If your best poker "skills" are patience and the ability to get paid off on good hands then usually it is best to play ten handed. But that depends on how good or bad the other players are.

If you are truly a good poker player and have a skill advantage over most opponents under any circumstances, then it follows that you would want to have the opportunity to play as many hands per hour as possible in order to maximize your profits.

This is all assuming that short handed tables will not break frequently. I think we can all agree that there are a lot more people uncomfortable with a short table than there are people who are comfortable. Hard for a good poker player to take advantage of their opponents if there's no game.

Agreed but like I said, if you are truly a great player, you can play heads up, 4 handed, 6 handed, 9 handed, etc, omaha, pot limit, stud, everything. The best players play everything, any idiot can learn how to play hold em and be a profitable player in 1-2 years if you listen to guidance and learn from your mistakes.

On a different note, anybody driving back home to North Jersey Monday afternoon before 6PM?

I like 10 handed, because at Borgata oftentimes a couple players are not at a table because they go to the bathroom, hit up the buffet, etc...
Once the game goes down to 6-7 players, other players who are uncomfortable playing short get up and the game breaks or there's a lot of whining about whether to chop or not chop shorthanded and stuff like that.
So, I like 10 as it helps keep games going. While 2 5 is 10-handed, I would say average number of players at a table at any given time (I play mostly evenings) is prob around 8.2 or so.

Doesn't matter right now given 150 on 2/5 list and 75 on 5/10 list, and barely any games running. They must be able to find space for tourney tables somewhere else. Borgata lights money on fire and no one gets to play with these lists. Maybe I am missing something, but they must have somewhere else to put tourney tables.

yup...amazingly long lists...always happens during major tourneys, and gets fixed in an hour or two when they open new tables for cash games...but this time is different.. biggest mistake i have ever seen being made: day 1D scheduled for 5PM, with a huge line of people registering, and very very few people had busted form the 11AM tourney (Day 1C), hence no tables and dealers are available... not for Day 1D and not for cash games... funny thing is that Borgata will not lose any money on this huge ***-up, but it's super frustrating for players. Off to Harrah's...

Yikes, just saw the lists. I'm driving over from Philly in the AM to play 10/20 (limit). I assume a 10:30 arrival is safe to not be waiting for a seat for hours?

Based on the past, lists have been long the first 2 days off the events, and I think they usually fill up around noon

I forgot all about the open, I was wondering why there were some many tables going

In all fairness, I should follow up that 2-3 hours later, things were pretty effective. I don't think it would be realistic for them to over hire dealers/have excess tables if they cut it this close. Now, if lists remained like that for 5+ hours, everybody loses, but as is, they did a fairly efficient job overall today.

Its 243 pm here at borgata and lists are still long. 320 players left in event 1. I put my name on 2-5 about 90 minutes ago and am 2nd, and as we speak they are caling new 2-5. Checking everyone borgata card to make sure initials match card.

Two things. Outside of tournament time, poker even at the Borgata is down. During tournaments, the dealers report working every single day. They also hire the blue shirted dealers as temps during the tournaments. As the economy improves the number of runners for tournaments continues to climb. That is probably why they added a FIFTH tournament season this year. ( Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and November )

Second, my offers have increased, and not decreased as I played more hours per day at the Borgata this year.

Compared to the summer or this time in previous years?

aha, brilliant question. Let's see, there is a reason that you can now see quite a few Borgata dealers at ML. As I noted, in general, poker is down at Borgata, and they got tired of getting forced out, or working everyday during the tournaments. In general, during the week, if you check Bravo, the 4 CET properties now deal as much poker as Borgata on a regular basis, except during tournaments. Unless the BBJP was enormous, Borgata would deal about twice as much as CET on a regular basis. Now, CET is also down across the board but seems to be up a little recently with thier new promotions.

If you are there, you can tell those who got forced out, because when they go to the window to cash out, they have only one rack of chips.

This is actually the THIRD year in a row at Borgata for FIVE tournament series (Winter-January, Spring-April, Summer-June, September OPEN and Fall-November).
Results of all series can be found at www.cardplayer.com.

The Fall open is in November.

Exactly.

