BBT, Can It Be?

Did I hear correctly this weekend that all three people who won the WSOP Main Event prize package in the BBT5 this past spring all took the $T on full tilt instead of playing in the Main Event?

Do people even want there to be more BBTs and more free stuff for us?

I mean, can this even be possible?

The best part about this is that people blew their effing tops for days on end when Al first announced earlier this year that the BBT Invitational was going to be just that -- an invitational -- extended only to those people that full tilt felt were a good gamble to actually use the money they graciously hand out to ungrateful bloggers every year to actually play in the actual World Series of Poker. Full tilt wanted the invitational because in the past people just would not use full tilt's funds to play in poker tournaments. They also wouldn't blog about the tournaments, even the few times when past BBT winners did actually play in the events they won prize packages to in the BBT.

One of the things I always try to teach my kids and the others around me is ownership of your decisions. If I decide to take a big risk and willingly don't use my seat belt whenever I drive 5 miles or less from my house, then you won't hear me complaining that my car was unsafe when I do get into an accident close to home and suffer worse injuries than I would have if I had chosen to wear the belt. If I decide I'm going to make a bunch of flagrantly racist or homophobic remarks in front of mixed company, then you won't hear me getting mad at someone who gives me legitimate crap for what I said being hateful and bigoted. And it's just as true in a poker context by the way -- if I decide I'm going to try to get it allin preflop automatically any time I find a pocket pair 66 or higher, and I do just that by pushing in 100 big blinds early in a big tournament and I lose a race to AK or AQ, you won't hear me complaining. I make a decision, and then I own that decision, for better or worse. This notion of personal responsibility is one of my defining qualities and something I focus on regularly, be it at the poker table or the table of life.

All of you people who gave Al endless, interminable shit for what was originally I think only around 50-60 players in the first BBT5 Invitational, you as a group need to learn to own your own decisions. It's gone on for years at this point, and I personally cannot believe it. We're bloggers for crying out loud, and the only reason full tilt ever came to us with prizes the first time around was for the marketing possibilities of paying for bloggers to play in and write about the biggest poker tournaments in the world. Instead, we as a group have repeatedly, consistently -- for several years now, amazingly -- given a huge, fat middle finger to full tilt and made them sorrier and sorrier each year about the money they have largely wasted on the BBT winners. Shit, bloggers have even won the money from full tilt in the BBT, and gone to Vegas and played with that money, and they still don't blog about it, not one whit! And don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for any decisions they have made with respect to money won from full tilt or any online poker site -- but you're damn right I am judging those people for not using the money they won, and then for complaining to Al that they were not included in the Invitational the next time the BBT comes around.

Own. Your. Decisions.

If there is ever another BBT tournament series, full tilt should definitely, obviously, undeniably use an invitational format, at least for a big part of the determination of who wins the WSOP prize packages. And most of the hypocritical whining we'll inevitably see about it don't even deserve the time of day. Dickheads will post on their blog about not being included in the Invitiational like it's their job, but damn when they actually win the money, they and their blogs just vanish like a fart in the wind.

Without a doubt this is one of the most pathetic aspects of poker bloggers today.

Bad Luck, Bad Result in the ToC

Well the BBT5 Tournament of Champions has come and gone, with three of our brethren winning themselves $10,000 prize packages and another two more nabbing $2,000 prize packages along the way. Unfortunately, my name is not among them.

What happened, you may wonder, given my solid confidence yesterday heading in to the big game?

It's pretty simple, really. I started off the ToC playing like a total spewmonkey, and the cards were just not with me. I lost a big pot within minutes when I correctly put xkm on a lower pair to my QQ on a 478 board, but I opted not to raise, thinking I could extract some more chips from what I figured would likely be another lead bet on the turn if an Ace or King did not fall. When the turn brought a 9 which also put a flush draw on the board, I opted to just call xkm's bet once again, again correctly reasoning that I was ahead but not wanting to go nuts with the possible straight having filled a couple of times now, and given the deep stacks we had in this event thanks to Al and Full Tilt. When the river brought an ugly, despicable Ten, runner-runnering to a 4-card straight, I felt compelled to make the crying call of xkm's fairly small bet of around 40% of the pot, although of course I was less than thrilled to do so. What's that? Why didn't I raise this hand on the flop or the turn? Well, the stacks are so deep, and I was afraid xkm might have a decent pair lower than mine which I was afraid he might just push in with. And do I want to get it all in this early in a super stack, slow structure tournament with just an overpair of Queens? The reason I don't is, well, I would have busted on this hand if I had. xkm flipped up JJ on the river for the sick runner runner straight, and I was down below 4000 from the 5k starting stacks within just minutes of beginning. I did not play that hand optimally I don't think, but I am pretty sure xkm is not going away with the overpair, which means again that I literally would have gotten allin on the flop, been a 9-to-1 favorite with two cards to come, and then busted on just about the worst runner-runner rivering ever if I had. So instead I chose to keep the pot small but still ended up taking it on the chin at the river.

From here though I slowly regained my composure, made a number of huge plays, some of them with the goods and some of them as bluffy as I get, and by the end of the first hour, I was just over 5300 chips, back above the starting stack and ready to get my aggro on in Hour 2. Which is exactly what I did, slowly chipping my way up as I stole more and more pots, my c-bets finally getting some respect, and before I knew it, I was in second place in the tournament (with jj ahead of me, of course).

And then I ran KK into AA. As I've often said here, I have never yet run into the situation where I would fold KK preflop, but in this case there was so much dead money already in the pot thanks to a half-stack reraise preflop from xkm after I had raised it up with pocket Kings in early position, that I just felt like a total tool if I did not play this hand for stacks after a third player raised it up as well, trying to make a move on what certainly looked like a stealy raise from xkm. Well KK into AA it was, allin preflop -- in a spot where I would not possibly have gotten away even on the flop as my Kings were an overpair -- and instead of being the massive chip leader in the tournament with 16 left, I was suddenly a pretty short stack with under 2900 chips remaining.

Fast forward maybe 15 minutes, however, and I had managed to claw my way back to over 6000 chips, having won a nice pot with Aces vs someone else's top pair, and after some failed steals gone bad, we came to the last hand of Hour 2, which saw Goat raise it up 3x from middle position. I have JJ in the small blind, so I do my best impression of a final-minutes-of-the-round resteal and raise it up but not even all in. Goat pauses and ten pushes, I figure must have been beat but I have to call for very few chips remaining into a now large pot, and I am overjoyed to see that I am allin preflop with pocket Jacks up against Goat's pocket 9s. I barely had time to relish a sweet double at the end of the hour when the flop comes 9TQ, giving Goat the flopped set but me an unlikely straight draw. My straight miraculously filled with the 8 on the turn, but the rivered Ten sealed my fate, and I was done in the mid teens.

So how did I go out so fast in the BBT5 Tournament of Champions after being so confident going in yesterday? Runner-runnered for 20% of my stack five minutes in against a guy who bet me repeatedly while he was hopelessly behind in the hand. Amass large stack, but then run KK into AA in a 3-way pot. Then rebuild again to near average and then lose JJ to 99 allin preflop. Anybody out there know how to still be alive after all that in a no-limit tournament? Me neither.

Good times, this poker thingie.

Huge, huge congratulations go out to JJ today for winning the 10k prize for the second straight year in the BBT ToC. JJ is like the Cris Carter of the BBT -- all he does is win tournaments. Seriously, that is an incredible feat to win this grand prize two years running, and it could not happen to a better guy, or to a more deserving guy. For reals -- JJ was the prohibitive chip leader in this tournament after about 30 minutes in, and he held the prohibitive chip lead basically all the way to and into the final table. He quickly got himself into position at the top of the leaderboard, and he simply did not look back, period. He played the best and he took down the grand prize, along with NYRambler who also nabbed a 10k seat, in addition to Adam 27x. The 2k "consolation prizes" were won by KeepFloppin and adamsapple19, although I have to admit I did not stay up to watch the end of the final table. I think I made it until near 1am but eventually had to hang em up for the night, although I did let JJ know in the girly chat that I was going to sleep knowing in full confidence that he would win, and I can't say it was the least bit of a surprise when I confirmed that confidence this morning. What a run out of JJ in the last couple of BBTs, especially given his limited appearances in the actual tournaments comprising either BBT series.

Will JJ play the WSOP Main Event this year? Will he blog about his experiences there? My two cents for JJ: Take the hint, man! No-God, fate, kismet, the Island, Jacob -- whoever it is, someone is trying to tell you something. Obviously, you are fated to play the WSOP Main Event. The Rio isn't finished with you yet! So I say you give in to fate and get your ass to Vegas next month for the granddaddy of them all, get that mug on tv, and rocket past Iggy's incredible finish in the ME a few years back to show everyone what you can do after learning to thoroughly dominate the poker bloggers like no one else has ever done.

