This was purely written for myself. Sort of just getting something off my chest.
Discussions seem to be popping up everywhere about the BBT and what should happen. Most of them taking the form of this should happen or they should do it this way not that way etc.... My favorites have included, this should be the price.
I just get so wound up about folks trying to tell those that do all of this for us, how it should be done. If I ever saw a point or place to properly use WTF?????? I say this is it. It's right up there with those few times that some idiot occasionally tries to tell Pauly how he should cover the WSoP.
So here's my personal take on all this.
The price of admission to the BBT should be whatever Al, Mookie, CEM and whoever else runs a game participating in the series say's it is. They do the work for us and it should always be appreciated and never taken for granted.
Not including all of the donated prizes, wasn't there over $75,000 paid out in the prize pool for just the BBT3? I'm not sure how that can be looked upon as anything but incredible!
My hats off to Al, Mook, HOY, Miami Don, CEM and CHAD for everything they have done past and present on our behalf, with these great BBT events. Personally I think if yours isn't too, you're being an ungrateful ass-hat.
The price of a game should mean nothing to our community, ever! It should always be about the function, event or tourney and getting as many of us as humanly possible out to each and every one. Not to mention our readers! Several of whom are not bloggers themselves, but love to come out and play in the games that we pimp the crap out of.
You want diversity? Read the blogs that are out there yourself. Some of our group only sit at $1 tables, while others sit at $100+ tables regularly. Hell, there are bloggers and readers that just love to sit at play money tables for crying out loud. But they make a deposit on a site and come out to play in the games with us during the BBT. They participate and as they do, the feeling of belonging to a community as great as ours is nutured along. Our group is made better and stronger as we bring them into our fold. Why not try to keep it balanced as best it can be done? Why not try to keep it affordable for everyone that wants to play?
There are those that are quite comfortable in saying it's only money. That's great and it makes me happy to hear that you are in that position. In these economic times however, not everyone is as lucky as us and we should always remember that fact. As hard as it might be for some of you out there to imagine, $26 can mean an awful lot to some. If you actually read through a bunch of the blogs connected with our community, you should already know that.
In my humble opinion, the BBT is something where the idea is to encourage bloggers and their readers to come out and participate. Not only for their company at the tables, but to show our host be it FullTilt, PokerStars, BoDog, Party Poker or any other site that will have us and treat us as well as they have, that we really are a community worth taking part in and supporting. Anything else is quite frankly, asinine.
You know what typically spoils a great thing?
It's usually those that don't know how good they've got it, until it's gone.
Many thanks to those that run not only the BBT series, but to each of you that week in and week out, go through the work and effort it takes to give us an outlet for fun, poker and something to write or read about the morning after.
My sincerest thanks for dropping by....