BBT4 Two-Thirds Done, and Live Poker FTW

First off, congratulations here on this first day of May to Tuscaloosa Johnny, who ran away with the BBT4 April leaderboard victory, nabbing himself a 2k WSOP prize package from full tilt in the process of absolutely manhandling the rest of the field in consistently crushing over the 17 events in the month. 9 cashes and 8 final tables in 17 tournaments later, and TJ finished April with 734 BBT points and change, nearly 35% higher than the 2nd place point total. So congrats to TJ, who looked as unbeatable and unstoppable in April and 1Queensup1 did in March, but you never know how May will end up. These things can be streaky, and a new month means a brand new slate for everybody, even if you ain't done shit yet in the BBT4.

As far as the overall BBT points race goes, TJ's huge April has propelled him into the lead heading into the final month of the BBT4 challenge, with Shabazz Jenkins close on his heels, and with a total of four other players well within 10% of TJ's current BBT4 points total through 2/3 of the challenge. Plus, as I mentioned above, one only needs to look at 1Queensup1's April, or TJ's March for that matter, to see just how streaky these things can be. The bottom line is, if any one person in the top 30 or 40 spots right now manages to win a couple of events in May, this thing is wide open. Two tournament wins in the final month of the BBT should be sufficient to get just about anybody who's played a lot of events into contention, and even one more win for anyone in the top portion of the field should go a long way towards securing a top-whatever finish.

In other news, it looks like I am actually going to be playing some live poker this weekend, for the first time in several months. The plan for now is to meet some friends in Atlantic City on Saturday night, as some of them are seeing Jerry Seinfeld live at Caesar's earlier in the evening. If all goes as planned, I will hopefully be playing in the weekly Saturday night 8pm ET tournament at Bally's, under the same roof as Caesar's, since that timing works best for me on a Saturday and since it's the same building where my group will already be. This looks like it's the biggest regular weekly tournament offered at Ballys, but the 8pm start time is better than some other options in AC given that I will be driving forever to get home once I leave, hopefully well into the morning hours. I'm guessing I'm looking at roughly 145 miles door-to-door from where I live to the Bally's garage, so you can do the math to know that the earlier I can get started, the better. But like when I play online, I'm not looking to play during family time during the weekend daytime, and I have lots of fun things planned with the girls this weekend including M's kickball game and a birthday party with K.

So wish me luck. Last time I played live poker in Atlantic City, I took second for about $880 in a $50 buyin event at the Taj Mahal. I haven't been to Billy's poker room at Bally's since I was a kid, but all that time I spent hustling the locals at 1-3 stud hilo was mostly at Billy's in the '80s and '90s, so hopefully I will have some sense of feeling "at home" and can settle in to win some chips early on. Any of you local guys who are in the area, feel free to stop by around final table time to see me take down my first of these nightly live tournaments in Atlantic City. And in fact, I'll bring my trusty WSOP pad with me and see if I can't blog some of the interesting hands I face here next week. Which by the way will be a short week for me as I am taking the family on a day-trip on Monday that may prevent me from posting here that day as I normally would. Back and better than ever on Tuesday though, you can count on that.