Lost, FTOPS and the BBT

Well it's Wednesday, and that means two big things in my world every week. #1 is the Mookie, which goes off tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt (password is vegas1 as always) as the BBT continues in its 6th week, close to the halfway point of the challenge. More on that in a minute. But #2 is Lost, and with tonight just the second to last episode of the year, and with the show on probably an 8-episode kickassawesome streak. So needless to say, expectations for this evening are high.

In Lost, I don't really know what to expect for tonight's episode. And thanks to Schaubs for pointing out that there is a special show called Mysteries of Lost or something like that scheduled for Thursday night at 10pm ET as well this week, which is billed as something to get new viewers up to date in advance of the finale, but also allegedly to expound upon some of the already-explained secrets of the island. But as far as tonight's episode goes, I'm going to go ahead and guess no mention of Jacob or anything like that. I don't see how Locke is going to be dead at this point in the show, so I expect him to play some role tonight. I remember the scenes from last week involving Desmond telling Charlie something like "This time, you're really gonna die, there's no way to get out of it this time", so hopefully this will be the week where that finally happens. I'm also hoping to learn some more about Naomi and Penny, and it looks like tonight will be the big raid on the island camp by the Others, so I expect another random death or two along the way. And I've heard a lot of crazy shit about the finale coming up next Wednesday, one week from tonight, but I don't want to spoil anything big for the readers so I'll just leave it at that for now. Suffice it to say, next week's explosive season ender should prove to include enough craziness and new and totally unexpected information that it will change the very nature of what Lost is. How's that for a teaser?

Back to poker, last night was the FTOPS #5 HOSE event, and I started off strong. But after close to two hours of play, I ran into one of the worst suckouts ever, and it completely tilted me out of the thing. A guy hit a 2-outer on me at the river in stud high after I had read him just right but he couldn't get away from his bluff, calling my two pairs down all the way to 7th street with just his buried pair of twos. Of course he nails a third two at the end to take down my Aces over 9s. I shouldn't have tilted of course, but this hand left me with under 1000 chips instead of being back in the top 20 out of some 400 players remaining (651 I think started off), and I just didn't have the heart to get it back. Of course getting sucked out on a few hands later for my remaining chips didn't help either, but that's par for the course I guess so what can you do. Anyways, tonight is FTOPS #6, the 6-max nlh event, and since I love 6-max so much I will be buying into this tonight since I failed to qualify in any satellites for this event. I only got to play one reasonable-buyin sat for this thing since full tilt did an uncharacteristically poor job of making non-monkey-buyin-level sats available at any time during the evening hours ET. That one satellite was Tuesday nightt at 11:30pm ET, where I headed into the final 20 players (the top 11 would win seats) in 2nd place overall but still managed to crash and burn without making the money after a one-two punch of suckout-then-setup to rain on my parade. Thing is, though, I've been playing so bad in the FTOPS events overall that I'm thinking I actually won't buy in to Thursday's O8 event after all. Friday I'm already in FTOPS #8 the pot-limit holdem event, and I won't play Saturday before Sunday night's FTOPS Main Event which I have also already qualified for. Who else is playing in the Main Event out there, other than Fuel?

Anyways, back to the BBT. This is something I have realized I should have done long ago, but frankly I am just going so very badly in the BBT tournaments that I admit I have not been paying the BBT race enough of the attention that it deserves. And today I am to change that, taking the time that I would clearly be devoting to the BBT leaderboard if I were on it instead of hopelessly far away from it. So let's delve a bit into the top of the BBT leaderboard here as we close in on the halfway point in the challenge this weekend.

First, the bottom of the current top 10 on the leaderboard is Pirate Wes otherwise known as a10419. Wes is a tough player who knows how to play all the games, and per his blog he has rededicated his focus to blogger events this year, the results of which are really showing as Wes has steadily climbed not only the BBT leaderboard but also the 2007 Hoy moneyboard. Wes has consistently shown that he has the tight spirit needed to accumulate points in an event like this, and yet obviously with his $591 won so far from the BBT tournaments, he has the ability to run deep as well. Look out for Wes as the second half of the BBT race begins. Next in 9th place is Mike Maloney, who is presumably from Chicago given his web address, and who's been playing with the bloggers for most of 2007. At 8 events, Mike is tied for the fewest events with points among all the top ten BBT points players along with Miami Don, and yet despite those only 8 BBT scores, Mike has really made his deep runs count, easily winning the most cash of any player so far from the BBT tournaments, at over $1000 where no one else on the list is even over $800 that I could see. It's almost hard to believe Mike is only in 9th place on the leaderboard with stats like that, but again this is obviously another player with great potential to make a serious run at the top spot by the end of June.

