Two Plus Two Older Archives - My Borgata experience

Sorry, but I'm not gonna write some elaborate trip report. I'm just not much of a writer. I'll try and post some of the bigger hands I recall. But I can't say enough how much I appreciate all the support I've received from everyone (no matter how bad I crashed and burned under the bright lights of the final TV table [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

The first part of my week at the Borg wasn't going too well as I failed to cash in the $500, $750, and $1000 events. Things sure turned around in a hurry when I somehow won the $1500 event for a nice $117k payday after a small save we made. I just wish fellow 2+2er James282 had made it with me. He would have had just as good a shot as me or anyone else had Andy Black not sucked out on his KK with 99. But James being the gentleman he is took the beat graciously and congratulated Andy.

I went home for a few days following this win then came back to the Borgata for the main event. A few key hands I can remember:

After going from 20k to 11k during the first level sustaining a few bad beats I got all in during the second level with QQ vs AK. The first card the dealer exposes on the flop was the dreaded King and I was halfway out the door when a lovely Queen saves me on the river. Its really amazing how this 2-outer would turn into so much more. After this one day 1 went pretty smooth and I accumulated a decent stack for day 2.

Day 2 really came down to one monster hand that set me up for the rest of the day and gave me some good chips to work with. I had about T76,000 when UTG raised to 4k got one caller, I called in late position with 66 and the BB called as well. The flop comes a beautiful 76x rainbow and the BB and UTG raiser both have their stacks in the pot before it gets to me. DING! BB who went all in for 36k had T7 (niiiiiiice) and UTG who had me covered had 88 and I scooped a monster pot.

Day 3 was the day from hell as they had us play 18+ hours to get down to 6. My day was up and down then mostly down until I got moved to John D'agostino's table when we got down to 12 players. I stole a few blinds then doubled through John with AJ vs A3 on a AQJ3x board which put me around 1.3 mil.

Soon after came the hand which was really the biggest of the day for me as I saw it. I raised from the button to 60k with 96s. John called from the BB. Flop comes 5-5-J with 2 of my suit. John checked, I bet 100k, John makes it 140k more and I called. The turn came an offsuit 7, John thought for few seconds and checked. I quickly moved all-in for about 1 million. John had just lost a few pots and his massive stack had gone down to close to 2 million. I knew there was no way he'd call unless he has a monster and risk losing half his remaining stack after working so hard to build it up. He thought a long while and finally mucked. From here on in, my stack didnt move a whole lot and I went to the final table with a bit under 2 million in third chip position.

The final table was certainly a bit overwhelming with the crowd, tv cameras, and everything else going on. I tried to keep my focus but I'm sure I slipped a bit unfortunately. The structure didn't help much either as once we got to the second round we were all playing with 15x BB or so each. Just ridiculous.

The big hand as most probably read was my UTG raise to 350k with QJs then Richard called in the BB. The flop comes 8-4-4 with 2 of my suit and he quickly moved all in. I was 90% sure he had a middle pair and I turned out to be right and made the correct call. When I got no help I actually thought I was out (the Borg chip colors are very hard to read and I thought he had more 25k chips than he really had) but I was left with just over 600,000 and now in last.

The very next hand I got T9o in the BB. It was folded to John who moved all in on the button for over 1 million. Richard folded and I thought a bit and called. Maybe a mistake but with him moving all in I pretty much ruled out AA, KK, and QQ as I'd think he'd make a more standard raise to try and get action. So getting about 1.7-1 to call I felt that was a good price against the range of hands he could have. Of course he had of of the few hands I was dreading (TT) and busted me. I took home just under $300,00 for fifth place.

I don't even remember it much though. After losing most of my chips on the QJs hand, my mind kinda blanked out. Oh well, chalk it up to experience and hope for better next time. Just hope they don't make me look like too much of a fool in the broadcast [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I was pretty upset that night but now looking back its hard to be upset with week I ended up having. I may never have one like it again.

So after a few weeks off for me, it will be back to the old grind at the 30-60 games.

-ActionBob