Borgata Trip Report

Matt, Adam (two of the guys I mentioned in my first column), and I arrived at the Borgata the Monday morning before the Borgata Poker Open and by morning I mean around 2 a.m. It was a very typical stay for us. The default schedule is to arrive early in the morning and play a session until it's time to check into our room, which is around 11 a.m.

So we filed down to the poker room and all sat in a $10-$20 hold'em game. The pots were five- to seven-way action. The game was playing much like an online $1-$2. Nothing eventful really happened. I took some beats. I won some pots. I gave some beats. By the time 11 a.m. rolled around, Matt and Adam decided to go get the room. I was tired, but there was a stuck maniac giving away money so I stuck around. One of my biggest problems (or virtues) is that I have trouble leaving a game when it's good, no matter what. Needless to say the maniac won a few monster pots and decided to tighten up. I played until the next dealer change, racked up, and left. It was a promising start to the trip; in front $1,000 the first day.

I woke up fresh later that day at around 8 p.m. and headed downstairs. Even though it was a little beyond my bankroll, I was going to play $20-$40 this trip. There's always great action surrounding these big tournaments so why not take a shot? Sure enough, I sat down at $20-$40 and the game was great. I scooped up a $1,300 profit before the night was over and got some sleep.

I woke up Tuesday at around 4 p.m. I got back on the list for $20-$40 and took the first available seat. The table was filled with some solid regulars I recognized from previous trips. I had no clue about the other spots. The game was tight, too tight. Sometimes a game like this will bust open later. Maybe some loose action will come and sit down. Sometimes you can count on what I like to call inverse table selection. That's when a few good, thinking players change tables because the game's terrible and some donks fill the empty seats they were in. No such luck. I sat at the table for a while, listened to the table talk, and stole the occasional blind. Nothing much happened. Eventually I overheard a few guys talking hand strategy; they mentioned the strategy forum I posted at. "Floor! First table change please. Thanks." That was enough of that. In time, I got called over to a better game but before that I get involved in a rough hand.

I raise-opened in middle position with K K. The cutoff seat, a tough local, three-bet me. I capped. The flop was J 10 2. Not the best flop in the world for my hand but I would take it. I bet. She raised. Ugh. I capped preflop and she was still raising me. A-A, J-J, and 10-10 beat me. Other hands she might raise the flop with that I was beating were Q-Q and A-K with the A but my equity was kind of crappy if I was up against the A-K. I decided to just call the flop bet and stop-and-go a safe turn to prevent the free card. If I got popped there, I was pretty sure I could let it go. The turn card was the disgusting Q. What a terrible card! Now everything beat me, but I had an open-ender. I checked and called. The river was the J, so the board was J 10 2 Q J. Now, on the turn I had told myself I was going to bet a diamond river even though I had none in my hand. Here's why: I might have the best hand, though unlikely; I might induce a bad fold from something like A A; and I wanted to see a showdown for one bet anyway. The J wasn't a diamond but it was a scare card though it changed absolutely nothing about my opponent's hand. I thought, "Ooo, scare card," and fired out a bet. I don't know what I was thinking. As soon as the chips left my hand I knew I was never going to see that $40 again. I got insta-raised and my cards got insta-mucked. The rest of my session went much the same way at the next table: bad cards, bad beats, my bad play. I played into Tuesday morning and the game got short. Finally I felt more comfortable and started to get some of it back. All I've been playing lately is six-max tables online. The game went on and the table filled up again. I played until about 3 p.m. the next day. Somehow, I broke even for the session and headed to bed. I always tell myself I'm not going to play monster sessions, but I was stuck and the game was good. I didn't have the will power to leave.

I woke up around midnight, the beginning of Wednesday and hopped right back into a juicy $20-$40 game. The action was great, but I couldn't win a pot. The beat train kept coming but I stayed strong and played solid poker. At around hour 10, I started to go on tilt with this hand: A particularly grouchy local raised in early position. You know exactly who I'm talking about if you're a Borgata player. He was semi-tight and real aggressive, liked to bluff check-raise the turn. This was all I really knew about him besides what I'd seen of his play for the last 10 hours. I three-bet in the cutoff seat with 10 10. He called. The flop was K 9 2. He bet into me and I called, intending to raise a blank turn. If he had a king, he'd have likely check-raised me but if he was bluffing with a hand like Q-J, I'd rather raise the turn where my equity was better and get him to fold his six to 10 outs. The turn brought the 4. He bet. I raised. He called. I didn't like it at all. He might actually have a king. Either way, I was getting my free showdown more than likely. He checked the river dark and I waited to see if it was a 10, just in case. The river was the 8 and I checked behind and flipped over my hand since I was the last aggressor. He said, "I made the flush," and showed me the Q 10. Yuck. Sure, that was a bad beat. Fine. I didn't care. It's happened before. Here's what tilted me. After the hand, the guy who won it decided to tell me all about how I misplayed my hand and then told me to stop complaining after I was having a discussion about his post-hand comment with the guy next to me. There isn't much that tilts me worse than getting a good berating by the person who just won a pot from me. I left the table and got a cigarette from Matt. I smoke when I'm on tilt. I find the nicotine calms me down.

The rest of the session went a lot like this: Random maniac sat down. Random maniac jammed my face in. Random maniac won my money and redistributed it across the table. Random maniac busted and left. This process repeated for, oh, about 14 hours after the tens hand. The game was still good though so I couldn't leave. I think it was after I blew through my fourth rack of red that I put the rest of the cash in my pocket on the table and yelled, "Come and get it!" They came and got it. I went upstairs into my roommate's cigarette stash and got a whole pack for myself.

At about 5 a.m., the game finally died down. I was dead stuck and dead tired and the game became rocky. Adam was still up and said he was in a good $10-$20 so I decided to move there for a while before bed. I sat in the game and before I knew what was going on, the game broke. Adam and I were both tired and on tilt so we did what we usually do right about that time. Went to the $2-$4 table, blew off some steam, and drank until we were too tired to stay awake. After losing all of my profit from one monster session, a few hundred didn't seem like too much. So we sat down with about four racks of white each and proceeded to put vicious beats on everyone. The table was a whole lot of fun, though, and didn't mind us being lunatics. They were all great. Everyone was having a good time except the kid whose kings I cracked with 7-2. He was a little grouchy. At around 7 a.m. and about seven Turkey-and-Cokes later, we decided it was bedtime. Still tilted, I went upstairs and got a few hours of sleep.

I woke up tilted still and the three of us sat in a new $10-$20 starting up. It was around 1 p.m. We were going to play for a few hours and then head out for Pennsylvania, but I couldn't keep my head straight. I was still pretty upset about the night before, but I managed to play well and won $100. It was a small win, but enough to untilt me some. I wanted to leave early for apparent reasons, and they agreed, so we piled into the car and headed back. I think I lost around 40 bucks the whole trip, but it sure was one of my most emotional and certainly most swingy Borgata trips to date.