BBT4 still going, isn't it?

Congrats to Vinnay for getting his TOC seat. Click on his name to go congratulate him. I'm surprised that the number of players in the BBT4 really dropped off. We are past the halfway mark and I was expecting bigger and bigger numbers of people as the bloggers promote the opportunity to win a WSOP seat on top of the normal earnings. Red Pros would be playing and we would be setting new records for the number of players in each tournament.

Well the opposite has happened. As we reach the midway point, it appears we are thinning out to the "regulars". It was obvious last night when there wasn't a single player that I hadn't played with before in the Riverchasers. I guess that's good, since the odds of people winning two or more TOC seats are better with fewer players. But more is better too. More people now means more prizes and hoopla for BBT5.

So what are you waiting for? You don't need a bunch of points to win the TOC. You only need a seat. You can win one of the remaining 23 tournaments and YOU ARE IN! And really, you don't even need to win the TOC. 2nd place also gets a 12K package to the WSOP MAIN EVENT. There are still 23 remaining seats out of the 53 total that will be playing!

If you don't have an account, go to fulltilt poker , download the software and use promo code: jamy600 . You'll get a 100% match for deposited funds up to $600. You have an opportunity to win seats to the WSOP on top of the normal prize money. These seats have been donated by Fulltilt Poker.
Come on out and play!!!!!!!

I'm in TOC

I almost made something happen online

I was chip leader with 17 left. That's a good shot at getting a BBT4 seat.


I couldn't finish it out but the reality is, I made a bad play with AJ all in from MP after a Raise. I reraised all in and he called with AQ. I didn't improve so that was it for me. I was disappointed but happy with how I ended up overall. At one point I was at $1300 with 80/160 blinds.


Recap courtesy of theCloserX5:
2nd Break
Closer 9529 chips ranked 13th
Hawk 17144 chips ranked 4th

Top 20570
Avg 9193
Low 2145
Players 31

Then I was taken out in 22nd place got some points but no $$$

Than the hand of the night Hawk in sb and Buddy Dank in cutoff it folds to Buddy and he raises pot Hawk calls and bb folds.
Flops 9 5 5
Buddy bets pot and Hawk calls
Turns 6
Buddy all in and Hawk calls
Buddy has AA Hawk has Ah 5h
Hawk won pot took out Buddy and was sitting over 80,000 in chips

3rd Break
Hawk 30634 ranked 6th

Top 55316
Ave 35625
Low 12800
Players 8

Hawk took 4th place with AJ vs AQ (VBPro7)
Won $104.50

Mookie Bubble

I was pretty happy with my play in the MOOKIE last night. There were 3 critical hands IMO that made me finish 10th out of 98. I hated being the bubble boy, but to be honest, I was not playing like we were on the bubble. Sometimes I do and tighten "the hell up". But last night I was playing for the win so needed to try to build my chips while we were playing 5 handed.

Critical Hand #1: We all know bloggers love to steal. With antes on the board, stealing becomes essential to all good poker players late in a tournament (Note: I am not equating "bloggers" with "good poker players"... ). OMGitsPokerFool (who I do think is a good player) puts a standard 3x bet from the button while I'm in the small blind. He has almost 2x the chipstack I do and I'm getting fairly low. I attempt a resteal with 45sooooted by shoving all in. A true "steal attempt" has to fold. I got busted though as OMGitsPokerFool shows AQoff and I prepare to leave the tournament. 5 comes on the flop and no improvement for him and I double up. This gave me enough chips to get back into the rotation for steals.

Critical Hand #2: We are playing 5 handed with 10 players left in the tournament. Joanne1111 shoves with a short stack and I decide to call for about 40% of my stack with 77. She shows JJ and I don't improve. I am now ranked 8 out of 10, where I could have been 3rd if I won a coin flip. Looking back, it was a bad call, but I figured her range to be pretty wide with 500/1000 blinds and antes and she only had about 8,000 in front of her. I thought it would be a coin flip and I figured it was worth the risk. Good hand to her.

Critical Hand #3: I'm in the sb and everyone folds around to me. I have 88. We are 5 handed still and I figure any pocket pair has got to be good. I have about 14,000 in chips left and heffmike is in the bb with about 30,000+ in chips. I raise 4x bb and heffmike comes over me all in. I have to put him on a pretty wide range considering I'm only showing 10,000 chips left. I call and he tables 99. Again, it was bad to consider flipping here, I just get tired of blinds firing back at you every time you raise them. I'm sure heffmike agrees. Best case I had to dodge 2 overs. I go home bubble boy.