The BBT5 was a great ride for everyone involved, and although of course I cannot say that I was pleased with my luck in the series-ending ToC, I am certainly thankful both to Al and to full tilt for their generosity and their hard work in setting up and handling the logistics of a series like this. And although I would have loved to have been included in the ToC winners' list this time around, like I said it could not have happened to a more deserving bunch of people than this year's winners. Best of luck to everyone, and hopefully those who won prizes will find their way out to Las Vegas this summer and to write about their experiences so that people like me and many, many others who read can live vicariously through them, and so that full tilt hopefully continues to see the value in putting on huge promotions like this for us lowly bunch of poker wonks in the future.

BBT5 ToC Odds

So that's it. The BBT5 is over. Probably the last ever BBT tournament series, right? Right? Seriously, with Al's frustration bubbling over several times in this series -- at least a few times my fault -- and him once again having to go through all the bullshit that comes with running something like this, I can't see him doing it again. But then, I suppose a good deal of that decision will depend ultimately on how much full tilt feels they got their money's worth this time around, which at this point remains to be seen as we head into the BBT5 Tournament of Champions this evening. In the past, full tilt has given away thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to various bloggers, and for whatever reason it feels like a good half of them have declined to use those funds to play poker, and thus did not blog about any poker experiences they had thanks to full tilt's generosity. And of the other half who have gone on to use full tilt's funds to play, mostly all of them have really not blogged about the whole thing all that much in any event. There have definitely been a few notable exceptions, but for the most part I imagine that full tilt is still waiting to really get the bang for their buck that they ultimately envision out of these BBT series. Will this be the year? I suppose that depends on who wins tonight's Tournament of Champions.

Before I get into my thoughts on tonight's TOC, with this week's Buddy marking the final event of BBT5, we are now down to the 21 participants who will run for the money in tonight's big event at 10pm ET on full tilt. So we can start off by looking at the people of note who are not going to be in tonight's TOC, many of whom are people I was counting out of the ToC as they were eliminated last night as that was when they were officially eliminated from contention. Among those out of the ToC we have guys who have won against the bloggers and who have had much success in former BBT series such as twoblackaces (out 99th of 101 in the Mookie this week, that musta been interesting), lucko, Bayne, Astin (remember AstinBaynage from back in the first BBT?), heffmike, ck , Don, Chad, columbo , buddydank (eliminated from ToC contention in his own self-named tournament, dayummm that has gotta hurt), Waffles (did not play, pay day must not be for another week), smokkee, Tuscaloosa John, Jordan, 1Queensup1 and many, many others who could have posed problems for anyone in tonight's Tournament of Champions for sure. In fact, the honest truth is that most of the people I have a little bit of respect for in these tournaments are not in the ToC this time around, which is a good thing overall I suppose, but which is also going to make for some very tough going in tonight's field.

And with that, let's move on to the field for tonight's BBT5 Tournament of Champions. I look briefly in the morning just to note that the winner of this week's Buddy was someone I do not recognize and not somebody who has already nabbed a seat, which means as I mentioned that we are looking at a total field of 21 runners for the big prizes. With Shabazz Jenkins recently nabbing his second ToC seat in addition to oossuuu and his 3 ToC seats, that is just three tables of 7 to play it down to three grand prize winners and two more "mini" prize winners. With three 10k WSOP prize packages and two 2k WSOP prize packages being awarded, that means a total of $34,000 being given away for free to tonight's winners, and with 21 runners, that brings the total Blinders-approved(TM) Expected Value of a seat in tonight's ToC is 34,000 / 21 or over $1,619 per seat. If you just play average, do average, and have an average run on the night compared to everyone else, you can expect to win over $1600 on average just for having the right to play in the big game tonight. That is some incredible free swag for a bunch of donkeys who barely even know how to play this game, isn't it? And moreover than the $1600 expected value, a full 5 out of 21 runners will win a nice big fat prize of at least 2k. 5/21 = a 23.8% chance that each one of us will win at least 2k tonight, and a 3/21 or 14.3% chance that each of us will win one of the big momma 10k prize packages.

So here is the field in tonight's BBT5 Tournament of Champions, along with some quick thoughts from me on each, keeping in mind that the average player should be 23.8% (just over 3 to 1) to win a prize and 14.3% (6 to 1) to win a grand prize:

Jim McManus. Author of one of the greatest poker books ever written in Positively Fifth Street and for sure one of the drivers of my obsession with poker over the last several years, McManus has also been to a World Series of Poker Main Event final table, and from watching him I would say the guy can play. I have found him to be a bit on the aggressive side in the BBT events he has played, but that aggression generally works well against this crowd if you know how to wield the power, and McManus has played enough with the big boys to know just that. Add to this the fact that full tilt would cream in its pants if Jim wins this seat and goes on to get the site some solid publicity, and you have to figure that Jim's odds of cashing are somewhat better than your average bear, even against this field of champions and highly-skilled players. I would say Jim is at least 2.5 to 1 to cash and probably around 5 to 1 to win a ME seat tonight.

Adam 27x. Like a number of the entrants in tonight's Tournament of Champions, I don't know anything about Adam 27x. All I do know is that it looks like he played exactly one BBT5 event, and he crushed it. 'Nuff said. I'm still just putting his chances at average tonight though, 3 to 1 to cash and 6 to 1 to win the ME seat, because if nothing else this person will be at a significant disadvantage in terms of knowing the other players around him (like that really hurt him last time).

adamsapple19. This week's Buddy winner is another total mystery to me. He played in five BBT5 tournaments, cashed in two, and final tabled just the one he nabbed his seat in. I don't know him, but he hasn't played against this group much, so I once again see him right about average to cash in the big game. 3:1 to cash and 6:1 to win the 10k seat.

All in At 420. Allin is a professional poker player and is someone who played 6 events in the BBT5. He can obviously play the game and I would say probably has slightly better than the average chances to win a prize in tonight's Tournament of Champions. 2.5 to 1 to cash and 5 to 1 for the ME package.

BamBamCan. BamBam nabbed his ToC seat near the end of the BBT5 in I think the final invitational tournament. Although he always seems to be hanging around late in these blonkaments, I can't say I have many memories of BamBam winning these things outright or playing for the big money. So I would lay BamBam's odds of cashing in the ToC somewhere less than average, maybe around 4 to 1 to cash and 9 or 10 to 1 to win one of the 10k grand prizes.

dignitasODEE. I looked up dignitas on the internet and although this person seems to have some online presence, I do not recall them being an actual online pro of any note. Dignitas played in six BBT5 events and managed to win the one, so like the others who won an event while not playing much against this crowd in general, I think the odds are right around average for dignitas to cash in the ToC, 3:1 to cash and 6:1 for the ME seat.

hoyazo. Although I have not managed to get a good run going in the BBT over the past few weeks since winning my seat early on in the series this time around, I still feel like I am playing a good game of poker overall. I know well the games of over half of the ToC participants, and I have had a lot of success against the bloggers over time. Ever since bubbling out of the BBT4 ToC last year, it feels kinda like I owe myself something here, and as I mentioned, the lack of most of the big, scary guys who could have ended up finding their way into the ToC leaves me feeling like this thing will definitely be mine to lose. Of course anything can happen (and has been happening, lately) in any poker tournament, especially one against this field, so there's just no way to get anyone's odds much above average in any event, but I tend to think of myself in my own pompass way as about 2 to 1 to cash tonight, and maybe 5 to 1 to win one of the big seats.

jjok. What can you even say about this guy? He's played like four BBT tournaments in his life, and he's won them all. Even after I slapped some bad odds on him in last year's Tournament of Champions, he showed us all by claiming one of the WSOP ME seats in the BBT4 ToC. Never one to learn a lesson though, I am going to once again say that jj is not quite active enough, and does not quite have the experience against this field, to have great odds to beat the bloggers in tonight's ToC. Yes, the same bloggers who he was roundly embarrassed almost every time he has sat down with us over the past year. I'm a genius, what can I say. 4 to 1 to cash, 8 to 1 to win a ME seat (you're welcome, jj).

