counted on to participate in these events as long as they fit into my schedule. And, while we're at it, if you can avoid the Sopranos and Lost next season with the scheduling of the tournaments, then all the better. But even if not, with my DVR fully active at this point over at my place, I will make do no matter what.

Oh also, did I mention -- and this despite not even playing in the big-points live tournament earlier this month to end the season -- that I ended the year in 4th overall in WPBT points, and in 4th place overall as well in average points per event if you only count players with at least 10 WPBT events played. I'm certainly not going to go nuts about a 4th place finish in anything, but at the same time, to end up a year in 4th place among a group of poker players whose game I respect more than any other group in the world, especially when on January 1 of this year I had never won an online mutli-table tournment in my life, it all really means a lot to me.

Here's looking to lots more fun together as poker bloggers and online poker players in 2007!