Tuesday Update
Lots to get to today. First off, I am pleased to announce the money winners in the second Mondays at the Hoy tournament of the new era where we're keeping a running tally of the annual money leaders. Last night was another hard-fought bout, with 19 runners setting out to make their mark on the year's money list, and in the end it was a trio of relatively new players in the blogger games that took down the cashish. Winning first place and the $190 first prize was VinNay, with whom I've only played on a few occasions so far but who I hope to see more of in the future. Finishing in second place for $114 was Ganton516, whose blog I could not find on the internets for the life of me, and rounding out the cash spots was Manik79 in third place, putting in his second strong performance in the Hoy in just the last few weeks and winning $76 for his efforts last night.
This all leaves our 2007 Hoy moneyleader board as of now looking as follows:
1. Hoyazo (yes!) $200
2. VinNay $190
3. Zeem $120
4. Ganton516 $114
5. PhinCity $80
6. Manik79 $76
I look forward to seeing you next week in the 2007 Chase for the Hoy, and thanks to everyone who came out to play last night as always.
In other news, I learned this weekend that I apparently misstated (or actually, more like understated) my brother in law Lobos' record in recent years in my NFL Pick'em league when I posted about the results last week. In that post last week, I referred to "Lobos's second consecutive top-few finish in this league" when giving him credit for his second-place finish in the money pool in the league for 2006 as well. Well, Lobos was very quick to point out to me in a semi-scathing email this weekend that his record in my Pick'em league is actually as follows:
'03 First Place
'04 First Place
'05 Second Place
'06 Second Place in the money pool, 3rd place overall.
I didn't bother going and verifying these results, as I'm going to choose to take the guy's word for it. Anyways, I stand corrected, and I certainly meant no disrespect by not detailing the exact specifics of his greatness. I will suggest to you all that the next time you see the guy in the Hoy -- he plays under the name Lester000 or something similar to that -- that you congratulate him on a Pick'em job very well done, for the past several years. And he still is the guy with the hilarious blog -- which I spent this weekend reading through in its entirety -- but which I'm not allowed to link you to for fear of his being outed amongst his friends. But the shit is funny, trust me on that.
In other news, last night I played in 5 tournaments, with absolutely nothing to show for it in the end. In the Hoy I busted in 7th place after making a nice run, one which included me being timed out of a hand where I had turned a full house and was going to deplete eventual winner VinNay of most of his stack, but thanks to the pokerstars server I was auto-folded instead and I was never able to recover fully, eventually running A5s into AKo in a big blind special, where I open-pushed from the button and of course the big blind had big slick and I was done. So that was what I call a setup, as opposed to a bad beat, but the rest of my 4 other tournaments all ended in sick bad beats of one kind or another. I got busted on the bubble of the 9:15pm ET PLO token buyin tournament on full tilt when my nut flush on the turn got called by a guy with top 2 pairs, and then he hit his boat on the river. I got eliminated on the third hand from the 100k on pokerstars when I slow-played my pocket Aces to perfection, duping some clown to put me allin on what basically amounted to a stone bluff when he had Q7 on a board of KQ42 rainbow, only to see a 7 fall on the river and knock me out early in the most vicous of fashions. I also lost a low-limit HORSE sng on full tilt with a buddy of mine when a clown rivered a higher two pairs than the two pairs that I had already made on 4th street but never improved. So i was a sucky, suckouty night overall for me last night on the tournament front, but at least I did manage to make a little over a hundy at the razz cash tables on pokerstars so the overall damage was minimal in the end. But I am really looking forward to getting back out there tonight and erasing the memory of last night, in particular with the latest Winner's Choice tournament set for tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt, with me already having satellited into it this past Sunday.
