This is just a quick reminder today for this weekend to all you poker blogger types out there. That's right -- the World Poker Bloggers Tour returns for its spectacular kickoff tournament to the 2007 WPBT season, coming this Sunday night at 9pm ET on full tilt. Come join everyone who's anyone in the poker blogging community as the group's best and the brightest come out to play and mix things up in what is, in this blogger's view anyways, without a doubt the best concentration of poker blogging skill and mettle anywhere on the Internets.

The WPBT, conceived of by Byron and now this year managed as well by Columbo, is a series of poker tournaments, limited only to poker bloggers or at least players with some actual semblance of an actual blog. The series first ran in 2006, and Byron has conceived of a brilliant scoring script (B recently explained to me what a script actually is, so now I get to use that word and put it in italics too!) that enables them to award Player of the Year (POY) points to the top half of finishers in each event, and to keep a running tally throughout the year of all the players' performances. The semiannual live WPBT poker tournaments held in Las Vegas each summer and winter also count towards the WPBT POY scoring, and generally the live tourneys have the heaviest weight as well due to the higher live-casino buyins, so this only adds to the excitement already generated by this fun and hotly-contest series of poker tournaments among our little group. And the end result is the WPBT Player of the Year leaderboard, which will be hosted and updated regularly on either Byron's and/or Columbo's blog, where anyone can view the list of the top points-winners thus far in the year's WPBT tournaments. Personally, I found this to be one of the most fun aspects of playing poker with the bloggers during 2006. But then, that might have had something to do with the fact that I ended the year in 4th place in POY overall points among the 150+ bloggers who showed up to play in one or more of these tournaments last year.

In any event, this coming Sunday night at 9pm ET marks the first new tournament of the 2007 WPBT season, so all of you bloggers out there will want to make sure you get in early so as not to fall behind in the POY race for the year. Especially you guys who did poorly early in 2006, and a great number of you who started blogging later during 2006 and thus did not have the chance to gain enough POY points to make the top of the list, this is your time to get in there and make an early splash. This Sunday's event will be no-limit holdem, and bears a $26 (tier 1 token) buyin on full tilt, so not only are there the first round of WPBT POY points at stake, but also a nice amount of cash to play for as well. So be sure to come on out and join the crowd this weekend, and support your fellow bloggers as well as make your mark and show your skills for all to see for 2007. I am already registered, so I am definitely looking forward to seeing you all there. Best of luck though, as I always seem to get it up for these WPBT tournaments, so you'll want to watch out for me if I pop onto your table at some point along the way.

Have a great weekend everyone, and I'll see you on Sunday for the WPBT on full tilt. Also, go stop by Miami Don's blog today for a nice post detailing the odds-on favorites to take down the 2007 WPBT POY race. Don can always be counted on for the Vegas odds spin on things, and the WPBT is no exception.

Mondays at the Hoy went off again last night at 10pm ET, at its regular home on pokerstars, and I showed up ready to play and to defend my current top spot on the 2007 money leader board for the MATH tournament. We got our usual 20 runners for this, the first of the weekly blogger tournaments every week, although the list of players last nght did include some new Hoy virgins in addition to many of the old standbys.

I started the Hoy off poorly, calling a preflop raise from steal position from Astin with a mediocre QTo myself, knowing Astin's tendency to bluff with nothing in these blogger tournaments (sorry to spoil your secret, Astin!). When Astin checkraised me on the turn on a board that missed my hand entirely, I had to fold, despite figuring that Astin had nothing, because I couldn't beat any pair, Ace-high or even King-high on this board. Luckily, I soon regained my chips and then some as I was able to make pocket Queens hold up (can you believe it?!) when my flop check induced an allin push from NewinNov with just A4o on a flop of 249 rainbow. This built my stack back over 2400 chips (starting stacks in the MATH are 1500), and on the very next hand I looked down to find pocket Aces.

Pocket Aces. How much do you love taking down a big pot in a no-limit holdem tournament, and then finding pocket Aces on the very next hand, when many of the players are apt to put you on an aggressive Doyle-esque attempt to raise with nothing just to try to make a rush for yourself? It's a rare opportunity, and while I pondered how best to milk as many chips as possible out of my tablemates, Fuel55 limped for the 50-chip big blind from UTG+1, and then relatively new poker blogger Julius Goat followed that up from UTG+2 with a 4x raise to 200. It's like McDonald's says: I'm Lovin' It!

No sooner had I raised this bet to 500 chips preflop with my pocket Aces from middle position, that Mattazuma quickly made it 1200 chips to go from right behind me in the cutoff. Yes! Could I have planned this one any better? Fuel and the Goat (wisely) folded their hands, and of course I moved in for my last 1680 chips. Mattazuma insta-called, and flipped up pocket Jacks. Probably a questionable play on his part, but as he explains on his blog this morning, he in fact thought that I was just making an over-aggro move on the hand following my pocket Queens and the big pot I was able to win with them. And he certainly did the right thing and re-reraised it up big with those Jacks, knocking out Fuel and the Goat, in support of what was basically a necessity to get the pot heads-up were he to have any realistic chance of winning such a high-action preflop pot with pocket Jacks. And he especially did the right thing when the board came Ten - Six - Eight - Five...

