Survivor Poker

So the game wages on, and somehow after four tournaments, I am still alive and well on Donkey Island. And this, despite my team being required to make an elimination vote in two out of the first three events of the series.

The fact of the matter is that -- and this is not a complaint, in that I know the teams were put together randomly out of the 16 people who signed up for the game on a first come, first served basis -- but these teams are not fair, in the sense of equally dividing up blonkament skills. If you wanted to count up how many total blogger tournament wins each team has over all-time history, you would see what I mean. I mean, sure, I have won 4 google blonkaments myself and this makes the teams seem equally balanced at first glance, but in truth we probably have just 3 or 4 total blonkament wins outside of myself on our entire team put together. And our team includes a bunch of people like iiatg, Al, Riggs and Dawn who simply do not play a lot of blonkaments, period. There is simply not a lot of blogger tournament experience on Team Fish on Donkey Island, and it shows as we play out the series. Whereas, if you look at Team Donkey, you've got guys like Jordan, and Heff, and Numb, guys who have won between them probably 20 blogger tournaments right there in their day, maybe more even. And again, that advantage in experience really shows as we play these games -- in the first event that I won, I had no other Team Fish teammates left in the final 7 spots in first Goat tournament. In the first Dank tournament of Donkey Island, the last five Survivor Poker players were famously all from Team Donkey. And now in Event #3, it was once again a number of Team Donkeys left when Al, our last Team Fish representative on the day, busted well before the top spot. Team Fish is just not executing well enough on anything resembling a consistent basis to avoid these elimination votes, and our team is slowly decimating itself as a result.

But the most annoying part about the team split in my view is that some members of Team Fish continue not showing up to the tournaments at all, or coming in late and missing out on opportunities to help the team out. I mean, it's not enough that all of the blogger tournament win experience is on the other team? We also have to have 2-3 teammates not showing up for each tournament? So, we're facing a significant experiential disadvantage, and the team's response to deal with that is to only give ourselves 4 or 5 chances to outlast Team Donkey every week while Team Donkey has two or three more entrants than us in addition to more historical success in these games?

Unlike Team Donkey, who almost every week is faced with possibly having to vote someone off of their team who gives them a real shot to win team immunity, Team Fish has had it pretty easy so far when it comes to having to cannibalize ourselves with elimination votes. First it was Riggs, who has yet to show up to a single tournament out of the three that have been played, and then Al went next after missing the 2nd tournament, despite Al being our longest-lasting participant on Sunday night. I pretty much know who I will vote for next as well, as we still have some people who aren't showing up for all the games.

I imagine that real Survivor isn't like this, in that there probably is no option for people to just "not show up" for the challenges on Vanuatu like we can have happen here on Donkey Island. But in Survivor Poker, showing up for the games and playing your best to give your team the best chance to avoid an elimination vote is basically all you can do to show your team your worth. We've never done a team-based blogger tournament series before, but one thing that is coming out of it so far is that you can really screw your team -- not just yourself -- by not showing up here during the "team play" portion of the game, which will still persist for the next three tournaments of Survivor Poker.

If some people weren't showing up for the challenges in real Survivor, and their team kept losing as a result, I can only assume that would lead to them getting voted off pretty quick myself, but never having watched the show I cannot say for sure. What I can say, however, is that in Survivor Poker on Donkey Island, if you're not showing up for all the games, in my mind you are easy fodder for a vote-off. I mean, do I want to be sitting here next week with just myself and two other players showing up, trying to outlast 6 or 7 other Team Donkey donkeys to try to avoid getting voted off myself? Give me a choice, and I'll choose the people I know will be there on both Wednesday and Sunday over any perceived skill or experience differential in blogger tournaments in general.

What Team Fish lacks in experience, we make up for in heart. We've got some good players left that I am confident are waiting to make some noise over these next three blogger tournaments while "team play" is still in effect. I do not expect to be voting another team member out this Wednesday night after the Dank has come and gone.

GOoooooooo FISH!!!

The Death of the Private Blogger Tournament

I've read more than a few posts out there lately in the poker blogosphere -- such as it exists today, anyways -- lamenting the apparent death of the private blogger tournament.

There's something to be said for it. I've written this many times before, but I still remember vividly the days of Wil Wheaton's weekly WWdN tournament on pokerstars, which really, truly was the only time that more or less all of us involved in poker blogging at the time would get together and chat it up. Every single week, Tuesday nights at 8:30pm ET it was as I recall, Wil provided the opportunity for everyone to sit and laugh with our friends and sling some cards. Sure near the end people wanted to win if they were close, but for the most part these things were for fucking fun. I looked forward to them all week, literally. It would be Saturday afternoon and I would already catch myself thinking about the next Tuesday night and my next chance to make some jokes, drop some hammers, and play a little poker with my new friends. And of course, to eliminate Wil from the tournament and get it named after me the next week, but that's neither here nor there.

