Ruminating on the BBT

Yes, folks, it's Monday again. But not even just any old Monday. This is the last Monday of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, which means that tonight will be the last Mondays at the Hoy tournament of the BBT:



Of course the weekly MATH tournament will contintue to run in its regular spot every Monday night at 10pm ET on full tilt, with a tier I token or $26 buyin, and a password of "hammer" as always, but this week will mark the final MATH tournament of the BBT as the 3-month blogger tournament challenge comes to a close with a MATH, a Mookie and a Riverchasers for your donking pleasure this Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then culminating with the final BBT tournament, the Blogger Big Game on this coming Sunday night at 9:30pm ET. So I don't know if any of you had plans for Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Sunday night of this week -- but if you did, cancel 'em. We should have some big crowds and loads of fun this week as players gear up to take their final shots at the top spots and the prizes that come along with them, or just to play their way into late July's BBT freeroll tournament which will feature a prize pool made up of half the rake we have paid as a group into every BBT tournament running back over the past 3 months.

Speaking of the BBT freeroll, I'm going to take a minute to go over a few specific people I expect to be seeing in most if not all of our four BBT tournaments scheduled for this week, the final week in the tournament series. Remember, anyone in the top 50 spots on the final BBT leaderboard will automatically be entered in the freeroll, in addition to anyone who has played in at least 20 of the BBT tournaments. Now take a look at that leaderboard again, which has been updated as of this past Sunday afternoon's special Riverchasers HORSE tournament, which Mike Maloney came out of the woodwork and crushed for his first BBT tournament victory. As of right now, heading into this week's final four tournaments, the top 50 spots end with Bone Daddy, who is sitting on 391.8 points as of this Monday morning. But let's look at just the 10 players right behind Eric:

In 51st place right now is IronGirl, a personal favorite blogger of mine, who sits just 3 BBT points behind Bone Daddy, and who has played 16 BBT events so far. So, Irongirl, you have to either play your way in to the BBT freeroll this week by reaching the BBT points in a few of this week's events, or you can just buy in to all four of the remaining BBT tournaments and then you will be automatically entered. But either way, it's like the lottery: you gotta play to win. In 52nd place place is Schaubs, whom I know from his blog has not been participating much in these tournaments over the past couple of months, but whom is also just a measly 8 BBT points behind the current 50th place, so again I expect to see you and that snazzy new blog banner from Jordan around several times this week, Schaubs. In 53rd is Gary Cox, who has already qualified by playing in 23 BBT events, so he is already into the freeroll there.

In 54th place is Joe_13, a blogger with whom I am not familiar but who is only 25 BBT points out of 50th place and thus also has a great shot to play his way in to the freeroll by participating in as many of this week's final four tournaments as possible. Next comes Skidoo, who also has played in 21 BBT tournaments at this point so he is also already qualified for the freeroll. In 56th place, however, is kickass writer Otis, who has only played in 8 events but finds himself just 35 BBT points out of 50th place to qualify for the freeroll. After Otis comes Patchmaster, Joe Speaker and BrainMc, all three of whom also are far short of the 20 events played plateau, but who range from a mere 38 to 47 BBT points out of 50th place, and then we have Lucko to round out the top 60, although Lucko is just 2 events away from 20, so all he needs to do is show up for any two of the MATH, Mookie, Riverchasers or the Big Game this week and he is in like flynn to the BBT freeroll coming up on July 25.

In addition to those listed above, just about anyone else on the BBT leaderboard should be able to play their way in to the freeroll, no matter what your current position, by winning a couple of events this week or just by scoring big in a few of them. And even putting actual tournament performances aside, there are also a number of bloggers out there who are outside of the top 50 but who can play their way in to the freeroll just by participating in some or all of this week's events thereby reaching the 20 events played threshold. This list includes Byron and Iakaris, who have each participated in 16 events and thus are in automatically if they play in all four BBT tournaments this week, in addition to Don Morris and pvanharibo, both of whom need to participate in just two of the BBT tournaments this week to qualify for the upcoming freeroll. So in all, there is a lot riding on this week's BBT tournaments, and tonight's MATH will start it all off at 10pm ET sharp on full tilt, so see you there!