Oh well. I'm getting a feel for these players again. It's really been over a year since I played consistently in blogger tournaments. I'm having a great time. If your not playing, you should be. Next tournament is Sunday. You can check the leaderboard to see where everyone is. There are still lots of good players with -0- points. Start now and you aren't really behind.

See you in the next one. Stay patient.....

The BBT4 is off and running

Thanks to JuliusGoat and Bayne for my new Donkavatar. I had no idea what to make, so I google search Hawk and got this. I suppose it's an Iowa Hawkeye, but something different for me none the less. If you want one, wander over to the Donkavatar blog and see about getting one for yourself.

The BBT4 is on. I forgot how fun it is. Loretta8 wrote about all the drama from the past and quite frankly, I look forward to it. Bring it on.

I did terrible Sunday night in the Big Game. I couldn't get any traction. I was playing in my own tournament, The HAWK, that I run for Saint Louis area fulltilt poker players, and I guess was doing poorly at managing both games.

Last night in the Riverchasers, I did better. I caught a few good hands at the right time to build up a nice chip stack. Then I raised with 55, Hoy shoved for over half my stack, I called and he flipped over the almighty 57sooted. A 7 hits and I remember now how much I love the BBT series'. Seriously! No sarcasm. I LOVE IT. You get a feel for the players -a feel for the PLAYS. It's fun. You gotta have a thick skin and a strong stomach. I think 27th out of 81 last night. Not terrible, but plenty of room to improve. And improve I will.

I am really looking forward to the upcoming weeks of BBT4. You should come play too.

And I'll leave you with a screen shot from the last hand for the theCloserX5 last night. A little SUCK/RESUCK/ROYAL action. Gotta love it!

Stay patient....

BBT4

I skipped the last BBT tournament. For no other reason than life-tilt. I am going to make an effort to play in this one, but 3 months of playing 3 or 4 times a week is really tough. I highly encourage you to play because the prizes are awesome! There will be some HUGE fields I am sure and some Red Pros from Fulltilt playing. Don't forget: You DON'T have to be a blogger to play.





Copied direct from Al's website:

It takes a little longer these days to get things set up with all the crazy stuff going on. But we will be kicking the challenge off on Sunday, March 1st and running through Sunday, May 31st.





Full Tilt has given us 7 seats to the 2009 World Series of Poker. 2 Main Event seats and 5 prelim seats. We'll have other prizes announced shortly but that should be enough to whet your appetite. I will be giving out the seats in the same was as BBT3. Two Main Event seats and two prelim seats will be part awarded as part of the Tournament of Champions. One prelim seat will be awarded to the Player of the Month for March, April and May.





Cake. There are no requirements to win the seats, no badges, no links. Hell, you don't even have to have a blog. This is open to bloggers and readers.





There has been a tweak to the roster of games. The Thursday Riverchasers game has gone the way of the dodo and the Hoyazo shut down the MATH game months ago. Because I already started to hear some wingnuts about the size of the buyins, we've decided to fill the Monday gap with a new and improved Riverchasers game.





We've also decide to reach across the big pond and give our English brethern a shot at the big prizes. This year, BBT4 will include the regular Sunday Brit Blogger game in the game rotation.





I'm waiting on word from MiamiDon about kicking things off with a Blogger Big Game on March 1st. Last challenge we set a blogger tournament record with a 105 players creating a prizepool over $7,000. Crazy.





I will have more specific details once I finish getting the FTP jump page complete but I wanted to give my blogger friends the head's up. Time to start working on those tokens.





Here is the game rotation.





Tournament: Brit Blogger Game


When: Sunday's at 16:00ET


Game: NLHE


Buyin: $5+.50


Password: donkament





Tournament: PPI / Riverchasers Tournament


When: Monday's at 22:00ET


Game: Deepstack NLHE


Buyin: $24+2 or token


Password: riverchasers





Tournament: Blogger Skillz Game


When: Tuesday's at 21:30ET


Game: rotation of non-NLHE games


Buyin: $10+1


Password: skillz





Tournament: The Mookie


When: Wednesday's at 22:00ET


Game: Deepstack NLHE


Buyin: $10+1


Password: vegas1





Per MiamiDon there will be 3 Big Games:


Tournament #81289088 (03/01/09) - NLH Super Stack


Tournament #81289230 (04/19/09) - NLH Rebuy


Tournament #81289279 (05/31/09) - NLH Super Stack

Get more information on his website.





Good luck to everyone...