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.

Oh What a Night

Oh what a night is right! By far the biggest prize ever won by a poker blogger in a poker blogger tournament was awarded last night to the winner of the series-ending BBTwo Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions, and that prize went to none other than BBT killer jeciimd. Although I was not privy to his hole cards other than what he told me a few times on the IM, from watching it was clear that jec won the incredible 18k prize package for two to the Aussie Millions in January by playing the exact same way he has played all of the BBT tournaments that occurred in both tournament series that we ran this year: by being patient, and by getting paid when he made his moves.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I mean, I saw jec get a lot of good cards in the BBTwo, which of course makes this strategy work so well and makes it something that renders it impossible for a guy like me to just patiently wait for the good cards. That said, jec's good fortune did not even approach that of some of the other well-known bloggers who played in the BBTwo, and that doesn't even get in to the first BBT where I would not say jec got good cards at all. The guy ended BBT1 in 3rd place overall on the leaderboard, where I kind of screwed him although I bet most people don't know this. As you may recall I ended up winning or getting to the final two in three tournaments in the last couple of weeks of the first BBT, rocketing myself in the last week to a fourth-place finish, one behind jec, such that jec won something like $340 in cash while I won the Nintendo Wii that I've written so much about for fourth place. Being a good 15 years beyond my video gamer days (there was a time when I could take Jeremy Roenick and kick any of your asses in Sega Hockey 1993), jec had already expressed an interest in the Wii and I basically agreed then and there to just sell it to him once I received it. Long story short, I got the thing in the mail, and I just wanted to hook it up once, you know, just to see what all the hubbub was about. Fast forward about two days later of nonstop playing, and I had to give jec the bad news that I was keeping the Wii. It's something I have felt bad about ever since that day, but not that bad as I continually beat the tar out of Sarah and that fucker Elisa every night in Wii Tennis. Anyways, now I officially don't feel bad about it anymore.

So jec also ran his way through the field in the BBTwo, crushing everyone in his path, and making over $2700 in the process of systemaically demolishing every last one of us by all standards. I mean, to be honest I don't put a lot of stock in the leaderboard to the first BBT, and that's even including my own 4th place finish. That leaderboard scoring system was so bad that I think I actually turned ghey for a little while, awarding points every time someone finished in the top half of the field. I'm dreaming about Brad Pitt here just thinking about that. Jec took advantage of that scoring system better than anyone, ending in 3rd place despite losing a nice chunk o' cash in the series, and like I said that just does not mean much of anything to me in genuine poker skills terms. But the BBTwo was the Real Deal without a doubt. With a scoring system that clearly rewarded actual tournament success play and awarded points based not on people playing like tightydonks but rather on people lasting far, making final tables, and winning the dam things, jec totally shined. He crushed us all, and as Goat and I were discussing this morning on the girly chat, the guy has clearly figured out the System for beating the blonkaments. He is without a doubt one of the most patient players on the blogger circuit, and it clearly pays off for him.

And you know what I love most of all about jec winning this whole shebang here? Jec works his ass off at his poker game, moreso than just about anyone. The guy reads almost as many poker books as me, and you can literally always count on him currently being in the middle of some poker text or another. In my opinion jec's no-limit holdem game basically blew anus when I first got to know him, which was I guess around a year ago or so online (we've never met in person) through an introduction from a mutual friend over a girly chat room. I literally remember jec not knowing how to steal the blinds -- when, who or how -- and spending a lot of time chatting with him about that (little did he know he had come to the Master on that particular topic). His game was soft, passive, and just generally nowhere near sufficient to succeed in this game. Even during the first BBT I think jec improved dramatically through the competition and the repetition with the same players and playing the same game again and again in a setting where we all had a real incentive to improve and suceed. Although, the real improvement in jec's nlh game I think has come since the BBT1 ended, where jec had a real Man's reaction to his BBT1 performance. Instead of yukking it up about finishing in 3rd place on the TLB, instead jec was well aware that something was wrong with his game to have lost as much money and not final tabled hardly at all. Since then I know jec has read at least 5 or 10 poker books (maybe more) because we chat about them just about every night, and dam if the guy is not out there practicing what he's reading and what he's learning almost every single night on the virtual or live felt. As I said, he is one of those guys who really takes the game, and his game, totally seriously, and I for one have to say that it is a fucking pleasure to see someone like that winning a prize like this. I don't plan to write any more about jec's incredible performance last night here today -- hopefully a certain someone who won 18 thousand samolians last night will actually make a blog post about it hint hint -- but again, congratulations out to jec who waited patiently all through the aggro and the pushing and the bluffing and everything that everyone who sat and watched the whole tournament saw, and when he made his moves near the end it was when he had cards and was ahead for the most part. Just. Incredible.