The thing is, the WWdN was a looooooooong time ago at this point, and it took place at a time when the composition of the group who identified themselves as "poker bloggers" was significantly different from what it has become over the past couple of years. Back when the WWdN was rampant -- regularly attracting 120, 130 runners in its heyday -- I would describe poker blogging as still a relatively new thing. There were way fewer poker blogs out there, and more than the smaller number, the poker blogging that went on back in the day was more "pure" in a sense. It was purer in that the people involved were, for the most part, blogging about poker because they were interested in poker and wanted to write down their thoughts and get some analysis and thoughts going in the comments. Some people wrote stories about poker on their blogs, some people wrote about the 2+2 threads while they were still readable, and some wrote about their adventures in and around poker tournaments, Las Vegas, whatever. But for the most part -- and I acknowledge that I am surely over-generalizing here to an extent -- the "poker bloggers" of four or five years ago were really into it for the poker, and for the enjoyment of all that blogging about the game can bring.

It was this "pure" spirit that led to the creation of the first poker bloggers' gathering back in Ought-4 or whenever it was, and it was that same spirit among the then-existing bloggers that used to contribute to the 120 WWdN participants every week, and the jovial atmosphere that surrounded that game week-in and week-out. There really were very few (there's always some, but very few) bad eggs. And it was that same spirit that was still very much in force throughout our community that led to 125 donkeys showing up for the blogger gathering as late as the summer of 2006, my first time actually meeting "the bloggers" face to face.

And what a time it was. People who won't even fucking talk to me today came up to me and introduced themselves, and I made a lot of good friends. By that time I was already going strong here on my blog, building my readership quickly, and I had introduced the notion of using screenshots to graphically illustrate and discuss poker hands into my blog. It was really catching on, and people actually wanted to meet that crazy pompous ass Hoyazo who took all the screenshots for their amusement. Tons of people. The old school. The new school, which by now is basically almost old school themselves. I'm not sure when was the last time I had such an unexpected great time hanging out with a huge group of people who had been absolute strangers to me just a few days earlier. That open, warm spirit was still very much alive in bloggerland back in 2006, and even though the WWdN might have been gone or at least on its last legs back then, the Mookie was waiting right in the wings to pick up the slack and maintain that place where everyone in our group could get together with some regularity and shoot the shit.

I would say it was somewhere in early 2007 where things started to change. And when I say "things", I don't mean the popularity of the private blogger tournaments per se -- these were actually just about to take off with the advent of the BBT -- but I mean more the composition and nature of the participants in our group. At first it happened so slow that nobody even noticed it, just a few new additions to the group who weren't really making themselves or their true nature known yet in a public way. But it didn't take long for many of us who had been involved with the group for a few years already to notice that things were simply different than they had been. I've spent countless hours over the past few years trying to put my finger on what exactly it was that changed, and I think the best that I can come up with goes back to the level of "purity" in the nature of our group. Back four or five years ago, for the most part the only people who bothered poker blogging did so because of either a love of poker and/or a love of blogging about things related to poker. Again, there have always been exceptions to this, but generally speaking that's the purity I keep referring to.

However, by the time 2007 was well underway, the number of new people entering the fray of "poker blogging" was exploding. The BBT had begun that summer, bringing a whole slew of new people, with new motivations, into the fold. Others got involved for other reasons, not necessarily bad ones at all, but not those same reasons of love of poker or love of blogging that had been predominant over the early days of our group. More and more people were starting to blog about poker not for the sake of poker blogging itself, but rather for some other ulterior motive, for which the poker blogging was just a means to an end. Some people created poker blogs just to play in the WPBT or the BBT. Others started poker blogs to make money from other bloggers, and for some, to outright commercialize our group for some purpose or other. Some even created poker blogs just to scam other bloggers out of their money. A number of members of our group over the past couple of years only joined to meet someone and not out of any real sustained interest in blogging at all. Many people created or maintained their blogs as a crutch for their own insecurity, to create a false internet identity and then live that persona and interact among our community like they wish they lived and interacted in real life.

Throwing all these new people with all these new motivations into the mix ended up being the beginning of the end of the private blogger tournaments as we know them today. Sure, the participation in blogger events soared as the BBT and then the BBT2 went off in 2007, and by the time BBT3 rolled around in the summer of 2008, we actually saw one or two blogger events that rivalled the size that the WWdN had been almost every week some three years before. But it was still never quite as big as the WWdN had been regularly, and the purity was almost all gone from it. Take away those big BBT prizes, and the attendance would always cut more than in half almost immediately. The mix of people in our group were, as a whole, no longer blogging for the sake of blogging, and they weren't playing the private tournaments for the sake of camaraderie and fun. They were playing for something else -- whatever their own agenda was -- and it showed.

