“Don’t listen to anybody that knew me. Cause who have known me would mean that there’s a new me and if you think Ive changed in the slightest could’ve fooled me…” Drake – Say What’s Real.
Okay. I have a lot to write about. I just busted from my first Borgata Winter Open tournament. I will discuss the hand below but I am still shocked and can’t comprehend what just happened. Anyways, I have a lot to talk about so let me get started.
In the beginning of January I played some local tournaments at a casino and they didn’t go so well. I have the hand histories from them saved to my phone. They aren’t too interesting so I probably will not post about them. Let me know if you want me to post them anyways. I plan on writing about every tournament I play over the next two weeks while I am at Borgata playing here.
Let me first talk about my exciting journey to actually get to Atlantic City (Yesterday.) The plan was to meet my buddy Steve at the Fort Lauderdale airport at around 10:30am to catch our flight at noon. I got there around 10:45am and Steve showed up a couple minutes later. He said that the flight was at 1:40pm and we weren’t on it. What?? He booked the flight for us so I had no involvement in any of this. We get on his laptop real quick and find out that the flight was actually at 9:30am. GOOD JOB STEVE. So he starts talking to Spirit (the airline we were flying on) and they basically say they can’t help us unless we want to leave the next night. No thank you. We end up finding a flight on Delta.
Instead of flying directly to Atlantic City, we now have tickets to fly to Ohio, then fly to Philly, and from Philly we need to get to Atlantic city. Atlantic City is about an hour away from Philly. So we have our new agenda and we rush to security to make our 1pm flight to Ohio. We ended up getting screened and had to wait in a separate line and get patted down and all our carry on bags got checked. That took about thirty minutes and we ran to our gate. The guy said we made the flight by 2 minutes, perfect. We finally get on the plane and are on our way to Ohio.
We land in Ohio and we find our gate for the flight to Philly. It was supposed to leave at 4:35 (it was about 3:45 now) and then they pushed it back to 5pm. Me and Steve hung out in a little coffee shop for a while then 4:45 rolled around and we figured we should go to the gate and see if they are boarding. Nobody is around and the ladies ask us if we are flying to Philly? We scream “YES!” and shes like we were about to close the gate in 2 seconds. First two minutes, now two seconds, jeez. She said the plane was supposed to leave at 5pm not board at 5pm. Oh well lol. We get on this little 60 person plane or something and end up making it to Philly.
We get our bags and we are trying to decide if we want to take a cab to downtown Philly and then take the bus to Atlantic city. We decided that a town car/cab is the best idea and we take a town car. We stopped at Famous Philly Cheese steak place Geno’s on the way which was pretty good but I wish I could of spent a little more time there. We rushed our way to order and get back in the car and to Atlantic City.
We finally make it to Borgata Hotel and Casino and check in and get to our room. Steve and I are sharing a room. We went down and registered for the tournament the next morning an $810 buyin tournament. We went back to the room, I took a shower, we chatted a bit and then we ended up going to sleep.
I woke up at about 9:00am this morning and took a shower and woke up for the tournament at 11am. Steve and I got a bite to eat and then went to our tournament tables. Levels are 50 minutes long and the starting stacks are 10k. Nobody at my table was recognizable and they were mostly middle/older aged gentlemen. One guy was trying to take over the table, he was in about 75% of hands for the first couple orbits til about the first break. I realized immediately this guy didn’t want to give up any pots and he was going to be making a lot of plays on pots and play a lot of hands. Some people didn’t pick up on this as quickly. One hand UTG made it 250 at 25/50 with 2500 behind. It got two callers then one new guy who just sat down (younger kid) made it 1250. It folded to the maniac guy who then made it like 6k. UTG obviously wasn’t folding and called off with AKss and the kid who made it 1250 mucked QQ face up. The maniac guy turned up 44 and lost the race. So my read was right on the guy about how he was going to be in a lot of pots and try to take them down. The blinds were either 25-50 or 50-100 but anyway the point is this guy put in a ton of chips preflop with 44 just because he thought he could take the pot away etc.
Instead of mixing it up early like I normally do, I decided to just relax and see everything that’s going on and figure out how everyone is playing. I folded an orbit or so and picked up AKo and raised to 150. I got 4 callers, bricked the flop and gave up. I also pick up AJo and there is a late raise, the sb calls, and I call in the bb and brick and give up as well. I lost a couple other small pots as well. The first interesting hand comes up when I raise AQo to 300 preflop and the maniac I talked about above calls from the small blind. The flop Comes K85ss and he checks to me. I bet 450 and he calls. The turn is the 5d it puts up two spades, two diamonds. I decided he wasn’t too strong and fired another bullet of 800. I figured with my image I could get credit for at least a king. He called again. The river came the 4h and he checked. I figured I had enough showdown value or that he had a King at this point and also checked. He turned over 67 for the rivered straight. I started with 8600 and now am down to 7k.
