2009 Felt Poker Awards

[Snickers99]

And welcome to the Third Annual Felt Poker Awards! First off, I want to thank everyone for coming out. I know times have been tough. This year, we couldn't quite afford the Luxor for our presentation like last year, but I want to thank you guys for coming out to the Holiday Inn Express here in beautiful, exciting West Atlantic City. Hope you guys locked your cars (not that it would help).

I'm honored once again to be hosting. AJ Benza actually contacted us about hosting this year. We thought about it, but declined. He then blogged something about licorice and pizza, and how we're taking food out of his children's mouths. Oh, and something about us being dead to him.

Taking a look around the vast conference room here at the Holiday Inn Express...I see Johnny is out on parole after hunting down several shortstackers...Randy is here, so you know we're going to get some sort of freakish weather event that will doom us all, or swine flu...and I see Labats made it down from Canada to laugh at our weak beer.

OK, let's get right to the awards. We get a lot of people who come to Felt, post one or two things (or none) and then never return. So we're always happy when someone comes along and actually sticks around. And contributes as well. So, the 2009 Rookie of the Year, in a close vote, goes to Peepers who joined in late 2008 and has stuck around. Honorable mention goes to mattgeer, another great poster who has stuck around. Congrats, guys!

Now that we thanked the new guys, time for an award always depresses me. It's the "Whatever Happened To" award. Glad to see last year's winner Terminal is back posting on a regular basis. This year's winner is everybody's favorite, mervhage, with no real posts since the summer. Whatever happened to that guy? I miss his hate filled rants when he got sucked out on. Good times. Honorable mention goes to Miamipuck.

Some awards write themselves. There wasn't much of a race for the Longevity Award. Started in May of 2008, the WTF thread has been going strong ever since with over 680 posts and over 14,500 views. There's definitely some WTF posts in there and I'm afraid to ask what some people were looking for when they stumbled upon something to put in the thread. But it is fun to go back and view the thread from the very beginning. Well done, Felters.

This time of year, it's always nice to reflect back on the past year. Things move so quickly, people tend to forget things rather quickly. Remember how excited the forum was with the Aced Poker - Jaime Gold bounty Tournament? I said top top!! Jaime's Mom speaking for Aced. Jaime not showing up for his own tournament. Randy beating Jaime heads up to take down one of the tournaments. Good times.

The Off Topic Thread of the Year took on a morbid turn in 2009, with the Singer Michael Jackson dead at 50 thread quickly becoming a death watch thread with the likes of Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, pitchman Billy Mays, Fred Travalena, Karl Malden, Steve McNair, Walter Cronkite, and the Taco Bell Chihuahua. All of which lead to a nice discussion about child molestation and cigarettes. Imagine that...a thread on Felt Poker getting derailed.

The government and the UIGEA make our Poker News of the Year, from threads like 30M In U.S Poker Players Funds Frozen to UIGEA Compliance Date Officially Extended Until June 1, 2010, this is a topic that affects us all. It's good to stay up on these topics as it's players like us that have to educate the rest of them that online poker is NOT illegal to play. But getting money on and off the sites is perhaps too hard for most recreational players to deal with...even the ones that understand they're not doing anything wrong.

I'm too lazy to go through all the posts to come up with the Post of the Year, so we'll just assume that Johnny's recent trip to Walmart would have won. I just can't believe the guy is in his 40's and never bought anything at Walmart before.

Cash games or tournaments? If you're looking for help for either game, you can get it right here. There's tons of great advice in the Cash Games and the Tournaments section. And, as usual, hard to pick just one thread from each. But for Cash Game Thread of the Year, we're going with 50NL Overpair in 3b pot, villain takes a "wtf???" line.

Every year I say I'm going to play more tournaments and every year I don't. But if I did, I know I could find good discussions in the Tournament Section, like 2009's Tournament Poker Thread of the Year, SnG's - Late Stage Hand Ranges/Misc.

It's always hard to pick the final General Poker Thread of the Year...some good threads in 2009. But the Mods discussed it and we're going with Good players at 2NL!!!(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) thread where CrazeeAsh discovered that even the 2NL games are getting tougher.

Well, it was another fun year at the Felt Poker forums. We have to wrap this up...the West Atlantic City chapter of the Middle School Librarians has the hall next and they are not the group you want to piss off. I think I speak for everybody when I give a HUGE thank you to Randy for putting up with us and doing all he does for us. Including the $5,000 Weekly Loose Change Freeroll where Felt Poker players have taken over $3k in free money. And thanks to MewsicLovr for keeping everything humming along. You guys are aces! Um, the kind of aces that don't get cracked.

Good night everybody and drive home safely! Look for more great stuff from Felt Poker in 2010!

[hiho]

Great as always!

[bigloser2448]

[johnny]

Originally Posted by bigloser2448

[Randy]

Awesome as always! I almost forgot about me kicking Jamie's over-hyped ass! lol

Will the following award winners please PM me with their Full Tilt Screennames and city Letter. You all win Full Tilt $$$$

Ash
Merv
Peppers
Snickers (For hosting awesomeness as always!)

Did I miss anyone who won an award?

[Mirage]

Very nice job Snicks! Fun read! Congrats to all the winners, and here's to another great forum year in '10!

[johnny]

Originally Posted by Randy

Awesome as always! I almost forgot about me kicking Jamie's over-hyped ass! lol

Will the following award winners please PM me with their Full Tilt Screennames and city Letter. You all win Full Tilt $$$$

Ash
Merv
Peppers
Snickers (For hosting awesomeness as always!)

Did I miss anyone who won an award?

Ya me pony up! haha. It'll pay for shippin out some of the t shirts!

[Ugignadl]

"I went to the 2009 Felt Poker awards and all I got was this stupid t-shirt"

Great job Snicks!

[mattgeer]

Originally Posted by Randy

Awesome as always! I almost forgot about me kicking Jamie's over-hyped ass! lol

Will the following award winners please PM me with their Full Tilt Screennames and city Letter. You all win Full Tilt $$$$

Ash
Merv
Peppers
Snickers (For hosting awesomeness as always!)

Did I miss anyone who won an award?

**AHEM** ...Uh, think I got honorable mention (joking)

Anyway, thanks for the mention Snickers and thanks to everyone that has helped me improve (+infinite to BigL). I think 2010 is going to be very good to me as a result.

[CrazeeAsh]

I only just saw this!! Coooool!!
Yay go me hehe
Was a great read, thanks snicks!!