Image

I was thinking a lot about the hand ranges post from yesterday. One of most fun, and sometimes most difficult parts of putting people on hand ranges involves factoring in image. Image in poker is everything. I talked expressly about it in yesterday's post. If you know someone is a stealy player, then the hand range you put them on when they open-raise from the button is going to be quite a bit wider than if the guy who never ever steals except from the button suddenly open-raises from the hijack or the cutoff. While it is entirely possible to start putting people on ranges of hands right from the very first time you sit down at the table, the bottom line is that what you're really doing in that situation is working from a starting model, one of, say, the "average" player. So if I first sit down to a poker table and in the very first hand, a player I've never seen before sitting under the gun open-raises 3x the big blind, I don't know him from Adam but I'm going to assume he has a big Ace or big pair. Why? Because that's how most people play, and until I learn anything otherwise, I can only assume he is "average".

But all that changes once I've seen him get taken to the river, and say he shows down in the hand above something like pocket 3s. Now I know quite a bit about his starting hand range, and I can immediately think of him as likely more aggressive then the average player before the flop. Or say he shows down A8s after open-raising utg before the flop. That tells me quite a bit as well. I don't play that hand in that spot, not in cash and not in tournaments except when late or short for the most part, so the fact that he does can also reinforce that aggressive, loose image. Now once I've seen that hand, if the very next time he is utg he raises it up again, now am I just putting him on a big Ace or a big pocket pair? Of course not. Now it's any pocket pair (if I just saw him raise utg with 33), or many big and medium Aces (if he showed down the A8s). That kind of information is absolutely key if you're going to be using hand ranges to evaluate where your opponents are at in every hand you play. Which as a reminder is the only way you should ever be playing this game.

The above should be pretty obvious stuff for most of the people who read here regularly. But one of the most interesting aspects of the whole image thing in hand range analysis to me is how, if you're playing in a game with strong players, or say maybe very late in a big mtt where most of your opponents are cognizant, solid aggro types, your own image in the minds of the other players at your table impacts the hand ranges you can put your opponents on after they take a given action. I find this to be a big issue for me in every blonkament I play in, as I have profiled so many hands and so many tournament runs at this point that basically everybody and their mother in every private blogger event I've ever played in believes me to be a stealy, aggressive player. This is how I get impacted by this aspect of putting people on hand ranges, including how I have to adjust my own play as a result:

So let's say there are 10 players left in the Riverchasers, and I am near the top in chips (yes, I decided to go with something that happens quite frequently, so what of it?) Now the action folds around to me in the cutoff, and I look down to find pocket Jacks. I raise, and only the button (say, with half my stack size) calls me. The flop comes down 753 rainbow, I have the solid overpair to the board. Now I bet out, and the button raises me allin. In this scenario, if I am an unknown player and I have just sat down in, say, the 50-50 or whatever it is at a table full of players who don't know me, I am definitely going to consider folding here. In most cases under such circumstances in fact, I do fold this hand. I only have pocket Jacks, and my opponent could have any two pair, any set, the flopped straight or even just a higher overpair, all of which will beat me and potentially eliminate me from the tournament. I don't like busting out early in a tournament with just one pair on the flop (the only fourth-highest overpair at that), and normally I am not calling off anything resembling a large stack in this spot.

However, getting back to my Riverchasers example, all this analysis changes if I am a thinking player and if I accord a similar thinking nature to most of my opponents at the table. If I think the player on the button who called my preflop raise views my image as someone who loves to steal and raise and bet aggressively with nothing, then the hand range he puts me on when I open raise before the flop is much wider than my actual holding of pocket Jacks. What's more though, is that since he puts me on a wider range of holdings to be open-raising with late in the Riverchasers, then the range of hands I put him on to be calling that preflop raise from me also needs to be widened, in some cases significantly depending on who the exact player involved is. That's the part that tends to get me into trouble in the blonkaments, perhaps more than any other single facet of my blonkament game.

Take the pocket Jacks on a 753 rainbow flop scenario again. In the 50-50, if I bet out with my Jacks on that flop and get raised allin, I am likely to fold. I understand that this unknown player who does not know me puts me on a decent hand but is raising, indicating that he probably has a measly pair of Jacks beaten at this point. But in a blonkament, where I know my opponent thinks I am a stealer who open-raises with bullshit cards, for him to call my preflop raise could be with almost any two cards, and to raise me allin on that flop can be just as much being done with air simply based on the expectation that I am a stealer and therefore I can fold. Similarly, I often fold a medium overpair like pocket Jacks on a raggy flop when I believe my opponent in a large public mtt might have a higher overpair given that he raised or called my raise before the flop and then raised my bet on the flop. But again in a blonkament, when I know my opponents have that stealy, aggro image of me and the way I play in these things, it is just so much more likely that they are in there with just top pair, an overpair but a lower overpair than my Jacks, or even many kinds of draws with overcards, that I often feel compelled to call in such a situation. Ironically, it is my own aggro image that causes me to make such a call in the blonkament situation, because I know my image is perceived by my opponent, and therefore I know he or she is widening his own range of hands to play against my perceived weaker range.

The more in touch we all are with our own images at the poker table, the better our results will be, plain and simple. I try to remind myself of this every time I get caught calling off and getting stacked in a blonkament because I know the way I am perceived by the other players around me. I continue to see players in these things who do not seem to have a clue about the actual image they have actually amassed over countless tournaments playing together with the group, and these people seem to be the most consistently easy to outplay because they refuse to accept the way that others are factually thinking about their holdings given their actions in a given hand. Like many parts of life, image in poker is everything.

Oh, and congratulations to que31dawg for taking down this week's MATH tournament in addition to the full $240 prize pool for winning the latest Shootout tournament. I got silly coolered early on when I rivered an inside straight only to lose to the higher rivered inside straight, and I shut it down from there so I don't have any of the details.

MATH Recap, MTT Bender, the Main Event, and Cheating NBA

17 runners came out for Mondays at the Hoy this week, creating a $408 prize pool for our second-ever MATH Shootout. 17 entrants got us three starting tables of 6, 6 and 5 players each, a nice round starting setup with almost all full shorthanded tables to begin with. Unfortunately the full tilt shootout payout continued to pay only the top two finishers, even though we had three starting tables and therefore three starting table winners to come to the final table. I played one of my best MATH's in quite a while, but got sucked out on four times, lost a race and eventually lost when my full stack was called allin by A4o preflop to corron10 who eventually eliminated jeciimd to win my starting table. The three table winners on the night were corron10, scottc25 and ElSnarfGrande with scottc25 winning$265.20 for first, and corron10 finishing second for $142.80. Once again the shootout format seemed to work out very well, and a good time was had by all. Thanks to everyone who came out, in addition to at least one first-timer and potentially yet another blogger playing on a second account on full tilt. Good times.

So, I thought I would take stock here of my mtt bender last week in retrospect. First things first -- profits. In the end, I made about $4500 over the six days of my bachelority, an awesome week by any standards I have set here over the past few years, and of course at the end of the day, my longtime readers know that following the cashish is the only real way to keep score in this game. Although I won a number of small sngs, finished second in a 90-person knockout sng, and cashed multiple times in multiple tournaments during the week, the bulk of the $4500 net over the week of course comes from my 4th place finish in the 5050 last Sunday night, followed by my 5th place finish in "the" 32k on Tuesday night, both on full tilt. Both of these scores are in my top 10 cashes for the year so far in tournament poker, and in that sense busting out with two of those in three nights of poker was definitely a great time. I really do wish I could isolate what it is about my poker play when I am home alone as compared to when I'm home with the rest of my family asleep nearby. It's not like I had any loud outside stimulus going last week that I don't usually have, and it's not like I got more hammered than usual or anything -- it would not be possible for me to more hammered than I usually am, at least for the big blonkaments every week -- and there's really nothing else tangible I can think of. But obviously something must be different, as now over two 5-day periods during the week after July 4 in two consecutive years, I have won around 5k in tournaments in two separate scores in both of those weeks. Now I'm no mathematician, but that has got to be statistically significant.

Changing topics a bit, at some point on Monday I finally looked into the WSOP Main Event. Sadly, I am not familiar in the least with anyone who made the final table. It's sad, but I guess it is not really at all surprising, given that we're looking at what, 6800-some-odd donks who entered this thing? The odds of anyone in the final 9 out of 6000-some will be anyone I know -- especially given how few poker players I really know in my life -- have got to be quite astronomically low, and yet perhaps I've been spoiled by guys like Alan Cunningham last year, Dan Harrington a few years back and a few others. But it sucks, I won't give two craps about who actually wins the Main Event, and I don't care how long they delay playing out that final table. I just don't know these guys and I won't be buying in to any of the hype that will doubtless just be building day after day, week after week over the next four months. To think that it will be cold and quite possibly snowing outside here in New York City when they finally get together to decide on the 2008 WSOP ME winner, it is just so surreal to me.

And wow, Tiffany Michelle! Final two tables. That is sweet. I don't know her, I've never met her and have no real interest in her, but I have watched her doing the interviews for pokernews in the past and thought she did a fine job. More than that, she seemed like a good person from the very brief exposure I had to her from those videos. So great for her. Tiffany goes down as the last person in the field of 6800+ that I actually "knew", in that I recognized her and am familiar with her as a personality. Woulda been an awesome story if a fairly hot chick like her could last all the way to the final table and be part of the recockulous money-driven cycle of greed that will be the next four months while the Main Event final table is delayed. God how I am not looking forward to that.

