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.

Another 50-50 Final Table, and More on the BBT

One day after I final tabled the new nightly 50-50 tournament on full tilt for a 5th place finish as $2400 score, on Wednesday night, I did it again. After busting fairly early from the Mookie on more of the same donkeyplay that I've been exhibiting in all the blonkaments since the end of the BBT, I turned my focus to the 50-50 tournament, where for the second straight night I was mired thick in a huge death of cards for the first few hours. Just like on Tuesday night, Wednesday night saw me steal the blinds, resteal from blind stealers and bluff-raise my way to survival through the first 2 or 3 hours of the event, and just like on Tuesday, at some point I finally hit my first few big starting cards of the tournament.

The whole run was actually very similar to my run from the night before. In the span of a few big hands I managed to jump from around 4k to around 18k in chips, and from there it was fairly smooth sailing, exactly zero suckouts in my favor that I can recall in the entire tournament, until the final few tables. The action got very tight for a while down to 27 players left, but eventually I managed to trick a couple of players into betting big or even calling big bets from me with poor cards, and before I knew it I was in the middle of the pack and down to just the mid-teens left of players. Mercifully the final table bubble did not last long as some clown with AQ got it all in before the flop and lost to a pocket pair, and I had made my second straigh 5050 final table.

This time around, however, I would not last long, as I got caught for the second straight night on a resteal of a player I read as being weak, who then re-reraised me allin when I had nothing I could call with. Yes, to the players who were on the rail this move, just like a similar play last night down to 5 players left in the tournament, probably looked like a terrible one to make. All I can say is, that's exactly the type of poker that had brought me to this point in the tournament, so to suddenly start picking on it at the final table really does make no sense. Obviously in both cases I turned out to be wrong, but when you go 57 for 57 on your reraises and resteals with air over the prior 3 hours, reaching the final table in a large mtt on two consecutive nights, and then suddenly resteal #58 doesn't work out for you, it seems kinda silly to question the whole restealing strategy as a whole. You live by it, and you die by it. That's the way poker works. Just believe me when I say, if you had been sitting behind my computer screen for the past two nights instead of behind your own, and you saw the totality of the bullshit I had been raising, reraising and moving in with again and again and again and again to reach this point in both tournaments, you would understand why I can't kick myself for the plays I made. That said, at each final table I finally pushed my shit cards into a better hand, made a good fold at that but gave up much of my chip stack on the failed steal attempt. Then in both cases I was forced to push shortly thereafter from a short stack, and I could not hold on to win. Last night I eventually pushed allin with 98s from early position, got called by two shit cards and my opponent hit one of his shitcards to send me to the rail in 9th place, the first elimination from the final table, 5 hours and 47 minutes after sitting down to the tournament that I had satellited in to for $14 on two straight nights:





So that's over 3k taken out of this tournament in two consecutive days, which is always good. And what's more, it is three top-15 finishes now in just the month or so that this tournament has been running, of which I've probably only played it half of the weekdays or less. All of which is just a long braggadocio way of saying once again how much I like the structure of this tournament, which is easily the best mtt available on full tilt, at least during the evenings when I am available to play. Double stack to start gives you some availability to wait a long time for good cards if you're more of the tight-weak variety, and also allows the LAGgy among us to make a few moves, get caught raising with air once or twice, and still have plenty of chippage left over to get back on your feet and make a run, something that actually happened to me in each of the last two nights. 12-minute blind rounds also allows for plenty of opportunity to wait for good cards or for a flop that really hits your hand before you have to make a move, as compared to the 6- or 10-minute rounds that we mtt guys are used to seeing online. Even as compared to the 10-minute round mtt's, those extra 2 minutes per round can really add up over a 5 or 6 hour tournament. Basically the 10-minute rounds means 6 rounds per hour, while as 12 minutes this equates to just 5 rounds per hour. So, after 6 hours, say, when you're at the final table of this thing, that is a full 6 rounds fewer that you've played with 12-minute blind rounds as compared to 10-minute rounds. And 6 rounds at that level probably makes the difference between a 4000-chip big blind and a 20,000-chip big blind. Which would you rather have as you start the final table of a major online tournament? I tell you the structure of this 5050 tournament is the best thing I've seen anywhere online, and so far at least myself, KOD, Astin, Waffles, jeciimd and Iak have each managed to run into at least the top 50 of this tournament one time in less than four weeks of its existence so far.

Now back to the BBT for one more quick discussion. We've spent a lot of time over the past few days considering different scoring systems and the strengths and weaknesses involved in each. We've talked about some ideas I have for tracking the leaderboard in a way that I think most fairly represents who has really been the best performer in the challenge. I've also discussed a number of the criticisms I've heard about the challenge overall, what I think about those criticisms and the ways to possibly address them in the future. And that future is what I'd like to chat briefly about today.

