Leeann Tweeden Bats for the...

The poker community knows Leeann Tweeden as the sexy hostess of the NBC late night television show Poker After Dark. Many may also recall her as the even sexier model who has posed for leading magazines like Playboy and Swimwear USA. But very few know that Leeann is the daughter of an Air Force mechanic [...]

BBT, Can It Be?

Did I hear correctly this weekend that all three people who won the WSOP Main Event prize package in the BBT5 this past spring all took the $T on full tilt instead of playing in the Main Event?

Do people even want there to be more BBTs and more free stuff for us?

I mean, can this even be possible?

The best part about this is that people blew their effing tops for days on end when Al first announced earlier this year that the BBT Invitational was going to be just that -- an invitational -- extended only to those people that full tilt felt were a good gamble to actually use the money they graciously hand out to ungrateful bloggers every year to actually play in the actual World Series of Poker. Full tilt wanted the invitational because in the past people just would not use full tilt's funds to play in poker tournaments. They also wouldn't blog about the tournaments, even the few times when past BBT winners did actually play in the events they won prize packages to in the BBT.

One of the things I always try to teach my kids and the others around me is ownership of your decisions. If I decide to take a big risk and willingly don't use my seat belt whenever I drive 5 miles or less from my house, then you won't hear me complaining that my car was unsafe when I do get into an accident close to home and suffer worse injuries than I would have if I had chosen to wear the belt. If I decide I'm going to make a bunch of flagrantly racist or homophobic remarks in front of mixed company, then you won't hear me getting mad at someone who gives me legitimate crap for what I said being hateful and bigoted. And it's just as true in a poker context by the way -- if I decide I'm going to try to get it allin preflop automatically any time I find a pocket pair 66 or higher, and I do just that by pushing in 100 big blinds early in a big tournament and I lose a race to AK or AQ, you won't hear me complaining. I make a decision, and then I own that decision, for better or worse. This notion of personal responsibility is one of my defining qualities and something I focus on regularly, be it at the poker table or the table of life.

All of you people who gave Al endless, interminable shit for what was originally I think only around 50-60 players in the first BBT5 Invitational, you as a group need to learn to own your own decisions. It's gone on for years at this point, and I personally cannot believe it. We're bloggers for crying out loud, and the only reason full tilt ever came to us with prizes the first time around was for the marketing possibilities of paying for bloggers to play in and write about the biggest poker tournaments in the world. Instead, we as a group have repeatedly, consistently -- for several years now, amazingly -- given a huge, fat middle finger to full tilt and made them sorrier and sorrier each year about the money they have largely wasted on the BBT winners. Shit, bloggers have even won the money from full tilt in the BBT, and gone to Vegas and played with that money, and they still don't blog about it, not one whit! And don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for any decisions they have made with respect to money won from full tilt or any online poker site -- but you're damn right I am judging those people for not using the money they won, and then for complaining to Al that they were not included in the Invitational the next time the BBT comes around.

Own. Your. Decisions.

If there is ever another BBT tournament series, full tilt should definitely, obviously, undeniably use an invitational format, at least for a big part of the determination of who wins the WSOP prize packages. And most of the hypocritical whining we'll inevitably see about it don't even deserve the time of day. Dickheads will post on their blog about not being included in the Invitiational like it's their job, but damn when they actually win the money, they and their blogs just vanish like a fart in the wind.

Without a doubt this is one of the most pathetic aspects of poker bloggers today.

FTOPStupid

It's really amazing what full tilt has done with the FTOPS. I know ultimately this post is going to read an awful lot like at least one or two other posts I have done here either 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or exactly a year ago, but what can I say. Full tilt keeps making the same mistake, and I keep suffering as a result, so you read about it here.

Go back just about a week right here and you can read all about how I was looking forward to sitting down to play some FTOPS tournaments for the first time in at least a year. I haven't been playing hardly any mtt's recently and the upcoming FTOPS seemed like as good a chance as any I would have to get back into the thick of things and to play for some real money. I was amazed in that post because I literally hadn't been looking forward to the FTOPS this much in a long, long time, maybe a few years even, and at the time if you had asked me how many events would I play in the series, I would have probably guessed somewhere around 7 or 8 tournaments total.

Instead, here we are on Friday, nearing the end of the entire tournament series, and how many events have I played in total? Just one. How pathetic is that? And it's not pathetic of me -- it's pathetic of full tilt, as usual. I mean, it's not like I ran out of money or "broke even" one too many times. And it's not like I've been too busy, or just haven't been interested in playing poker after all on these days. Much the opposite -- I've sat at my pc probably all but one or two of the last nine nights since FTOPS XVII began and played in poker tournaments. Some of them with buyins as large or larger than the corresponding FTOPS event that night! The FTOPS tournaments, on an almost nightly basis, just do not stack up to what else is available out there for the mtt player to partake in.