Julius_Goat. Although it looks like we might be waiting until after Hurley passes on the mantle of Island Protector to the next guardian before we get Goat's final Lost post, Goat has always been one of my favorite bloggers, and a guy that I am quite sure full tilt would love to have playing and writing for them in the WSOP ME. And moreover, Goat has had I think among the best overall BBT5 performances of all the people who participated this time around, as basically start to finish the guy amassed big stacks, made fairly deep runs, and of course took care of business the one time he needed to. As someone who always seems to be hanging around the top of the leaderboard in these things, and as the guy who I think it is fair to say played the best tournament poker of anyone in the event where he won his ToC seat, I say Goat definitely has above average chances of cashing tonight in a big way. Let's say 2.5 to 1 to cash and 6 to 1 to grab the granddaddy prize of the poker world.

KeepFloppin. Pokermeister is a solid player and he seems to have played more and more of the blonkaments as he got more involved with our group over the past year or so. However, what he does not have is much tournament experience, much big game experience with tons of money on the line, or much big game tournament experience with tons of money on the line. While in a cash game the Meister might be more formidable, I can't escape the fact that he will probably be fighting an uphill battle in tonight's BBT5 Tournament of Champions. Let's say 5 to 1 to cash, and 10 to 1 to win a ME seat.

lightning36. Lightning is another guy who I feel like I have seen playing a lot against the bloggers over the past couple of years, but who is also not someone I think of as a tournament specialist in any particular way. Lightning has had enough blonkament success not to just write off, but I'm still seeing him as having on the under side of average chances in tonight's ToC. Maybe 4.5 to 1 to cash, and 9 to 1 to win a grand prize.

maigrey. Maigrey is an old-schooler who has won more than her fair share of blogger tournaments in her day. Although she played in 8 BBT5 events, those numbers are semi-inflated because she managed to win her way in to the ToC in the very first one, meaning that all of those other BBT5 appearances for Heather were just not played with the same sense of urgency as most of the rest of the field played with every time out. Maigrey is good, can be tricky and is definitely not someone to be trifled with, but I will keep her odds right at the average of 3:1 to cash and 6:1 to win a seat due to lack of regular experience playing with the field in tonight's big event.

NYrambler. Rambler not only won one event in the BBT5 but got off to massive stacks in at least three or four others. If this were a regular BBT tournament I would definitely have rambler in there above average, but I think rambler's aggression might get the best of him against this field with this kind of money on the line, so I'm going to stick with 3:1 to cash and 6:1 to win the seat tonight for another of New York's finest.

oossuuu754. Oossuuu is basically a shoe-in for making the final table tonight, and with a big stack at that. He has destroyed all comers in the BBT5 as I have mentioned here previously, and I feel sorry for anyone who does not realize that one of the top 3 spots and its 10k prize package has his name written all over it. Osu is a good 1.5 to 1 to cash tonight, and not more than 3 to 1 to win the 10k grand prize.

pushmonkey72. Pushmonkey found his way in to the BBT5 ToC late in the game, much as I recall him doing in a previous BBT series as well, so he is not exactly a stranger to the blogger games or even to playing for the big money at the end. I seem to recall making a similar prediction about Rich in a previous post for a previous BBT-ending tournament, but in the end I haven't seen pushmonkey make deep runs in bnig spots in blonkaments too too often, and thus I think push's chances are just below average to cash tonight, maybe 3.5 to 1 to cash, and 7 to 1 to win the seat. Can't ever say anything too bad about the guy most directly responsible for my first Mookie win during the BBT4 (back when it was still called the Mookie).

pvanharibo. pvan is one of those people in the ToC who everybody has to look out for. Without a doubt I don't know anyone in this group who can bounce back from the early short stack like pvan, so even if she drops early she may be down but definitely not out. I saw pvan playing extremely aggressively during most of the BBT5, including the Buddy in which she won her ToC seat, so I expect more of the same tonight which I think is probably likely to get her off to a nice stack and increase her chances above average of cashing. I would say 2.5 to 1 to cash and probably about 5 to 1 to win a 10k WSOP ME package.

Shabazz Jenkins. Shabazz is a good little player who has had success previously in former BBT series, including winning two seats into this year's BBT5. There's just no way you can count this guy out, as he too has shown a penchant for building big stacks early but also for being able to rebound from early weakness in these tournaments. Shabazz is someone who I also think is slightly better than average to finish at the top in this evening's BBT5 ToC. Let's say 2.5 to 1 to cash and 5.5 to 1 to win the grand prize.

TexansBaby. April, along with Maigrey, is the only other confirmed pure "old school" blogger in the mix tonight in my view, and that along with the blogger tournament success she has had over time makes her a formidable opponent for sure in tonight's ToC. That said, with very little to really go on, I continue to look at a lack of recent experience against most of the other bloggers in tonight's field (I see her only having played 6 events in the BBT5, for instance) as a potential drag on any player's expected performance tonight. Thus, I would expect about a 3.5:1 chance for April to cash, and maybe a 6.5:1 chance to win one of the 10k seats.

TripJax. Trip is another one of those really good guys in the ToC this time around, and I was thrilled when I got up that morning a few weeks back and saw that he had nabbed his seat in the ToC after near-missing and finishing the runner-up in an earlier event in the series. Trip has a good game as well, and unlike many of the older-school bloggers I have covered in this post, Trip actually came out and played in 13 of the 18 BBT5 tournaments overall, cashing in 3 of them and making two final tables. With Trip's success against this field and his experience playing against them, his odds to cash on the night have got to be somewhat better than average. Let's say 2.5:1 for the cash in the top 5 spots, and 5 to 1 to win the 10k.

VinNay. VinNay is another guy who has played a very good BBT5, winning one event and final-tabling two of the 14 tournaments he showed up to play, but amassing a large stack in several others without managing to nab multiple seats as a result. I have my eyes on VinNay as someone whose game is well-suited to a ToC like this, and who is definitely above average overall in his chances. To me VinNay is probably 2.5 to 1 to cash as well, and let's say 4.8 to 1 to win one of the big ones.

xkm1245. xkm is someone who I have known since the days of the WWdN when he used to trash talk like a mahfah every time I sucked out on him (which was often, you know me). Although we seem to be friends again lately (until tonight...heh heh), xkm is another guy who I haven't seen playing against the blogger too much over the past year or so. But, at the same time, the guy showed up for 9 BBT5 tournaments and managed to cash in a whopping five of them, so he is clearly on a good streak. With that kind of momentum I will predict him right at average of 3:1 to cash and 6:1 to win the seat.

So there you have it. I am including myself as well as oossuu, Jim McManus, TripJax, the Goat, All in at 420, VinNay, pvanharibo and Shabazz Jenkins as the top 9 of the 21 runners and the group from which I would expect to see 2 of the 3 Main Event package winners as well as at least 3 of the 5 overall prize winners in the tournament. No matter what happens, I will look to play my best and take the game tonight very seriously, which I understand to be a very favorable structure including super stacks with 5000 starting chips and the same extended blinds as are found in the nightly 50-50 tournament on full tilt. It's still hard to believe that, thanks to the generosity of full tilt and the ass-hard work of Al Can't Hang, we are basically playing in one of those two-table token sitngos on full tilt where the top 5 out of 18 runners win the prize.

See you tonight at 10pm ET for the BBT5 Tournament of Champions on full tilt!

Pencil Him In

Well I had a post I was going to complete today talking about my past World Series performances as part of my psych-up for my Vegas trip, which is now amazingly less than two weeks away. I still cannot believe that; when I first bought my plane tickets, it felt like two years until Vegas time. I know these next 12 days will still feel like two years, but it's a lot less time than it was back then. In the winter, those tickets, this whole trip, another WSOP, it was all just a dream, just an idea. Now as I sit here thinking about it, it's a reality. And it is soooo close....

Anyways, the plan yesterday was to complete sometime during the day my WSOP reminiscence post and get that up here today. But then a strange thing happened. I woke up, literally whispering the name "osu". Really, you can ask my wife. I had a crazy premonition and I mean I literally sprung out of bed, bounded down the stairs, and checked out the old laptop where I had left up the lobby of Wednesday night's Buddy tournament. And fudge if I did not think I was looking at a cached copy or something -- oossuuuuu won again, now his amazing third BBT5 win, and more importantly for those of us skilled enough to already be in the upcoming Tournament of Champions, now bringing that ToC down from its original plan for 24 seats now to 22. With three 10k prize packages and two 2k prize packages in play in that thing, the value of those last few remaining BBT ToC seats just continues to go up. $34,000 in prizes to be distributed to 5 out of 22 players? Check my math but I'm thinking that is 1 and 12/22 = 1 and 6/11 = 1.545 = $1,545 of EV per seat in the ToC. And with I guess four more seats available in this thing, oossuuu might be able to get it down to just 18.

