The Prop Bet and the Mets

Wow, 94 runners in the Mookie this week! That was awesome. I mean, the blogger "community" as such is clearly dead, has been for a loooooong time, but it was nice to see us do something as a group for the first time in quite a while. Very awesome. I wish someone could figure out a way to bring what's left of the "group" together like this more often, in a way that isn't designed to bring monetary profit to someone, that is. Oh well, one can always dream.

Congrats to Texas April this morning for taking down the biggest non-BBT Mookie tournament in I bet a couple years at least. Good times and a great run for April in a huge field that showed up to help give Waffles a chance in his prop bet to outcash LJ. Who knew a guy like Waffles could actually bring this group back together like he did? I'm really amazed about it still, but happy.

Anyways, about the prop bet. Now that it's over, let's tell it like it is: it was a dumb bet. I mean, Waffles historically has had some success in the blonkaments, but with the emphasis on some. He's proven beyond a doubt that his skills have improved -- in particular when he puts himself out there with a bet or challenge like this -- but to give oneself only a small handful of chances to make up a large dollar deficit like he was facing, in a raging minefield tournament like the Mookie, well that is just a lost cause. I'm not saying it was literally impossible, but let's just say that I made out like a bandit betting against this thing right from the getgo. Then Waffles got hot and recorded a couple of near-the-top cashes, and that's when I really cashed in. I was able to make bets giving less than 10 to 1 odds against Waffles winning essentially a nearly impossible bet to more than a few bloggers and blogger watchers for what I viewed as basically free cash. And liking the guy like I do, nothing would have made me happier than having to pay out on those bets if Waffles managed to win, which I was really rooting for even down to the last day on Wednesday night. And when I keep saying it was an impossible bet, this is not meant as a slam on Waffles at all. Phil Ivey couldn't come in to the Mookie and win enough money over 8 tournaments or whatever it was to pass LJ with more than a one or two percent shot in my view. The Mookie just is what it is, and winning it, let's just say that it takes something less than optimal poker skill to take this badboy down.

Truth be told, and I know this is something a lot of people have been thinking whether they admit it or not, but there is no way you can't be impressed with what Waffles has done lately. My only real comment about it is that it shouldn't take him putting himself out there like he has to much success recently in order to play this well. Given his strong performances once he has issued a public challenge this year, it is obvious that Waffles has actual tournament skill buried somewhere deep, deeeeeeep inside that head of his. But there is something wrong with this picture to need to issue public proclamations and promises of success in order to bring it out. Hopefully he will take this latest Mookie escapade as a good chance to learn that lesson. That's why, earlier this year when the guy went completely off the deep end and challenged me to an mtt contest event though he's never won a large mtt of any size whatsoever, I failed to respond. I like Waffles quite a bit, and I don't want to be part of his need to challenge himself publicly in order to get him to play his best. Rather, I want to be part of him realizing that he obviously has it in himself to play this way all the time, without the need to force himself to up the stakes like he has with the Mookie bet, his BBT3 prop bet with Bayne, and some others.

And of course he would have had no chance against me in a large-field mtt bet anyways, who am I kidding.

Anyways, even though Waffles failed in his bet, it was in truth about a 100-to-1 shot to win the kind of challenge he came up with, and most other, more reasonable prop bets about the Mookie would have seen him win them with how well he played over the past couple of months. So I for one congratulate the guy on a job well done. But like I said, it's not finished yet. The real victory for Waffles will be if he takes this tremendous opportunity to realize that he can play this way every night, that he can win a large-field mtt someday soon without the need to shame himself in public if he doesn't. There's no way I believe that Waffles is the worst poker player except when he has issued a public challenge on his blog. Obviously he has the skillz, now is just the time for the guy to step up to the next level and make it happen without the need for any external reason other than just that he's sitting down to play some poker tonight. That should be all it takes. So anyways, congratulations to Waffles for a job very well done yet again in this challenge, despite the outcome not working out the way we all would have liked.

And pay up, all you deadbeats. You know who you are. Full tilt transfers will do just fine, thank you.

Even with the Waffles action last night in the Mook, that was nowhere near the highlight of my night. That honor rests squarely with, once again, the New York Mets. I wrote about them the other day and have several times in the recent past, but Wednesday night was pretty much a microcosm for how I feel about the Mets over the entirety of the past two seasons. So they're obviously locked smack in the middle of a major playoff race -- entering the action on the night they were 2.5 games behind the Phillies in the NL East and 1 game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers with just 4 games to play on the season. So this was a huge, huge game for them, and they are up against the Chicago Cubs, pretty much the best team in the Major Leagues this year. They go down a bit early, but they rally back to a nice lead thanks to a 5-run third inning, only to give up five runs late and need a late-game miracle to get back in it. Which is exactly what they get, scoring a key run to tie it up in the 8th, and as we move to the bottom of the 9th inning, with the hometown fans going crazy, they lead off the 6-6 game with a triple. So there's a guy on third, nobody out, 6-6 game against the best team in the league in a huge spot, and to boot the Mets have Wright, Delgado and Beltran coming up on deck. This has to figure to be what, 98, 99% that they're going to win here? And yet somehow this team full of chokers cannot bring the guy in. Rather than walk him, Lou Piniella embarrassingly decides to pitch to Mets "poster boy" David Wright, who promptly goes up in the count 3-0. Amazingly, he swings at the next pitch, missing it. Fast forward a few more pitches and there is Wright striking out on a high fastball, well out of the strike zone. Cough cough!! Wright, what a step-down artist in September. Then the Cubs wisely walk the next two guys to load the bases, only to see the Mets ground out weakly on a fielder's choice to home, and then they nab the third out as well and move to the 10th. The fans, as you can imagine, are crushed, many of them leaving the stadium after the team failed to take down this crucial game in the 9th. And naturally, before most of those fans are even off the stadium grounds in their cars, the Mets bullpen gives up not one, not two but three big runs in the top of the 10th, and the team goes whimpering into the night with yet another crushing defeat.

And on the same day, the Mets brass announces that hapless jackmonkey GM Omar Minaya is getting a four-year contract extension!! That franchise is too funny. The guy way overpays Carlos Beltran who has disappointed since the day he showed up here and everyone in baseball knows it, he way overpays choker Pedro Martinez who has been horrible basically since the second year of the well overpaying 4-year contract Minaya signed him to, he won't give up on that bum Reyes even though the guy gets worse and worse every year, he couldn't bring himself to fire Willie Randolph until it was far too late in the season, and then fired him very unceremoniously and without any class at all, the list just goes on and on. Extending Minaya right now -- really, doing anything but firing him at this point -- is no different when it comes down to it than all these Wall Street CEOs getting huge severance packages after running their firms into the ground. Minaya had his chance, and he has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's a chump, a guy who will overpay anyone to bring him to New York even though everyone else passed on him for the money the Mets offered him because he clearly isn't worth it, and the Mets go and extend the guy for four more years just as the team is in the middle of completing yet another late-season collapse orchestrated almost entirely by the very players Minaya has brought in here over the past few years. Like I said, that team is too funny. That game last night was absolutely classic to watch, as a Mets hater like I am. Between the Mookie and the Mets, and throw in those juicy 1-2 PL O8 tables on full tilt and I had a really great night on Wednesday.

Maybe I will come out and win the Riverchasers again tonight, or maybe not. But it's at 9pm ET, password of "riverchasers" if you want to try your hand at the tournament I pwn for one night tonight on full tilt.