It was around this time that you really started to see the very first of the consistent negative comments in the chatbox in the private events. It's been all too common among the bloggers to explain this away simply because "tempers rise high with so much more on the line", and to an extent that is surely true. But most people don't realize that it was always more than that. By and large, the people who were playing in the private blogger events by 2007 just weren't in it for the fun and the camaraderie anymore. So where we had 98% fun, funny people playing in the WWdN back in 2005, and therefore we almost never saw the dickheadedness in the chatbox of our own private events among friends, by 2007 and 2008, that percentage was way, way down. And with a bunch more people who weren't interested in being friends, having fun or in being civil to anybody were playing in the events, of course the atmosphere suffered. It wasn't just about how much more was on the line, because even with nothing on the line people were jerks aplenty. And the jerkness spread to all corners of the poker blogging community, not just the private tournament chatbox. The number of negative blog posts and negative commentary about others was significantly higher than it would ever have been back in the day, by several multiples. The number of people maintaining poker blogs who were actually just angry, jealous people with not much else going on in their lives had jumped over the past few years, and these are the people who tended to cause most of the trouble, and especially to pile on when they sensed another member of the community was vulnerable. The whole notion of doing anything but helping another poker blogger who was vulnerable for some reason would have been abhorrent to all of us back in 2005 -- back when 120 people played the WWdN every week with nary a cross word uttered in the chatbox, back when 130 people descended on Las Vegas from all around the country and around the world in the summer of 2006 -- but by 2007 and 2008, if certain people saw another blogger getting slammed on, it was over. It was negative comments about the person in every blog they could find. Shit, you can actually look at these people's blogs right now and they still have the negative crap up -- prominently featured in some cases -- because amazingly they aren't even embarrassed about the piling on they've done. They're proud of it. Because they just don't care. Again, back in 2005, there just weren't many people interested in doing that to other bloggers, because the nature of the group and its members' interests in participating in it was so much purer in the sense I have described above.

Now here we are getting on late 2009, and this trend within the composition of the poker blogging community has continued still over the past year or two. To a guy like me it seems like the majority of the people who have joined the group over the past long while are doing so not for the sake of the poker, but for some other purpose. With such a different customer base nowadays if you will, it only stands to reason that the private blogger tournaments have very little interest in them anymore. To the people who helped make these things the fun and jovial times-to-look-forward-to that they used to be, today they are an absolute shadow of their former selves.

Ever wonder why the only people who clamor anymore these days for the private blogger games to continue to grow are people who weren't playing them even just two or three years ago? Now you know.

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.

The Blonkaments and the BBT

The BBT3 rolls on this week with another 6-max nlh tournament in Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt:



Same time as always: 10pm ET on full tilt. Same password as always: "hammer". See you there as we begin the first full week of the second half of the BBT3 tournament challenge. Tonight's winner will get the cash payout from this event plus a coveted seat in the series-ending BBT3 Tournament of Champions, in which two 12k WSOP prize packages and two more 2k WSOP prize packages will be awarded to the top four finishers. Hard to beat that for a freeroll. And all you have to do to play is to win one of the BBT3 events. I won my seat last week in Stud Hi-Lo in the Skills Series. Have you won your ToC seat yet?

I barely played poker this weekend, only playing a bit on Sunday after donking it up for about an hour and a half in the donkament last Friday that I think I saw my favorite punching bag NutzCarson take down, congrats to him. I have suckout-eliminated that guy from the donkament more times than I can count, so it's nice to seem him avoid me entirely and then go on to victory in my absence in a tournament that is always a fun, laid back time for everyone.

Speaking of fun, laid back times in blonkaments, I have made no secret here over time of my distaste for blonkament competitions like the BBT in anything but slight moderation. After a couple months of most of our regular "good time" events being tied to a points race, I have spent weeks barching here in the blog about how it ruins the fun of the games, it changes the way people play from trying to have a good time to trying to hold on for dear life due to some arbitrary line in the sand picked by the tournament organizers. It really does impact negatively the spirit of our games I think after a sustained period of time, and again I have made no secret whatsoever of my happiness at the end of every single BBT challenge that has been run, to just be able to go back to everyone having a good time in the blonkaments and not playing it like there is so much on the line with every allin, every suckout, every elimination and every double-up.

