Thursday, September 11, 2008

Up Up and away

Finally a good freaking day, hey it only took me a week. Boy does patience and trying to play good for week pay off and so does not playing 1/2 while you are waiting for a 2/5 seat.

Slept in, woke up around 3:30pm had a message from a nice couple I met last week and have been kinda hanging out with since then telling me there was some good 2/5 games over at the Taj. So I got my ass up and going, hopped in the shower and headed over to the "House of Dirty Chips" otherwise known as the Taj. Got on the list for the 2/5 games and headed up to grab a bite to eat. Ended up losing my spot on the list, so I put it back on again and again once more cause I went out for a smoke and missed my spot again oh well beats playing 1/2 and shipping it right.

Finally they open up a new table and I grab $300, cause I love to short buy on a fresh 2/5 table. Don't ask me why and don't tell why I should buy in for the max when everyone else does cause I'm not listening and I don't know why I like to do it, I guess I like to be behind LOL. I'm just superstitious I guess and it usually pays off.

We are like 5 handed for a few minutes but the table quickly fills and a few hands in I pick up 77 in LP super aggro guy to my right makes it 20 to go I call as do 2 or 3 others and we see a flop. Flop comes 689 rainbow, checks around to super aggro kid who bets 60, I min-raise his ass cause I read it as a c-bet and he min re-raises me, so I just push for about 125 more and he calls. Turn brings the 5 ding ding ding and the river a red Ace and I table my hand and double up. Don't have a clue what he had, he said nice hand and mucked his and I took it down.

Little while later I picked up KcQc in MP and call a $20 preflop raise from the ATM (my new definition of ATM >Asian with a Ton of Money) in the one seat as do 3 others. Wow this guy in the one seat was in the game for like 2K in less then and hour. Older Asian gent who rarely folds and love to call raises. Well flop comes out QsAc3c checks to me and I got the ATM behind me in the one seat so I lead out 45, ATM makes it 150 guy to my right who was a tool at best goes in the tank and folds. I smooth call the 105 raise and watch a pretty lil club fall on the turn, so I check cause I know Mr. ATM is gonna shove and guess what he does for about $250. Well I guess I'll call since I have the nuts and this hand played out perfectly LOL. I think I might be dodging an A or Q on the river but that might be giving him to much credit. I make it out alive and table my winner and scoop another nice pot.

Played another few pots and ended up calling it quits around 1am up a few bucks over $800. Headed out to smoke a cig and decided to stick $40 in a dollar slot and end up making another $100 woops. You guys should just stake me on slot machines, you really should, hahaha.

Anyway call it a night say goodbye to my friends and head back over to Harrahs and decide to play some $15 Black Jack and drink a beer to relax and I'm only a few points away from my Platinum card. Decide to sit at a fresh table cause all the other ones had a bunch of drunk and rowdy guido's sitting at them and I just wanted to chill. So I pull up a chair and pull out 5 Benji's and sit down. I get hit in the head with 8 decks and start pressing my bets a bit and am quickly up $200 and some change. I tell myself if I get back down to just greens which is my profit I'll get up, well I go on another nice lil run and get up when the table fills up and this guy keeps staying on 15 when the dealer is showing a 7 8 9 or 10 which is a must hit. I accidentally pick up another $300 overall, its nice to get up from the Black Jack table with a purple and 3 black chips woo hoo!

Its been a good day, but I am still about ready to go home. As I am sitting in my room watching the sunrise over a nice bay view, oh and watching the coast guard helicopter circle around the bay. Along with the half a dozen search and rescue boats circle about in the water most likely searching for someone who probably jumped off the bridge that goes across the bay right outside Harrahs. I really wonder how people do this every day, all this degeneracy and drunkenness, people with hopes of hitting it big only to loose there last $100 or $20 to the jaws of the viscious slot machine, its rough to not be pulled under into the dark side of this crazy place when you have been here for so long. It can be a nice place and I have met some really nice people up here but lordy I sure don't think I could live here.

Well I am heading to bed at 7am so tune in tomorrow where I'll try to sum up my trip and get ready to go home.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

No height requirment for this roller coaster ride.

Same old same old up one second down the next then back up again. Kinda getting used to it, its definitely making me play my "A" game cause I sure as shit ain't getting lucky. I checked out of the Borgata today and headed over to Harrahs to finish out my tour. I'm about done with the tourneys, I'm just too burned out and can't handle them anymore. I think I have played about 10, 6 MTT events and 2 STT and cashed in two STT, rough to say the least. I'll be back for some more tourneys though just need a break, it was definitely a learning experience.

