What a hand!

Played some $10-20 at the Borgata this weekend. Another great game, as usual. My wife and I both made a nice score for the day. I made 25 big bets in 3 hours. Not a bad days work. The hand I want to talk about took place toward the end of our sessions. I had K-Qo in middle position and brought it in for a raise. Got called by a loose terrible player on the button and the Big Blind. Flop comes gin for me J-10-9 with 2 diamonds. I bet out and they both call. This is where the hand gets real interesting. turn brings an offsuit 5. I bet and the button raises. The bid blind insta-calls. I 3 bet and the button caps it! I am thinking I am in trouble, at this point. Figured the button had a K-Q also, maybe both are diamonds! Which means he is free-rolling for half the pot. Also the big blind could have diamonds or 2 pairs. The river is a beautifal offsuit 2. I bet out and they both call. Button had 7-8 for lower end of the straight, bid blind had top 2 pair. Don't know why he didn't raise the flop to see where is was at? How could 7-8 be good here? I pulled down a very nice pot. This hand illistrates how weak the players are at the Borgata on weekends. I highly recommend playing there. We will go back soon! Good luck at the tables. Tony

Think Positive.

Just won a single table NL SNG. Did it with my mind. Let me explain, watched a self help DVD. It stressed the power of attraction, that is thinking positive thoughts so that good things will happen to you. Four times I was all in with the worst hand and I sucked out on all of them. All by positive thinking about the right card to come out. Then again maybe it just was the cards evening out in the long run :-). Especially being I took so many unreal bad beats on Sunday. Anyway thinking postively can only help you game, can't hurt. Good luck at the tables. Tony

A Great Read!

Here is an interesting hand I took part in at the $340 Borgata tournament. The blinds were at
400-800T with a 100T ante. I had 10000T left. Not too short but needed to make a move soon.
From the cutoff I raise to 2400 with A-Jo. A loose agressive player, with a ton of chips, calls me.
The flop comes Q-7-7. Not a bad flop for me. I continuation bet for 2400 leaving me with 5200T
chips behind. He calls me. The turn brings another 7. He checks and I check behind. A brick
falls on the river and he insta-bets 3000. I was basically put to the test for my tournament life
here. Something just didn't feel right about this bet. I felt he was betting being I checked behind
on the turn. I took my heads phones off and told him, "That bet smells funny." He didn't look too
confident. I just kept staring at him to get a read on his hand. Then he started talking. He said
what do you have A-Q? I replied that all my chips would be in the middle if that was the case. He
then said oh I know what you have A-K, right. I replied, very close to that. I then stated if I make
this call I will look like a genius or a total donkey. I glared at him after this statement and he
looked really un easy. I said I call and before I could do anything his cards were in the muck. I
then slammed my A-J down on the table and pulled in the large pot. I got a lot of nice call comments
from the table. One player had put my foe on 4 sevens. He was sure I was being trapped the whole hand.
I felt great after this call but it was short lived. Soon after this I put the short stack all-in when
I had A-3s. He called with J-6o and flopped a jack. This took most of what I had left. Of well I gave
it my all. That's it for today. Good luck at the tables. Tony

Crazy hand at the Borgata.

Sorry about not posting a trip report yesterday. The trip to the Borgata was a lot of fun. I will post more details about it this week. I played in their $340 No limit tournament on saturday. Didn't play too well, mis-played some big hands. I did make one really great call of a bluff, will post about that hand sometime this week. The hand I want to talk about was unreal! If it happened online I would think that online is rigged, like many others think - LOL. In my 25 years of playing I have never seen this happen before! The stacks aren't that important but I will set up the hand this way. At 400-800T with a 100 ante a short stack goes all in for 4000. He gets called by a big stack and they turn over their cards heads up. Short stack(SS) has Queens and Big stack(BS) has threes. The flop comes 2-3-2 and the SS stands up and says good game everyone. The dealer burns and turns and a Queen comes off. The SS lets out a yell of happiness. So the BS states nice hand, while the SS sits down again. Of course guess what comes off on the river? The case 3 comes down and we all start jumping around! The SS was ahead pre-flop, BS ahead on the flop, SS ahead on the turn, and the BS wins on the river! What a crazy hand that was. I would love for someone to calculate the odds on this hand playing out the way it did. The Short stack left the table just shaking his head. I talked to him an hour later and he was still in shock. This table had many crazy hands going on. I wouldn't believe this hand if I hadn't seen it myself. We also had set over set 3 times in 4 hours. I finished in the middle of the pack with about 80 left out of 178. I will say it again this tournament has one of the best structures I have ever seen for a $340 tournament. (10,000 in chips and 30 minute levels.) I will play it again ASAP. Good luck at the tables. Tony

Ramblings

Been playing micro limit-No limit online lately. I am talking about .05-.10 and .10-.25 blind No Limit. These games are great pratice for live $1-2 No Limit. The competition is about the same. Pretty much 1 or 2 players know what they are doing and everyone else doesn't have a clue. I have been beating these games for like 30BB an hour. Doubt this will last over the long haul but it's fun while it does. Also it's a good way to earn the huge bonus I have built up in my Ultimate account. Right now I have no way to reload that account. That is why I am playing the micro limits, there is very little chance of busting my Ultimate bankroll at these levels. In live games I usually play $10-20 Limit but to mix it up I give $1-2 No a try sometimes. I should probably move up to $2-5 No Limit and $20-40 Limit. I just hate the idea of losing $1000, on a bad day. That's the thing about poker, no matter how good you feel you are there are always those days when nothing goes right. I have noticed it's really prevelent in HE. Some days you are destined to lose. Just need to have the disipline to quit before it gets to be a really big number. That is why I like games like Om/8 or Stud/8. No matter how bad you are running don't seam to have those really bad days like in HE. Of course it's hard to get a good live game of Stud/8 these days. I am rambling a lot today. Can't wait to play at the Borgata tonight. It's so nice living 2 hours away from AC! Hopefully I will have some good trip reports to post on Sunday. Good Luck at the tables. Tony

Borgata Trip

We will be making another trip to the Borgata this weekend. To play some $10-20 LHE. Also will give the saturday morning NL Tournament a try. Start with 10,000 in chips and the blinds go up every 30 minutes. I don't know of any other $300 tournament with such a good structure. At the Borgata they do Poker right! I will update this BLOG with trip reports starting on sunday. The wife will be giving $20-40 a try. Wish us both luck. Good luck at the tables. Tony

Feedback.

I need readers feedback to this BLOG. I want people to tell me what they would like to read about? Please post comments to this post. Need help to write what people want to read about. At the very least I want to know if anyone is reading this BLOG on a regular basics. I have a tracker I check which shows an average of 5 hits a day. Please comment back to this with any message. Even just to say "Hi". Good luck at the tables. Thanks Tony