Borgata Poker Open (BPO)

Went to the BPO last Thursday through Saturday to play in a few events and get one good poker session in before the coming work onslaught. Ended up playing two events in the series as well as a satellite and a single table sit and go and some cash. Here is a review:

$550 NLHE

This was the first event when I arrived on Thursday. Not a lot happened as I was generally pretty card dead. One interesting hand came midway in level 1. I am BB and non-thinking player on button raises to 150. SB completes and I call with 26cc. Flop comes 582 rainbow. SB checks, I check and button continuation bets for 350. SB folds and I check raise to 900. I do this for two reasons here. FIrst I may have the best hand if button has a hand like two big cards. Second by check raising I am showing strength and probably get him to check behind on turn giving me a chance to get a free card and spike a duece or six. Turn is a 9c giving me a four flush to go with my pair. As expected he checks behind me and river is Tc flushing me. I value bet 700 and he calls showing 77. I got moved to a tough table and not many chips were flying around. I was in BB with QT flop came Q57 and I bet 2/3 of pot. UTG limper raised me and there was really not much I could beat so I folded face up. He showed AA. Love when people do this and face a 5 way pot. Wish I could have spiked 2 pair. But this hand and another later actually gave me a good tell on this guy. He raised his medium hands but limped and slow played his big ones. Little later sure enough he raised 4x BB (I think he is weak here given my read) and I shoved 15BB with A9o and he folded. Obviously I wouldn't shove A9 that often but my read was right. Orbit or two later he limps for 600 and I look down at KK. How to play this and get max value? Well I shoved on him before so he prob expects me to do that. Couple that with my tell he is probably strong here so the best way to get value is to get all the chips in now. I ship 18BB in the middle and he calls with AJ...lol. Not nearly as strong as I expected him to be. KK holds up and I am finally reasonably stacked with about 22k. I then called a short stack shove with AK and lost to TT and lost a few other smallish pots. Then went completely card dead for 2 levels. Insane. We were up to 800/1600/200 and I was down around 13k. I looked down at 33 in late position and open shoved. BB woke up with AK and off to races we go. Flop good...K36, Turn not as good K, river really really bad 6. Me out around 100th. 54 of the original 550 cashed so no cash for me.

$400 PLO

This was the first time the Borgata had offered a PLO tournament and judging by the turnout and interest will likely not be the last. 250 players played and off we went. Not much happened early though I picked up a few smallish pots. I then paid off a river bet with a J high flush. Bettor had been playing a lot of pots and really wanted to be table captain but this time he shows up with nut flush. Drifted down to abt 5k in chips (started with 8k) when I doubled up with a flopped str8 vs a two pair hand. Stuck between 10k and 12k for a while when a biggie came up. Blinds 400-800 and I have ~10.5k. Big stack on my right open raises pot to 2800. I look down at 9JQK double suited and repot to 9600 (let's gamble). He ships and I call. He has AA45 single suited and here we go. Flop is good 9Tx. Turn is a blank but river is a 9 to give me trips and put me up over 20k. I continued to play solid and worked my stack up to around 28k when a very aggressive pro named Anna Wroblewski was put on my right. She is a bit of a legend as she parlayed a ~1000 loan from an old boss into 2 tournament wins in a week for over 500k and since has been playing professionally. Anyway she was opening a lot of pots with raises and following through with c-bets. I was looking for spots to reraise her and pick up the pots. 2 orbits in at 800-1600 I catch AAT9 double suited. Like clockwork she raises to 5600 and I put on the act then repot to 19,200 (my total stack is abt 25-28k). Folds back to her and she puts on an act about what a sick fold she has to make, etc, etc then folds. Couple orbits later she and I get into it post flop this time though. Blinds 1,000-2,000. Limper calls in early position, one other caller, Anna calls, I call from button with QQT8 double suited (marginal hand) and blinds call. So 12k in pot. Flop comes AT8 with 2 spades giving me two pair and a AQhigh flush draw. Not folding to her. Checks to her and she bets 8k. I ship and she goes in the tank for a while and finally calls off with A8. SO I am drawing to a Q, T or spade. She is ahead here but not by a lot. Turn blank but river 6 spades and I scoop biggest pot of day. Up to around 75k. Then we were down to 30ish people and 27 cash. I decided to be aggressive on the bubble and try and pick up some chips. Raise a few hands and take down blinds. Finally bubble bursts and I have top 5 in chips. We get reseated and I proceed to bust out 3 players in the next 10 or 12 hands and increase my stack to over 135k. I am top 2 or 3. Only player at my table with a lot of chips (he has 110k or so) is seated to my direct right which is ideal. Then this comes up. I am in SB. Blinds 4000-8000. Two limpers in early position and button limps. I squeeze 9TJ2 and consider raising. I really want to do it but my hand has a lot of potential to win a huge pot rather than just the blinds. Pretty sure everyone folds if I ship it. But I choose to complete and see flop. FLop comes JT3. I lead for a pot bet (40,000), two folds then cutoff goes all in for 52k total and button goes all in for ~60k on top of my 40k. Fucking Gross. I tank for a while and only thing I can beat is some sort of wrap (i.e. 9,Q, K) and I am not very far ahead of this in fact. But I can't see folding here. Costs me 60k or so into a pot of ~230k. I can't find the fold button and stack off. Button shows JJxx for top set. Other guy has the wrap and I am drawing virtually dead. I whiff and JJJ takes down a monster. Puts me down to ~20k. Few hands later I shove the button with 89JK single suited and BB wakes up with AAxx. I turn a str8 and flush draw but brick the river and am out in 16th place for ~$800. Top three all pay over $8k. Story of my life lately.

