Foxwoods, Labor-Day & Let's Call a Donkey a Donkey

by MJ Bernstein

I left Chicago on Thursday, the 31st, and drove directly to Foxwoods in Connecticut. I intended on playing cash games for a few days before taking the ferry over to Long Island to see my family on labor-day. The games there are consistently good and they did not disappoint this holiday weekend. All in all, I left +$2,500 on the trip and got to stay at the new MGM tower, which opened not long ago. If you are planning on going anytime soon, I would recommend staying there as the rooms are extremely spacious and comfortable. However, keep in mind that it is one hell of a hike over to the main casino area, where the WPT poker room is located.

After a quick but relaxing ride across the L.I. sound, I was on the east end and before long, was with my family. We had a great time and it is always a lot of fun to see my cousins Daniel and Garrett, as well as and my little nephew, Ryan. I actually spent most of the day chasing Ryan around the yard and jumping on the trampoline with him. I go to the gym a lot but realized pretty quickly that parents, for the most part, are in better shape than everyone else. You have to be, if you want to keep up with these balls of energy.

I decided pretty late in the evening on Monday, so that I could drive to down to AC that night rather than get stuck in traffic during the L.I. Expressway morning rush hour. It was a quick ride and I ended up checking in around 2:00 a.m. I hit the gym later that morning and spent the rest of the day hanging out with a friend of mine. Somehow we never made it to the poker room, but I ended up putting $50 in a $1 Jeopardy slot machine later in the day and hit for $2000. How's that for running well?!

Wednesday marked the kick-off $300 NLHE event and I was primed to play. I usually don't like to play the first couple of events because of the inherent bad-beats you sometimes take from less experienced players, but I had already planned on having a totally different mind-set. One, I wanted to warm-up for the bigger events in week two. Two, I understood going in that one of these ridiculous beats could happen to me and if it did, I was just going to be ok with it. So, can you guess what happened to me in the tournament? Of course, I took one of the beats!

Here's how the day's action went down:

Everyone started the tournament with a healthy 6K in chips (not bad at all for this type of event). I fluctuated between 6K and 8K for the first two levels, but never really got beyond that. I am usually good at building chips early in the tournament and I could just see that this was not going to be one of those days. To add insult to injury, there was an odd scenario that kept playing out again and again- It seemed like whenever I would be in the big blind, five people would limp before the action got to me. Each time, I would pick up a legitimate hand in the big blind (e.g., JJ, AK) and I would raise. Everyone would fold, but not without a lot of suspicion. Well, this is exactly what led to my demise.

With the blinds at 100-200, and after another 5 way limped pot, I looked down at AQ in the BB. I had about $4000 in my stack at the time and after sensing no real strength from any of the limpers, I raised to $1,200. Clearly, I hoped to win the pot right then and there but, at the very least, I hoped to get action from a dominated hand like AJ, A10 or KQ. The action folded around to the button who, after a minute of agonizing, decided to make the call. The flop came out 8 high, rainbow. I was sure that I had the best hand at this point, but could not pinpoint which two cards my opponent really held. So I decided to push the $2,800 I had left in front of me. Well, to my surprise, my opponent did not muck instantly. Instead, he deliberated for quite some time. Finally, after going through some type of bizarro math and x-ray player reading abilities, he opted to call the $2800 (90% of his stack) with K10. After tabling our cards he blurted out, "ah ha, I knew he didn't have a pair!". Now that fact that he rivered a 10 and knocked me out was really irrelevant at this point. At that moment, for the first time, I figured out what a donkey really is.

A donkey is not someone who just get's there money into the pot with negative expectation alone. I can recall at least five different times when I have imploded and donked off huge stacks of chips in the name of the Holy Donkey. I realize now that donkeys are truly the people that not only play bad, but have no clue how badly they play. I think the above player's commentary illustrates this point very well.

Finally, there is the issue of the more astute player's (in this case me) audible crying after they suffer the horrific injustice. If you were there, however, you would have not heard a peep from me. After years of playing now, I guess I realize that when I sign-on for these types of tournaments, I need to be prepared for this stuff. Sure it is easier said than done, but after plenty of practice getting out-flopped, turned, and rivered, and the subsequent, "I am one of the better players out there, why is this happening to me?" phone calls home, I now know that I was just being a sore loser, nothing more.

So, if you ever find yourself in one of these situations, consider biting your tongue and taking the high-ground. You will save yourself a lot of aggravation in the end, trust me. There will always be donkeys and cryers- The idea is not to be either one!

On a side note, for those interested, I was able to finish 38th out of roughly 750 runners in Event #2 $500 NLHE at the Borgata on September 4th. Certainly not the result I was looking for, but a solid money finish and top-flight tune-up, none-the-less. I am definitely looking forward to my next event, Saturday's $1,500 NLHE.

See you at the tables,

MJ

About the Author:

MJ Bernstein is a 28-year-old poker upstart living in Chicago, IL. After years as a regular in the cash game arena, MJ recently made the transition to playing tournament poker full-time. MJ can usually be found driving to the bigger WSOP Circuit and WPT events on the east coast, since he isn't a big fan of flying. With a good amount of success on the tournament scene over the last couple of years, and having become increasingly good at live single table sit-n-gos and super satellites, Bernstein hopes to have his breakthrough tournament moment sometime in the near future. "I certainly do not get to play the volume of live tournaments I want, but it is fun to be an East Coast player and have camaraderie with some of the other top players out here like David "Dr.Fox" Fox, Joe "JoeyTheB" Brooks and Matt Brady," says Bernstein."