Similarly, again I made my feelings known when the BBT was brought back late in 2007 for the BBT2, that I thought it was too soon, and in general it just wasn't the right time to basically clog up our last two months of the year of private blogger tournaments like that after already having eaten up three months earlier in the year with the first BBT. Now, I know why the BBT2 happened when it did -- basically we knew there was going to be 40 grand of free stuff related to the WSOP coming at us as a group for the BBT3 if the BBT2 tested well, and full tilt essentially made the BBT2 a part of the package because they wanted to pimp the Aussie Millions challenge. So the decision was made to go ahead with the BBT2 even though the timing was probably not ideal, but it was done for the sake of getting the prizes for the BBT3 to be at the incredible levels they are today.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the end result of all this was as I had feared. We took five out of 12 months of the year in 2007 and tied them up with two separate BBT challenges, under conditions in the blonkaments that I myself have publicly complained about on like a hundred occasions. Maybe some people -- in particulare those who've been part of the community for less than a couple of years here -- aren't bothered in the least by the BBT, and I like that and respect it and have no issue with it. But it bugged me, significantly by the end of it all, with both BBTs during 2007. It really changes the nature of our weekly games in a noticeable way. And it wasn't like it was because I couldn't win, as I am significantly profitable for the three BBTs overall and have won three individual events outright. But it bugged me, it really did. I love a challenge like the BBT, and I strongly suspect that running it once a year for a couple of months would be much better (or less poorly) received by the group as a whole than taking up half the year with it. But changing our regular games from times to just have fun and chat some old friends up to the majority of the time being overshadowed by the underlying prizes available, the "points" structure, etc. has not in my view had a positive effect on the games overall.

Add in the BBT3 now, and that will make 8 out of the last 12 months where our private blogger-hosted tournaments are now part of the week-to-week competition of the BBT and not just a chance for people to come out and have fun. And some people, in particular (understandably) those who were around like I was playing in the regular private events for a long time back before the BBT, before the WPBT, when just getting together and donking it up was the whole point and it seemed like far fewer people acted like monkeys in the chat and got worked up on our blogs about particular suckouts or eliminations or bad hands, are not happy about the change. And like I said, I can understand it. Personally, I think a couple-month challenge one time a year or so is more than fine -- I think that sounds like a really great idea, personally -- but more than that I think obviously really weighs on some people who miss the days when these games were not taken so seriously and people just didn't care so much. I always thought this ever since the BBT was started up early in 2007, I have been perfectly public about that feeling here in the blog and elsewhere, and I guess in the end those of us whose names or whose tournaments are associated with the BBT should expect to be on the receiving end of some criticism or ill feeling from those in the group who are not happy about the very clear changes that the BBT has brought about in our private games.

And that's the most ironic thing to me about some of the stuff that's been said about me over the past week or so -- I actually agree more than most out there with most of the sentiment that has been raised lately, be it about the BBT specifically or about the attitudes of several bloggers playing in the BBT tournaments generally. Although I can't say that I agree exactly with the sentiment involved, a part of me did enjoy the "Circles of blogging hell" posts because, frankly, I have had numerous conversations, both live and in the girly, about the "new crop" of bloggers and how on multiple occasions I have been disappointed in how certain things have gone down, the intentions of some of the people involved and just generally their attitudes about poker, about other bloggers and about things in general. I may not have been at the first few live gatherings in Vegas, but when I joined the group it was still fairly small, at least compared to what it has become nowadays. I easily have the perspective to see how things have changed over the past few years since I started getting involved first in reading poker blogs, then in playing in the private tournaments and eventually to creating my own blog in Autumn of 2005. And in general to be quite honest I can't say that attitudes are improving, at least compared to what I would ultimately like people to act like to each other.

Anyways all this is a very long way of saying how unfortunate I think it is that some of my actions over the past week have rankled some feathers of other bloggers. It isn't the first time by a long shot, and it surely won't be the last. I make no apologies for anything I have done given the circumstances -- I think the particular circumstances of last week's chop clearly say what I want them to say about that whole thing -- but it's not like I am happy when I see guys I respect being pissed at something I did, even if it does not really have any direct effect on the people involved. Oh and btw, to those who still haven't figured this out -- I am an egomaniac. I'm a pompous ass. It's like my defining characteristic. So every time I read a comment where people complain about that, I kinda laugh a little inside. I thought that by making that the explicit tagline of my fucking blog, this would help spread the word so that readers are not surprised by what an egomaniac I come off as in the blog. I guess that still isn't working. Oh well, I'll deal with it. And of course, everyone can make their own decisions about everything they do, but I also kinda laugh when someone shows up in my comments and insults me, my writing and my blog in general, and then I check my stats and I see that person having hit my blog 841 times in just the past year. 841 hits in a year? I must be doing something right for somebody.