Oh right, before I go here is one story I absolutely loved from the sports world. The Tim Donaghy story just won't go away, will it? For some reason that I will never understand, the NBA continues to roll on with seemingly no real hit to its popularity following what to me is the megascandal in the world of sports of my generation, that there was actually an actual NBA ref who was actually fixing games vs. the point spreads over a year or so of NBA action. How sick. Well today's story essentially is that it turns out Donaghy called one particular NBA referee over the 2006-2007 season more than 100 times according to phone records, a span during which he only called his bookie more times, and during which he called no other referee more than a handful of times. Wonder what ole' Timmy Boy and this other ref were talking about, huh? Just unreal. But don't worry, the NBA has repeatedly stated, and reiterated this position again this week after the Donaghy phone records were made public, that Donaghy acted alone in fixing these games. Uh huh. Wtg NBA. These guys cheat worse than I do at the blonkaments!

And yet somehow people continue to go to the games and participate in the whole NBA marketing machine. Some of the very same people bitching endlessly about how anyone could ever play or keep any money at Ultimate Bet or Absolute Poker with all the cheating scandals going on there, will then turn around and continue to place bets on NBA games, which is just about the silliest hypocrisy you will find out there. My approach is that I won't be paying any real attention to the NBA again for a long, long time. How can I? Might as well be watching the WWF on a Saturday morning. Or is it called the WWE nowadays?

OK that's all for today. Skillz is tonight at 9:30pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "skillz". And the game tonight for the Skillz Series is...limit razz. Grrrrroooooooaaaaaannnnnn.

MATH Recap, and Multitabling MTTs

We had a strong showing for Mondays at the Hoy this week on full tilt, as 23 runners came out to play in the first Shootout-format blogger tournament that I can ever recall. And I have to say, I think it worked out really well. I went with a shorthanded 6-max format for the shootout, anticipating not the huge fields that we generally see when the BBT is in da house, and this worked out nicely as we were left with four starting tables of 6, 6, 6 and 5, with each playing down to their one winner before the four table winners sat down at the final table to battle it out for the cash.

The only downer that I saw was that all four of the starting table winners did not get paid, since 23 runners only translates to the top 3 finishers receiving payouts. Thus, Jordan from HighOnPoker, who utterly dominated his first table and basically crushed his entire starting field within just 30 minutes or so, still ended up not cashing when he busted first in 4th place of the four final tablers on the day. I regret that, as I think it would be much nicer for Jordan to have shared in the payouts since he won his first table in the shootout, but it's not like that is my decision since that is instead decided solely by full tilt, but as I said I still think the Shootout format worked very well overall. I could see extending the format to full ring Shootout tables if the fields were consistently going to be larger, but with a usual turnout in the 20-30 range, I think shorthanded tables works out much better and makes for a much better final table of original table winners as well.

In the end, as I mentioned, Jordan bubbled the cash despite crushing his original starting table and just generally continuing his lawyerly dominance in the Hoy so far this year. The final three players remaining after Jordan busted were left making the cash, and here is how it all broke out by the time the smoke had cleared on the final table:

1. Bayne $276
2. lucyfred $165.60
3. VinNay $110.40

So one lawyer on the bubble this week, one lawyer-hater at the bottom of the cash list, and an unknown player in lucyfred whose name I think I recognize from a few other blonkaments in the recent past. Lucyfred, please let me know in the comments if you have a blog and I will link your shit up.

Otherwise, just to recap on my last few days, I have played an incredible amount of tournament poker since returning to my bachelor pad without my family for the week late on Saturday night. From midnight to midnight on Sunday, for example, I managed to rack up over 1600 FTP points, and unlike some of you cash gamers to whom that number is probably not so stratospheric, those 1600+ frequent player points were amassed using 100% sitngos and mtts only. And it's not like I'm buying in to the Monday 1k or some shit where it's easy to rack this kind of points up. I played basically every large mtt that ran on Sunday, in addition to a ton of satellites into those and other larger tournaments. I did regular speed, turbo and even a number of those delicious super turbo sngs, where I am standardizing to the $45 and $75 level as my preferred donkathons of choice.

I mentioned yesterday that I also ran the turbo fiddy and the turbo hundo for the first time very late on Saturday, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe it's just me, but I really love me some turbo mtt action. Not just a turbo sng like are constantly running on one or two tables on full tilt, but a straight-out multi-table tournament. The $3 turbos n shit I just find too donkorific even for my tastes as such a low buyin tends to really make people just push n pray with any two right from the getgo, but this week's MATH winner bayne said it best in the girly over the weekend when he told me that the turbo fiddy and turbo hundo both play like a super turbo sng after the first 30 minutes. And I have to agree, that pretty much sums it up, although there is still a bit more tournament skill, use of position, and deception involved in the large mtts than in a similar one-table event any day of the week. Give me a regular nightly turbo mtt at a reasonable hour on the East Coast, with a buyin of between $26 and $50, and I am there. Every night.

I've actually even toyed with changing the MATH to a straight-up turbo event for a month and seeing how that goes. As I was discussing with some of the players in the chat box in this week's MATH tournament, I find it usually takes a good 3 or 4 weeks to really identify the problems, weakness or just differences with a particular tournament format that are not otherwise readily apparent or intuitively obvious. So I've taken to trying new structures and new formats for about a month before making a decision, as I did with the change to and then change back from payouts based on the big Sunday guarantees, which in the end I felt after four weeks to see it play out that people were mostly just changing it over to $T anyways and not playing on Sunday, so why bother. But it took a month of Hoy tournaments like that in order to ascertain that it wasn't really acting to spice things up. With the BBT away for a bit I am definitely looking to keep things interesting with the MATH -- because when I know that my own interest in playing has been sapped after a long trek like the BBT3, I can only assume this feeling is even more noticeable among you all out there who play or might play in the private blogger tournaments. So I am trying some new formats out to see if anything works best, like for example I absolutely love the double-stack Mookie's on Wednesdays as compared to the old 1500-chip style format. So right now we're checking out the Shootout, and so far so good I would say after last night. But I do long sometimes for a month of turbo MATHs, I won't deny it.

Anyways, I also took 4th place in Sunday night's 50-50, to the tune of $3400 and change. As I mentioned briefly yesterday, it is ironic because my first ever final table at the 50-50 occurred one year ago almost to the fricking day, during this exact same week right after July 4 when my wife and kids were again spending the extra week at the beach while I came home to work for the week before heading back to the beach the next weekend. So I final tabled that biatch again in my first full day home alone this time around, which was another fun ride and which I have a million screenshots of, but I can't be getting into the habit of doing a full tournament recap every time I run to frigging 4th place in an mtt. Suffice it to say, this was one of the gheyest, suckoutiest tournaments I've ever run deep in (excluding blogger tournaments, of course), one where I got highlariously lucky when I was allin and behind I think four separate times during the tournament. That's ok, though, because I know I stopped counting the times I was sucked out against when I reached eight suckouts against me, and that wasn't even all that close to the end. But it's hard for me to feel too too good about the big cash when I was allin behind a bunch of times and managed to win those key 35-40% shots a few times in addition to one nice flopped set with an underpair when allin before the flop. Still, what a ride, and what a nice re-introduction to the world of mtts. As I have played so few mtts over the past few months, the big 5050 cash gets me back into the black for even just the past 3 or 4 months worth of action, which when combined with profits at the cash tables, blogger tournaments and in sngs, is making out for easily my best year yet as an online poker player. I may actually have to really work to drum up some losses this time around just to keep myself from having to write a big fat check to good ol' Uncle Sam early in 2009 for all of this year's poker donkery, who woulda thought it. I guess in the overall scheme of things that is a good problem to have, and one I look forward to hopefully making even worse for myself here as I still have another several nights of home-alone-ness and I feel like I have another score inside me, just waiting to come bursting out.

OK don't forget the Skills game is back, now hosted by cemfredmd. That should be tonight again at 9:30pm ET I believe on full tilt. Same password as always of "skillz". I'm not sure what the game today is but I plan to be there to donk it up and then complain about it tomorrow. You know how I roll.

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!

MATH Recap, Early Tournament Hand Question (Continued)

We had 13 runners last night for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt, with once again the top 3 spots paying out. With the 6-max action in da house, the Gigli came early as per usual, and another common trend also held true almost right from the getgo on the night -- the one and only Hoy virgin in the tournament, a player named AGuda (if you have a blog let me know in the comments and I will link you), absolutely blew up. I think Guda recorded both of the first two eliminations, jumping out to more than 7500 chips before anyone else even had 4000. Guda held a large chip lead all the way through the first hour, and shortly into the second hour when I busted losing a race he was still the prohibitive leader with sometihng like 11k in chips to second place's 8k. Eventually I fell asleep so I can't comment on how it ended, but I will say that the final payouts is a who's who of blogger tournament crushing people:

1. twoblackaces $156
2. AGuda $93.60
3. surflexus $62.40

So there he is, Mr. AGuda coming in second place and winning nearly a fresh hundy in his very first appearance at Mondays at the Hoy. Will the mysterious man named after a misspelled kind of cheese make another appearance in other blogger tournaments anytime soon? Will he return to continue his dominance over the MATH field? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, there is tba winning yet another blonkament. This guy has been absolutely on fire in the blogger tournaments. I love another guy who takes playing with the bloggers seriously, but not so seriously that he gets pissed off in the chat box. Anyways this has got to be 4 or 5 top-2 finishes for tba in just the past few weeks of the blogger events, making himself a force to be reckoned with as we head into the typically slow summer months in the blogger tournaments.

