Incivility and one other irritation addressed...aka opposite sides of the same wooden nickel...aka Why is it we play these things exactly?

Don likes to give me shit about being too political with other bloggers. He shouldn’t have that problem with this. There are two issues floating around that I want to get off my chest with no deference to propriety.

People tilt over losing. Fine. But just because you lose does not make everyone else a donkey. You know better. Personally I find the play in blogger MTTs to be a good prep for the large field MTTs. I don’t think the occasional donk play therein (including most of my own play in the last three appearances) even begins to approach the ill-conceived moves you will find in fields of 200 or more. I will specifically say I watched the end of MATH this week and thought cc played the bubble better than our boy steve-o. Yes, he caught aces twice in a row, but what saved him is that he went into aggro overdrive and began to push like a mothafuckah. The blinds he stole came directly out of slb’s stack and sealed his fate. I personally made Steve’s error in the 12k and gave up my shot at 2nd because I couldn’t bring myself to push with crap – which cc was obviously doing.

BTW, cc: yet again tried to comment to this effect on your site to no avail. It is depressing you felt you had to post that defense – those of us who “know” you also know it was unnecessary.

There is always something to be learned in defeat. And the lesson is rarely that your opponents are fucking morons, or that you should take your glove and balls and go home. I try not to focus on the luck element or my opponents’ questionable moves simply because I have no fucking control over it. Instead I try to ask myself, “How and where did I fuck this up?” Rare is the game I have played where the answers are “I didn’t” and “Nowhere, my play was ideal start to finish.”

And by rare I mean nonexistent.

Edit: Please see this guy, who was used quite roughly in the 20k yesterday, for a lesson in how to take a beat like a man. A very funny man.

People are also coming out of the woodwork to insist that they don’t even try to win these things - it’s all about droppin’ hammers and putting people on tilt, the tournaments are just an extended joke. Now most of the guys saying this are Old Schoolers, and since they started all this, who the fuck am I to call them on it? If that’s truly why you play, that’s cool.

Personally that’s not why I play. By nature I am so competitive that I can’t help but want to win everything I sign up for. And I mean everything, from a $6 token race, to Crash Tag Team Racing with my four year-old son, to the FT 20k, which I vow I will bend over my knee one day soon and paddle until she’s bright red. Well, maybe not so much the video game…but all the rest holds up.

Yes, I have a good, good time shootin’ the shit with the boyz & girls, breaking out my signature hand A7s (The Accidental Tourist) whenever I can. But I still want to win. Every single time. Playing 27o or low suited connectors from LP doesn’t mean you don’t want to win. It means you are making plays. That’s no different for any other MTT I’ve played.

I am guessing, but I would bet Don, Hoy, Smokkee and the rest of the guys I normally run with feel the same. And no, it ain’t about the score: everyone on the list I’m thinking of is rolled to where the score is nice evening-out money, but not going to change the levels we play. It’s about the bragging rights.

To routinely sign-up on a weekly basis, and claim you aren’t playing to win is a fascile, if perfect, alibi. If you never win – hey you weren’t trying. If through some miracle you do win – hey you could’ve won any time you wanted. That’s ingenious, but also pretty ingenuous, and I for one don’t believe it for a second. Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

Edit: Duggles feel I have misinterpreted him. Here is his post following last week's Mookie without alteration. Posted Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006

"A lot of people seem to be getting their panties twisted up into their twats over the quality of play in the Mookie.

I think we need to remind ourselves that it's a lousy $10 tournament that probably costs most of us more money to play based on what we would win by playing some other games. The thing takes like 3.5 hours to finish, and you stand to make like $150 for first place? My time is better spent at the PLO8 tables, if I'm in it for the money.

The point is to have fun, put the worst, tilt-inducing beat or bluff past your opponents, and drop a lot of hammers.

I heard about one player saying he "needed to win" the Mookie last night. If this was true, you really shouldn't be playing."

Well feel free to tell me I misinterpreted this, but for those who haven't noticed, I've read a book or two, and feel pretty good about my reading comprehension. I'll just say that a "lousy $10 tournament" looks a lot better to some people once they win it. I thought Mookie showed a lot of class (as always) overlooking that description of his online homegame. I'll try to follow his example. Congratulations on the win: as far as I'm concerned, that's a tough field to beat.

Anyway, I screwed the pooch bigtime in my attempt to repeat at the Mookie, and I don’t feel bad in the least that I was trying my best to kick all your asses. I always am. The only thing I regret is how rarely that happens.

Laytah.