BBT3 ToC Predictions

Here it comes. Although today is only going to be sunny and around 80 degrees in the afternoon, Saturday not only features the BBT3 Tournament of Champions in the late afternoon (5pm ET) but it is also expected to something like 96 degrees for the next three days in New York City. The first heat wave of 2008 where I live will coincide with the BBT3 ToC, my wife is furious with me as I mentioned to have to play at 5pm, and I will just have to find a way to try to get to my happy place to be able to play well. I'm sure most of you are familiar with wife tilt or girlfriend tilt. I've had FTOPS Main Events, live WSOP tournaments, Bracelet Races, and every kind of blogger tournament imaginable where I had to try to find a way to play my best while also dodging thrown sharp metal objects and every insult known to man. It's good times. So hopefully I can get where I need to be before Saturday's big BBT series ender.

OK time for those predictions. One more time here is the list of all 46 players in this Saturday afternoon's BBT3 Tournament of Champions:

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 remember again, out of 46 runners, the top 4 will cash in some way, with the top 2 winning 12k WSOP ME packages and the 3rd and 4th place finishers winning 2k WSOP packages as well. After thinking this over for some time, I think rather than insult some people I will just provide odds for those players who I believe have better odds to end in the top 4 than the "natural odds" of 1 in 11.5 (since 4 out of 46 runners will in fact reach the cash in this tournament based on the payout structure). This will amount to around half the field, and those not on my list are simply the players who I see as having 10.5 to 1 or worse odds of cashing. Nothing more. Not a commentary on their play, their intelligence, their odor or anything else other than the consistency of their play in the blonkaments in general, which is the most relevant factor I can find when it comes to predicting the results in any one given tournament event.

OK no more beating around the bush. As we all know, the most likely player to finish in the top 4 or in the top 2 is obviously this guy. You know it. I know it. He knows it. We all know it. He's playing the best in mtt's generally, and he's playing right near the best in the blonkaments overall. Lucko is without a doubt right at the top of the list.

But it's not like he is greater than 50% to cash or anything. He probably had 5 or 6 top-4 finishes throughout 50-some events of the BBT, so even when running hot over a whole series, the odds are nowhere near more likely than not that a player of Lucko's caliber cashes in the top 4. I'm thinking Lucko's odds of finishing in the top 4 are better than any other individual player among the 46 of us BBT3 tournament victors, but they still can't be better than what, 1 in 6 to cash in the top 4 places, right? I would say 5 to 1 for Lucko to cash.

The next most likely player to cash I think has got to be Tuscaloosa Johnny. I had not realized this at first, but Tusca not only won the 2k WSOP prize package for being BBT3 Player of the Month for March, but he won that same thing again for May! That right there is as much of a crushing as the BBT has ever seen. The same guy wins the best BBT player in two of the three months of the challenge? Sizznick. Anyways that is more proof than anyone even needs if you played a lot of these things that Tuscy has a very good chance of surviving to near the end. He can play a very different style from a Lucko in general, and yet both have proven extremely successful in the blonkaments over the past few months, pretty much all of which had significantly more runners than the 46 set up to fight it out in the ToC on Saturday afternoon. With Tusca, I will set the odds at just barely worse than Lucko's, let's say 6 to 1 to Tusca to cash in the top 4 spots in the tournament.

No way any blonkament can ever leave surflexus out of the equation, what with his 85 career Mookie wins and probably another two or three hundred other blonkament victories to go with them. I'm laying the odds there at around 7 to 1 for some kind of a cash.

Shabazz Jenkins and twoblackaces. I like both of these players, both performed well during the BBT with at least a small handful of deep runs. Both seemed to be playing well as the challenge came to a close, and I lay odds on both of them somewhere around 7 to 1 to cash.

Cmitch. Any reader here knows I love cmitch's game. He does not focus nearly as much on tournaments as he could, and as a result he doesn't have a huge number of significant mtt scores, but he's done enough in the tournaments he's played, including once again several deep BBT3 tournament runs including in a few of the biggest games. Also 7 to 1.

PokahDave (or DDionysus, whichever you prefer). This guy was another surprise for me who recorded again a number of very deep runs, including two if not three heads-up finishes during the BBT3. Dave is obviously a better player than I had previously given him credit for, and I lay his odds at just worse than the previous crowd, around 7.5 to 1 for a BBT3 cash.

Loretta8, hellory, dwal78. The three original gbiffs of the BBT all have the aggro game to win with a little help from the cards. All probably better than average chances to score a cash in the BBT. Let's say 8 to 1 for Loretta due to his strong performance around the middle of the BBT3, and 9 to 1 for the other two of these guys.

OMGItsPokerFool is a 9 to 1 guy in my mind. He hasn't been a huge blogger tournament winner over time, but he hasn't played in so many of the events, and he came out of nowhere with some consistent attempts during the BBT3 with two separate event wins. I can't put him right up at the top of the list, but again he is clearly someone with a better than average chance to win in my view.