OK, so back to the early tournament hand I had posted about last week. To refresh everyone's memory, I had already doubled up very early in a $10 buyin tournament, so I was sitting on a nice stack in the top 3 or 4% of the field with more than 300 players still remaining. I called a minraise from the big blind into a 3-handed pot at better than 5 to 1 odds with 85 of spades, and then the flop came 75J with two spades. I was first to act out of the big blind and I had asked for your opinions on how to best play this kind of a "drawing hand" from here:



I got a lot of well-thought-out responses as usual, but some of them were contradictory which I found very interesting and I thought I would weigh in with my thoughts. Basically some people advocated betting out some fraction of the pot size at this point, a slight majority it seems like the check-call line on the flop and then reevaluate on the turn, while a few commenters pushed for a check-raise in this spot. I think all three options have merit to them, so I thought I would focus on the factors that I was sifting through in my head as I contemplated my move.

The first thing I focus on is that the current pot size is small. It's small enough with just three players in for a minraise very early in an mtt, that I am just not too concerned about making sure I don't blow a chance to take this pot down now. There's barely anything in there right now, so I ended up not going with the line that involves betting out on the flop. If I had been the preflop aggressor, then a c-bet seems much more appopriate, as I want my opponents to understand and expect that I will be protecting my preflop raises with flop continuation bets in most situations. But given that no one showed any real strength preflop, I am honestly not concerned with the possibility of checking up front here even though it means I might miss a chance to steal the pot if it ends up getting checked around on the flop.

And this leads in to the other main consideration I have at this point: the nature of my hand. So yeah right now I have just a measly pair of 5s. But I have basically 14 outs to improve to a hand that I expect to win most pots (two pair, trips or a flush). It is a small hand now, but it has several outs to improve to a hand that I expect to be very strong. And yet, the pot is small enough and it's early enough in the tournament that, as a couple of the commenters pointed out, there is no real reason in my mind to build a huge pot at this point when I have just this very poor made hand at this point.

Whenever I have a hand with a large potential -- these 13, 14 outer type of hands -- but one that is not made right now, I am often looking to go for the check-raise on the flop. A few of the commenters suggested check-calling the flop and then check-raising the turn if I hit. I like this suggestion, and in some circumstances it is one that I definitely follow, but for my game I tend to do that more for hands that are already huge. For example, if I flop a set I might be very apt to check-call the flop and then assume the c-bettor will lead out on the turn as well, where I know I can put in a very large checkraise into a pot that, by the time the turn is out, will already be quite large. The check-call on the flop and then checkraise the turn line is one I use quite a bit, but again it tends to be a line I save for my big made hands mostly because it's a line that tends to create very large pots. Any time there is a raise preflop, a bet and a call on the flop and then a checkraise on the turn, that sounds like a very large pot to me, and I don't really like to start down that path with just a pair of 5s. That's why I don't like to checkraise the turn with this kind of a hand, at least not when I set about planning how I'm going to play out the whole hand right at the beginning.

If I can check-raise on the flop, however, I avoid the few significant weaknesses of the checkraise-the-turn line, which is that (1) if I don't hit on the turn, then I have a weak drawing hand with just one card to come, way less than 50% equity, and I often have to abandon my plan for the checkraise since my equity has dropped so much by the time the turn card is out and it has missed my hand, or (2) if I do hit my draw on the turn -- in particular if the board pairs my 5 or if a spade comes -- I am less likely to get paid off on that turn checkraise since my opponent will likely put me on the exact type of hand that I in fact just hit.

For me, in this kind of a hand in this small of a pot so far, checkraising on the flop is a superior line I believe for a few main reasons. Number one, it allows me to get some more chips in the pot now with my approximately 50% equity in the hand by not donk betting and instead allowing the preflop (min)raiser to bet out first before I make my move. Secondly, even if my checkraise does get called, I am not the least bit concerned for two reasons. First, my equity is strong, with around a 50% chance of having the best hand by the time the river is dealt. And second, by putting in my checkraise on the flop instead of waiting until the turn, the pot is still small. Even if I checkraise and my opponent reraises me allin, I can easily fold and still have lost just a fairly small portion of my overall stack here. And I like that, being that I have made only a pair of 5s so far in the hand.

You can see for yourself what I mean here with this screenshot when I in fact check-raised the flop:



For my game, with a nice stack early in an mtt, this is where I want to be. This way, if a large stack moves me allin or something, even with 50% equity in the hand I might call or not call depending on what I think he might has and how I am feeling at the time. But I have the freedom to fold to the reraise here on the flop and you can see I've only lost maybe 10% of my stack or so. No biggity. But if I wait for the turn after check-calling on the flop, then my turn check-raise, in order to be credible, would have to be a good thousand chips or so, representing a much bigger portion of my stack in a spot not as advantageous to me IMO as the checkraise on the flop, where my equity is high and no obvious draws have filled on the board.

In case you're wondering, in this case my opponent responded to my checkraise with very close a min-reraise of his own, which screamed out to me some kind of big pocket pair since he left so little of his own stack behind with this reraise:



At this point it becomes a simple math problem for me. I have to call 240 into 1090 with what I figure to be 14 outs twice, maybe discount it to 13 outs since my two-pair outs may not all be winners, but the point is this is the easiest call in the world. In fact, since his remaining stack is so small now that he will be forced to be or call any bet on the turn or river with what I am at this point quite sure is a strong pocket pair, I just went ahead and moved him allin. And again, if he had had enough chips to stack me, especially if this were a "real" buyin tournament instead of just a $10 one, and had reraised me allin on the flop, the idea would be to fold fold fold and move on to the next hand with a loss of only around 10% of my stack. But with this short stacked opponent, it's an easy call and really a matter of just common practice to re-reraise him allin for his last 290 chips into a pot of around 1400 chips by the time I call his reraise.

Or more accuately, I reverse hoyed him just to make a point since he felt it was so important to hold back those few chips even though it made his high pocket pair easy as ballz to read:



We got it all in, and he showed his hand:



Right on schedule. 13-14 outs or so for me here. And bloooom on the river:



And of course, my favorite part is the observer chat right after the hand:



Yeah it is pretty "sick" when those 14-outers on the flop fill by the river, huh? Man you have got to love the players at pokerstars.

Thanks again to everyone for the comments. I welcome any dissenting opinions now that you have seen how I like to play this hand. Oh and to the commenter last week who asked if I play this hand any different in cash or in a tournament, the answer for me is no. Either way with the small made hand that has a large draw to a winning hand, and with the pot small and my stack large, I am probably using the flop checkraise to find out when the checkraise is still cheap whether or not I am beat, and otherwise hopefully use my checkraise on the flop to get a free card on the turn even if I miss. Good question though.

So I guess there is no Skills event tonight? I'm actually liking the idea of some weeknights without blogger tournaments for a change -- it's funny but even though the BBT3 was obviously completely nailed by full tilt and Al this time around, the collective weariness and lack of interest in all the blonkaments right now belies the fact that people really want a break. Being in the middle of the typical summer doldrums doesn't help either. But I'll be curious to see if anyone steps in to fill the void over the summer here on Tuesday nights, as even the bodonkey is apparently on a hiatus. I should be on at some point tonight, playing the usual run of mtts in addition to dabbling in the turbo sngs that I have been playing more and more of lately.

Super turbo is calling me already, I can hear it even from a few miles away from my laptop at home. "Hoyyyyyyyy......Hoyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, come indulge yourself in me. Pillage and plunder my super turbo ways....You know you want it...." Foul temptress.

MATH Recap, and the Wide World of Sports

Congratulations to que31dawg for winning this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament, and to Bayne for cashing as well in the smallest field of the year. Yours truly managed to bust out first, as my AK allin preflop fell to QQ to take about 3/4 of my stack, and then AK lost to KQ allin preflop for the last grand or so. What can you do. And que31dawg, if you have a blog please let me know and I can link it up for you here.

Today the big topic on Hoy land is the world of sports, starting of course with Tiger Woods. That guy is effing sick. I heard somewhere and totally agree with the statement that the only truly transcendently great athletes are the ones who are greater than their entire sport. Babe Ruth -- take him away from baseball in the 1920s, and the fans would have gone wherever he went to play and completely forsaken the league. Muhammad Ali, whose whole aura outshined the rest of his competitors put together. Michael Jordan, who you still literally cannot turn off if you are channel surfing and happen to run into one of those 30-minute 1990s finals recap shows. My lord remember what Jordan did to Portland in that one finals, with all the threes? And then that look to the sidelines with the hands upturned, like "what can I do?". Sick. Anyways, Tiger Woods is another such athlete. I admit it -- I only watch golf to see Tiger. I wouldn't watch that drek otherwise, but to me when Tiger is involved, it is almost always worth watching.