In 8th place is that guy Sirfwalgman, but you may know him as Waffles. Waffles was on a bad blonkament run at the very beginning of the BBT, but since then he has really turned things around, finding his stride in winning the Mookie just early into the BBT run, and parlaying that success into many BBT pointing opportunities over the past several weeks. Waffles joins with 7th, 6th and 5th place players Buddydank, Astin and jeciimd, respectively, as the only four guys in the top 10 to have moneyed in fewer than three of the BBT tournaments so far, but Waffles has still managed to make the BBT points in 10 out of 15 events entered, and those numbers can't be argued with when you throw in two final tables and nearly $400 in cash won out of both of those two final table appearances. If Waffles can keep his stack from getting too big early, when he tends to get a little liberal with the chips, he is playing great, has all the momentum and is poised to push hard for the glory over the next couple of months. Buddydank, in 7th place, takes Waffles' points-focused approach even further, pointing in a truly impressive 12 out of 15 BBT events played, although through 3 final tables Buddy has only come up with $191 in cash to show for it. Nonetheless, 3 final tables in 15 large blonkaments is nothing to sneeze at by a long shot, and it's 3 more than I've been at, so what can I say other than nice job to that.

6th place on the current BBT leaderboard belongs to Astin, fresh off his win at the MATH this week. Astin has made the points in 10 out of 12 BBT tournaments so far, which is very, very hard to do and is a testament to his having kept his cool and waited for big hands throughout the tournament series to this point. And he's won over $600 so far as well, putting him in 5th place overall in total dollars won from the BBT so far heading into the last week of the first half of the BBT season.

Starting the top five in 5th place in the BBT standings is jeciimd. Jec is a funny case in that he has probably been the most consistent point-casher overall among the top ten BBT point-getters, pointing in 14 out of 17 BBT tournaments played. That said, jec has been to only one final table, something only four people in the current BBT top 40 players can say, and he amazingly has yet to cash for an actual money payout in any of the 14 tournaments he has reached the points. Although these cash stats suggest perhaps a bit too much tightness, you can't argue with jec's consistency, nor can you argue that with just one big performance in an upcoming BBT tournament, jec will vault himself right to the top of the standings. And in 4th place on the BBT board is Miami Don, the only guy to have won two of the BBT events, which consisted of the MATH and the Mookie in consecutive weeks, in addition I believe to a third Mookie which sadly for Don occurred just before the BBT tournament series began. Don was hot as ballz early on in the BBT race, but since then has cooled a bit as players have been gunning for him after his big back-to-back run in April, but with two wins, three final tables and over $650 in winnings after just 13 BBT events, he is clearly a force to be reckoned with going forward in the challenge.

In third place on the current BBT leaderboard is oossuuu754, another blogger new in 2007 and who has already won a WSOP Main Event package on full tilt earlier this year. oossuuu burst onto the scene early in the BBT race by making his first of three cashes so far in the challenge. Each of those three cashes has been significantly deep however, even despite no outright BBT tournament wins at this point, that osu has amassed 3 final tables, all 3 of which were cashes, for nearly $600 in winnings over the past six weeks of the BBT. As one of the only two players to participate in each of the 18 BBT events so far, osu is just a shade ahead of Don for third in the current BBT standings and looking to move higher.

Second place, and last week's BBT leader, is Iggy, another guy who has been playing the kind of tight early poker that you need in order to survive to the points in this kind of a tournament series. But Iggy has also proven that he is a master of mixing it up in these tournaments, gearing up once the BBT points are in and culminating with some nice aggressive play by the time the final table approaches. And the results have been spectacular, with Iggy recording BBT points in 12 of 14 events he's played, including a high of 5 final tables and 3 cashes totaling over $700 so far from the BBT schedule. As one of only three guys to crack the $700 cash mark, Iggy has also vaulted to the top of the 2007 MATH moneyboard with two big cashes in recent weeks in Mondays at the Hoy, and only recently lost his short-lived spot atop the BBT leaderboard to the new leader in this most recent week.

And that new BBT points leader is Bayne_s. Bayne is another relatively new blogger, with posts ranging back to early 2006 but who didn't really start posting with much regularity until this calendar year for the most part, and his game has steadily improved as he has played more with the bloggers and gotten to know you donks who can't fold, the ones who always slow play, and the guys who are screwed down tighter than youknowwho's youknowwhat. And the results have followed suit, as Bayne has also inched into the top 5 of the 2007 MATH moneyboard while also nabbing this week's top spot away from Iggy in the BBT race. Having also played all 18 of the BBT tournaments thus far, Bayne has made the points in 12 events (only jeciimd has pointed in more BBT tournaments -- 14), including 5 final tables (tied with Iggy for the lead), and three cashes. With 787 BBT points, Bayne is slightly ahead of Iggy's Iggy's 763, and over a hundred points more than oossuuu754 and MiamiDon in 3rd and 4th place. So Bayne has a small lead going over the angry dwarf, but he's looking good here as we near the halfway point of the challenge to be able to hold on at least for one of the top few spots that award fabulous prizes at the end of the Battle.

So there, please make sure to come out tonight to the Mook to continue your own chase for the top of the BBT leaderboard, as well as on Thursday night for the latest Riverchasers private tournament, also on full tilt poker. And be sure to congratulate these guys who are blazing the trail for us all, all of whom are showing that the way to survive in a points-driven tournament series like the BBT includes playing smart, tight poker early, outlasting the donks, and then turning things on as time moves on and the final table grows near. I may or may not be in the Mookie toinght depending on what's happening with Lost at the time, but since I'll already be playing in FTOPS #6 in 6max nlh, I might just be able to squeak in some nice Mookery on top of things in advance of next Wednesday's epic season finale of the greatest show on television since the X-Files started suckin after Season V.

The Truth Is Out There baybeeee. Trust no one.