Don't forget to follow Pauly on the Borgata Poker blog if you want to keep up on the action. Pauly was nice enough to give me a shout out in his blog yesterday, I guess thats my 15 minutes of fame...LOL. Definitely noticed a spike in traffic, thanks homie. It has inspired me to Blog a lil more, now that I know someone actually might be reading it haha.

Well got to Harrahs and got checked in then headed down to the poker room which was very busy. Hopped into a 1/2 NL game while I was waiting for a 2/5 NL seat, bad idea shipped a couple hundo waiting for my seat. No more of that, I'll just wait next time. Finally got a seat to the 2/5 NL and was happy to see two of the good people I played with on Friday, which meant it should be an enjoyable game.

I grinded out a few hours and finally flopped a monster, pre flop raise to $20 with 4 or 5 callers and I'm in on the button with Kh7h. Flop all hearts, EP leads out $45 one call two call three call and it gets to me, Damn it can't slow play this, guess I'm just gonna have to take it down here, I'm all in for $395. Initial bettor calls for less , 2nd caller calls for a lil less and the 3rd caller goes in the tank, but the dealer decides to stick the turn out prematurely, GREEEAAAT! Floor comes over sorts things out and the 3rd person folds. River comes out as it would have if the dealer didn't screw up, turn goes back in the stub, stub gets shuffled and out comes the card that was supposed to be the turn. I'm fairly sure I have the best hand and table my flopped flush and scoop a huge pot.

One guy had the Ah, the second caller actually and I knew this which is why I was sweating the screw up by the dealer. If a freaking heart rolls off cause of the dealers screw up I flip the f'ing table over and get banned from Harrahs for life. But it didn't and all is good. Sitting on about 800 and am now the big stack.

Few more hours go by I pick up a few pots and this hand comes up. I'm in the SB and and have a good feel for the players at the table. The saying is if you can't spot the donkey at the table then you are the donkey, well what if you can't spot the good players at the table then whats that mean? Yeah it was that kind of table. Anyway button raises to $20 as he usually does on the button I call from the SB with KQ, BB calls as does one other. Flop comes 9d Kc 7d BB leads out for $75 folds around to me I say "what you have AK" BB says "No less" so I bump it up to $150 he just smooth calls. Turn brings the 10c and the BB ships it in for about $400 and I am confused but very confident I have the best hand so I call. River is the 3d and the great player in the BB tables 2d5d for a rivered flush. Welcome aboard the Ricky Bobby ride please keep you hands and feet inside at all times and secure all loose articles, and oh yes hold on!

Sitting with a lil under $200 and some how run it up to a lil under $800 in the next few hours and cash out when the table starts to get a lil rowdy and the dumbass floor lady Angie and I have a severe disagreement. It got rowdy enough between myself and one other player that security decided to come over in hurry followed by the dumbass floor lady.

It went something like this, UTG and UTG+1 are buddies well UTG has about $150 in reds and a bunch of blacks and greens. UTG says to his buddy let me just stick these reds in and we can go to the bar so his buddy says just stick them in and I'll call and we can check it down. Well only problem is theres 7 people left to act and myself (i'm in the 10 seat they are in the 9 and 8 seats) and the dealer are the only ones that heard them. Well the kid in LP wakes up with a hand and wants to know what the hell is going on and I look at the dealer and tell him that the kid has a right to know whats going on cause what the other two are doing is borderline collusion. Well UTG guy doesnt't like what I said and starts getting real shitty with me yelling at me and such. I don't take well to that and tell him he needs to relax, a rather heated argument pursues security comes over in a hurry and here comes the floor. The dealer tells the floor what happens but leaves out the part where they said "and we'll check it down". I chime in and add that small but important detail and the floor lady tells me I shouldn't even be talking cause I wasn't involved in the hand and I go off on her rack up my chips and call the supervisor over. Supervisor agrees with me says I'm absolutely correct and the two friends shouldn't be doing that and its the DEALERS job to control his table. I tell the dumbass floor bitch to start looking for a new job and I cash out.

Welcome to the Ricky Bobby show tune in tomorrow for the next episode........

Monday, September 08, 2008

The Playground

Why the playground? Cause I feel like I'm on a frickin' see saw thats why. I'm still in AC and I'm not broke so I guess thats a positive, wait let me rephrase that, I know thats a positive. I took Saturday off, well from poker anyway. Played a lil blackjack did ok, it helps when you are at a table that knows what they are doing too. Hung out with Tracie for the day on Saturday and Sunday morning since she came up for the weekend. Then Sunday afternoon I decided to hit the tables again and get back to the grind.

Started with a $100+20 SnG that the Borgata Open is running. I did well ended up chopping with a guy since we were about even in chips. Decided to play another one and played two hands badly and paid the price. Then decided to go play 2/5 NL where I played about 2 hands and shipped $700, both times flopped 2 pair against a set and shipped it both times. After that I was done with cash games so I headed over to the $25 Blackjack table and went on a nice lil run back up and made a couple hundo back. So headed back upstairs to play another SnG.