OK that's enough rambling for a Monday here. I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!

Blogging Anonymity, and MATH Recap

One of the most key aspects of being a blogger in my eyes is the anonymity. I mean, most of you know a whole lot about me at this point if you've been reading here for some time, and many of you have met me in person. Some of you know me by name, which I am fine with in the specific sense. But I don't go posting my name or posting pictures of myself on the blog here. Ever.

It's not that I can't stand the thought of you guys actually being able to call me by my real name. And it's not that I want my real identity to remain shrouded in mystery. It's because with the internet these days, you just never know who can find your little corner of the blogiverse. And once they're there, who knows what they can choose to do or think about the information they find.

A couple of times now over the past few months, the whole sordid Bobby Bracelet "outed at work" thing has reenacted itself on a blogger whose blog and whose presence I have missed. I believe the internet as an institution has been worse off with these guys gone. Slowly the process of getting these guys's presences back on the intertubes has been moving forward, but the fact that this stuff even happens and can negatively affect people's lives shocks me every time I hear about it anew.

All of us who've been around the poker blogging scene for at least a few years will remember the Bobby Bracelet thing. For those who don't know, Bobby was here near the beginning of the poker blog thing and truly had (and has) one of the funniest blogs around. The man can write and he can make you laugh out loud almost at will. Anyways, one day around the time when I was fairly new on the poker blogging scene myself, all of a sudden, I log in for my daily dose of Bobby, and the site isn't loading. It isn't there. Blogspot is working fine, but there is no site. Most of us know very well what it's like when one of your favorite daily sites is suddenly gone or down one day (thanks Chad). I was freaked out.

Slowly over the next few weeks, word trickled down through blog comments and other posts that Bobby had been "outed" at work. Outed. It just sounds bad, doesn't it? Anyways, I don't even recall what it was that Bobby was doing at the time, but it had nothing to do with his poker blog. He was not talking about where he works by name or anything. And yet, his employer freaked out. The blog had to go, and I think Bobby might have told me when I met him in person two summers ago at my first WPBT live gathering in Las Vegas that he left that company soon after. Bobby was gone from the blogosphere for a while, then he was back with his Totally Gay Online Diary for a while, which was once again funny as shit. Then he was gone again, and only in the past several months or so has he seemed to find a new permanent home on wordpress. But it was a couple of years without any steady posts from one of the funniest poker bloggers around, all because his employer found out about the existence of his blog. His personal journal, attempts to be humorous. Not that much different from a physical diary, or a leatherbound personal journal. It's kinda sick, if you think about it.

Because of all this stuff, I take great pains not to be outed at my work. I can only assume a similar fate would befall me if the ubiquitous They figured me out. I do not upload my posts from the office, and I do 95% of my writing not on office time for the most part. But that said, I know it could happen. First of all, one disgruntled person at my office who somehow figures out my full tilt handle could very easily find out what he needs to know. And if you look hard enough, one can find a picture of me on some of the blogs as well to confirm one's suspicions. So it very realistically could happen, to many of us. I personally know a significant number of poker bloggers whose employers (and continued employment) would be dubious if their blog were discovered, many of them just among the New York blogging crew, so it's not like I am alone in this. And yet we do it anyways.

The anonymity is key. Once that is gone, it makes it much more difficult to blog interestingly, and to blog honestly. No matter how determined you are to produce good content for your blog, if you know the subjects of your posts and especially Big Brother are always reading over your shoulder, you simply can't do it exactly the same. Take it from me.

I used to think it was so dorky when other bloggers would remind people before every Vegas gathering not to post pictures of them on other blogs. Now, I have to say I kind of count myself among those people. I am 100% fine with there being a couple pictures of me out there on a few blogs. But it's not a practice that I really want to keep expanding, if you know what I mean. Everything is just better if I remain just a guy with a Japanese-sounding name who plays aggro online poker and steals your blinds, and may even write a rant or two once in a while in an online journal from the comfortable anonymity of 12 million residents of metropolitan New York City.

***********************************************

There were 70 runners in this week's Mondays at the Hoy, for a cool $1680 prize pool. I showed up from delicious Chinese dinner at around 10:40pm ET, blinded down around a third of my stack, and I donked around for 10 minutes trying to double to get back to near average before donking out with something, I don't remember what. Probably ran into Aces since that's been my thing lately. Then I logged off and watched some tv with Hammer Wife. Here is the list of cashers in this week's Hoy:

8. $58.80 Gydyon
7. $58.80 Waffles
6. $92.40 Loretta8
5. $134.40 Martyr99
4. $184.80 pvanharibo
3. $243.60 pureprophet
2. $352.80 hellory
1. $554.40 iam23skidoo

So congratulations to Skidoo who took down this week's first prize in addition to the valuable BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat. I have watched Ski play the blonkaments for a good two or three years now, since back in the heyday of the WWdN, and let's just say I can't wait to hear how he won. I mean, Ski has won blogger tournaments before several times so the guy can play, but his game is generally highly aggro and tends to get him into a lot of trouble early or get him a big stack early. So somebody tell me, how bad was it last night?