Another 9 to 1'er is columbo. Columbo has been playing some bad poker per his blog lately, which is why he isn't even higher on this list than he is. But the man has obvious skills and displays them regularly these days in the blonkaments. Definitely above average chances of cashing in the BBT3 ToC.

OK at 10 to 1 I'm going to include everyone else I haven't mentioned already who won more than once BBT3 tournament. So that includes JD Schellnutt, corron10, Evil Wonka, wormmsu and Chippy McStacks. With the "natural odds" of cashing set at 11.5 to 1 (4 out of 46 get paid), in my book every player good enough to win two or more ToC seats is obviously worthy of better than the natural odds based purely on the number of cashers compared to the number of total players in the Tournament of Champions.

Also at 10 to 1 I would place perennial strong nlh tournament player Scottmc. Scott has demonstrated himself to be tricky, trappy and able to get paid and to steal with the best of us, and I definitely see him as above the "natural" 11.5 to 1 odds to cash in this thing.

The last three players I will include on the "better than natural" odds to cash list are generally tight, careful players whose style could help them to last deep when they can hopefully go on a rush or pick up a big hand or draw and get into position to win. Those three players are swimmom95, Byron and katiemother. These three I will put in at 10.5 to 1 to make some kind of cash in the BBT3 ToC this weekend.

Lastly, I should mention red FTP pro Scott Fischman. If you recall, Fischman donkeypunched his way through to the win in the very first BBT3 tournament, that first Big Game with like 105 entrants and a 50 million dollar prize pool. Now, even though Fisch is a big time pro and all, it's not like I think he is 4 to 1 or something to finish in the top 4 in this thing. I do expect him to take the tournament seriously though, and for that reason I have to expect his odds to be well above average for the ToC. Let's pencil him in at around 8 to 1 as well.

So here's my grand total of players I am providing better than average odds on today for cashing in the top 4 spots of this Saturday afternoon's BBT3 Tournament of Champions.:

Lucko21 5:1
Tuscaloosa Johnny 6:1
Surflexus 7:1
Twoblackaces 7:1
Shabazz Jenkins 7:1
cmitch 7:1
PokahDave / DDionysus 7.5:1
Loretta8 8:1
Scott Fischman 8:1
hellory 9:1
dwal78 9:1
OMGItsPokerFool 9:1
columbo 9:1
JD Schellnutt 10:1
Evil Wonka 10:1
corron10 10:1
Chippy McStacks 10:1
wormmsu 10:1
scottmc 10:1
swimmom95 10.5:1
bdidde 10.5:1
katiemother 10.5:1

Of course, present company has been completely excluded from the above odds figures, but then if you count them up, I said I would do half the field above the "natural" odds of 11.5 to 1 and half the field below, and yet the above list only contains 22 and not 23 names. So you can take from that what you will. And again, if you do not see a particular name on my above odds list, it simply means that I don't think that person's odds of cashing are better than 11 to 1. Some of those not mentioned are probably around 12 to 1, and others are much lower than that. I would estimate that the worst player on that entire list (and yes I know exactly who that is) still probably has about a 20 or 25 to 1 chance of cashing I would say, as it's just not that impossible to finish in the top 4 out of 46 runners in a tournament, but there are a number of people on the list who have had a whole lot of trouble reaching final tables with any consistency in their entire playing careers, during the BBT3 or even just over the past month or so, and when I have to pick someone to make it to the top half of the final table I am always going to be inclined to go more with the hot hands than people who have not been there often before.

So there you have it. My predictions for the most likely players to cash in the BBT ToC this weekend. Again, don't forget to stop by to check out the action, even later in the evening as Al managed to secure a kickass structure with several added, levels and relatively slow blinds escalation as well, which hopefully should increase the weight of skill play and lessen the import of luck in the overall tournament results.

Any guesses from anyone as to the sleepers in this thing? It is likely that at least 1 of the 4 players who receive payouts from the BBT3 ToC will be someone unexpected. Any predictions for people not mentioned in my odds above?

And don't forget, this past Monday at Mondays at the Hoy, Astin and chitwood each won $216 entries into this coming Sunday afternoon at 6pm ET's 750k guaranteed nlh tournament on full tilt. Not sure if either or both will be playing, but let's hope they are and don't forget to stop by and cheer them on as well if you log on around that time and see them still alive in the largest of the weekly guaranteed tournaments on full tilt. With all that plus of course the donkament tonight at 9pm ET (password as always is "donkarama") and the Sunday Heads-Up tournament (password = "shovemonkey"), it is shaping up to be quite the busy weekend for us over at full tilt poker. Best of luck to everyone in the ToC, and even those not in the ToC who might be playing some poker either live or online over the next few days. And if you're in New York City, stay cizznoool as best you can.