I’m not worried or anything, just waiting for a hand I can win some chips with. It comes when a new player limps for 100 UTG and an active player who was tight but aggressive made it 450 in 2nd position. I had TT on the button and decided to just call. The limper folded, we went to the flop heads up. The flop came T82ss and I flopped the nuts. He bet 900. I had seen him stab at flops continuation betting and folding previously so I decided he could have air and just called. The turn was the 9h putting two hearts up as well and he asked how much I had behind. I had 5500 behind and he bet 2k. I really felt like this card helped him in his mind. Either with JJ or QQ or maybe he had like AQhh or something. I shoved it in and he called with QQ and I held up and doubled to 14k.
This guy who was a little fishy limped the hijack and I completed the small blind with QTss for 150. The flop came AJ5s and the hijack limper bet 300. I decided to float here and maybe take away on turn or river. The turn came the Kh and I turned the nuts. I checked and he checked. The river came the 9d, I still had the nuts, and I bet 1200 on the river. A little more than the pot and he called and I won the pot and was up to 16k.
Three limpers before me I limp with QJo for 150 one guy limps behind then tight guy makes it 500 on button. We all call 5 to the flop. It comes JJ9hh and it checks to me. I don’t think the tight guy would bet AA on the flop or anything so I decide to stab here even if it looks transparent. It folds back to the first limper and he moves in 5k or 6k (the guy i beat in the pot above) and I call. He has 45hh and he bricks and I am now up to 24k.
**WARNING SICK HAND** — Also any input is appreciated on this hand. I would like to see what others think.
THE VERY NEXT HAND I get JJ and make it 400 preflop. Now I have only shown basically the nuts in 3 showdowns. I haven’t shown any other hands. My image has to be tight but I think just given how people perceive me they think I am going to mix it up, especially since I have chips now. The crazy maniac guy defends his bb which his range is literally any 2 cards.
The flop comes J9dd4s. I flop the nuts once again. He checks and I bet 600. He looks at me like he thinks I’m just trying to outplay him and start running over the table and hes not having it. I know he thinks I’m full of it. Like I said, this is the guy who is in every hand and doesn’t want to give up any pots ever. He calls.
The turn comes the J9dd4s 7h. Now T8 makes the nuts. He checks and I bet 1500. He doesn’t think very long and he just calls again. Now I know he doesn’t have T8 because I am 99.9999% sure he would raise the turn here with T8. I’m pretty confident and looking at him and everything it seems like hes still waiting to make his play on the pot.
The river comes J9dd4s7h 3c. It seems like a pretty safe river and the action is on him. He ends up betting 4500, which is about the pot. Now in my mind I know for sure he doesn’t have T8 here. Other than that 56 beats me. Now he could have 56dd for the flush draw then turned the open ended straight draw on the turn. I also think that he would make this bet with any set 33,44,99,77 maybe waiting for the river to see a non over card come or a non diamond. He might also make this play with some kind of two pair like 93 suited or maybe 34 suited. With all this information and the previous history and things I have seen I decide to raise and get a lot of money out of him. I make it 14.5k, 10k more. He thinks and is like “man this is so sick, jeez this is so sick, blah blah blah.” I only have like 5k behind and he has me covered by a couple thousand. After his little speeches hes like I’m all in. I snap call and he says straight. He turns over 56o and scoops the 50k pot.
I’m still stunned while I type this in the hotel room. I really felt like if I didn’t raise the river I was losing value. I thought for sure he had 77 or 33 and he was going to pay it off. Once I make the big raise I don’t think I can ever fold for getting 10-1 on my money when this guy could think J7 or some other two pair is nutted. I thought there was an outside shot he could have 56dd but given everything I felt like I had to raise the river. I’m honestly sickened by this hand. I had only shown the nuts and I played super tight in the three hours I played. For him to float the flop with absolutely nothing and hit perfect perfect to stack me is really frustrating. I don’t really know what else to say about this hand. Steve is trying to say to just call the river, what does he ever call a raise with I beat, but I completely disagree. The only hand he can ever logically have that beats me is 56dd. I really felt like I had this player pinned all day. I knew from the start that he was going to be really active and try to win pots and not give up many pots. I guess that’s why I played as tight as I did.
If anyone has any comments let me know. If I would of just called his river bet I probably would of had 16k or so in chips. But like I said, I think just calling is bad. I know a lot of live players with their big hands try to wait for the river to see safe cards. If he had 99 or any other set like 77 I think he might play it similarly. It’s just really frustrating to lose a 50k pot at 75/150 in that fashion, in that way, to that player, etc. The tournament today got about 500 players and was over 100k to first. I will be playing tomorrows 1k tournament. Hopefully it goes better.
Hopefully all the bad luck so far in this trip has run its course and things will turn around. I will be updating the blog probably everyday with how things are going here at Borgata. I will be here for the whole Borgata Winter open series. I am definitely playing really good poker and plan on having a big score within the next two weeks. Hopefully everything works out in one of these tournaments and I take one down. I’ll keep you guys updated.
