MATH Recap, and Cardinal Rules of Blogging

So yesterday's post was fun, but I have to admit the comments were far better, and thanks to everyone for their thoughts. I have to say though, what is it with some of the bloggers who can dish it out but cant take it in? I've got news for you, people -- it's someone's blog, and that means they presumptively can write whatever they wanna write. And the kicker is, some of you seem to have no problems grasping this concept quite clearly when it's your blog and you want to write about other people and slam on them, their play, whatever. Swear about people. Talking mega smack about them behind their backs in the girly chat. It doesn't matter to you. But when the roles are reversed, suddenly you tilt like mad when someone mentions an indisputably bad play you made, you go nuts and tilt all over my comments section. I love it, everyone loves it. And FWIW my personal favorite part has got to be when someone gets mad at me for not mentioning their name in my post or the comments. Because I'm sure if I did use people's actual names and link them and shit -- like you do when you slam on someone in your blog -- then these same people woulda been totally fine with that, right? Mmmmmm hmmmmmm.

Cardinal rule #1 about blogging: if you're gonna write angry, derisive shit about other people's play in your blog, then I say you go for it. It's your blog and I never have and never will waver from that position. But -- and this is a lesson that I had to learn myself the hard way somewhere between the 250th and 300th rudeass motherfucker comment made about me or my play in someone else's blog -- the old saying is right: if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I'm sure some of you remember when Maigrey slammed hard on my blog one day after I wrote a post about my very large screwjob in an O8 FTOPS tournament. Remember how outofmymind pissed and hurt I was that day? Well, I got over it. I got over myself. Of course Maigrey wasn't kidding in what she said about my blog. But you know what? That was just her opinion, on that particular day in the particular mood she was in. It doesn't mean that everyone thinks that, and even if it did, that wouldn't mean that anyone else necessarily shares that opinion or that no one's opinion could ever be changed on the topic. And so what if someone out there thinks my blog is drivel? It wasn't the first time then, and it surely wasn't the last time. From all that, I realized if I'm going to write the stuff I write here on my blog, which is never actually intended to hurt anyone so much as to help me and help my readers to understand the way I analyze this game, then I simply have to be willing to accept others doing the same or similar stuff about me. I just have to accept that it's part of the whole deal of blogging about the stuff that I do.

And so do all of you.

It's that simple. There's just no choice in the matter. I don't need to link to all the posts on other people's blogs with the derogatory comments about other people and their play. You know it's there, all the people I've directed to your sites know it's there, and that's that. But the point is, when someone mentions a bad play that you made -- and believe me, it is indefensibly bad to call an allin rerereraise with AQo with 100 BBs 8 minutes in to a super stack tournament that you want to win -- and does you the fucking courtesy of not even mentioning you by name because he clearly is not trying to "out" you or embarass you in any way, you get to suck it up. You can tilt all over my comments all you want, be my guest it's a free country and so far in my 550-some blog posts I've never yet deleted anyone's comment left here, no matter how rude, how off-base or off-color, and no matter how utterly and totally wrong. If you read here often then you know I am all about freedom to say whatever you want in the blogosphere. But don't dish it out if you can't take it in. That's no way to practice free speech, it's no way to blog, and it's no way to live a life. Toughen up, get some thicker skin, and best of all -- maybe one day take a second and listen to what is being said about the play you made. It's the most valid point you've heard about the AQ hand. And I don't care what anyone else tells you on the topic.

'Nuff said? Good.

Back to non-silly stuff. A perfect-sized 27 runners exactly filled up three (edit: 5 1/2, thank you Mr. Astin) tables for the first non-BBTwo MATH in many weeks. 27 guys who were not showing up to talk shit, not showing up to win a seat in the Tournament of Champions and in fact not showing up for any purpose other than to just get down and boogie with friends and play the game that we all love to play. I for one am glad the BBTwo is over. I was never a fan of the timing to begin with in doing the BBT again this year, but when they're giving away as much free swag as full tilt offered us this time around, I understand that we had to do it.

