So, I went to the tail end of the Borgata Winter Open in Atlantic City. I arrived on Wednesday, and played the 2k HU NL tournament starting Thursday. It was a test of stamina. The average match took two hours, and the bracket was double elimination. Foreshadowing, losing and entering the loser's bracket is a huge disadvantage.

In the first round I drew Gavin Smith and was able to defeat him. In the next round I played a large Italian man name Tommy and was able to win as well.

In the third round, I would up losing to a nice guy named Rob. I thought I played a "B" game, but got him to not care about winning by the end of the match. Starting starts were 25k, and I was down to 8k at one point, but battled back to 17k. At 150/300, he limped the button and I raised to 1300 with AQo. The flop was A53fd and he called my bet. Turn To I bet again and he calls. River 2o I go all in and he calls with 43 for the rivered straight, and I'm off to the losers bracket.

There were 64 entrants into the tournament and only 6 got paid. 4 from the winners bracket, and 2 from the losers bracket. I admittedly didn't think about this as I was playing any of my matches, but realized afterwards that it kind of was critical for me to win my early matches. Had I beat Rob, I only would have needed to win one additional match to make the money. However, now that I was in the loser's bracket, I needed to win four more matches to make the money.

It was around 4:30 PM, and my next match was at 9 PM. I went and hung out with some friends, and then returned to play. Well, the 7 PM match that led into mine went 4.5 hours, so I waited there until 11:30 to play the winner. I played a very nice woman and was able to grind her down for the victory.

In my next match, which started at 1:30 AM I played chook2121 (I think that's his online name). He was the champion of the last 2k HU tournament the Borgata ran. After the match we did the standard "I'm so-n-so online" banter, but during the match I kept quiet when he was asking me who I was. I actually ran a big bluff all in when he donked three times on a montone T3Q flop, turn 3 river x, and he folded J3 face up. I didn't know what he specifically had, but I felt he was pretty strong based on the dynamic (of course I thought he was good enough to fold a strong hand). Additionally, I didn't think he thought I would make a huge bluff as I hadn't done anything but smallish bluffs up to that point. So, I went for it and luckily it worked out.

I ended at 3:30, and want to give a shout of to Jason "Klink." He sweated a good chunk of both matches that night and helped me get through.

I woke up the next day at 9:30 and went in to play at 11 AM against the people who had lost their last match of the day and had been resting since 7 PM. I played the champion from the last Borgata HU tournament (it was a 1k) and was fortunate enough to beat him, so I moved on to the bubble match. I wound up playing Jeff Madsen who actually gets a decent amount of credit from online people for his live play. However, I guess he was fatigued because I sucked out in two consecutive small pots and he imploded. So, I went marching through the money into the final 6. Of course, Madsen won the main for $625k so who's laughing now!

I played Rob again, and played very well this time. The tournament was a very lax environment -- Rob and I each had a spectator hanging out at the table. My dad actually came down for the weekend to hang out so it was nice that he was able to watch up close (although he seemed engrossed with the ponies!). I was dealt a disappointing loss when I got Rob to start shoving 85% of hand with around 20bbs. I lost a 20bb pot A9 < QQ, a 40bb pot A9 < QJ, won a 40bb pot KJ > K8, and lost when I was covered by 1k with A8 < KQ. So, what can you do other than get it in ahead and hope for the best.

The main event was slightly uneventful. I made it to day two and lost when I had a big stack (our table was ridiculously deep stacked, average was probably 65k at this point). I open to 2400 in EP with KK at 500/1k with 110k, Gavin Smith calls in LMP with 250k, an online limit holdem player who was playing every hand calls OTB with 115k, and the BB shoves with 6k total. I re-iso to something like 17k, expecting the limit guy to call because he's literally playing nearly every hand. He does, and I CRAI on a 89J fd board over his bet of 20k (he's betting 100% of the time here). He tanks for a while, says "I'm not good enough to fold this", and proceeds to call it off with 89. I blank and I'm out just like that. I literally left AC 30 minutes later.


Shout out to Kingsofcards (Tom Marchese) for placing third for $190k and Dave Fox for finishing 7th good for $92k.

Other than that, I've been hanging out in NYC. I've met some new friends, and I'm had more video troubles. Apparently, Windows 7 is a different beast than Vista when it comes to Windows Media Player, so I'm trying to figure that out. However, I promise to have those videos out soon!

My prediction for tomorrow is that the Colts will win, but I'm rooting for a good, high scoring game (with the Saints squeaking out in the end).