Another Cash at The Showboat. 11/24

Dom (AKA as Jihad) and I head on to AC after work on a Friday afternoon. Is there any better activity to be involved in? Driving South in anticipation of retrieving cash.

Our first stop is The Borgata. Did you expect anything else? We sit down at a brand new 1/2 table. I prefer new tables and seem do quite well at them, and so the streak continues. I am dealt pocket KK, JJ 2X, and pocket QQ and play them for a combined net loss. Not a big loss but you would expect to be pulling in at least a few chips with those hands. On the QQ hand, I get a raise to $15 in front of me from a Loose Passive player (fish). I re-raise to $45, he calls, the flop comes A 9 10. I feel at this point that he has a big hand to call my re-raise. AA, KK, AK is what I am worrying about. Since he is LP I also put him on a suited A, or any somewhat big A. I check, he makes a small bet of $20. I feel like he is trying to extract chips from me with that bet, I fold fold. I could have been wrong but I did not want to play a big pot with the A on the board.

I end up with a small win of $125 for the session by getting 2 nut flushes, and one flopped flush. Dom finished with a loss. At about 10:00PM we head on over to The Showboat for the 11:00PM 50+10 MTT.

When we get there, the place is packed. I try to sign up for the tourney and it is sold out, so I put my name on the alternate list. Dom has managed to secure a seat so at this point I am not sure if I will be seated. Luckily, they had more dealers available and ended up opening an additional 2 tables for 7 tables with 77 players.

I had 2 beers at The Borgata that as of now is my unofficial limit, while Dom had 2 or 3 double or maybe by the looks of them triple Tequila shots, so he was feeling fine. He continued to take advantage of the free booze that The Showboat provided. Numerous Bourbons where being consumed as he played in the tourney. It seemed we were both coasting along for the first hour or so as Dom held up his chips from the table in front of me. During this time, Dom was so gracious as to offer a bounty at my table to whoever knocks me out of the tourney for the sum of $5. It was agreed by all who heard his offer that Dom was a true friend for if he meant me any harm the bounty would have surely been for a higher sum. We will soon see that I had no reason to fear for my head from the bounty.

Finally, Dom was dispatched from the tourney. I continued slowly rolling along, never accumulating a big stack, but stealing pots when necessary when the situation made itself available.

It took a bit of luck to make it to the final table. This pivotal hand allowed me to get there when the tourney was thinning. A player in early position raised 2X the BB, ordinarily I would assume a strong hand from that play, but not this player, I had a read on him and I put him on a steal. Not a well-advised attempt but a steal attempt nonetheless. I am on the short stack so I decide to make a play to steal his small raise and blindss by shoving J10s. He agonizes while I think to myself I was right and he will fold, but no he decides to gamble and calls with his QJ, oh misery I am dominated, but the Poker Gods smile down on me with a 10 on the flop that holds up. This double up gives me the ammo I needed to make it to the final table.

Once seated I find my chip stack leaves me in about 7^th place with a short stack. I go into Short Stack Ninja mode and proceed to knock people out and accumulate chips. The 2 hands that actually got myself out of the short stack and into the chip leaders position was when I was in the BB, all fold to the the SB with a big stack who completes the blind. I look down at a 10 4 and call. The flop comes K 10 3. I feel I am good because I am assuming he is raising with a K, so when he bets on the flop I feel he is on a steal, I shove and he calls with KQ, sneaky sneaky. I stand up and wait for the 2 cards 2 come before I shake his hand and check the winnings chart to see how much I won, the next card is a blank, and the river is a glorious 4. BANG! I double up, nice, very nice.

One rotation later, it is folded around to the same guy who now is in short stack all-in mode with 4BB. He shoves, and I look down at my cards and see KQ, the same hand that he held which he lost to me earlier. I do the math and find that it I must call, he flips over K7 and my hand holds up.

Now we are down to 3 players. Old-Timer to my right is sitting on a big stack, with The Kid to my left who with whom I am in all-in mode with shorty stacks. I see that the old timer is eyeing the winning amounts list so I ask The Kid if he wants to chop second and third place. He agrees, I then ask Old-Timer how much he would give us from the first place prize if we decide to chop. He pauses and offers $200. We both agree giving him $1400 and me and the Kid $782 each. I get the kid to sign for 2^nd place and avoid the tax implication that The Showboat forces on winners of more than $600, another good reason to play at The Borgata. So we call it a night and start our journey back North at 4:30AM.

