NFL Pickem Update, and MATH Tournament TONIGHT!

Welcome and I hope everyone out there in readerland has had a pleasant holiday weekend. I've had a great time home with my family for the past few days, and I also had a very interesting poker weekend, which I will detail in Tuesday's post. For now, I just want to get out these two reminders:

1.

Come join your favorite bloggers and my favorite homegame guys in a battle for the $20 buyins at the weekly Mondays at the Hoy online poker tournament. The tournament is on every single Monday, rain or shine, holiday or otherwise, and this evening will be no different. As I've mentioned over the past couple of weeks, I am really looking forward to the weekly blogger tournaments starting to grow in participation as the summer unofficially comes to a close with the Labor Day weekend. As I've also mentioned previously, tonight is a great time for the first-timers out there to play, or the people who have participated in this event before and want to be there to see how I will fail to cash this time in my own tournament. If you don't know how to read banners:


What: Mondays at the Hoy
Buyin: $20 + $2 No-Limit Holdem
Where: Pokerstars, "Private" tab
When: 10pm ET, every Monday night
Password: hammer

Thanks to DuggleBogey for the banner above, which I lifted from his site (I assume you are ok with this, Duggle, and please let me know if you're not and I'll take it down of course) -- this is the first time I've posted the banner on the blog but I've been meaning to for some time. And while you're over there, go read some of Duggle's poker comics. As he himself admits, some of them are kinda hokey. But you're sure to be smiling if you take on a bunch of Duggle's comics, as they are just too infectious and poignant to anyone who plays a whole lot of poker, in particular on-line poker. Anyways, thanks to Duggles for taking the time to create a banner for the Mondays at the Hoy (MATH) tournament without me even asking about it. I love how cool some of these bloggers are, I really do.

2. In true Hoyazo style, I have procrastinated beyond belief when it comes to turning my Yahoo! NFL Pickem game into a money league, and now here we are just a few days before the first game of the NFL season. So, following along with a suggestion and a number of comments here at the blog and on the league's message board, I am officially putting up a $10 buyin for this season. A number of others have indicated their desire to play for $10 buyins as well, although I am committed to not excluding anyone from playing even if they don't want to put any money into it. So, here's what we're going to do: If you want to participate in a money pool for my NFL Pickem league, then you just have to do two things:

(a) Transfer me $10 to my pokerstars account (hoyazo in New York City), and

(b) Email me at sandlerm at gmail dot com to let me know that you've done the transfer, and I will make sure to look for it and record your payment as being made.

I will get out a master list next weekend of everyone who is playing for money, and the rest who are just playing for the glory. The winners of the money pool will be whoever scores the most points over the season among those people who choose to buy in for the $10. People not playing for money will still get credit glory-wise for their performance, but will not be entitled to participate in any money winnings at season's end.

Because I've been so lax in making the $10 buyin official until the week of the beginning of the NFL season, I'm going to do something a little unusual and make the deadline to get your money in to me this Sunday at 10am ET, which means it will be after the first game of the season which is this Thursday night. So, if you're the kind of cheap, losery stiff who wants to wait and see if you win your very first game of the year before deciding to contribute money to the pool, then #1 I scoff at you, and #2 I will allow that, but again $10 submissions for participation in the money pool for NFL Pickem this year will only be accepted until Sunday morning, September 10, at 10am ET.

Please email me at sandlerm at gmail dot com if you have any questions, comments, or need to transfer me the $10 in a way other than on pokerstars. I play at stars, party and full tilt if that makes it easier, but I will need to know in an email to look for your transfer or I will most likely miss it. I look forward to another fun season of NFL Pickem in this, what will be easily the largest NFL Pickem game I've done yet. And I really encourage everyone to put up the $10 -- obviously, being degenerates gamblers, we all know that the only way to make something interesting is to play for money. And if you're willing to put up $10 a week for the WWdN, then I say $10 for the entire NFL season should be well within your reach. Just my two cents of course.

See you tonight at 10pm ET on pokerstars for Mondays at the Hoy!