MATH Recap, and Vacation Time Once Again

We had 11 runners come out for Mondays at the Hoy this week, setting up payouts to the top three finishers in the last week before we move to a Shootout format. I died around the middle of the pack but short of the final table when I I think lost a race to the eventual tournament winner -- who also won the Mookie this past week btw -- and then I spent much of the rest of the night away from the pc as I packed for the Hammer family's annual July 4 pilgrimage to the beach.

Here are this week's cashers for Mondays at the Hoy:

1. Numbbono $132
2. AGuda $79.20
3. HighOnPoker $52.80

So Numbbono wins the Mookie and then the Hoy in succession -- probably only the second time that has ever been accomplished before -- while Jordan adds to his impressive number of MATH cashes so far in 2008 and AGuda continues his beginners' luck streak with his second consecutive runner-up finish out of two career attempts in Mondays at the Hoy.

So as I mentioned, today commences my family's annual trip to the beach. Longtime readers here know that every year around Independence Day, I am blessed to have married into a family who happens to own a beach house right up on the beach at some of the most prime real estate on the East Coast, and I have spent pretty much every year of this millenium out there for the mid-summer holidays with my girlfriend, now wife, and my kids as well. This year the trip could not come at a better time, as the drudgery and bullshit of working where I work has never been worse and morale around my office has never been lower. So I am really looking forward to the break, and it is unclear how much I will be blogging during the balance of this week heading into the holiday weekend. I may post some shit if it tickles my fancy, as I'll be hanging around at the beach with nothing to do but relax for portions of the day, although lately the blog has seemed more like an obligation and less like a welcome diversion than I am accustomed to, so who knows what wil happen.

Either way, I will be back and better thean ezra on Monday, refreshed from the time away and just rip roaring ready to roll with a return to my mtt roots. For those who don't know, I have basically completely avoided the mtt game ever since I got mono a few months back now. It's like the illness's abilty to sap my strength and prevent me from being able to stay up late has never really gone away, and at some point I'm going to have to prove to myself that I've still got it. I've probably played fewer than 10 real life mtt's in the past ten weeks or so is my guess, something which seems weird to me but at the same time I have to admit I have had a great time beating down on the 1-2 6max pot limit O8 cash tables on full tilt and pokerstars, in addition to the sngs, in particular the turbo (and even super turbo) sngs on full tilt. Well all that I plan to change next week, as Hammer Wife and the Hammer Girls will be staying the week at the beach while I come back to the city to work work work before heading back down to the beach to pick them up the following weekend. This was the week last year when I first final tabled the 50-50 tournament on full tilt on back to back nights, posting if I recall a 4th place and a 6th place finish in what was unbeknownst to me a pretty cool harbinger of things to come. Something about knowing I wasn't keeping anyone awake or playing while anyone else was sleeping agreed with me back then, and next week we will see if I can make magic happen once again as I try to get back on track with the mtts.

In the meantime, I understand from Chip that the Skillz game has been brought back to the poker bloggers starting tonight at 9:30pm ET on full tilt. Buyin is the same at $12 + $1, it remains a knockout tournament, and tonight's poison will be O8. I will not be there as we will be en route to la plage, but don't forget to register when you can for Skills -- The Return. Password as always is "skillz".

Have a great holiday everyone. I hope you all final table "the" 40k sometime this week. Hahahahahaha!