In other news, lucko took down the BBTwo TLB freeroll, which was a $1000 freeroll put up by full tilt for the top 50 players on the BBTwo leaderboard. So the competition was tough in that one, and it was roughly twice the size of the ToC, and lucko took it down. I'm sure he played his typical strong game to get 'er done, though I have to admit to not watching the TLB freeroll at all during the night due to the ToC, and of course to the regular Riverchasers tournament running at the same time. In that Riverchasers event, in light of events this week I decided I was going to play like an abject moron, which is exactly what I did. And amazingly, it worked out for me again and again and again, leading me eventually to a 4th place finish out of 30 runners and another cash in the RC as a result. It's incredible to me that I lasted this far, given the way I played the game and the number of apologies I probably owe people who actually came out to try on this night.

In case you're wondering exactly what I mean or think I'm in some way exaggerating when I say this, allow me to show you the fifth hand of the entire tournament. This could not have been more than 2 minutes after the thing started. Utg limps for the 40-chip big blind, with everyone's stack still right around the starting level of 3000, so we're talking about 75 big blinds as the effective stack here. So utg limps for 40, and utg+1 limps as well for 40 chips. Two players fold, and then Riverchasers Rich raises it up, I think to 80 chips for the minraise. I took this as an aggressive move, minraising two limpers with still four players left to act before the flop, probably indicative of KK, AA, or AK, and probably nothing other than that. I look down on the button to find T8s. A soooooted one-gap connector. How could I not play this against such a tight range, right? I can bust this guy right here and now if I nail this flop. But of course I'm not just going to call this guy with the strong hand, no way, I'm going to reraise. And what's the dumbest thing I can think of?

A small reraise. Why the phuck not, right? So I put in the reraise to a still small 340 chips with my T8s. Everyone else folds back to Rich, who pauses momentarily and then minrereraises again, this time to a 600 chips (these numbers may be a little bit off for you hand history whores, but as always the point is still crystal clear right there). At this point, yet another minraise from Rich could only mean one thing and one thing alone -- pocket Astins. And yet I was not deterred. Determined to play this thing out the way I was, I minrerereraised his ass right back, for the dreaded fourth raise in the hand up to 860 chips. Rich responds by min rererereraising again, putting in the fifth raise of the hand and bringing it up to 1120 chips to play as seen here:



At this point you could bet your life that he has pocket Astins, and he must be putting me on pocket Kings or even another pair of Astins. Absolutely hell bent on playing as donkishly as possible with so many big blinds in our stacks and me so obviously behind his clear as day pocket Astins, there was only one move for me at this point:



Yup. Another minraise, this one a rerererereraise to 1380 chips. Sure I knew I was behind his Astins, but with so many BBs in play I knew I could stack him completely if I hit my hand, and it was a soooooted one-gapper after all. Well, I was saddened at this point when Rich put in the seventh and final raise of the hand, just bumping it up to allin. I was bummed we couldn't go back and forth minraising our entire 75-BB stacks into the pot, but of course I insta-called the allin. And wouldn't ya know it, you know what they say about the 7th raise in a hand, right?



So this is how I started off my Riverchasers run last night:



Again, to Rich, I am truly sorry. And those of you who read here often will note that you will not hear me saying that very often. But I played just like this, pushing allin against obvious made hands for huge stacks with just naked flush draws and hitting (sorry Dabag!), and just generally pushing allin every time I raised preflop throughout the entire middle portion of the tournament, whether it was utg with A9o, in middle position with 98s, you name it and I pushed allin with it. It was actually incredibly fun, seeing how the other half lives for the first time in my entire life, although I have to say that I could never, ever play like that regularly. It took ten times more effort to keep playing uberdonkishly, and it was about 100 times more stressful as far as trying to preserve any chips that I had left, had I actually given a shizznot about that. Anyways, I played like this basically all the way through, cashing in the tournament in 4th place overall and ruining a lot of people's nights who actually came to play in the Riverchasers in the process, and I guess it felt good. If nothing else, as I said above just getting to see how the other half runs in these things for one night was a really fun and I think useful experience for me as far as putting things into perspective and being able to get into other people's heads. And I mean hey, how many times go you get to put in the sixth raise in a hand with T8s preflop, right? Heh heh heh.

OK I guess that's all for today. I look forward to putting some actual fucking poker hands back up on this site next week, but today it really should be all about jeciimd, his incredible performance not just in winning the Aussie Millions Tournament of Champions but really all throughout the BBTwo, and now in his chance to represent himself and represent all of us in the land down undah in January in what will easily be the largest buyin tournament he has ever played in, by, oh, about 12,000 USD. Good times. For those of you who have played live in the big buyin events before, I think that anything we can do to give jec advice on playing in his first big one like this will be a good thing, something which I plan to focus on at some point before jec leaves for Oz next month. For now, to jec, I say live it, love it, revel in it and let it burn an indelible mark into your brain what you have done to the competition all throughout this year. Coming from where you started just a short time ago, and knowing the work that you put into your game and into playing well and always improving, I literally could not be any happier for you, and for us as a group to have such a serious player representing us in the Aussie Millions.