Day #1 The Borgata Main Event

I had an interesting table draw with Freddy Deebs on my right and Tom Dwann (Durr online) and Miami Tony (Tony Salorio), opposite me. One of the first hands of the event was Freddy against a woman 3 to his left who had raised 3 BB in UTG + 2. Freddy 3 bet her and looked pretty strong, she came over the top and 4 bet him. Freddy showed A K and mucked, she showed A K as well. I remarked to her "wow you played that strong", she said that you have to play aggressively against the pros otherwise they walk all over you. It felt like I played two hands per level, I'm sure it was more, but I did see 7-2 a lot. I fell to 19k in chips (30k starting) before making a comeback. I only had one good situation where I called a 4BB raise after another caller in the cutoff with 5 5 . Flop came: K 10 5. The initial raiser continued with a 5k bet into a 5k pot. I raised 20k, putting him all in. Perhaps I should have crying called but I didn't want to give a flush draw a chance. He folded and I picked up a nice pot. I slowly chipped up and finished with 64k, with the average being around 45k, 360 players left from 507.

During the course of play Miami Tony was kidding me about laying down the 3rd nut in a PLO game a couple of days ago to Artie. I had put Artie on either top full house or maybe even quads. Turns out it was a naked bluff and I didn't call his pot bet on the river. I, of course reminded Miami Tony about his bluff on high stakes poker into Quads where he lost close to $200,000. I may sound defensive here but I have always said, a bad lay down beats a bad call or bluff.

Freddy seemed to be on his game, by the dinner break he had around 90k, but a couple of coolers later he was on the rail. His last hand he flopped the 3^rd nut flush and someone flopped #1. I enjoy playing with him and the opportunity to catch up with him. Other notables who did well today were of course JC Tran, Noah (Noahstredamus) Schwartz, Layne Flack, John Phan, Vanessa Russo, and Joe Sebok just to name a few. Check the live chip count page for complete updated info.

I went out for a quick drink with Zack Hyman, Layne Flack, Gavin Smith, Lee Markholt, and Dutch Boyd. Dutch told us of a prop bet he won against Jamie Gold. They had a last longer bet for today's main event. Jamie busted, and Dutch remains with slightly below average chips. The amount of the bet was undisclosed. Going to bed early, still jet lagged from Australia.

The Oracle