One other quick point -- and this goes out in particular to my one poker playing girly chat friend in addition to some other guys I was chatting with yesterday about this -- you people who think Marty Schottenheimer should be fired for losing to the Patriots are nucking futs. Seriously guys. Do you even follow football? Have you followed it for more than the past, say, 1 or 2 games? Does anyone remember how bad, how truly, truly awful, the Chargers were just a few years ago when Schottenheimer was just getting started rebuilding this team? Anyone recall a certain younger brother of a certain bigtime NFL quarterback refusing to play in San Diego under any circumstances for any amount of money, basically John Elwaying himself out of there and over to the New York Giants instead, because 3 years ago the Chargers were the literal joke of the NFL? Just last season, the Chargers were picked to be the literal worst team in the NFL, with no major publications picking them for more than 4 wins on the season, and Schottenheimer led them to their first playoff team in more than 10 years, coming up with 9 surprise wins in a hugely successful season. Now this year, he's got them as the undisputed best team in the NFL, a frigging 14-2 record, despite the loss to the Patriots this weekend, and you people want to fire him? Huh? I laugh at you. You fire Schottenheimer, and I will fire Andy Reid in a heartbeat and take Schottenheimer to be my Eagles new coach. After what he's done these past few seasons in San Diego, if you want to get rid of him, I laugh at you. Nay, I scoff at you. I seriously scoff.
And plus, having watched every snap of the game this Sunday, I don't see how anyone can actually blame the coach for this loss. Yes I think he could have saved his time outs a bit better. But you're going to fire him over that? Hah! If the Chargers go on to win that game like they were going to after they intercepted Brady with less than half of the 4th quarter remaining, no one would be saying boo about the time outs situation today. Instead, it'd be all about what a genius Schottenheimer is and the incredible job he's done this year. Without a doubt. But instead, because this defensive player went on to fumble that ball on the runback after that huge, huge interception -- something for which you surely cannot blame Marty Schottenheimer -- now all of a sudden it was the coach's total mismanagement of the game that caused the loss. Give me a fucking break people. Schottenheimer's postseason record is what it is, and I'm not trying to say he's great. What I am saying is this -- you fire him, and the team will absolutely positutely be worse next season. You can take that shit to the bank. And don't forget to give Schottenheimer the Eagles' front office number on his way out of town, because I will fire Andy Reid yesterday if it means I can bring Schottenheimer in here. Talk about a guy who can't win a big game. Fire Andy Reid if you want to fire someone, not Marty Schottenheimer. Man that talk pisses me off.
OK that's enough of that rant. Check me out tonight in the 9pm ET Winner's Choice tournament on full tilt. I will try to play in the WWdN as well at 8:30pm ET on pokerstars (password is "monkey" as always), but as usual I don't know that I can make that one yet. 8:30 basically always means these days that it's really up to M, the older Hammer Girl, and when she decides is an appropriate time for her to go to sleep, as opposed to being a question of my desire to play or not, as is the case with the later tournaments in the evening. See you tonight at the virtual tables!
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 7:49 PM
7 Comments:
Good luck in the WC tonight. Your bad beat stories give me solace, having gone down in my pub league last night to a guy who called my 8x BB PF with 53o (with one caller already), and catches a two outer on river to knock me out...
Anyhoo, on the subject of Martyball, the dude is 6-13 in playoff games. He's a great coach if you want a respectable program, but if you're really looking for the brass ring, he's not ever going to deliver. He's lost his last 5 or 6 playoff games. He's done a good job giving San Diego a strong club, and he's a good rebuilder, but the Chargers will never win the Super Bowl as long as he's there.
Martyball is the Flip Saunders of the NFL.
But, he's still a great regular season coach.
drizz is right on with the Flip Saunders comparison. Sure, Marty has done a great job turning the Chargers around. Of course, LaDanian Tomlinson, Antonio Gates, Phillip Rivers, Shawne Merriman and Drew Brees have had a lot to do with that as well. Some coaches just aren't able to take teams to their potential, no matter how well they play in the regular season. Flip Saunders couldn't get it done in the playoffs with the Wolves, and he's showing again with the Pistons that he lacks that ability to take teams to the next level. Tony Dungy is quickly becoming that kind of coach as well the way the Colts continue to choke in the playoffs each year. Maybe this year will change.
There are some coaches that can't win championships. And as good as Marty has been with San Diego, they have gone as far as they can with him, and it doesn't matter if they go 16-0, if they can't win a Super Bowl with him at the helm, then it's time to go. And it should be sooner than later, while LT is still in his prime.
Honestly guys, I have to believe that the Chargers are the odds-on favorites to win the superbowl next season. I am betting that Vegas has them listed that way too, once the season ends. I really don't know what all the venom towards Marty is -- and believe me, it's not like I love the guy -- but I watched the game on Sunday and I just think it's redickulous to blame that loss on him. That guy doesn't fumble the ball on the INT runback, and the Chargers win and Marty has exorcised his demons.
