BBT Cumulative Review

Well here's a post I had mostly written a couple of months back but just never got around to finishing and posting. With Al announcing that the BBT4 will be the final BBT run by full tilt, at some point before leaving for Las Vegas this past summer, I took the time to review all four of the BBT final leaderboards, ranging back from BBT1 in the summer of 2007 to BBT2 in the Winter of 2007, then BBT3 in Summer 2008 and finally BBT4 in Summer 2009. I tried to spot trends or patterns among some of the more prominent and/or more successful individual players, as I figured it made sense to try to come up with some cumulative way of measuring people's performance over four grueling tournament series spanning over two full years of play from the start of the first to the end of the last.

First, there are a few disclaimers to be set out. Like, anything cumulative automatically puts at a significant disadvantage anybody who was not around playing in the early days of the BBT. It also hurts those who just haven't had the time to play all of the events like some people have, as well as those who missed an entire series or more whether due to bankroll issues, availability, timing, etc. On a different point, remember that the formula for assigning BBT points was changed after the BBT1, with BBT1 awarding points to the top 50% of finishers in each event, while BBT2-BBT4 awarded points to I think only the top 25%. So that makes the first BBT a little out of whack as far as balance with the rest of the series for those categories involving total BBT points won. Lastly, recall that the first BBT also did not feature a Tournament of Champions at the end, but rather a freeroll for the top 50 players on the leaderboard plus the most frequent players during the series, while the last three BBT series did include a series-ending ToC. This increased dramatically not only the interest in, but the competition involved in, winning a BBT event in the final three series as opposed to how things were back during BBT1.

Shortly after the last BBT ended, I took a close look at all four BBT final leaderboards, looking for people who showed up regularly near the top in at least two or three of the series, trying to figure out who the best overall BBT performers were over the entire lifetime of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments. In the end I narrowed things down to 20 players whose numbers I delved into in more detail, representing a smattering of what I believe to be the top overall BBT performers plus a few others I thought people might be interested in seeing cumulatively. I did not take into account performances in any Tournaments of Champions or series-ending freerolls, opting instead to just evaluate everyone's performance over the "regular season" BBT events, which included 39 events from BBT1, 27 events from BBT2, and 56 events in each of BBT3 and BBT4, for a grand total of 178 BBT tournaments played over the lifetime of the BBT. I also did not include the total one-hit wonders -- guys like Scott Fischman for example, who played in exactly one BBT event, winning it of course after playing I think worse than even that 13-year-old who stole the Riverchasers from me that one night way back when. I tried to limit my list of 20 BBT participants to people who had played in a fair number of the events over the last few years, except for one or two guys who might have some particularly interesting stats but haven't played quite as many events as the rest of the big scorers.

So, to review and be perfectly clear, in compiling the below I only spent time looking at the people included in the below list. If you think you should have been included in the below because your performance throughout the all four BBT series was better in some areas than some of the people below, you could be right. If you think I have omitted something you did or accomplished during the four BBT series, you might be right. In fact, if you think I got your numbers wrong and have accidentally made an error in any of the calculations below, again you could be right. Shit, if you think I have purposefully misstated any figures in the below chart just to make you look bad or make you seem like a bad player, who knows you could be right about that too. This compilation list is not official, full tilt hasn't seen it, I haven't consulted Al or anyone else about it, and I did not check my work. I just looked at the posted leaderboards for each of the four BBT series, did some quick math -- most in my head instead of by calculator at that -- and wrote down the results I came up with. And I rounded everything to the nearest dollar or nearest whole BBT point just to make it even easier and less precise. So take it all for what it's worth.

Here's what I came up with after some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations for the players I reviewed, in no particular order other than the one I happened to list them in:

	Player	Wins	Win %	Final Tables	In the Points	In the Money	Events Played	BBT Points	Points/Event	Money Earned	Money/Event
1	bayne_s	4	.023	26	57	19	169	3709	21.95	$3151	$18.64
2	1Queensup1	3	.057	15	20	14	32	1743	33.51	$2290	$71.56
3	Buddydank	2	.016	22	56	19	124	3376	27.23	$2596	$20.94
4	Heffmike	4	.034	23	39	21	119	2983	25.07	$2580	$21.68
5	jjok	2	.050	6	18	6	40	1233	30.83	$1020	$25.50
6	jeciimd	2	.015	21	58	21	128	3715	29.02	$3788	$29.59
7	Hoyazo	4	.027	22	44	25	146	3444	23.59	$4592	$31.45
8	Shabazz Jenkins	2	.020	18	35	21	102	1033	10.12	$1314	$12.88
9	Astin	3	.023	21	43	19	132	3371	25.54	$4578	$34.68
10	pvanharibo	1	.007	17	35	16	143	2587	18.09	$2109	$14.75
11	Waffles	1	.008	15	38	17	118	2516	21.32	$1733	$14.69
12	Mike Maloney	2	.027	12	30	15	73	2071	28.36	$2342	$32.08
13	smokkee	3	.026	16	43	15	116	2685	23.15	$1476	$12.72
14	Pirate Wes (a10412)	0	.000	17	40	16	105	2636	25.10	$2292	$21.83
15	lucko21	6	.042	17	34	16	142	2921	20.57	$3243	$22.83
16	DDionysus	1	.007	23	50	21	135	3205	23.74	$2670	$19.77
17	twoblackaces	2	.016	20	39	20	124	3002	24.20	$2480	$20.00
18	Tuscaloosa John	5	.050	22	48	25	101	3776	37.38	$3777	$37.40
19	HighonPoker	4	.059	15	25	13	67	2127	31.74	$2029	$30.28
20	NewinNov	1	.007	25	51	19	140	2996	21.40	$1664	$11.88

SO there you have it. Above I have highlighted in red font the best total score in each category. The figures highlighted in green font represent those figures which are at or above the leader for that category, but which did not play a minimum number of events to be what I am considering "qualifying" scores for all four BBT series taken cumulatively. Anybody who played in fewer than 100 events total out of the 178 tournaments in BBT1 - BBT4 got a green font for any higher-than-highest scores they achieved. For example, 1Queensup1 utterly destroyed in BBT4, winning outright in 3 out of the 52 total BBT events he played, but he never played in any of the first three BBT series. So his incredible numbers across the board in BBT4 are in green because he killed it but only did so over 52 total events, a far cry in sample size from those with 100 or even 150 BBT tournaments played.

