Borgata

I had to be in Philly for a meeting yesterday. Once I got checked into the hotel, I went back out to my car. Inevitably, the rental car turned East and headed to Borgata.

Now, I really can’t stand going to Atlantic City. The only thing worse than the drive is the city itself. However, you can get off the highway and go right into the Borgata parking lot and avoid most of the ugliness.

We got there 2 hours before the evening tournament started. A quick bite to eat, and a tour through The Water Club ensued. Awesome La Perla lingerie store and a pretty cool bar.

We still had an hour to kill, so I sat down in 2-5 NL to lose a rack of chips. Cash games have never been my forte. I always get bored to quickly and end up spraying chips. A funny thing happened on the way to the tournament, though. I ended up winning about $500. I also had another Borgata first. I saw my first yellow $20 chip, which the dealer gave me when I colored up before leaving the table.

In the tournament, I lost almost half my stack on the very first hand when I flopped top pair and rivered trip Queens with a jack kicker when my opponent turned over KQ. I spent the next 4 hours scraping by, picking up chips where I could. The table was mostly calling stations, and it was a “tell” buffet, with everyone giving a bit of a hint as to what they were playing.

I was in a talkative mood, so made some friends (and enemies) by talking non-stop for the first hour. At the end of the second hour, I tilted a guy at our table that was already in a bad mood. It was the last hand before the break. He limped along with one other player, and I saw a flop holding K7s in the BB. The flop was 752 rainbow, and I bet out. The middle player folded, and “tilt boy” called. The turn was another 7. I bet out roughly the pot, which was about 1/3 of his remaining stack. He hemmed and hawed for most of the ten minute break, then finally folded. As I was getting ready to discard my hand, he told me he folded the 7 of diamonds. I then turned over the 7 of diamonds, and an interesting conversation ensued where he insisted he had it, even though I was holding it.

He severely tilted later, and busted out. The story doesn’t have much of a happier ending for me. I busted out a few spots out of the money when I misread a rock at the table. Oh, well. Hopefull, better news next time.