Tournament registration line is barely moving...plan to be in line for a LONG time

1-2 NL HOLDEM 70 on waiting list
2-5 NL HOLDEM 36 on waiting list

bbjp: Quad 10+ $369,103

48 Live Games, 3:30 pm

10-20 OMAHA H/L 2
10-20 HOLDEM 3
20-40 STUD 1
2-4 HOLDEM 2
150-300 Mixed - 7 1
2-5 NL HOLDEM 12
10-25 NL HOLDEM 1
5-10 NL HOLDEM 4
80-160 O.E. 1
1-2 NL HOLDEM 13
75-150 STUD 1
20-40 HOLDEM 2
5-10 PL OMAHA 1
40-80 Holdem - 9 1
2-5 PL OMAHA 1
3-6 HOLDEM 2

Hey guys,

long time borgata player, first time ever posting on 2+2. Got a question for all you borgata regs out there.

I play at borgata pretty regularly, 3-4 days a week, black card, and always have 2 comped rooms per week.

Today, I log onto borgata to book a couple of nights in December, comped, and it works just fine. So now I have booked 2 nights the first week of Dec, and 2 nights the second week of Dec

So now, I look at my comp calendar, and now I have ZERO comp offers for the rest of this period, which is until like January 16 I think. The rest of Dec and January I am no longer receiving any comps? Can this be right? I had heard about a crack down on comped nights for us poker guys but this seems extreme. I've never encountered this ever. Not one night for the rest of Dec or Jan just cause I booked 4 nights in December?

Anyone else run into anything like this or have any news to share with me on why?

I didn't want to go through this whole thread looking for the answer, but I was planning on taking my Pops up for his Bday in the middle of december to play in the Wednesday guaranteed tourneys. How many runners do these tourneys usually get?

If you are playing a fair amount, I think it is 8 hours a day, You will get the same comps, they are just limiting the number of days you can get at once to decrease on cancellations. Those who were not playing much DID have thier days reduced to one a week. When my days go below 10 ( five reservations ) I get another reservation. When I go, I play about 8 to 12 hours a day. MANY people on here noted that they were not playing that much and wound up getting only one day a week.

I have not seen it posted, but I would think that playing about 8 hours a day will get you back to 2 comp days per week, but only five reservations at a time. There is a poker VIP host that you can contact to ask ?s.

felt bad about what happened at my 5/10 PLO game.

I was kind of new to the table and bet and got raised on the turn. I started the hand with about $1300 and bet $175 and the guy threw out maybe $700. I had the nuts and did a little tank, nothing crazy. Finally I put it in and he calls. When I showed my hand everyone was lamenting that I slowrolled him because it was only $400 more or so to call me.

Because the chips were in 3 denominations ($500/$100/$25) I kind of lost track of where I was and didn't realize my all in would be so small in relation to the pot. If I would have known this I wouldn't have tanked but everyone was just so sure my plan was to slowroll him. I felt bad because of course I would never slowroll anyone. But it looked stupid to say "hey man i wasn't trying to slowroll you".

Well I am a rec player guys and if your goal was to make me as uncomfortable as possible it worked. Next time i'm just going to pick up and you regs can all play yourselves. The game was reg infested, guys wearing sunglasses. One guy didn't play a hand in 2 hours. When I say did not see a flop that is not an exaggeration. In PLO! Then he went to dinner.

now there's slowrolling in raising?

first time i've heard anyone call it that.

Those players are stupid, do whatever you want aside from cheating/angleshooting.

Also, a table full of guys wearing sunglasses sounds pretty juicy.

Unfortunately, I've had it happen to me. I was heads-up on the river with a full house (quads and a higher boat were possible) and my opponent bet into me. I had seen this guy play all kinds of hands throughout the last hour and wasn't sure what he was playing with. I knew I was calling, but took a minute to decide whether to raise or not. Since I wasn't sure what I would do if he re-raised me, I decided to just call. I showed after he did and then he complained that I slow-rolled him. When I asked how I slow-rolled him when I turned my cards over as soon as I saw his cards didn't beat me, he said that taking so long to call was slow-rolling. I just sat there kind of awed by how dumb that sounded, but apparently (and unfortunately) it's a trend that seems to be spreading.