I'm Now an "Internet Donk"

So the Borgata deep stack didn't go wonderfully for me, or my friend Jay, but it was still a great event. I am writing this on the train back to New York City, which is a new service. You would think that was Atlantic City Gambling having been around since the 1970's they would have train service to NY City, but no. The service runs Friday through Sunday and has coach and first class, which I think is worth the $25 upgrade for the 2:45 minute ride. The Borgata has a free shuttle service to the train, which takes about 5 minutes to get to, and was really pretty easy.

Back to the event, my table draw was really pretty good, except Jay wound up at my table. When you first start out playing events you don't know too many of the players well, so it is not usual an issue, but as you get to know players better it is a mixed bag when you have a friend at your table. Mostly they are just acquaintances, but occasionally it is a close friend, or brother, sometimes a spouse or kid as well. The plus side is you can compare information at the breaks about the other player's tendencies, the minus side is that it can lead to conflicts, and even stress a friendship. I try to play my regular game, but sometimes unconsciously I won't avail myself of a sometimes-good situation. For instance when a good friend raises in early position and there are no other callers, I will almost never take a flop with them, unless I wake up with a premium hand. In a multi-way pot all bets are off. This happened against Noah Schwartz in the last winter Borgata 10k event. We were in the money, and at the end of day 3 with about 40 players left, I was moved to Noah's tab sitting two spots t his left, so my big blind was his button. Of course I get aces twice when he opened a pot on the button. I re-raised all in both times, and showed him my hand both times. I always want to win every chip at the table in a tournament, but I could probably have played those hands better, however I didn't want to slow play and if he called, so be it.

The situation with Jay was there was a cut-off raiser who was an interesting kid. I will digress here for a moment. This kid who arrived in the 2nd level, came wearing a hooded sweat shirt, kind of sloppily dressed and talking about how he partied all night and was vomiting up until a couple of hours ago. He immediately made fun of me for wearing a Full Tilt hat and shirt, and when I re-raised him he called me an "internet donk." He went on and on about this. making jokes about using my points to buy stuff. We then started talking and he was a nice guy, probably just trying to have a little fun, albeit at my expense. So back to the hand, the kid raised from the lo-jack seat, Jay called from the hijack, the small blind called and I looked down at AQ in the big blind and re-popped it almost a full pot. The kid and jay called, the small blind folded. The flop came AQ2 rainbow and opened for about 80% of the pot. They both called. The turn brought another deuce, and I again bet 80% of the pot, which amounted to 4,400. Jay announced raise and through in a 5k chip and the dealer said he needed to add 3,400 more, which he did. After some deliberation I folded, what I was 100% sure was the best hand. At the break he told me he had KK. I am not sure if I was out played or just hosed. Either way I didn't enjoy it. Not long after that I was off to play cash games, which went fairly well. Played in a pretty lively PLO game, where I was able to recoup my buy in. One nice thing about the Borgata deep stacks is that they are played in the main poker room so they use auto shufflers and have very comfortable chairs and spacious tables. If you have played there you know what I mean, and if you haven't, you don't know what you are missing.

I will be home in time to play the Sunday events on Full Tilt, hey maybe I am an internet donk.