Should we do this whole BBT thing again? I have to say, to me there is a certain mystique about only running something like this one time that is, to me, attractive in its own way. I mean, if you run a tournament challenge like this too often, I guarantee you it will get old pretty fast. Think back to some of the fun initiatives other bloggers have started up in the past among our group. I thought the DADI tournament was just about the coolest thing ever when these three donkeys first hatched the idea probably close to two years ago now. I remember looking forward to that thing bigtime for probably 6 weeks, focusing on it, preparing for it, and just anticipating it generally. And yet, by the tenth tournament, the founders themselves suggested that they believed the whole DADI concept had run its course. You could make a similar argument about the WPBT tournament series, which like DADI is something that I personally really love, but also something which you could see the dropoff in participation in in this, its second year, even long before the BBT was even a glimmer in Al's eye. All of these tournaments were fun all the way through of course, don't get me wrong, but too much of it tends to cheapen the thing and just makes it less "cool" than it once was. This is something that happens in everyone's mind, all of the participants, the people who started it, the sponsors (if any), etc., and it kinda happens involuntarily, without any action on the part of anyone involved. You've heard the old saying that "familiarity breeds contempt", right? I'm not saying people will feel contempt for the BBT or anything any more than we feel that way about the DADI or WPBT tournaments nowadays, but the concept underlying that saying is at work here nonetheless.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that I am not in the camp that thinks we should bring the BBT back anytime soon. I mean, I do think there is a certain romantic coolness to having there be just one BBT, and that's it. But then I also recognize the incredible increase in participation and just generally in the "community" aspect of our group that came about this spring and summer as a direct result of the advent of the BBT, and that kind of thing gets me excited. I love when our group has a regular meeting or meetings where a large group of us will be involved in the same thing at the same time, and have the chance to interact in ways we would not necessarily be interacting with via girly chat or email on other regular nights otherwise full of online poker and final table runs. Seeing how popular the BBT became so quickly, and see how into the tournaments and into the challenge generally most of the players were, and even seeing how much participation in the weekly blogger tournaments has increased even now after the BBT is over, all as a direct result of the community that was fostered by having the BBT for these past three months, and on that level I do think it would be cool to bring the thing back at some point in the future, fix some of the issues with scoring and leaderboard tracking, etc., secure another round of really cool sponsorships and prizes, and really kick some ass with it again next time around.

For me, if you read here regularly then you know I am absolutely relishing right now having all these weekly blogger tournaments without the BBT, without any long-term scoring tracking system going on that might otherwise impact the way someone plays a given tournament on any given night. Over just a week and a half since the end of the challenge, I am really loving the whole blonkaments-without-consequences thing, and it feels at least to me like a big weight has been lifted from how all of us can play these tournaments again now. So I'm not someone who thinks we should be doing BBTwo anytime in the near future. Whether that means we wait a couple of months until the end of the summer, or do what I would probably do left to my own devices and wait until next year sometime, I think a BBTwo would be a fun idea with the proper changes put into place from how we ran it this time around. I think the MATH, the Mookie, the Riverchasers and the Big Game definitely benefit from the existence of something like the BBT, and our blogging brethren across the board also benefit not only from the increased sense of community among the blonkeys, but also from things like total rakeback for all BBT tournaments, and the fun Nintendo prize packages and other little items that guys like Al can cook up in their infinite coolness.

People who keep hating on the freeroll, though, you are just missing the point entirely. Don or somebody suggested a real Tournament of Champions at the end of the series which would be open only to those players who won at least one BBT tournament during the 3 months of the challenge. I love that idea, and I sincerely hope we do something like it next time around, and I will personally push for that if and when we sit down to plan another BBT series at some point in the future. But don't knock the freeroll, people. It could not be clearer that the freeroll, its whopping $1800 prize pool, and the fact that it was open automatically to anyone who played in at least 20 BBT tournaments, that single-handedly is the reason why the BBT attendance was so very strong, and remained so strong right through the end of the series. We've seen from things like the WPBT in the past, that by the time you hit the last few online events, participation drops dramatically because people know they are out of the running and thus don't show up to play. The freeroll eliminates this incentive, and we don't have to wonder if it works. It already did work. Just look at how many people we had playing in the BBT tournaments even during the last week of the challenge. 54 in the last MATH tournament, one or two short of an all-time record. 70-something in the Mookie, Even more than that in Riverchasers, and then a mid-40s Big Game that snagged a nearly $3500 prize pool, all during just the very last week, and a week heading up to a huge summer travel week at that. The freeroll is the secret, the engine that makes this entire system roll, and that is I think about as close to a fact as we're going to find in reviewing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the BBT overall.

That's all I got for ya today guys. If anyone has thoughts on this or on anything related to the BBT in general, I'd love to read about them here in the comments. Otherwise I will be back tomorrow to close up my discussions on the BBT, and hopefully with a story of a third 5050 final table in 3 days. Hah yeah right!

Don't forget Riverchasers tonight, 9pm ET on full tilt. I owned this tournament during the BBT, but so far since the BBT ended I have been uberly donkish in all blonkaments, and I'm looking forward to continuing that streak tonight at Al's latest Riverchasers tournament tonight at 9pm ET, password is "riverchasers" under the "private" tournament tab. I am already registered and look forward to trying to bluff a calling station and being untimely removed early in this thing, so come and join in if nothing else just to be the person who gets to kick my ass outta there within the first few minutes. I definitely feel a Gigli kicing around inside me, triyng to worm its way out one of these days soon. Maybe you can help tonight to be that night!