I did chop a $250 single table sit and go for $1100 as well.

Biggest score however came in a survivor tournament. THis tournament has a flattened payout where 1 in 10 with 10x the buy in. So in this case the buy-in was 400 and 10% of the field wins 4k. I signed up late and was down to 3500 (from 10k) fairly quickly when I lost a set over set situation but was somehow able to fold. Was pretty pissed and was looking for another tournament to play in that night. But I grinded it out and stayed tough and low and behold had 15k in chips with 50 or so remaining. Top 20 got the 4k so it was starting to get interesting. I really felt that I had the advantage in this type of structure because I have played a TON of on line satellites with similar payout structures. I know how to playthis type of tournament where getting all of the chips in play is not required. Anyway a few late position steals and resteals and I was up to about 30k. Then we were down to 26 or so and I was somewhat short with 25k (blinds 3000-6000). Late position player raises to 20k and I look down at black AA in the BB. I ship it he calls with AQ and I hold to get to ~55k in chips. Then I basically folded into the money for a nice 4k score.

After this I go find a few of my boys and they are playing cash games. I sit down at a 1/2 NLHE game just for fun. I usually play 2/5 and occassionally 5/10 but after grinding that tournament I just didn't feel like working too hard. 1/2 games are a joke to beat and I could just sit there with my buddy and relax and not really play too aggressively. Well that worked until the third hand...lol. I open to 10 from middle position with JTo. Flop comes T62 with 2 clubs. I lead for 30 into the pot of 40. Only button calls. At this point I put him on flush draw or a hand with T. If he has a T I am winning because KT or AT or any set raises me on the flop with a flush draw on board. So when the 9c hits I am not thrilled. He could have 9T or made his flush. I do have Jc for a redraw but I check to see his action. He suddenly bets 80 in to the pot of 100. OK a flush doesn't bet this this hard. It tries to get some value out of this hand. So the only hands that beat me and make sense here are 9T for 2 pair or maybe QT for better kicker. I stare him down and I think he is nervous. His girlfriend is sitting behind him and just looks like he is trying to be macho and bluff me out. I starting asking him if he made his flush (knowing it is 99% that he didn't). I could just see him squirming so I was sure I was good and shipped it all in. He had 150 behind and just started complaining and rolling his eyes. SO here I am trying to just have fun and not do too much and 5 minutes into the session I have my whole stack in the middle with one pair and a weak kicker....lol. He finally calls with T7 and I scoop a big pot. Table was like WTF just happened. BUt I have been really working on trusting my reads and playing them out. This was a good example of that. I also had a hand later when I shipped over an LP raiser with TT on a board of K29Q. HIs turn bet was fishy and I shipped it and he showed AT. I showed the TT just to let the table know I was on my game.

Finally, I won a few hundred playing 10/20 Omaha/Stud Hi-LO with all of the gray hairs. This is an easy game to beat and is fun to play to mix it up a bit. I really have started to like Stud Hi-Lo and think I am pretty good at it. I have been playing on line for relatively small stakes and have gained a better understanding of the game over the last 2 or 3 months. Stud Hi well that is a different story....

Anyway the FTOPS is coming up in a few weeks so I will be playing some satellites for that over the next 2 weeks. Already have won 9 seats to Event 1 (NLHE) and 5 to Event 2 (PLO 8 or better).