BBT and Bodog ToCs, and More on the Late-Game MTT Question

Two blogger tournaments for me since the BBT3 ended, and two final tables so far.

And zero cashes.

Delicious. But I am playing well, and in fact if you count the Sunday Heads-Up which started around the same time as the BBT ended, I am 3 for 3 in final tables. So I'm playing good poker overall and that is of course the most important thing. It's always the most important thing when compared to actual results, which can be skewed by short-term luck and other variance-related fluctuations, but I think of the quality of my play as being especially important with my trip to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker coming up.

One week away now. I am so utterly and completely swamped at work that, if this isn't obvious already, I haven't really even come up for air enough to think about how very close my annual WSOP pilgrimage to the poker Mecca of the universe is, but that's it right there. One week. Seven days from now, I will be kissing the wife and kids goodbye and jumping on a jet plane for 5 hours before rolling into Sin City around midnight local time and registering myself for the $2000 buyin nlh World Series of Poker tournament on Thursday, June 12. Just one week, just seven days. It's a measly 168 hours from now, and just over 10,000 minutes. And if you figure that about a quarter of that remaining time will see me in bed sleeping, it's sort of even closer than that. One week. One week.

OK so with the BBT3 ending its run this past weekend with last Sunday night's Big Game, and now with the Bodonk ending its WSOP run this week as well, I thought I would take a quick look at the fields in each, and begin the process of handicapping various people's chances of finishing in the money and heading to the WSOP this year from these two awesome setups awarding WSOP seats to bloggers essentially for free. It will be a few more days before I come to any conclusions as far as making picks or spotting trends, but that's ok because I have a few more days before this coming Saturday afternoon's BBT3 Tournament of Champions. Yes, the one I am in because I won the Skills Stud-8 event back in event #28 I believe of the BBT3. And the Bodonk ToC is scheduled for next Tuesday night, a smarter way to do it since the players in the Bodonkey challenge are already free on Tuesday nights to have been playing every week in the tournament. Saturday afternoon at 5pm ET is already cauing me major flak at home, and to be honest with you, I can't blame my wife. We have frigging BBT tournaments at this point every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night already, the people in the ToC therefore are used to playing blonkaments Monday through Thursday nights, to being available at those times usually and to already have clearance to play at those hours. For me to just plop down on a Saturday at 5pm ET, I am getting killed for this at home. But what am I going to do? Not play in the ToC now that I've qualified for it? Come on. So instead I am just the asshole this weekend playing poker during family time. I still can't believe that's the situation, but it is what it is and I understand that these things were scheduled a long time ago and cannot be changed now. But dam what a bad, thoughtless decision. As if a Saturday wasn't bad enough, it goes at 5pm ET on a Saturday. Just crushing.

So first, let's take a look at the complete suite of winners from the two blogger tournament challenge series (I am deleting out the 10 multiple BBT3 winners so that all that shows on this list are the 46 players who won at least one BBT3 tournament):

BBT3 TOC Winners:

Scott Fischman
columbo
corron10
twoblackaces
TuscaloosaJohn
lucko21
Smokkee
swimmom95
dwal78
Chippy McStacks
pureprophet
ScottMc
tilt away
hellory
GottaWinSum
misogynist
Breeze81
Martyr99
wwonka69
katiemother
PokahDave
Loretta8
SirFWALGMan
RecessRampage
iam23skidoo
hoyazo
MEMPHIS00
ShipFaced12
wormmsu
DonkeyPuncher74
PirateLawyer
RNallin
cmitch
surflexus
oossuuu754
bdidde
JD Schellnutt
heffmike
OMGitsPokerFool
Shabazz Jenkins
Julkeus
lilkimmer77
Astin
Bone_Daddy84
scottc25
maneki_neko


And the Bodog ToC winners, which is not at all a "Tournament of Champions" since apparently it's not based on winners of individual events but rather just the top 18 finishers in the points race. And wait a minute, wasn't Smokkee the guy doing so much complaining about the BBT ToC not really being a ToC due to some tournament chops involved along the way? Check your mirror young man before you cast aspersions perhaps? Anyways, here are the Bodonkey "ToC" winners:

1 Newinnov 8 723.64
2 smokkee 9 499.53
3 emptyman 6 450.01
4 ICrushBloggers 6 448.99
5 Drizztdj 7 439.74
6 MiamiDon 7 435.56
7 donkette 6 423.71
8 GoldenHammer 7 418.91
9 vin_nay 5 379.47
10 cbags 7 374.38
11 WhatsTheNuts 6 370.98
12 InstantTragedy 6 370.89
13 JL514 6 370.44
14 ScottMc 7 362.74
15 Columbo777 6 355.12
16 yestbay1 5 352.90
17 JD Schellnutt 8 351.71
18 BuddyDank 6 351.59

So I thought for starters it might be interesting to see who shows up on both lists, which would be indiciative of someone playing very solid tournament poker and who probably has a better than average chance of making some noise in one or both of these things. Now granted, since I have a general policy of not liking to play on the very worst and most check-bouncy of poker clients, I am not 100% sure at all of who every player on the Bodog list is, but with most of them it is obviously pretty self-explanatory.

So, for our double-ToC cashers, I see JD Schellnutt, who sneaked into 17th place on the Bodog list and who also won not one but two BBT3 tournaments in rapid succession in the second half of the challenge. This is not a guy who has had a huge resume of blonkament wins, but he can play the game and he obviously has some skills against this particular field of monkeydonks.

We've also got Columbo and Scottmc who won BBT events and also finished mid-teens in the Bodonkey series, both of whom are more than capable of winning out in either or both ToC tournaments.

And I only recognize one other player from the Bodog list who also won a BBT3 tournament this time around, and that is none other than Bodog host Smokkee himself. Smokkee sucked out his way to I think a PLO victory early on in the BBT3, and he ends the Bodog series in second place on the top 18 leaderboard as well after winning this week despite (or thanks to) the $270 bounty placed on his head for the final Bodonkey tournament. I saw some of the hands people were taking up allin against him for giant pots in this thing, and it seems pretty clear that Smokkee really got the benefit of people playing like complete jackasses against him during the evening of his big win.

In any event, that is it as far as I recognize of players who finished in the Tournament of Champions in both the Bodog and the BBT3: JD Schellnutt, Columbo, Scottmc and Smokkee. Are these the four guys with the best chance of cashing in one or both of the upcoming Tournament of Champions? More on my thoughts on that later this week.

Oh and btw, the EP2 player in the hand I posted about yesterday actually folded AKs. I think I soiled myself when I saw him fold that hand right when it happened, although I have to admit, he went on to survive far enough into the tournament that I guess I have to question the merits of calling the push with still a third player to act behind you, which could make even AKs a wise fold in that spot. Can't say as I am folding AKs in that situation, pretty much ever, let alone in a game full of blonkeys.

See you all tonight at the Mookie. 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "vegas1".