When I was abed with mono a couple of months back, one Sunday I happened to flip to some golf, and Tiger was a couple shots behind some unknown about halfway through the final round on a Sunday. I literally could not drag my ass out of bed, so I ended up sitting there and watching the last couple hours of coverage, completely mesmerized by Tiger, waiting for the camera to get back to his next shot, and watching him completely dismantle the field as he made a back-9 burst. By the time they got to 18, Tiger and the co-leader were tied and playing together. They both got up to the green with a long put for par, and Tiger's opponent missed before tapping in, giving Tiger an opportunity to steal it. He sank a fucking 25-foot put along a curve and slightly downhill like it was cake. This was the one where he slammed his visor on the ground as it went in, if you watch any golf. Watching Tiger play is often like that. He is just that good. To think that these other players are expected to go out there every single week and play hard knowing that Tiger is lurking in the field, waiting to pounce on their every mistake, that is just wrong.

Anyways, twice this weekend Tiger came to 18 at Torrey Pines needing to birdie in order to stay alive for his 14th major tournament victory. First, on Sunday he teed off right into the left bunker, but then recovered nicely, pitched onto the green and boom, he had cupped it with what, a 12- or 14-footer to tie Rocco Mediate and force an 18-hole playoff on Monday. It was a hugely clutch hole especially given that it started off smack in the sand and given Tiger's repeated wincing from the pain his recently-operated-on knee. And on Monday the story was eerily similar. After swapping the lead a couple of times during the tiebreaker round, Mediate finally claimed the lead on 15 after three consecutive birdies and so the pair headed once again to 18 with Tiger one shot back, knowing Mediate, one of the shorter hitters on tour, would play the long Par 5 safe for par and knowing Tiger would need a birdie to stay alive and force sudden death. Once again, Tiger came through, including sinking another decent putt under what had to be extreme tension to make birdie once again and force a playoff hole. Is anyone else not surprised that Mediate folded on the first hole of sudden death? I can only imagine what that guy must have been thinking, giving his all like that for not four but five straight days full of golf, and seeing the best player in the world ride up from behind and catch him to tie just at the very end, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for the world's 163rd ranked player. I bet in his mind he folded like a tent just as soon as he watched Tiger birdie the 18th to take his weekly score on the hole to I think 4-under. As I heard Trey Wingo explain this morning on ESPN Radio, Rocco Mediate threw everything and the kitchen sink at Tiger Woods this weekend, but apparently the sink only grazed him.

But the bigger news story of the day, in New York City circles anyways, is the firing of Mets coach Willie Randolph. In just the latest in a long, long string of bad manager terminations for this ownership group with the Mets, as the Wilpon brothers seem to really enjoy leaking out word of an imminent firing at least a couple of days before the actual firing occurs. Just to make things interesting I guess. The result of course is that the organization comes off looking like a bunch of filthy sons of bitches. I mean, everyone in the area knew, knew, that Randolph's firing was just a day or so away. All the papers reported it over this past weekend, citing sources close to the organization, suggesting that the Mets coach was day-to-day at best. Then word came out on Sunday that Mets GM Omar Menaya was accompanying the team out to Anaheim for their 3-game series with the Angels, something he apparently rarely does, which could not have made it more obvious what was about to happen.

For his part, Randolph clearly did not know he was on the chopping block as late as 1am last night, after his team beat the first-place, 42-28 Angels 9-6. He gave his usual post-game press conference, and trust me, he was wayyy too upbeat to have any idea what was about to happen. And yet, somehow, the Mets brass -- namely, GM Menaya -- decided that the middle of last night, at 3 effing am, was the right time to announce Randolph's departure from New York. So Randolph got word at 3am, following a win over a first-place team and the Mets' second consecutive win overall, that he had been fired, and presumably had to fly back home to New York alone to consider his future.

Of course, upon further inspection I think it's pretty clear to see why Omar Menaya would choose this exact time to make his move, regardless of the consequences of the middle-of-the-night firing or the leaking of the news as early as this past Friday and Saturday in all the major nyc news sources. It's this simple: the Mets had won on Sunday, and then they traveled across the country to face the first-place Angels, and after winning that game too, Menaya suddenly faced a dilemma. Either sit back and wait until the team comes home to New York, when he might be looking at a team fresh off a sweep of a division leader on the road and on a 4-game win streak overall, at which time Menaya's fear of the sports fans in New York would leave him exposed to hating from all sides of the Mets' fanbase. Or, Menaya could just fire Randolph right away, before Randolph has a chance to win another game against the Angels and put Menaya further into an already poor position. And Menaya, as the Mets organization always seems to do, chose the easy way out, at the direct expense of the psyche and the reputation of yet another bad coach in this city.

Way to go, Mets. I'm a friggin Phillies fan and I'm calling you classless. I'm Hoy and I'm calling you classless for crying out loud.

MATH Recap, RIP Blogger Crusher, and WSOP Dreamz

15 players came out for the Mondays at the Hoy this week, creating a $360 prize pool and payouts to the top three spots. I had not realized going in this week that this coming Sunday is the $535 buyin 150-seat guarantee to the WSOP ME on full tilt, in place of the normal $216 buyin 750k tournament, so we did not quite reach enough for a full buyin to that, going instead with good old fashioned cash payouts to the top 3 finishers. For the first time in a few weeks, I showed up on time for this tournament, and even though I didn't get into any big pots early, I managed to pick up a ton of small pots to start accumulating right off the bat. With the small field, it was not too long to hold on to make the final table, and that's when I whipped out my suckout stick. I beat Jordan's AK with A8 once, and I beat something bad to nail Kat pretty bad as well. The suckouts helped me make it to heads-up with Jordan, where I started down 26k to 18k and was never quite able to even things up despite making a couple of runs. Eventually when I was down about 3 to 1 in chips, I ran KTs into of all things, pocket Aces in heads-up play. Naturally delicious. So congrats to Jordan for continuing to beat down on the MATH this year, and here are the three cashers from this week's tournament:

1. Jordan $180
2. Hoyazo $108
3. Katitude $72

Top two Hoy finishers, both lawyers once again this week. Ho hum. Anyone surprised?

In other news, R.I.P. blogger crusher. That blog should be deleted as of today. It all goes back a few months, when some people got together and decided I should play the Bodonkey and they would write a blog around my play, and we would all have a financial interest in the winnings, if any. So we did it. I would play all the tournaments (which I have) as ICrushBloggers, and they would watch me play and interview me over email and girly and then they would write the posts. These guys are mostly monkeys, as reflected in their posts. The whole thing was pretty much a clown to begin with. Eventually a couple of the guys who write there started writing some stoopid stuff on the blog, and I had to step in and delete it. But otherwise I don't care what they've written other than to say that I would give it overall a B-. If the whole point of a blog is to entertain, they seem to have struck a chord with a number of people from that perspective if nothing else, and for that I think they did a pretty good job. In truth as my readers know I am more into poker substance than anything else in my own choice of poker blogs, and when you really read what those guys had to say, there isn't a whole lot of rich content there. But they did get in a couple of pretty cool posts not directly about the Bodonkey itself, and those are the ones I liked the most.

In any event, the whole Bodonkey proposal was brought to me by this group purely as an investment, and I agreed because of the prospects for free money for me and what sounded like it might be fun. I was clear that I would not be devoting any more time to blogging than I already do, and that I would never even be posting about the Bodonkey here at my blog since all of the Bodog stuff was supposed to be written by them, and the ICB blog contributors were fine with that. But I don't think any of us really took it all that seriously. The bloggers quickly got as bored with the grind of keeping a daily poker blog, and I was so new to the funky Bodog software and so giddy with the anonymity of never having to look at blogger chat and no one knowing who i was that I ended up playing like a blogger an aggrodonkey in many of the tournaments and busting out early while simply trying to suck out on some donkey. But I was also cashing with increasing regularity as time rolled on in the series, taking down the extra T$109 or whatever it is for the top 5 finishers something like 5 or 6 different times in just the 19 tournaments I played in. I ended up winning two of these tournaments outright, and cashing several other times, such that the balance in the ICB Bodog account that started with $200 is now up over a grand if you count the tournament credits I've amassed from the soft, slow Bodonkey tournament.

Anyways, with me now entering the Bodonkey ToC tonight at 9pm ET, the 18-person sng to decide who wins the WSOP ME package from Bodog, Bodog wants to link to my blog here instead of the ICB blog. Personally I think this does not make sense since I am not and have never been the writer of the ICB blog. But it's what they want to do, and with my idiot writers at ICB not able to control themselves from saying stoopid things, the decision has basically been made for us all. So I asked them earlier this week to please delete the blog, and that should be done by now. If Bodog wants to link to this blog since I am the one who has played all the events, even though the ICB blog was created specifically as a persona for the guy playing in the Bodonkey, then so be it. So as I understand it, ICrushBloggers will heretofore point to my blog at hammerplayer.blogspot.com. Still does not sound like the sensible result to me, but I will be playing tonight in the Bodonkey ToC at 9pm ET with a shot at another 12k prize package for free for a lowly blogger. The free stuff we are getting as idiot bloggers is pretty amazing these days isn't it?

Even given all the above, the one thing that is really on my mind these days is the World Series of Poker. In just one day I leave for Vegas, and will head upon landing straight over to the Rio to register for Thursday's $2000 buyin nlh tournament in the WSOP. This will be my third year in a row heading out to Vegas to play in the mecca of tournament poker, although I have so much going on at work and at home right now that I've barely even accepted yet that I am leaving. Normally I would be concerned about how little time and effort I have spent looking forward to my trip this year, but truth be told almost the exact same thing happened last year and I still ended up heading out there, putting it all behind me 100% at crunch time, and cashing awesomely in my one shot at WSOP glory. I need to try to duplicate that not-at-all-easy feat again later this week if I am to get into the right mindset to play some winning poker.

