Battle of the Blonkaments

Man, everywhere I look these days there is another post about the upcoming BBT4. I laugh because half of those posting about how much they are looking forward to playing in the series are the exact same people who were acting like tantruming children a year ago the last time we "got together" to do a BBT series. And believe me, if anyone knows about children having tantrums, it's me.

So let's see, this is four events per week from March 1 through May 31, plus three Big Games as well for good measure. That's thirteen weeks, four events per week for 52 tournaments, plus the three Big Games will make for 55 events total in BBT4, with buyins ranging from $5 to $75.

55 tournaments over three months. And with a whole lot at stake, as full tilt has once again come through in a big way with two Main Event seats to the World Series of Poker (typically these have come as $12k prize packages in the past) plus five WSOP preliminary event packages, which are worth $2k apiece. Al has indicated that there are likely more prizes to come (maybe those of us who finished in the top 20 in the BBT3 will be given the opportunity to "win" our FTP jerseys back again this time around?), but 34 grand is already quite a package for full tilt to be putting up just for a bunch of blonkeys to get together and play some pokah. So it's not like this is chump change here by a long shot. And, I have made no secret of my intention to make it back to Las Vegas this summer to play once again in the WSOP. Although we're not quite officially set in stone yet, the frontrunning weekend right now for the Hoy 2009 Vegas trip is looking like the weekend of June 27-28. Actually if all goes according to plan, I will be arriving in Vegas on Thursday or Friday, June 25 or 26, and staying until sometime early the following week. And there just happens to be a $1500 no-limit holdem tournament as part of the World Series that plays on Saturday the 27th at 12pm local time, which I definitely intend to be in on. So clearly, the money and prizes available in the BBT4 are much more than enough to capture my attention.

That said, I haven't exactly been playing a lot of blogger tournaments lately, have I? Sure, once in a while I will drop in if I've got nothing else going on, but in general I have really gotten away from regularly playing these things over the past year or so, really since the BBT3 ended. My god do you remember that bullshit from the BBT3? Talk about bringing out the ugliest, most pathetic sides of some people. It's a sad thing to have witnessed, in my case from the inside as I formerly hosted a tournament in the first three BBT series, but whereas I found the first BBT to be good, clean fun for the most part, I think the newness wore off on that somewhere along the way. By the time we got to the second and finally the third BBT series, several of the bloggers involved were pretty much regularly acting like assholes. Is it any wonder that attendance at blonkaments overall is what, down by 2/3 from a year or two or three ago?

So, the question is, will I be able to stay away from the BBT4? For a guy who has barely missed a single tournament in the first three BBT series, what's the over-under on the number of BBT4 tournaments will I end up playing in?