Football and Poker Update

Before I forget:



Remember, this is the second week of the new Mondays at the Hoy for 2007, where we're keeping a running tally of the year's leading moneywinners in this private tournament series. Last week 20 runners went at it in the battle for the $20 buyins, and yours truly came out on top, winning my second Hoy and my first of the new year, and putting me in the early lead in the money pool for 2007. Come on out tonight and donate to my cause again as I take down my first back to back Hoy tournaments in another fun meeting of some friends of mine and a number of bloggers who really know how to play the game.

Speaking of which, I had a blast last night playing Don's Big Game on full tilt. In what was truly one of the toughest tournament fields I can ever recall for a blogger event -- at one point I was seated between Lucko, Cracknaces and jeciimd to name a few of the most fearsome players -- I ended the event in 4th place. Unfortunately, only the top 3 spots paid out. Fortunately, we made a deal when we were down to 4 players left that paid back the $75 buyin to the 4th place finisher, so in the end I broke even for that event, and had a great time playing great poker against a very tough and seasoned tournament field. Congratulations to Don for taking down his own tournament, in addition to Kajagugu for taking second place, and CC for taking third.

In other news, football was pretty crazy this weekend. OF my three picks for the weekend, two of them ended up panning out, with only my Under pick for the Ravens/Colts game failing to make the money. I was surprised to see both the Colts and especially the Ravens be so inept on offense as we saw in that game, but it's pretty amazing that it's going to be Colts/Pats again in the AFC Championship game next weekend. The game is in Indy again this time, so anything can happen as far as I'm concerned. And speaking of the Patriots, is it me or is that team fucking magical or something? I mean, with half of the 4th quarter left and the Chargers up by 8, I cannot have been the only person who already knew the Pats were going to win. Well, me and Tom Brady. And Bill Belichik. That guy, and that team, are just sick. Talk about poise under pressure, the greatest 4th quarter 2-minute offense I've ever seen, and the best sense of luck around. That interception-fumble play was just unreal. That ball gets knocked down instead of picked off (and fumbled) by the Chargers, and next week's AFC game is in San Diego, not Indy.

It's a shame, really. The NFC kicked ass this weekend, with both of the clearly two best teams playing their way via hard-fought 27-24 victories into the NFC Championship. Yes my Eagles lost, and yes there were a couple of very questionable calls made by the refs -- all of which miraculously went the way of the Katrina-harmed America's Team Saints -- but in the end I am quite confident that the two best teams won the games in the NFC. My Eagles had in the end a great year -- including their 4th NFC East title in the past 5 years -- but I'm ok with the Saints winning a close one at home. We had our chance to win or tie it at the end, and with a little help from the refs we couldn't get it done, so more power to the Saints and the Bears. And my analysis on the Saints-Eagles over/under line could hardly have been more correct, in that I picked over 49 and a close game with both teams scoring 25-30 points. 27-24? I'll take credit for that one.

I also heartily took the Seahawks +9 points in what had to be the worst line of the weekend. In the end Mike Holmgren's boys made a valiant effort against a superior team, taking the game to OT where I knew my +9 line had to win. And the Bears got the job done, including embattled quarterback Rex Grossman really stepping up when he needed to. The 'Hawks got the ball first in OT and had their chance, but the Bears' D held them off and then marched down the field, mostly on the strength of Grossman's arm, and got where they needed to be. And a clutch kick from Bears' kicker Robbie Gould as well, let's not forget that, nailing a 50 yarder under immense pressure to send his team to the NFC Championship. So I feel a little bit bad for Seahawks and Eagles fans this morning, but I feel the most bad for Smokkee and the Chargers fans out there, who ran into the unbeatable Pats who just seem to be the Team of Destiny almost every single year.

Speaking of Smokkee, he and I had a conversation some time ago about these multi-seat satellite tournaments, and how beatable they seem to be. Well, I'm here to say today how true that is. Over the past couple of months, since I decided as part of my 2007 goals to start focusing on playing the larger-buyin nighttime online tournaments this year, I have attempted to qualify for almost every weekly 30k HORSE tournament and almost every Tuesday night / Saturday night Winner's Choice tournament on full tilt, both of which carry $216 buyins. Although my roll would support me buying in directly to these tournaments from time to time, I choose not to, opting instead to qualify through the Tier 1 and Tier 2 token satellites, and just not playing in the big events any week I don't qualify. The amazing thing is, I have literally not failed to qualify in all but one or two of these events over the past month or two. And I'm not talking about me playing 10 or 20 sats until I win my way into one of these things. I am going to guess that my record in satellite tournaments over the past 6 weeks -- let's include just the Winner's Choice, weekly HORSE and FTOPS satellites in the equation, as those are the only sats I recall playing of late -- is probably about 20 played, and 16 seats qualified for. If it's not that, it's something very close. That includes the sat I won last Thursday to play in last night's 30k HORSE tournament, in which I busted in 52nd place after chasing some draws probably more than I should, and get utterly uberfucked on 6th and 7th streets to go along with those chases. And then last night I played my regular 10:30pm ET qualifier for Tuesday's Winner's Choice tourney, which had 35 runners and awarded 3 seats. Fast forward to 1am ET, and there I was, in first place with 3 players left as I eliminated #4 when my slowplayed ATs bested the short stack's allin with his A6o. I've been on an incredible run in these satellites of late, and I'm hoping it doesn't end anytime soon, or at least not until I can win myself one of those fatty 12k prize packages in the Winner's Choice events which run twice each week.

OK that's all for now. Come out and play the Hoy tonight, because it's a really fun time, the quality of play is excellent, and I'm going to run some kind of really cool invitational tournament later in the year for the top Hoy money winners during 2007. Registration is open now, so I'll see you tonight at Mondays at the Hoy!!