We Now Interrupt This Trip Report For the Following Announcement

Originally, I wasn't going to comment on this controversy, but the more I read about it, the more pissed off I get.

I am, of course, talking about the fact that well known blogger Hoyazo played the Bodog Blogger Tournament series under a different account name, and then either wrote a fake blog about his experiences (never writing about his Bodonkey exploits on his own well-read blog), or having other cohorts in cahoots write the "fake" blog entries, most of which were used to trash specific blogger/players, who almost universally had nothing but good things to say about the Bodonkey.

Blinders has written a rather extensive rant on the subject today. In fact, some would call the rant Hoy-worthy. Essentially, Blinders posits that what Hoy did was nothing short of cheating.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling what Hoy did as cheating other players, because there is absolutely nothing requiring anyone to play under the same name at every site. He didn't have an account prior to the series, and he was fully within his rights to start an account under a different name.

However, Hoy definitely cheated Bodog out of its earned goodwill and recognition, by not discussing his play in the series on his own blog, which is much more widely read than ICrushBloggers ever was (at least before Hoy completely deleted the ICrushBloggers blog from existence). Nor did he link his widely-read Hammer Player blog to the Bodog Blogger Tournament page, which deprived the series out of a fair number of potential players, and that's a real shame, because Hoy is one of the more prolific and entertaining bloggers out there. The series really could have used the benefit of his writing...especially as he was playing and profiting from it every week.

Bodog went way over and above by adding so many $T every week, never mind the final TOC prizes, and was certainly entitled to have its series put on for bloggers pimped on those blogs, or at least discussed after the fact.

I think the real victims here are Bodog and the greater blogger community, but I can't go so far as to say he cheated, per se. But every act like this does lessen the blogger community in some way, though the narcissists won't be able to see it through the haze of self-importance. Frankly, Love_elf said it best right here.

Quelle bummer.