Blonkaments

Lots of changes at hand for me these days has lots of thoughts swirling around my head, thought about the blog, about poker, and many about things totally unrelated to anything I write much about here. One decision has really crystalized for me this week, and those closest to me in our group will know it is something I've had on my mind for months, literally. In fact, it's a decision I had already finalized a couple of months ago until being talked out of it at the last minute by some fellow bloggers.

I'm not going to schedule Mondays at the Hoy for next month, or really anytime in the future as far as I'm concerned right now.

That's all. To me the whole thing is not a big deal for myself or for anyone else in the least, but for some reason some people thought it would matter if I did this, so I let myself get talked out of it for the past several weeks. But my heart is just not in it, if you can't tell from reading here. I don't really care about pimping it anymore, and I don't even really care about playing in it or reporting on it like I once did. So no more MATH for the time being, and this time it's for reals.

It's amazing to me to think about how much has changed over the past few years I've been involved in the whole poker blogging scene. Back when I first got into it, Wil Wheaton probably had as big a part as anybody in starting up the whole craze of private blogger tournaments when he ran his WWdN tournament every Tuesday night at 8:30pm ET on pokerstars (password as always was "monkey" lol). I remember with no problem at all how much I used to look forward to playing in that thing. It was literally the highlight of my week it seemed at the time. We're going back a good four years now, but that WWdN was literally the focus of my entire week back in the day. I loved getting together to play with all the bloggers for our one weekly get-together. It was the chance to chat, to catch up, to needle some friends and donk it up for fun. And honestly, I wouldn't have missed a WWdN for the world, as anyone who played in it regularly like me can attest to since I was always around.

I remember back then there were some other attempts to start up at least semi-regular online events for the bloggers -- Iggy did a couple, Jordan led the DADI events, and those were fun. Again, I remember not wanting to miss them. They were events, and just being a part of it gave me something to look forward to, something to aspire to play my best in, something to really want to win. Around that time the WPBT events also started up, the first regular leaderboard-based series of private blogger tournaments. These ran for a year and quickly turned into a slew of mixed poker games, limit, pot-limit and no-limit events, and they were both well attended and for me super fun. Back in those days, playing in every single one of these things really got me going, and I know I wasn't the only one.

But without focusing on the things that led to this point, suffice it to say that today, I no longer feel that way about the blonkaments, and they are a far cry from the singular outlets of fun for our entire community that they once were. I mean, I do love the Mookie, I always have. I can't really say why, other than to say that Mookie runs a great tournament, I love his hall of fame and his winner profiles on his blog, and Mookie is an all-around great guy which I have to say is rarer that it probably should be in this group. I am proud and happy to know that I have been a part of driving the popularity and the significance of the Mookie as the "new WWdN" for the next generation of poker bloggers, as it has been and still remains the one tournament to draw the largest crowds week in and week out, and is easily the closest thing we have to a tournament to look forward to every week, at least in my book. But other than the Mook, I just don't feel it for the private blogger events anymore like I once did. As I said, this post is not about why that is, rather than just that it is.

And before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, this post is in no way an attempt to degrade or put down the people involved with the regular weekly blogger tournaments. I'm one of those people, for crying out loud. By and large, the weekly tournament hosts (myself included, obv) are all pretty much the finest people available in poker bloggerdom, and I've had nothing but fun times playing in their events, chatting with them in the girly and offline. And I am by no means saying that I won't ever play any of their events again. Quite the contrary, I'm quite sure I will play them again several times. But it's been a while since the blonkaments have been the focus of my online poker play, as they basically had been for the better part of the past couple of years. It's just not what I look forward to anymore, it's not what I yearn to win and it's just not my focus these days anymore.

So no more MATH tournaments being set up for me. We had a great run. I started this thing up back when there were very few private blogger tournaments. The Mook was around, and I believe the WWdN was still in its dying stages as well. But there was no Riverchasers, there was no Donkament, there was no Big Game, there was no Skills Series. Heck, we weren't even playing the Bodonkey on that dominating poker site known as Bodog back then! At the time, I knew that Mondays at the Hoy was fulfilling a specific need and a significant demand among bloggers, myself very much included, and the participation in the event has always borne that out. I've enjoyed being a tournament host over time, I've loved setting up the different events, reporting on their outcomes, keeping the annual moneyboard, and of course being a part of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments in all its splendor through three separate tournament series. The people really wanted another private tournament outlet to play with the bloggers at the time, and the MATH stepped in and filled that need nicely, leading to the creation of several other regular private events on other days of the week, which for a long time was all good for the poker blogger community. Today, that need no longer exists, not with the bloggers at large, and to be honest not with myself now for many, many months.

So I'll still be around, business as usual, but I don't have any plans to host any more Mondays at the Hoy tournaments, on full tilt or otherwise. I wouldn't change a thing about the Hoy in the 2+ years I've been running it first on stars and then over on full tilt, but for me the tournament has clearly run its course and no longer fills a need that I know needed to be satiated for many of us a few years back. If you don't see me quite as much in most of the regular weekly events (sans the Mookie of course, which I feel compelled to continue donating to ad infinitum please), it's not a reflection of anything other than my diminished focus on the private blogger events, nothing more.

At the latest, you'll be seeing me next week in Le Mookie. Waffles really screwed me last week though, now the odds of him winning his prop bet with Bayne are back down to 12 to 1. I am looking for the guy to make it interesting early here so I can maybe book some more action in addition to the props I already have going with Bayne as well as IT. And of course there is always that prop bet that Mookie and I have for the remainder of 2008, but who remembers that one of us owes the other three months' worth of Mookie buyins if one of us wins the Mookie during the year, since neither one of us ever really comes close.

Have a great weekend everyone, back at ya next week as always.