Three ToC seats. Three. And I think he's won them all kind of recently too. Let's face it guys -- you can pencil oossuuu in for one of the two 10k prize packages. He's earned it, and he's going to win it. This guy bullies a table so badly that I'm scared of him. And he always has it. Always. Well, has it, or hits it. One way or another, he is betting or raising, and your chips just keep sliding sliding sliding his way. And he's been absolutely killing it during the BBT, which worked so well for jeciimd back in BBT2 when he crushered the field during the series, and then held on to win the jackpot 18k prize to the Aussie Millions as well. The very best players in the last BBT as I recall -- Tuscaloosa Johnny as always, 1Queensup, Jordan -- I don't think any of them won the seats in the end in the ToC, but here we are again with one guy who is simply head and shoulders above the rest.

oossuuuu, this post is my homage to you. I bow to you, and I am willing to cede you one of the 10k prize packages. Just don't include me in your path of destruction and eliminations along the way so that I may have a fair chance at surviving. I'll donk to you in the WSOP even if that is the price of protection. You are the most skilled of all the bloggers in playing the blonkaments right now, and no one else is even remotely close. You have figured it out; you have figured us out.

Odds on oossuuu nabbing five ToC seats before this is all over, anyone?

Exciting BBT5 Weekend

I am seriously thrilled at the outcome to this past weekend's BBT5 Invitational tournament, with Julius Goat and Jim McManus both winnings seats into the series-ending Tournament of Champions to play for the big bucks. I didn't watch a whole lot of McManus's play -- other than to see him push allin for 30 to 50 big blinds repeatedly seemingly earlier than he needed to, which is more or less par for the course in these blonkaments I suppose -- but I loved Positively Fifth Street and I think it's fair to credit that book with some portion of my own personal explosion in interest in the game of poker, so for my money having JM in the TOC is a positive development.

And then there is Goat. Goat hasn't had a ton of success in winning the private blogger tournaments in the past, but he's always managed to bust out with a win here and there to keep his name on the map, and so far in the BBT5 we have seen why. Although this weekend was Goat's first foray deep into the final table in the BBT5 that I can recall, those of you who have played most of the events will note that every time you look up at the leaderboard over the past few weeks, Julius_Goat always seems to be sitting there with a big stack. In addition to starting to find a groove as a mid-sized sng player in his own right, Goat has shown of late that he is really starting to figure out how to play against the bloggers, something you can really only say about so many people in the group overall. But Goat has figured it out, how to get the early double-up and how to accumulate chips in these familiar events, and such was the case again last night as Goat was sitting in good but not great shape as the tournament rolled down to the final few tables.

But the huge thing about Goat's play on the night from my perspective wasn't the way he started, but the way he finished. I watched him closely as I have with many of the other BBT5 final tables as I've been up late working on my "other" job almost every night of the past few weeks, and Goat played about as good of an overall game on the day as any winner of a ToC seat so far in BBT5. I didn't see the guy make a dumb call and suck out once in the final few tables, and in fact I don't think he made a single bad decision in all the time I watched him. This is in stark contrast to most of the other ToC winners so far -- myself included -- who have recorded many suckouts along the way to nabbing their seats, and in many cases involved the making of several unthinkable and inexplicable plays that were probably not worthy of winning at all. But Goat was totally on the entire night, and it was really awesome to watch. His reads were on fire -- he even called down at least twice on the final two tables on the river with less than one pair and either tied or won them both vs. an aggressive bettor on the other side. His timing was awesome, and when he bet with nothing at the river, they folded. Every time.

The closest thing to a big mistake that Goat made on the night that I saw was about midway through the final table when he called down a highly aggressive player with top pair Jack kicker and lost to TPTK for a little less than half his stack, but the good thing even about that play was that it still left Goat with plenty of chips to fight back, which is exactly what he did. Twice during the final table, Goat got a little short after failing to secure a big pot like this one, but both times, Goat immediately got right back to work instead of focusing on the downside and letting it get to him. And both times he was quickly able to get himself right back to the chip lead, and after having lost it already at the final table once, he did not make the same mistake again.

So for my money Goat is definitely a force to be reckoned with at the upcoming Tournament of Champions. He's been playing overall about as well as anyone in the BBT5, and his win was pretty much the most impressive one I have seen so far, easily over most of the recent winners.

Now who else should we be looking out for as the series moves to its final few weeks?

For starters, it's got to be TwoBlackAces. Not only has he twice bubbled in BBT5 events already, but like Goat he seems to have a big, huge stack almost any time you check him out in one of these things. He's won tons of dough in major online tournaments and has proven to be a consistent accumulator and finisher in all kinds of tournaments. And he has as much experience as anyone playing with most of these fields after his regular involvement in the blonkaments over the past year or two. I know it has been heartbreaking for him not to have nabbed the seat yet after coming so close, but if you have to pick one person to win their way in in the upcoming events, TBA is probably the guy.

I'm also looking at perennial BBT killer Tuscaloosa John, who has crushed everyone through the two BBT series in which he has been an active participant. So far he hasn't made much noise in the BBT5 tournaments, but when I saw him with that big stack as we got down to the final few tables on Sunday night, I had a deja vu and it seemed like something I am expecting to see again in the coming days and week as the BBT5 rolls on. All TJ needs to do is run a little better than he has so far in things like early 60-40s and races, and we may be looking at a ToC seat for a guy who has probably won more overall BBT events than anyone else who has participated.

Lastly, I will mention Astin. Not sure why I have this idea in my head, but Astin has found his way in to I think all but one of the previous BBT Tournament of Champions, and I'm guessing he can pocket Aces his way in there one more time through the remaining what, eight tournaments? Of course it is impossible to predict something like this with any kind of assuredness -- especially with just 8 events left unlike previous BBTs where we would not even be to the midpoint yet of a 55-tournament schedule -- but Astin is a guy who knows how to play the big cards and who also has a lot of experience playing against this crowd. You watch, he will find his way in again before all is said and done with the BBT5.

Next event is tonight, the Monday night Poker From the Rail tournament at 10pmET on full tilt. The password is I think "2010WSOP", and the buyin is a measly $26 for a shot to play for the -- count 'em -- three WSOP Main Event packages and a couple more 2k WSOP packages as well as I recall. Be there or be square

BuddyDay, the BBT and Lost

Wednesdays are fun during the BBT, ain't they? Tonight will be the third of six Buddy tournaments during the BBT5, and tonight we will also learn the identity of the 12th of 24 qualifiers for the series-ending Tournament of Champions. After tonight, it's halfway gone. You guys who keep getting in ahead but just not lasting to the end, keep at it and with twelve more chances you've still got a better chance of getting there than anyone else in the field. Those of you who've been off your game, pushing too hard for the early double-up, stacking off earlier than you're used to with subpar hands, after you bust early tonight you will have wasted half of your chances to get in to the ToC without even playing the way you have had success with in the past. So sad, and so unnecessary. Let the halfway point be your wake-up call to start making better decisions, and in particular stop calling and pushing allin so early in the tournament when you know you are either behind or at best only slightly ahead if you get called.

I will probably be paying better attention than usual tonight since in the recent past I would often watch Lost a second time on Wednesdays during the Buddy just to figure out what the hell went on, but that's just not necessary for this show as it continues its de-evolution into Heroes. Last night, the candidates can't be killed by the bomb if the Losties don't pull the wires out. But if they do pull the wires out, then they can be killed? Oy vey. And the whole story -- from the start six years ago to the finish -- of Jin and Sun? Sucked. They never made those two actually relevant, to anything. Then for like two years they kept having one of them think the other was dead, which was done undramatically. Then a couple weeks back they finally had the at-long-last reunion between the two, and that was botched perhaps as badly as any scene this season. Who cares about Jin and Sun? Who ever cared? And certainly who cares about them now? I don't know either. Sayid? Who cares. They're leaving Claire? Who claires?

Oh, and by the way. Is there no opening that can simply eject that tiny little bomb from the submarine? They have to surface -- which apparently was 50 miles up in the just the 10 seconds they had been under water -- to get rid of the bomb, because otherwise, there's what, no airlock on this baby? No place where divers or passengers could exit the sub if need be or in case of repairs or emergency? No hangar or portal of any kind where a flat, square thing that easily fits in a breadbox can be just let out into the water to blow up there? What about the hatch they entered the sub through, is there no emergency override that would allow them to open that hatch up for 10 seconds and let this bomb out? Sayid hugging the bomb tightly and running to another part of the ship is the best plan they had huh. So a bunch of people discover a bomb on a submarine that they have total control of, they've got 3 minutes before it blows, and their best suggestions for dealing with the situation are to (1) let it tick down, because nothing will happen, (2) pull two random wires and hope it stops, (3) surface, or (4) hug the bomb tight and run away. Next thing you'll be telling me Jack's real name is Hiro and that he has the superpower to erase time or something. Sheesh.