So anyways, 27 of us came out on Monday night to play 6max nlh again. I love the format and I think it adds some interest level to the regular grind of nlh ring tournaments, an opinion which I think most of the Hoy players share. I donked early when I flopped two overcards plus a flush draw with JTs, leading me erroneously to believe I was sitting on 15 outs. Thinking I was just a slight favorite through all five cards, I set things up so that ScottMc made the big bet and I made the huge allin raise, maximizing my fold equity while also preserving my favorite status in the hand in case Scott did call. Unfortunately I made the cardinal mistake of not considering the preflop action, in which Scott had reraised solidly, so I was needlessly shocked when Scott flipped up KK, negating my 6 overcard outs and leaving me drawing to a thin 9 outs. Now I haven't hit a 9-outer in a blonkament in about 18 months, so IGH shortly after that and I've got nothing to say but "nh" to Scott and "bh" to myself for ignoring Scott's preflop raise in that spot, as well as for calling his preflop raise with JTs in the first place (thanks donka, you basically got me again last night, if not indirectly!). At least I can be happy to have contributed to the stack of the guy who led the tournament for the entire first half and who ended up making some actual cash on the day.

Speaking of which, here are this week's cashers in the third-to-last MATH of 2007:

1. $259.20 swimmom95
2. $194.40 bsquared25
3. $129.60 twoblackaces, back in the hizzy again
4. $ 64.80 ScottMc

And here is the updated MATH moneyboard for 2007, including the results of this week's tournament:

1. Columbo $1823
2. cmitch $1703
3. Bayne_s $1400
4. Hoyazo $1162
5. RaisingCayne $1110
6. Surflexus $1107
7. Daddy $999
8. twoblackaces $931
9. LJ $867
10. Lucko21 $815
11. Kajagugu $806
12. swimmom95 $804
13. Fuel55 $802
14. Astin $793
15. Pirate Wes $792
16. VinNay $775
17. Tripjax $759
18. IslandBum1 $754
18. Numbbono $754
20. Iggy $745
21. Gary Cox $734
22. Blinders $720
23. NewinNov $677
24. Waffles $650
25. XxMagiciaNxX $630
26. JJ $630
27. Mike_Maloney $612
28. ScottMc $597
29. Jamyhawk $576
30. Buddydank $553
31. riggstad $537
31. Chad $537
33. Emptyman $513
34. Byron $510
35. Julius Goat $507
36. bartonf $492
36. mtnrider81 $492
38. PokerBrian322 $490
39. wormmsu $475
40. scots_chris $474
41. whiskigrl $467
42. jeciimd $460
43. RecessRampage $434
44. Otis $429
45. leftylu $424
46. Miami Don $402
47. Zeem $389
48. Joe Speaker $384
49. Jordan $382
50. cardgrrl $371
50. lightning36 $371
52. ChapelncHill $353
53. OMGitsPokerFool $324
54. buckhoya $312
54. oossuuu754 $312
56. Mookie $304
57. Wigginx $288
58. Fishy McDonk $277
59. actyper $276
60. Irongirl $252
60. Manik79 $252
62. Wippy1313 $248
63. Easycure $244
64. Garthmeister $216
64. wwonka69 $216
66. Omega_man_99 $210
67. katiemother $209
68. Pushmonkey72 $208
69. Thepokergrind $198
70. bsquared25 $194
71. StatikKling $180
72. 23Skidoo $176
73. Santa Clauss $170
74. jimdniacc $166
75. Iakaris $162
75. Smokkee $162
77. cemfredmd $156
78. lester000 $147
79. Heffmike $145
80. Julkeus $144
81. brdweb $143
82. DDionysus $137
83. Patchmaster $135
84. InstantTragedy $129
85. NinaW $120
86. UnTiltable $118
87. Fluxer $110
88. -o-LuckTruck-o- $103
89. hoops15mt $95
90. Gracie $94
90. Scurvydog $94
92. DaBag $84
92. Shag0103 $84
94. mattazuma $82
94. crazdgamer $82
96. PhinCity $80
97. Presidentdave $79
98. maf212 $78
99. evy35 $72
100. Alceste $71
100. dbirider $71
102. kevin-with-AK $66
103. Rake Feeder $53

