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What's worse than living and working in Atlantic City? Living and not working in Atlantic City. Get it? Atlantic City is a crap hole.
Anyway, like the headline says, the Borgata, our favorite casino in AC because we don't worry as much about getting stabbed there, has given the boot to about 400 employees, or 5.5% of its workforce.
These are the first layoffs in five years and more are expected to come.
Read the story here.
While we love Spain and just almost everything about it, the EPT Barcelona Open was a major snoozefest. No scandal. No hot chicks advancing. No U.S. Americans.
Fortunately the WPT brought big tournament poker back to the U.S. Americas yesterday, giving us a mini-weed-dramabomb.
Apparently some guys were 86'd from the Borgata for smoking up in a room. According to a post on 2+2:
Man WTF **** the Borgata.
Myself and another are in a room with two others, apparently somebody complained, they let two of us go who aren't on the room and the other two are getting booted, can't play this weekend.
One of those people is rumored to be Amit Makhija, who it looks like is blazing up more than just the tournament circuit lately. Catch up on the thread here (also a good Hooker/No Hooker game post in there).
Jose Torres ended Day 1 as chip leader, stacked at 263,775. He was followed by some FOWCP, including Steve Dannenmann (249,150), Joe Sebok (163,500), and Tiffany Michelle (140,000).
Day 2 is underway and Sirous Jamshidi has moved up to chip leader with 340,000 since we've started writing this Stephen Vanauken is now chip leader with 456,000. Dannenmann is hovering around 248,000 and Michelle has moved up to 222,000. Other big named big stacks include Brandon Cantu (162,000), Jonathan Little (150,000), Ted Forrest (142,000), and the aforementioned Sebok (138,000). Although that's probably changed during the time it took to post this.
Just 216 remain from the respectable 516 entrants. Follow the action throughout the day here and here. Vid below of Tiffany Michelle discussing Day 1.
Old poker players never die, they just smell like Barry Paskin (above). And play poker in Atlantic Shitty.
A poker player from Brooklyn named Michael Wax was kicked out of the Borgata Sportsbook Poker Room in Atlantic Shitty the other day after his table mates complained about his body odor. Apparently, the 54-year-old limo company owner had been playing a long session and smelled like a cross between Barry Paskin five days into the 2005 WSOP and complete ass.
According to an AP report, Wax wants an apology from the Borgata.
Relatedly, because the AP found it necessary to report it, Wax weighs a massive 440 pounds, or in poker terms, about 5 Liz Lieus.
Or 1.1 David Benyamines.
Speaking of huge, a link to Hitomi Tanaka weighing her massive mammarian protuberances here.
The Borgata $500k Guaranteed tournament wrapped last night in Atlantic City, ending in a four way chop with Schuyler Twaddle of Chesterbrook, Penn. taking the biggest piece of the ~ $750k remaining prize pool.
An east coast poker regular, Twaddle was one of the guys arraigned for his connections to the Mastronardo bookmaking ring back in 2006, which involved an Internet betting service called betroma.com and ex-Eagles wide receiver John Mastronardo.
Finishing with the second most chips at the time of the chop was Weiwen Lang with BodogAri ending up third and in fourth was Mark Reynolds.
Just missing the chop but still cashing $104,625 was 2007 WSOP-C Harrah's AC winner John Racener.
Full coverage of the event here.
A video of someone walking down the street in Atlantic City here.
We give Atlantic Shitty a lot of crap for being a craphole because it is a craphole. Seriously people take craps right on the street. We don't make this stuff up, we've seen it happen. But there is one shiny beacon in the shitheap and that is the Borgata.
From being serviced by decently hot cocktail waitresses (such as Margarita at right) to devouring a big ole juicy 36 oz. Gotham from Old Homestead to pruning ourselves in one of the deep tubs in an opus suite and placing a wager on the Jets game in the Borgata Sports Book/Poker Room, we love ourselves some Borgata every once in awhile. And best of all, when we're at the Borg, we don't feel like we're gonna get knifed every time we walk out to our cars. Little things like that make the difference.
Anyway, all this is an indirect way to get to the point that the Borgata is hosting its deep stack $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool poker tournament this week, and proving once again it knows how to do things right, it drew an impressive 775 runners (including Curb star Cheryl Hines) to the $2,000 buy-in tournament, pumping the prize purse up to $1.55 million. Contrast that with PokerStars LAPT Rio event that only drew 314 players for a smallish $785,000 prize pool and you have an economic comparison study between the First World and the transitional, emerging, developing or whatever you call the second-ish world countries of Latin America.
The event, which started on Sunday, is down to its final 10 players competing for the $395,095 first place prize, and it looks exactly like what you'd expect from an east coast tournament, with a Russian, Asian and a little bit of an Arab-Israeli conflict going on at the table. Most notable of the group is Alan Engel, aka Bodog Ari, who is stacked in the middle with 1.8 million in chips. We've always been big fans of the kid, for keeping a relatively low profile while kicking ass online and having some occasional insightful non-poker stuff to say on his blog here. So good luck to him.
Here's how the final table is lined up at the Borgata today:
1 Matthew Milliken -- Madison, WI -- $3,578,000
2 Kambiz Behbahani -- Fairfax Station, VA -- $2,773,000
3 Harry Frankel -- Monsey, NY -- $2,112,000
4 Mark Reynolds -- Eldersburg, MD -- $1,866,000
5 Alan Engel -- Las Vegas, NV -- $1,809,000
6 Hamid Michael Hakami -- Baltimore, MD -- $1,745,000
7 Eric Siegel -- Melville, NY -- $1,004,000
8 Mihail Stoykov -- Philadelphia, PA -- $935,000
9 Steve Ryan -- Lake Ronkonkoma, NY -- $800,000
10 Jin Chung -- New York, NY -- $785,000
Stay posted here for results from today's final table at the Borgata.
UPDATE: So what do we know? The above wasn't the final table but just the top 10 of the final 21? going into today. The Borgata site (here) made it look otherwise. Thanks to the guys at LivePokerRadio.com for cluing us in. Go here for their live updates from the floor of the Borg. Last we looked they were down to 7 players, with BodogAri one of them, and they were discussing a chop. Or more like arguing one as players talk taxes and shit. Good luck with that.
Photo above of mouthfully-named Borgata employee Margarita Kobilianets from the Babes of Borgata 2008 Calendar.
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We sort of have this thing for Keeley Hazell and ...
We're kind of digging the snorgtees girls. You should buy their shirts. Check 'em out.