One thing I have had several people ask me about over the girly, IM and in chatboxes is about buying a stake in me at this year's WSOP. As I mentioned, barring unforeseen circumstances I will be playing in the 2k buyin nlh tournament on Thursday, June 12, and I have received offers from as low as 1% to as high as 25% or more of my action in that event, as well as offers to put up an even larger percentage of the buyin for me to play an additional event or events. I've spent a good deal of time thinking this over as I did last year, and I think in the end I will once again just go it on my own. It's not that I don't want to be tied to anyone else in my performance at the WSOP, it's not that at all. I've participated in a number of swaps with bloggers probably a hundred times when we were playing big tournaments in the past, and it's something that I enjoy doing. But when it comes down to it, in my case I have enough money to put up the full buyin myself without needing any backers. I literally took the buyin money directly from my online tournament winnings in February alone after I went on that sickass run of four 50-50 final tables over what, 3 weeks, which I specifically kept aside and separate for this exact purpose. In the end, since I don't really need to be backed, why take a tiny investment like 1% of the buyin and then have to be paying out hundreds (or hopefully thousands) from my payout if I somehow lucksack my way into a big score? I can see on one hand where it would be fun, and if I someday buy in to the Main Event or something else with a huge buyin maybe I could see doing that, but for now I think I am planning on going it alone.

I am also looking forward to getting to meet up with some real life bloggers whom I have not met before, and a few that I have. It sounds like at least three of us are planning on playing in Thursday's 2k WSOP event, so I am hopeful we can at least catch up quickly together before the cards are in the air on Thursday morning. I finally got my contact information on to Vinnay's Blogger Mulligan weekend spreadsheet, so anyone around should feel free to call or text me at any point on the weekend. I will try to get up a quickie goodbye post tomorrow before I leave for JFK airport and my fabulous JetBlue DirecTV experience as I soar over the mountains, over the prairies and almost to the ocean on Wednesday evening, but today is my last full day in New York City and I am already beginning to accept the reality that in less than 48 hours I will be in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. It still feels kinda surreal right now, but it is materializing gradually here as the days turn to hours and start the count down to the home stretch.

By the way, and maybe this is something Al can help with, but does anybody know when full tilt is going to contact us about our custom full tilt jerseys for those finishing in spots 6-20 in the overall BBT3 leaderboard? Does anyone have those details? Are we supposed to do anything to get in touch with them or what?

See you at Skills tonight, 9:30pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "skillz".

Indy, MATH Recap, and Late-Game MTT Question

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I saw the new Indiana Jones movie this past weekend as part of my little brother's bachelor party festivities. Now, I will admit right off the bat to being a bit of a dickhead about most "blockbuster" type of movies, and certainly of most unnecessary sequels, and most of all about bringing back a superhero type of movie with a guy who is what, 67 years old now in real life? Crazy. So I went to see this movie over the weekend, and you know what? It wasn't half bad. Now don't get me wrong -- the first Indiana Jones was and always will be a top 10 or so movie of all time. You just can't beat that for a thriller / adventure / hero flick. I know it is one of the all-time greats because literally every fucking scene in that movie is top notch. From the opening scene where he switches the golden statue with a bag of sand, and ends up being chased by the huge boulder down the thin rock hallway, to where that guy comes out at him with the knives and shit and he just smirks and pulls out his gun and shoots. And who can forget the face melting. Am I right or what? Face melting almost always = kickass movie. Remember that one.

So anyways, this movie was not half bad. It was no Raiders of the Lost Ark, but as I said above, what could be. It wasn't as good as the third Indy movie either, the one with Sean Connery, which was also a pretty great movie. But this one has got to be better than Temple of Doom, that shit pretty much sucked. To be sure, Harrison Ford really did look old, older than I thought he would even. He could barely run in the scenes that called for him to run, let alone do any of the simple stunts that were all clearly done with stunt men. And the acting or the story aren't about to win an oscar or anything. But I enjoyed it ok. I would rate this one as 3 out of 5 stars. Watchable if you want to see it. Not nearly as bad as I figured this thing was gonna be, that is for sure.

So, I received some feedback in emails and girlies from a few of you on Monday evening, and it seems that the decision to keep things fresh in the Mondays at the Hoy by changing the payout structure to pay the winners in entries to the weekend's big Sunday Guarantee tournament has been generally well received. That is good. I really wanted to do something to spice it up as the BBT3 came to a close, because I myself was feeling a bit drained from all the high-pressure tournaments day after day like it was for three long months. And I know if I was feeling that way heading in to my own weekly tournament that I love, then lord knows what the rest of you must feel like. It's great how many of you came out and played in so many of the BBT events, and it just felt to me like now was the right time to try to add a little new intrigue to the MATH. As I said yesterday, I really would like to do what I can and what we can to get some bloggers into the big weekend tournaments, and hopefully help someone find their own biggest career online score, because for me in the end that's what it's all about. It always has been and it always will be.

So, with that in mind, 22 runners came out for the new 750k satellite MATH, making for a cool $528 prize pool and payouts to the top four finishers in our weekly shorthanded nlh tournament. Unfortunately I missed the first 50 minutes of the Hoy out being entertained by a big law firm at one of the finest restaurants in New York, and yet somehow I still managed to final table, busting out in 6th place as I was the short stack for the entire time I sat with the final 5 players. The MATH is always a fun time for me though, as the pace of a shorthanded blonkament gets really fun after about 90 minutes and that pretty much lasts right through the end, with this week being no exception. And with just 22 runners we are right in our sweet spot after so many weeks of the huge crowds that make it so dam near impossible to consistently survive in this thing.

Here are the list of players who did survive to the top 4 spots, including our two winners of their buyins to Sunday afternoon's 6pm ET full tilt 750k guaranteed tournament:

1. astin $216 (Sunday 750k buyin)
2. chitwood $216 (Sunday 750k buyin)
3. twoblackaces $62.40
4. HighOnPoker $33.60

So we're back out of BBT land, and once again we resume where we left off, with two lawyers out of our four cashers this week. Lawyers = best bloggers poker players, period.

So here's a hand analysis question I have for you all. This hand went down in a blonkament over the recent past. It was part of the BBT3, so there was that added pressure to win, if you choose to think of it that way. We are about 3 hours in to the tournament, and we were down to 11 players remaining. The player with over 34,000 chips in Early Position 2 (EP2) is the chip leader, by a small amount over second place but then with a nice gap until the Button's 26k stack in 3rd of 11 remaining players. The Small Blind with 17k was around 8th of 11 left.

Now take a look at the hand history that went down here:

Full Tilt Poker Game: Table 1 - 400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em -

Seat 2: EP1 (14,193)
Seat 3: EP2 (34,466)
Seat 5: Cutoff (11,825)
Seat 6: Button (26,006)
Seat 7: Small Blind (17,134)
Seat 9: Big Blind (18,675)
*** all players ante 100 ***
Small Blind posts the small blind of 400
Big Blind posts the big blind of 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
EP1 folds
EP2 has 15 seconds left to act
EP2 raises to 2,700
Cutoff folds
Button has 15 seconds left to act
Button calls 2,700
Small Blind raises to 17,034, and is all in
Big Blind folds
EP2 has 15 seconds left to act
EP2 has requested TIME
EP2 folds
Button folds
Uncalled bet of 14,334 returned to Small Blind
Small Blind mucks
Small Blind wins the pot (9,500)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9,500 | Rake 0
Seat 2: EP1 folded before the Flop
Seat 3: EP2 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Cutoff folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Button folded before the Flop
Seat 7: Small Blind collected (9,500), mucked
Seat 9: Big Blind folded before the Flop

I want to focus on the EP2 player. Again, this person is the new chip leader with 11 runners remaining in a BBT3 tournament. He raises from early position #2, gets called by the button, and is then raised allin for half of his new chipleading stack by the small blind, who was in 8th of 11 players remaining at the time. He thought it over quite a bit, and then folded.

My question for you is, how good of a hand does EP2 need to have in order to call here? In other words, he obviously calls with AA and KK. What about QQ? Do you call the big allin if you are holding QQ in EP2 in this spot, having just taken over the chip lead? What if you have JJ or TT? Or here's another question. What if you hold AK? How about AKs? Anybody folding AKs in this spot? Please leave your responses in the comments as I have had some useful discussion on this point over the past few days and would really like to hear everyone's views.

MATH Recap

Wow, it seems like I picked a terrible day to completely miss out on Mondays at the Hoy. Four of the top 8 finishers (and ITM players) came out of the massive BBT3 prop bet going on here as the 3-month challenge rolls on to a close, and it looks like once again LJ ended as a bridesmaid and not a bride. That has got to be at least three second place finishes over the past couple of BBT series for LJ, who has yet to win a Tournament of Champions seat like I did in Stud 8 a few weeks back, and definitely a good 4 or 5 if not more top-5 finishes just in the BBT3 running right now. Hopefully she can bust out with a victory here in the final four BBT tournaments coming up this week, culminating in this coming Sunday night's BBT3-ending Big Game.

