MATH Recap, and NFL Week 1 In the Books

25 runners came out this Monday night for the latest Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, another nice turnout making for an even $600 in the prize pool and some nice prizes for the top three finishers. I started off with both Bayne and Columbo at my starting table, plus LJ, my college roommate Buckhoya who first introduced me to online poker, jeciimd, RaisingCayne to name a few of the blogger heavies, which left me particularly pleased to have both of the guys with whom I am virtually tied atop the 2007 MATH moneyboard here at my table so I could keep my eyes on them and maybe berate whomever set them up with chips early on in this thing.

I played huge in the MATH this week, sticking mostly with my usual game, which means tons of raising and reraising preflop, while barely showing any actual hands, most of which were utter garbage. All this while at least three other players were clearly luckboxing their way through the tournament (what else is new), including multiple players showing at least three separate pocket Aces during the roughly 3 hour tournament. It's unbelievable, really. I think I had pocket Jacks once, and no AK all the way through, and I must've seen 6 or 7 AA and KK shown by other players just in the 100 minutes or so I was still in the tournament. Nonetheless, I aggro'd my way to the chip lead with 18 players remaining in the first hour, but then fell victim to two recockusuckouts for most of my stack within the span of just a few hands, before sucking out in my own right spiking a set of 9s on the river to eliminate resident luckbox Astin in ruthless fashion. Eventually, I don't even remember how I went out, but I busted in 11th place on a short stack, and as I've written here many times, if I don't remember then it's a safe bet that I got in behind or in a race situation and lost. Either way, I was totally going to win this thing until the recockusucks slammed me in the face while everyone else seemed to be getting face-slammed with pocket Aces, which is never a good combination for a poker tournament player.

In the end, Pirate Wes made another MATH cash by finishing this week's tournament in 3rd place for $120 cash, increasing what was already a top-10 position on the 2007 MATH moneyboard even before this week. In second place this week, making her second cash in the Hoy was LJ, who loves to blame me when I goad her into playing the MATH in the girly chat and then she fails to cash, but for some reason never gives me any credit for encouraging her to play when she wins $180 like this week for her efforts. And winning the MATH this week, for his second win and his amazing 5th final table in 6 lifetime attempts, was RaisingCayne, who took down $300 and the coveted MATH title for the next week. I have to say, I've wondered quite a bit over the past couple of months how this Cayne guy keeps final tabling the MATH and last night I got to see it first hand for the first time with him seated at my starting table right from the get-go. When I called a preflop raise from Cayne about 40 minutes in to the tournament with my pocket Jacks and saw a heads-up flop of 568 rainbow, I bet out, Cayne raised allin with a short stack and after much deliberation I decided I didn't quite believe he had hit this board better than my overpair Jacks, so I had to call. Cayne flipped up the Hammer, and then promptly made a 7 on the turn and a 2 on the river for the runner-runner fucksuck of me. So that's how Cayne does it in the MATH. So help me god that guy is not going to survive being at my table again next week in this thing. But well played to all three of our MATH cashers this week, especially to Cayne for keeping his amazing final table streak alive at the Hoy, and here are the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard standings, including this week's tournament:

1. Bayne_s $1175
2. Columbo $1168
3. Hoyazo $1162
4. RaisingCayne $822
5. Pirate Wes $792
6. VinNay $775
7. cmitch $774
8. Iggy $745
9. NewinNov $677
10. Lucko21 $665
11. Waffles $650
12. Astin $616
13. Tripjax $561
14. IslandBum1 $527
15. Julius Goat $507
16. bartonf $492
16. mtnrider81 $492
18. PokerBrian322 $490
19. Chad $485
20. scots_chris $474
21. Fuel55 $458
22. Mike_Maloney $456
23. RecessRampage $434
24. Otis $429
25. Surflexus $402
25. Miami Don $402
27. jeciimd $382
27. Jordan $382
29. Blinders $379
30. lightning36 $371
31. ChapelncHill $353
32. Zeem $330
33. LJ $326
34. OMGitsPokerFool $324
35. oossuuu754 $312
36. leftylu $295
37. Emptyman $288
37. Wigginx $288
39. ScottMc $282
40. Fishy McDonk $277
41. Irongirl $252
41. Manik79 $252
43. Wippy1313 $248
44. swimmom95 $245
45. Byron $234
46. wwonka69 $216
47. Omega_man_99 $210
48. katiemother $209
49. Pushmonkey72 $208
50. Buddydank $197
51. Gary Cox 194
52. 23Skidoo $176
53. Santa Clauss $170
54. Iakaris $162
54. Smokkee $162
56. cemfredmd $156
56. NumbBono $156
58. lester000 $147
59. Heffmike $145
60. brdweb $143
61. Mookie $137
61. DDionysus $137
63. Patchmaster $135
64. InstantTragedy $129
65. Ganton516 $114
66. Fluxer $110
67. hoops15mt $95
68. Gracie $94
68. Scurvydog $94
70. wormmsu $91
71. Shag0103 $84
72. crazdgamer $82
73. PhinCity $80
74. maf212 $78
75. Alceste $71
76. dbirider $71
77. Easycure $67
78. Rake Feeder $53

So LJ zooms up to 33rd place on the annual moneyboard, while Wes inches his way up to 5th place overall, and the big mover is Cayne who now amazingly sits in 4th place despite only playing in 6 MATH tournaments in the entire year! So lots of movement at the top of the moneyboard this week, and I look forward to next week for the action at the top to stay hot and heavy as several players are now in position to either overtake or at least threaten the money lead with a big performance in any one of our regular weekly Monday night events.

So, on the fantasy football front, everything happened just barely how I needed it to in the two Monday night games to leave me with a really strong Week 1. Again, I am in four leagues this year, and Monday night saw Chad Johnson score just enough (barely), Frank Gore score just enough (barely), and most importantly Edge James fail to score just enough (barely) for me to hang on in all three of my Yahoo! leagues, including my own league where I handed my younger brother's ass to him like the dawg that he is to start the fantasy season. Those of you with little brothers can understand how nice this was I'm sure. As I mentioned yesterday, the only league I lost in to start the season was Chad's bloggers league, where Schaubs held on to beat me with his league-tops score of 119 points for Week 1, even though at 111 points I myself basically obliterated the rest of the league in fantasy points. Nothing like starting 0-1 after a dominating 111-point performance to start the season. But at 3-1 for the week overall in fantasy, I suppose I can't complain. Although I don't really need to see Eli Manning go down for a month here like Chris Mortensen is reporting today out of ESPN.

Congrats again to Cayne for winning this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament. Not sure what I'll be playing tonight but it's a good bet that you can find me somewhere on full tilt around my usual playing time in the 9-12 range in the evenings eastern time. Last night I even had another positive cash session at the 2-4 6max nlh tables so I may be open to just about anything tonight from an online poker perspective.