And I'm not even going to get in to what a generally horrible job the show has done of actually explaining in any kind of a convincing way why almost any of the people currently "with" Flocke are actually with him. What was Kate ever doing there this season, "helping" him, actually? Why on earth was Jack ever there helping Flocke? Ever? They didn't even really try to put up a good explanation for Jack coming along with Flocke last night. Flocke just said, "I could kill you and all your friends, but I'm not. So you have to help me." And Jack just ate that one up, hook line and sinker. Makes sense, right? Evil incarnate tells you he could kill you -- a fact which we know from multiple episodes this season including the end of the show last night that Jack is positive is not true, mind you -- and that means you have to help Pure Evil escape its prison and unleash itself on the rest of the universe forever. Lezdoit!!

At least next week's scenes look good -- as I've been saying all season, next week's scenes, with Jacob and the Man in Black, and what looks like some flashbacks of theirs, the little boy who keeps the rules, that's the only shit anyone really cares about anymore. Sideways world, Desmond, even the battle with Flocke and Widmore doesn't mean doggy doo to me anymore. Just show me the mythology bitches. So next week's episode looks good. But this week was to say the least, not a good show. Stupid, insultingly stupid plot lines, just plain horrible killing off of characters in totally gratuitous and often silly ways, clearly in an attempt to just narrow down the surviving candidates one by one by one for us. The show has become so simple it is almost like watching the Teletubbies some times.

Anyways, I digress. Tonight is the Buddy at 10pm ET on full tilt. The password as always is "vegas1". The BBT5 is in effect again today, so I would probably expect maybe 85, 90 runners tonight once again, maybe more, in the battle for the $10 buyins, with the most skilled player in the field this evening sure to grab the midpoint seat in the upcoming ToC later this month.

BBT5 Play

I've been saying it for weeks, but the same people who have made their poker living as tight sorts of players are mixing it up early and often on a nightly basis here in the BBT5. It is so noticeable and I am not sure if these guys even realize it, but generally these are the donks who follow around the guy who had the temerity to beat their mediocre hands and bitch at them in the chat for their donkery or their worthlessness or their luck or whatever. In a blogger tournament.

Lost in the shuffle is the fact that you once again got it all in with a one-pair hand after the flop with some 50 big blinds in their stack. In a tournament that obviously matters to you. Why are you chasing someone around in the chat and smack talking them when you willfully got yourself in that situation? Invariably as I mentioned these are generally some of the tighter tournament guys out there, and that just makes this phenomenon all the more amazing to me, because it is not how most of these guys normally play.

Now, some of the people I'm talking about are pretty much known horrible players. But others have had some success in poker, be it cash, sitngos, etc. A few even make some decent money from the game overall. And in a couple of instances I am talking about guys I've seen have tons of success in past blogger tournament series. They're all a little on edge, a little bit out of the comfort zone. And it is clear as day what the reason is.

The BBT. I mentioned this previously, but the BBT -- and, I suspect, in particular the shortness of the series this time around -- has really got people jittery, and that is leading to a lot of people who are used to getting in ahead finding themselves behind or with easily vulnerable hands when the money gets in, especially in the earlygoing this time around. Christ, I saw Blinders bust out first or second in one of these tournaments last week, and he is the undisputed all-time king of folding to the points and then closing his eyes and praying. But this has been happening more and more of late with more and more people like that who are just ending up out early week in and week out, and they don't seem able to perceive what is so apparent to me about the difference in the way they are playing the game.

It's an awesome thing having won a Tournament of Champions seat so early in the BBT5. Though I participated in the ToC in BBTs 3 and 4 (obviously I only really earned the seat in the one BBT where I did not bribe my way in), but in neither case did I manage to find my way in so early in the series. Now I get to play these tournaments as a kind of experiment, or better yet, all just a means to the end of getting myself psyched up and in the right frame of mind for the series-ending ToC. If I happen to nab some more cash along the way or ruin some people's dreams, then all the better :)

Another guy won his way in to the ToC last night -- ooosssuuuuuuuuuu whateverhisnameis. That's another guy who is gonna get his aggro on for sure come ToC time, in what otherwise is not exactly the bastion of aggression so far. Take a look at who is in the ToC here with 11 of the maximum 24 seats now filled:

JJOK
Maigrey
VinNay
xkm1245
dignitasODEE
All In At 420
hoyazo
KeepFloppin
Texas April
NYRambler
oossuuuuuuuuu

Plenty of good players in that list so far, including self-proclaimed Professional Gaming Manager Michael O'Dell, and professional poker player Matt Stout, but otherwise what has been missing a little bit from the winners list so far is that hyper aggressive, take over the table kind of guy. But oossuuuuuuuu definitely rounds that out nicely and adds a little more aggropizzazz to the ToC field so far.

And for those keeping score, that is two confirmed A-Listers in April and Heather, and a few newbies or outsiders like those mentioned above, so it's also a nice smattering of the various generations of bloggers in our group.

Who will be the next person to claim his or her seat in the BBT5 Tournament of Champions? We'll know on Wednesday night when the Buddy is back in da house at 10pm ET. Tonight, sit back and enjoy another fine episode of Lost. Only three left and then the finale!

The Buddy and the BBT -- Again

Wow is it ever fun playing in the BBT when you are lucky enough to nab a ToC seat early! In exchange for all the incredible free money and prizes available from Full Tilt via the BBT5 tournament series, we definitely have our nerves ratcheted up quite a bit for each of these weekly private tournaments, and it's just awesome not to really care if I bust on a given hand or not because I know I've already done what needs to be done to play for the big money in the end. Of course, my own competitive spirit still basically requires me to try hard to win and to be disappointed when I bust, but come on these are not only no-limit poker tournaments, but ones with 10-minute blind levels, and with only a $10 buyin open to anybody with internet access. It just takes a bunch of run-good to win one of these things, there is no doubt about it. Like I said earlier this week, the trick I think is just to come out for these 24 tournaments and try to play well in all of them, in the hopes that the one or two times the math runs your way, you can be in position to grab the seat.

I mentioned this as well earlier in the week, but I will say it again after playing in the Buddy last night -- a lot of people out there whose game I have come to know and understand very well are simply not playing their game so far through several BBT5 events. Guys I have sat and watched play a generally very tight style of poker for years -- the style they still play in that $8 token sng they run in during the Buddy each week -- seem to be repeatedly busting out early, stacking off for many many big blinds with just top pair mediocre kicker against obvious strength, etc. People who have proven over time in the private blogger tournaments as well as in prior BBT series that they have the patience to stick around and wait for the good spots are instead pushing way too hard with marginal hands and taking huge hits early.

I was thinking maybe it's due to the BBT5 being far shorter than our previous tournament series, and as a result people quite rightly feel the pressure to get their win as quickly as possible or something, but obviously pushing marginal hands too hard against a crowd like this -- especially in the Buddy of all the BBT5 tournaments -- is not the way to do it. I know all about what I speak of here because as my longtime readers know, I have typically started off these BBT tournament series very slow, often playing too aggressively early, even for weeks on end before finally finding my groove. Let this post be a lesson to all of you out there who are struggling with that same feeling now -- and I've played all the events, I've seen it everywhere -- don't take 4 or 5 weeks figuring out that you have to play a tight-aggressive game and that you have to respect the fact that bloggers will call with many hands that might not warrant a call outside of a tournament like the Buddy. In the BBT5, 4 or 5 weeks of goofing is too long to give yourself a chance. Like I said above, everyone is tied to the same rule ultimately -- you have to play every single tournament smart and just hope you are around for the one or two times in the entire series when fortune will smile on you enough to give you a chance to win.

And speaking of bloggers calling, I value bet like a monster on Wednesday night and played my way right into a tournament-leading stack for most of the second hour of the Buddy on the night. I'm not sure I've ever consistently made and succeeded in getting paid with such thin value bets, which of course all comes down to making the right reads on your opponents' hands. Multiple times I had guys call me down at the river for 70% of the pot with just one pip lower than my kicker. I got 2nd pair top kicker to call down my top pair crap kicker on a couple of occasions, and I even got a few players to call at the river when I had turned or rivered monsters like when I turned a set (muhahahahahah!) in the second hour or when I rivered an inside straight with pocket 8s in the first. I didn't win any big pots with big pairs or AK on the night, but I amassed over 13k in chips at one point during Hour 2 just by winning a lot of hands without showdowns, and getting people to call me at the river with slightly worse hands than my own, even when nowhere near the nuts. It was awesome, and I was just beginning to think I might be able to crack out another final table run.