It's almost like full tilt is going out of their way to make the nighttime events bad, and/or to put the good events at times when Americans with day jobs cannot make the games. I mean, the very first event of FTOPS XVII was the standard series-opening $216 nlh event, which I played that same night as my FTOPS post referred to above. I lasted not more than 90 minutes or so, at which point I managed to run 15 outs into top set that turned into a boat before I knew what hit me. It was a fine time, I enjoyed playing for some big money, and although I did not at all appreciate the setup hand I took it in stride and moved on to bigger and better things that night.

But since then? Look at the events at night so far after FTOPS Event #1:

There was Event #4 on Thursday night, the $535 HORSE event hosted by Svetlana Gromenkova, truly one of the top five worst HORSE players I have ever bumped into on my travels in online poker. I mean, you can't get it in behind more frequently and make poorer poker decisions than this biatch seems to do all the time, be it in sitngos, FTOPS or anywhere else I happen to run into her. Anyways, I tried one quick satellite to this event -- Gromenoka sucked me out like the horse that she is on the bubble -- but I've had my blood boiling several times previously in this event over the regoddamdiculous play even for $535, so I did not make much of an effort as the combination of the donkey game with the large buyin just makes this not all that attractive for a guy with my game to play.

Then Event #7 on Friday night? Stud-8. Again, I've been playing hi-lo longer than any other poker game out there, but the thought of chipping in $216 to a pool for a bunch of chasedonkeys to go nutso when they only have a decent draw at a decent hand for one-half the pot, and then counterfeit me and win, it's enough to make my eyes bulge out of their sockets. And let's not forget, host Aaron Bartley is perhaps the only numbskull on full tilt that even gives the lovely Svetlana a run for her money in terms of cluelessness. So that one was a no-go.

As usual, the geniuses at ftp did not run any events on Saturday or Sunday night -- far and away the prime time to play for anyone in the United States -- even though they have increased their FTOPS schedule to include not one, not two but three FTOPS events on each weekend day. And yet still nothing later than 6pm ET. Sheer brilliance. That's strikes through five days and 13 events of FTOPS, with only one tournament I actually attended to show for it -- me, a guy who has the money and the desire to play, was actually looking forward and anticipating FTOPS this time around, and who has played and won in every single poker game FTOPS spreads. It's unreal.

Then on to this week, where Monday started with the 1k buyin nlh event, a format which I again attempted exactly one time to satellite in to, but which otherwise is just not worth the buyin for a guy like me to play against some of the best competition on the site. Plus, I knew there would always be Tuesday night this week, which was? A $535 shootout tournament. 3-way shootout in fact. Something that only a true and total moron would ever pony up his hard earned money for. If I won $160 million in the lottery I wouldn't bother playing a 729-runner shootout at $535 a clip. No way no how, that's got to be the worst nighttime tournament in a whole schedule chock full of horrific events.

Finally this past Wednesday night saw FTOPS Event #22, which I had already seen was holdem and thus I figured finally I would get to play another event. Or not. Turns out it was a $322 rebuy. I mean, come on guys!! I'm the best rebuy tournament player I know bar none, and I would not even consider ponying up what it would likely cost to buy a fair chance in that event. Of course I logged in Thursday night as well, and of course it was $216 stud hi. One of the donkiest, most cards-driven games there is, a game where I know for a fact any fuckhole with any two pairs will call down through the river regardless of what any other board is showing or the action from the other players. Not even considering it, sorry.

And here we are. Before I am home tonight, FTOPS Event #27 will be underway. 27 events in to the FTOPS, again an FTOPS that I was anticipating highly and looking forward to participating in. And boooom, one event I've played, way back in Event #1. And on tap for tonight at 9pm ET? Razz. $322 a pop. What a fuckajoke.

And for all you smartasses out there who want to critique my willingness to play such a broad smattering of games, let's be clear about one thing: I would play a regular nlh tournament at almost any buyin below the 1k. I would play a 6-max nlh event at the same levels. I would play any pot-limit Omaha format of any kind -- hi-low or PLO -- at almost any buyin. I would play any rush version of nl or omaha in the formats I mentioned above. I would play any heads-up event in almost any game at almost any buyin level. I would play a knockout event of any of these games at almost any buyin below 1k. I would even play that shorthanded limit holdem event they've run several times as part of FTOPS in the recent past. Basically, there's only 7 or 8 types of tournaments I wouldn't participate in as part of the FTOPS, and they've managed to screw us Americans so badly that those 7 or 8 events are basically the nightly FTOPS schedule over the past week and a half. It's just unreal.

