Borgata Open, Here I Come!
Good luck is often with the man who doesn't include it in his plans.
--Anonymous
As intended, I went to AC yesterday to play in the Borgata's Tuesday night $40 super satellite. The payout was as many seats as possible into the $1,500+80 NLHE WPT event on September 16, with any left-over money going to the bubble boy. It was a rebuy tournament, with a double add-on at the end of the rebuy period. 85 players plunked down $40 for a seat.
Levels 1 to 3 -- Rabbi, Ribeye, Rebuy: I drew Table 2, Seat 3, the same exact seat I had drawn in my only other Borgata tourney back in November, which had resulted in a final table appearance. I considered it a good omen. Play at my initial table was just god-awful. I had no trouble pushing my initial 1,000 stack to 3,475 by the first break. With the add-on, I started Level 4 at 5,475.
Levels 4 to 6 -- Dead Money Gets Dead: I got broken away from my initial table pretty quickly (a pity) but continued inching up until I caught a nice break in Level 6. In LP with KQo, I reraised all-in what I smelled as weakness from UTG, who had min-raised to 1200. The button and blinds got out of the way, and it was back to UTG. He thought about it, then said, "What the hell, I'm bored. I call." Well, crap -- I didn't really want a call here! He opened his hand to show Kc 4c. Ok! Not so bad at all. The flop came down no clubs, all raggedy, with... a four??! Oh. my. God. I suddenly found myself on the wrong end of a very short draw. The turn was a brick, and the expletives started flying out of my mouth, but the river saved me: queen of diamonds! I had him chipped, and just like that he was gone. I made it to the second break at 10,900.
Levels 7 to 9 -- Pushing for the Final Table: It was time for the short stacks to put up or shut up, and time for the big stacks to put them in their place. The bust-outs would start coming fast and furious now, and I was looking to pick some of those chips up.
Level 7 was where I made my first and only blunder of the night. A short stack in early position moved in for 3900. My small blind found me with AJ. I asked for a count while I considered my options. In retrospect, I should have realized that he wasn't quite at the desperation stage, with almost 4,000 left in his stack, but the thought just didn't occur to me for some reason. Rather, my thinking was "I'm a decent-sized stack with AJ, I should call here and take him out." So I called 2/5 of my stack with AJ against an EP raiser. (In black and white, that looks even stupider than I realized.)
Imagine my surprise when the big blind, a bigger stack than me, also started counting out 3900! Oh, fuxored big time. It was a mistake not to move in and protect my hand. Too late. We were three-handed for a pot of over 12,000. The flop was 6-8-T. Check, check. The turn put out a 4, which brought a 3,000 bet from the BB. Adios. They opened AK for EP, 44 for the big blind. EP was gone.
What a blunder. I sank deep into my seat as I looked at my suddenly-not-very-impressive stack of about 5,500. I told myself to focus, that I wasn't out of it by a long shot, and not to give up. I just had to find a few pots. I busted a very short stack in Level 8 to keep myself floating, and picked up two pots on steals in Level 9. On my button, I found Ad 5d. I must have had around 10,000 again, so the question was how much to raise. I settled on 4,000 (again, probably a mistake). The small blind agonized for a long time before folding. The big blind called. I got a flop I liked quite a bit: A-7-5. I decided to end it right there and moved in. He folded. The small blind told me he folded 7s. Talk about dodging a bullet! We raced off the 100-chips, and the third break found me at 13,500. Not all that impressive an increase, but I had survived my blunder in Level 7. We were down to 12 players, 6 at each table, so short-handed play was going to continue into Level 10 until we had 10 players. There were no short stacks at either table, so I got up to go get a snack and prepare myself for the grind.