Jack on the river. IGH in 16th place out of 20 players. For the second time in the Mondays at the Hoy tournament, Mattazuma knocked me out of a hand from behind after making what I consider to be not such a great play preflop. That said, for the second time, Matt also managed to make great use of my chips, playing much smarter and more selectively aggressive poker from there on out, ending up busting on the bubble in 4th place for another strong showing for the guy who claims he is just donking off the rest of his money online in blogger tournaments due to the latest news from Neteller last week. So my night at the Hoy ended early, but I did stick around to watch most of the rest of the tournament, which was one of the better ones we've had recently on pokerstars.

In the end, after without a doubt the longest bubble period with 4 players left in any Hoy in several months, it was jeciimd ending in 3rd place for an $80 payout, and last week's winner VinNay finishing in 2nd for $120, bringing his 2-week Hoy money total to over $300. And winning the event was Fuel 55, using pocket Kings to call VinNay's pocket 5s preflop in the final hand to ice his first-ever Hoy title, and Fuel's second blogger tournament win in about a week's time. Congratulations to all three of our Hoy cashers this week, and following is the updated 2007 Chase for the Hoy leaderboard, including last night's results:

1. VinNay $310
2. Hoyazo $200
3. Fuel55 $200
4. Zeem $120
5. Ganton516 $114
6. PhinCity $80
7. jeciimd $80
8. Manik79 $76

You may note that three of the eight players who have cashed this year and found their way onto the early leaderboard in the Hoy tournament are non-bloggers, two of which are friends of friends of mine who have never blogged in their lives. So this should give some impetus to all of you out there who are not necessarily involved or even a part at all of the "blogger community" to come out and play next week and in future MATH tournaments, because as you know we always encourage new players to join and see what all the fun is about. I look forward to seeing you next week in the 2007 Chase for the Hoy, and thanks to everyone who came out to play last night as always.

Today I will conclude my earlier post on how to handle a flopped flush draw, specifically in this case (see screenshot at left) where I've got a minbet and a nice raise already in ahead of my action on the flop. We received a number of really excellent comments to the first straight flush draw post, which I will discuss briefly here.

For the most part, the readers were more or less in agreement as far as how to handle this play here. I guess I was just a tiny bit surprised (but not really) that no one suggested folding. I certainly would not fold here, but I do think it is important to remember that a big draw, even an open-ended straight flush draw, is still just that -- a draw -- and that right now at this time I technically have made nothing more than a pair of 5s. With the first player minbetting, he could easily be on a draw himself, but the second player's nice-sized raise I think makes it pretty clear that I am in fact behind here. Even with 15 outs twice, which does generally speaking make me the favorite to win the hand if I stay through to the river, it's important to remember that I'm only a little more than a 54% favorite. So, if you think about it from a glass-half-empty perspective, my odds situation here is not a whole lot better than when I have a medium pocket pair and my opponent has two overcards, one of the same suit as my cards, before the flop.

That said, the old OESFD is certainly the best individual draw that one can have at any point in a holdem hand, so this is not a hand where I would fold, and none of the commenters seemed to think so either which I think is a good thing. In fact, the only real debate among the comments seemed to be whether to push here or not. Almost no one recommended a smooth call here, another viable option in my mind. In the end it is not the option I chose, because my draw is in fact so big, but I do think for what it's worth that a smooth call here is a viable play given the first player's minbet, which smacks to me of a blocking bet or a weak-lead, typical of someone holding a draw of his own here. And if I'm up against another flush draw with the clubs, then my OESFD is really not nearly as good of a draw as I think it is. So I do think just smooth calling here would be a defensible play, check out what happens on the turn and then re-evalute things there.

All that being said, however, I am with the majority of the commenters who say a reraise is in order here. Seems like most of you ended up recommending the straight-out allin push here, which is a move I like because the relative chip stacks are such that this bet gives my two opponents a realistic and opportunistic chance to fold now, which deep down is what I'd really like most given the hand situation on the flop here. Because my draw is probably a greater than 50% favorite, I don't mind at all going to the river with the hand, but taking it down now is a perfectly happy outcome for me here, and one that I would aim for given the roughly 46% chance that I miss my draws entirely, and that nagging possibility (albeit unlikely) of a higher flush draw out there.

In the end, I looked at the relative chip stacks of myself and my opponent who put in the raise on the flop, and I determined that I had the ability to make a large enough bet that it put the pressure in the hand on him, and yet could still leave me with enough chips myself that I was not going to be bankrupt if I lost the hand (courtesy of poker author extraordinaire DoubleAs). I just didn't love the idea of putting everything in with a 54% favorite hand, on the assumption that my opponent was going to call no matter what I did since he had raised so much on the flop already. So, I went for a reraise to 1000 chips, which is basically the same thing as a push from my opponent's perspective. He in fact responded by pushing allin, which I clearly called, and we flipped 'em up.

Anybody want to guess what he was holding here? Rather than make you wait, I'll just post this link for your viewing pleasure. You will note that, as expected, I was behind there on the flop, and actually was facing a draw that could beat most of my outs already, so it was not exactly a great situation for me, which really illusrates again why I don't always necessarily want to get it all in on the flop even with an OESFD. But never fear, here is the final shot of the hand, where justice did, in the end, prevail.

Thanks again to everyone for the well-reasoned and insightful comments, as always. Have a great weekend, and maybe I'll run into you out on the virtual tables somewhere.