Live Poker Radio, and BBT Chops

I had a fun time on Live Poker Radio last night with IT. It was totally unplanned, but IT hit me on the girly shortly before the Riverchasers started, and since there were some topical things to discuss I got on air and we just jumped right in to it. I was very pleased with the entire convo that I had on air and frankly had a really fun time doing it all as I always seem to. When IT tried to start talking about American Idol contestants, I just sidestepped that whole thing and drove the conversation right back to Poker where it belongs. When we discussed some of the controversial issues of the day, it seems like IT and I were in some disagreement over the details. But that's ok with me, I made my point and he made his, and we moved on.

The whole issue on chopping in the BBT is kind of a non-issue to me. As I said on air last night, it is obvious from some of the specific language used by some of the haters detractors that those people are not aware that chopping in the BBT is already standard accepted practice. To read some of these posts and comments, you would think that I, Hoyazo, have single handedly ruined poker bloggery and turned it into the drivel that it has become today, all by accepting a chop offered to me from a guy who could not play in the BBT3 Tournament of Champions anyways earlier this week. Of course those of us who have actually been involved at the end of some of these large-field BBT events know that chops have been discussed on several occasions, and they have even been agreed to more than once already, even in just the BBT2 and the BBT3 which were focused on a challenge-end Tournament of Champions. Heck, there was already a seat chop earlier in the BBT3, not some 3 or 4 weeks ago! And if memory serves, the same thing happened once or twice in the BBT2 as well.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not so naive as to be arguing that just because someone else did it in the past, that automatically means chops are awesome. I'm not saying that, and I don't even think it. But what I am saying is that, when this guy offered me the chop the other night, I accepted it without really thinking about the legitimacy of chopping up for a seat, because it's already been done on a couple of occasions in the last two BBT challenges. As I mentioned, it was done 3 or 4 weeks ago in the BBT3 for crying out loud. So to act like I have somehow done something to bloggers, to blogging, to Poker, whatever, merely by accepting another guy's offer for a chop at the end of a BBT tournament that we both expected me to win anyways, is the equivalent of you making trouble.

The biggest point I made on the radio last night was this. In the BBT3, the very people who have most vocally complained about what the BBT has done to the blogging community, have suddenly become the people doing the complaining that are threatening to ruin the spirit of our games. The same people who have posted numerous times on their blog about how the fun and jovial spirit of our private games has been sapped away with the growth of the group and the competition within it, now those are inexplicably the same people arguing that we must never allow a chop at the end of one of our BBT tournaments? Now our BBT events are too serious to even discuss a chop?

But I thought it was all about the friendships, and not taking things too seriously? I thought it was just a game, just an amicable poker game among friends? That people should not be taking these things so seriously, right? That it's not supposed to be all about winning and who played better than who. Right?

But now the notion of two of those amicable friends ever being able to chop at the end of a BBT tournament is worthy of words like "despicable" and "shameful"?

One thing is clear. Some people have clearly lost their way and are completely missing the spirit of the BBT and the private blogger tournaments. I guess the exact identity of those people we can disagree on.

Have a great weekend everyone. Don't forget to come by and donk it up tonight in the latest installment of Kat's donkament, the $1 rebuy extravaganza every Friday night at 9pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "donkarama". As usual I'm not sure if I will be there. Yeah right.