Edit: And here is your updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results:

1. Pirate Wes $959
2. columbo $928
3. astin $900
4. Breeze81 $825
5. pureprophet $728
6. iam23skidoo $698
7. lucko21 $650
8. dwal78 $597
9. corron10 $594
10. ChipyMcStacks $563
11. PokahDave $562
12. Tripjax $553
13. Roberto551 $545
14. fuel55 $512
15. surflexus $488
16. Loretta8 $481
17. zeroluck001 $476
17. Jordan $476
19. tilt_away $461
20. TuscaloosaJohn $423
21. twoblackaces $409
22. zackklemm $358
23. hellory $353
24. LJ $304
25. bayne_s $291
26. jmathewson_III $274
27. numbbono $261
28. Miami Don $224
29. Donkey Shortz $215
30. katiemother $203
30. VinNay $203
32. DaBag $202
32. Byron $202
34. recessrampage $198
35. PokerBrian322 $187
36. willwonka $185
36. mattazuma $185
38. buckhoya $150
38. Mike Maloney $150
40. ANIguy $149
41. BuddyDank $142
42. Martyr99 $134
43. chitwood $127
44. cubanlinks $120
45. waffles $114
46. kevin_with_AK $106
47. BamBamCan $95
47. thepokergrind $95
49. Schaubs $92
50. bartonf $89
51. HotPants29 $74
52. Hoyazo $67
53. scottmc $63
53. jamyhawk $63
55. CheckinMyAA $62
56. PirateLawyer $60
57. gydyon $59
58. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
58. RaisingCayne $56
60. pokerdad13 $55
61. jeciimd $52
61. zeroluck001 $52
63. AltronIV $47

On Poker Blogging

Another day, another blogger tournament win by Surflexus, who took down Riverchasers Razz last night. Everyone knows you have to be kind of a card rack to win at razz, and I would say it is easily the most luck-based of all the major poker variants, but what can you say when Surf, a blonkament dominator extraordinaire who has won 85,000 Mookies, 14,000 MATHs and I'm sure a bunch of Riverchasers to go along with them, makes another win other than that the man really knows how to play the game. Almost as interesting is that Gary Cox came in 2nd place in razz on Thursday night, just a week or so after taking down the Skill Series razz game. In typical Gary fashion he will also probably attribute his second nice razz performance in a week just to luck, but obviously both of these guys know their poker well and have figured out the formula to succeeding in razz with donkey shithead motherfuckers bloggers. As has often been the case recently, I was clueless as to this formula, donking out early as I played some truly horrific poker in both razz and an FTOPS O8 sat along with KOD and CK. I could not catch a single break in razz until one hand when I was already allin, and I had people catch perfect on me several times in questionable situations to leave me with no chance early on.

But I played like shit last night. I just wasn't in the mood to play, as I have not really been for most of this week. I know just what it is that's bothering me lately and I feel quite constricted in writing about it as I'm sure it will just perpetuate the problem and that's not good for anyone. I do remember when it really used to get to me when someone would say in their blog or in a blog comment somewhere that I made a bad play or was a bad player in general. That kinda stuff usually rolls right off me nowadays. But I understand very well that feeling when someone reads something in my blog that doesn't describe a play they made in exactly the way they want to. But you know what? I can say with factual certainty that some people I like and respect have overreacted to things in my blog of late, several times over the past few months in fact. I guess I'm just stuck with an image now, one of a guy who recklessly insults people here and tries to make people look or feel bad about their play. I certainly don't think that is even a remotely accurate portrayal of anything that happens here at my blog, but if that's what people think, then that's what people think and there's no use to me just sitting here and denying that that is my intention. My main goal here on the blog is and always has been to provide genuine analysis of poker and of the hands I see on a regular basis during my nightly poker activities, and to help in what little way that I can to educate myself and whoever else might actually be able to learn something once in a while from reading here.

