Thanks guys.
Yes, that really is ME at the top of the Hilton leaderboard. Like I said, though, it's only week 1 - LONG way to go (but I will admit that I am more excited about being on top of the leaderboard than I thought I would be, especially since it is basically meaningless at this point).
And, I realize that I am in the minority, but personally, I don't mind paying services for their plays, opinions, and write-ups, if I feel they are worthwhile. I realized a long time ago that no one person has the time to fully look into all aspects of each game on the board. So, I feel that it is worthwhile to get opinions from others whom I respect. I worked for years as a computer consultant with people paying me for my opinions of what they should do in order to better perform operations, or writing code to perform thos operations. I don't see this as any different. I guess people who say that touts can't win and wouldn't have to be paid if they did could argue that I shouldn't have been paid, and if my opinions and coding were good, I could have just opened up shop for myself.
I know I'm not around a lot, still have a bunch of things going on, but I will make a point of posting my plays - thus dooming them to failure
Good Luck,
Bart