Borgata Winter Open

Well never got around to posting my post-trip report from the PCA but I soon shall I suppose, if you want to see some pics from the trip click here pics from PCA

In the meantime I am presently seated in front of my laptop at Harrah's Waterfront Tower in AC thinking about last night and all I can do is shake my head. I came up yesterday with the usual group and Kenny who decided to grace us with his presence which is always fun. You see I came up for one reason, that reason to attempt to satellite into the BWO's main event. And coming off the PCA I feel like I am really playing some great poker and I am very confident with my play right now which is a big plus going into this thing.

Well last night I gave the survivor tourney a shot $300+$40 buy in, 8K in chips 25min blinds, top 10% get a $3000 freeroll into the main event. Well you get $3K cash but I would use that to play the ME of course. Not a great structure for the survivor but for a Satellite its so so. Well I played great, was winning races when I had to, taking pots down without much resistance and had accumulated about 105,000 in chips by the 3rd break approx. level 11. We were down to about 40ish players out of 247, top 24 get the 3K 25th gets 2K and some change. Well this story doesn't have a happy ending we get down to 27 players and a guy makes the stupidest play I have ever seen. There's a guy all in pre-flop and two others see a flop of 778 one guy checks bonehead shoves all in with A6 (A high essentially) other guy folds, all in guy has AK and triples up of course. The guy who folded would have rivered a pair and knocked out the all in player had bonehead not shoved the flop and I of course would have locked my seat up to the ME. But of course poker is brutal and painful as is life and I get to bubble the survivor and walk away with zero!

Pretty much I was put in a position where I could of tried to fold my way into the money for a seat and it should make for some interesting discussion. I had about 70K in chips the blinds were 5K/10K with a 1K ante and there were about 4 people at my table that had similar short stacks. A guy in MP shoves for about 55K I wake up to KK and re-shove long story short he has A10 and spikes an A and I ended up lasting 3 more hands before I get the BB and go out in 26th (24 places get 3K 25th gets 2K and change.) What can I do there I know a lot of people say fold and honestly I proably could have but had I folded and ended up getting blinded out before someone busted I would be kicking myself. If I win the KK hand I can just sit back and wait comfortably. I dunno it sucks but it is what is and I am not angry at myself for the play there.

On a positive I played great and it just added to my confidence level and that makes me feel a lot more comfortable while I am playing. I'm going to give one more satellite a shot tomorrow sometime so pray to the poker gods for me. On a negative note I have a new nemesis that I must over come that being the hand that is A10, that hand is haunting me, it made me short in the PCA, then showed up again to knock me out of the PCA and has now followed me back to the States to knock me out of my satellite yesterday. DAMN YOU A10!!!!!!!

The Madness begins

Day 1A started to day I went in and checked things out for a little while and its crazy. So many familiar faces, I took a bunch of pics with my phone but half of them didn't come out which made me a bit angry but ahh well what can you do. I have some pics from today I will post but most of the ones from inside the tourney area were all blurred for some reason.

Let me just tell you the atmosphere down here is awesome and there are rumors floating around about extending the PCA next year to a few weeks and making it kinda like a mini WSOP. And if I had the choice to come here or go to the WSOP I'm coming here even it if is just for a week. Everything here is relaxed and everyone here is laid back and friendly. If you get tired of playing poker or take a bad beat you get up go for a walk, take a stroll through one of the 2 under water aquariums, go for a walk on the beach, grab a bite to eat or grab a drink pool or beach side, or just take a seat anywhere here and enjoy the fantastic weather and scenery.

Last night I had the oppertunity to hang out with Pauly, Otis, and a bunch of the Pokerstars,PokerNews, and PokerListings reporters, and what a fun group of folks to hang out with. We ended up drinking the bar out of Kalik and making it through last call 3 times, LOL yes they called last call 3 times. We didn't want to leave so they just let us stay till about 2:30 or so when we called it a night. Just wanted to give them shout out though cause they do a hell of a job and with out them we wouldn't have anything worth reading on the intrawebs.

Remember follow along on the Pokerstars blog, or www.eptlive.com or any of the other sources out there like PokerNews or PokerListings


Oh Look E and Keon made it down after all






Remember this from Sunday


Now it looks like this


Dennis Phillips in the red hat


Marcel Luske in sunglasses



Chad Brown lil blurry he's in the brown shirt


Humberto Brenes....I think




Beach view of Atlantis


Bling




Misc

Arival, Views and Kalik

Well had a nice flight, arrived in just under 2 hours, which is about 30mins ahead of schedule. Had a great driver, Sophia, she was also the owner of the car service/limo company I used to pick us up. She was very friendly and courteous and a big help scheduling things for me since I waited till the last minute. If you ever come here and need transportation I highly recommend Nassau Limo Service. I Have a sweet room with a great view and the weather is awesome! Heres some pics

Room views





MMMM BEER!



Calm Before the storm




Sunset over the city

Help Jeff out

I don't know him personally but I know some of you donks that read this are from upstate New York and might have heard about this. Wow what a blower and we think we have it bad when we ship rent on our last buy in. If you can't help him out least pass the word on.

This came from Pauly over at the Tao of Poker.
By Pauly
New York City

I never met Jeff, but he's one of VinNay's friends. He caught a bad beat recently and could use some help.

Here's the skinny from VinNay...

A friend of mine, Jeff, has had an unfortunate Christmas. His home was destroyed by a fire on christmas morning and declared a total loss. Fortunately, he was not home at the time and no one was hurt, but he did lose his cat Maurice, along with all of his possessions. The fire was started in his tenants apartment, and quickly spread throughout the house. To make matters worse, he was just laid off from his long time manufacturing job.

Jeff is a home game poker player, and reader of many of your blogs. He is a RPG'er, and beer drinker. He is a hard-working fucker who has battled dyslexia his whole life. He's a toker, and he only has one ball. He’s a flyers fan (I guess I can forgive him for that). He’s one of the most generous people I know. And he needs some help.

We have set up a site to help raise some money for him to help get him back on his feet. If you can give that would be great, but please do me a favor and link up the site for me.

http://helpjeffout.blogspot.com

Improve your karma. Spread the word and help out if you can. Thanks for your time and best of luck to Jeff.