For example, when I say someone got lucky or even that someone is a lucky player in general, I am not insulting them, and that's a fact. We got into this a little bit on buddydank radio the other night, but let me just say for the record that there is no way calling someone "lucky" is an insult. No way. People read that here and they get all up in arms about it, and the next thing I know I'm just reading my normal list of blogs and blog comments, and poof! there is someone ripping me a new anus for daring to call them lucky on my blog. Why is that? Why would that possibly bother you so much? I contend it is because there is a preconceived notion that I am some kind of asshole blogger and I'm trying to embarrass you, which of course could not be further from the truth (either part of that statement). Again I know we discussed this briefly on air during the Mookie this week, but to be clear, I would like to be called a luckbox by people. In fact I would love it. I only wish that I had the runs of cards that would support such a claim and that it was roundly thought that I was a lucky mofo. Where in the shit is the insult buried in that? Everyone gets a little lucky to do well in poker tournaments, and why on earth would it bother me if people thought I was lucky? I just don't understand it. But lord knows, when I ever dare say that someone else got lucky one time, most of the time they get fucking furious and let their frustration out on their own blogs or somewhere else. You would think I said that they suck at poker or something, which if you scan my archives I don't think you'll find me saying about any of you. Ever.

Same thing really with me stating that someone else is "loose" or "aggro" or whatever descriptive adjective I would use to describe their poker play. I have news for you guys -- "loose" is not an insult. The word does not judge in any way at all. It is simply a description, a description that fits a good number of poker players out there. That's why there are LAGs and there are TAGs in the world. Some people are loose. Some people win money playing loosely, especially early in hands. Look at Negreanu. Look at Gus Hansen. These guys will see a ton of flops with in many cases shitcocklian cards, and they play well enough after the flop to be profitable playing this style. "Loose" is not an insult, unless the reader wants to make it into one. "Aggro" should not be insulting to any of you, unless you are already insecure yourself about your level of aggro or something and come into this with preconceived notions of how you wish you were perceived by others at the tables. Shit, I play aggro. Not only am I not insulted when other people say that about me (which happens all the time btw), but I publicly proclaim it here. Am I crazy to say this in a public form, to admit that I play aggressive poker? Am I just being self-effacing? No, of course not. It's a descriptor of my playing style, and it is what it is. Someone thinks I play loose early in tournaments? OK, so be it. I am really struggling to understand why some people would be so defensive about this kind of thing, and yet every time I use a word like that about someone, I read about it, be it in blog posts, blog comments or emails, again and again and again. I keep coming back to it being related to an image that I have, one that I know is perpetuated by a lot of the bloggers out there about me, of being some kind of an insulting, pompous jerk. Pompous? Yes. Without a doubt. That is a badge I wear brazenly. Insulting? Ima go with No on that one. You can have your own thoughts.

Twice already just in this short year on the blog I have been accused of getting a hand history wrong that I in fact got completely right (actually one time I had the player involved wrong but the action on the hand absolutely correct). Both times the accusations came from people who in reality I guess just did not agree with my analysis of the hand in question, and/or who felt genuinely insulted by what I had to say about them. Yet in both cases, there were no insults involved. One time I referred to a player who had made a number of loose calls as having made some loose calls. That was and is a fact, a fact which the player in question to this day has tried to use fuzzy math, generalized insults and any other means available to him to refuse to open his mind about. That's fine, play the game how you want and analyze (or refuse to analyze) your play however makes you happy. And I mean that. But you can't make me have insulted you just by saying and acting like I did. When you call allins with Ace-rag and with tiny pocket pairs on four occasions during the last 90 minutes of a tournament, you just decided for yourself that you are making loose calls. Instead of spending days after the fact trying to insult me, my blog, my blog style, and my entire profession all to argue that you were not making the loose calls that you were in fact making, why not instead explain why you did in fact make those calls. Or -- imagine this -- open your mind to possibly changing that approach in the future. At least consider that someone else realized how loose those calls were, and think honestly and introspectively about why you made the calls that you made. If you go through that exercise and decide that you are happy with your decisionmaking, then so be it, that in my view is a great outcome. I don't even necessarily disagree with you -- maybe the situations in question called for some loose calling from you. But you still made some loose calls, and I'm just the messenger writing about it in a non-insulting way. I'm not putting you down when I say you made some loose calls, any more than I put myself down when I say like I have ten times in the past couple of weeks that I bet and called with and then hit a million draws in the Riverchasers O8 event earlier this month. It is an unbiased, objective non-judgmental observation about what happened in a poker tournament. There is no insult there.

