Jena Delk’s Blog

I am at the Borgata to play their $1,500+150 deep stack tournament. This 3 day event features the best structure in the eastern United States. Blinds for day 1 are 50 min.  Day 2 is 60 with the final day featuring 75 min levels. 

Borgata’s guarantee of a minimum prize pool of $500k brought out 607 runners.  Nearly doubling their guaranteed prize pool. First place will bring a commanding $252K!!!

I had a good table draw with a nice mix of players.  We had them all: donkey, rock, flush chaser, over defenders, under defenders, chauvinist, weak, tough, bad and good players.  There was lots of action preflop with a high percentage of hands going all the way to the river.  These guys were relentless.  I was feeling very good about my steadily growing chip stack.  I was above average as we entered the sixth level (200/400 with 50 antes). 

I had not played many hands all tournament long.  My hand selection was tight.  I was only playing top 10% of hands.  The tournament cannot be won on day one, so I was taking it easy, not risking much. 

Then comes THE hand that ended my tournament.  I was dealt pocket jacks. Since there were a couple of limpers, I raised to 5x the big blind.  I got one caller and the two of us went to the flop.  The flop came with one over card, a queen.  For some reason I failed to base my continued actions in this hand upon the type of player my villain was…by the time we got to the river I pushed the remainder of my stack into the middle.  The villain tanks and asks how much…it is almost ten thousand more…villain tanks for a while and finally shrugs his shoulders and says, “What the heck” and calls.  Level one players cannot be moved of a pair.  My fault plain and simple.  I needed to remember who I was playing.