So we're up to 103 total players to have recorded at least one cash in Mondays at the Hoy in 2007, which to this point constitutes exactly 50 tournaments as we have held the MATH on every single Monday of the year, even on some holidays and other days when many people were not around. I'm proud of that and I'm really happy that the Hoy has been running and running strong for as long as it has been. I know that not everybody was pleased with some of the changing up I did during the past couple of months, and I certainly do wish that everyone could be happy with everything I do with the MATH every single week, but I truly do appreciate everyone coming out to play, whether it's during the BBTwo with the fabulous additional prizes available, or just the regular old weekly blonkaments, which are the things that I really have enjoyed focusing on over the past couple of years.

For the next two MATH tournaments, both will occur on a holiday of sorts. Next Monday will be Christmas Eve night, so I assume traffic will be light for sure. As a result, as I alluded to in an earlier post, I will be taking the advice from a lot of the suggestions I heard after the $10 rebuy event from last month and running a lower-buyin rebuy tournament for whoever is around like me next Monday evening. I forget offhand if it's $6 or $8, I think $6, but either way it will be a turbo rebuy, set up just like the numerous rebuy satellites full tilt runs every evening anyways, which means just a 30-minute rebuy period instead of the usual hour, and a turbo format of blinds and antes escalation. Like I said I will be there and I'll be playing to win, and I hope to see you there if you are an MOT (you know who you are) or can otherwise fit the Hoy into your Christmas Eve plans. Personally I can't think of a better early Christmas present than getting to play a turbo rebuy with a bunch of heehawing donkeys, but maybe that's just me.

Before I end this today, I wanted to take the time to extend some Big Time Congratulations to the last three winners of seats to the upcoming BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions which were awarded on Monday. The first "last" seat goes to jeciimd, who won the freeroll on Monday night to replace the voided Riverchasers tournament from this past Thursday when full tilt's servers crashed. Jec put the finishing touches on an absolute crushing domination of BBTwo, easily the leading moneywinner in the series, by becoming only the second player to win a second seat in the ToC, bringing the total number of BBTwo tournament winners to 25. Like I said, jeciimd completely crushed the competition in BBTwo, turning a massive $2000+ profit for the series and I think completley and totally eliminating any possible doubters about the quality of his poker play after posting a large net loss in the first BBT tournament series. And the last two Tournament of Champions seats were awarded on Monday as well as part of the write-in contest that full tilt offered, which I am happy to say have been awarded to Julius Goat and Fuel55. Both of these guys have kickintheass blogs and are really fun writers to read whenever they post, and both are really nice guys to boot. So we're looking at a very nice round 27 players and 3 tables in Thursday night's upcoming BBTwo Aussie Millions ToC as well. Very nice symmetry there.

I'm going to do a post over the next two days handicapping that ToC. It's a great mix of players IMO. Some great writers and some non-bloggers and very rare posters. Some highly aggro guys and some far more passive players. We've got some solid old-school bloggers and a number of newer fresh faces in our group. There are some really strong players in there as well as some really unbelievable lucksacks IMO. The thing is, the way the BBTwo has gone, it is really hard to say that the strong players will prevail over the lucksacks, or really that any group of players will fare better than any others. In one tournament, as we've seen time and time again, just about anything can happen. If anyone gets eight pocket Kings in the thing, they are likely to be hanging around at the end. If anyone flops five sets on the night, they're probably going to be there. Flop quads three times, and you're gonna be there. Beat A6 with AA, I could go on and on, you know the routine. But more on that tomorrow. For now I will say sayonara, and if there was one piece of advice I could give to any new bloggers out there, it is not to get your panties into a bunch every time someone says something about your play that you don't like to hear. It's just a game, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and everyone plays by the same rules in the end in the blogiverse as far as being able to question poker plays or players that they run into. I'm not saying it is easy to get yourself to this point, and I'm surely not saying that I was born there myself or anything (much the opposite), but take it from me, it will doubtless make everyone's time as a blogger more enjoyable and easier to deal with.