MATH Recap, and Poker on TV

61 runners came out for this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, making for a cool $1464 prize pool and payouts to the top eight spots as has been usual during the BBT. I made another nice run, surviving for two hours at the superfast 6-max format with no good starting cards to speak of, including a big comeback I made from being down to under 500 chips late in the first hour after attempting to run a particularly poorly-timed bluff against a guy who obviously had the hand that I was trying to represent. I hate when that happens, but at the same time you simply don't have much choice other than to steal, push and represent hands when you are dealt nothing playable and especially when the tables are all shorthanded, all the time. And, at least if you trust yourself and you size your bets properly, the good players can still fold out when your bluff is obviously beat given your opponent's actions, leaving you with some stack to keep playing with, which is exactly what happened with me last night. An hour in I was down to 500 or so chips after having to fold to a reraise on a bluff I had tried to run, but then an hour or so later there I was at the final two tables of the Hoy. Unfortunately my luck ran out when I pushed with ATC from the big blind against a certain someone in the small blind, and that certain someone instacalled me with K8o. As insta as it comes. But I was behind and in fact dominated, so we'll let that certain someone feel like he or she made a good play there, and IGH in I think 16th place overall.

Here are the people who did cash in this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament:

8. $51.24 -- Shabazz Jenkins
7. $51.24 -- Mattazuma
6. $80.52 -- Fuel55
5. $117.12 -- a10419
4. $161.04 -- willwonka
3. $212.28 -- twoblackaces
2. $307.44 -- actyper
1. $483.12 - wwonka69

So Evil Wonka uses his devil worshipness to win his second BBT3 tournament, thereby decreasing the field in the upcoming BBT3 Tournament of Champions to a maximum I believe of now 49 total runners. That is just awesome. And EW, obviously, is a dominating poker player to boot, so if anyone deserves to win multiple BBT3 events, clearly it is him.

So today I wanted to write briefly about something I saw written about by Change100 as well as Otis over at UpForPoker, and that topic is televised poker on tv. Basically, my question is, who out there actually watches poker anymore on tv? I sure don't. And I used to be a televised poker monster, believe you me. But I'm not surprised in the least to read Change's news that High Stakes Poker, the WPT and even potentially the WSOP are in danger of losing their television sponsorship due to poor ratings. And this gets back to my point above -- I believe the ratings must be sucking huge balls lately for these shows. Why? Because I don't even consider watching that stuff anymore.

Three years ago or so, you couldn't tear me away from the WPT or ESPN's WSOP coverage. I had the recorder set for Tuesday nights 8-10pm ET and I would watch every minute, every shot, every everything that was shown on tv when it came to poker. And I don't just mean no-limit holdem either. Anything the stations were willing to put on tv with regard to poker, I was willing to watch. Again and again and again. The huge Chris Moneymaker stone cold bluff against Farha shortly before he finally took down the Main Event in -- when was it -- 2003? Mike Matusow telling Greg Raymer he has "tiny little cojones", remember that one? Tiffany Williamson being an anushead, "I know you have Kings", all her stupid splendor. Alix Powers or whatever his name is starting that fight at the table with James McManus. I watched it all, and I hung on every scene and every hand shown. When HSP first aired on Game Show Network, I was all over that shit. I didn't miss an episode of the WPT for the first couple of seasons I remember.

But now, I don't even know when these shows are on anymore. Seriously. I just don't care. I don't even care about watching the World Series coverage anymore on ESPN. By 2007, I bet I didn't even watch a total of one full hour of coverage of the WSOP on ESPN. And it's not like I don't care about or love poker anymore -- if you're reading this then you can probably tell that I am still as in to the game of poker itself as I have ever been, and I play it as much as I ever did. But I just don't care about watching it on tv anymore. And it seems that many many other people share my view.

Do tell me, dear readers, do you guys still make watching poker on tv anywhere near the priority in your lives that it once was? Does anyone even know when the WPT airs originally on its new home on the Game Show Network? How does the amount of poker you watch on tv today compare to the amount you watched, say, three or four years ago?

Don't forget Skills tonight, 9:30pm ET on full tilt. I for one really can't believe how many people are winning multiple ToC seats in this thing at this point, it's really amazing. Hopefully I will join the ranks of winning two BBT3 tournaments tonight or sometime over the final eight events before the end of the three-month-long challenge. See you tonight at 9:30 on full tilt (password is "skillz" as always).