Speaking of the BBT, before I forget, this Sunday saw a momentus occasion for the tournament series, and for one poker blogger in particular. My boy jeciimd cashed in the Riverchasers HORSE tournament on Sunday to the tune of $118 and change!! Jec finished that tournament in 3rd place out of 29 runners after outlasting a long and frustrating bubble period, and I was glad to have logged on for the night shortly before that tournament bubble burst, so I got to watch this huge happening live right in front of my eyes. Congratulations to jec, who has now solidified his 5th place position in the BBT standings and who actually climbed very close to Iggy in 4th place after Iggy busted early from HORSE on Sunday, setting up what is sure to be a very tight and interesting race for the top few BBT spots as the series ends with the final four tournaments this week. And now this means that everyone in the top 50 BBT spots has cashed at least one time during the BBT series, which just looks much nicer on the leaderboard than it used to previously. Way to go, jec!!

And one other quick BBT comment this week. As I mentioned above, this coming Sunday evening will be the final tournament in the BBT challenge, which will be Don's Big Game with its $75 buyin. For those of you who don't know or who have not yet played in the Big Game, it is a montly event, it sports the largest buyin of any of the regular blogger tournaments out there, and since the BBT began, it also has sported the largest prize pool of any blogger tournaments, ever. With it being the final BBT tournament and all, I am hoping that this Sunday's Big Game will be the largest yet, breaking the previous record of I think 53 or 54 players and a prize pool of well over $3500, making for some awesome cash payouts for the top finisher. But there is only one way we get the numbers for this Sunday's tournament up to those levels -- the 9:45pm ET nightly token frenzy on full tilt. As I have done in the previous two months, this week I am re-launching my all-out assault on the token frenzy tournament, which again runs at 9:45pm ET every night, and which awards tier 2 ($75) tokens to the top 18.7% of finishers for just a $15 buyin including the full tilt rake. This is a great tournament to play in for anybody who ever likes to play those $75 buyin mtts on full tilt, and it is the perfect way for just about anybody to qualify for the lofty $75 buyin to the Big Game. You pay just $14 + $1, and out of say 120 players on a given night, the top 22 finishers will all be awarded a $75 token. Easy as pie. As per usual with mostly any $14 buyin satellite on full tilt, the play is generally horrific in these things, and only having to play down to the top 19% or so of finishers means that the whole thing generally only lasts less than 90 minutes from start time to the awarding of the tokens. I will most definitely be in this thing every single night this week at 9:45pm ET on full tilt, and you should be too! Last month and the month before, we bloggers as a group managed to basically take over this nightly tier II token frenzy satellite on full tilt, and I would like to see us do so again this month, maybe moreso than ever as more and more of you out there are looking to get in to the BBT freeroll and just to play with the bloggers on the biggest stage we regularly have to offer, the monthly Sunday night Big Game. So not only will I see you tonight in the MATH at 10pm ET, but be sure to log on 15 minutes early and play in the nightly token frenzy tonight at 9:45pm ET on full tilt, where I will most definitely be as well.

Before I go, here was a fun hand from last night's 50-50 tournament, which saw me minraise preflop with pocket Queens for the first (and hopefully only) time in my entire life:









See, I felt like I had to minraise there in late position, because as you can see I was on a short stack, I hadn't seen a good hand for an hour, and I desperately needed to double up with the Queens in that spot. So, I figured the only way I could reasonably assure myself of at least some action in that particular situation was to make it like I am clearly trying to steal the blinds with nothing, so I felt the minraise did the best job of portraying weakness to my remaining opponents. In the end as you can see, I got lucky as hell and not only did the big blind wake up with AT in his hand, but then the Ten-high flop set me up for an easy double up. This was from Sunday night's 50-50 tournament, and in the end I busted in 162nd place (top 153 out of 1078 entrants paid) as I made what is for me the easy decision to play to win, and not just to play to cash. Wtf do I want with the $21 profit for the bottom cash payout spots anyways, right? We were down to 162 players left, and I found 55 in middle position, the only good hand I'd seen in the third hour of play other than the QQ hand profiled above, and a player with a larger stack put in a standard 3x raise from early position ahead of me. I opted to move in all of my chips in a big reraise, at a time when I was probably around 100th place out of 162 players remaining, for a pot that would have jumped me up to above the 50th percentile in the tournament if everyone had folded. Instead, the original raiser quickly called my bet, showing me pocket Tens, and I could not recover and I limped out just 9 spots from the money. That said, I like my play there, as I said I am always playing to win and have zero interest in just limping into the bottom cash payouts with a small stack when I believe I have the chance to make +EV moves that can jump me up in the standings and position me for another deep mtt run.

OK that's all for today. Looking forward to seeing everyone tonight in the token frenzy at 9:45pm ET, and then in the MATH at 10pm ET (password as always is "hammer") on full tilt!