The Buddy and the BBT

Well, tonight is Event #3 of the BBT5, and I'm sad to say I'm not going to be there to join in the festivities. Or rather, my buyin will be there, and my avatar will be there, but I won't be. I have plans tonight that will keep me out until after the last of my stack is likely blinded away this evening when the first Mookie tournament of the latest BBT goes off at 10pm ET on full tilt, but I figure it is only fair for me to contribute my $10 to whoever has the sack to take me down.

And while we're on the topic, ever since I discovered several weeks back that it was now BuddyDank who has taken over organizing and running the Mookie, while Mookie has basically withdrawn from blogging, playing poker and from being involved with his old tournament, I've been referring to this tournament as what it really is: The Buddy. So that up there was the last time you will hear me refer to the Buddy as the Mookie, when talking about it from this point forward. Sure, when we reminisce about what this tournament once was for our group back in the day, it's the Mookie. I'm not trying to rewrite history here. But I'm also not for continuing to call a tournament by the name of its former organizer when that guy is no longer a contributing member of our group, and while another guy who is a contributing member of the group in a big, huge way is now hosting and running it. And broadcasting live on the radio via internet during it!

So that's it. The Wednesday night tournament is "the Buddy" in Hoy's world and has been for some time. The Mookie had an awesome run, but just like the new Monday night Poker From the Rail tournament isn't called the Hoy or the MATH anymore, the Buddy shouldn't still be called the Mookie either.

So tonight is the Buddy, the first Buddy of the BBT5. It should be a blast. With the new PFTR tournament on Monday getting what, mid-80s for participation, the Buddy tonight ought probably to get over 100, maybe even solidly so? It's always hard to tell with these things but I mean if 85 or whatever ponied up the $26 the other day for a brand new tournament, then a long-running tournament with a new name (the Buddy FTW!) ought to draw in considerably more than that in these BBT times, one would think.

The BBT has been fun so far, and I think there are several things that combine to make this easily the best conceived and best structured BBT ever. First off, unlike the FTOPS which seems to be going on in one of its many forms almost every few weeks at this point on full tilt, the BBT has smartly been reduced to a once a year thing. When it's been 11 months since we last geared up for a series like this, it feels a whole lot better to get into the grind than when we just did it four or five months earlier. By the time Al announced the BBT5 a few weeks back, the blogging public was rip-roaring ready for it, and the fact that it was such a surprise to have back at all really added to that.

Secondly, the grind that is a tournament series like the BBT has been significantly and smartly reduced this time around. When we first started the BBT, I think we used to run somewhere around 55 events over a three-month period, and frankly, to me that did not seem like too long of a time. In fact, back then were it up to me, we could have run the BBT like the WPBT and just kept score over the entire calendar year, and I would have been down with that. At first, the prospect of getting some friendly competition going and seeing who can do the best in the private games was an awesome one, and like I said, personally I would have loved to have seen it last all year long.

But once we ran these 55-event series a few times, we all seemed to realize the same thing: we like our private blogger tournaments to just be relaxing, enjoyable times to chat and donk around sometimes, without the pressure that comes along with everybody playing for big, big prizes and a shot at serious cashish. After three months straight of every blogger tournament, every week, full of pressure-cooker situations, dirty chat and a lot of hard feelings and jealousy for thirteen straight weeks, most of us had really had enough. It became a serious grind, one where you felt like you didn't want to miss any of the events, so you end up getting all worked up to play four or five nights a week and you feel like you can't skip it, and it just feeds off itself and in the end it just felt too long to most people it seems.

The BBT5 fixes this in that the whole series lasts just six weeks. Now, that will also make it correspondingly more difficult to get in to the series-ending Tournament of Champions, since there will be a maximum of only 24 chances to get in instead of more than twice that many as we have had in past years. But you gotta give a little to get a little. And on the good front, the whole series takes up just six weeks of our lives. I think that is a major improvement that I imagine most of the participants appreciate as well.

In addition to helping make the series less of a grind by making it last a shorter number of weeks, another smart move from Al and full tilt this time around was including fewer tournaments per week in the series. This year we are just looking at the new PFTR tournament on Monday nights at 10pm ET and the Buddy on Wednesday nights at 10pm ET. For those in the Invitational tournament, that is a third tournament each week, on Sunday nights at 7pm ET. So for most players out there, the BBT5 is just two tourneys a week, and some of us a third as well, which is much better than back in the day when we had the Big Game every Sunday night, the MATH on Mondays, the Skills on Tuesdays and the Mookie (remember when it was called the Mookie?) on Wednesdays? I know the Riverchasers was in there on Thursdays for some time as well, but I don't think we ever had a 5-nights-a-week BBT, but I know we've had multiple weeks with four tournaments week in and week out. And again, especially once we shifted over to a Tournament of Champions-based structure for the final tournament, it was hard to let yourself miss many of these tournaments if you really wanted to play for the big prizes, so in the end we would spend 13 straight weeks each getting it up four nights in a row every single week, and it all really contributed to the grind in a big way.

Nowadays, the BBT5 is just twice a week for the open events, and once more early on Sunday nights for the Invitational. And the whole thing lasts six weeks to determine the winners. This is a much kinder, gentler, and far more user-friendly BBT than we have ever had before, and yet as far as I can tell prizes are better than ever before, including three WSOP ME seats if I recall correctly. That is some sick shizznit right there.

Oh, I should also mention the other thing I love about the Invitational part of the BBT5 is that it awards ToC seats to the top two finishers, not just the overall winner. I know as well as anyone how hard it is to win a tournament -- I do play 999 mtt's a night and often go months and months without any scores as I know you know -- and to me it is a significant difference to award seats to the top two instead of just to #1. For one thing, with around 80 runners invited to each event, that absolutely gives each one of us twice as good of a chance of getting in to the ToC. I'm not saying everybody in the Invitational field has the exact same mathematical odds of making the ToC, which I'm sure is not the case, but no matter what your odds are, they are going to basically double when we add a second seat to each Invitational tournament, plain and simple. Without a doubt in my mind it is significant easier to finish second or first, than just to finish first in any tournament field, and this consideration can even have a definite effect on proper strategy at the final table in these events depending on stack sizes, which is an area where I feel good skill players can really excel.

Oh -- and the fact that there is no buyin and a $2000 prize pool for each of these Invitational freerolls ain't bad either!

So I won't be at the Buddy tonight, but you definitely should be. It's at 10pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "vegas1". I'm looking for well into triple-digits in participants, with the winner nabbing some nice cash in addition to a seat in the BBT5-ending Tournament of Champions in late May. And if you're lucky you might even be at my table when I arrive home at 11:40pm and insta-push my last 200 chips into the middle with that 72o preflop.