Here is the list of the top 8 finishers who comprised the cashers in this week's Mondays at the Hoy, which sported 63 runners and a $1512 prize pool:

8. RecessRampage $52.92
7. MiamiDon $52.92
6. Pirate Wes $83.16
5. PokerBrian322 $120.96
4. lucko21 $166.32
3. jeciimd $219.24
2. LJ $317.52
1. Bone_Daddy84 $498.96

Congratulations to Eric, a guy I met in person last summer out in Vegas, for finally winning his BBT3 ToC seat here in the last week and getting some much-needed prop bet points in the contest, as well as to PokerBrian322 whom I would be remiss if I did not mention is utterly and completely and totally crushing the MATH over these past couple of weeks.

That's all for today as the Hammer Family is still on vacation today, returning on Wednesday to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you to everyone who came out and played in Mondays at the Hoy over the past three months, where I would guess we probably generated somewhere around $20,000 in prize pool just from this event since the BBT3 began. I hope everyone who wants to win a ToC seat will be in a position to do so in the final four events this week. Especially LJ who deserves it as much as anyone after the run she has had.

Don't forget, Skills PLH tonight at 9:30pm ET as the 4th-to-last chance to join me in winning your way in to the Tournament of Champions. See you there!

MATH Moneyboard Update, and Vegas Plans

One thing I have been completely remiss about since I got sick a few weeks back has been posting the current 2008 Mondays at the Hoy moneyboard. Although I am not at all pleased with my own place on that list, that is actually not why I haven't been tallying the total winnings every single week here. The real reason is that just tallying everything up, doing the addition and then renumbering everybody, that shit takes time. It really gives me a solid appreciation for all the bullshit Al has to go through with the BBT3 like four or five days a week. Anyways, without further adieu, here is your updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results as well as the last couple of weeks which I have reported on but not with the moneyboard update:

1. PokahDave $1291
2. Pirate Wes $1076
3. columbo $928
4. astin $900
5. Breeze81 $825
6. dwal78 $750
7. pureprophet $728
8. iam23skidoo $698
9. Byron $685
10. Loretta8 $683
11. lucko21 $650
12. TuscaloosaJohn $635
13. twoblackaces $621
14. ChipyMcStacks $614
15. Shabazz Jenkins $605
16. cmitch $599
17 corron10 $594
18. fuel55 $593
19. PokerBrian322 $591
20. Tripjax $553
21. Roberto551 $545
22. zeroluck001 $528
23. hellory $514
24. wormmsu15 $507
25. surflexus $488
26. wwonka69 $483
27. Jordan $476
28. tilt_away $461
29. actyper $441
30. zackklemm $358
31. willwonka $346
32. Donkette $323
33. LJ $304
34. bayne_s $291
35. jmathewson_III $274
36. numbbono $261
37. Blinders $244
38. mattazuma $236
39. Miami Don $224
40. Donkey Shortz $215
41. katiemother $203
41. VinNay $203
43. DaBag $202
44. recessrampage $198
45. Wadzilla $185
46. Bone_Daddy84 $169
47. Hoyazo $152
48. buckhoya $150
48. Mike Maloney $150
50. ANIguy $149
51. BuddyDank $142
52. Martyr99 $134
53. chitwood $127
54. jimdniacc $123
55. cubanlinks $120
56. Evy35 $117
57. waffles $114
58. NYRambler $111
59. kevin_with_AK $106
60. lightning36 $103
61. BamBamCan $95
61. thepokergrind $95
63. que31dawg $92
63. Schaubs $92
65. bartonf $89
66. heffmike $81
67. HotPants29 $74
68. scottmc $63
68. jamyhawk $63
70. CheckinMyAA $62
71. PirateLawyer $60
72. peacecorn $59
72. RNallin $59
72. gydyon $59
75. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
75. RaisingCayne $56
77. pokerdad13 $55
78. jmill2525 $54
79. jeciimd $52
80. katitude $51
81. joanne1111 $49
82. AltronIV $47

So PokahDave has taken over the top spot in the moneyboard with his multi-accounting ways, while Byron and Loretta have also inched their way into the top 10 on the board over the past couple of weeks with some big performances. I think last year's eventual winner, Columbo, ended somewhere in the $1700s range for the full year, so these guys are on pace to crush that total if they continue their winning ways from the first five months of this year.

On to poker, I've been thinking a lot about my upcoming annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, and my plans are firming up little by little. As I think I previously mentioned here, I already have my air tickets on Wednesday evening, June 11, saying goodnight to my kids and goodbye to Hammer Wife here in New York City before leaving for a 9pm flight, arriving in Vegas shortly before midnight local time. My return trip leaves at 7am Vegas time, which is early as phuck but it's the only time I can get out of there and reliably make it home in time for dinner with the kids to end the weekend, so I'm going with it. Plus, if this Saturday night is anything like my last night in Vegas last summer, I won't be sleeping over the night anyways so I figured the earlier the flight is, the better for me.

So as for that first day, the plan is to do a repeat of what worked so well and was so much fun for me last year and head straight over to the 24-hour WSOP registration window at the Rio to sign up for the 2k buyin nlh WSOP tournament running on Thursday the 12th at noon. If all goes as planned, it will be somewhere between 1 and 2am local time when I'm there, and again if all goes as planned, there should be at least one if not two other WSOP tournaments playing down for the night as well at that time. Last year I hung around for a bit, started up conversations with Gus Hansen and Andy Bloch from the rail while we watched a whole bunch of name pros reach the money in the I thikn 5k buyin Stud Hi tournament at the time, and really had a blast before heading back to my hotel to get a good night's sleep ahead of my own WSOP tournament.

This year should be the same thing I hope, except that this time I will be staying in the Bellagio instead of the Monte Carlo like last year. I have always liked the Monte Carlo, and I think I've mentioned before that I had my biggest-ever run in craps at the tables in the MC, one day a good ten years ago or so now in front of my family and a whole bunch of friends where I was basically betting all the numbers and the Come on every single roll (all with max odds, of course) during what turned out to be about a 55-minute-long roll of the dice. It was sick. And as a result, I've always been partial to the Monte Carlo, and given the usually decent prices for a middle-of-the-strip casino, I have stayed there many times when I've been out in Sin City by myself.

This year, however, my sicko crazy gambling-addicted degenerate brother will be joining me in Vegas, and with all the casinos now owning one another after the last couple years' of mega-mergers, and with my brother living very close to Atlantic City and being down there playing for sick sums of money basically all the time, here's how it works. My brother calls the Bellagio, and they instantly look up all of his gambling activities in Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere, and immediately he is set up with a fatty suite on the upper floors of the Bellagio. So that's where I'll be. And FWIW, I'm the one who picked the Bellagio, because of all the strip hotels I think it is the closest one to the Rio, which should make the logistics of the whole trip as easy as possible.

So I'm already set to get out there and back, and I know where I'm staying. The next question is, what else will I do out in Vegas other than play in the WSOP? I would love to go out to at least one nice dinner while I'm in town this time around, and I wouldn't mind trying to get out to see a cool show as well. Anyone have any suggestions on the restaurant or show front for fun times in LV?

Don't forget Riverchasers tonight at 9pm ET. Password as always is "riverchasers". And for the first time in a while, I should actually be there since Lost is on hiatus for a week until next week's powerful two-hour season finale That Will Change Things Forever. Can't wait for that shit, and it means I will be chasing rivers with the rest of you tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. See you then!

MATH Recap, and Poker on TV

61 runners came out for this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, making for a cool $1464 prize pool and payouts to the top eight spots as has been usual during the BBT. I made another nice run, surviving for two hours at the superfast 6-max format with no good starting cards to speak of, including a big comeback I made from being down to under 500 chips late in the first hour after attempting to run a particularly poorly-timed bluff against a guy who obviously had the hand that I was trying to represent. I hate when that happens, but at the same time you simply don't have much choice other than to steal, push and represent hands when you are dealt nothing playable and especially when the tables are all shorthanded, all the time. And, at least if you trust yourself and you size your bets properly, the good players can still fold out when your bluff is obviously beat given your opponent's actions, leaving you with some stack to keep playing with, which is exactly what happened with me last night. An hour in I was down to 500 or so chips after having to fold to a reraise on a bluff I had tried to run, but then an hour or so later there I was at the final two tables of the Hoy. Unfortunately my luck ran out when I pushed with ATC from the big blind against a certain someone in the small blind, and that certain someone instacalled me with K8o. As insta as it comes. But I was behind and in fact dominated, so we'll let that certain someone feel like he or she made a good play there, and IGH in I think 16th place overall.

Here are the people who did cash in this week's Mondays at the Hoy tournament:

8. $51.24 -- Shabazz Jenkins
7. $51.24 -- Mattazuma
6. $80.52 -- Fuel55
5. $117.12 -- a10419
4. $161.04 -- willwonka
3. $212.28 -- twoblackaces
2. $307.44 -- actyper
1. $483.12 - wwonka69

So Evil Wonka uses his devil worshipness to win his second BBT3 tournament, thereby decreasing the field in the upcoming BBT3 Tournament of Champions to a maximum I believe of now 49 total runners. That is just awesome. And EW, obviously, is a dominating poker player to boot, so if anyone deserves to win multiple BBT3 events, clearly it is him.