It's no wonder really that everyone on the planet already agrees that full tilt has utterly butchered their FTOPS brand. The powers that be with the FTOPS are Just Plain Clueless.

More on Tiger, and Another Poll

Interestingly, a little over half of those who voted in the poll earlier this week indicated that they still believe that Tiger Woods will end his career with the all-time lead in major championships won, meaning that he would have to win at least five more majors in his still-young career.

While that number may sound high to many of you out there, to me it illustrates the the stark change in the public's perception of Tiger's golf abilities after the past couple of months. Obviously, if you had asked this question in a poll sometime in the summer of 2009, before Tiger's Thanksgiving night crash into a fire hydrant and all the shitstorm that ensued, the results would probably have come in around 95% of respondents believing Tiger would break all the time record for major championships in professional golf. That surprises no one. But what is a little surprising is that if you had asked this poll question just a few months back, after Tiger had been busted with all the cheating and the disgustery, after his scripted press conference just preceding his return to the game, and after he had announced that he would be coming back before the 2010 Masters, I still think you would have had probably 85-90% of voters who believed that Tiger's game would not be affected, or at least not be affected much, or not for very long.

What we've gotten instead, however, is a truncated season full of almost's and not-quites from Tiger Woods this year, with a few horrifying performances thrown in for good measure. After last weekend's debacle, the only question left for this season it seems is:

How will Tiger Woods fare at the PGA Championship this weekend?
Let's see how smart my reading audience is:

Jennifer Harman in Hall of Fame

In April 2010 the process of selecting appropriate women associated with poker for the Women in Poker Hall of Fame (WiPHOF) had begun. The selection is over and three women will be inducted into this august group on September 3 in a glittering ceremony at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. The first of the [...]

Tiger Poll

The Unabomber in Major Accident

It was not too long ago that the professional poker player Phil ?The Unibomber? Laak broke the world record for endurance poker. His endurance skills will now come into play again because he was just involved in a major accident. The Unabomber had to be hospitalized with lacerations to his right eye and broken bones. It [...]

Taming the Tiger

The top three signs that Tiger Woods is completely and totally off his game.

1. Scores. Tiger Woods finished this weekend's tournament at WGC-Bridgestone at +18, a full 30 shots off of the lead, and ended the tournament in 78th place out of 80 players in the weekend's tournament. This marks Tiger's worst score in any golf tournament as a professional player, and his worst four-round tournament at Firestone in his career, a course where he has previously failed to finish in worse than 4th place at any time in his professional career. This weekend saw Tiger shoot all four rounds over par at a golf tournament for the first time in nearly eight years, and only the fourth time in his 15-year career, the first time outside of one of the sport's four major championships.

2. The Goatee. Those who watched Tiger or saw this highlights this weeknend noted that the goatee is back for the first time in a few years. Although Tiger has done this before, I felt like I could tell from watching him this weekend that this time the goatee was there with a real purpose: to spark a comeback, a rebirth. To convince the others he was playing against, to convince the fans, and, I sense, most of all to convince himself that something has palpably changed from his play over most of the rest of this year, which has already seen some of Tiger's most human-looking performances in an otherwise glorious professional golfing career. As I looked at Tiger's scruff around his mouth this weekend, I could not help but think back to when Michael Jordan cracked out the goatee when he returned to the NBA in Washington and tried to help make the Wizards a champion or at least a contender. At some point when the greats who never thought they could lose it, suddenly feel like they've lost it, they turn to a cosmetic change like facial hair, haircut, their clothes or uniform, etc. as if that is actually going to have some positive impact on their sports performance. And, as was the case with MJ a decade ago, it rarely ever works.

3. Attitude. More than just reading the box scores on Monday morning, if you actually watched Tiger Woods play this weekend, then you saw a guy who is wholly different from the golfer we have watched so many times step up in the clutch, whack the ball down the middle of the fairway 25 yards further than anyone else, and just blow away the field on Sunday, if not on Thursday. Tiger simply did not exhibit one whit of the perserverance, of the concentration, and most of all of that absolute focus and insistence on winning, that has made people like him, Michael Jordan, etc. so successful over their careers. For the first time that I can recall, Tiger was walking up to the ball on Saturday and especially on Sunday, barely taking any time to prepare, make a read, take some practice swings or anything, and just hauling off and wailing the ball. Most often into the crowd, off some trees, or wherever it may land. In many many years of watching Tiger do his thing, this is the first and only time I have seen him looking so vulnerable, and just generally so damned human.