The ride home is long and dark but I have no complaints this night as AC fades in my rear view mirror.

The Boaster's Just Reward, A Tale of Las Vegas

The first time I stepped foot into The Bellagio in Las Vegas I made a beeline straight to the Poker Room in the hope of glimpsing the players that I have been studying intently as they competed in tournaments on TV. To my surprise, it just happens that The WPT is holding the first day of its Championship $25,000 buy-in tournament that very day. That being the case every big name Poker player in existence is in The Bellagio. If you can name them, I saw them. While standing on the rail watching a deep-stacked 5/10NL game I look to my left and see Doyle Brunson. I tell Lisa who he is and she immediately starts chatting with him. I introduce myself and tell him how much I enjoyed Super System 2. We speak a few words, he smiles; gives me a CD to install the app for his Poker Site Doyle's Room, then gets on his motorized wheelchair and speeds off across the casino floor.

While I am watching him fade into the distance, I hear a commotion going on behind me. It seems that a boisterous player at the 5/10NL game who is wearing a NY Yankees hat is speaking with an immediately recognizable NY accent. He is informing the table of his prestigious position with a BMW dealership in Northern New Jersey and generally bragging about his status as the top salesman in the region. He continues with talk of his home game in Verona. On how he gives a PokerStars hat to the winner's of his $100 buy-in tournament. At this point, I am in a state of peaked interest so I walk into the room to watch him play a few hands, and to give him my email address and cell number in the hopes of a possible invitation to his game. After making my introduction on the next hand, he pulls in a monster pot, and I mean monster. There were so many chips that it took him 5 or 6 hands to stack them and he had to use both arms to pull them in. The pot must have been close to $3000. I look around the rest of the table and it seems that everyone is sitting behind about to 2 to 3 thousand dollars and he is the big stack with about 6 or 7. Everyone has piles of chips and Hundred Dollar Bills underneath. After he wins that big pot, he calls for the waitress and said "Hey beautiful, bring me a bottle of Johnny Walker Black".

He was lit up and the waitress knew it, she just smiles and said "ok", she never did bring a bottle but instead a Whiskey glass filled to the rim with what must have been at least a triple. At this point I am very interested in the game, he his chirping like a happy bird and I was curious to see what was going on. The cards are dealt and he looks at his hand and said " You know I have a lot of arguments about this hand with my cousin, he says it is a garbage hand, but I always tell him that I like it so I'm going to play it" he raises it up to somewhere in the vicinity of $60. He is re-raised to $200 from a young guy who I later find out is from Connecticut and plays at Foxwoods. It is folded back to him and he says, "Oh so you are the big man aren't you with the $200 raise, well you know what? I'm gonna call you and I don't care what my cousin thinks." he calls the raise and the flop comes Js As, 2d, action is to him he checks and said "OK big man with the $200 raise what are you going to do? He checks. The turn comes 5s. He now looks at his cards, picks them up slightly off the table, and angles them so I can see. At this point, I am in the hand and put on an expressionless face. He checks again, the raiser bets $200, action back to him he said "OK, Big man now I’m going to tell you something, and I'm also going to tell my cousin something when I get back about this hand, Right now I got the stone cold nuts, and I’m going to tell you what I'm going to do first. I'm going to put you all-in and you are not going to be able to stop yourself from calling and when you do call I'm going to take whatever you have in front of you (He looks at his stack) oh you have some hundreds under there, very nice. Like I was saying I'm going to take everything you got and you see this (he pulls a 100 dollar bill from beneath this stack) after I take all your money I'm going to give you this because I am a gentleman. I'm All-in" The kid's face turns red, he buries his face in his hands and begins shaking. He his sitting with about $2500 in front of him, now his face is getting beet red and sweat his pouring from his forehead. He said "I call" and flips over his JJ giving him a set but in his eyes I can see he still feared the worst. The dealer flips over the river that does not improve his hand. The Player said " I knew you were going to call, there was no way you were not going to do it, and me being a gentleman, I’m going to keep to my part of the bargain" he flips over Ks7s giving him the nut flush. The kid gets up and starts looking around frantically back and forth, he walks 10 feet in one direction and then back and then back again, he is in a state of hysteria and finally calms down from his walking fit at the end of the table by the rail. Now the player said, "Hey come over here remember what I said, here is that 100 dollar bill." He said, "I don't care I'll take it". He sits back down and buys in for $100, which I do not even think is allowed due to it not being the min buy in at the table, but the dealer takes pity on him and gives him the chips. I shake the players hand, tell him nice job, and remind him to get in contact with me when he gets back home.

