I'm a hobbyist

I doubt I'll be participating in the BBT4.
I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us, and I give props to Al for setting it up. But there are three good reasons why I probably won't take part.
• It's expensive - It sucks up time and a lot of money to play the whole series, and I can't devote much of either to a series that I have an outsider's shot of making much of an impact on anyway. I'm a decent MTT player at best, and against a large, tough field that will surely show for this, I don't have much of a shot.
• Poker is a hobby now, and maybe not even a serious one - I'll still read books about it and watch it on TV, but I'm not playing as much as I once did. The Mookie is almost always the only MTT I play during the week, and I think I'm probably going to devote one day a week to cash games. I'm a little discouraged at the coolers and bad beats I've taken lately, but more than that, I'm also in a general downswing and have found the games to be much tougher than ever before. I'm a good player, but there are thousands of good players online now, and I'm tired of fighting so hard for just a bite of fish every once in a while.
Poker's not gone from my life, not by a long shot, but it's no longer a large chunk of it.
• The general "feel" of these BBT4 events - The douchebag factor seems to really crank up for these things because the stakes are so high and it attracts a lot of players who aren't in our regular group. I love the Mookie partly because I know the players and hardly any of them are douchebags. This is the consequence of having a high-stakes series, and though I think it's worth it for all of us to pay that consequence, I personally don't want to be a part of it. I got really tired of the fighting, nasty comments and overall douchebagness of last year's series, and I just don't want to go through it again.
You might see me at a couple of these events, but for the most part, good luck to all and win some seats - I want to have someone to pull for in this year's WSOP.