It was almost enough to actually make me sad for the guy.

Oops He Did It Again

As far as manipulators go, Brett Favre is proving himself to be one of the all-time best. I mean, this is a guy who single-handedly ruined the offseason of his last few teams with the Packers, and now two years running with the Vikings as well. A guy who hasn't been to training camp in a good 3+ years even though he's started every single regular season game of all three seasons. A guy who talked the Jets into releasing him halfway through a two-year contract a couple of years back, just so (as he claimed) he could re-sign with the Packers and then retire in the yellow and gold, and then not two weeks later was talking about signing a new deal with the Vikings. So we are dealing with a manipulator extraordinaire here. But, if you can get past the way Favre continues to manipulate things to all work just the way he wants them, the selfishness, the pomp and circumstance involved in everything Brett Favre does all year long, what he just did over the past two days with the Vikings is actually pretty damn smart.

Think about it: Brett Favre knows he wants to play again, but he also knows that he has zero chance of even considering going to camp. He knows that decision is not and would not be taken lightly by his teammates, who are out there busting their humps doing twoadays every day in the heat starting this month. It's frowned upon by everyone in the NFL to skip out on camp and then arrive for the season to start. And, on top of his long-seen desire to avoid training camp, Favre also knows that his recently-operated-on ankle is still hurting him.

So what does Favre really want to do? Favre wants to tell Brad Childress that he would like to play football in 2010, but that he isn't sure if he'll be able to play on his injured foot this season, and even if so, exactly when he'll be able to play. The problem is, even John Madden would have to take Favre's schlong out of his mouth for a few minutes to say what a dick move that would be for Favre to do to the Vikings, basically telling them, "I'm the best quarterback in the NFC if I play, but I don't know if or when I can play this year. But don't necessarily go get someone else (as if it isn't too late for them to do that already), because I really would like to play this year and I hope that I can." Given the way Favre has handled his future in the NFL over each of the past five or six seasons at this point (the last few with the Pack, the Jets season, and now two with Minnesota at least), for him to bust out with that kind of a put-off and totally eff up the Vikings' entire 2010 season hands-down like that would be just terrible, and Favre knows it and knows that even his fading teflon image would not withstand that kind of a middle finger to his team.

So what can Favre to do to get what he wants, and yet not be ridden out of town for doing it? How can he get the people of Minnesota, the fans, Brad Childress and the rest of the Vikes' coaching staff, and his teammates all to allow him to just come back to the Vikes whenever the hell he wants and not even be mad at him for doing it? Is there even a possible way to get that outcome?

Sure is: Retire first.

That's right. Don't make it too official or anything, but send some text messages to a few choice players that imply that you're hanging it up. Make Brad Childress deal for 24 hours with the thought of a 2010 season with Tavaris Jackson at quarterback instead of Brett Favre. Make each and every one of his teammates face the reality of busting ass this year for likely a crappy team with no one with the chops to lead on the offense. Force every Vikings fan in Minnesota and around the country to accept that this nucleus's window is closed, their run is over, and the team will go back immediately to being an afterthought and an also-ran in the NFC playoff picture. Then you come back a day later and tell them that you are willing to play after all (after the team offered him $7 million in guarantees and incentives on top of the $13 million Favre was already slated to earn in 2010), but that you just don't know when yet, and suddenly the guy goes from being a goat to being an absolute hero to everyone associated with the Minnesota Vikings organization.

It's the oldest trick in the book, really. Get everyone's expectations so totally beaten down, their hopes to hopelessly crushed, and then you can spring on them the news that is still the same exact horrible thing you're doing to the team, but only now it will seem like an improvement instead of a rooking. In fact, play your cards just right, scare 'em enough with your retirement talk, and those people will suddenly think your 2010 plan is just plain awesome.

So you gotta hand it to Favre. Sure, his arrogance and his egotism are unrivaled by basically anyone in his sport. Maybe all sports in general even. But the guy just showed us all again that when he is truly willing to pull out all the stops, Favre knows how to get what he wants as good as anyone in the spotlight today.

Beth Shak on Millionaire...

Poker babes have an affinity for reality shows. Annie Duke acquitted herself fabulously on Celebrity Apprentice. Then Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho paired up for The Amazing Race, where they did not fare as well. The latest to join the reality television bandwagon is poker babe Beth Shak. A report in the New York Post [...]