Thanks for another great tourny Hoy.
Seems as though another fellow blogger didn't enjoy it when I took his chips.
http://slb159.blogspot.com/
The guy was a 45% dog pre-flop and he still blasts me for taking it down with A high.
Hilarious but I doubt i'll be back if this is the kind of thing I can expect.
-m
Hey manik. Obviously you have to do what you have to do. I read slb's blog today after seeing your comment here. I will weigh in with my two cents.
1. First of all, bloggers blasting other bloggers' play in their own blogs is fairly commonplace, especially for the tiltable and less stable among us. On occasion I have been in the latter category myself, but there are some others who basically live there all the time. slb is definitely one of those guys -- something I'm sure he would admit himself if asked. slb has about 100 different posts on his blog if you care to read them all where he slams on everyone from the most old-school bloggers, to people whom he considers good friends, even to a family member of mine as I recall. It's just the way slb is, and frankly I enjoy reading that kind of raw outburst on people's blogs. In fact it's one of the things that I think is so great about blogging as a medium in general. Someone pisses you off, you can blog about it and nobody can stop you, or even make you tell the actual truth in your blog. I love it.
2. In fact I'll take it a step further -- I love it when something I do at the poker table tilts another blogger. That's what I live for, and whenever it happens I tend to really cherish the moment. It happens to the best of us, so when you are able to tilt another blogger I say you embrace your inner tiltmaking ability and just try to enjoy it.
3. You've played great in a couple of visits to the Hoy tournament, so (not that you asked, but) I think it would be redickulous for you to stop coming because a guy who rarely plays in it posted something derogatory about you in his blog.
4. In general, I think you're kind of new to the whole poker blogging scene, so I will respectfully suggest that you try to get some thicker skin. As a general statement, if I stopped playing every tournament where someone bashed my play (rightly or wrongly), I wouldn't have any blogger tournaments left to play, and probably wouldn't have had them left several months ago. Again, everyone makes their own decisions of course, but for me, the first time someone blog-slammed me I was a little hurt too. But give it some time, a day or two maybe, and you should realize how little it actually matters. Letting someone else's blog comments about your poker play impact what or how you play is, to me, the height of silliness and bad decisionmaking.
5. Lastly, and I'm not sure if this is the most important point or not, is that obviously you abused slb with your play that knocked him out of the Hoy. And I guarantee you that Every Single Person who reads slb's blog post about that will realize that. Again, this is not the first time that slb has been tilty and posted something derogatory about someone else's play, even where like in this case it was slb and not the other player who made the bad move. I mean, you probably figured this guy will call your allin with two big cards, even if he doesn't have an Ace. That plan worked to perfection. When he wrote the post right after the Hoy, slb clearly did not (and maybe still does not) realize how horrendously unnecessary his allin call was without even an Ace in his hand, given your push. In his shoes, I (and probably mostly every other blogger out there) would have put you on any Ace, or a medium pocket pair of some kind, and folded any hand without an Ace in it. That's not to say that I think he made the worst call in the world, because KQ is a pretty solid hand in the bb when facing just an open-push from the sb. But it's pretty obvious that making that allin call with KQ was not the best move in the situation, and every single blogger out there knows that. Take my word for it. slb made an ill-advised (not terrible, but just ill-advised) play, he got burned by a better hand, and then he ranted about it in his blog. Big deal.
Like I said, with a day or two of hindsight I assume you will understand how silly it is to play or not play certain games based on some clownish, blatantly incorrect comments about your poker play on a particularly tilty blogger's blog. I like to read slb and frankly I'm looking for his ranty posts just like this one. In fact he's one of the few guys out there who would have the audacity to post a rant like this where his opponent clearly made a good play and he clearly made an ill-advised one. I enjoy it, personally, even when me or my family members have been the object of such rants.
FYI I love it when any blogger rants about my play on his blog, regardless of the situation. LOVE it!
Best of luck, now come play the Hoy just like usual next Monday and don't let silly comments like slb's influence your decision of what to do on a Monday night.
Holy shit, any comment that long deserves its own blog entry. ;-0)
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