BBT4 review and thoughts, blahblah

Ok, so the final standings are out.... Sixth for May, fourth overall for +400 in bonus mobneys.

Kudos to QueensUP, HighOnPoker, TuscaloosaJohn, Shabazz Jenkins - all you guys gave me a target to aim for I could never quite hit dead center...

I'll throw up BBT3 stats up to just for comparison.

BBT4
	Wins	FT	In Pts	In $$	Events	Points	$$$$$	Pt Avg.
2nd	1	4	6	5	19/20	687.2	$1,043.50	36.17	March
6th	1	5	6	1	18/18	378.7	$148.00	21.04	April
6th	1	5	7	5	16/18	476.7	$269.39	29.79	May
4th	3	14	19	11	53/56	1542.6	$1,460.89	29.11	TOTAL
BBT3
72nd	0	0	3	1	15/19	166.9	$18.26	11.13	March
44th	0	2	3	2	13/19	234.7	$134.85	18.05	April
5th	1	4	6	4	18/18	536.3	$574.32	29.79	May
25th	1	6	12	7	47/56	937.9	$727.43	19.96	TOTAL

A few things to take away from this..

-Hey, at least I was very consistent month to month. 2nd-6th-6th, with a win every month. I think Shabazz ran 5th-2nd-5th to do better. Damn, I wanted that fourth win to get on top of Jordan, though. Guess I'll regret this heads up match for a while....

-But, I played the last two months basically breakeven or a little below.. I rode the first month's cash profits hard, as I couldn't make any big money in April and May. I kept pointing and getting deep, but not making the top three in a Riverchasers or Mookie, where the real $ were this series. I'm not going to sneeze at 110% ROI though, including bonus.

-At least I'm playing better than I was last year. Nice to see a general upslope trend.

I'm still running in the mid-30% ROI on Full Tilt MTTs for 2009 even without the BBT4 results, so at least my success translates to non-blogger events too..

*****

Some quick words about the BBT4 and blogger tournaments in general.

I'll miss it, I'll be honest - Al would not BS around about this being the last roundup. The series motivated me to get better, play more consistently, work harder on my MTT game.
Not because a $10 or $20 tournament makes or breaks me - but because I love competition, especially with a group of people I've gotten to know (virtually) over the last few years.

The BBT4 was especially nice because I managed to strike up a few chat compadres, and playing in a community can be a wonderful port in a storm.

Online poker can be such a solitary experience. To have a few railbirds when you're deep in a tourney, blogger or not, can be the beam of sunlight in the otherwise dark, dank world of MTTs.

I know there are a lot of old schoolers who have hated the money grubbing, and the chat, and the more, uh, aggressive/douchebag attitude of the newer school players - and I've had my moments at times, I freely admit....

But I've got to say...

-BBT4 was pretty devoid of that catty drama compared to BBT3. It was the exception and not the rule. I enjoyed myself in this series.
Those that stayed away because they were worried about it or just fed up.. - well, I don't know what to tell you.
You missed out, and you were missed.

-Things change, nothing stays the same - communities evolve whether you want them to or not.
Adapt to it or choose to do something else, that's way cool.
But what's that Sopranos line - remember when is the lowest form of conversation?

Anyhow, I've had a ball the last two series. Thanks, Al. It was much appreciated.
Even though I'm worn out, if there's ever a BBT5 I'm still game.... :-)

********************

This weekend's TOC?
I'm not one to handicap the field or make any specific predictions, mainly because of this...

"Lapp, we need to beat (Kentucky) just once. If we played them one hundred times could we beat them once?"
(Villanova assistant coach Steve) Lappas thought for a moment.
"Maybe" was the best he could finally come up with.
John Feinstein, "A Season Inside"

The TOC isn't going to determine the best blogger player.
We just did that over 56 tournaments and three months of play, and even then there's a lot of short term variance.

All someone needs to do Sunday is hold over 42 other muppets over four hours of play...
Hell, we lose half the field in two hours, the average stack will only be 20BB.
All someone needs to do is run hot and win a few flips... one time.

I've played great and not even sniffed a final table in BBT4.
I've played like total muppet ass and won.

You can boost your odds by playing smart and putting yourself in good spots... hey, I didn't luckbox into every final table...
But even then, someone only has to spike that two outer, have the runner runner come in - once - and you hit the rail.

I'm not going to worry one way or the other about what happens... if I play well and smart and make good decisions, I'm comfortable going out 44th or 5th or 2nd.
But yeah, I think I've got a better shot than most of the field, I'm not going to lie.
I intend to play smart and focused - minimal chat, no BDR or other distractions - and give it my best effort.

I will predict this:

- One or two seats will go to a "respected" player - someone in the BBT4 Top 5, or with a long record of MTT pwnage.
- At least one, and maybe two seats will go to a "are you freaking kidding me" blogger who runs hotter than the Sun and gets it in bad at least twice for all their chips and sucks out.
- Some "unknown" player, probably a semi-pro slumming, or someone with a second rakeback account, picks up that last seat and pisses everyone else off, lol.

*****************
So what now? Well, I can concentrate on the AIPS series a little more and try to get a fourth banana... and I still want to make sure Team Schaubs crushes and stomps for the rest of the 2009 Mookies...

But beyond that.. I'm not sure. I've got until October when babygirlheff arrives. I don't know where I should go from now.

Grind SnGs and slowly profit?
Take some more shots at large field MTTs and finally get past that last 5% of the field for the big mobney?
Learn cash all over again because I'm going to need those skills post-October?

I don't know. Not having a tournament series to play every week suddenly leaves me sans direct motivation.
Thoughts?