Hammerin' Helmuth

I played a couple of SNGs on Full Tilt last night, and took a first and a second. I also played an obnoxiously tight SNG on Stars, which found me out in 7th after a suckout on the river. Not a bad night. In the second tourney on Full Tilt, I found the hammer heads up against a weak-tight player that I had been pushing around a little bit. He had me slightly out-chipped, and I went for a decent pre-flop raise, which he called. He'd been calling my pre-flop raises and then folding to post-flop bets, so I did it again after a 7 came out to give me middle pair. I pushed with it, and he called with top pair. Oh well. Not the best play in the world, but it's always fun to play the hammer.

I decided to put a little money where my mouth is, so here are my picks for the week, which I've actually placed bets on. We'll see how it turns out.

CHI +3 -115
NE +3 +102

I'm watching Cold Pizza on ESPN2, and Helmuth is a guest. It's been 20 whole seconds and he's a freakin' nutjob. He's decked out in his Ultimate Bet windbreaker and hat, sunglasses, and he insists on sitting ramrod-straight in his chair. The host asked him about a ratio of skill:luck, and he says 80:20, and that anyone watching TV lately can see how unlucky he's been. How can anyone still like this guy?