On the other occasion, I described literally exactly how a particular hand finished out, and one of the players involved was disappointed with me for not portraying their play better in the way I described the hand. Christ guys. My blog isn't here to make anyone look good. My blog is here for me to write about how I perceived certain plays that have been made, and I am extremely proud to say that I've never used this blog, or anyone else's blog comments, on even one measly occasion, to present an inaccurate view of any poker play for any purpose other than the analysis of the poker itself. Just because I don't agree with the way you saw your play in a hand, that doesn't mean I am lying or trying to insult you, that I do not have respect for you, or any other negative thing. It actually most likely means that we actually have two genuinely different views about the same poker play. And since that happens...oh....about 25,000 times a day in the world of poker, that shouldn't be surprising to anyone, and no one should feel insulted if, say, they think calling with that draw on the flop was a smart play and I think it was overly loose. If the "right" play was always obvious and clear, then this game wouldn't be even a fraction as fun as it is, and there wouldn't be nearly so much variation in the kinds of plays nor in the quality of players we all run into on a regular basis at the tables, live or online.

I guess all this is a long way of saying that I am disappointed in a lot of what I see out there lately as far as people's reactions to statements in my blog. Obviously a lot of you are disappointed with me as well, and that is something I will have to accept and deal with, and figure out the appropriate reaction to. In fact, in that regard, I am here to say today that I am really going to go out of my way to present things in as fair and unbiased of a fashion as I can here on the blog from here on. Frankly this is what I always have done here, but I am going to try to go out of my way to choose my words and structure my sentences in ways that are not designed to leave people feeling insulted about my thoughts on some poker they may have been involved in. Hopefully some of you will pick up on this and notice the differences to some small degree. But I have no doubt that I will fail in this attempt, I'm sure again and again and again, because many of you are no different from me in that it can be really annoying reading about yourself in anyone's else blog in anything other than a supremely positive and awesome light.

And that's exactly the thing: this is only going to be a small difference from the way I already approach writing in my blog. I'm not proud of everything I've ever said here on the blog, but I have only told the truth about all of my poker thoughts and I've even tried to do so in a way that goes out of my way not to call anyone out or make anyone look or feel bad about reading what I write. But I am not going to keep my opinions to myself. That's not what this blog was, is or ever will be. I don't want it to be. If someone makes a call at mathematically poor pot odds and wins a big pot, I might use that hand as a example here to show my thoughts on the odds involved in making that call. That's what I've always done here and I will continue to do it, and I know I am better off from thinking through and analyzing hands like that here, and it is my hope that some of you might be better off for that discussion as well. What I will do is try my hardest to go out of my way not to make the person who made the call feel negative about reading that particular post, which is something that I've made a focus for a good year or two here but which I am obviously still not as successful at as I would like to be.

But this effort from me is going to require some hard work from my readers as well. I challenge you all to question some of the things you have read, heard and maybe even said about me, and might at this point just assume are true about me and my blog. The idea for example that I only talk about the poker books I've read so that I can sound authoritative, as opposed to the real reason I write about that (I know this is just about the dumbest idea I can imagine, but I actually have heard that said about me). The idea for example that I do not have respect for my opponents, something which I think could not be further from the truth and which I don't think even remotely follows from the fact that I enjoy and feel that my game improves from questioning and debating plays I see at the poker tables. The idea that I somehow can dish it out but can't take it in, which again is just about as inaccurate about me as it could be about anyone, given the recockulous amount of negativism and haterism that follows me wherever I go, along with the fact that I let all of your filthy insulting negatory comments sit on my blog for the whole lot of you to read.

I guess what I'm saying is, I am really going to go out of my way even more than I already do to challenge my own approach to analyzing poker plays and poker hands made by other people who might read here in the blonkaments and otherwise. But along with that effort, I challenge all who read here to try to keep a more open mind about what I am saying and how I am saying it here in 2008. I challenge you to challenge your own assumptions about me, about my intent with this blog, and about the kind of person you think I am. I ask that you consider whether maybe you are guilty of certain preconceived notions about me based on ideas formulated either a long time ago and/or based on faulty assumptions. My blog has changed a lot over the past three years of writing every day -- an awful lot -- and I like to think that most of us have open-enough minds to allow for people to change their approach over the three years and 600+ posts that have been here. Believe me, when I go back and read some of my earlier posts, I don't even recognize that guy. Go check my early archives out sometimes. It's funny, really. But I am constantly evolving as a person, as a poker player, and as a "writer". I would like you all to join me in challenging the way things have been thought of and done here in the past, and try to read what I say here at face value, leaving our preconceived notions, our own personal biases and especially our egos at the door and simply enjoying what I write for what it is. I'm going to make a real effort on this point, and all I ask is some of the same from you all, which I believe we are all entitled to.

My effort on this point starts tonight, in my rant-free zone that is known as the donkament at 9pm ET on full tilt (password is "donkarama"). As usual I do not know if I can be there tonight, but in the past I have usually found a way to sneak in, even if it's a few minutes late. So come and slug it out in the $1 rebuy tonight if you are around, still the best poker therapy I know of in the online poker world. And next week, I promise some actual poker strategy and analysis posts like I've always loved to write. Deal?