This time I decided to play a $250+30 where I met some very nice ladies that are regulars on the WPT circuit one of them being Nancy Todd Tyner who some of you may have just seen on the televised WPT champioship playing the not so nice Vanessa Selbst heads up and Nancy ended up winning. I did well in the SnG I picked up KK in LP on the button when UTG moved all in Nancy moved all in and I called which put me all in . The guy that moved all in had 44 Nancy had AQ and spiked an A on the flop, I got lucky for once and spiked a K on the river and tripled up. Ended up going down to 3 people left after Nancy got knocked out when she moved all in with a decent hand K9s I think, she got called by the donk on the BB who could of folded but wanted to be a hero with K8 off and spiked three 8's. We played another round and and it was down to the donk, another wonderful lady named Jennifer, and myself and we decided to do a 3 way chop for $800. So I ended up breaking about even on the night.

Let me just tell you Nancy, Jennifer and the other lady were some of the nicest people I have played with in a long time. We had a few laughs about Nancy's little spat with Vannesa Selbst, anyone who saw the televised show will know what I'm talking about. She also gave us a few laughs about some things that happened behind the scenes that no one gets to see on TV. And Nancy even bought me a beer and sat around and BS'd with us after she busted out. What great bunch of ladies and great poker players too, I really hope I have the pleasure of playing with them again.

Well anyway its been a lot of ups and downs for me but thats fine with me because I really think I am playing some decent poker. I have gotten myself into tournament mode so I think thats what I am going to stick with for the rest of the trip. Might play some 1/2 NL and a lil more Blackjack in my spare time if I feel up to it. I'll try to keep everyone posted on a daily basis.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Not to much to talk about

The 1K event didn't go so well , I played decent had about 12K in chips after the first break which was right around average. Come back from the the break, 2nd hand back I pick up AdJd in LP I raise it to 450 (blinds 75/150) SB calls as do 2 others, flop Ah8d9d. It gets checked around to me I bet 1K SB calls everyone else folds. Turn brings a 10c, SB checks I bet 2.5K he raises to 5K I call. River brings the 7h SB throws in the rest of his chips which has me covered and I call he tables JQ off for a turned gut shot straight and my J high straight is no good.

I think I played well, but these large field tourneys are tough and you really have to run good, dodge the donkey bullshit and get there on your big draws to cash in these tourneys. Unfortunately I had none of those things going for me over the past two days. Don't know if I'm gonna stay up here for the rest of the week or go home for a few days to lick my wounds, guess I'll figure that out tomorrow.

Thank you to all those who supported me, sorry I couldn't come through, hopefully I'll have some better luck in December when I come up for the WSOP at Harrah's.

And just a reminder Pauly from the Tao of Poker is up here covering the Borgata Open if you want to keep up on whats going on be sure to check out the Borgata Open blog.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

I run real goot!

Well not a lot to say, I just busted out with AK suited. I hovered around the starting 8K in chips for the first level. Played fairly tight cause the table I was at was in check call mode. I flopped a set once and rivered a boat but couldn't get the maximum, cause the board pairing card on the river was a fourth club and the other guy didn't have any. I flopped a straight in a 3 way pot and had to lay it down when a guy obviously turned a flush only thing is the third guy in the pot hit a higher flush, yes I check raised it to the moon on the flop didn't matter though. Got moved to another table shortly there after with about 5Kish in chips guy to my right has about 20K+ in chips and is playing a lot of hands. I'm in the SB and pickup AKs Mid position raises to 350 big stack on my right makes 600, blinds are getting ready to go up to 200-400 which leaves me with an M of less then 10 so I mush for a lil over 5K. It folds back to the big stack and he goes in the tank and says he's gonna call, so he does with A5 of clubs vs. my AK of spades flop is two clubs and of course the deuce of clubs on the river, thanks Kenny.

On a side note the dealers are the worst dealers I have ever seen and the players aren't much better. Either way I'm keeping my cool not tilting and just chilling getting ready for tomorrow, might play the $200 survivor tourney at 3pm, I'm cashing in one of these damn tourneys.

Also met Pauly from The Tao of Poker, real nice guy had a long chat with him prior to todays event. He's also writing for the Borgata Poker Blog keeping things updated in his usual way. Both are good reads and also good for a few laughs, take a look at them if you haven't already. He gave me a shout out in the Borgata Blog unfortunately I couldn't come through. Tomorrow is another day, I'll keep ya posted later on the rest of my day.
Getting ready to start my 1st event the 500+60 I'll try to keep this thing updated via my cell if i can