I leave The Poker Room and head over to the Fonatana Hall where the WPT tournament is about to begin. Lisa and I sneak in and I watch all the top players for the first hour of play, which is up to the first break. At this point, I have had enough of watching people play poker so I head back to the Poker Room to see how the Player is doing. I take one look at him and know there is a problem. His face is white, the smile is gone, and the chirp is silent. As soon as I see his stack, it is confirmed. Within one and half-hours he has gone from an around $9000 stack to less than $400. He sees me and gives me a wink, and I just nod. I do not think I will be playing in his home game.

Went to AC and met an old friend. 1/2 NL Cash Game

Upon arrival at The Showboat, I sit down with Lisa at Black Jack table to see what it is like to donate money to a casino and I find I do not like the experience as I watch Lisa leave a donation envelope of $40. We head up to the poker room where I sign up for the 11:00AM 50+10 MTT. In the meantime Lisa and I sit down at the only table that was running which was 2/4 limit. I normally will not sit at that game but since Lisa wanted to try it out I sit down and lose about $25 and Lisa loses $7.

The morning tourney has a big turnout with 120 players. 4 hours later, I manage to finish in 15th place close to the bubble with 12 places being paid.

On to The Borgata where I decide to visit my first poker friend, he is 1/2NL. I sit down with $200 and win a couple of small pots. After a couple of hours I'm up about $100, There is a raise to $6, a reraise to $24, I take a peek to find KK yahoooooo, I raise it up to $75, all fold to the $24 raiser, he starts to talk so I know I have the best hand and I am praying for a call. The player to my left said he laid down a big hand and the raiser starts trying to find out what he had and again the player to my left tells him it was big. Unethical I agree but to my advantage nonetheless. After talking himself to the point where he felt brave, he puts me all-in for $200 on top of my $75 raise. Since he was talking, I feel he did not have AA. He might have been trying to trap me with his speech and that would have been a good move had he had AA, but he had JJ which he turned over when I called, flop comes no help for him and the turn is a K hooray, ship it over sir!! The player to my left had QQ.

The next morning again I am at The Borgata starting at a bright and early 5:00AM, plenty of tired freaks in attendance so I feel quite comfortable in the environment. I am on the button an early raiser makes it $6, one caller and I look down to see J7s, now this is not a hand I usually play but I have fond memories of this hand that maybe Stinger might recall. I call the $6. Flop comes J 2 rags, rainbow, early bets 10, a call, I raise it to $20, call call, turn is 7 hehe. I bet $25, call, call. Now I know I have operators here because they are both donk-calling stations so I feel I am good. When the flop comes J I know I am golden and am trying to extract chips, I do this by betting just a bit more than my turn bet feeling I can get donk #1 and donk #2 to come along. I bet $35 and it proves to be the right number, they both make the call and I turn over my boat, ship it baby donkeys!!

1 more hand, I get AQ in late position 2 limpers, I make it $15 get I caller, flop is 10 with 2 smaller rags rainbow. I bet $25, he calls, turn another rag I bet $50, after considerable thought he calls, ugggh, the river comes another rag less than 10, he checks, I think the only hand that beats me is A 10, and I don't think he has it because I have an ace. At this point, I know in my heart that I should shove all in but he has me out chipped and I do not want to lose my stack on a bluff. I check and say, I have a big A, and he says AK? "Nope just AQ" and he takes it down with AK.

Later on, I find myself at The Showboat 11: AM 50+10 MTT and finish and eerily 15th out of 101. I finished in 15th the day before, next time all I have to do is adjust that number to first and all will be well.

All in all a good trip with 2 nice winning sessions at The Borgata for a $400+ cash game profit.