MATH Recap, RIP Blogger Crusher, and WSOP Dreamz

15 players came out for the Mondays at the Hoy this week, creating a $360 prize pool and payouts to the top three spots. I had not realized going in this week that this coming Sunday is the $535 buyin 150-seat guarantee to the WSOP ME on full tilt, in place of the normal $216 buyin 750k tournament, so we did not quite reach enough for a full buyin to that, going instead with good old fashioned cash payouts to the top 3 finishers. For the first time in a few weeks, I showed up on time for this tournament, and even though I didn't get into any big pots early, I managed to pick up a ton of small pots to start accumulating right off the bat. With the small field, it was not too long to hold on to make the final table, and that's when I whipped out my suckout stick. I beat Jordan's AK with A8 once, and I beat something bad to nail Kat pretty bad as well. The suckouts helped me make it to heads-up with Jordan, where I started down 26k to 18k and was never quite able to even things up despite making a couple of runs. Eventually when I was down about 3 to 1 in chips, I ran KTs into of all things, pocket Aces in heads-up play. Naturally delicious. So congrats to Jordan for continuing to beat down on the MATH this year, and here are the three cashers from this week's tournament:

1. Jordan $180
2. Hoyazo $108
3. Katitude $72

Top two Hoy finishers, both lawyers once again this week. Ho hum. Anyone surprised?

In other news, R.I.P. blogger crusher. That blog should be deleted as of today. It all goes back a few months, when some people got together and decided I should play the Bodonkey and they would write a blog around my play, and we would all have a financial interest in the winnings, if any. So we did it. I would play all the tournaments (which I have) as ICrushBloggers, and they would watch me play and interview me over email and girly and then they would write the posts. These guys are mostly monkeys, as reflected in their posts. The whole thing was pretty much a clown to begin with. Eventually a couple of the guys who write there started writing some stoopid stuff on the blog, and I had to step in and delete it. But otherwise I don't care what they've written other than to say that I would give it overall a B-. If the whole point of a blog is to entertain, they seem to have struck a chord with a number of people from that perspective if nothing else, and for that I think they did a pretty good job. In truth as my readers know I am more into poker substance than anything else in my own choice of poker blogs, and when you really read what those guys had to say, there isn't a whole lot of rich content there. But they did get in a couple of pretty cool posts not directly about the Bodonkey itself, and those are the ones I liked the most.

In any event, the whole Bodonkey proposal was brought to me by this group purely as an investment, and I agreed because of the prospects for free money for me and what sounded like it might be fun. I was clear that I would not be devoting any more time to blogging than I already do, and that I would never even be posting about the Bodonkey here at my blog since all of the Bodog stuff was supposed to be written by them, and the ICB blog contributors were fine with that. But I don't think any of us really took it all that seriously. The bloggers quickly got as bored with the grind of keeping a daily poker blog, and I was so new to the funky Bodog software and so giddy with the anonymity of never having to look at blogger chat and no one knowing who i was that I ended up playing like a blogger an aggrodonkey in many of the tournaments and busting out early while simply trying to suck out on some donkey. But I was also cashing with increasing regularity as time rolled on in the series, taking down the extra T$109 or whatever it is for the top 5 finishers something like 5 or 6 different times in just the 19 tournaments I played in. I ended up winning two of these tournaments outright, and cashing several other times, such that the balance in the ICB Bodog account that started with $200 is now up over a grand if you count the tournament credits I've amassed from the soft, slow Bodonkey tournament.

Anyways, with me now entering the Bodonkey ToC tonight at 9pm ET, the 18-person sng to decide who wins the WSOP ME package from Bodog, Bodog wants to link to my blog here instead of the ICB blog. Personally I think this does not make sense since I am not and have never been the writer of the ICB blog. But it's what they want to do, and with my idiot writers at ICB not able to control themselves from saying stoopid things, the decision has basically been made for us all. So I asked them earlier this week to please delete the blog, and that should be done by now. If Bodog wants to link to this blog since I am the one who has played all the events, even though the ICB blog was created specifically as a persona for the guy playing in the Bodonkey, then so be it. So as I understand it, ICrushBloggers will heretofore point to my blog at hammerplayer.blogspot.com. Still does not sound like the sensible result to me, but I will be playing tonight in the Bodonkey ToC at 9pm ET with a shot at another 12k prize package for free for a lowly blogger. The free stuff we are getting as idiot bloggers is pretty amazing these days isn't it?

Even given all the above, the one thing that is really on my mind these days is the World Series of Poker. In just one day I leave for Vegas, and will head upon landing straight over to the Rio to register for Thursday's $2000 buyin nlh tournament in the WSOP. This will be my third year in a row heading out to Vegas to play in the mecca of tournament poker, although I have so much going on at work and at home right now that I've barely even accepted yet that I am leaving. Normally I would be concerned about how little time and effort I have spent looking forward to my trip this year, but truth be told almost the exact same thing happened last year and I still ended up heading out there, putting it all behind me 100% at crunch time, and cashing awesomely in my one shot at WSOP glory. I need to try to duplicate that not-at-all-easy feat again later this week if I am to get into the right mindset to play some winning poker.

One thing I have had several people ask me about over the girly, IM and in chatboxes is about buying a stake in me at this year's WSOP. As I mentioned, barring unforeseen circumstances I will be playing in the 2k buyin nlh tournament on Thursday, June 12, and I have received offers from as low as 1% to as high as 25% or more of my action in that event, as well as offers to put up an even larger percentage of the buyin for me to play an additional event or events. I've spent a good deal of time thinking this over as I did last year, and I think in the end I will once again just go it on my own. It's not that I don't want to be tied to anyone else in my performance at the WSOP, it's not that at all. I've participated in a number of swaps with bloggers probably a hundred times when we were playing big tournaments in the past, and it's something that I enjoy doing. But when it comes down to it, in my case I have enough money to put up the full buyin myself without needing any backers. I literally took the buyin money directly from my online tournament winnings in February alone after I went on that sickass run of four 50-50 final tables over what, 3 weeks, which I specifically kept aside and separate for this exact purpose. In the end, since I don't really need to be backed, why take a tiny investment like 1% of the buyin and then have to be paying out hundreds (or hopefully thousands) from my payout if I somehow lucksack my way into a big score? I can see on one hand where it would be fun, and if I someday buy in to the Main Event or something else with a huge buyin maybe I could see doing that, but for now I think I am planning on going it alone.

I am also looking forward to getting to meet up with some real life bloggers whom I have not met before, and a few that I have. It sounds like at least three of us are planning on playing in Thursday's 2k WSOP event, so I am hopeful we can at least catch up quickly together before the cards are in the air on Thursday morning. I finally got my contact information on to Vinnay's Blogger Mulligan weekend spreadsheet, so anyone around should feel free to call or text me at any point on the weekend. I will try to get up a quickie goodbye post tomorrow before I leave for JFK airport and my fabulous JetBlue DirecTV experience as I soar over the mountains, over the prairies and almost to the ocean on Wednesday evening, but today is my last full day in New York City and I am already beginning to accept the reality that in less than 48 hours I will be in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. It still feels kinda surreal right now, but it is materializing gradually here as the days turn to hours and start the count down to the home stretch.

By the way, and maybe this is something Al can help with, but does anybody know when full tilt is going to contact us about our custom full tilt jerseys for those finishing in spots 6-20 in the overall BBT3 leaderboard? Does anyone have those details? Are we supposed to do anything to get in touch with them or what?

See you at Skills tonight, 9:30pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "skillz".