CheckRayz Leaderboard Chase and the Mailbag...

The CheckRayz leaderboard chase is heating up. Bob, BC5457 has closed the gap, with only 21 points seperating him from the elusive Beer Guy on top of the leaderboard. Meanwhile, Prince Sheba and texas dan crack the top ten. With only five tournaments left in the first quarter, there's still time to either crack the top ten, or fall from glory. Tonight, CheckRayz shall hold a $5+.50 $100 added poker tournament at River Belle Poker. Password to this money added poker tournament can be obtained by logging into the CheckRayz site and going to the poker tourney schedule page. Not a member? No problem, sign up and play poker at CheckRayz now!

Mailbag

First letter comes from Bonnie, who writes: I placed in one of your events at Hollywood Poker, but I'm not on the leaderboard, can you help me out?

Ask and you shall receive, Bonnie. For future reference... when one makes the final table, I highly suggest that if I am present you tell me what your CheckRayz name is, so that I can give you credit for leaderboard points. Additionally, if I am not there, or I don't say for example "I got ya..." I'd send me an email through the rayz site to ensure that I have the screenname association goin on.

Bonnie did her homework, saw that she was overlooked and brought it to my attention, thus she gets rewarded. By policy, I do not go out of my way to track peeps down. That being said, if I owe ya points, it would be wise to email me immediately to let me know who you are on CheckRayz, what tourney I owe ya for, and what your screenname was in the tourney. I'd also not wait til March 31st either. I'd check and email me this weekend. Once the quarter ends, its gonna do ya no good to email me, cuz I cannot help.

Next, we move to my favorite of all emails, which I think is going into the CheckRayz mailbag hall of fame.

Beer, I can't find the password to (insert tourney of choice here. Can you send me the password?).

Beer responds: I "can" send the password, but I "won't" send it. An educated CheckRayz member makes for a happy beer guy. I send ya the pw, I am doing nothing to help, as I'll get messages from the same peeps every event, and eventually I'll get sick of it and just ban a brotha for asking. However, if I teach you how to find it, you'll never be without a password.

That being said, here are the instructions on how to find passwords for our poker tourneys.

Speaking of passwords (note the smooth segue), Beer Dude, you're out of your skull with these passwords for the tourneys. What the hell you trying to do, make us have doctorates in passwordology to enter your tournaments?

If you read my user's manual, you'd clearly see that being "out of my skull" on certain things is a "known issue." That being said, I like to make sure that people have to put SOME sort of effort to enter the events. You'll never see pw's such as cat, dog, 1234, or (insert mindless pw of choice here) out of me. I figure there's entirely too much unauthorized password sharing going on industry wide, so I'd prefer to make sharing said passwords just a bit more difficult (also the reason why I don't just "give" passwords out via email).

Next item comes from... wait a minute, did I read this correctly...? Wow. Next email comes from "SuperDonk" himself.

He chimes in: Mike (we're on a first name basis... I'm "Mike"... he's either "Superdonk," "tool," "that guy," or "shithead"): That tourney we were in Monday night (at the pub) had by far THE WORST play I have ever witnessed.

(I think we all know how I am gonna respond to this... but, oh well...) Hey tool, you ever watch yourself play? Nuff said there...

From horrible play to awesome play we go... Though, this is more commentary than mailbag material; but is a great way to close the mailbag for the week...

Last night, I was talking to a friend... who we'll call "Michelle." Now to fill in the blanks here, Michelle was going through a bad run of cards over the last few days. I slightly suspect she often has a hard time seeing herself as the player I objectively see her as.

She is, in my opinion, the strongest, most consistant tourney player on either the shark tour, and/or within the CheckRayz organization. Bad run of cards happen to all of us, even the best of us as "Michelle" proves.

So everyone understands, a bad run of cards does not mean that one has to tweak or adjust their game... or "lay low" for that matter. Sometimes bad cards just happen. There's three types of flops, flops that help us, flops that do nothing for anyone one way or the other, and the flops that hurt us. Sometimes it just takes the cards not working against us to break out of this "funk."

Other times, it might be something technical in our game that is helping the cards work against us. With "Michelle" its simply that the cards are working against her through the period of time in question... nothing more. She is as "technically sound" as they come, and does a phenominal job of reading her opposition and can lay down a hand when appropriate. She is more than capable of great things in the poker world, and I am convinced she will accomplish them.

So to you, "Michelle"... ride this one out, and don't change a thing. You're as awesome in tourneys as I aspire to be and will do just fine, cards willing.

Update: at the time of this writing, "michelle" just mowed down her competition in a blaze of glory and won her satellite seat, proving me right once again (as if there was any doubt). WTG "Michelle!!!"

Tommorrow, my intentions are to add a special strategy discussion on "tilting" and "bad beats."



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