So today I wanted to write briefly about something I saw written about by Change100 as well as Otis over at UpForPoker, and that topic is televised poker on tv. Basically, my question is, who out there actually watches poker anymore on tv? I sure don't. And I used to be a televised poker monster, believe you me. But I'm not surprised in the least to read Change's news that High Stakes Poker, the WPT and even potentially the WSOP are in danger of losing their television sponsorship due to poor ratings. And this gets back to my point above -- I believe the ratings must be sucking huge balls lately for these shows. Why? Because I don't even consider watching that stuff anymore.

Three years ago or so, you couldn't tear me away from the WPT or ESPN's WSOP coverage. I had the recorder set for Tuesday nights 8-10pm ET and I would watch every minute, every shot, every everything that was shown on tv when it came to poker. And I don't just mean no-limit holdem either. Anything the stations were willing to put on tv with regard to poker, I was willing to watch. Again and again and again. The huge Chris Moneymaker stone cold bluff against Farha shortly before he finally took down the Main Event in -- when was it -- 2003? Mike Matusow telling Greg Raymer he has "tiny little cojones", remember that one? Tiffany Williamson being an anushead, "I know you have Kings", all her stupid splendor. Alix Powers or whatever his name is starting that fight at the table with James McManus. I watched it all, and I hung on every scene and every hand shown. When HSP first aired on Game Show Network, I was all over that shit. I didn't miss an episode of the WPT for the first couple of seasons I remember.

But now, I don't even know when these shows are on anymore. Seriously. I just don't care. I don't even care about watching the World Series coverage anymore on ESPN. By 2007, I bet I didn't even watch a total of one full hour of coverage of the WSOP on ESPN. And it's not like I don't care about or love poker anymore -- if you're reading this then you can probably tell that I am still as in to the game of poker itself as I have ever been, and I play it as much as I ever did. But I just don't care about watching it on tv anymore. And it seems that many many other people share my view.

Do tell me, dear readers, do you guys still make watching poker on tv anywhere near the priority in your lives that it once was? Does anyone even know when the WPT airs originally on its new home on the Game Show Network? How does the amount of poker you watch on tv today compare to the amount you watched, say, three or four years ago?

Don't forget Skills tonight, 9:30pm ET on full tilt. I for one really can't believe how many people are winning multiple ToC seats in this thing at this point, it's really amazing. Hopefully I will join the ranks of winning two BBT3 tournaments tonight or sometime over the final eight events before the end of the three-month-long challenge. See you tonight at 9:30 on full tilt (password is "skillz" as always).

Short Night in the MATH, and FTOPS Turbo Tonight

70 runners came out for Mondays at the Hoy this week, as the crowds have been growing a lil' bit for the Hoy over the past few weeks as the BBT3 boils down to its last three weeks. 70 contestants once again means the top 8 finishers are paid out, with a total of $1680 in the prize pool for the tournament. So our winner once again will clear over $500 of pure profit for their efforts in my weekly 6-max nlh tournament.

Man did I have a short night in the Hoy, busting near the bottom of the pack after exactly 36 minutes of play. A couple seats to my right was Tuscaloosa John, who as most of you know has been crushing the BBT3 so far with his typically TAGgy brand of tournament poker, and Tusca got off to a shortish stack early, I don't remember how. But as a result, he was stealing more liberally than usual from his button and even cutoff as I recall. I took advantage a couple of times, including flopping top pair no kicker and checkraising him out of a pot on the flop with a rare minraise from me. My kicker was literally a 3 so I did not want to stay in that pot for any more chips than my minraise committed me to on the flop, so I got lucky there I suppose.

But then my focus on Tusca's stealing got me into big trouble, a leak in my game that I simply have to get better about. I'm working on it, but sometimes I put too much stock in what I know to be true about the way someone plays, without giving enough credence to the fact that everyone picks up monster hands sometimes. So anyways, Tusca steal-raises from his button yet again, maybe the 6th or 7th time he had open-raised in that position already on the night, and I opt to smooth call from the small blind with K6s. The hand is nothing great of course, but it's soooted and frankly I figured ahead of or very close to Tusca's stealing range here. The big blind also smooth calls. The flop comes K87, I think with two of a suit, but not my suit. I could lead out into a nice-sized pot for the early part of this tournament, but instead I figured I know Tusca's game and he is going to c-bet here if we just check to him, and then I can checkraise him good and he'll have to fold to my top pair. So I checked, the big blind checked, and as planned Tusca bet around two-thirds the size of the pot I think. Perfect.

Now I look at the stack sizes for the first time in the hand. Clear mistake #1 by me not to have been hyper aware of this already. But Tusca's 1600 chips (starting stacks in the MATH are 3000) means that any raise I put in from Tusca's c-bet will clearly commit him. So I am going to just push allin if I raise at all -- might as well maximize my fold equity, right? So then since I'm just now on the flop realizing that I'm playing for a full half my stack, I pause to re-evaluate the hand. I have K6 on a K87 board. Sure someone could be in there with two pairs or top pair with a higher kicker, but what are the chances? Tusca has been stealing almost from the beginning with 90% of his hands into unopened pots on the button. I just flopped top pair. And, Tusca hasn't really shown any real strength so far in this hand at all -- no reraising or anything, just a steal-raise from the button and then a standard c-bet. Odds are strong that, given my top pair, he does not have top pair and I just have no reason to believe he has anything else ahead of me. So, I go for it and move allin. Tusca, because he is a Man, thinks for a while before calling allin with? AK. Top pair top kicker. Suh-weet read, Hoy wtg. Half my stack down the drain, bad play and bad read by me, way too early in the tournament to make a move like that with a nice stack.

But never fear, I got my chance to double back up pretty soon afterwards when maybe one orbit later I picked up pocket Kings, I believe again in the big blind. Awesome. Even better is that I think it was Chip who opened utg with a minraise. The utg minraise, coming from a solid player like Chip especially, screams out like a strong hand to me, one just begging to be called or reraised. If this guy has Aces to my Kings with me on a half-stack now, then so be it I am going home. But otherwise I viewed this as a great opportunity for me against a hand that I am likely between a 65 and 82% favorite over. So when the action folds around to me, I take a page out of this guy's book (never thought I'd be saying that) and did the ol' over-raise for value. Chip had raised preflop from 50 to 100, and I pushed in for my last 1500 or so from the blinds with my Kings, fully expecting the call. Chip instacalled, and amazingly it wasn't Aces -- it was pocket Queens. At least I had made a great read to follow up on that terrible read against Tuscaloosa John earlier.

So I'm allin preflop with my KK against cem's QQ, looking to double up back to 3000 chips and get a new lease on life in the MATH after the disastrous hand with Tusca. But the flop came Q89, the river brought a Jack and I could not resuck the inside straight or higher set on the river that I so meritoriously deserved, and IGH. Early. At 10:36pm ET. So it was a night where I made one bad read for a large pot in an over-aggro situation, and then got slammed by the odds when I got myself into a very good situation after a very good read by me. I guess I can live with that, but the past two days saw me play bad and run even worse, after a nice week getting back into the poker swing last week after a couple of weeks away from the game and away from everything but sleeping. For example, the past two nights in the 10:45pm ET FTOPS ME megasat have seen me bust out both times within the first half-hour of play with AKs allin preflop against one time KK and one time JJ. Now, those are both not the worst examples of bad play out there, but the bottom line remains that I am forcing the issue by getting allin in 20 minutes before the flop against raisers and reraisers with AKs. This may be a perfectly great play two hours in to this tournament when the Ms are shrinking and desperation is on the rise. But 20 minutes in, I can make that play if I want to I suppose, but I can't complain when I lose the race (or am dominated like in the first situation). I am just not playing my A game, and I'm running poorly picking up AKs vs KK and AKs vs JJ and losing KK to QQ and stuff like that. It's a bad combination for an aggressive player like me, and one I need to right before I really leak my roll as a result.

Here are some people who did play well enough in the MATH to cash this week:

8. $58.80 -- RNallin
7. $58.80 -- peacecorn
6. $92.40 -- que31dawg
5. $134.40 -- actyper
4. $184.80 -- Wadzilla
3. $243.60 -- Blinders
2. $352.80 -- PokahDave
1. $554.40 -- Shabazz Jenkins

So Shabazz Jenkins, whom I understand to be quite a good player in his own right outside of the BBT3, has finally won his BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat here in the 13th to last event of the tournament series. Shabazz is yet another strong entrant to join in the ToC over the past few weeks, and will only further limit each of our respective expectation from that tournament overall by winning his way in. But as I've written about before, with all the $28,000 just in WSOP prize packages being awarded in the Tournament of Champions, I personally think it should be hard as hell to win, which means getting in as many strong players as we can into the field.

Well that's all I have for you today, as I continue to struggle with my game and my decision-making in the early part of the mtt's I've been playing just lately. In addition to the latest BBT3 Skills Series tournament tonight at 9:30pm ET (password as always is "skillz" and it is open to everyone, I think tonight might be HOE?), I think tonight is the night of the one FTOPS tournament I already qualified for, which is the $216 Turbo nlh event hosted I think by Mandy B, another of the dubious red FTOP pros as far as I'm concerned. So that will go off at 9pm ET, with my guess that the whole thing is completed within 2 1/2 or 3 hours given the redonkulous late-game structure of these turbo events. I'm just hoping to make it through a couple hours or so, which is my estimate of how long it should take to run to the decent money payout positions. And of course there is the Blowdonkey tonight as well if that's how you roll, also I believe at 9pm ET, over on that "other" poker client. So lots of excitement tonight for those of you who like to donk it up ToC-style with the bloggers and/or are interested in a $216 crapshoot
tournament, turbo-style. See you tonight for all the fun and festivities.

