The Blonkaments and the BBT

The BBT3 rolls on this week with another 6-max nlh tournament in Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt:



Same time as always: 10pm ET on full tilt. Same password as always: "hammer". See you there as we begin the first full week of the second half of the BBT3 tournament challenge. Tonight's winner will get the cash payout from this event plus a coveted seat in the series-ending BBT3 Tournament of Champions, in which two 12k WSOP prize packages and two more 2k WSOP prize packages will be awarded to the top four finishers. Hard to beat that for a freeroll. And all you have to do to play is to win one of the BBT3 events. I won my seat last week in Stud Hi-Lo in the Skills Series. Have you won your ToC seat yet?

I barely played poker this weekend, only playing a bit on Sunday after donking it up for about an hour and a half in the donkament last Friday that I think I saw my favorite punching bag NutzCarson take down, congrats to him. I have suckout-eliminated that guy from the donkament more times than I can count, so it's nice to seem him avoid me entirely and then go on to victory in my absence in a tournament that is always a fun, laid back time for everyone.

Speaking of fun, laid back times in blonkaments, I have made no secret here over time of my distaste for blonkament competitions like the BBT in anything but slight moderation. After a couple months of most of our regular "good time" events being tied to a points race, I have spent weeks barching here in the blog about how it ruins the fun of the games, it changes the way people play from trying to have a good time to trying to hold on for dear life due to some arbitrary line in the sand picked by the tournament organizers. It really does impact negatively the spirit of our games I think after a sustained period of time, and again I have made no secret whatsoever of my happiness at the end of every single BBT challenge that has been run, to just be able to go back to everyone having a good time in the blonkaments and not playing it like there is so much on the line with every allin, every suckout, every elimination and every double-up.

Similarly, again I made my feelings known when the BBT was brought back late in 2007 for the BBT2, that I thought it was too soon, and in general it just wasn't the right time to basically clog up our last two months of the year of private blogger tournaments like that after already having eaten up three months earlier in the year with the first BBT. Now, I know why the BBT2 happened when it did -- basically we knew there was going to be 40 grand of free stuff related to the WSOP coming at us as a group for the BBT3 if the BBT2 tested well, and full tilt essentially made the BBT2 a part of the package because they wanted to pimp the Aussie Millions challenge. So the decision was made to go ahead with the BBT2 even though the timing was probably not ideal, but it was done for the sake of getting the prizes for the BBT3 to be at the incredible levels they are today.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the end result of all this was as I had feared. We took five out of 12 months of the year in 2007 and tied them up with two separate BBT challenges, under conditions in the blonkaments that I myself have publicly complained about on like a hundred occasions. Maybe some people -- in particulare those who've been part of the community for less than a couple of years here -- aren't bothered in the least by the BBT, and I like that and respect it and have no issue with it. But it bugged me, significantly by the end of it all, with both BBTs during 2007. It really changes the nature of our weekly games in a noticeable way. And it wasn't like it was because I couldn't win, as I am significantly profitable for the three BBTs overall and have won three individual events outright. But it bugged me, it really did. I love a challenge like the BBT, and I strongly suspect that running it once a year for a couple of months would be much better (or less poorly) received by the group as a whole than taking up half the year with it. But changing our regular games from times to just have fun and chat some old friends up to the majority of the time being overshadowed by the underlying prizes available, the "points" structure, etc. has not in my view had a positive effect on the games overall.

Add in the BBT3 now, and that will make 8 out of the last 12 months where our private blogger-hosted tournaments are now part of the week-to-week competition of the BBT and not just a chance for people to come out and have fun. And some people, in particular (understandably) those who were around like I was playing in the regular private events for a long time back before the BBT, before the WPBT, when just getting together and donking it up was the whole point and it seemed like far fewer people acted like monkeys in the chat and got worked up on our blogs about particular suckouts or eliminations or bad hands, are not happy about the change. And like I said, I can understand it. Personally, I think a couple-month challenge one time a year or so is more than fine -- I think that sounds like a really great idea, personally -- but more than that I think obviously really weighs on some people who miss the days when these games were not taken so seriously and people just didn't care so much. I always thought this ever since the BBT was started up early in 2007, I have been perfectly public about that feeling here in the blog and elsewhere, and I guess in the end those of us whose names or whose tournaments are associated with the BBT should expect to be on the receiving end of some criticism or ill feeling from those in the group who are not happy about the very clear changes that the BBT has brought about in our private games.

And that's the most ironic thing to me about some of the stuff that's been said about me over the past week or so -- I actually agree more than most out there with most of the sentiment that has been raised lately, be it about the BBT specifically or about the attitudes of several bloggers playing in the BBT tournaments generally. Although I can't say that I agree exactly with the sentiment involved, a part of me did enjoy the "Circles of blogging hell" posts because, frankly, I have had numerous conversations, both live and in the girly, about the "new crop" of bloggers and how on multiple occasions I have been disappointed in how certain things have gone down, the intentions of some of the people involved and just generally their attitudes about poker, about other bloggers and about things in general. I may not have been at the first few live gatherings in Vegas, but when I joined the group it was still fairly small, at least compared to what it has become nowadays. I easily have the perspective to see how things have changed over the past few years since I started getting involved first in reading poker blogs, then in playing in the private tournaments and eventually to creating my own blog in Autumn of 2005. And in general to be quite honest I can't say that attitudes are improving, at least compared to what I would ultimately like people to act like to each other.

Anyways all this is a very long way of saying how unfortunate I think it is that some of my actions over the past week have rankled some feathers of other bloggers. It isn't the first time by a long shot, and it surely won't be the last. I make no apologies for anything I have done given the circumstances -- I think the particular circumstances of last week's chop clearly say what I want them to say about that whole thing -- but it's not like I am happy when I see guys I respect being pissed at something I did, even if it does not really have any direct effect on the people involved. Oh and btw, to those who still haven't figured this out -- I am an egomaniac. I'm a pompous ass. It's like my defining characteristic. So every time I read a comment where people complain about that, I kinda laugh a little inside. I thought that by making that the explicit tagline of my fucking blog, this would help spread the word so that readers are not surprised by what an egomaniac I come off as in the blog. I guess that still isn't working. Oh well, I'll deal with it. And of course, everyone can make their own decisions about everything they do, but I also kinda laugh when someone shows up in my comments and insults me, my writing and my blog in general, and then I check my stats and I see that person having hit my blog 841 times in just the past year. 841 hits in a year? I must be doing something right for somebody.

OK that's enough rambling for a Monday here. I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!