Then late in Hour 2 I got moved to one of the sickest, silliest tables I've ever sat at in a blonkament, one featuring myself, Chad, Lucko and LJ all within the span of five or six seats at the table. As we all had pretty large stacks in front of us, it was only a matter of time before somebody was gonna tussle. I went first when my read failed me on Lucko, as I open-raised from the button with pocket 4s, Lucko quickly reraised me from the big blind, and my read told me he acted too quick to really want action, so I pushed for another 4x his raise or so. He called quickly, at which point I was actually happy to see he had AK (as opposed to any pair) when we flipped our cards, but although I flopped good he hit a King on the turn and I quickly went from a nice stack with around half the field left to out of the tournament, and Lucko's stack swelled to frightening proportions.

Right before deciding to push in on the preflop reraise there, I specifically thought to myself "I should fold here. I did fold in this spot several times the other day when I won. If I did not have my ToC seat wrapped up already I would fold here." So I called, went with the aggressive play, and it turned out to be one that was the correct move given Lucko's holding, but I can't complain about the result when I knowingly, willingly took on that race and knew it was a more volatile move than necessary in that spot and still with a nice chip stack behind. Basically, with a ToC seat already in my back pocket, I took a gamble here on a 50-50 shot (52-48 in my favor, to be exact) that if I won, I would have a massive stack and a very good chance of smashing through this field, but that if I lost, my big stack would be gone and I would be done. Frankly, it's a bad move in a tournament like this as I can surely wait for a better spot than with the 4s where any hand Lucko calls with (and I figured he would call with overs) is basically racing against me, but I chose to do it and I almost held on for the big win. Instead I was out and as I mentioned, the specter of Big Stack Lucko really started to emerge.

Lucko's stack got even stoopider when Chad ended up reraising a preflop raiser and a caller with Chad's hammer, and ended up pushing that into both pocket Jacks and Lucko's pocket Queens, all allin preflop. Chad could not hold up despite flopping five outs to win, and before anyone knew it, Lucko had 50k in chips -- way too early in the Buddy for that kind of a stack -- when second place had just over 12k. And if you're like me, you were ready to call it for Lucko right then and there, with still like 30 runners left. Nobody plays that big stack in a blonkament like Lucko does, that has been demonstrated time and time again.

Although I was gone for most of the next hour, I did manage to log in to the final table and see that Lucko was gone and that Poker Meister (I think that's who KeepFloppin is or whateverhisnameis) had amassed the prohibitively large stack near the beginning, and in the end it looks like he's the guy who took it down and nabbed the last BBT5 ToC seat for this week. That has got to be the most significant blogger tournament win Meister has ever had, so congratulations to him for apparently playing very well and pretty much dominating the entire final table from beginning to end.

Six of the 24 seats in the BBT5 Tournament of Champions have now been awarded. This coming Sunday night, two more lucky run-gooders will claim their spot at the table in the Invitational freeroll. I'll be there, once again with my aggression hat on, waiting to make you call me light on the river by picking just the right amount that you simply cannot resist.

BBT ToC is Me (Redux)

"Like I said, I am playing some really solid tournament poker lately, across all my poker playing including the BBT5. I just haven't yet had the opportunity to hold up where I need to along the way in the series. A lot of the old standbys from the private blogger tournaments, guys who have made appearances in prior BBT Tournament of Champions, seem to be playing overly aggressively or otherwise somehow not on their game so far four tournaments into the 24-event series, which should help my cause all the more. Hopefully 24 total chances at the ToC is enough for the math to work in my favor one time, because I'm confident I will be right there and still alive when it's my turn for the luck to even out in this thing."

-- Me, yesterday afternoon

Funny how things work sometimes. Here I was about six hours prior to the Poker From the Rail tournament as the open events of the BBT5 resume this week, and I was feeling good about my game although severely wanting as far as my results thus far in the BBT5. I wrote a whole post describing my opinion of my play -- aggressive, solid, hardly any mistakes, folding when necessary -- and I ended with exactly what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote the post on Monday afternoon: just give me a little run-good and hold up where I need it, and I will be there with the stack and the mentality to take advantage.

And that's pretty much just the way it happened.



Unfortunately, the Under is going to win in a landslide today, because I just don't have time to do a full recap post, though I am hoping to find the time one night this week for that. But the last I heard, the line was set on BuddyDankRadio at 70,000 words for my post today. I just don't have any time today, so I'll try to keep it under 40k if at all possible.

The really abridged version of my Poker From the Rail win on Monday night is that I got an early double-up with slow-played pocket Aces, then basically sat around for about two full hours in the 4k-8k range, hovering around the middle of the pack but unable to break out and unwilling to let myself get too low without aggressing my way back to respectability. I played my usual aggressive game from the getgo, and I was able to withstand an early suckout with AQ vs AJ allin preflop for about a third of my stack thanks to the early double with Aces.

But despite the early pocket Aces (I would see them, as well as pocket Kings, one more time apiece in the latter half of the tournament), in the end my biggest pots of the night were generally won with crappy cards. One hand comes to mind when I got allin with 74s and rivered a straight against pocket Jacks, and another with 76s when I pushed allin on a resteal preflop against katiemother and won a key 40-60 shot against her overcards. I recall winning at least one key pot at the final table with one pair with 96o for that matter. I played a very wide range of hands on the night overall, and played them extremely aggressively from the very start to the very finish, and I ran just good enough along the way to make it happen.

And don't get me wrong, this was not one of those tournaments like I've definitely had from time to time where I luckflonked my way to the title. Far from it -- I would say without a doubt that I played the best tournament poker of anybody in the tournament last night. I just happened to run good a little bit along the way. But I got what I would describe as good starting cards -- far from deck-slappage, but as I mentioned I saw AA twice and KK once which is unusual for me, plus a bunch of AK's that I recall out of nearly 400 total hands on the night. And even though I mentioned the couple of key spots where I activated the run-good and survived in what I thought were good spots to make the moves I was making, I also survived two absolutely brutal bad beats when 3-handed and heads-up allin preflop and dominating -- in addition to winning the biggest pot of the entire tournament with my ATs vs Troublecat's TT allin preflop during heads-up play. So overall it was a smattering of some good luck and some bad luck, some good starting cards and plenty of bad, and overall some seriously great poker tournament play from me along the way, among the best I can recall playing in a blonkament.

Although I do hope to get more into this later in the week, I should mention the heads-up battle that saw me come in with more than a 3:1 chip deficit thanks to a major suckout one hand before heads-up. I was up against Troublecat, who many of you may know as the guy who won an event at the LAPC some years ago back when poker blogging was in its nascence, and he and I battled it out hard core to nab the seat. I think he said the heads-up match eventually lasted 72 hands, nearly half of the hands seen on the entire final table, and it was definitely one of those epic heads-up battles that happen once in a long while in the big blonkaments. It was fun but frustrating, as I played a significantly more aggressive game than Ryan did, as I must have won a good 65% of the hands we played heads-up. Much of this was due to the fact that Ryan played very passive with the big chip lead for almost the entire time while I played aggressive like a jackass and just hoped not to get called, or to suckout or win a 40-60 if I did, and once again that's exactly what happened when he reraised me and I called with ATs against Ryan's TT. The flop brought not one but two Aces, and suddenly it was I with the 3:1 chip lead. I played the chip lead far more aggressively than Ryan had, and after one more allin where I lost a 60-40 shot to end it, I finally vanquished Troublecat after about 50 minutes of heads-up play shortly after 2am ET when we both got in with top pair but my kicker was just a couple of pips ahead of his.

My overall impressions of the night: I played awesome tournament poker, especially heads-up where I refused to give up despite playing about 65 of the 72 hands from a significant chip deficit. Especially in a ToC-driven BBT series, I can't say I am any kind of a fan of the structure being such that really from the final two tables it was almost all preflop push-n-pray poker. I don't mind that and frankly most online mtt's end up playing out that way, but when you have to outright win an event in order to make it in to play for the big prizes in the ToC, it just feels wrong that Ryan doesn't get a seat in addition to some others who got sucked out on at the final table if that happens multiple times in a short BBT series like this.

And most of all, I ran well when I needed it, just like I was saying yesterday.

ToC here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bittersweet BBT

Four events so far in the BBT5. I don't really count The Buddy last week because I was gone for a little more than the first hour and ended up pushing allin real quick to try for an insta-double after raising about 75% of the first several hands I saw in the middle of Hour 2 with a short stack. But otherwise I've played in three of them, and I am playing really good poker. In stark contrast to how I usually seem to feel at the beginning of these long tournament series, I'm basically playing some of the best poker I ever play. I just haven't been able to withstand the barrage yet and my number seems to keep coming up over and over.