MATH Recap, and Going to Las Vegas

This week's Mondays at the Hoy featured 61 runners, making for a cool $1464 in the prize pool and a slightly larger event that we have had over the last couple of weeks as the battle for the BBT3 Tournament of Champions seats continues to heat up heading into the last month of the challenge. Here are this week's eight cashers in the MATH:

8. $51.24 katitude
7. $51.24 Chippy McStacks
6. $80.52 heffmike
5. $117.12 Evy35
4. $161.04 hellory
3. $212.28 TuscaloosaJohn
2. $307.44 PokerBrian322
1. $483.12 bdidde

I passed out more or less right after my own elimination in I think 14th place on the night, so I cannot comment intelligently at all on what happened after that point. What I will say though is that our winner this week, Byron, sucked out when allin on I think four separate occasions just in the maybe 30 minutes or so I spent sitting at a table with him. There were at least two times allin with a shitty pair against a higher pair preflop only to flop a set, one other river suckout, I think to make a straight against two pair or trips or something, and then the time he rivered a 7 after calling my preflop allin with his Hammer. Not that that last one is really a suckout, but you get the drift. But from the writeups it sounds like the suckouts ended there and Byron just played his normal solid game from there and through the final table for the victory. Glad to see that another good guy will be joining me in the BBT3 Tournament of Choppions Champions, and I look forward to adding some more dead money to that field in this week's blonkaments instead of continually making the ToC field tougher and tougher on an almost daily basis. Maybe Lucko can win three or four more ToC seats and keep some other people out of there.

On the good news front, I played very solid poker on the night, my first night back at the tables for real in two weeks. Though I was definitely tired as balls by the end of my run in the MATH sometime after midnight, I did not have that urgent need to donk and sleep as I have in each of the past couple weeks' worth of blonkaments. I actually played good poker, both in the Hoy as well as the one other tournament I ran on the night, a $10 rebuy FTOPS #1 satellite that I should have had the chip lead in if not for a ghey suckout (talk about things I haven't missed over the past few weeks!). In the MATH I managed to pick up a couple of hands on the turn and river, getting paid once or twice by other two-pair type of hands, and I also floated very effectively against the right players whom I know know how to fold. With all the aggressive players I had sitting with me on the night, ranging from MATH-killer Columbo to twoblackaces, Evy and Byron to name a few, this necessitated my calling some preflop raises and even some action on the flop with not much to work with in my own hand. But my instincts were on all night, which frankly surprised me after two weeks of no real poker at all to speak of, and the whole thing felt very natural to me. So I would rate myself as ahead of the game given how I expeted myself to play after this poker layoff and with quite a bit of fatigue still lingering, and that is all goodness. Especially with my trip to Las Vegas and the World Series of Poker now coming up in just a few short weeks.

So we should talk about that. As I mentioned yesterday, my ongoing bout with mono left me with tons of time to just sit and think over the past couple of weeks, and I did so with a vengeance. One of the things I focused quite a bit on was the right time for me to go to Las Vegas this summer. As I had mentioned previously here in the blog, the second weekend of June is much better for me than the first weekend for a few different reasons, reasons which only increased upon learning that my older brother L is also planning to be out in Vegas over that second weekend. My brother and I have been going to Las Vegas together since we were in college, drinking up, smoking weed in the stairwells of the outdoor parking garages of all the big resorts in town and just generally partying it up in a manner befitting of a true "What Happens in Vegas" story. These weekends in Vegas have taken on a special meaning in my memory and truly remain some of my favorite memories of all time, whether with my family or otherwise. Now that I am married with children and all that, those times in Vegas with L are basically only a thing of the past, as we never get out there together anymore and really never just get to hang out and rage like when we were kids in the olden days.

Anyways, back to this year's Vegas trip. So after proclaiming how much better the second weekend of June was for me, some things happened. Falstaff announced that the first weekend would be the "official" weekend for the poker blogger gathering, which really bummed me out. I knew it was possible for me to make it the first weekend of June still, but not only does that weekend not work as well for me personally given some things I have going on here at home, but the WSOP tournaments available that weekend do not appeal to me either. Yes there is that shorthanded nlh event that I cashed in last year, but as I've mentioned here before, 6-max is just not my game right now like it was a year ago at this time. I always told myself that if I'm gonna drop a couple large on a single poker tournament, then I want to play exactly what feels most comfortable to me at the time. I promised myself that last year after I went out and played so well in the 6max event, given that 6max is what I had been playing almost exclusively for a few months before the WSOP in 2007. Well, this year 6max is not my game anymore, and the idea of going and dropping 15 hundy on a 6-max tournament next month has never really sat well with me.

Then my brother let me know he also would be in Vegas on the second weekend and not the first, further adding to my annoyance and discomfort with the idea of that first weekend in Sin City. Then some bloggers acted like babies at my expense, for only maybe the 1000th time in the past few years I've been doing this, once again disappointing me and reminding me that no matter how much I think someone in this group is my "friend", in reality they're not my friends and in fact, most likely they are haters like so many others out there, all making me feel even less like bending over backwards to get together with the large group. Then Mookie or someone linked me to the fact that Falstaff announced that there would be no live blogger tournament this time around like there has been at every other previous live WPBT gathering. And then I got sick. All this stuff happened within the span of maybe two weeks or so, and every factor seemed to sway my decision away from that first week of June.

While sitting home in bed, contemplating my own death and the decisions I've made in my life, the choice became clearer and clearer to me if I ever recovered from this illness: I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to. Not what some blogger(s) who would trash all over me out of frustration whenever the fuck they want to want me to do. I don't want to play the World Series event that I don't like, just to be there the first week of June. I don't want to piss my family off by leaving at a time that is not convenient for them. I don't want to miss out on a chance to be in Vegas for a few days, away from the family and all of those "real" obligations, with my brother for the first time (and probably the last time) in years. I'm sitting there in my bed, wondering if I'm going to die, and it all just became crystal clear to me that right now in my life is my time to do what makes me the most comfortable and the happiest when I get out to Vegas next month. Nobody is into hanging out with the big group more than I am, don't get me wrong, but this year I made known what weekend would have worked for me, and frankly I think would have worked better for everyone especially given that there's not even going to be a live blogger tournament this summer, and in the end the group chose a time that simply is not convenient for me for a great number of reasons. Then I got slammed on infant-style by admittedly a very small group of bloggers, and then I got sick and realized how much I deserve my Vegas time for me and not for people who are not really my friends and many of whom secretly wish me ill.

All this is a long way of saying that this past weekend I officially made my Las Vegas plans for June. I am going out on Wednesday night, June 11, and staying until Sunday morning June 15. So I will be missing the "official" live blogger gathering, if you can even call it that. I don't know how many people are going anymore to the summer get together, which seems to have shrunk noticeably each of the past few years since I've been going, and without a live blogger tournament even scheduled for that weekend, in some ways it almost feels like the summer gathering has officially become a thing of the past this year.

Now, to be clear, I think it sucks that I may miss out on meeting / hanging out with some of you, be it for the first time or otherwise, because I won't be out in Vegas during the weekend of June 6-8. I hate that aspect of things because I have had an absolute blast the last two summers when I've been out there with the larger, albeit shrinking, group. I already know that some of the people I am really looking forward to meeting for the first time or hanging out with for the umpteenth time will be there during that second week of June, and frankly that factored greatly into my decision to stick with the weekend that is much better for me for so many reasons. And let me also be clear about one thing -- any of you who are out in Vegas between the 11th and the 15th, I want to see you. I would love to meet up with anyone and everyone who knows me, wants to know me, reads me, hates on me, you name it. I love the live blogger gatherings, and just because I won't be there during the "official" unofficial get together this year doesn't mean I don't want to see anyone. I would love to meet up with any or all of you, whoever is in town while I am there, and I sincerely hope you will take me up on that offer. I will write more about those plans as they get closer, but for now suffice it to say that I have already bought my plane tickets, and I will be out in Sin City from late night on Wednesday, June 11 through early morning on Sunday the 15th. Hopefully as many of you as possible will be around to catch up and I will happily buy you a beer. Sadly with my mono lingering it is unclear if I will be able to drink any libations of my own while I am out in Vegas, but I guess final tabling the $2000 buyin WSOP nlh event over three days while I am there will keep me pretty busy and pretty sober anyways, right? More on that later.

Don't forget Razz tonight in the Skills Series. Man I hate razz, with a passion. But I've been doing much better in the Skills games since making an adjustment a few weeks back, recording maybe 20 knockout bounties in just the past few weeks, and who could forget of course me dominating my way to winning my BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat in Skills in Stud8 a few weeks back. So hopefully I can stay alive for a little bit at least tonight in Skills. And of course if you like to blow donkeys, there is always Smokkee's blowdog tournament Tuesday night at 9pm ET as well.

So before I go, I basically was completely shut out from the whole poker blog scene for two weeks while I've been sick. Can anyone tell me, were there any great posts on any blogs over the past two weeks that I just can't miss?