Ship the Borgata $1500 Trophy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Ok…Just had to show the excitement I have right now over winning a tourney outright with no chops!!! After having like 4 runner up 2nd place finishes for hardware it feels just amazing to win another one after so long. After all its why we play the game, didn’t Herman Edwards say that “We play to win the game” AHHHH what a feeling really…I couldn’t be happier. For those that haven’t seen it yet, I won the $1500 NL prelim at the Borgata Open this past week for $119k!!! There were 303 players and it was a 2 Day Event w $20k starting stacks and 1 hour levels.

I could write about a bunch of hands but I don’t normally do that and I will try to stay away from boring you with hand stories. I can tell you that this is the first tourney that I have won in which I was short most of the tourney…especially on the hand for hand money bubble, I was dead last in chips I think. I also lost a huge flip at the final table that set me back again but I just grinded more than I usually do and 3bet a little less when I did have a stack and chose to flat a lot in position and just picked my spots and tried to get max value everytime I made a hand. aka-played good poker and ran well too. The final hand was a raise from Mike and a 3bet from me w AJ, he jammed A7 and I called and my hand held!

I do want to once again thank Tab, Ray, Deb and every floor person and dealer for another amazing series at the Borgata. The field sizes were awesome, the structures were awesome, everything was awesome! I also want to thank the great rail that I had and the soldiers that stayed until 6am when we finished! Thanks JW, Leanne, Marc Davis and everyone else!!!

I played like 5 events at the series and played pretty well in the first few but ran really bad. I got it in with top 2 against just top pair in the first deepstack and lost then built my stack back up and got a guy to put 40 big blinds in w AJ to my JJ only to catch runner runner straight and bust me. Then I found a fun way to bust the Turbo Deepstack(which by the way was really fun and a cool structure with 15 minute levels but 25k stacks and a 2 re-entry) I busted w AdQd vs AhQh…All in preflop…that was fun…so needless to say I got my run bad out early in the smaller buy ins and obviously ran well in the later bigger one. I did in fact have to skip the 6 max unfortunately because of the timing I was in Day 2 of the $1500…but this worked out just fine :) I also planned on playing the main event Day 1a so that I could grind wcoops and watch football with no distractions…that didnt work out either…I was beyond exhausted from playing 18 hours and slept most of saturday. I played the Main Event Day 1b on Sunday and was really distracted by the Steeler game but still played well and stayed out of trouble for the most part…until the last level where everything went wrong and with 45 minutes left in Day 1 I went from 45k to bagging 23k. I ran an over pair into a set and flush into a bigger flush and button vs blind I lost alot w AcKc. I started day two fresh and with 40 bigs I was still ok…first orbit I doubled up with JJ to AK and was feeling great. I then decided to 4bet fold to Dan O’Brien who was playing really fast but had a real hand when I played back. I went broke on the following hand. I raise 6d7d and get flatted by the button. Flop 6sJd8c…check check…turn 5d…now I have open ended, a flush draw and a pair and I led small figuring he was going to raise and I wasn’t mad to get it in right here. I jammed, he called w a set of 8s and faded the river. I had a good trip but it is never fun busting the main event. I did sweat online for the last 2 days and like 5 friends were in the final 27. They all played great and as I am writing this Dwyte and Ben are at the TV Final Table and I hope they get heads up! GL guys…Let’s Go!!!

I got back to Pittsburgh a few days ago and got to go to the first ever hockey game at the brand new Consol Energy Center w my Dad…we have had season tickets to the Pens for like 15 years or more but now in brand new seats and a brand new arena. It was a good night as the pens won and the arena is pretty sick! My next trip is going to be the re-vamped WSOP Circuit in Hammond, Indiana. I have never been there so I can’t wait! I am really anxious to see the turnout for the $10k regional championship.

Thanks for the support guys!!!