In the first Invitational tournament a little more than a week ago, with two runners out of just 79 entrants (more like 70 when you strike those who did not show) slated to nab BBT5 ToC seats, I was active from the getgo as always, but I had to make two big folds early on, one to Tripjax and one to Fuel. With Fuel I laid down top pair third kicker and was pretty sure I was behind when he raised me on the turn (seeing what he has gotten allin with in the BBT tournament so far has left me thinking likely otherwise). Against Trip, who is a little tighter, I laid down top pair 2nd kicker and an open-ended straight draw to his turn raise which also made a flush possible, and that one left me with under 1000 chips from the 3k starting stack not more than 20 or 30 minutes in. From there though I fought back, playing a smart, aggressive game and using my entire short stack as needed to keep people at bay, which also helped me to double up a couple of times in pretty easy spots where I knew I was ahead and figured I would be able to get my opponent's full stack. Down to around 20 remaining, with me solidly in the middle of the field, and two ToC seats on the line, I found QQ preflop in the small blind and reraised a big stack allin. He instacalled with AKo and IGH when the Ace flops. First card out of the deck.

One week ago today was the first Poker From the Rail tournament of the BBT5. In that one I once again slipped a bit in the earlygoing, but again there I quickly turned things around, won a ton of pots, mostly without showdowns, and really started to climb. I was in the top ten in chips for a while around the midpoint, but once again more than halfway through the field and with a nice stack going, I ran 99 into a big stack's 77 preflop, and lost when the 7 flopped to send me home before the deep part of the tournament.

I did not really play in last Wednesday's Buddy as I mentioned, but this weekend was the second of the Invitational tournaments, this time with 108 runners, much more than the field of the first week's which will prove to have been easily the best chance anyone will get to play for the big prizes in the ToC. Once again I slipped early, when I made a monster flop of T65 with two clubs while I was holding AT of clubs in my hand, against a guy who had called my preflop raise from the blinds. I led out on this flop, and he called. The turn brought an offsuit 7, which I wanted to make sure to bet at again given the three to a straight now on the board, and my opponent smooth called once again after some pause. The river brought the scary-looking 9 (offsuit) for a final board of T5679, but I figured there's no way I'm putting this guy on an 8 given the way this board played out (what was he calling on the flop with?), so I moved in on the reverse hoy for his last 600 chips into what was probably a 4500-chip pot already at this point. And he showed me 76 for the turned two pairs I definitely did not see coming and once again a sub-1000 stack very early on in this thing.

From there though, I fought back and once again used my short stack to my extreme advantage. I won about 25% of the total pots at my table preflop for the remainder of the first hour, and when someone finally doubled me up with their top pair fifth kicker early in Hour 2, I was back above the starting stack and looking to move even higher. I chased people off of hands like it was my job, and I busted at least four guys along the way to amassing over 10k in chips and another appearance in the top 10 of the leaderboard for a good long while. Eventually I open-raised for the umpteenth time from the button, this time with a deceptively strong JJ given how ridiculously I had stolen for the past couple of hours, and the small blind, a known tight player, reraised allin for a little over twice my raise. I knew this guy was tight but I also figured he could be in there with a slightly lower pair than mine, and he certainly could be in there with AK or maybe even AQs (and he figures I play like a maniac, so his range could be even a bit wider than normal), and the pot odds I was getting were simply far too good to fold given that I figured I was somewhere north of 50% to win the hand against his range. I called, he showed AK, and the Ace on the river erased half of my stack just like that in a hand that I could not have played any other way.

I picked up a couple of pots with now a short stack once again in the bottom ten of the 30-some players remaining out of the field of 108, and then never fear, I pick up QQ on the button, and the action folds to me. I did the standard raise of 3x to 900 chips (about a fifth of my stack at this point), and the big stack in the big blind waits maybe two seconds before moving allin. Of course I am calling here, he flips up KTo, and the King on the river sends me home. Gulp. I went to run some errands and when I come back maybe 25 minutes later to check on the leaderboard, that guy is already completely out despite using the suckout to jump to 3rd or 4th in chips of around 36 or 37 remaining at the time.

Like I said, I am playing some really solid tournament poker lately, across all my poker playing including the BBT5. I just haven't yet had the opportunity to hold up where I need to along the way in the series. A lot of the old standbys from the private blogger tournaments, guys who have made appearances in prior BBT Tournament of Champions, seem to be playing overly aggressively or otherwise somehow not on their game so far four tournaments into the 24-event series, which should help my cause all the more. Hopefully 24 total chances at the ToC is enough for the math to work in my favor one time, because I'm confident I will be right there and still alive when it's my turn for the luck to even out in this thing.

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.

Correction

I should mention that upon my return to my home pc late in the day on Monday, I was pleased to discover that twoblackaces was in fact supposed to be included in the BBT5 Invitational, which is great news for a guy who as I said earlier today really deserves to be involved. I heard late on Monday about how Miami Don, Tripjax and a few others including TBA had not been contacted in time for Sunday night's Event #1 due to faulty or old email addresses or various other logistical problems. As I understand it, those parties have been contacted by this point and the full list of invitational members should be in place shortly if not already. But like I said that is great news for TBA and great news for the BBT5 as well as one of its most deserving members will now be around in the Sunday Invitational events where twice as many ToC seats are available.

Of course, this is a -EV move for the rest of us currently in the Invitational portion of the tournament series. But right is right and here I am happy to be able to report that I jumped the gun earlier today and that the guys I mentioned above should be in the future Invitational tournaments in the upcoming weeks.

Now it's time to go kick some blogger butt in my old MATH time slot and my old MATH buyin.

Or get sucked out on by a donkey insta-calling alling with AK unimproved on the flop.

BBT Five Alive

And so the BBT has resumed for one more romp in the sand, this time with some $50,000 of prizes to be awarded, including I believe not one, not two but three WSOP Main Event seats for this year. And it was nice to see that the first event of BBT5 was won by one of the good guys. Congrats to JJ, one of last year's winners of the BBT4 WSOP Main Event packages, who as of Sunday afternoon was not even included on the list of players registered for the Sunday night invitational freeroll tournament.

I was glad to see full tilt rectify that situation shortly before go time on Sunday night with the first event of BBT5, and with the addition of some of the other late names it seems that most of the people I had originally been very surprised to see omitted from the list had found their way in as well by the 7pm ET start time on Sunday night. I remain extremely surprised by some of the names of the people who are on the list for the invitational, but as Al described yesterday on Buddy Dank radio, full tilt went through Al's list of everybody who ever blogged about poker or who ever participated in any of the BBT tournament series, and full tilt picked that initial batch of 50 "have to have's" from the master list. As I mentioned it surprises me greatly that full tilt had actual interest in a number of the people on the initial 50 list in playing in the BBT5 series, but I suppose that is a testament to the value that full tilt sees in bloggers and in potentially funding some people who have written about poker publicly in the past to play some events at this year's World Series of Poker.

The late additions, however, do leave I think one painfully glaring omission from the invitational invitee list, and that is TwoBlackAces. If there is one guy who deserves to be in the invitational and yet who (I think) is still not in there, it's got to be TBA. Not only has TBA been an integral participant in the last few BBT series, playing many if not most of the events, but TBA has also been a fairly prolific poker blogger, especially by today's poker blogger standards. He has fostered a good sense of the community that is left among our group over the past few years, and another important factor is that TBA has demonstrated repeatedly that he can cash in real-life MTTs as well as just about any other blogger out there, so he could stand a reasonable chance of making us all look good should he nab one of the WSOP prize packages available to the BBT5 winners. And lastly, and maybe most importantly, TBA is one of the very few guys in our group who has been consistently out there, not only pimping but even himself playing in all the regular blogger tournaments, even in the past year of all-time low blonkament support following the end of BBT4 last spring. For the past year, every time the Skillz Game had only 6 or 7 entries, TBA was there. When the Mookie had under 20 runners for weeks and weeks on end late in 2009 and early in 2010? TBA was always in there. Whether it's been extolling the virtues of the regular private games on his blog, or showing his support by making an appearance and having a go at the weekly title, twoblackaces has been pretty much as close to a model poker-blogging and poker-playing citizen as we have in our group, and I was very sad to see him not included even in the once-updated or twice-updated list of players in the BBT5 Invitational Sunday night tournament.

