Monday, January 22, 2007

The Winter Poker Open at Borgata

Sunday I entered the $500 Buy-in Limit Hold 'Em tournament at the Borgata. It was event # 6 in the Winter Poker Open series which is now part of The World Poker Tour. I drove down early and registered around 9:30 am. Then I headed off for breakfast to kill an hour before the tournament started. For breakfast I had eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits with sausage gravy, melon and cantalope, a banana, a belgian waffle with banana's foster and a hunk of beef brisket.
Then I waddled into to the tournament area and looked for my table. I started off well and stuck to my tight strategy for the first few hours, letting the weaker plyers drop out and watching the thinning field. I had started at table #16 seat #3 (out of 26 total tables) and played there right up until the dinner break at about 5 pm when they broke the table and redistributed the players to other tables left in the room (there were about 14 tables now). This wasn't a good thing because over the last 6 hours I had learned how the other players at my table acted and I felt I had a pretty good read on them. Now I was seated with new players who I had no idea how they played. I played one hand at the new table (table #3 seat #4) before we broke for dinner.
For dinner I had a nice steak, some lamb with mint jelly, shrimp, pasta and chicken. I went back to the table feeling a little stuffed and a little tired. It had been a long day so far considering I drove down to AC at 8 am.
For the next two and a half hours I didn't play a single hand. Every hand was raised pre-flop and I just wasn't getting any cards. My chips started to dwindle as the aggressive play at the table effectively locked me out of getting involved in any hands. When I finally made a move with a suited Ace-Jack I was called by a big stack player who held an inferior Queen-Nine. He caught a straight and I was soon retrieving my car from the valet and headed home.
I will be back down there Wednesday for another event and then will take a shot at winning a seat in the $10,000 buy-in main event which will be televised for the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour later this year.

2 comments:

akjn westside said...

Okay-I have devised a new strategy for you...NO huge meals before playing!

Akjn wishes you good luck Wednesday...looking forward to the next report!

Chuck said...

Exactly AKJN!

How can you think about POKER when all the blood in your body is digesting the left side of the menu at Al's Breakfast Cafe?

No sooner does it start to flow north to your cerebellum and you go out and stuff yourself on Borgata freebies!

I'm taking over your pre-tourney conditioning program.