What conclusions can we draw from the figures above?

For starters, kudos to bayne, winner of the first BBT, for making more final tables than anyone else throughout the course of the four tournament series. And although bayne was not nearly as hot after BBT1 as he was during the original BBT, more than half of those final tables came from BBT2 - BBT4, so bayne is someone who was strong in terms of final tables throughout the 2+ years of BBT competition.

Similarly, there is lucko who won the most BBT events overall with 6. Lucko is also the only participant who won at least one event in each of the four BBT series. While lucko's overall cumulative numbers are not as strong as some of the other people on the above list, winning 6 events in 142 appearances against this crowd is quite an accomplishment, and I think it speaks volumes about lucko's overall playing style in blogger tournaments generally. Lucko isn't going to win in cumulative BBT points because, like many of the more successful poker tournament players in our group, his style is just too aggressive too early, leading to too many early bustouts to compete in those categories against the fold-to-the-points types, of which there have been many throughout the four BBT series we have run. But, give that boy some chips and he becomes an absolute monster, including winning more events than anybody else over the past couple of years, which is very impressive I think no matter how you slice it. Special mention should be made here, however, of three other players who really shined in terms of outright winning BBT events. First is 1Queensup1, who as I mentioned above somehow managed to win 3 BBT titles in just 52 events played. I'm still trying to figure out how someone can run so hot during three months of nearly 20 tournaments a month. Secondly there is Jordan from Highonpoker, who busted out of nowhere with four wins during just the BBT4 for a .059 win percentage overall through just 67 events over all four BBTs, a truly incredible feat given the crowd being played against here. And lastly there is Tuscaloosa Johnny, a name you just can't get away from when reviewing the four BBT series in their entirety, who won 5 events -- one fewer than lucko -- but did so in just 101 total tournaments, meaning TJ came up with a win for every 20 BBT tournaments he played overall, giving him the category lead for win % with at least 100 events played. Really incredible.

Jeciimd deserves mention as well I think in that he ended the BBT with the most "in the points" finishes of anybody who played, and although jec logged a lot of events at 128, that number is less than many others on the list which only makes jec's ITP accomplishment all the more impressive. 58 out of 128 BBT tournaments in the points, making the points an astonishing 45.3% of the time. It might be tempting to think this gives jec the crown of being the best fold-to-the-points guy in the group -- and there was a time during the first two BBTs where there might have been some merit to that position -- but by the end jec finished having won $3,788 net from the BBT series, not to mention winning the BBT2 ToC and the 12k Aussie Millions package back in December 2007. Once again Tuscaloosa Johnny and his 37.38 BBT points per tournament played won out overall in this category. TJ also just edged out jec in total BBT points obtained with 3776 over the lifetime of the four BBT series.

As far as money won from the BBT overall, this is where I really shined as I tied with Tuscaloosa Johnny with the most ITM finishes at 25 (mine albeit in far more events than TJ). I also just barely eked out a win in total cumulative cash winnings with $4,592 over 146 events in four series, although Astin finished just behind me with a total of $4,578, again over 14 fewer tournaments. Like me, Astin had three very strong BBTs -- winning $734 in BBT1, $1,800 in BBT2 and $1,892 in BBT3 before crashing and burning in BBT4. My bugaboo was the BBT2, the only two-month challenge we ran, as I nabbed $1,600 in winnings in the first BBT, $1,602 in BBT3 and $1,234 in BBT4. In cash won per event played, again 1Queensup1 recorded a seriously incredible figure of over $44 won per BBT tournament over just the 52 tournaments he played in BBT4, but the category title again goes to Tuscaloosa Johnny and his $37.40 won per BBT event with a minimum of 100 total BBT tournaments played.

In all, what guys like 1Queensup1, Jordan and jjok did in low numbers of events overall is really amazing when these guys were all in competition for the rest of us, fighting hard in each and every event. Six players total ended the four series with at least four BBT wins, but Queens, jjok and Jordan did so in far fewer events than anybody else on that list. Ten players posted at least 20 final table finishes, and only five can boast making the BBT points in at least 50 events overall. Bayne has to be the clear winner in frequency and availability, showing up for 169 out of 178 total BBT tournaments, which is a testament to his dedication to the series as a whole. Eight participants ended the series run with at least 3000 BBT points won, and six of us finished with at least $3000 in net cash winnings from the BBT.

And in the end, looking at the above chart, there is just one inescapable conclusion from everything: Tuscaloosa Johnny pwned us all. I mean, this guy won BBT events outright with the highest percentage of anybody with more than 67 events played. He finished in the money tied for the most times with 25, again leading in percentage terms by making the money in just under 25% of the BBT events he played. TJ amassed the most overall BBT points, the most BBT points per event, and the most money won per event played. And the amazing thing is, TJ only played in the BBT3 and the BBT4! Anyone looking to decipher the way to beat the bloggers over the long run would do well to mimic whatever it is that Tuscaloosa Johnny has done to the rest of us over the past couple of years on full tilt.