Which is why I want to officially offer right here and right now, I would like to offer up three of my five remaining entries into the Invitational tournaments to twoblackaces. Al, or full tilt, if you're out there, if you can't get TBA into the Invitational where he so clearly belongs now because you can't add anyone new at this point to the competition, then I would like to offer up my entry in half of the Invitational tournaments to TBA so that justice can be served. You could actually enter TBA in place of me into those three Invitational events, or for all I am concerned I would happily allow TBA to log into my account and play under my name for those tournaments, with full tilt's blessing of course. But to be perfectly honest, TBA deserves this spot even more than me, and I am more than happy to make the sacrifice myself to make things right.

Someone let me know how to effect this and I am happy to put my money where my mouth is, please.

The Death of the Private Blogger Tournament

I've read more than a few posts out there lately in the poker blogosphere -- such as it exists today, anyways -- lamenting the apparent death of the private blogger tournament.

There's something to be said for it. I've written this many times before, but I still remember vividly the days of Wil Wheaton's weekly WWdN tournament on pokerstars, which really, truly was the only time that more or less all of us involved in poker blogging at the time would get together and chat it up. Every single week, Tuesday nights at 8:30pm ET it was as I recall, Wil provided the opportunity for everyone to sit and laugh with our friends and sling some cards. Sure near the end people wanted to win if they were close, but for the most part these things were for fucking fun. I looked forward to them all week, literally. It would be Saturday afternoon and I would already catch myself thinking about the next Tuesday night and my next chance to make some jokes, drop some hammers, and play a little poker with my new friends. And of course, to eliminate Wil from the tournament and get it named after me the next week, but that's neither here nor there.

The thing is, the WWdN was a looooooooong time ago at this point, and it took place at a time when the composition of the group who identified themselves as "poker bloggers" was significantly different from what it has become over the past couple of years. Back when the WWdN was rampant -- regularly attracting 120, 130 runners in its heyday -- I would describe poker blogging as still a relatively new thing. There were way fewer poker blogs out there, and more than the smaller number, the poker blogging that went on back in the day was more "pure" in a sense. It was purer in that the people involved were, for the most part, blogging about poker because they were interested in poker and wanted to write down their thoughts and get some analysis and thoughts going in the comments. Some people wrote stories about poker on their blogs, some people wrote about the 2+2 threads while they were still readable, and some wrote about their adventures in and around poker tournaments, Las Vegas, whatever. But for the most part -- and I acknowledge that I am surely over-generalizing here to an extent -- the "poker bloggers" of four or five years ago were really into it for the poker, and for the enjoyment of all that blogging about the game can bring.

It was this "pure" spirit that led to the creation of the first poker bloggers' gathering back in Ought-4 or whenever it was, and it was that same spirit among the then-existing bloggers that used to contribute to the 120 WWdN participants every week, and the jovial atmosphere that surrounded that game week-in and week-out. There really were very few (there's always some, but very few) bad eggs. And it was that same spirit that was still very much in force throughout our community that led to 125 donkeys showing up for the blogger gathering as late as the summer of 2006, my first time actually meeting "the bloggers" face to face.

And what a time it was. People who won't even fucking talk to me today came up to me and introduced themselves, and I made a lot of good friends. By that time I was already going strong here on my blog, building my readership quickly, and I had introduced the notion of using screenshots to graphically illustrate and discuss poker hands into my blog. It was really catching on, and people actually wanted to meet that crazy pompous ass Hoyazo who took all the screenshots for their amusement. Tons of people. The old school. The new school, which by now is basically almost old school themselves. I'm not sure when was the last time I had such an unexpected great time hanging out with a huge group of people who had been absolute strangers to me just a few days earlier. That open, warm spirit was still very much alive in bloggerland back in 2006, and even though the WWdN might have been gone or at least on its last legs back then, the Mookie was waiting right in the wings to pick up the slack and maintain that place where everyone in our group could get together with some regularity and shoot the shit.

I would say it was somewhere in early 2007 where things started to change. And when I say "things", I don't mean the popularity of the private blogger tournaments per se -- these were actually just about to take off with the advent of the BBT -- but I mean more the composition and nature of the participants in our group. At first it happened so slow that nobody even noticed it, just a few new additions to the group who weren't really making themselves or their true nature known yet in a public way. But it didn't take long for many of us who had been involved with the group for a few years already to notice that things were simply different than they had been. I've spent countless hours over the past few years trying to put my finger on what exactly it was that changed, and I think the best that I can come up with goes back to the level of "purity" in the nature of our group. Back four or five years ago, for the most part the only people who bothered poker blogging did so because of either a love of poker and/or a love of blogging about things related to poker. Again, there have always been exceptions to this, but generally speaking that's the purity I keep referring to.

However, by the time 2007 was well underway, the number of new people entering the fray of "poker blogging" was exploding. The BBT had begun that summer, bringing a whole slew of new people, with new motivations, into the fold. Others got involved for other reasons, not necessarily bad ones at all, but not those same reasons of love of poker or love of blogging that had been predominant over the early days of our group. More and more people were starting to blog about poker not for the sake of poker blogging itself, but rather for some other ulterior motive, for which the poker blogging was just a means to an end. Some people created poker blogs just to play in the WPBT or the BBT. Others started poker blogs to make money from other bloggers, and for some, to outright commercialize our group for some purpose or other. Some even created poker blogs just to scam other bloggers out of their money. A number of members of our group over the past couple of years only joined to meet someone and not out of any real sustained interest in blogging at all. Many people created or maintained their blogs as a crutch for their own insecurity, to create a false internet identity and then live that persona and interact among our community like they wish they lived and interacted in real life.

Throwing all these new people with all these new motivations into the mix ended up being the beginning of the end of the private blogger tournaments as we know them today. Sure, the participation in blogger events soared as the BBT and then the BBT2 went off in 2007, and by the time BBT3 rolled around in the summer of 2008, we actually saw one or two blogger events that rivalled the size that the WWdN had been almost every week some three years before. But it was still never quite as big as the WWdN had been regularly, and the purity was almost all gone from it. Take away those big BBT prizes, and the attendance would always cut more than in half almost immediately. The mix of people in our group were, as a whole, no longer blogging for the sake of blogging, and they weren't playing the private tournaments for the sake of camaraderie and fun. They were playing for something else -- whatever their own agenda was -- and it showed.

It was around this time that you really started to see the very first of the consistent negative comments in the chatbox in the private events. It's been all too common among the bloggers to explain this away simply because "tempers rise high with so much more on the line", and to an extent that is surely true. But most people don't realize that it was always more than that. By and large, the people who were playing in the private blogger events by 2007 just weren't in it for the fun and the camaraderie anymore. So where we had 98% fun, funny people playing in the WWdN back in 2005, and therefore we almost never saw the dickheadedness in the chatbox of our own private events among friends, by 2007 and 2008, that percentage was way, way down. And with a bunch more people who weren't interested in being friends, having fun or in being civil to anybody were playing in the events, of course the atmosphere suffered. It wasn't just about how much more was on the line, because even with nothing on the line people were jerks aplenty. And the jerkness spread to all corners of the poker blogging community, not just the private tournament chatbox. The number of negative blog posts and negative commentary about others was significantly higher than it would ever have been back in the day, by several multiples. The number of people maintaining poker blogs who were actually just angry, jealous people with not much else going on in their lives had jumped over the past few years, and these are the people who tended to cause most of the trouble, and especially to pile on when they sensed another member of the community was vulnerable. The whole notion of doing anything but helping another poker blogger who was vulnerable for some reason would have been abhorrent to all of us back in 2005 -- back when 120 people played the WWdN every week with nary a cross word uttered in the chatbox, back when 130 people descended on Las Vegas from all around the country and around the world in the summer of 2006 -- but by 2007 and 2008, if certain people saw another blogger getting slammed on, it was over. It was negative comments about the person in every blog they could find. Shit, you can actually look at these people's blogs right now and they still have the negative crap up -- prominently featured in some cases -- because amazingly they aren't even embarrassed about the piling on they've done. They're proud of it. Because they just don't care. Again, back in 2005, there just weren't many people interested in doing that to other bloggers, because the nature of the group and its members' interests in participating in it was so much purer in the sense I have described above.

Now here we are getting on late 2009, and this trend within the composition of the poker blogging community has continued still over the past year or two. To a guy like me it seems like the majority of the people who have joined the group over the past long while are doing so not for the sake of the poker, but for some other purpose. With such a different customer base nowadays if you will, it only stands to reason that the private blogger tournaments have very little interest in them anymore. To the people who helped make these things the fun and jovial times-to-look-forward-to that they used to be, today they are an absolute shadow of their former selves.

Ever wonder why the only people who clamor anymore these days for the private blogger games to continue to grow are people who weren't playing them even just two or three years ago? Now you know.

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.